“Just looking,” I say, hoping he can’t read the fear in my voice. A man rounds the corner of the kiosk, carrying a bundle of newspapers on his shoulder. His coat, thin and black and several sizes too big, hangs on him like a loose cape. I nearly laugh with relief. You see, Gemma? You’re imagining things. Leave it alone.
“Well, if you’re going to look around, see if you can find us a porter. I don’t know where the devil they’ve all got to so fast.”
A scrawny newsboy happens by and offers to fetch us a hansom cab for twopence. He struggles to carry the trunk filled with my few worldly belongings: a handful of dresses, my mother’s social diary, a red sari, a white carved elephant from India, and my father’s treasured cricket bat, a reminder of him in happier days.
Tom helps me into the carriage and the driver pulls away from the great, sprawling lady that is Victoria Station, clip-clopping toward the heart of London. The air is gloomy, alive with the smoke from the gaslights that line London’s streets. The foggy grayness makes it seem like dusk, though it’s only four o’clock in the afternoon. Anything could creep up behind you on such shadowy streets. I don’t know why I think of this, but I do, and I immediately push the thought away.
The needle-thin spires of Parliament peek up over the dusky outlines of chimneys. In the streets, several sweat-drenched men dig deep trenches in the cobblestones.
“What are they doing?”
“Putting in lines for electric lights,” Tom answers, coughing into a white handkerchief with his initials stitched on a corner in a distinguished black script. “Soon, this choking gaslight will be a thing of the past.”
On the streets, vendors hawk their wares from carts, each with his own distinctive cry—knives sharpened, fish to buy, get your apples—apples here! Milkmaids deliver the last of the day’s milk. In a strange way, it all reminds me of India. There are tempting storefronts offering everything one can imagine—tea, linens, china, and beautiful dresses copied from the best fashions of Paris. A sign hanging from a second-story window announces that there are offices to let, inquire within. Bicycles whiz past the many hansom cabs on the streets. I brace myself in case the horse spooks to see them, but the mare pulling us seems completely uninterested. She’s seen it all before, even if I haven’t.
An omnibus crowded with passengers sails past us, drawn by a team of magnificent horses. A cluster of ladies sits perched in the seats above the omnibus, their parasols open to shield them from the elements. A long strip of wood advertising Pears’ soap ingeniously hides their ankles from view, for modesty’s sake. It’s an extraordinary sight and I can’t help wishing we could just keep riding through London’s streets, breathing in the dust of history that I’ve only seen in photographs. Men in dark suits and bowler hats step out of offices, marching confidently home after a day’s work. I can see the white dome of St. Paul’s Cathedral rising above the sooty rooftops. A posted bill promises a production of Macbeth starring the American actress Lily Trimble. She’s ravishing, with her auburn hair loose and wild, a red gown cut daringly low on her bosom. I wonder if the girls at Spence will be as lovely and sophisticated.
“Lily Trimble is quite beautiful, isn’t she?” I say by way of trying to make pleasant small talk with Tom, a seemingly impossible task.
“An actress,” Tom sneers. “What sort of way is that for a woman to live, without a solid home, husband, children? Running about like she’s her own lord and master. She’ll certainly never be accepted in society as a proper lady.”
And that’s what comes of small talk.
Part of me wants to give Tom a swift kick for his arrogance. I’m afraid to say that another part of me is dying to know what men look for in a woman. My brother might be pompous, but he knows certain things that could prove useful to me.
“I see,” I say in an offhand way as if I want to know what makes a nice garden. I am controlled. Courteous. Ladylike. “And what does make a proper lady?”
He looks as if he should have a pipe in his mouth as he says, “A man wants a woman who will make life easy for him. She should be attractive, well groomed, knowledgeable in music, painting, and running a house, but above all, she should keep his name above scandal and never call attention to herself.”
He must be joking. Give him a minute, and he’ll laugh, say it was just a lark, but his smug smile stays firmly in place. I am not about to take this insult in stride. “Mother was Father’s equal,” I say coolly. “He didn’t expect her to walk behind him like some pining imbecile.”
Tom’s smile falls away. “Exactly. And look where it’s gotten us.” It’s quiet again. Outside the cab’s windows, London rolls by and Tom turns his head toward it. For the first time, I can see his pain, see it in the way he runs his fingers through his hair, over and over, and I understand what it costs him to hide it all. But I don’t know how to build a bridge across this awkward silence, so we ride on, watching everything, seeing little, saying nothing.
“Gemma . . .” Tom’s voice breaks and he stops for a moment. He’s fighting whatever it is that’s boiling up inside him. “That day with Mother . . . why the devil did you run away? What were you thinking?”
My voice is a whisper. “I don’t know.” For the truth, it’s very little comfort.
“The illogic of women.”
“Yes,” I say, not because I agree but because I want to give him something, anything. I say it because I want him to forgive me. And perhaps then I could begin to forgive myself. Perhaps.
“Did you know that”—his jaw clenches on the word— “man they found murdered with her?”
“No,” I whisper.
“Sarita said you were hysterical when she and the police found you. Going on about some Indian boy and a vision of a . . . a thing of some sort.” He pauses, rubs his palms over the knees of his pants. He’s still not looking at me.
My hands shake in my lap. I could tell him. I could tell him what I’ve kept locked tight inside. Right now, with that lock of hair falling in his eyes, he’s the brother I’ve missed, the one who once brought me stones from the sea, told me they were rajah’s jewels. I want to tell him that I’m afraid I’m going mad by degrees and that nothing seems entirely real to me anymore. I want to tell him about the vision, have him pat me on the head in that irritating way and dismiss it with a perfectly logical doctor’s explanation. I want to ask him if it’s possible that a girl can be born unlovable, or does she just become that way? I want to tell him everything and have him understand.
Tom clears his throat. “What I mean to say is, did something happen to you? Did he . . . are you quite all right?”
My words pull each other back down into a deep, dark silence. “You want to know if I’m still chaste.”
“If you want to put it so plainly, yes.”
Now I see that it was ridiculous of me to think he wanted to know what really happened. He’s only concerned that I haven’t shamed the family somehow. “Yes, I am, as you put it, quite all right.” I could laugh, it’s such a lie—I am most certainly not all right. But it works as I know it will. That’s what living in their world is—a big lie. An illusion where everyone looks the other way and pretends that nothing unpleasant exists at all, no goblins of the dark, no ghosts of the soul.
Tom straightens his shoulders, relieved. “Right. Well, then.” The human moment has passed and he is all control again. “Gemma, Mother’s murder is a blight on this family. It would be scandalous if the true facts were known.” He stares at me. “Mother died of cholera,” he says emphatically, as if even he believes the lie now. “I know you disagree, but as your brother, I’m telling you that the less said, the better. It’s for your own protection.”