Chapter Three

Even from the simple word “yes,” Charlie knew it was the girl with the velvet voice seated across the table from him. She was next to Earl. They must be holding hands. She’d only spoken five words: yes, yes, no, no questions. And yet the anguish in her voice was as real as the wooden table before him. Had the others noticed? Now Floyd MacAlister was lobbing questions at the grandfather who’d made their family fortune—Floyd’s voice was practically jovial. But hers. Hers had dripped with pain.

If he could have made it out of the room without drawing attention to himself, he’d have been gone from the first word of this whole business. He did not like holding Earl’s big mitt, did not like Mrs. Voldore’s booming voice. And he definitely did not like being asked to imagine dear beloved dead. Most of his dead weren’t dear or beloved. They were men he’d hardly known, men who haunted him purely through their ability to walk the earth one minute and vanish the next. Soap bubbles that landed on pavement.

War was strange. You’d see a fellow in the mess tent every day for weeks, then suddenly he stopped coming. Time there was full of lulls and crescendos. Long periods of boredom while the troops dug trenches and played cards. Then the attack, and chaos. No one slept—work flowed around the clock. At the next meal, familiar faces were missing. Forever. In time, new faces arrived.

Charlie’s mind had wanted to pretend those fellows had been reassigned to a different unit or had given up, gone home. But he knew. In his soul, he knew.

Earl was speaking now, saying something to an uncle who’d died jumping horses. I’ll be next, Charlie thought, and again he wished he could trust himself to escape the room. Forget Alva and her bottomless bar. Nothing was worth this weird brand of torture.

Although leaving the Breakers and going home would be torture of a different nature.

“Charles Tremblay, are you here?”

“Yes.” His voice rattled inside his own head.

“Charles Tremblay, I have a message from your brother in crimson.”

Johnny Townsend sprang to life before Charlie’s closed eyes, the double row of buttons perfectly straight down his blue jacket front. Johnny had always been fastidious. Charlie squeezed his eyes tighter, wishing they could talk about anyone but Johnny.

Beside him, Earl, who was also a brother in Harvard crimson, shifted in his seat.
“Will you hear the message?”

“Yes.” Johnny. That laugh of his, like the crack of a bat. Always so careful about his hair. Johnny. If he had to join a circus to avoid the family business, he liked to say, he’d be the best damn tiger the world had ever seen.

“He wants you to know that he has no regrets. That is his message. Please don’t be pained about his passing because he has no regrets.” A pause. “Is Cora Worth here?”

Charlie exhaled. Johnny was still there, grinning. Adjusting his belt. Could it possibly be that he had no regrets? Can anyone who dies at twenty-one have no regrets? Naw. Impossible. Johnny would trade places with anyone at this table.
Still, the thought that Johnny might have said that just to make him feel better brought a flood of tears to Charlie’s eyes.

---

The minute the séance ended, Violet fled the house, dashing across the lawn to the cliff walk. She would have preferred to be away from the ocean, someplace green and still, where waves didn’t roll and gulls didn’t scream. But there was no place like that in Newport. So, she walked near the shore, but turned her eyes inland, first toward the Breakers and its broad stretch of grass, then to the limestone glory of Chetwode, then to Rosecliff Mansion, almost too bright to look at in the sun.

Her head was a jumble, but one truth stood out. She and Mother had quarreled, right before she died. Not that that was particularly new. Their relationship had always been tense, ranging from clashes to icy détentes. Either Mother was critical and she was defensive, or she was critical and Mother was defensive—either way, it was fraught. But this last argument had been especially nasty. The sting of her mother’s words rang in Violet’s ears as cleanly as it had in that moment, burning her fingers, scratching her feet. Violet rarely quarreled with anyone else and had been out of practice. Mother, who was rather an expert, had let her eyes flash, her lip lift with disgust. Their voices had hammered against one another, and hard things had been said.

And then Mother and Papa had died.

The ocean breeze snagged at her hair and pushed on her skirts. She paused below Rosecliff’s circular fountain and thought, suddenly, of Sadie. Sadie had heard everything Mrs. Voldore—or Fanny—had said. Was she wondering what they’d quarreled about? Perhaps she was looking for Violet right at that moment, frantic for an explanation. Maybe she was hurt that Fanny hadn’t wanted to speak with her. Or hurt that Violet had run off right afterward.

She trotted back to the Breakers, her shoes spitting pebbles, corset cutting into the tops of her thighs. There. There were people on the lawn, and some were women. Sadie, in white, wore the blue toque hat that made her eyes sparkle. She rushed up to Violet.

“We’re playing croquet! Would you like to join? Floyd—Mr. MacAllister—is getting the course set up.”

Violet looked across the lawn to where Floyd was instructing a gardener in the placing of wickets and stakes. “I don’t think I will. Thanks, though.”

Sadie’s face fell. “Crawling back into your egg?”

Violet bristled. Wasn’t Sadie exhausted, too, by all this human interaction? “I just feel a bit bruised after the séance.” She inspected Sadie’s face for a reaction, but her sister’s expression was calm. Tranquil, even. “It was a little shocking, supposedly hearing a message from Mother,” Violet added. “Didn’t it surprise you?”

Her sister shrugged. “It was kind, whether it came from Mother or not. It was probably all fun and games, but either way, it was true enough. Mother wouldn’t want us to spend our lives pining. She never pined for anyone.”

True enough, Violet thought. Mother had never pined for anyone—only for herself when her plans were thwarted. Still, it was surprising to find Sadie, who’d been so close to their mother, unfazed. Violet opened her mouth, wanting to continue the conversation, but Sadie turned away.

