The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters (64 page)

Miss Vandaariff snapped at Miss Temple hungrily. “Let me see it! Do you have it with you? You must—there must be many, many of them—let me see this one again—
I want to see them all
!”

Miss Temple was forced to step away from Miss Vandaariff’s grasping hands.

“Do you not
care
?” she asked. “
That
woman—
there
!—with your
intended
—”

“Why should I care? He is nothing to me!” Miss Vandaariff replied, flapping her hand toward the end of the table. “
She
is nothing to me! But the
sensation
—the submersion into such
experience
—”

The woman was drunk. She was troubled, damaged, spoiled, and now yanking at Miss Temple’s arm like a street urchin, trying to get at her bag.

“Control yourself!” she hissed, taking three rapid steps away, raising the pistol—though here she made the realization (and in the back of her mind knew that this was exactly the kind of thing that made a man like Chang a professional, that there
were
things to learn and remember about, for example, threatening people with guns) that whenever one used a gun as a goad to enforce the actions of others, one had best be prepared to use it. If one was not—as, in this moment, Miss Temple recognized she was not prepared to do against Miss Vandaariff—one’s power vanished like the flame of a blown-out candle. Miss Vandaariff was too distracted to take in anything save her strangely insistent hunger. Mrs. Marchmoor, however, had seen it all. Miss Temple wheeled, her pistol quite thrust at the woman’s smiling face.

“Do not move!”

Mrs. Marchmoor chuckled again. “Will you shoot me? Here in a crowded hotel? You will be taken by the law. You will go to prison and be hanged—we will make sure of it.”

“Perhaps—though you shall die before me.”

“Poor Miss Temple—for all your boldness, still you comprehend nothing.”

Miss Temple scoffed audibly. She had no idea why Mrs. Marchmoor would feel empowered to say such a thing, and thus took refuge in defiant contempt.

“What are you talking about?” whined Lydia. “Where are more of these
things
?”

“Look at that one again,” said Mrs. Marchmoor soothingly. “If you practice you can make the card go more slowly, until it is possible to suspend yourself within a single moment as long as you like. Imagine
that,
Lydia—imagine what moments you can drink in again and again and again.”

Mrs. Marchmoor raised her eyebrows at Miss Temple and cocked her head, as if to urge her to give up the card—the implication being that once the heiress was distracted the two of them—the adults in the room—could converse in peace.

Against all her better instincts, perhaps only curious to see if what Mrs. Marchmoor had just said might be true, Miss Temple reached into her bag and withdrew the card, feeling as her fingers touched its slick cool surface the urge to look into it herself. Before she could fully resolve not to, Miss Vandaariff snatched it from her grasp and scuttled away to her seat, eyes fixed on the blue rectangle cupped reverently in her hands. Within moments Lydia’s tongue was flicking across her lower lip…her mind riveted elsewhere.

“What has it done to her?” Miss Temple asked with dismay.

“She will barely hear us, and we can speak clearly,” answered Mrs. Marchmoor.

“She seems not to care about her fiancé.”

“Why should she?”

“Do
you
care for him?” she demanded, referring to the explicit interaction held fast within glass. Mrs. Marchmoor laughed and nodded at the blue card.

“So
you
are held within that card…and on another
I
am…
encaptured
with the Prince?”

“Indeed you are—if you think to deny it—”

“Why should I? I can well imagine the situation, though I confess I don’t remember it—it is the price one pays for immortalizing one’s experience.”

“You do not
remember
?” Miss Temple was astonished at the lady’s decadent disregard. “You do not remember—
that
—with the Prince—before
spectators
—”

Mrs. Marchmoor laughed again. “O Miss Temple, it is obvious you would benefit from the clarity of the Process. Such foolish questions should nevermore pass your lips. When you spoke to the Comte, did he ask that you join us?”

“He did not!”

“I am surprised.”

“He in fact threatened me—that I should submit to you, being so defeated—”

Mrs. Marchmoor shook her head with impatience. “But that is the same. Listen, you may wave your pistol but you will not stop me—for I am no longer of such a foolish mind to be so occupied with
grievance
—from asking again that you recognize the inevitable and join our work for the future. It is a better life, of freedom and action and satisfied desire. You
will
submit, Miss Temple—I can promise you it is the case.”

Miss Temple had nothing to say. She gestured with the revolver. “Get up.”

