by Jill Zeller
All this time he barely glanced at me. After they left, Armand brought us sherries even though they had not been ordered. Mr. Picou turned his chair to me and smiled.
“I toast your voyage, Miss Lynch. Here is to all seekers in the world.”
Putting the sherry to his lips, he waited for me to take my glass. His gaze laid me bare, I thought, skinned and alive and under the glare of the sun, only there wasn’t pain or terror, but exposure, challenge, and finally, something else.
I raised my glass. We sipped and set them down. Neither of us touched the sherry again.
The open porthole let in a breeze of silk with a hint of sea. Philip brushed my hair back from my blouse, slowly undoing the buttons running down my back. He smelled of peppery musk, reminding me of incense in churches. I wondered, but had not yet asked, about his star-skirted companion. And he volunteered nothing.
I knew about free love. With Arthur, I had embarked on my plan to try it. Now, with Philip, I was ready, so ready, when his hand slid around my side, under and around to find my breast. In summer I didn’t wear a corset, and if he was surprised not to find one, he said nothing. I leaned against him, raised my hand, found the back of his head as he kissed my bare shoulder.
As I turned and lay back on my bed, I watched his face. Lips parted, almost boyish. So different from Arthur, who didn’t like to explore and see, but wanted to plunge right in, so to speak. Having removed his jacket and ascot, Philip looked young, eager, like a boy. He leaned in to kiss me, and his lips were soft.
Warmth traveled through me, and grew there, down, below, where all pleasure was born.
And then Philip did a very odd thing.
Sliding back, and down, his tongue touched my breast and my belly and then he slipped off my pantaloons and found a place there, between my legs and buried in fur, that shot pleasure up my spine and through my belly. All this with just his tongue.
I wanted to cry out, but held back, biting the side of my hand instead. One of Philip’s hands slid up to clamp onto my breast, the other slipped under my buttocks. Intense, sweetly tortuous sensations claimed my body. It was not my own but a writhing, excited thing.
Then the explosion of heat and joy—so quick, so much more quickly than with the thrusting Arthur. Tears burned behind my eyes. My hips lifted off the bed and as the spasms faded, Philip moved, slipped inside me and a delighted shock went through me as he worked, hands pinning my wrists to the bed. Then his pleasure reddened his face and came through his beautiful lips with a soft moan.
We lay close. I ran my hand through his hair, fingered his cheek and chin. His eyes were closed. Pain rose inside me, deep. What had I loved about Arthur? This, only this? Physical love? Or that he loved to hold me, afterward, even if it was only for five minutes before he had to leave, dress, preen, get ready for another meeting with the press.
Philip was very quiet, unmoving. I couldn’t read his face, exactly; he seemed to smile, but a crease appeared between his eyebrows.
I will not fall in love with you, I commanded myself. This, what is this? A passing dalliance, a fling? Or a seeking? A quest for something unnamed.
Below us, the ship’s four expansion engines growled like the leopards of her name. As I drifted to sleep, a warning bell sounded in my heart as I thought about the woman Philip was hugging, keeping closely protected last night.
He stayed with me for a good hour before stirring and getting up, climbing over me. I woke, of course, and waited, and a thought came to me, selfish, one I regretted later.
“Why don’t you stay?” I sat up, pulled the blanket over me. “This cot is too narrow, I suppose.”
It was very dark. I snapped on the little electric light over the bunk. Buttoning his shirt, he looked at me and smiled.
“Ondine, you will sleep better alone.”
When had I told him my nickname that only my family knew?
He sat beside me, laid his hand along my cheek. “I am one of the dark and the night. Performers, you see. Our lives are upside down. Like Count Dracula’s kind, we sleep during the day.”
We. Why wouldn’t he tell me about his wife, or whoever she was, alone in her cabin, waiting for him?
“I couldn’t possibly sleep now. Not after this.” I smiled at him. “You’ve turned my night into day, as well.”
I picked up my sketch book from where it lay on the floor beside the cot. “May I draw you?”
