Sarah was interrupted by the sound of male laughter echoing in the stairwell.
“It can’t be,” she muttered under her breath, hurrying up the next flight of stairs. She was right about getting used to the stairs. Even though I had been accustomed to the walk-up tenement buildings I had lived in with my mother, my time in Bellevue had weakened my legs and Sarah easily outpaced me. By the time I reached the third-floor landing, Sarah was remonstrating with a tall flaxen-haired beauty in a frilly blue silk tea dress and a large feathered hat tilted coquettishly over her delicate features.
“You’re supposed to be in your room unpacking, Helen,” she was telling the blonde girl. “I am acting warden this term and can assign you demerits for rule infractions. You haven’t even changed yet!” I noticed that though Sarah had identified herself as a social inferior to the other girls, she had no trouble speaking up to them. She reminded me of Tillie in her forthright manner—if Tillie had ever had the chance to go to a fancy boarding school.
“Don’t be a bore, Lemon,” the girl said with a toss of her pretty curls. “My cousin Sophronia told me that the warden job is just a sop to give scholarship girls an extra few pennies. Besides, Nathan says this blue brings out my eyes.”
Both girls turned toward the window. I followed their gazes to a young man who was lounging along the window seat, hands in the pockets of his striped trousers, his legs crossed. The sun caught his fair hair and turned it silver, but threw his face in shadow so it was impossible to read his expression. His pose suggested boredom, and so did the languid drawl with which he addressed the girls.
“So I did. It’s bad enough I’m going to spend the next nine months looking at women dressed like nuns.” He gave Sarah’s neat skirt and shirtwaist a disparaging look. “You can’t begrudge me a last bit of color before the veil drops over us all.”
“What do you mean, nine months?” Sarah asked, her voice so icy I felt the chill of it three feet away. “You don’t mean to say you’ve been kicked out of yet another school? I thought you’d been sent to Hawthorn.”
“Please don’t ever mention that beastly place to me,” he remarked, shamming a shiver. “D’you know they get you up at dawn to run bare-chested over the moors?” He shuddered and recrossed his legs, moving a fraction of an inch forward, enough so I could see that he possessed the finely carved features of a Greek statue, his skin pale as marble, his eyes the weathered gray of worn granite. And a heart as hard as stone, I wagered, from his indolent manner. But then those eyes looked up from beneath a fringe of silver lashes and lit up with a flicker of life. It was like striking a match to kindling. What had seemed cold was now warm—or perhaps the warmth had been kindled in me at the thought that he’d lit up at the sight of me.
“This must be the new girl everyone is talking about. The one whose mother—”
Helen drove the toe of her boot into the boy’s shin. That’s why he was looking at me with so much interest. I was a bit of scandal.
“No wonder Hawthorn gave you the boot, Nathan Beckwith,” Sarah said. “You haven’t the sense the Lord gave a toadstool. Go make trouble elsewhere. Even if your mother is headmistress, I can’t believe she’s given you free reign of the girls’ dormitory.”
Ah, so that explains his presence here, I thought as Nathan peeled himself off the window ledge, tipped an imaginary hat to Sarah and Helen and then bowed low to me. And his sense of entitlement. He was acting as if he were the lord of the manner, not an interloper. As he passed me on the stairs I heard him say, low enough for only me to hear, “You should blush all the time; it becomes you.”
Blushing all the more, I hurried up the stairs to Sarah and Helen, who were too busy glaring at each other to notice my discomfiture.
“Helen van Beek, must you find the only male within a ten-mile radius to throw yourself at? You’re as bad as your cousin Sophronia.”
“I was not throwing myself at anyone, Lemon. It is not my fault men find me attractive. Just because you’ll end up a spinster—”
“I’d certainly rather be a spinster than married to a reprobate like Nathan Beckwith—”
“Gillie is male,” I interjected. Both girls stared as though a piece of the furniture had spoken. “You said Mr. Beckwith was the only male in a ten-mile radius,” I explained, “but there’s Gilles Duffy.”
