Chapter Eight, part two

That afternoon, most of the group headed back to the golf course. There was a huge hullaballoo before they left as the fellows raced to change into plus fours and caps, and the women ran for their white cotton skirts and waists. Violet, fighting against irritation, helped Sadie secure her hair and wide-brimmed garden hat with three hat pins in case Floyd tried to pull them out again.

“You’re awfully quiet,” Sadie observed, looking at her in the mirror. “I know you’re angry about Emma Willard.”

“I just—” Violet hesitated. She was disappointed, confused, betrayed. Which feeling could she share with Sadie without risking a blow-up? “All year, you’ve let me think you’d be going back in the Fall. Did you never mean to, or is this a sudden decision?”

Sadie frowned at her own reflection, then leaned forward to inspect a freckle. She sat up with a sigh. “I’ve never liked school as much as you. You know that. Mother and Papa never expected me to go on to college like you did. I don’t think they even cared that I finish at Emma’s.”

“But don’t you want to finish? For your own sake?” Violet was genuinely puzzled. School was a haven! She’d often wished she hadn’t had enough credits to graduate after their parents’ death. Pursuing a master’s degree has crossed her mind more than once.

Sadie shrugged. “Not really. What good would it do me when I’m just going to get married?”

Violet adjusted a hairpin that didn’t really need fixing. Her reflection showed a pink face with redness creeping down her neck. She fought to keep her voice calm. “All your life, you’d be a more cultured, educated woman. A more interesting conversationalist. A person who can put events in a broader context.”

“Well, that sounds enticing,” Sadie drawled. “I’m not sure you and I have the same definition of fun.”

Gravel was starting to form in Violet’s chest. Sadie was kept out of trouble at Emma Willard. The willfulness that sometimes sprang out of her would be constrained there.

I don’t have to worry about her there, Violet thought. But should she really have to go because I don’t want to fret? No, of course not. Still, Violet’s throat was raw at the thought of her sister not returning. What would Sadie do with herself if she didn’t return? That, Violet realized, was the crux of the issue. If she wasn’t at school, Sadie would be free to run off to the city, drink champagne, dally with strange boys, and do who knew what. In short, act like their mother.

“Don’t think I’m finished with this conversation,” she said, as Sadie rose and sauntered out of the room. Sadie swung through the door with a backwards glance. “Because I’m not!”

She stood at the window, biting her lip, until the cars—filled with girls clutching their hats and boys in blazers—pulled away in a cloud of dust. The house seemed to exhale in relief.

Why couldn’t Sadie be an easy seventeen-year-old who had a passion for something, anything, that would see her safely into adulthood? Music, painting, botany?

Violet left the room and walked a few circuits around the second story, gazing down at the marble floor and potted ferns on the level below. Ever since her last conversation with Alva, her future options had floated before her like cards she could draw. New York. Washington. The western states. Cold Lake. But now she wondered if Sadie needed to be her own card. Maybe Violet should forego advancement with her suffrage work for one more year and dedicate herself to guiding and guarding Sadie.

But instead of figuring out what to do, she began wondering what Charlie was up to. Her footsteps followed her thoughts until she found him in the shade of the lower loggia, playing scales on his clarinet.

“You’re a better music student that I am,” she said as she entered. “I haven’t played scales in ages. Has Mrs. Voldore returned?”

“If she has, she hasn’t come this way,” he said, lowering his clarinet into his lap. It was a warm day, and he’d set aside his jacket. The frame of his shoulders stretched the shirt across his back, down his arms. Was a girl supposed to enjoy the shape of a man without his jacket on? It felt inappropriate, but her eyes kept sliding back, running from his neck to his fingers in a long, slow swoop.

It was strange to be able to look at a man as long as she wanted. She’d never been able to really examine a fellow before, not someone her own age.

“So,” he said, turning his shoulders in her direction. “Can we still snoop, if she isn’t here?”

After days of watching Mrs. Voldore, they hadn’t discovered a single thing. They hadn’t overheard one suspicious conversation or even caught Mrs. Voldore asking prying questions.

“I don’t know. I’m beginning to think the clues must be in her room. I don’t suppose—” Violet began a thought, then bit it back.

“Yes?” he said, leaning forward. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

“Oh, but we mustn’t do that. We can’t.”

“No.” He sat back. “No. You’re right.”

They sat in silence for a moment. He tapped his fingers on his clarinet keys. She licked her lips. “But I do wonder what she might have in there. Newspaper clippings?”

“Letters?”

“Notes from a conversation?”

