Dearly, Departed

by Lia Habel

  God had intervened.

  “I … what?” she stammered.

  Thinking that she was speaking to him, the constable did the filling in for me. I trained my eyes on Matilda’s, begging wordlessly for assistance as he explained what had happened. And, to make sure she got the point, I tugged on the bustle of her pretty dress. I had no idea why she was wearing it, but I had a feeling that it might just be my salvation.

  Matilda was a star.

  “Thank you so much for ensuring the safe return of our darling little girl.”

  The copper was skeptical. “You are the mistress of this household, then?”

  Matilda peered at the man, all the while very carefully keeping her hands out of range of his scanner. “Of course. Are you implying something, sir?”

  The constable coughed. “Not at all. It’s simply odd for a lady to answer her own door around here.”

  Matilda bristled. “Honestly!” She pulled me against her side, a bit too tightly. “I’ve been waiting for my niece to return from school for hours now. She’s been gone since September. What kind of guardian would I be if I didn’t fly to the door, wings on my feet, when I thought that she had finally alighted upon her own stoop?” She said this in the tone of voice she normally used when I was caught stealing freshly baked goodies. At that moment I considered it a priceless gift.

  “Ah, of course, my lady. I should have realized.”

  “And now I learn that she faced mortal peril whilst making her way home!” To my amazement and quiet glee, Matilda squeezed out a real tear. “This never would have happened when I was a child! Society is crumbling around us!”

  After the constable had swallowed his embarrassment and jotted down my information in his digital notebook, and the door was shut, Matilda and I whirled on one another and spit out, “What the devil?” in perfect sync.

  Matilda caved first. “All right! I’m sneaking out tonight to attend a masquerade. I was just waiting for you to show up before I left. I knew it’d be you when I opened the door—I didn’t know you’d be bringing the cops!”

  “Why should you have to sneak out? You can do what you like in your free time.”

  “Well, the fact that your aunt is going to the same ball rather complicates matters.” Matilda held her head high, but I could see that she understood perfectly well that Aunt Gene would never consent to hobnobbing with the help.

  My heart began to smolder with anger at mention of the party. I ignored it. For now. “Aren’t you worried that Aunt Gene will see you there?”

  “Masquerade. Masks.”

  “Ahh.”

  “And you?”

  “Some weirdo on the street said that he knew my father, and tried to get me to go with him.”

  There was a moment of silent appraisal, her eyes on mine, before negotiations began.

  “I won’t tell my aunt if you don’t.”

  “Deal.”

  Well, that was easy.

  The doorbell rang, making us both jump a mile. It was Alencar with my trunk. He took one look at Matilda and immediately said, “I see nothing.”

  “Good man. Nora, you’d better go visit your aunt before she has to leave. I need to get back into hiding.”

  “Why do you hate me?” I asked.

  She pointed up the stairs. “Do it.”

  I slapped my gloves into her hand as a final retort, and made my way toward the stairs. She was right. But every step up the winding staircase brought me closer to accepting that I was very tired, I was very nervous, and I’d been practically kidnapped—or so I now told myself—by a strange, unstable man but a few yards from my front door.

  By the time I reached the threshold of my aunt’s suite and knocked, fighting was really the last thing I wanted to do.

  “Enter.”

  I did so, with a curtsy and a stiff “Good evening, Aunt Gene.”

  The former Mrs. Genevive Ortega was seated at her vanity, putting the finishing touches on. Her icy blue gown spilled out across the floor behind her, and her silvering hair was done up in an elaborate poof. She was an attractive woman, but with a hardness about her mouth and eyes that her brother had not had. Like my father, she spoke with the round, prim accent of the far North.

  “Ahh, Nora. How was your trip?”

  “Long.”

  “I am sorry to hear it.” She turned to look at me after applying one last swipe of rouge. “You have not yet changed?”

  “We only just arrived.”

  “Well, rectify that immediately. You haven’t even taken off your coat? Has Matilda lost her mind?”

