Mr. Brockburn’s name was not on the list.
The invitations all said the same thing:
MR. AND MRS. FREDERICK SEXTON
cordially request the honor of your presence
. . . . . . . . . . . . .
to celebrate
MRS. SEXTON’S BIRTHDAY.
. . . . . . . . . . . . .
At that time, they should also like to
introduce into society her sister,
MISS HELEN SMYTHE.
. . . . . . . . . . . . .
R.S.V.P.
I cannot imagine what people made of that invitation. As far as I knew, the only person on the list who knew of the existence of Mother’s sister, had met her, was Aunt Martha. Of course, Mrs. Carson had met her too, that day in the park, but she hadn’t known it at the time.
There had been much debate as to how the name was to appear on the invitation. It was the name Helen that was in question, and it was Aunt Helen who was bothered by it most.
“Never mind Smythe,” Aunt Helen said. “Helen, when taken side by side with Aliese, is too common-sounding by half.”
Aunt Helen thought perhaps she should become known as Helena, that it had more of a regal sound to it, but she was not sure if she could learn to answer to a name that wasn’t hers.
“What if someone speaks to me and I don’t reply because I don’t remember what I am now to be called?” she would say. “They would think me very rude. I am not sure I could ever get used to a new name.”
But still she wavered. Even after the invitations went out, she maintained that she could still change her mind up to the last minute, that guests could always be told that the name on the invitations was a misprint.
She vacillated right up to just a few minutes prior to the grand event. And what finally swung her one way over the other? It was the vicar, Mr. Thomason.
Aunt Helen had yet to attend church, but my parents had thought it would bring good luck to the proceedings to have Mr. Thomason arrive early to give a blessing. Mr. Thomason, an unmarried man of advancing years, had been warned in advance of the startling resemblance between Mother and Aunt Helen; Mr. Thomason was widely known to have a weak heart, and no one wished to be the cause of that heart finally giving out.
Upon introduction, Mr. Thomason took one of Aunt Helen’s now beautiful and pampered hands in both of his gnarled ones.
“Helen,” he said warmly, a smile on his face as though he only wished himself young enough to pay suit to the woman whose hand he was holding. “That has always been one of my favorite names. It always puts me in mind of Helen of Troy.”
“Helen of Troy?” Aunt Helen’s expression was puzzled. Helen of Troy had not been covered in Mr. Brockburn’s lessons.
“Oh, yes,” said the vicar. “Helen of Troy. Her abduction by Paris caused the Trojan War. You know,” he added confidentially, “they say her face launched a thousand ships.”
Aunt Helen smiled back warmly in return, radiantly even.
I rather think she liked the idea of causing a war, of launching a thousand ships.
. . . . .
It was as though our house had been holding a breath for half a year, waiting to see if our world would approve of Aunt Helen.
I stood beside Mother, with Aunt Helen between her and my father, as the guests arrived.
My father looked handsome in his dark suit. Mother, beautiful as always, had surprised us all by wearing a salmon dress that, while pretty enough on her, was one she had worn on a few social occasions previously. At first I thought she’d done it so that those who had already seen her in the dress could readily tell the two women apart. A little further thought on this matter, however, and I deduced a generosity behind her decision: Mother was doing her best not to outshine Aunt Helen on this day. Myself, I had been ordered a new party dress in the blue that was Mother’s favorite shade. I rather fancied that I looked smashingly sophisticated in that dress.
And what did Aunt Helen wear?
White. A white so blindingly pure, it might have just as easily been her wedding gown.
We stood at the top of the stairs, greeting guests at the entryway to the ballroom.
My father’s parents were the first to arrive. They always were the first at any event, as though anxious to get to a thing so they could get it over with and go home, a theory borne out by the fact that they were always the first to leave.
One would think they would be as startled as everyone else always was upon first seeing Aunt Helen, but one who would think that had never met my grandparents.
“How nice for you,” Grandmother said tepidly to Mother, “to finally have a family member of your own.”
“Refreshments inside, are they?” Grandfather asked my father, clapping him on the shoulder and then turning toward the ballroom without waiting for an answer.
Aunt Martha came up the stairs next. The brown dress she had on made me think she might have made more of an effort.
“I see you have acquired finer clothes since last I saw you.” Aunt Martha addressed Aunt Helen directly, not even bothering to greet Mother and my father first. “But I seem to recall that you can rub the outside of an apple until it shines without ever eradicating the worm within.”
Mother slipped one hand firmly around Aunt Helen’s waist. In that moment, as I looked at the twin cameo heads of Mother and aunt side by side, I saw that Mother’s was all defiance. She would defy everyone, including my father’s own sister, to say that her sister did not have a proper place in our home.
“You have always been welcome here, Martha,” Mother said, “before. But if you cannot bring yourself to—”
“Yes, Martha,” my father said evenly, effectively supporting Mother while preventing her from making a breach that could never be mended, all at the same time. “Father and Mother are all alone in the ballroom. Perhaps you should go keep them company until the other guests arrive.”
Aunt Martha turned away without another word.
The new neighbors came next, the Tylers.
