A-Splendid-Ruin(26)

I rubbed, trying to make it disappear, and then I noted the circles beneath my eyes and my rat’s nest of hair. “There’s no hope for you, May Kimble,” I muttered.

At the knock on my door, I said, “Come in,” and thought grimly that I would stab myself with a hatpin if my cousin came inside showing no ill effects—which of course she would, because she was Goldie Sullivan, and I was . . . me.

But it wasn’t Goldie. It was Shin, bearing a tray with what smelled like coffee.

“Bless you!” I grabbed the cup nearly before she’d had the chance to set it down. There was bacon too, and a pastry of some kind, neither of which looked appetizing this morning.

Shin looked at me critically, but all she said was, “Would you like to bathe, miss?”

I felt stupid and embarrassed. What must she think? But I was grateful for the suggestion, and by the time I was bathed and dressed and sitting in front of the mirror while she attacked the knots of my hair, I felt more myself. I watched as she tamed the tangle into a sleek smoothness that I had never, ever managed, even with all my digits, and tried not to reveal my continued fascination with the nub of her index finger. “Is Goldie still asleep?”

“She has gone out, miss.”

“Out? Where?”

“I don’t know, miss,” Shin said.

“She said nothing at all?”

The maid only shook her head as she went after another tangle. I sipped my coffee and told myself it was nothing. No doubt Goldie knew I felt terrible and didn’t wish to wake me. Still, the idea that she’d gone out without leaving any kind of word . . . “It isn’t like her,” I murmured.

I felt Shin pause, and I glanced at her in the mirror. She looked as if she might say something, then tightened her lips and continued with my hair, and there was something about that pause, something about her expression that made me remember last night, the footsteps in the hall.

Shin wrapped a curl around her fingers and pinned it in place.

Another curl, another pin. Shin put her fingers gently at my temples, turning my head in the mirror to admire her handiwork. She said—so quietly that I wasn’t certain I heard at first—“Be careful, Miss May.”

I tried to catch her gaze in the mirror.

She avoided mine neatly, placed the last pin, and said, “Will you wear the blue skirt today, miss?”

I should have questioned her; instead I assumed that I’d misstepped again. I took her words to mean one did not ask about others in the house, and I’d crossed some tacit boundary. I had asked Shin for her help; I should not feel ashamed or embarrassed when she gave it to me.

But I felt both. Where was Goldie? Where had she gone in the middle of the night? Why?

“Thank you, Shin,” I said, pretending that I was everything I’d been taught to be. “Yes, the blue will be fine.”

The house was empty. No Goldie, no Uncle Jonny. Even with the maids and the footmen who moved from room to room like shadows, I felt alone and restless, and worse, without purpose. The thought of a life spent this way . . . I could not fathom it. With no money of my own and no pedigree, I was not a good candidate for marriage. But I could not be a poor relation dependent on my aunt and uncle forever.

What was I to do with myself?

I remembered what Goldie had said yesterday about Aunt Florence on a charity committee, about the other women, Mrs. Oelrichs and Mrs. Hoffman, arranging charity balls. It was another thing I would have liked to ask my aunt about, and whether she’d found it interesting or satisfying, but there were my uncle’s warnings to consider, and I didn’t want to upset her. She held the key to so many riddles, and today, with nothing to distract for once, those riddles beckoned. I couldn’t go to Aunt Florence without permission, but I remembered the Liberty Bell candy jar in her sitting room, the souvenir of her life before this one. She must have other things as well. Scrapbooks or . . . or perhaps I might find the letter my mother had sent. Surely it wouldn’t hurt to do a little exploring on my own?

I wandered from my bedroom and into the hallway. The Bulletin was on the table there, among the china fawns, awaiting Goldie, and I picked it up. It was already turned to the society page; how well everyone in the household anticipated Goldie’s every need.

At last night’s Bohemian Club Hi-Jinx, there was much talk about the mysteries of Chinatown, though everyone seems to know every detail of the opium dens there. Professional guides will tell you of dank cellars reached by the twisting tunnels beneath the joss houses and gambling hells, but the real thing is only small back rooms full of pallets where devotees of the long pipe dream away their afternoons. That many of those devotees are oft mentioned in the society news is an open secret. That debutante (everyone knows her name) shopping for the silks and embroidered slippers in the Chinese store windows? The men-about-town playing flaneur (notable architect and favorite sitting judge among them)? And what about the matrons who have given up their Tuesday calling days to take a sudden interest in the Chinatown markets?

Always so intriguing. How did he know all this? And what debutante would dare an opium den? No doubt she too was nearly prostrate with ennui.

Notable sighting of the week: Miss May Kimble and her cousin, the popular Miss Goldie Sullivan, were conspicuously festive at the Cliff House yesterday with Mr. Jerome Belden, Mr. Thomas O’Keefe, and Miss Linette Wall. All were enjoying the best champagne the resort has to offer. As usual, Miss May Kimble was the talk of the town. Mr. Edward Hertford escorted the very jovial party home.