Helen tilted her head back, exposing a strong throat encircled by a pearl choker, and laughed. “I’m not even sure that Gillie is human, but your point is well taken. You must be Avaline. We’re to share a room.” She extended a dainty gloved hand.
I hesitated. I could ignore what I’d heard Nathan Beckwith say, but then I’d always wonder. I’d already faced down Georgiana Montmorency. If this girl was to be my roommate I couldn’t start out by pretending I hadn’t heard what I’d heard. “Avaline Hall,” I said, taking her hand. “It seems you’ve already heard of my mother.”
Sarah made a strangled noise while Helen blushed. Her blue eyes widened and she bit her lip. I was afraid I’d made another enemy, but then she shook her head, blonde curls trembling, and grasped my hand in both of hers.
“I owe you an apology, Miss Hall. Nathan was passing on a story he’d overheard from his mother. I should have told him I wasn’t interested in gossip, but at least I can tell you that the only thing he heard was that your mother disappeared once while she was here.”
“Disappeared?” I repeated, my voice echoing shrilly in the stairwell. Sarah put a finger to her lips to silence me and looked anxiously around to see if anyone had overheard me. Then she stepped closer to me and in a hushed voice said, “There have been various disappearances over the years at Blythewood, girls who have gone . . . missing. Now the stories have been revived because of this recent occurrence.”
“What recent occurrence?” I asked, recalling that it was the same phrase Miss Sharp had used to Agnes after my interview. “Do you mean a girl has gone missing?”
“Yes—” Sarah began, but Helen interrupted.
“I’m sure she’s just run off. Who can blame her for fleeing this place?” She shook her head, making the feathers on her hat tremble like an agitated bird. “I’d rather disappear than be trapped in this nunnery. Nor can you blame the poor inmates here from making up stories to relieve the tedium. I would wager that most of the so-called missing girls are home enjoying the season or on the grand tour.
“Anyway, Nathan wanted to know if I knew anything about the story. I answered him quite truthfully that I didn’t know anything about your mother disappearing. So there, that’s the whole truth.” She squared her slim shoulders as though she were facing a firing squad. “You’ll find I have many”—she cast a sideways glance at Sarah Lehman—“many faults, but flattery isn’t one of them.”
Sarah made a strangled noise, as if she were repressing a laugh. Helen was still looking at me, waiting for my reaction to her confession.
“Thank you for telling me what he said,” I told her. “My mother’s circumstances were difficult—” I caught a warning look from Sarah and remembered what she had said about not telling anyone about my background. I could well imagine what Helen van Beek would say if I told her I had spent my youth trimming hats like the one she was wearing or that I might very well have stitched Sarah’s shirtwaist myself. “But she never told me anything about disappearing from Blythewood.” Of course there was a lot my mother never told me about her time at Blythewood, but I managed a reassuring smile to show Helen I forgave her for gossiping. Instantly her shoulders relaxed and her face dimpled.
“Then you do forgive me!” she exclaimed. “Thank the Bells! I’d hate to start the year out with an angry roommate. Come along, we’ve got one more waiting upstairs for us.”
Helen gathered up her voluminous skirts and proceeded up the next flight of stairs with Sarah and me trailing behind her, staying far enough back not to trip over Helen’s skirts—or for Helen to overhear Sar
ah’s comment.
“You did well to call Helen out on her gossiping. You mustn’t let her get away with any untoward behavior. I knew her cousin Sophronia when she was here. All the van Beeks are impetuous, bull-headed, vain and lazy—and they all say that Helen is spoiled rotten by her father. It will be a miracle if she gets through her first term at Blythewood without getting herself—and her friends—in serious trouble. Especially with Nathan Beckwith in attendance.”
“Is Mr. Beckwith really such a bad influence?” I asked.
“Incorrigible!” Sarah declared. “He was expelled from half a dozen boarding schools throughout the Northeast before being sent to Hawthorn. That’s our brother school in Scotland. I have heard it’s a bit strict, but if you ask me that’s what Nathan Beckwith needs after growing up without a father, surrounded by women.”