If Mrs. Marchmoor had convinced her of one thing, it was that the private room was too exposed. It had served her purpose to pursue her inquiries but was truly no place to linger—unless she was willing to risk the law. With the revolver and the card both in her bag, she drove the women before her—Mrs. Marchmoor cooperating with a tolerant smile, Miss Vandaariff, still masked, making furtive glances that revealed her flushed face and glassy eyes—up the great staircase and along to the Contessa Lacquer-Sforza’s rooms. Mrs. Marchmoor had answered the inquiring look of the desk clerk with a saucy wave and without any further scrutiny they passed into the luxurious interior of the St. Royale.

The rooms were on the third floor, which they reached by a second only slightly less grand staircase, the rods and banisters all polished brass, that continued the curve of the main stair up from the lobby. Miss Temple realized that the winding staircases echoed the red and gold carved ribbons around the hotel’s supporting pillars, and found herself gratified by the depth of thought put into the building—that one
could
expend such effort, and that she had been clever enough to note it. Miss Vandaariff glanced back at her again, now with a more anxious expression—almost as if some idea had occurred to her as well.

“Yes?” asked Miss Temple.

“It is nothing.”

Mrs. Marchmoor turned to her as they walked. “Say what you are thinking, Lydia.”

Miss Temple marveled at the woman’s control over the heiress. If Mrs. Marchmoor still bore the scars of the Process, she could only have been an intimate of the Cabal for a short time, before which she was in the brothel. But Lydia Vandaariff deferred to her as to a long-time governess. Miss Temple found it entirely unnatural.

“I am merely worried about the Comte. I do not want him to come.”

“But he may come, Lydia,” replied Mrs. Marchmoor. “You do well know it.”

“I do not like him.”

“Do you like me?”

“No. No, I don’t,” she muttered peevishly.

“Of course not. And yet we are able to get along perfectly well.” Mrs. Marchmoor threw a smug smile back to Miss Temple, and indicated a branching hallway. “It is this way.”

The Contessa was not in the suite. Mrs. Marchmoor had opened it with her key, and ushered them inside. Miss Temple had removed her revolver in the hallway, once they were off the staircase and out of view, and she followed them carefully, her eyes darting about in fear of possible ambush. She stepped on a shoe in the foyer and stumbled. A shoe? Where were the maids? It was a very good question, for the Contessa’s rooms were a ruin. No matter where Miss Temple cast her gaze it fell across uncollected plates and glasses, bottles and ashtrays, and ladies’ garments of all kinds, from dresses and shoes to the most intimate of items, petticoats, stockings, and corsets—draped over a divan in the main receiving room!

“Sit down,” Mrs. Marchmoor told the others, and they did, next to each other on the divan. Miss Temple looked around her and listened. She heard no sound from any other room, though the gaslight lamps were lit and glowing.

“The Contessa is not here,” Mrs. Marchmoor informed her.

“Has the place been pillaged in her absence?” Miss Temple meant it as a serious question, but Mrs. Marchmoor only laughed.

“The Lady is not one for particular order, it is true!”

“Does she not have servants?”

“She prefers that they occupy themselves with other tasks.”

“But what of the smell? The smoke—the drink—the plates—does she desire
rats
?”

Mrs. Marchmoor shrugged, smiling. Miss Temple scuffed at a corset on the carpet near her foot.

“I’m afraid
that
is mine,” whispered Mrs. Marchmoor, with a chuckle.

“Why would you remove your corset in the front parlor of a noble lady?” Miss Temple asked, little short of appalled, but already wondering at the answer, the possibilities disorientingly lurid. She looked away from Mrs. Marchmoor to compose her face and saw herself in the large mirror above her on the wall, a determined figure in green, her chestnut curls, pulled to the back and each side of her head, a darker shade in the warm gaslight, and all around her the tattered litter of decadent riot. But behind her head in the reflection, a flash of vivid blue caught her eye and she turned to see a framed canvas that could only be the work of Oskar Veilandt.

“Another
Annunciation
…” she whispered aloud.

“It is,” whispered Mrs. Marchmoor in reply, her voice hesitant and cautious behind her. Hearing it, Miss Temple had the feeling of being watched carefully, like a bird stalked by a slow-moving cat. “You’ve seen it elsewhere?”

“I have.”

“Which fragment? What did it portray?”

