The Pages of Time E-Book

Donna Russo Morin

• Herausgeber: Next Chapter
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Beschreibung

A collection of three historical novels by Donna Russo Morin, now available in one volume!
Gilded Summers: Pearl and Ginevra's lives couldn't be more different - one living a life of luxury while the other works as a servant. But a shared passion for art ignites an unlikely friendship that must be kept hidden from Pearl's controlling mother. As they navigate their way through a society that seeks to suppress them, the girls must decide who they want to be and what they're willing to do to break free - even if it means resorting to murder.
The Courtier of Versailles: Set in the dazzling world of Louis XIV's court at Versailles in 1682, "The Courtier of Versailles" follows the story of Jeanne Yvette Mas du Bois, a young woman who craves knowledge, purpose, and adventure. Her thirst for independence leads her to train in the art of the sword with her uncle Jules. When she saves the life of a Musketeer and is mistaken for a man, Jeanne becomes Jean-Luc and enters an inner circle where she discovers a plot to assassinate the Queen of France. In her double life, Jeanne is in a powerful but increasingly dangerous position as she navigates the intrigues of court and her own heart. This lush and detailed historical novel is filled with unforgettable characters and secrets waiting to be uncovered.
The Glassmaker's Daughter: In 17th century Venice, the secret of Murano glassmaking is fiercely guarded, and the price of revealing it is death. But Sophia Fiolario, a talented glassmaker, must hide her skills because she is a woman. When a powerful nobleman proposes to her, Sophia faces a difficult choice: accept and give up her passion, or risk everything to continue her craft. As she navigates the treacherous waters of Venetian society, Sophia's fate becomes entwined with that of Galileo Galilei and his revolutionary invention. With danger lurking around every corner, Sophia must decide what she is willing to sacrifice for love, family, and the art she holds dear.

Leseprobe

THE PAGES OF TIME

A COLLECTION OF HISTORICAL NOVELS

DONNA RUSSO MORIN

CONTENTS

Gilded Summers

Gilded Summers

Author's Note and Acknowledgements

The Courtier of Versailles

Dramatis Personae

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Epilogue

Author's Note

Acknowledgments

A Reading Group Guide

The Glassmaker's Daughter

An Author’s Confession

Dramatis Personae

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

What Happened Next in Venice

Author’s Note

Acknowledgments

Bibliography

A Reading Group Guide

About the Author

Copyright (C) 2023 Donna Russo Morin

Layout design and Copyright (C) 2023 by Next Chapter

Published 2023 by Next Chapter

Cover art by CoverMint

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the author’s permission.

GILDED SUMMERS

NEWPORT'S GILDED AGE BOOK 1

In that split second when the gunpowder bursts…the next second when the gun at the end of my hand blasts the room with light, jerking my arm back…in that time out of time, I cannot say whom I truly aim for.

GINEVRA

1899

The air reeks of gunpowder…and fresh blood.

I push the limp body off me. Someone's sobs, mine no doubt, I hear as if from far away. Dropping my skirts, my eyes skirt the room, to the body on the floor, to her standing in the doorway. I've never seen her so pale, so…blighted. I see the gun on the floor. Tendrils of smoke snake upwards from the barrel as if beckoned by the notes of a magic flute.

I hear the voices, the footsteps. They're coming. I hear my heart in my ears; I feel the snuffs of air from my nose.

What I do, I do without thought.

It takes me only a few steps to snatch the gun from the floor and cross the room to her side.

“What?”

Eyes glazed with fear find me.

I reach up and tuck a stray strand of her gleaming raven hair back into her perfectly coiffed Gibson Girl.

“Go.”

“What?” she asks again, this time her luminescent brow furrows, growing awareness in the moment returns, a spark of denial simmers.

“You must get out of here, Pearl.” I take her hand; one I remember having held more than any other in my life. “You have far more to lose, too much to lose.”

I shake my head, tangles of thoughts rattle. The words accusing me, the voices that will say I somehow brought this on myself, part of me believes. That part knows I cannot let her take any blame, for this, for him.