“I’m yellow!” she called to Floyd as she rushed to claim her ball.

Earl approached as Violet made her way toward the house. Her insides still felt like unset jelly, but it was a relief that Sadie wasn’t upset after the séance. Earl grinned at her, swinging a green mallet. “All recovered from the séance?”

“I’m afraid it rattled me a bit,” she answered.

“Don’t let it. It’s just Alva’s bit of fun. Keeping things lively, you know? The old man,” he said, waving at the Breakers, “was famous for having mediums on the payroll.”

“What, Cornelius Vanderbilt?”

“Sure. He got stock tips from the dead! The supernatural stuff runs in the family, is all. No harm in it.” He cuffed his mallet across the grass. “Care to play? I think red’s still left.”

“No, thank you. I have some letters to write.”

“In that case,” he extended his arm, “allow me to escort you.”

She took his arm, resting her hand on the nubby weave of his Norfolk jacket. His strides were longer than she could manage in her shoes, forcing him to slow.

Blanche Worth, holding the blue mallet aloft like a torch, called, “Earl, you said you were going to play!”

“So I am,” he called back. “I’ll catch up.”

They crossed the lawn to the paved patio nearer the house where a fountain burbled softly. “Did you know all of them before now?” Violet asked.

“Who, these kids? Sure. Most of us grew up doing summers here in Newport. My family’s place is on the other side of Almy’s Pond.” He jutted his chin toward the west. “I’ve known the Worths for ages. George Wainwright, too. I know Tremblay from Harvard. Felt bad for the fellow, so I brought up his name to Alva.”

Charles Tremblay. That was the way Mrs. Voldore’s contact had addressed Rude and Handsome. “Felt sorry for him? Why?”

Earl looked surprised. “Haven’t you noticed? He’s blind as a bat. Has been ever since he came back from France.”

Blind? The word spun through Violet’s brain.

“Back from France?” she said. “Did he volunteer or something?” A few men had done that, especially those with family ties to Europe. But Rude and Handsome seemed fully American.

They approached the broad glass doors at the back of the lower loggia.
“Ambulance driver. He left school early and sailed over. It’s rotten luck. They graduated him, but I don’t see what he’ll manage to do now. Once you stop and think about it, you need to see for just about everything.” Earl opened the door and paused, his face as sanguine as ever. “Enjoy your letters. Don’t forget to come out later. All work and no play, you know.” He tipped his cap with a wink and sauntered off, swinging the mallet.

Blind! Violet stood, immobile, watching Earl walk away. How had she not noticed? Her mind flew back to the previous night when they’d nearly collided in the grand salon and his eyes were focused somewhere behind her, not on her. Ah. She’d asked if he’d seen her sister! Blood rushed to her face. She pushed her fingertips against her forehead, trying to push the impending headache out of her skull.

Sterling aspirin—what used to be Bayer—that’s what she needed. And quiet time in a dim room. Maybe after that she would recover enough to test out the Steinway she’d spotted in the grand salon.

She glanced out through the French doors at the hale and hearty guests on the lawn, so absorbed in their game. When had things like that stopped being fun to her? She felt like a school marm among young people, reaching for her aspirin and retreating indoors while they frolicked.

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Since losing his sight, Charlie had noticed a difference in the air of particular rooms, especially the large ones. When he transitioned from a close hallway, which felt still and heavy, to the threshold of a capacious room, the height and breadth of the new space was almost as fresh as the outdoors. He felt that sense of freshness as he moved into the doorway of the grand salon, sliding his hand along the wall. His lungs filled, drawing air down from the high ceilings, in swirls away from the windowpanes.

Did he smell lilac?

Suddenly, piano strings hummed with the plaintive opening notes of Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata. Charlie cringed—it might be the saddest piece of music ever written. Not exactly what he was in the mood for. Still, the music caught him in its sticky, melancholy clutches. He stood, transfixed, unable to move. The sounds passed into him, through him, until his bones melted with indescribable longing. Longing for what? For the past? For a future that now would never come? For the death of…what? It hardly mattered. The music made him grieve an ineffable something with all the feeling in his heart.

The rational piece of him knew that if music was being played, there must be a player. That the player used the lilac soap he smelled. That the player was, in all likelihood, she of the velvet voice. That in a few minutes she would turn from the piano and see him there, frozen in place, eyes wet from the music she had made. He knew this, and yet he couldn’t bring himself to shuffle across the carpet, hands groping for a wall or piece of furniture, not in the middle of such playing.

Charlie wiped his eyes. What a journey this music took him on. The sorrow of the world beat as unceasingly as those ocean waves beyond the house. Beethoven had seen this. Beethoven—deaf Beethoven—saw it all. Men met on fields to kill each other. Parents buried children. Storms destroyed houses and nests alike, tossing creatures into the wind like pebbles.

The piece came to an end. The player held the last note, cinching it tighter around Charlie’s ribs. Her feet left the pedals. Skirts brushed the stool, and shoes touched the floor. Was that an intake of breath? Was she startled to see him there? More importantly, would his face show everything he’d just been feeling? He passed a hand over his brow, putting himself in order.

“Hello,” he said. “I hope I didn’t startle you.”

“Hello,” she answered in her velvet voice. She was closer than he’d expected.

“You play beautifully.”

“Thank you,” she said. This was not said perfunctorily; there was emotion behind it. Perhaps she, too, had felt her soul crack under the sorcery of Beethoven and his heartbreaking music. He thought of the wetness in her voice during the séance. Should he say something? Admit that he, too, was followed by ghosts? He licked his lips, about to speak, when the air moved to his left as she passed out of the room.