He had not, so far in our brief meeting, asked to see my work, even though I had told him more about myself than was proper.
Rising, Philip shook his head. I thought I saw a look pass over his face, of shock, or distaste, as his eyebrows came down, his lips jutted out.
“No, please. I must go.” As if he knew how abrupt he sounded, Philip leaned down, kissed me. Tried to smile. “Also, like the vampires, I hate to see myself. I don’t even look at my playbills.”
Sighing, I leaned back to watch him arrange his ascot, smooth back his hair, all without looking in the tiny oval mirror tacked to the wall.
I will not fall in love with you. But I knew my warning to myself would fall on deaf ears.
Despite everything, I did fall back to sleep and woke to the rocking ship and a spattering of rain through the porthole. Getting up, pulling my robe over me, I looked out to a gray sea rippled with whitecaps and steady rain. The air remained warm and thick with damp
Hugging myself, I remembered everything; the smell and taste of Philip Picou lingered on my tongue and body. A spasm of guilt followed, of betrayal of myself and the mysterious woman with the night-sky skirt.
I knew I was different from most women I knew, except for one whose being I shared and mimicked—my mother. Girls at school and the art academy were very protective of their virginity. But I knew from a young age that one man and marriage was a prison. And I saw it daily in my mother, how she suffered, and how she coped.
If my father knew about my mother’s affairs, he said nothing and did nothing. The papers were filled with tragedies illustrating the double standard. Women cast out, penniless, destroyed, separated from their children for straying just once, while their husbands enjoyed and employed mistresses and fancy prostitutes. My family seemed on the surface to be ordinary middle class New York, but inside the walls of our Brooklyn home things were very, very different.
After washing and dressing in my summer blouse and skirt and straw skimmer, accessorizing with different-colored scarves and ribbons, I emerged for coffee. The decks were slick and wet; the ship rolled from side to side. Happily I did not feel seasick, as long as I stayed outside with the wind in my face. Below decks, I sensed many were suffering.
“A summer rain,” Armand had said with his lovely accent as he poured. We were virtually alone. Very few occupied the saloon this rainy morning.
“We’ll sail out of it by noon.” Creases appeared around Armand’s mouth as he smiled.
And he was right. Leopardo emerged from the squall like a singer walking through the curtain.
Again, I did not see Philip Picou all day, but I did find Mrs. Farragut on the promenade deck watching a trio of young people—a young man and two girls—playing a game of carrom. It looked like fun, and when they invited me I joined them for a while, although I was not very good at aiming the ball and didn’t hit any of the pockets at all, and I thought they were glad when I excused myself and joined Mrs. Farragut.
“Peter is asleep,” Mrs. Farragut explained. In the light under the brim of her straw hat, her skin was luminous, and I could see that in her day she had been quite handsome. “This rolling sea didn’t agree with him last night.”
She gave me a pointed glance. “And how was your night? Did the storm disturb you much?”
Was it obvious? Did she know? I could always tell when my mother had started a new affair; her laugh, interest, way of walking all changed into lightness; it infected every one of us when Mama was happy again.
I told her I had slept wonderfully. “Mr. Picou kept me entertained unti
l quite late. I was utterly exhausted.”
“He is a very interesting young man. All those silly tricks. He should perform for the passengers.” Lifting her chin, Mrs. Farragut watched a gull catch the wind over the bridge. “But what intrigues me more is this fortune teller I heard about. Mr. Farragut doesn’t approve, but I would love to have my cards read.”
She sighed. “I suppose that is my one weakness.” She lowered her voice, almost in reverence. “I am a great follower of the Golden Dawn. You’ve heard of them, I suppose?”
I had. Several of Mama’s friends purported to know someone who practiced high magic. “Yeats is one of my favorite poets.”
“Ah, yes.
“Had I the heaven’s embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light . . .”
She stopped reciting, and I was glad of it, because just hearing the first lines of this poem brought a deep pain inside my chest.
Mrs. Farragut sighed and shook her head, and I wondered what secrets she held close to her breast, as did we all.