His face had an impish shine. It was irresistible. “There’s really only one way to find out,” he said.

“You’d have to stand guard.”

“Me?”

“Sure, by listening. You could stand at the balcony rail, overlooking the main hall. She has to pass through there to get to her room, and you’d hear her heels on the floor.”

“I’ll start playing the Entertainer. But what if it’s one of the staff going by?”

“Better safe than sorry. Play it at the sound of any heels.”

Charlie stood, brandishing his clarinet. “We are happy to be of service.”

Violet ran her arm through his, and they entered the house, then mounted the grand staircase. She tipped her head toward his as they reached the second floor.

“Wait. I think I’m chickening out. It feels like we’re committing a crime. Although,” she said, considering, “if she does have clippings or notes, that’s a larger crime than spying, wouldn’t you say?”

“I would.”

“And the staff goes into her room every day.”

“They do.”

“All right. Which one is her door?”

They found the door and knocked to make sure Mrs. Voldore wasn’t inside. No one answered. So Violet, palms sweating, stationed Charlie at the balcony rail and tiptoed back to the door. She paused to catch her breath. The knob slid under her fingers, and she needed both hands to turn it.

The room was an elegant cream puff. Unlike the room she shared with Sadie, this one was cream-on-cream, bright as a cloud. It was like biting into a piece of divinity. Mrs. Voldore’s nightgown lay, ready and waiting, folded on her pillow.

Violet’s pulse pounded as she approached the vanity and the chest of drawers. The only thing on top of the vanity was a set of ebony-backed hairbrushes, similar to the set Mother had used for most of her life. Violet reached out a finger to stroke the back of the brush, realizing that Mother’s brushes were now at the bottom of the Atlantic. She shivered.

Mother and Papa. That was why she was here. Swiftly, she slid open drawers, closing any that held hair pins, switches, and ribbons. She ignored a torn-out newspaper ad for hole-proof hosiery, a tin of shoe polish, a Maybelline eyebrow coloring kit. Two cloth handbags and sewing materials. That concluded the vanity. She slid over to the chest of drawers, wondering if she’d even hear Charlie’s clarinet over the noisy beating of her heart.

On top of the bureau was a book—Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass. Good heavens, that’s notorious, Violet thought. She opened the first two drawers. Gloves and corsets. She stole a glance at Leaves of Grass. Was it as racy as everyone said? The next two drawers held more books and a packet of paper soap. The larger drawer below, predictably, held clothes. She closed it softly. With a quick glance at the door, she reached for the book and opened it at random.

It is in his walk, the carriage of his neck, the flex of his waist and knees, dress does not hide him,
The strong sweet quality he has strikes through the cotton and broadcloth,
To see him pass conveys as much as the best poem, perhaps more,
You linger to see his back, and the back of his neck and shoulder-side.

Violet pulled in her breath. She clapped the book shut and dropped it on the bureau as if it had singed her. Five steps took her to the door, and she was out in the hall, down the hall, catching Charlie’s elbow near the balcony rail.

“That was quick. I haven’t played anything.”

“There was nothing to see.” Violet pressed her fingers to her face to cool down her cheeks.

“Oh,” Charlie seemed disappointed. “Well. It was exciting, anyhow.”

She glanced over at him, catching his face in profile—mouth in profile—and her cheeks grew even hotter. “Let’s go down to the loggia,” she suggested. “It’ll be cooler there, and we’ll see Mrs. Voldore when she comes.”

Once they found their seats, she asked Charlie to play the Brahms piece that he’d played once before. As the music curled into the breeze, she stared at the ocean until her temperature returned to normal.

When he finished, he lowered his clarinet. “There’s a piano accompaniment to that. Maybe we could find the sheet music sometime.” He ran his finger around one of the silver keys as if waiting for her to respond. “So, you really found nothing.”

She licked her lips. “I found a book.”

He turned his face toward her, but when she didn’t say anything more, he spoke. “Okay, I’ll bite. What book?”

“Leaves of Grass.”

“Ah.” He lifted the clarinet and played a sweet, minor trill. “'The swimmer naked in the swimming-bath, seen as he swims through the transparent greenshine.' Startling stuff.”

“Yes.” She folded her hands in her lap, then felt horribly prim and unfolded them. “I’d never seen anything quite like it.”

“No. I don’t think there is anything quite like it.”

She looked over at him. Were his cheeks pink? Was he as aware of her in this moment as she was of him? There he sat in his shirt and tie, long fingers on his clarinet, hair drooping over one eyebrow in that way that it had. Didn’t he wonder what she looked like? What she was wearing?