She did not want to answer, to acknowledge the woman’s interrogation, but the power of the image drove her to speak. “Her head…”

“Of course—at Mr. Shanck’s exhibition. The head is beautiful…such a heavenly expression of peace and pleasure lives in her face—would you not say? And here…see how the fingers hold into her hips…you see, in the artist’s interpretation, how she has been
mounted
by the Angel…”

Behind them, Miss Vandaariff whimpered. Miss Temple wanted to turn to her but could not shift her gaze from the near-seething image. Instead, she walked slowly to it…the brushstrokes immaculate and smooth, as if the surface more porcelain than pigment and canvas. The flesh was exquisitely rendered, though the fragment itself—so out of context of the whole, with neither face seen, just their hips and the two blue hands—struck her as at once compelling and somehow dreadful to imagine. She wrenched her eyes away. Both women watched her. Miss Temple forced her voice to a normal tone, away from the sinister intimacy of the painting.

“It is an allegory,” she announced. “It tells the story of your intrigue. The Angel stands for your work with the blue glass, the lady for all those you would work upon. It is the Annunciation, for you believe that the birth—what your plans conceive—will—will—”

“Redeem us all,” finished Mrs. Marchmoor.

“I’ve never seen such blasphemy!” Miss Temple announced with confidence.

“You have not seen the
rest
of the painting,” said Miss Vandaariff.

“Hush, Lydia.”

Miss Vandaariff did not answer, but then suddenly placed both hands over her abdomen and groaned with what seemed to be sincere discomfort…then doubled over and groaned again, rocking back and forth, a rising note of fear in her moaning, as if this feeling were something she knew.

“Miss Vandaariff?” cried Miss Temple. “What is wrong?”

“She will be fine,” said Mrs. Marchmoor mildly, her hand reaching up to gently pat the stricken woman’s rocking back. “Did you perchance drink any of the port?” she asked Miss Temple.

“No.”

“I
did
note a second glass…”

“A taste to wet my lips, nothing more—”

“That was very prudent.”

“What was
in
it?” Miss Temple asked.

Miss Vandaariff groaned again, and Mrs. Marchmoor leaned forward to take her arm. “Come, Lydia, you must come with me—you will feel better—”

Miss Vandaariff groaned more pitifully still.

“Come, Lydia…”

“What is wrong with her?” asked Miss Temple.

“Nothing—she has merely consumed too much of the preparatory
philtre
. How many glasses did you see her drink?”

“Six?” answered Miss Temple.

“My goodness, Lydia! It is a good thing I am here to help you void the excess.” Mrs. Marchmoor helped Miss Vandaariff to her feet, smiling indulgently. She ushered the young blonde woman in an unsteady shuffle toward an open doorway and paused there to turn back to Miss Temple. “We will return in a moment, do not worry—it is merely to the suite’s convenience. It was known she would drink the port—so the preparatory
philtre
was added to it in secret. The mixture is necessary for her—but not to such excess.”

“Necessary for what?” asked Miss Temple, her voice rising. “Preparatory for
what
?”

Mrs. Marchmoor did not seem to have heard her and reached up to smooth Miss Vandaariff’s hair.

“It will do her good to marry, I daresay, and be past such independent revels. She has no head for them at all.”

Miss Vandaariff groaned again, perhaps in protest to this unfair assessment, and Miss Temple watched with annoyance and curiosity as the pair disappeared into the next room—as if she had no revolver and they were no sort of prisoner or hostage! She stood where she was, utterly affronted, listening to the clanging lid of a chamber pot and the determined rustling of petticoats, and then decided it was an excellent opportunity to investigate the other rooms without being watched. There were three doors off of the main parlor she was in—one to the chamber pot, which seemed a maid’s room, and two others. Through one open archway she could see a second parlor. In it was set a small card table bearing the half-eaten remains of an uncleared meal, and against the far wall a high sideboard quite crowded with bottles. As she stared in, trying to piece together some sense of the display—how many people had been at the table, how much had they been drinking—as she presumed a real investigating adventurer ought to do, Miss Temple worried she’d had at least one complete mouthful of the port—had it been enough to inflict the insidious purpose of their horrid
philtre
onto her body? What fate was Miss Vandaariff being prepared
for
? Marriage? But it could hardly be that—or not in any normal sense of the word. Miss Temple was reminded of livestock being readied for slaughter and felt a terrible chill.