A-Splendid-Ruin(14)

“May, is that you?” My aunt stepped into the hall. She looked drawn and frail, but awake, and alert. She smiled tremulously, as if afraid of her reception. “I’m your Aunt Florence. Forgive me for being unable to meet you sooner.”

It was obvious that, as Goldie had warned me, my aunt had no recollection of coming to my room last night. But Goldie had made her out to be half-mad as well, and I saw no evidence of that. I was so relieved that I burst out, “I’m so very glad to meet you at last, Aunt Florence,” and hugged her. She was stiff at first, but then she put her arms around me.

When I stepped back, there were tears in her eyes. She retrieved her handkerchief and blotted them away. “Where’s Goldie?”

“She went to her room. I can fetch her—”

“No, no. Please.” She gave me again that shaky smile. “Let’s not disturb her. I’d like to get to know you. Just the two of us. Will you take tea with me, my dear May?”

“I would like that.”

She led me down the hall, to the left, to the right again, until we were in the empty hallway I’d stumbled upon last night. The furnished room was indeed her sitting room; why was it located here, in a nearly empty wing? Once again, I was greeted by a cloud of patchouli and the jeweled eyes of the menagerie parading across the mantel. Last night’s shadows became a casual clutter in the electric light. There was no hint today of the oppressiveness I’d felt here.

When Aunt Florence gestured for me to sit, I did so eagerly. There was already a pot of tea, along with a tray of delicate sandwiches, and another of cakes. It looked delicious, but they’d fed us a light meal at the Emporium, and Goldie’s distress had stolen any incipient hunger.

The Palace Bar intruded, Mrs. Dennehy leaning over Uncle Jonny’s arm. Goldie saying, “She doesn’t know . . . And she won’t.” Uncomfortably, I pushed it all away.

My aunt took the chair across. “Would you mind pouring? My hands are a bit trembly this afternoon.”

In fact, all of her seemed trembly. She was a mass of fluttering sighs and rolling ankles and hands that could not settle, and she kept glancing toward the closed door as if she expected an interruption. Aunt Florence seemed uncomfortable in her own skin.

I smiled reassuringly and poured the tea. My aunt waved away sugar and cream. I took mine black as well, but when I sipped it, it was cold and bitter as if it had sat there, forgotten and steeping, for hours. Again, I remembered last night, Goldie’s hint about madness. How long had Aunt Florence been waiting here for our return?

My aunt blew into her cup to cool what was not the least bit warm, sipped it, and then blew into it again. She said nothing, only smiled vaguely and drank her tea as if unaware of the expectant silence between us. My questions crowded, but I was troubled by the cold tea and whatever it implied, and I looked about the room, trying to think about how best to bring up my mother. The clutter suggested a restless mind: unfinished needlework, a half-crocheted doily, a flower press with discolored, forgotten blooms scattered about it.

Then I saw the candy jar on the table, partially hidden among a mess of embroidery threads, and for a moment I was transported back in time, my tantrum and a jar just like this one tumbling from the table to smash against the floor, scattering into pieces that could not be put back together. The shards of thick glass glimmering in the lamplight.

This one was not broken, of course. It too was shaped like the famous Liberty Bell, a souvenir of the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. I saw the molded crack, the lettering I knew by heart, by feel. PROCLAIM LIBERTY THROUGHOUT ALL THE LAND, and 1776 Centennial Exposition 1876. How often I’d run my fingers over that lettering, imagining the candy it had once held. “Chocolate dragées. Delicious! Though I only had one or two.” My question, “What happened to the rest?” And the thoughtfulness on Mama’s face, her quiet, “I gave them to someone to keep them safe—I didn’t want to eat all of them at once, you see, I wanted to savor them. But then they were gone.”

It had seemed a tragedy to me. “What do you mean, ‘they were gone’?”

“She ate them . . . I gave them to someone . . .” To her sister? Here it was, the opening I’d been searching for. “That candy jar. It’s from the Centennial Exposition, isn’t it? My mother had one too.”

“We each had one,” my aunt said.

“It came filled with candy,” I prompted.

“Did it?” Aunt Florence sipped her tea, tilting her head as if searching for the memory. Then, “Ah yes. I remember now. Charlotte didn’t like them and she gave hers to me and then cried when I ate them as well. Can you imagine? She only wanted them after I ate them all. She raised such a terrible fuss that Mother sent me to bed without dinner. I was so angry with her—you know, you don’t look as I imagined, but you have the Kimble mouth.”

Her words bounced like a ball among jacks, hitting here and there, scattering. It was not the story I knew. I tried to follow, but was too distracted by the rest. The Kimble mouth?

“I’ve thought that perhaps I look like my father—”

“Your father?” Her frown involved her entire face, forehead to chin. “Oh no, no.”

“No? You know what he looked like. You know who he—”

“I hardly remember him. He was one of her passing fancies.”