“I’m wearing blue today,” she said, then instantly wished the words back. What was she thinking? He probably didn’t give a fig!

But a bright smile spread across his face, lightening his eyes, dusting his hair.

“Thank you,” he said with genuine warmth. “What else?”

Her cheeks burned. What else did he want to know? What would she want to know if she were in his place? She thought of his shirt pulling across his shoulders and realized she had very little sense of what men found attractive.

“My waist is cream-colored. Crêpe georgette.”

His face was turned directly toward hers. She had his full attention.

“I don’t know what that is, but it sounds lovely.”

She moved her sleeve onto the arm of his chair, lifted one of his hands, and set it on the fabric. They were both silent as he touched the cloth as lightly as he would handle a flower petal.

“It’s beautiful,” he said, causing Violet to blush all the way to her toes.

She stared down at his hand for a long while, and as she thought about touching it, about sliding her finger across that soft space between his thumb and first finger, she knew she had waded out too far. The water was lifting her off her feet, and she wasn’t yet sure if she could swim.

She swallowed and straightened. “I feel terrible for snooping in her room. Especially now that I didn’t find anything.” There. This was safer territory. “We really have no evidence at all that she’s a hoax.”

Charlie leaned back in his chair and crossed his legs. “It’s true,” he said after a moment’s consideration. “Though, to be honest, I haven’t heard her speaking much with anyone. People might see her as more of an oddity than a friend. Maybe she wishes she was at Belcourt with Mrs. Belmont.”

“Perhaps that’s where she is now. Maybe she’s learning all of your family secrets from Alva as we speak.”

A breeze from the ocean lifted, and Charlie raised his face to meet it. Even when he was at rest, his face was never perfectly still. He pressed his lips together and released them; he blinked; his jaw shifted. He swallowed. He raised his nose to the wind. He was thinking, and his face reflected it.

She thought of Leaves of Grass and shifted in her seat. It wasn’t a fitting thing for a young woman to read. That was undoubtedly what Mrs. Poosey or her grandmother would say. But would Alva? At Smith, her professors had lobbied for a woman’s right to read anything she chose. The question then became, did she want to read poetry like that? There was that line Charlie had quoted. …as he swims through the transparent greenshine. Like ice cream on her tongue.

Violet’s eye caught a dot of color on the view. “Here she comes, the woman herself. She’s forgotten her hat. Or she didn’t care to take one.”

Charlie played a few bars of “Au Claire de la Lune.” The mellow richness of the clarinet floated across the lawn, mixing with the scent of the roses. Charlie held the last note, then let it go. Will I always think of roses when I hear the clarinet? Violet wondered.

“Hello and hello,” Mrs. Voldore said as she crossed the pavers. Her yellow dress contrasted with her black shoes. Even though she was walking toward them, she seemed to be focused on the middle distance, on empty space. Fingers of shame crept up Violet’s neck. Surely Mrs. Voldore would never know what she’d done.

But what if she did?

“Will you join us?” Charlie asked. “Anna has promised iced tea at two. With mint.” Violet cringed inside. What was Charlie doing? He might not feel guilty, but she wanted to be as far from Mrs. Voldore as she could get.

Mrs. Voldore seemed genuinely surprised. “How kind of you to ask. I would like that.”

She took a seat on the opposite side of the table. Violet fiddled with her ball-point pen and snuck another glance at Charlie. How did he always know what the servants had planned? How did he know their names? She always strove to be courteous to the staff, no matter where she was, but the sheer numbers here overwhelmed her. Flora had said something about there being thirty-three servants at the Breakers. Good glory. They’d had one maid-cum-cook at their New York apartment, plus a nanny when she and Sadie were small. That was it. The number of maids, footmen, and kitchen staff at this “cottage” boggled her mind.

But Charlie knew their names. He knew who to ask for what. And they, in turn, noticed him.

Mrs. Voldore sighed as she sat. “Are the others out?”

“Yes, they’ve gone golfing.”

She gave them each a long look, during which Violet’s insides curdled. “That’s just as well,” she said. “I do better with a small group. The two of you are perfect company.”

“So long as you don’t mind having your tea with a couple of non-golfing misfits,” Charlie said lightly. Violet let out a grateful breath. She had no idea what to say to Mrs. Voldore, but Charlie seemed to have no problem. Of course, he hadn’t seen her nightgown folded on her pillow.

“Oh, I’m far more of a misfit than either of you. You can’t imagine what a damper I put on most conversations.”

“How’s that?”