  Rather than argue, I took it off and folded it over my arm. I could feel Aunt Gene’s eyes roving over me. “Where on earth did you get that dress?” she asked.

  I shrugged. “It was in my closet at school.”

  She took a cleansing breath and informed me, slowly—as one might inform someone of limited intelligence—“That’s an autumnal dress, my dear. And it’s obviously several seasons ago that it was made for you.”

  I forced myself to smile and tried to make it as nasty-looking as one of Vespertine’s. “Funny how that works, when you’ve been in mourning.”

  Aunt Gene rose from her vanity and came near. Without her sitting there, the drawers of the vanity automatically shut and the electric candles that had provided her with light to work by retracted back toward the wall. “On that note, I think it would be a nice gesture if you packed up your mourning weeds and gave them to your little friend, Miss Roe. Someone of her station can make more use of black … it does wear so well.”

  So much for not fighting.

  “Now, I am going to attend Bertha Cotney’s ball tonight, as I told you in my last letter. I’m sure I shall be in quite late. Matilda will be here to help you, of course.”

  “Of course.” I breathed once, and then asked, “And you feel you must attend this party, for some reason?”

  Aunt Gene eyed me. She, too, understood exactly where we were headed. “We are no longer in mourning, niece, as you just pointed out.”

  “By hours, Aunt. One could be forgiven for thinking that you counted the minutes.”

  Aunt Gene’s mouth set into a line. “I shall not be spoken to so by a child. Your father would be ashamed.”

  The anger kindling in my chest burst into a roaring fire, even as I did my best to keep my composure. “Look, Aunt Gene. When I got your letter yesterday, I fully intended on coming home and making a scene in defense of his memory. But I’m tired, and I’m not in the best of moods, and, at the end of the day, you are my elder … and therefore I’m willing to shove my cards back up my sleeve and let you act just as shamefully. Is that what you want?”

  She slapped me.

  I glared at her and cut to the chase. “He’s only been dead a year.”

  “And that is a year of wasted time,” Aunt Gene spat.

  “You complete—”

  “Silence, you little hussy. You have no conception—no understanding.” Her fingers curled into fists, and her voice was low and dangerous. “Your uncle left me a year before your father died. I have been out of society for more than two, because of this. Two years. Good marriages have been made in that time, marriages that might have included me.”

  “Is that really all you can think about?” I asked, my fingers coming to rest against my cheek.

  “It is all that we should think about, Nora!” Aunt Gene said heatedly. “It is through marriage that we can both improve our positions. I want to get out of this hole in the ground. I want to take my place within the best set again. Why do you not understand this?”

  “Because we’re perfectly comfortable down here!”

  “Life is not about comfort, life is about striving!” she bellowed. “You had best internalize this virtue now, before you find yourself in the gutter.”

  I laughed at her exaggeration. “We’re far from living in the gutter.”

  Aunt Gene looked daggers at me. “Are we so far? Do you even know what has been sacr
ificed for you? Your father—by his own doing, I might add—was not a terribly rich man. It has been your former uncle’s mercy payments that have kept us afloat. Your father bequeathed us only his good name and social status—his pension isn’t even worth mentioning. We are drowning in debt, Nora.” And, as if she didn’t think I would believe this without proof, she walked over to her golden rolltop desk and began to pull out bundles of actual paper envelopes. “Here, look!”

  I didn’t want to, but I couldn’t help myself. My cheek still stinging, I stepped closer to my aunt and looked at the papers in her hands. They were from creditors.

  What had she done?

  “The house is mortgaged,” she said, voice vibrating with anger as she flipped through the letters. “We have accounts at every shop you can imagine. It will not go on forever. There will be enough for your schooling and your debut, and then …”

  I stopped listening at this point. My entire body felt cold. I knew exactly what she was suggesting.

  I was to debut, immediately find a rich man—no matter temperament, personality, or level of hygiene—and marry him.

  “I won’t,” I croaked.

