A-Splendid-Ruin(27)

As usual, the talk of the town? There was nothing overtly censorious about the mention, but I was horrified. I’d had no idea that the Alphonse Bandersnitch was even at the Cliff House. Why should he be? And surely . . . conspicuously festive and very jovial did not mean drunk, did they?

My liking for the reporter chilled. Not so very amusing when it was me he turned that sharp wit to, was it? At least there was no mention of Stephen Oelrichs, as Goldie had feared. But what was to be done about this mention, if anything? Goldie would certainly know—

A door opened at the end of the hall. I looked up to see my aunt Florence.

“May.” She whispered my name, then looked quickly behind her as if afraid. She gestured furtively. “Come. Hurry. We’ve so little time.”

I hesitated. I’d promised both my uncle and my cousin not to visit her again without approval. But how could I refuse a direct request? Not only that, she looked so distraught, and no one else was around.

Once again, my aunt motioned. I followed her to her bedroom. She drew back into the darkness beyond her door to allow me to slip inside, then closed the door. Again, the curtains were drawn. The flame of a very small lamp struggled against soot-covered glass that looked as if no one had seen to it for a year. Again, that sense of being stifled, cloistered, removed from the world and locked away.

“Did they follow you?” my aunt asked, fumbling with the doorknob.

“Did who follow me?”

“Anyone. Are they listening?”

I frowned. “No. No, we’re quite alone.”

She opened the door, glanced out, shut it again. “They must not hear, do you understand? They must not know.”

“Know what? Hear what? Are you all right, Aunt Florence? Is there something wrong? Something I can help you with?”

“You don’t know what they’ll do.” She moved agitatedly from the door, jerking movements, darting eyes. “I promised Charlotte.”

“My mother?” I grasped the one thing I understood. “What about my mother?”

She stopped and turned to me, frowning. “Charlotte.”

In relief, I said, “Yes, Charlotte. My mother.”

My aunt flailed for a nearby chair, and I hurried to help her sit. “Charlotte is dead.”

“Yes.” I could offer nothing beyond that.

“She asked me . . .” She stared, mesmerized, at the shadow of the lamp jumping on the wall. “She asked me to care for her baby.”

She twitched, lost in the past. I was that baby, grown up now. “That was long ago, Aunt Florence. She sent another letter. Only a few months ago. Do you remember? Do you have it here?”

“The letter,” she murmured. “I said no.”

“Do you have it?” I asked again. I went to her bureau and glanced over the cluttered top. No letter, only crocheted doilies, medicine bottles, hairpins. “Is it in here?”

I turned to her, and she said nothing. I took it for permission. I was desperate; I wanted only to know something, anything, and I opened the first drawer. I’d no sooner done it than she cried out, “I said no! I promise I did. I said no!”

Dismayed, I hurried to her. I touched her arm, wanting to comfort her, trying to understand.

My touch only seemed to distress her more. She half rose from the chair, gripping my arms, those slender fingers like claws.

“You don’t understand! She trusted me!” Her nails bit. She was stronger than she looked. “You should not have come. I want you to go home. Go home!”

She threw the words at me. Her eyes were black with anger and desperation and horror. I felt she could suck me up by sheer force of will, and she meant to. I tried to step away, unable to stem a growing panic.

“Please, Aunt Florence. Please!” Too loud. I heard my own fear and desperation.

The door burst open. Shin hurried to my aunt, taking her shoulders, easing her, and I went weak with relief and shame. “Now, now, Mrs. Sullivan. I have your medicine. That’s right. This way.”

Aunt Florence let the maid direct her. She collapsed again into the chair, and began to sob.

“Now, now,” Shin soothed, taking the laudanum from her pocket. Then her gaze slipped to the bureau drawer, still opened, and I knew by the way she looked at me that she understood what I’d done.

My shame turned hot. I left quickly, jittery, devastated. I’d never heard anyone cry that way, so brokenheartedly. I did not know what to do, how to make things better, or how I would explain myself to my uncle, or to Goldie, when Shin told them that I’d upset my aunt going through her things, and, as if in response to my thought, there was Goldie, coming up the stairs.

She had been gone, I remembered. “There you are!” Guilt and fear and worry made me overly hearty. “Where have you been?”

Her head jerked up; something flashed through her eyes—irritation?—but then she smiled, and it was gone. “Oh, hello.” There was an odd lilt to her voice.

“Where have you been?” I asked again.

“I went for ice cream. I had a craving for it, and I didn’t want to wake you up. You were sleeping so soundly.”

Ice cream? It was nearly two in the afternoon now; and she’d been gone for hours and hours. And who went for ice cream in the middle of the night? What confectioners would even be open?

But I saw no lie in her face, and there were plenty of reasons to doubt myself. All that champagne, my headache . . . Had I really heard anything last night, or had it all been the dream I’d thought it then?