I lie to her for the first time in all of our years together.

“They will believe me. They'll believe I could do such a thing, why I could do such a thing. Look there is blood on my clothes, but none on yours.”

Her gaze flits over my dark uniform before resting on her bright, silk gown.

I look at her face, I flash to the memory of the first time I saw her face, the young one, one so like mine.

“My papa is nothing in this world, and yours is devoted to him. Mine cannot be hurt by this. Your famiglia …it will disgrace them forever.”

“No. No, I must tell them,” Pearl shakes her head. There is little focus in eyes that try to focus everywhere. “I came to protect you. It's my fault. If I had believed you, trusted you, he wouldn't—” she babbles. I understand it all.

Now both of our almost black eyes drop to the floor, to the body slumped upon it, to the growing puddle of blood around it, to the face so dashing even in death.

“They'll execute you,” she whispers.

I grab her by the shoulders and shake her. “You did protect me. You came. You gave me time to…” I shudder, the words I must say—fleeting through the sliver of mind still capable of thinking—feel as if they are a rag shoved down my throat, and I gag on them. “…we didn't have time to finish.” My gaze grabs her harder than my hands. “He always wanted me more, you know that don't you—”

Pearl shakes her head, covers her ears with trembling hands.

“He desired me.” I slap her with a thin thread of truth. It is enough.

The slap of her hand spins my head; the sting of it stays long after her hand retreats.

I clench my eyes tightly.

“He always desired me more than you.”

This time it is no slap. Curled fingers and knuckles meet my face. All that I had done to her feeds the strength of her arm.

I stammer back from the blow. My shoulder collides with the wall. The corner of the table digs deep into my buttock. I drop to the floor.

Pearl is blurry through my teary eyes. I can feel the sadness in the wane smile I force upon my face.

Hers creases like crumpled paper.

“My bruises,” I totter back upon my feet, “these bruises will tell their own tale.”

The shutters flap open; Pearl gasps.

“You made me…” She wants to speak of it. There is no time.

The voices from above grow louder, the stomping upon the stairs insistent.

“You came in time; it is all that matters.” I pull her to me; hold her close. “Now we must act quickly.”

With a graceful movement, grace acquired from the dance lessons she herself had given me, I twirl our bodies round, open the door, and push her out.

“Ginevra—!”

I shut the door on her face. I turn to the dead man who had ruined our lives, lives that had been better, truer, and richer, for the existence of the other, and await my fate.

PEARL

1895

If that afternoon was different from the many others that came before, I could not tell.

My father, mother, and I sat in awkward repose in the Conservatory, sipping afternoon tea, waiting for the hour of the coaching parade to approach. I detested coaching almost as much as tea. I sat apart from them by the fountain, apart from them in this room. We were all just pieces even when together, never a whole.

Thin, silk curtains fluttered in the salty breezes off Newport Harbor. The smell beckoned to me, whispering softly to me in the waves of air wafting toward me, that I was still young enough to play in it, to run in it, bathe in it. Those days had passed, or so they said, but not in my mind.

Water trickled brightly from the rouge fountain tiered with cupids, filling the heavy pauses, so many of them. I loved this room, where house fused with garden, but only when alone. I was rarely alone.

My brother, Clarence, was off playing tennis at the Casino or gadding about town with his friends, as he did more and more often of late. He still `played.' While I, caught in the nowhere between childhood and adulthood, was rarely allowed to go anywhere without my parents. I so longed to go somewhere without my parents. But what would they be without me, the small piece of jetsam floating untethered in gloomy thickness of their marriage?

My mother prattled on and on, savoring her gossip with the same relish as she did her tea.

“Alva refuses to speak of anything but the additions to Marble House, how very grand it will be. She doesn't say it, but we all know. She expects it to be the grandest of all the cottages.”

Whenever my mother spoke of Alva Vanderbilt, her voice chirped with admiration, her face twisted as if she'd bitten into a lemon. How she reminded me of the catty girls from school, the girls who made fun of me for my dedication to my studies as if that made me inferior to them in some way. How happier my mother would have been with one of them as her daughter. How often I wished one of them were.