And as if to dare us to prove our resolve, there on the promenade stepped the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. A filmy green scarf wound around her hair and her face was a visage of Aphrodite, I thought, as Yeats himself might imagine her. Strong nose, full lips, contoured as if sculpted. Tall, she wore a flowing ivory gown with vertical stripes of embellished ribbon which sparkled in the sunlight.
A spear of recognition went through me. This is she, the woman Mr. Picou embraced that night on the dark sea.
His wife? Mistress? Who?
Mrs. Farragut leaned close. “I think this is the fortune teller. Must be. One of the passengers described her as she rarely comes out of her cabin.”
Ignoring us, ignoring everyone, the fortune teller walked toward the bow and stood at the rail. The wind took down her veil, and her hair, blacker even than mine—and mine was black enough—glistened under the sun. I saw that she must have inserted tiny gems in her hair, because the light crowned her in a net of stars.
A wave of dizziness hit me that I tried to blink away. Waves stabbed the sun into my eyes. Perhaps I had sat out here too long. Perhaps I needed another sip of the cordial. Perhaps someone was bewitching me. Hadn’t Mrs. Farragut just spoken of high magic?
The woman turned and gazed directly at us. Getting up, Mrs. Farragut held her hat against the breeze and approached her. I couldn’t hear what was said, but I knew what it was. The fortune teller glanced at me over Mrs. Farragut’s shoulder, nodded and turned back to the sea.
Mrs. Farragut, white skirt flying and hat trying to leave her head despite the pins, returned to me, face bright and red with excitement.
“She won’t tell our fortunes. She dislikes to do that. But she will do us even one better. We are to come to her tonight after supper.” Laughing, she said, “You must help me deceive Mr. Farragut. I’ll tell him I insisted on seeing some of your sketches. Art doesn’t interest him.”
I was chilled in the warm sun, the moist air. “I’m not sure—what is this all about?”
Inhaling deeply, Mrs. Farragut linked her fingers, her wedding ring capturing a glint of sun. “Oh, you must. You must. Please. Just come with me. You can just be there, you don’t have to do anything. Others are coming, she says.”
“But why, for what?”
Mrs. Farragut lowered her voice, her lips tight with delighted apprehension.
“A séance.”
The last thing in the world I wanted to do was to meet Mr. Picou’s wife, if that was who this fortune teller was, and sit in a room with her and several other strangers begging the dead to speak. I wished sorely I hadn’t seen Mr. Picou and this lady that night, spied on them, really, in a private moment. There has to be a gracious way out, I thought, as I nodded and tried to smile.
Mrs. Farragut sat beside me, watched me. “I know it is strange, even frightening. An indulgence, too.” Inhaling, she sighed sharply. “I have my reasons for wanting this. And I know I am bullying you. My husband tells me I could talk the moon out of its place in the sky.”
I had to laugh myself, and thought, I’ll get out of it somehow, pretend to feel ill, or something. I would hate to disappoint her, but I didn’t think I could bear the scrutiny of this enchantress, whose man I had just slept with in especially haunting passion.
“She calls herself Sephira,” Mrs. Farragut was saying.
“Does she have a last name?” I tried to keep my voice light, conversational.
“She didn’t share that with me. These mystics are funny that way. They believe there is power in a name.” A frown rolled across her face with a darkness that shocked me.
There is power in a name, I thought. The power to shock and strike. Abraham Lincoln, for example, conveys awe. Arthur Black means grief and anger. And Philip Picou?
A séance. Silas would have scoffed. I could see his face now, round with his giant handlebar mustache, gazing at me with one eyebrow raised in mockery. Silas McTavish made his editorial opinions known regarding the Theosophists, the Golden Dawn, and Sir Arthur Canon Doyle and Harry Houdini’s preoccupation with the afterlife and magic, and they were not favorable. I had to say that I agreed with Silas, but I liked Mrs. Farragut, and disliked to disappoint her.
