A-Splendid-Ruin(37)

“No,” Florence murmured. “No, you were somewhere else. Somewhere . . .” She glanced to the newspaper. “She took you there.”

“Goldie, you mean? Yes, we were there yesterday.” I reached over to close the newspaper.

She stopped me. “Indecent. She told you to wear it, didn’t she?”

“It’s the latest fashion, Aunt.” It didn’t matter if I agreed; I was not going to blame Goldie.

“No respectable young woman has her picture in the newspaper.”

She sounded so like my mother that I was taken aback. “I didn’t know the photographer was there.”

Aunt Florence closed her eyes. “There is always one around. Remember who you are, May. Never forget that.”

Another uncomfortable echo.

She went on. “You mustn’t always do as Goldie says.”

“It was my own decision, Aunt. I’m a modern woman.”

“Those are her words, May. You are what she makes you.”

I didn’t understand the criticism of her own daughter, and Goldie had been so good to me that I opened my mouth to defend her. But then Shin, at the dressing table, shook her head at me, and though that too was confusing, I let my argument slip away.

Aunt Florence said, “Charlotte has never forgiven me for what happened. She has hated me for years.”

A leap in thought, a connection I could not follow. I meant to let it go. I was not going to ask. I could not upset her. But Shin did not stop me this time, and so I tried, “What happened, Aunt Florence? Why did Mama hate you?”

“I was wrong. Will you tell her that? I meant to write, but I could not. I was too proud. That old saying . . . we despise most those who know us at our worst. It’s true. It’s so true.”

I frowned, only more confused. “But she wrote you, didn’t she? She sent you a letter—”

“I was wrong.” My aunt gripped my hand with skeletal fingers. “You must tell her. I would make it up now. I would protect you. Do you see?”

Her lucidity was fading. Desperately, I tried to snatch from it what I could. “Protect me from what? What happened? Did you know my father? Do you know who he is?”

She leaned so close I smelled her laudanum-tainted breath, stale and unpleasant. Her hair brushed my cheek. “Shhh. They watch. Always they watch. They listen.”

I could not temper my frustration. “What does this have to do with my mother?”

“I wish . . . oh, I cannot keep my . . . thoughts together. I cannot think.” She hit the flat of her palm against her head. “Think!”

I took her hand away and spoke as soothingly as I could. “Perhaps you should rest—”

“No!”

A crash from the dressing table made us both jump. Shin had dropped something at my aunt’s outburst.

“You must listen. It will be soon. Soon, the papers—you must hurry.” This time, my aunt pressed a fist to her temple. Her skin was taut with strain, or pain, or perhaps both. “Shin!”

The maid scurried over with the bottle of laudanum, but she made no move to give the medicine. “Mrs. Sullivan, you told me to say no.”

“I’ve changed my mind,” Aunt Florence said.

Was she speaking of the laudanum, or something else?

Aunt Florence sagged back upon the chaise and stared at the drape-concealed window as if fascinated. “You must go, May.” Only a whisper now, barely discernable. “Take whatever you want. Go back to New York.”

“I can’t. This is my home now. I don’t want to go back.”

Her expression stole my words. I’d never seen a face so hard, so chillingly stark, such bleak and empty eyes. Then she reached out to Shin, fingers outstretched, a demand that could not be denied.

Shin gave her the laudanum, and my aunt turned her head away from me as if I had ceased to exist. I was dismissed.

I went slowly to the door, confused and unsettled and apprehensive about nothing I could define. What memories existed of my mother were lodged so deeply in my aunt’s mind that I was afraid I would never discover them. And how could I be so selfish as to keep trying? To see her this way, so much like Mama and yet not at all like her, was unbearable. Yet Shin had not stopped me from asking what had happened between my mother and my aunt. She had even helped me. It was then that I understood her silence about my snooping had been deliberate. She was my ally, but in what, exactly, I had no idea.

The next morning at breakfast, Uncle Jonny could barely contain himself. “Champagne, please, Arthur.”

The footman did not even blink at the early morning request.

Goldie asked, “Are we celebrating?”

“Oh, we are indeed.”

I looked up from my coddled eggs and ham. “What are we celebrating?”

“The day you came to us,” Uncle Jonny said, smiling so broadly I could not help smiling in return. “Thanks to you, my dear May, Mr. Farge is at work on the Nance building.”

“That’s wonderful.” Goldie spoke without her usual enthusiasm. She had awakened irritated. I had decided against asking her why she hadn’t told me about the Bulletin picture. She was in a mood and I didn’t want to be a Mabel and I knew already that Goldie considered any mention in the society pages to be a good thing.

Uncle Jonny didn’t seem to notice her displeasure. The champagne came; Uncle Jonny toasted, “To you, May, and to the very bright future of Sullivan Building.”