Mother pestered my father, invisible behind his newspaper.

“Orin, we must think of expanding. The Beeches has been at the top of the list for a year. We cannot be usurped.” She sat bolt straight, spine never touching the back of the chair, the lace of her day dress unfurled precisely from her small lap, and not a single strand slithered out of place from her upswept crown of red hair.

I slumped lower in my chair, crumpling my skirts in my fists.

“We will do no such thing,” my father mumbled from behind his wall of paper. “It is perfect as it is. Do not forget our agreement, Millicent.”

Their agreement. How it plagued Mother to have conceded to it. Father had made it plain to her; I remembered it well. Her pleading for a summer `cottage' in the newly chic island off the New England coast, his own desire for how it should be built rising out of his love for art and architecture. He had put it to her straight, if she wanted a home in Newport, it would be constructed to my father's specifications. He demanded; she surrendered.

I sipped, gazed down in my cup, wondering why my mother could find no joy in this glorious building. Perhaps she had had little say save for the wall coverings and the furniture and such, but it was still one of the most splendid places I had ever seen, and still one of the grandest places I had ever lived. Our tour of Europe two years ago had had a profound effect on my father; and it was here, in every curved banister, coffered ceiling, and marbled column.

“But Orin, dear…”

She called him `dear.' Oh, here it comes, I thought, my eyes rolling to the painted ceiling. It didn't.

With his characteristic throat clearing, Mr. Birch took a single step into the room, denying my mother her cajoling.

“There is a man here, Sir, and a girl.” Our butler, as stiff as his shirt, proclaimed as if he announced the delivery of a parcel of manure. “They claim you are expecting them. Costa, I believe she said their name is.”

My father jumped up; newspaper scattered with a rustle to the floor. My mother and I balked at his quickness, at the rare glimpse of his smile beneath his bushy mustache.

“Wonderful, Mr. Birch,” said he, rushing from the room.

Spilling tea as I quickly dropped my cup in its saucer, I rose and followed.

“Pearl, stay. It is your father's business.”

I ignored her. Monotony had become my most constant companion. No matter how inconsequential, I ran toward anything to run away from it.

I stopped at the top of the white marble stairs leading down to the grand doors of our summer home, half hiding behind one set of double breche marble columns crowned with gold capitals. Just inside the small vestibule between the arched wood doors and the inner ones of grill and glass, I could see only their silhouettes against the bright afternoon light, so very small in the massive aperture. I saw Birch had left the outer doors open as if he would shoo the visitors out like pesky insects at the first opportunity.

The man was tall. A short hat and long suit jacket enshrouded him. The girl was no girl, at least not a little one. The slight curves of her body, sheathed in what I could only see as a dark-colored, single-layered dress, were those of a young woman, or a girl on her way to becoming one.

“Welcome, Mr. Costa, Miss. Welcome.”

My head popped farther around the marble pillar, not to see the visitors, but my father. To see if this enthusiastic man was my father. He rushed toward the man, hand held out, a swath of his black hair, hair he had given me, falling upon his slightly wrinkled forehead. Reaching behind them, my father closed the doors. I could see them more clearly now.

The man looked my father's age, perhaps older, or perhaps simply more aged. It was the face of the girl, an older girl as I had thought, which held me. If not for her deeper complexion, olive I believe such skin was called, we could be sisters, for her eyes were the same nut-brown as mine though more almond-shaped, cheekbones high, mouth full, chin narrowed her face to a point.

Mr. Costa replied with a hesitant good day, but upon his tongue, it came as “gooda day.” The distinct addition of a vowel gave them away. Italians. I had never met any real Italians. I studied them as I would a painting I had never seen.

My father pulled the man deeper into our home by the hand still in his, beyond the grilled doors, and into the marble foyer. He straightened his shoulders, gathered himself. Zeal still beamed from him; a bright spark glinting in his dark eyes. His voice dropped to its normal deep timbre, words spaced ever so, with aristocratic nonchalance.