Mr. Tyler was a tall man with blond hair and a genial smile. His wife, nearly as tall, was elegant with auburn hair that was like a fireball. Between the two stood a boy. I guessed him to be about sixteen to my fourteen; I’d had a birthday since Aunt Helen came to stay. The boy was nearly as tall as the man beside him. He had blond hair, like the man, but in his case that blond was not dulled by time. Rather, it was vibrant, like flowers tipped with gold. His eyes were green and, at present, they looked bored.
“John Tyler,” the man introduced himself. “My wife, Victoria. Our son, Christopher.”
“We call him Kit,” Mrs. Tyler provided cheerfully.
“How do you do?” Aunt Helen said, when it was her turn to acknowledge these new people. Aunt Helen said the same thing to each new person she met, and each time she said it, she sounded exactly like Mother. All remnant differences in their speech were now gone.
Unlike the rest of the guests, the Tylers had no cause to react with shock upon seeing Aunt Helen, or at least no more than anyone normally would upon meeting identical twins. As far as the Tylers were concerned, they had merely been generously invited to a party. To them, and them alone, nothing was amiss.
“Pleased to meet you,” I said to the Tylers when my turn came. “And you,” I added shyly to Kit.
Briefly, his bored expression lifted, causing me to wonder if he was seeing the possibilities in me that I was seeing in him. There had never been any people my age right next door before. Not even having cousins, it seemed my whole life had been centered on adults. Seeing Kit now was a revelation, an unexplored country. It was like meeting something I’d been missing all my life without knowing it. What was he like? Would he be like boys I had read about in books? Too soon, he was gone.
After the Tylers, there came many more family friends, some with children, followed by a long string of my father’s business associates. These last were a mixed group. Many of them brought their wives, but severa
l had never married and came alone. Of this latter group, more than one developed a gleam in his eye upon meeting Aunt Helen.
Last to come, after all these people, were the Carsons.
An unpleasant light of awakening knowledge appeared in Mrs. Carson’s eye at the sight of Aunt Helen. Was she remembering that day in the park, putting one and one together and coming up with Aunt Helen and me?
And then Mrs. Carson narrowed her eyes and asked the one thing no one else yet had dared to ask: “Where have you been hiding all these years?”
It was not a kind question, not like if, say, you were to use the same words in application to someone whose sudden presence in the world gave you immeasurable delight.
“I grew up in an orphanage,” Aunt Helen said evenly, holding her body with an amazing show of dignity. “How about you?”
Mrs. Carson looked affronted at this boldness, as Aunt Helen no doubt meant her to be.
“Circumstances separated us at birth.” Mother, exercising all her considerable charms, stepped in to save the moment. “Sad circumstances. But now Fortune has decided to be more benevolent and has happily reunited us, as you can see.”
Even a woman like Mrs. Carson was forced to knock over the king on her own side of the chessboard, at least for the time being, in the face of Mother’s dazzling assurance.
I did wonder how long it would take Mrs. Carson to spread her newfound knowledge of Aunt Helen’s beginnings like wildfire.
But there was no more time for wondering now as the Carsons passed into the ballroom.
It was as though the house at last let out that long-held breath as we four entered the ballroom ourselves.
So far, things were going all right.
. . . . .
Overhead, the many chandeliers, having been polished especially for this occasion, gave off sparkle and light.
The entire center of the ballroom had been left empty for the dancing that would occur later. Lining three walls were chairs for people to sit upon. The fourth wall was taken up with a long buffet, upon which was every food imaginable—roast beef, a ham, game birds, fish, fresh breads, fruits, vegetables, and a myriad of puddings that should be enough to keep everyone satisfied. There was also plenty of wine and spirits; more than enough, if the increasing noise level was anything to go by.
I was too excited to feel any hunger, and so I made the rounds of the room, picking up snatches of other people’s conversations as I went.
“That woman is a stunner,” Herbert Dean, one of my father’s unmarried acquaintances, observed to another.
“Would you like to wager a bet,” Alistair Roman returned, “as to which of us she will consent to dance with first?”
I moved on.
“Have you noticed,” Victoria Tyler observed to her husband, “how everyone else keeps staring at Miss Smythe?”
“I suspect,” her husband said, “that it is rare enough to see a great beauty reach her age and not be married.” He turned a brilliant smile upon his wife. “I suspect it would be much the same for you if you had never married me.”
I moved on.
“I think I saw her once before,” Mrs. Carson said, “but I cannot be certain.”
“I know I saw her once before,” Aunt Martha said. “I cannot say I like her any better on this meeting.”
“Did you know she grew up in an orphanage?” Mrs. Carson asked.
“Oh, yes,” Aunt Martha said. “It has occurred to me: What would have happened if the two had been assigned their fates differently? Would Fortune have delivered Helen to Frederick instead? And what would Aliese have been like?”
I did not like the implied aspersions to Mother—as if she could ever be a different person than the wonderful person she was—but I did know one thing: everywhere I turned, all people were talking about was Aunt Helen.
She did not appear to mind being the center of attention in the slightest.
. . . . .
