Philadelphia Noir - Carlin Romano [94]
Frances stares at him. Will it be this easy? To object, to cry, and thus to get her way?
“There’s no need, Vaughan,” her mother says, but he lifts a hand to silence her.
“Yes,” Frances declares. “They ought to be buried.”
Vaughan looks from Frances to her mother. “Then they shall be,” he says.
Frances feels her tears dry on her cheeks. Her face was wreathed in smiles—she read that line somewhere, and it comes back to her as she beams at Vaughan.
“Any objection to the dead butterflies, Frances?” her mother asks sarcastically.
“No,” Frances says. What has come over her mother? This woman in the lacy white dress—Thank heavens for this dress, her mother confided during the courtship. One nice dress and my good complexion. Is this the same woman who struggled to keep their house clean, who sewed clothing for the rich relatives, who made Frances say her prayers every night?
“They can go to a museum, Vaughan,” her mother says. “Aren’t they valuable examples for science?”
“Yes, and I’ll miss them.” Vaughan strolls over to the soap woman to stand beside Frances. “This one, of course, we could just use her up,” he says and laughs.
“Keep her, at least,” Frances’s mother urges him.
Vaughan says, “No, I’ve had their acquaintance long enough. I’ll see that each one is decently interred.”
“Thank you,” Frances says. Generosity has always embarrassed her. “If you’ll excuse me, I think I’ll go to bed.”
“Of course,” replies her mother coldly, and Vaughan nods.
Then Frances realizes something else that is amiss, aside from a basement full of bodies. With a wedding tomorrow, shouldn’t there be neighbors and friends calling to wish them well? She and her mother don’t know anyone here, but Vaughan has lived in Philadelphia all his life. Where is his own family? He is not old; he is possibly younger than her mother. Is he alone in the world? She is overcome by the sudden conviction that the wedding will not take place, that this is all some ruse.
“Goodnight,” she says and turns. She hurries up the stairs, to the first floor. She flings open the door that connects the basement with the rest of the house, runs across the deep carpet of the central hallway, and dashes up another staircase and another, to reach the guest room with the high feather bed and the cheval mirror.
There she opens the mullioned windows and breathes in the fresh air that smells of pine and spruce. The window overlooks a dark terraced garden. She hears little peepers that must be tree frogs, insects buzzing, and some low, croaking call from an animal or a bird of prey. Their songs and cries are old familiar ones of summer ending, of autumn beginning. The nighttime emits a glow, as if starlight is catching on blades of grass.
She is alone, like the soap woman. She has no friend to tell her fears to, no one to write a letter to. Since leaving school two years ago, she has kept close company only with her mother, assisting with the sewing, anticipating and dreading the invitations from relatives, when she and her mother would go forth bravely, in hopes that someone like Vaughan would rescue them. Her mother, donning the lace dress, once asked in anguish, How many times must we do this?
“And here I am,” says a voice behind her, and Frances whirls from the window.
There stands Vaughan. In the light of the wall sconce, he looks taller than ever, his face ruddy, hair golden, brow smooth. He asks, “May I sit down?”
She nods, and he takes a seat on a slipper chair. She remains standing, awkwardly. She wonders whose room this was, who chose the rose-colored damask for the chair, whose face has been reflected in the mirror.
Vaughan says, “You’re scared, Frances. How can I set your mind at ease?”
“Do you love my mother?” she asks.
“I love you,” he says. “You knew tonight. Didn’t you?”
She has longed to hear these words, yet now she feels only alarm. He rises from the chair and reaches for her hand. His fingers are warm and strong.
“It’s not too late,” he says. “You and I can be married.”
“What of Mother? Would she live here,