“How was your journey? Fine, I hope.”

The man turned to the girl beside him with a particular look I could see she read well.

“Fine, Sir,” she replied. Better than the man's, the girl's English was a trifle more fluid.

“Glad to hear it.” My father was a man of intelligence and pride; he could see it in others. Though the girl had answered, my father directed his reply to the man. “I hope you will be comfortable here. It is a fine house.”

As the girl softly translated my father's words, I smirked. A fine house, Father, really?

Would he tell these people the ocean was but a puddle?

To them, our summer home must have seemed a palace, a fantasy functioning as a home, a four-story mansion designed after the chateau d'Asnieres in France, the home of the Marquis de Voyer, sitting on ten acres of land. A `house' indeed.

“Mr. Birch, please show our new guests to their quarters, if you would.” With a gestured hand and a small dip of his head, my father encouraged these `guests' up the few steps and into the grand gallery spanning the entire length of the house from north to south.

They followed slowly. Their eyes widened at the grandeur, the enormity of our `cottage,' the thirty-foot-high walls of white Caen stone, the ancient oil paintings, the length of the walls framed by gilt moldings that greeted every entrant. How pretentious such opulence must have looked. Their slight bodies cried out for good meals, not flamboyant affluence. My cheeks burned as I looked at them looking.

“And which would those be, Sir?” Birch sent a blast of cold through the warm room.

“Mr. Costa here is to have the luggage room. I've had Mr. Grayson refurbish it into a living space and a workshop. This is the man who has come to teach Clarence violin and to make us some one-of-kind furniture. Aren't you, Mr. Costa?”

The man nodded, but it was to my father's ebullience. His expression blank, hesitant; he understood little of my father's words.

“He and his lovely daughter will also be staying over in the winter as members of our off-season caretakers.” My father turned back to Mr. Costa. “And for that I say grazie.”

“T…thank you, Mr. Worthington,” the young woman said. “My papa, he is excited, to work.”

My father took her hand in both of his.

“Ah, Geenahva, so glad to have you here as well, of course.”

She smiled, and it was lovely. “It is Ginevra, Gin-eh-v-ruh,” she pronounced her name correctly, slowly, for my father's behalf, and perhaps for mine, for I had seen her gaze flash to me with the same curiosity with which I perused her. Gin, like the drink my mother would say; emphasis on eh; rush through the v, to end low with the ruh. I said it over and over in my mind. I would say it correctly when the chance came. I swore to myself the chance would come. I would banish monotony not just from this moment.

“Yes, Ginevra,” my father did a passable imitation of her name. “You will be housed with other young ladies such as yourself…” servants, he meant, of course, “…on the top floor. I'm sure we will find something productive for you to do soon.”

“Sew,” she said without hesitation. I smiled. “I sew.”

I saw my father's grin. “Wonderful. There is plenty of sewing to do in this house. Isn't that right, Mr. Birch?”

Birch nodded. It looked as if it hurt him to do so. He held out a hand, pointing toward the right, toward the back stairs, those belonging to the servants.

“Vieni, Papa,” Ginevra put a hand on her father's arm as she reached down for a battered valise. Mr. Costa nodded silently, picked up the two beside him, having never released a glossy leather violin case from beneath his arm, and followed Birch's lead.

As she brushed past, our eyes met. Did she see it in mine, or I in hers? Regardless, it was a fine beginning.

I feigned a headache to dismiss myself from the coaching parade, illness being the only acceptable excuse. We came to `summer' in Newport, but our lives were as rigid here as they were in New York.

My head did throb, but with thoughts of the newcomers. I tried to whoosh them away with my reading, but they refused to depart. I lay upon my bed until it was time to get ready for dinner.

* * *

It was a rare evening during summers at Newport where we neither entertained nor were entertained, for doing so was the sole purpose of this small colony of the very rich.

It was only the family for dinner that night, just the four of us at the vast square table for ten. The large room and all its grandeur swallowed us, or so it felt to me at the time, but my mother insisted we dine there, rather than the intimate breakfast room, whether we entertained or not.