I was about to ask what had happened to Nathan’s father, but Sarah put her hand on my arm and leaned close to whisper into my ear. I thought she was going to tell me about Nathan Beckwith’s childhood, but instead she said, “If there’s anything you need to talk about, don’t be afraid to seek me out. I’m afraid Helen won’t be the most sympathetic confidante and Blythewood can be . . . overwhelming. There are other ways to disappear here than to go missing in the woods.”
Her words, although meant to be kind, conjured an image of an empty impression in bloodstained snow that chilled me to the bone. But surely that was not the kind of disappearing that Sarah meant.
“Thank you,” I said, through chattering teeth. “I’ll do that.”
Sarah smiled and then turned to walk briskly to the end of the hall. “At least you got one of the very nicest rooms,” she declared, sweeping into a large, drafty, irregularly shaped room. “This was my room when I was a nestling.” Tucked under the eaves of the roof, the room was made up of sharp angles and cozy nooks and a large fireplace. Two narrow iron bedsteads were pushed against the walls at either side.
Still chilled from that image of bloody snow, I moved into a patch of sun at the far end of the room where a third bed was fitted into an alcove. The window above the bed afforded a view of the river that reminded me of the view from the apartment I had shared with my mother on West Fourteenth Street. I stood breathing in the warm air, trying to regain my composure. Blythewood can be overwhelming, Sarah had said. Suddenly even the idea of sharing a room with two strangers made me feel crowded.
“Oh, do you want this bed?” A flat, nasal voice interrupted my thoughts.
Startled, I turned to find a slight girl with brown hair pulled severely back from her pale oval face, standing in a shadowy nook, her hands clasped tightly before her. She was wearing a faded calico print dress that nearly blended in with the wallpaper, which must have been why I hadn’t noticed her.
“Oh no,” I said quickly. “You were here first, you should have first choice.”
“Technically,” Helen interjected, coming up behind me, “I was here first. I only went out because no one was here yet and I felt lonely. This is the best bed. You’ve got privacy, a river view—oh, and look, there are these darling built-in drawers!” Helen was already moving her hands over the cabinets in a proprietary manner—as if she owned them. I suspected she was used to getting whatever she took a fancy to.
“You should spin for it,” Sarah suggested. “That’s the fairest way. Here.” She reached into her hair and retrieved a long arrow-shaped pin. “You sit in a circle and spin the arrow. Whoever it points to gets the bed. That is, if that’s all right with you, Miss . . .” she added, looking to our third roommate.
“Moffat,” the girl replied. “Miss Daisy Moffat from Kansas City, Kansas.”
Helen’s lip quirked and Sarah gave her a little kick. “Well, then, Miss Daisy Moffat from Kansas City, Kansas, are you agreeable to spinning for the bed? It’s really up to you since you were here when we all arrived.”
“Oh!” Daisy squeaked, wringing her hands. “Really, I don’t mind where I sleep. I’ve got seven sisters at home and I sleep in the cupboard. It’s up to the other ladies.”
Sarah raised an eyebrow at Helen. “It’s fine by me,” Helen said, “but I don’t see what all the fuss is about. It’s just a bed, for Bell’s sake, not a suite at the Plaza Hotel.”
“So Helen’s in.” Sarah turned to me. “And what about you, Ava?”
“It seems fair,” I replied. I suppose I could have feigned indifference like Helen—or abject humility like Daisy—but the truth was I really wanted the bed in the window alcove. Just five minutes with my two new roommates had exhausted me. If I didn’t have a little privacy I wasn’t sure I’d survive here at Blythewood. There are other ways to disappear here. I could already feel myself fading into the shadows.
Sarah shoved aside Helen’s trunks—there were four of them, all with marks from European cities—and instructed the three of us to sit in a triangle an equal distance apart. Helen insisted on dusting the floor with her handkerchief first and complained that her skirts would be crushed.
“That’s why you should have changed into your school clothes already,” Sarah chided.
When we were all seated, Sarah placed the arrow on the floor between us. “We say a little rhyme when we do this at Blythewood:
Round and round the arrow goes,
where it stops nobody knows.
Now it points to she who wins,
but it may strike one who sins.
“Ew,” Helen mewed. “What a sordid little rhyme! Let’s get this over with. Shall I spin?”