I had finally managed to eat something, which was a good thing. What with the excitement and the heat, for it was high summer, I had begun to feel light-headed.
“I can think of a hundred things I should like to do better right now,” a voice at my elbow said as I raised a heavy linen napkin to dab at the corners of my lips.
The voice belonged to Kit Tyler.
Up close, the need to be demure removed since our parents were no longer with us, I had the opportunity to study him more thoroughly.
I cannot say that blond hair on males had ever appealed to me much before. I loved it on Mother and Aunt Helen, but I suppose that perhaps due to my father’s influence, I had previously favored coloring that more closely matched his, like Mr. Brockburn’s. It seemed to me that darker characteristics made a male somehow more, well, male. But I didn’t think that when I looked at Kit.
And his eyes?
Earlier, I had thought them a simple green. But, up close, I saw they were more complex than that. One time, my father had taken us to see the ocean, and I thought Kit’s eyes had something changeable like the sea in them as I looked upon him now.
“And what,” I asked him, “are some of these hundred other things you’d rather be doing?”
“Walking in the park.” He shrugged; obviously his desire for the park was not affected by the fact that it was nighttime. “Playing chess.” He shrugged again, having no way of knowing he had named my father’s favorite game, a game he had taught me to play fairly well, although I did not always like to play. “Reading.”
“I like reading,” I said, wanting to say something.
“I would rather be reading anything instead of doing this,” he said.
I stood up straighter. “Then you have never read Mr. Midshipman Easy.”
“Mr. Midship—?” He looked perplexed. “What?”
“You are clearly not as well-read as you think yourself to be,” I said.
His jaw dropped.
“I’m sure my parents would be pleased to learn how boring you find it here after they were kind enough to invite you,” I added, turning on my heel.
There, I thought. Over in one corner, several much younger children played. Let him find his entertainment with them, I told myself now. Let him see if he can do better.
. . . . .
The music played on, the crowd became louder, fighting to be heard against it so that conversations that might normally have been held to a whisper were being carried on at nearly full shout.
“I have stayed away since the first day I met that woman,” Aunt Martha said. “I only came today because I received an engraved invitation, but I doubt I shall be repeating that mistake anytime soon.”
“Really?” Mrs. Carson said. “It seems to me the situation exactly calls for a wise woman, such as yourself, keeping a close eye on it.”
I looked to the very center of the room, where “that woman” they were discussing danced. That woman had been dancing for hours, it seemed, with one partner after another.
In that dress, swirling faster and faster, that woman looked untouchable.
She was like an angel, dancing on top of the world.
• Thirteen •
The next day presented a very different picture.
All the adults, perhaps having had too much pleasure the night before, remained in bed until well past the summer sun had crossed the center of the sky.
And so I was left, for many hours, to occupy myself.
Instinctively, I moved through my own home on tiptoes as though sensing that any undue noise on my part would bring down the wrath of one or more people upon my head. As I moved, I couldn’t stop myself thinking about Kit, even though he’d perturbed me when we talked. I couldn’t stop myself wondering when—if—we might meet again.
I had already eaten two meals alone—breakfast and lunch—and was thinking of calling the maid to bring an early tea, when Aunt Helen made her yawning way into the back parlor. I suspected that if propriety did not mitigate against it, she would still be wearing her dr
essing gown. On the first day she had come to us, her attire had been shabby, and yet I’d come to realize in retrospect that she had in fact taken pains to look as dignified as possible on that day. But I had never seen her looking so disheveled as she did now, not like this.
“I feel,” Aunt Helen said, flopping down unceremoniously at the opposite end of the sofa, “as though tiny carpenters have taken their tiny little hammers and are hammering on my brain.”
“Shall I send for tea?” I offered.
“Please,” she said.
“Does it feel so very awful?” I asked, curious, after I’d dispensed a servant on the tea mission.
Aunt Helen’s head was tilted back, eyes closed. I saw a smile lift the corners of her mouth. “Not entirely,” she said. “In fact, I feel rather alive at the moment, if also a little dead.” She paused. “If that makes any sense.”
Another pair of groans from the doorway and there were Mother and my father, also looking the worse for wear, also looking as though they too would have liked to have been still attired in their dressing gowns. They too took seats on sofas without the usual grace they normally would have shown. Of the three adults in the room, my father looked the freshest. I supposed it was because he was more accustomed to overindulging than the others were.
“I’ve sent for tea,” I offered helpfully.
“I always said you were a clever girl,” my father said.
“I bless the day you were born,” Mother added.
The servant came in with the tea tray. She asked if they’d be wanting any more to eat.
“A late breakfast,” Mother said, head back, eyes closed as Aunt Helen’s had been, “but please serve it in here.” She opened one eye, looked over at my father. “The dining room table seems very far away right now, does it not?”
My father allowed that it did.
It was strange. Seeing the way Mother and my father were suffering, to their varying degrees, it was as though Aunt Helen gained in strength.
“It was a success,” Aunt Helen said with a wide smile, “was it not?”
“If you mean the party,” my father said, “I should say so. I shall practically have to write another book to pay for what all those people ate and drank, so I would say it must have been a huge success.”
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