I lost myself to the light of the chandeliers and the paintings they illuminated; the ancient figures that hovered over me, over us, ever listening. More than once, I wished they would shower their wisdom down upon us. Their presence was my panacea, or perhaps it was merely the art itself. Like my father, so much of what fed me was art. Fitting that the room where we ate should be so full of it.

I missed many a tiresome conversation in the study of these paintings. Not that evening.

“Really, Clarence, is it so very difficult for you to arrive on time?” My mother chided my brother as he rushed in, still straightening his cravat, no more than two minutes past seven.

Clarence, eighteen and dashing, fulfilled his role as my mother's pet with relish; he scudded a step at her tone, one that did not typically belong to him.

“Darling, Mother, I'm only late because I wanted to look perfect for you.” He glided to her chair beside mine with elegance. He had my father's height and my mother's thinness, my father's thick hair, tones of dark and light gold, like Mother's used to be. He leaned over and plucked a kiss upon her cheek.

The magic wand flicked; her earrings, much like the shape of the lights above her, tinkled and glittered, though far truer than she did.

“Don't be silly, dear, you always look lovely,” she twittered like a nuzzled bird. It would have been my pleasure to stick a cracker in her mouth.

My brother came around and sat opposite Mother, to my father's left.

“Pop,” he greeted my father with the stylish slang becoming so popular among the young men of his set, the young and newly on the marriage market, the athletic and always busy sparks that crowed about Bellevue Avenue like the roosters they were. Father nodded in silence, as was his way. Clarence sat, catching my eye, tossing me a sly wink. His practiced charm, so like the many other young men, had little effect on me. He should have been my hero, as he had been when we were little. I should have looked up to him with worship and adoration. Resentment was far more powerful.

He looked at the opulent façades of our homes and those like it and believed. It was more than the color of our eyes that differed. He and my mother were a matched pair. My father and I, a pair ourselves, but of a different sort.

Clarence pulled in his chair and Birch, having been standing guard at the small door leading to the pantry, gave a nod of his balding head.

The footmen entered the room, silver trays balanced perfectly on perfectly manicured hands. James, the first footman brought the soup, while Charles, the second, brought the wine. Both were amazingly handsome. I always asked for more of whatever James was serving, bringing his dazzling smile and sparkling blue eyes closer to me again and again, though I squirmed in my seat every time he did.

It was a peculiarity, of the life here in Newport, that the footmen were undeniably attractive, not only of face but of physique, for oftentimes they wore livery with breeches and stockings. They must possess, then, a `well-turned calf' as the silly saying went. And they must be tall, six feet being the minimum height.

It became a social occasion, a real cat's party, when a woman of any house had to hire a new footman. Friends were invited over, drinks were served as handsome young men walked by, displaying their features. The women spoke of them as if they spoke of jewels, of how they glittered, how they were desired. They laughed and giggled as little girls did over their dolls. As was my way then, I hid in a secret hallway to watch and listen. My mother always enjoyed the occasion in a fine mood, enjoyed it a great deal. Admitting my own enjoyment was something I denied, even to myself.

Mother was not in such a mood at this moment. She took one silent sip of her soup, dabbed the sides of her mouth with a starched serviette, and then it started.

“Orin, please explain to me these new servants you've brought into our home. It was never part of our agreement.” She put her spoon down with deliberation; she would not pick it up until he answered her to satisfaction. In truth, she had a valid point, the hiring of all the servants—as she called them, my father called them the staff, it was a telling distinction those days—was under the purview of the woman of the house.

My father didn't lower his spoon save for another helping of soup.

“I told you all about them, Millicent, when we were in Italy.”

“Tell me again. I don't remember.”

I thought she did though, from the look on her face. My mother's face always gave her truth away. Did mine? I hardly knew my own truth then, but I knew I wanted no one to see it. I wanted nothing of my mother, that truth was irrefutable.

