For a moment I am struck paralyzed. Here is a real angel, caught and captured in all her radiant glory, for anyone to see.
Incredible, but true.
I hold it up to the fanlight for a closer look. There is something familiar in the angel’s profile. I decide to take one of the copies, sliding it into my pocket with the rest of my day’s loot before the family comes to collect me. I compose myself, avoiding Quinn’s eye, my own gaze intent on Aunt Clara’s enormous, bustling skirts.
In the carriage, when I dare to look across at Quinn, he ignores me with a cool indifference that makes me miss his brother all the more. How is it that Will even in spectral vision, if that’s what it was can appear more vital and vibrant to me than anyone else in the family?
I don’t look up again for the rest of the ride home, lest anyone see my suffering, which the Pritchetts would only dismiss as a weakness.
In my attic room the light is weak. I move to the window and spread my secreted photograph on the sill. White winter sky exposes the image. And now I can see the slight protrusion of the angel’s front teeth. I retrieve the other photos from my pocket.
The drape of Viviette’s Grecian toga makes a lovely angel’s cloak. I find the downcast eyes, that droplet nose, the bird bones of the neck and wrists, as the angel’s identity reveals herself to me. She is Viviette.
9.
“Maybe Mister Geist listed it as part of her daily chores!” Mavis snorts with amusement.
“Oh, certainly.” I tick off the duties on my fingers. “Lay the grates, polish the andirons, dress up in bedsheets and pose as an angel, dust the bookshelves…”
Mavis presses her knuckles to her mouth so that Aunt Clara won’t hear her giggling fits. We are standing outside Aunt’s bedroom waiting for Madame Broussard to finish taking orders and measurements.
In days past, after Madame has finished with Aunt Clara she attends to me, and so I am waiting on Mrs. Sullivan’s command. “Madame can’t leave this house without seeing to you, Miss Jennie. Hard to say if your frocks are more disrespectful to the living or the dead,” the housekeeper had clucked.
It’s the dismal truth. Both of my mourning dresses are threadbare at the elbow and discolored along the seams. Hardly any of my original buttons and neither of my original collars remain. It has been more than two years since I’ve owned anything new, and my old, black-dyed frocks strain against the predictable directions where I’ve filled out.
Mavis lingers. Madame Broussard is widely thought to be the handsomest woman in Brookline, and Mavis craves a glimpse of her. “That so-said spiritualist is swindling Mister Pritchett worse than a snake oil salesman,” she declares as she stoops to peer through the keyhole.
“I suppose.” I won’t confide to Mavis the details of my nearfainting spell and how Will had come to me. That entire morning seems unreal, especially in light of Geist’s housemaid hoax.
Mavis straightens. “Don’t pay him a penny when you go over tomorrow oh, bon jer, Madame.”
For the door has opened and now the striking dressmaker stands before us. Her jet hair is accessorized by tortoiseshell pins, and her dress is the color of claret. In contrast, I feel as shabby as a dormouse.
Mavis is unabashedly delighted by Madame, and for a moment, I, too, feel a shy desire to dip a curtsy. And yet it wasn’t very long ago that Madame Broussard had presented me with gown sketches for the annual Boston Cultural Society Dance, an event that Will and I had attended to celebrate his entrance to Harvard, and where I’d taken my first sips of champagne and danced my first waltz. How can my very own memories feel as if they don’t belong to me? They seem so extravagant and carefree. Who was that pampered girl in French silk who believed in only happy endings?
Madame nods and moves to step past.
“Please, Madame,” I falter. “If you’re not late for another appointment, I’m in some need…” I pluck at my skirt, which tells the sad story.
Her fine, dark eyes are guarded. “Mais, Mademoiselle Lovell, your aunt has made it clear to me that you won’t be fitted for anything new this season. When I asked, she gave me the impression that your present wardrobe is more than adequate.”
Though one look at my dress refutes this point. It’s hard to say who is more pained by the discomfit of the moment. “Yes, now I remember.” I hasten to fill the pause. “Excuse me. I’d forgotten that I’m having two dresses made over secondhand from Aunt.” I imagine Aunt Clara smirking from her chaise, and my face burns with shame and rage.
“Madame Pritchett has more than enough material to take in,” agrees Madame, too quickly. “So that is a fine solution. Très simple.”
I step back to let her pass.
She lingers a moment. “Ma chère,” she says. “My heart breaks for your tragedy. Your brother, and then Monsieur William… il est tout trop tragique.” The press of her hand to my cheek is more comfort than I have received from any of my kin. Her fingers stop to pick up the edge of my collar. “Such very delicate work.”
“It’s Miss Jennie did it herself,” Mavis bursts out. “She’s a grand talent with lace. She fashioned me a fancy collar, too, but I only wear it Sundays. I got a knack for mending, but Miss Jennie has such patience for the details.”
“Impressive,” says Madame, with a sincerity that makes me blush.
I accompany her to her carriage. Outside, Quinn strides along the garden wall. He is bundled into his overcoat and muffler, yet his face isn’t so obscured that I cannot see his lips move. Of the two brothers, Quinn had cut a finer figure in society, where his good looks and quick wit served him better than Will’s raw enthusiasm and tendency to speak his mind. But without a captive audience, Quinn is a lonely soul, and time has taught me that he never wants company on these garden walks.
The garden paths were Quinn’s retreats whenever he and his brother quarreled. Will, outspoken and fiery, never stayed at Pritchett House, but took his temper elsewhere, either into town or deep into the country, where I might find him skipping stones or rowing across Jamaica Pond, churning up its waters, exhausting himself.
In contrast, Quinn simply froze in place when he was angry. Housebound, he brooded in his room or haunted the grounds like a lost pup.
He is frozen still. Madame’s point of vision follows Quinn as he marches along, locked in battles from which his mind can’t escape.
“Poor boy,” she murmurs. “So the stories are true.”
“What do you mean?” I can hear my own voice strain.
Her glance at me is both sympathetic and faintly pitying.
And though I wish she wouldn’t, Madame continues to observe him through the window until her carriage rolls away.
10.
I’m late for the next afternoon’s appointment. Geist is waiting in the foyer, and he greets me with coltish energy. Viviette, eyes averted, collects my damp cloak. I’m annoyed to see her. If I don’t know the difference between one of heaven’s own angels and an ordinary housemaid, then how easily might I be fooled again?
“You don’t have to be so coy,” I tell her. “I recognize your face.”
In answer, she stares up at me with eyes hard and dark as coal, and I realize there’s nothing shy about Viviette at all.