Strands of Bronze and Gold (24 page)

A gray pall hung over my world in the following days, even with the sunniest skies, as if a film of grime covered everything. Poor Lily stood bored in her stall. Vaguely I hoped Garvey exercised her, but I didn’t ask.

I would do anything—anything—if I could see Gideon one more time. If only I could see him once more, maybe I could convince him …

The next Monday, nearly without hope, I waited again in the glade, clutching the little silver lapel pin Gideon had used to attach his note to the shawl. Of course he didn’t come.

Him and his unyielding male stubbornness. I dashed the pin hard across the glade so that it bounced against a tree trunk.

I scurried to pick it up and clean it off, my sorrow sharp once more.

Somehow I had to make something good come out of this awful experience. I would use it as a turning point to be a changed girl in the future. If I had been a Catholic, I would have entered a nunnery,
but as it was, I would be a girl who cared less about pretty clothes and more about important things. I would try to pin down my butterfly mind. Anne would be here in six weeks; she would find me a much older and wiser sister.

And then a disturbing letter arrived. It began in Anne’s own pleasant style, but soon she stated her true reason for writing.
Sophie
, it read,
if there were any other way, I would not come to you with this problem, particularly when you were so kind as to send money not long ago, but Harry is in dire straits. He has been running with a fast and affluent crowd, and recently he has been going with them to a high-stakes gaming house. He is deeply, deeply in debt, and so desperate he frightens me, saying things so wicked I cannot repeat them. Please, please bring this Terrible Misfortune to M. de Cressac’s attention. Oh, I am ashamed, but I must ask you to do this
.

She went on to name a horrifying sum. I racked my brain for a way to obtain it without approaching my godfather. I couldn’t ask him for more. I could not.

M. Bernard noted my shadowed eyes and listlessness with concern. “You are unwell. I will instruct Ling to administer one of his Oriental tonics.”

I took the tonic, but to no avail.*

At last I developed a plan. I would package up my finest jewelry—the ornate emerald set with necklace, earrings, bracelet, and finger ring—and send it to Anne. She could sell it for more than the requested amount. If only there were a way I could mail it myself, but there was none. I must trust Ducky.

I tied up the parcel with string and sealed it with wax. As I placed it in Ducky’s hands, I said, “It’s merely a trifle I’m sending to my sister. A small gift I thought she could use before she arrives here.”

“I’ll give it to George to post,” she said.

I sighed with relief. Ducky wouldn’t have the audacity to peek inside a sealed bundle.

That evening my heart skipped a beat when my bedroom door flew open just as Odette finished dressing me for dinner. M. Bernard burst in.

“Leave us, Odette,” he said. “I must have an interview with Mademoiselle Sophia.”

“Now?” My voice squeaked as Odette curtsied and swished out, but not before she cast me a concerned look over Monsieur’s shoulder.

“Now.” His tone made my blood turn chill.

I knew immediately what had happened.
Oh, Ducky, Ducky, you seem so harmless.…

The cords in M. Bernard’s neck stood out and his eyes blazed. He flung the poor little parcel, all unsealed, onto my bed. The emerald pieces scattered, glittering green. “What is the meaning of this? Did you dislike my gift? Is that it?”

His voice blasted me. Would he actually strike me? I had been waiting for it, fearing it, I realized now, for a long while.

I sat on the edge of the bed, licked my dry lips, and said slowly, “I didn’t know what to do. Anne wrote saying my brother Harry is in deep trouble. I hoped she could sell it.”

“When was this?”

“The letter came a few days ago. I thought the jewelry was mine.”

“It is yours, but only to do with as I will. Am I such a beast you did not dare approach me? What did you think I would do? Beat you and lock you in a tower with only dry crusts of bread?”

“No, sir,” I said, although that thought
had
occurred to me. “Of course you would have been generous as always, but you’ve done so much I couldn’t bear to ask for more.”

“Therefore, you chose to deceive me.”

“It was not deception.”

“Did you think I wouldn’t notice?”

Suddenly I was sick of being questioned, sick of the frequent humiliation, sick of constantly appeasing him. I sat up straight. “Honestly it wasn’t such a terrible thing. I simply tried to take care of something without bothering you.”

“Apologize for not confiding in me, and then perhaps I will listen to your request.” His voice was cold and quiet now.

Did he expect me to kneel at his feet to beg for the money? Well, I would not. I made myself slow my breathing so that the emotion bursting behind my ribs would subside. I must remember Harry. He was what mattered. “I beg your pardon, sir,” I said. “I’ll never again hesitate to ask when I have a need.” Somehow, still seated on my bed, I managed to ask M. Bernard for the funds without dying of shame.

“I will send a bank draft that will cover it,” he said when I finished. “It shall be posted today to relieve their minds.”

As I reached to gather up the jewelry, M. Bernard’s hand closed over my wrist as if in a vise.

I stared up at him, startled.

Slowly he released me. “Remember well, Sophia, if you do not better value my gifts, everything will be taken from you.”

“I’ll remember.”

It was as if a silken net further tightened around me.

On the following Monday, this time without a shred of hope, I went to the glade for the last time.

I gave myself a stern lecture when, of course, it was vacant. If I continued this way, I should fall into a decline, and I refused to be a declining sort of person. Life must go on.

I worked to rouse myself. I walked in the gardens. I exercised Lily. I stitched away on the tapestry. I made myself focus on the pages of books I read. I continued to study biology, although it pressed on the bruised bits of my heart to do so.