“Felice is a violin maestro. Not only does he play like…,” my father did look up from his soup then, a bit of rapture on his rough features, “…like a virtuoso. He is also a master artisan. He makes violins, violas, as well as magnificent furniture. Don't you remember my promising he would make you furniture none of your friends would have, like nothing they could compare it to?”

He knew how to mine my mother for gold. I hid my smug smile behind my napkin.

My mother picked up her spoon. “Oh, well, yes, that part I do remember. But I thought he would make the furniture in Italy and send it to us.”

My father looked like he would throw his spoon. It was a mean notion, but it would have given me quite the chuckle if he had.

“No, that was never discussed. He is primarily here to teach Clarence how to play.”

“The violin?” I hadn't heard my brother's voice crack in many years.

“Yes, Clarence. It is a wonderful talent to have.” My father spoke to Clarence much as he did my mother, always with a sigh in his words.

“I have no interest in playing the violin,” it was my brother's turn to put down his spoon, “or any instrument for that matter.”

My mouth fell open, words needing saying hung there. How could Clarence not be thrilled at such an opportunity? How could he be so ungrateful for it?

“I'll do it, Father.” I heard the words for the first time myself; they came without thought. I heard too the squeak in my voice; it thrummed through me like the slide of a bow down taut strings. “I'd love to learn to play the violin.”

The silence appalled. I would have preferred it stayed that way rather than be assaulted by my mother's response.

She laughed.

“Oh, Pearl, don't be ridiculous,” she chuckled with cruel dismissiveness. She dismissed me often unless I served her purpose.

“Why? Why would it be ridiculous?” My hands balled into fists in my lap. The fragrance of the fresh lobster bisque suddenly smelled like rotted mushrooms.

Mother's face twisted tightly; her sneer devoured me. In that moment, I hoped my face did reveal my truth. I hoped I held up a mirror to her. “Such things are for men. Have you ever seen a woman play in the symphony?”

“No, but that doesn't mean there couldn't be.”

“Clarence is so busy, after all, Orin.” Mother carried on as if I hadn't said a word. It wasn't the first time. “He has his tennis and his sailing, and so many other activities. Isn't that why we bought a membership to the Casino?”

The Casino had been an establishment in Newport for ten years before we arrived. I had heard a little of the silly tale that brought about its creation. James Gordon Bennett, the man who owned the New York Herald and another newspaper in Paris I think, was the man who built it and made its rules. Before the Casino, and even now, most of the Newport men went to the Reading Room, a `gentlemen's club,' they called it. I'd heard it was a very serious, a very stodgy place. I had walked past it, of course, for it was just down Bellevue Avenue, not far from our home. Past it, never to enter.

The rumor, as it went, claims Mr. Bennett invited one of his friends to the Reading Room. That friend, an Englishman by the name of Captain Candy, a name which sounded quite fake to me, Mr. Bennett had challenged to do something outlandish at the Reading Room, wake things up a bit. Captain Candy complied. He jumped on his horse, rode it up the stairs, and into the hall.

Imagine the outcry, the madness; I imagined the hilarity. The Board of the Reading Room censured Mr. Bennett and retracted Captain Candy's guest privileges. Mr. Bennett's response…the construction of the Newport Casino.

This club was far from stodgy. With much more modern architecture, it took up the entire end block on Bellevue Avenue on the northeast corner of Memorial Boulevard. There were tennis courts and polo courts and lovely porches where, wonder of wonders, women were welcomed to sit and socialize and watch. There were balls and banquets and musicales held there as well; I loved those most of all. Membership was exclusive but no match for my mother's determination or my father's credentials.

“I have no wish to deny Clarence all those past-times, Millicent, but a well-rounded man possesses other talents than the ability to hit a ball well over a net or excel at other sorts of sports.” My father gave my brother a look; there was something in it I didn't understand at the time. Clarence blushed. “He should know of music and literature and art. Such things are what make a man a gentleman.”

It was quite a lengthy speech for my father, an impassioned one at that, though, in that moment, I could find no joy in it.

