She laughed again, and finished me with a smile that disarmed somehow any perturbations I felt, so that I slipped lower in my chair, and took a moment to contemplate the room in which we sat, taking in the plush, enveloping cossetingness of it, the thickness of the carpet into which my feet had sunk, and, seemingly, disappeared; the veritable mummification of the windows beneath layer upon layer of curtains that served to disguise utterly the distinction between windows and wall, all of it vermillion and gold like the soft ambiguities that swathed the bed, and all of it hectic with reflected gaslight. The tops of the bureaus, of which there were many, were crowded with knickknacks, hairbrushes, powders, pins, jewelry spilling from casks, pictures in silver frames, all of it suggesting that the occupant of these rooms had made herself thoroughly at home. The mantel above the hearth was likewise crowded with objects, some of which looked strangely familiar: small, ambiguous, glassy shapes, strange bristlings, my father’s work.
My father’s things! I cried.
They’re mine, she calmly said, stretching out her toes toward the fire, I paid for them. I was his patroness, you know. It was I who paid your bills. It was wonderful of me, was it not?
She patted her pillows again, which invitation I once again ignored.
You can look at those pictures if you want. Go ahead! Put your nose in among ’em if you must—they won’t bite. You’re a Dell’oro through and through all, though you don’t look like un. I’ll put the pictures in your hands then if I must—
And jumping up from the bed in a single, catlike movement she joined me by the fire, and began gently, oh very gently (these objects, clearly, were precious to her), taking up the daguerreotypes in their silver frames and, making good on her threat, forced them, one by one, into my reluctant hands. Why did I resist? I don’t know—why do we do anything? As I had no choice now, I looked at these pictures, which were of strangers, but familiar to me. Here was one of two children, a boy and a girl, standing stiffly in their Sunday best; here a stern-faced man gazing out from behind glasses like twin silver moons; here a little boy standing next to a pony on the Scaur, his eyes directed off somewhere, away from the camera—
Oh! It was me he was looking at in that one. Mama never forgave me for ruining it. His birthday it was, his tenth. We had a lovely day that day.
She caressed the picture fondly.
He must have talked about me, she said. I was so angry when he left. He left me, you know. High and dry on Henrietta Street, without so much as a word, and went off to sea with that awful man, your grandfather, and that awful woman, your mother—yes, high and dry he left me, high and dry.
But I’m over that now. I’m not angry anymore. Not for a long time.
My father looked for you, said I. It’s we who were all alone, after she left us—and he looked for you—in Henrietta Street—and all the other streets—up and down, at the top of the cliff, at the bottom, on the Scaur, everywhere—all over Whitby. You were gone.
Yes, she said slowly, taking the picture from me, and putting it back, and perching herself on the foot of the bed, among the wraps and cossetings. That’s right, I was gone by then. I was married by the time Leo came back. As you can see, I’ve been left a wealthy woman: widow now—an orphan—alone—like you. He paid for all this—
She made a gesture encompassing the room in which we were sitting and, perhaps, too, by implication, all that lay beyond it, the empty hallway outside, the Ravenscar Hotel, Whitby, the cold, white-capped North Sea with the Emerald Isle turning upon it, unseen, in the dark; and maybe more than that; maybe, even, the vast reach of all the space that had opened, and opened, that was opening still, vertiginously, between my mother and me, between my father and his father, my father and Anna, small ships all of us, fanning out, upon cold dark oceans of our own. Outside, as if in reply, the Christmas wind rattled at the windowpanes so that, inside, the thick, warm curtains billowed inward, toward us, then receded, softly, into the casements; inhale, exhale, a soft, tinkling tremor, then a settling; a sparking up and then a diminution of the gaslight, a sudden relaxation of vision, the pupil dilated in the dark.