I rose, needing to move, not away from Mrs. Farragut, but just to move, to walk. There was a way to stroll around the entire length of the ship, and I decided to take it. As I was about to ask Mrs. Farragut to join me, half-hoping she would refuse, Philip Picou appeared on the promenade gangway, coming up, two steps at a time.
Quickly looking away, I caught Mrs. Farragut’s eyes as she followed Philip’s trajectory across the deck directly to Sephira. I turned slowly to watch, feeling I was under a spotlight with an audience of thousands watching my every move, the actress who must play her part and show nothing of who she really is beneath the act.
The sun, westering now, sending more bright rays from the water’s surface, dazzled my eyes. At the same time the ship’s horn sounded two loud, friendly moans; as if announcing Philip’s arrival.
Halfway across the deck Philip saw me and Mrs. Farragut, gave us a nod, and stopped next to Sephira, who stared out across the ocean, both hands on the rail. His back to us, he shielded Sephira from our view, and we couldn’t hear their voices. She did not appear to have moved, but his arm slipped under hers, and a twinge of guilt shot through me.
You are a fool and a flirt and deserve to be drowned, I told myself. Someday, there would be a price to pay, but I felt I paid it every day, little by little. And what would be left after it was all gone?
“Ah,” Mrs. Farragut murmured to me, “he knows her. I wondered. Perhaps they perform together?”
If there was more to Mrs. Farragut’s remark, and the meaning of the look she gave me, a half smile showing she was too cultured to speculate openly about any other potential relationship, I didn’t want to know.
And there was no time to ask, because Philip and Sephira left the rail, Philip guiding Sephira as she pulled the green filmy scarf over her hair and made directly for Mrs. Farragut and me.
My heart ticked up several notches. Inhaling, I smiled, and tried to look expectant, mimicking Mrs. Farragut, who waited beside me.
He came close, tall, blazingly handsome, and bowed deeply. “Mrs. Farragut. Miss Lynch. How wonderful to find you here. May I present my sister, Sephira Picou, also known as Star Picou, Abecedarina of the Eastern Arts.”
Relief flooded me, ending somewhere in my knees. I stayed on my feet in spite of this, and took Miss Picou’s hand. She wore no gloves, and neither did I, and I felt an electric shock; odd, in this moist wild place, to feel the stabbing shock of static.
Her eyes too were green, the pale green of a remote pond in the sun. She gave me a quick appraising look, as women do, comparing and judging. While I knew myself to be attractive, next to Sephira Picou I felt
like one of Cinderella’s ugly sisters.
Just like her brother. They are alike enough to be twins.
But dismay filled me as I heard Mrs. Farragut tell Philip Picou that his sister had invited us to participate in one of her famous séances.
Famous séance? I knew for a fact Mrs. Farragut had never heard of Star Picou before this very moment. And I didn’t, for some reason, want Philip to know I had already agreed to pay a visit to the woman I now knew to be his sister.
And did his eyes widen, ever so slightly, at this announcement? A moment later he grinned, took his sister’s hand and squeezed it.
“How marvelous this is. Sephira hasn’t felt well since we left New York. And now she is ready to perform for the passengers. Marvelous!”
But was it? Was his voice too bright and happy? Was I imagining it because there was a footnote to everything we said, a hidden footnote that only Philip and I knew existed?
Or did Sephira know about me? I had a feeling she didn’t. And I had the feeling that if she found out, she wouldn’t like it.
There was another cable from Arthur when I got back to my cabin. I didn’t read it. And under my door, an hour later, was slipped a hand-written note.
From Philip. He wanted to see me this afternoon. I unlatched my cabin door.
The heat grew. A heavy moist breeze sent fragrances of rot and musk into my room, across my skin as I lay there in my undergarments, trying to cool myself. I had not taken any cordial, wanting, needing, to stay sharp and un-numb.
There was something unnerving about Sephira Picou. Perhaps it was her demeanor, aloof and judging. Were all practicing mystics specialists in this, as a way to unsettle their customers? Or was it only me she unsettled?
When the quick knock came I asked him to enter. I thought it might be a risk to assume it was Philip knocking, and I was right.