Without waiting for an answer Helen reached into the middle of the circle and grasped the shaft of the arrow with her long, elegant, be-ringed fingers. What pretty hands Helen had, I thought with a pang of jealousy as the arrow spun in a golden blur and we all said the strange little rhyme. Those hands had never sewn hats late into the night or slaved over a machine at a factory. Even Daisy’s tightly clasped hands did not look as if they had seen much work. Would I really fit in with either of these girls—or any of the girls at Blythewood? It had taken Georgiana Montmorency not more than three minutes to see that I didn’t belong here. How long would it take others?
The arrow was slowing to a stop. I saw it was going to come to rest pointing at Helen. Of course, I thought, she was the sort of girl—pretty and rich—who would always be noticed by boys like Nathan Beckwith, who would always get the best of everything, who would never disappear. The anger I’d felt at Georgiana before was back and with it the bass bell. I deliberately made it slow in my head, and as I did the arrow abruptly jerked and stuttered to a stop, pointing at me. Three sets of eyes also fastened on me.
“That was odd,” Helen remarked. “It seemed to move on its own there at the end.”
“We could do it over,” I suggested.
“No,” Sarah said, retrieving the arrow and getting to her feet. “The bed belongs to Ava, fair and square. Now you’d better unpack and change for dinner. Six sharp—lateness for meals is not tolerated. You’ll hear the bells.”
She tilted her head, looking at me. “That’s one bit about Blythewood you’ll have to get used to—all the bells. They can drive you mad sometimes. They say there was girl a few years back who fell from the belfry while trying to muffle the bells.” Then she smiled and hurried away, leaving me with the thought that the bells inside my head were already driving me mad.
10
“DON’T MIND SOUR Lemon,” Helen said after Sarah had gone and we had all started to unpack our trunks. “My cousin Sophronia says the scholarship girls only take all those jobs so they can lord it over us.”
“I imagine they take the jobs for the money,” I said, still chilled by the thought of the girl who died trying to silence the bells. “And I didn’t think she seemed sour. I like her very much.”
“Do you think that story is true?” Daisy asked, her eyes wide.
“Nathan says that Blythewood is full of s
uch stories—girls going mad, going missing, or just suddenly going . . .” Helen blushed, no doubt recalling that Nathan had been asking about my own mother’s disappearance.
“How do you know Nathan Beckwith so well when you only just got here?” I blurted out.
“Oh!” Helen looked up from folding a stack of pristine white shirtwaists. “The Beckwiths and the van Beeks have known each other for generations. Our townhouse is around the corner from theirs in Washington Square and our summerhouse is just south of here in Hyde Park. Our fathers were friends before Mr. Beckwith died. And of course the van Beek women have always gone to Blythewood. Daddy says we give so much to the school that it will ruin us.” She laughed, as if the possibility of ruin for the van Beeks was absurd.
“At any rate, Nathan and his mother have come for tea since I was little. We children would be sent outside while our mothers reminisced about their school days. Nathan always wanted to explore the woods or the riverside. Once he talked me into playing pirates with Daddy’s dinghy and we tipped over in the middle of the river! I couldn’t swim so Nate had to rescue me.”
Helen’s dainty hands idly stroked the polished cotton of her shirtwaists, her blue eyes gazing out the window toward the river as she spoke. Looking at the crisp white blouses, I thought of the girls who had sewn them for a few dollars a week. Then I thought of those girls burning . . . and saw smoke rising from the stack of shirts. I looked away quickly, toward the river, but the pretty view was now smeared over by smoke. Smoke was rising from the river and curling over its bank, stealing across the lawn, heading toward the castle.
“Oh, dash that infernal fog!” I turned to find Helen behind me. She was looking over my shoulder toward the river, seemingly unconcerned by the approaching smoke. “It’s always worse in this bend of the river, something about the cold water from the mountains meeting the warmer tide from the bay. Nathan was explaining it. Whatever its cause, though, it’ll soak the lawn and ruin any chance of a walk after dinner . . . which we’ll be late to if we don’t hurry. It’s almost six o’clock.”