“We need an outing,” M. Bernard announced one evening. “Tomorrow we shall drive into Memphis so you may shop for Christmas gifts for your siblings.”

I had not left the abbey’s boundaries for five months—the excitement I showed was genuine.

The next morning eagerness sped my footsteps as I went out to the waiting carriage while it was yet dark. Despite having endured Odette’s black looks because of having to rise early (when I knew she’d go back to bed as soon as I left), I had enjoyed making my toilette today. Over my gown of golden figured brocade I wore a brown velvet day cloak. My bonnet was of amber pleated silk with an ostrich plume that reached down to caress my cheek.

As we rolled away from the abbey, my godfather squeezed my hand. “Oho!
Ma fifille
is eager for a day of shopping. See how her eyes shine.”

I smiled. “Ladies do love shops, don’t they?”

He soon closed his eyes and snoozed in the corner.

I gazed out the window at the blessed, unfamiliar view. Cotton
fallen from the harvest wagons drifted like snow on the sides of dirt roads.

It was afternoon when we arrived in Memphis. We visited a silk warehouse, where I entertained M. Bernard with my canny shopping, crushing fabric in my fist to see if it would wrinkle too easily and whether it was too brittle or too old.

We purchased a length of amethyst taffeta and another of china blue wool twill that would set off Anne’s coloring to perfection, as well as silvery satin to make waistcoats for my brothers. From other merchants, we bought a black lace and jet-beaded cape, two beaver top hats, a porcelain-backed vanity set decorated with bluebells, a flask of the violet scent that M. Bernard liked on me, a thick woolen cloak, and I cannot tell what else. The cloak, I thought with a secret smile, would please Anarchy.

“The scent is for you, isn’t it?” M. Bernard said.

“No, sir, it’s for Anne. She’d like it too.”

“I think not. I want no one to smell of violets but you.”

I shrugged. “For me, then.”

We dined at a fine restaurant, and I could hardly contain my pleasure at not sitting at the end of the long table at Wyndriven Abbey. I absorbed the people and the fashions and the sounds of unfamiliar voices.

M. Bernard leaned back in his chair and watched me with lazy enjoyment. “We shall have to make the trip to Memphis more often,” he said. “You are much improved over the last weeks.”

It was only as we drove the long way home that I realized I would have preferred a visit to Chicataw. Memphis had been stimulating, but those people were strangers and destined to remain so forever.
In Chicataw I might have made friends. No wonder my godfather chose to take me to Memphis instead.

As we passed through the town, I nearly hung out the window when we went by the parsonage. Even at that late hour, a light gleamed in one upstairs window. Was it Gideon’s? It must be.

There came jarring back the picture of his dear face. Had I actually forgotten him in my pleasure over an outing?

As we entered the grounds of Wyndriven Abbey, oppression surged, squeezing around me.

I had intended to visit Anarchy the next day, to give her the cloak. However, I awoke with a raw throat that turned putrid. I could go nowhere. For two weeks I tossed with fever. Vaguely I was aware of Ducky spooning juice and tea through my cracked lips and of Ling administering tinctures of Oriental herbs drop by drop.

M. Bernard often sat beside my bed and read aloud, placing cool, damp cloths on my forehead and touching my face to ascertain my fever, his eyes anxious. He held my hand tenderly, and I sought his soothing touch, reaching for his fingers again when he tried to withdraw them. I needed the reassurance of someone close by. Someone to take care of me.

I dimly wondered why he didn’t call for a physician. When Ducky popped in to bring vinegar in water, I croaked, “Please send for a doctor.”

She tucked the coverlet in closer. “Master Bernard does not trust doctors—not since Madame Adele died. He told me so last night. You can imagine how difficult that was for him to confide, as he
hasn’t mentioned her name since she passed away. Do you see how good you are for him? He’s recovering from his losses now, isn’t he? And it’s because of you.”

Her voice came as from a far distance. I closed my eyes. There was no strength in me to listen to Ducky; I was too ill to sort her words.

That night as I lay alone, scorching hot, with the bedclothes crushing down on my body as I was too weak to lift them, I became aware of a pale shimmering that illuminated all the room. Four figures surrounded my bed.

There, there, there, and there. Four women all with ruddy hair. I knew them and tried hoarsely to whisper their names: “Victoire, Tatiana, Tara, Adele.” My Sisters. I had almost been expecting them. They stood above me, sad and serene, Victoire wearing emerald, Tatiana sea foam, Tara primrose, and Adele sapphire, just as they did in their portraits. Ghosts.

Wordless voices murmured low, like the sound of a brook bubbling and eddying. A coolness touched me, as of a breeze on my burning skin. I slept peacefully.

From that day, my condition improved. I continued to catch glimpses of the specters. Were they actual, cognizant entities or mere shades, impressions, of those who had lived in this place? Or perhaps I was hallucinating, a remnant of raging fever. I didn’t know, but I saw what I saw.

Victoire was one of them. Ducky also had long ago seen her within these walls after she fled the abbey—perhaps she had already been dead at that time?

My mind was never frightened by the ghosts—their impression
was too sorrowful to suggest a threat—but my body was. A chill would creep through me shortly before the mist or flash of color or hint of shadow glided by with an otherworldly smoothness, and every muscle would tense until long after it disappeared.

Good people were supposed to move on to heaven when they died. Certainly my parents had done so—I would never believe otherwise. According to the stories, some great emotion or need must hold these women at the abbey. Could one help the dead to heal? If I spoke to them, perhaps they’d tell me.