  Aunt Gene lifted her head and gestured to her dress. “If you won’t, then I will. But only to save myself. It is time for you to grow up, time for you to consider your family’s future. I cannot be responsible for you forever.”

  I could feel my face growing red. “Wait a minute. You got us into this!” My mouth seemed reluctant to move, slow to give voice to the furious thoughts crowding my brain. “Did you think you could get away with this? Continue to live as you had been? You’ll get us out of this or I’ll bury you myself!”

  My aunt’s eyes went very dark. “Are you threatening me, niece?”

  Oh, how I longed to threaten her. I longed to beat her into a bloody pulp. But I held my tongue, with what could only be called a supernaturally provided patience, though my hands were shaking.

  Satisfied with my silence, Aunt Gene swished away, picking up her faux fur stole and mask. “I suggest you spend some time this evening thinking well and hard about this situation, and what part you must play in its solution.” She pulled the cord for the bell that would tell Alencar she was ready. “Now, good night, Nora.”

  I said nothing. I didn’t trust myself.

  “Good night, Nora.”

  “Good night,” I muttered hatefully.

  She lifted her chin and left.

  My brain began to buzz again. I didn’t want to think about it anymore. I didn’t want to think about anything. Instead, to distract myself, I dug out all the letters of debt and took them to my room, where I hid them inside the little artist’s desk in my dollhouse. I wrote Pam a quick note telling her that I had gotten in all right, and sent it to her phone. I took a bath, and changed into a long, billowy white nightgown trimmed with frothy lace.

  I didn’t feel like sleeping, though.

  I made my way slowly through the quiet house, figuring I’d get something to eat in the kitchen. The help normally left around seven at night, and Matilda wasn’t about, of course, so I was well and truly alone. Only a few gas lamps had been left on. The house seemed just barely alive, one shade out of perfect darkness.

  I loved this house. I loved the gilded, tooled leather mounted with black wainscoting along the back hallways; I loved the ethereal pastel hues of the rooms my mother had frequented, with sunburst-shaped flat screens filled with stars near the painted ceilings; I loved the murals of mythological figures mounted on the walls. Beneath its vaulted ceilings, my mother had lectured, reproved, and loved me; my father had indulged and inspired me.

  I decided that I couldn’t let my aunt’s folly and selfishness take it away.

  I would burn the place down before I’d let anyone take it from me.

  The kitchen had several windows that faced the street. I opened one of them and pulled up a chair. A loaf of bread and a hunk of sausage provided me with a few sandwiches, and it was over these and a cup of tea that I brooded.

  The street outside provided little entertainment. Occasionally an electric carriage would purr by, and once I saw two figures walking arm in arm. One was a man, the other a woman, her silhouette cut off by the parasol she carried above her head. Parasols with miniature electric gas lamps atop them were all the rage. Hers had a pink light in it, which meant she belonged to a family that allowed its children to follow the quaint old practice of dating. White indicated that a girl’s family would arrange a courtship for her, and blue identified a married woman. Green stood for a woman who wasn’t keen on men at all, but whose head could be turned by the sight of a pretty skirt.

  I imagined walking with a young man in the dark, and bit into my sandwich viciously. All of the boys I knew were fast turning into unimpressive adults. They had let me play soldier with them when I was a girl, but now expected that I would smile and nod brainlessly at whatever they said. Amazing, how quickly they had fallen in step with society’s rules.

  I cleaned up the kitchen myself and resumed strolling the first floor of the house. Behind the wide, lavish front parlor was the room my father had died in. I hadn’t been in it since his passing. The door wasn’t locked. I let myself in.

  Spirits appeared to have taken up residence in the room, all of his furniture and objets d’art shrouded in white sheets. I walked over to the bed and pulled the sheets off. It was on this bed, with its carved wooden posts, that my father had last enfolded me in his arms. I laid down upon it, wishing, desperately, to feel the buttons of his nightclothes against my cheek rather than the smooth surface of the naked mattress.

