Page 32 of The Scarlet Ball

The halls behind the boxes were faded luxury, gilt with thick carpet tacked down with tarnished brass, a chair at either end where the ushers sat until they were needed. The chairs were empty at intermission, the ushers called elsewhere, so there was no one to see Martha count five doors when there were only four boxes per floor. She opened the fifth.

“That’s a nice trick,” I said, looking in but not crossing the threshold. “Whose box is this?”

“It’s the Rices’ old box,” she said, stepping inside and holding out her hand. “My mother was a Rice before she became a Webster, it’s fine.”

“Is it.”

Immediately, I remembered that if I left, I might run into Jean-Philippe again, and hiding a shudder, I entered and closed the door behind me. There were signs it wasn’t quite a real space: The view of the auditorium below was obscured, as if we saw it through filmy glass, and on the stage the velvet curtain was at once closed and open, a ghostly play running in the same space as the opera. A crowned ghost declaimed his lines and was run through from behind as a mourning ghost in a long dress with draggled hair knelt weeping over him. Someone seized her hair, baring her throat for the knife, and her mouth opened in a cavernous O as black blood sprayed toward the crowd without ever reaching it. I found myself hoping that there was at least one dead patron in the crowd to applaud.

“It’s some Italian thing, I think,” Martha said, tapping a pair of pale green cigarettes out of a silver case. “It just goes on like that, just the death scenes over and over again.”

“Everyone’s favorites,” I said darkly, and then I shook it off. If Alex was a ghost, he might be in some place just like this one. It was too terrible to think of him still on that street in the ninth arrondissement, staring down at where his body had been, wondering—I shook it off hard.

There was a gas lamp turned low built into the side of the box, and she used it to light the cigarettes, giving one to me. The tobacco was light and smooth, playful with something floral in it, and I laughed.

“What?”

“Nothing. Thank you.” In Paris, a good woman would be shocked by the idea of smoking. It was for barmaids and courtesans, shopgirls with no aspirations to be better. In the United States, Martha Webster carried a case any girl I worked with would have envied. Now she sat sideways in one of the chairs with her arm slung over the back, meeting my eyes with a calm feline frankness.

“You know, you’re not what I expected,” she said.

“No? What did you expect from me?”

“Someone more quiet. Shy, perhaps. Your grandmother kept you close for so long. I suppose I expected a princess in a tower.”

I laughed at that, and then she did too. “You survived your tumble at the White Ball, anyway, which I wasn’t sure you’d do.”

“Were you the one who tripped me?” I asked, matching her smile for smile.

“No.”

“Did you see who did?” I wondered if she’d tell me if she had, assuming she was telling the truth about it not being her. Either way, I didn’t trust her, but I was still curious to hear what she would say.

“No,” she said again. “I was almost at the head of the line, and I was too busy managing my own skirts to pay attention to anything else. Does that satisfy?”

“Not much. The cigarette is good though. Thank you.” I leaned back against the closed door to enjoy it, and she inclined her head graciously.

“You’re welcome.”

It came to me that it didn’t much matter who had tripped me. Any of them could have done it, and they would all have benefited from it if I were eaten. Of course I would take the opportunity for a bit of revenge if I ever found the bitch out, but for now, I couldn’t afford to worry about it.

The silence hung between us on a hook. There’s never all that much time in places like this one, the old places anchored by a thread and some forgotten contract. Martha knew it as well as I did, and abruptly, she got to the point.

“Are you going to continue?” she asked. “Despite what happened to you at the White Ball, despite what might happen to any of us at the Rose?”

It startled another laugh out of me, and when she looked offended, I shrugged.

“Of course I will.” Or rather Ginny would, whenever she was found.

“Your mother didn’t,” she pointed out. “She refused to stand for the lords and be eaten.”

I wasn’t going to tell her I wasn’t sure on the particulars, so I turned chilly instead.

“I’m not here to speak of my family, no matter how good the cigarette is. Thank you, Martha. I think I should return to my grandmother.”

I put some emphasis on the last word, and I saw her shrink a little. Mrs. Howard’s name had the weight of a cannonball in this circle. Mrs. Webster, I remembered, had missed her chance years ago and was only married to some railroad man. It was her grandmother, Mrs. Joseph Brandt, who was married to a Southern frost, a famine-starter who had killed all the wheat in Alabama during the war.

I would have liked to keep the rest of my cigarette for later, but of course Ginny wouldn’t think to save it. Instead I stubbed it out and dropped it carelessly on the carpet, turning to go.