Mrs. Voldore shrugged. Tendrils of loose hair straggled down her neck. “Spending most of your time with dead people, as I do, makes me poor company for the living. I’m forever telling something that Fanny, my spirit world contact, told me—news from the last century—or some tidbit that she passed along from my husband or my mother. That doesn’t always sit well. And it takes quite a lot of explaining. Besides, I spend so much time with Fanny that I’m usually out of touch with what the living are doing or talking about. It’s always things to buy and fashions and houses—I can’t say I care for any of that.”

Violet didn’t know whether to be skeptical of Mrs. Voldore or admire her. She certainly seemed genuine, with her bedraggled hair and freckled hands.

“What’s worse,” Mrs. Voldore went on, “I’m always listening for voices that no one else can hear. Half of my friends are spirits, and that makes me an odd fourth at bridge.” She fingered the string of beads at her neck. “You’ll have to pardon my gallows humor. When you’re around the dead as much as I am, they cease to be sad or frightening.” She laughed to herself. “Honestly, the only reason people seek out my company is to talk about death and dying. But I don’t mind. Not really. Loss gives people texture. Every hard blow roughens them up a little. Like porous stones.” She cocked her head. “It’s true of the both of you. And it’s true of most older people.”

She looked up as a maid came out with a tray. The maid paused beside Charlie. “I have iced tea, sir. And almond macarons, newly baked.”

“Thank you, Anna.” Charlie gave her one of his rare smiles, and Violet felt an odd burst of envy. The plate of macarons clicked onto the table.

“These are delightful!” Mrs. Voldore sampled a cookie as Charlie felt carefully for his glass. “Now, I’m glad to have you both here because I’ve been meaning to say how much I enjoyed the duets of the other night. You both play with great—” she waved her hands “—depth of feeling.”

“You should hear Violet play Moonlight Sonata,” Charlie said. A frisson ran across Violet’s arms as she remembered that moment at the piano. She’d been playing amid the disarray of her grief, wading knee-deep through unformed thoughts, and then she’d stopped. And he had been there. Standing stock still in the center of the room, eyes wet, face drained. He’d spoken to her, but she’d been so close to cracking open herself that she’d run away to cry in her room, brewing herself into another headache.

“Anyone would be haunted by Moonlight Sonata,” Violet said.

Mrs. Voldore cocked her head. “But there’s playing and there’s playing.” She set down her half-eaten macaron. “Mr. Tremblay here let me read his palm. Would you like me to do yours?”

The frightened flower inside Violet leaned back, but the musician leaned forward, curious. Charlie raised his eyebrows, clearly interested. So Violet extended her hand.

“No, no, your right hand.”

She switched hands. Mrs. Voldore’s were warm, confident. She pulled her reading glasses from a hidden pocket and adjusted them, then took a long, thoughtful look.

“Ah,” she said slowly. Charlie shifted closer, listening. “You have a triangle mark on your Mount of Luna.” She traced the outside of Violet’s palm. “That indicates a strong creative drive and an urge to travel. And look, water hands.” Mrs. Voldore smoothed her palm across Violet’s. “People with water hands are sensitive. Empathetic. Social situations may tire you. And here. Your love line is deep and curved, like Mr. Tremblay’s. You love deeply, with strong attachment.”

Violet glanced at Charlie and found that his gaze was fixed on her collar. Was he remembering the feel of her shirtwaist? Her arm shivered, thinking of the lightness of his touch. She swallowed and returned her eyes to Mrs. Voldore who set her hand down with a smile.

“It isn’t easy to feel things strongly,” Mrs. Voldore said, glancing between Violet and Charlie. “I do as well, and I’ve sometimes thought that life is simpler for those who care lightly, or who put their love energy into other things, like making money or gaieties. But what can you do? We are who we are. I am destined to hear spirits as loudly as I hear the living. It may not be the gift I would have chosen, but, well, I’m happy to have a gift at all. I don’t think I’d have been much of a golfer.”

As they sat there together, listening to the waves, the lines on Violet’s palm that Mrs. Voldore had traced felt illuminated, brushed white. Squeezing her eyes shut, she let go of the hope that Mrs. Voldore might be a charlatan. She could be a fake. Certainly. But it was obvious that she believed in her own abilities. That she felt weighed down by them, in fact. Violet’s mind slid toward the cold swirl that was her parents’ death, and she snatched it back. There would be plenty enough time to think about that later. For now, she was seated in a perfect loggia on a perfect afternoon, her arm still tingling under the crêpe georgette. No need to spoil it with too much thinking.