  The thoughts I’d tried to bury started popping up again. I tried not to think of Aunt Gene at the ball, glittering and flirting. She was good enough at it that, in her youth, she had ensnared Mr. Ortega, an investment banker. She learned how to play the game early on, a smiling elitist that my mother had grumbled about whenever she was unhappy with her own social situation—only to lose that position due to her inability to have children. Lack of an heir was one of the few reasons that a divorce might be granted by the courts. It had been a cruel blow to Aunt Gene.

  When my father died, she’d had no choice but to become my guardian. She needed what little money there was to be had from it.

  Indulging myself, lost in my own misery, it was a moment before I realized that I’d heard a noise outside.

  I sat up. The room was dark and still, and couldn’t have done a better job of reminding me that I was alone in the house and that a creepy man had targeted me not a few hours before. The fear that anger had scalded away returned.

  Terribly conscious of my body’s every noise, I swung my bare legs over the side of the bed, my nightgown falling down over them as I stood. Moving as slowly and quietly as I could, I approached the curtained windows. There, I hushed, and listened.

  Nothing.

  I could have sworn I had heard something snapping. Quickly, before I could question myself, I opened the curtains.

  There was nothing outside but artificial moonlight.

  “Calm down, Nora,” I said to myself.

  I left the sheets that had covered my father’s bed puddled on the floor, shut the door behind me, and climbed the vast staircase. As I took the time to close and lock the windows in the upstairs hallway, I could hear the recorded shivering of the virtual leaves in the virtual trees outside. I comforted myself with the notion that I’d heard the same recording downstairs.

  Not until I was bundled up in bed did it strike me that the recording was also eerily reminiscent of the hooded man’s voice, dry and hushed.

  Pamela came over the very next morning, fresh and bright in a tidy new dress of lavender cotton sprinkled with violets. I was perched in my bedroom’s bay window with a book, and I saw the ribbons streaming from the base of her bonnet as she approached the front door. As I left my seat, the window’s sheer organza curtains automatically swung shut behind me.

  Matilda, once again innocent in her usual severe black
dress, let Pam in. She was going to go through the motions of taking her calling card and announcing her to me, but I got to the bottom of the stairs just in time.

  “Pamma! No uniform again today! You look normal!”

  “I know!” Pamela grinned, skipping away from the butler. “So do you!”

  The moment the words escaped her lips, I saw her features soften in regret. I shook my head and took her by the arm to escort her to the parlor. True, I was no longer in mourning—but I was wearing a dark silver dress with a squared neckline and heavily trimmed sleeves. It wasn’t like I was swaddled in candy floss colors.

  Aunt Gene watched us as we passed, seated at her writing desk in its alcove just beneath the main staircase. She had a tiny office there where she could keep an eye on both her e-mail account and the door. I had adopted a policy, since the night before, of studious ignorance. Oh, my aunt is sitting there? Oh, I have an aunt at all? I had no idea.

  “Have you talked to your aunt yet?” Pam asked as she collapsed gracefully onto a settee in the parlor and took off her hat. Without waiting for my answer, she reached out to touch the thick glass top of the tea table. Digital buttons designed to look like cameos swam into view within it. She tapped one with her finger, causing the sun-shaped screens to alight all along the ceiling. They had been reflecting the same dirigible-studded sky that the big screen did outside; now they showed the tail end of the usual morning children’s programming. Miss Jess Novio, renowned TV governess, was hosting the same show that I had watched religiously as a child, still distracting tots the nation over so their nannies could have a few more moments for their tea and mending.

  “This is how we make our curtsy! Down we go! Down we go!”

  “There’s no video to show you, let’s keep it at that,” I said. I’d already decided that I wouldn’t breathe a word of what had transpired the previous evening. So far my adventures were a secret, and I wanted to keep it that way.

  Pam was busy flicking through the channels. She rarely got to watch television at home, and it was her habit to turn ours on for the noise whenever she came to call. She stopped when the screen showed footage from the Territorial golf tournament currently taking place. “Dad’s addicted to this. It’s all he wanted to talk about last night.”