“Well then,” Mother said between spoonfuls, “as long as he has time for his other pursuits, ones that will bring him into the good graces of our neighbors, I suppose it wouldn't be terrible.” She reached across the table to take my brother's hand, quite the stretch at this table. “Perhaps you will be able to serenade our guests sometime soon. That would make quite the impression. Wouldn't it, Orin?”

My mother brokered a deal with the high craftiness of any of the wealthy industrialists who populated our small summer community. My father knew it as surely as I did. He made the deal; he, too, was a master businessman. Clarence was quick to agree but I caught the look that passed between him and my mother; only they knew the code to decipher their message. Yet I knew my brother would still spend more time at the Casino than at any other place. I believe my father saw it as well, as I saw the ends of his bushy mustache hang lower.

I knew then there would be no violin lessons for me. It didn't matter. I knew what I truly wanted. I stopped listening, stopped eating, and remembered.

* * *

I remembered that day as if it was yesterday, not four years ago.

We were in the home of Henry Havemeyer. Miss Mary Cassatt's dearest friend was married to one of his cousins and the occasion was a homecoming of sorts for the woman painter. It was a showing as well, for her astounding works stood on easels propped up around the circumference of the room. I must have walked round at least five times.

My father, so much taller then as I stood by his side, spoke to her. He preferred the work of the grand masters of the Renaissance, but I could tell he was curious about this woman.

“Your style, Miss Cassatt, it is very unique,” he'd said to her upon proper introduction.

The round-faced woman's thin lips almost broke into a smile, almost. My lips tried to form the same knowing, slight curve.

“Not so, sir,” she said. “Perhaps here in America, yes. Nevertheless, it has been flourishing in France for some time. It is called Impressionism.”

My father tilted his head at the unfamiliar term.

“When I traveled to Paris in 1875,” Miss Cassatt continued, “the technique was burgeoning. Especially by Degas. I used to go and flatten my nose against an art dealer's window, a window full of Degas' work, and absorb all I could of his technique.”

She looked up at my father; simple features no longer simple as they bloomed. “It changed my life. I saw art then as I wanted to see it.”

“And your family, Miss Cassatt,” my mother had chimed in with what she thought was an important question. “Do they encourage your…work?”

Miss Cassatt's face returned to its stoic self. It broke only for a moment, when her gaze turned down to me; I saw her smile for the first time that day. The smile faded like the moon with the coming of dawn as she returned her attention to my mother.

“I will tell you this, Madam. I enrolled myself in the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts at the age of fifteen.” She said no more, but her eyes held my mother's with a fierce grip.

Mother laughed her tinny, fake laugh. “How courageous of you,” she said flatly. “Well, we will let you greet the other guests.”

My mother had yanked my father away then, me with them, and brought her mouth close to his ear, but not so close I didn't hear her disparaging condemnation, “A new woman.”

I didn't know then what she meant, but I learned. I didn't know what a tangled path would lay before me for it, but I, too, wanted to be a new woman. Most of all, I wanted to be an artist. I thought I had the talent, as Miss Cassatt did, but did I have her courage?

GINEVRA

The man called Birch led us through the marble hall. I walked on tiptoes. I walked as I once had through a grand cathedral back in Italy.

He hurried us along. I had only seconds to glimpse a dining room, one so large it could have served as a great hall in a castle from long ago. It glittered; gold sparkled everywhere. Across from it, an alcove, each end flanked by glass and gold cabinets. On display were more treasures of silver and gold, china and porcelain. I slowed; if I could, I would have run.

The man hurried us along.

We passed through two dark, carved doors; we passed into another world. Inside these doors, we entered a small landing.

“This is a ladies' powder room,” Mr. Birch finally decided to speak to us. “The Beeches has some of the most modern plumbing in all of Newport.” He turned hard eyes on me. “Family and guests only.”

I returned his look. Nothing more.

The snobby man spoke with such pride; you would think this enormous place belonged to him. I suppose in a way he thought it did.

Everything about Birch was stiff, his perfectly pressed cut-away, pristine white shirt, large black puff tie with its big, fancy knot bobbing as he spoke, but especially the stiff tone of his voice. Did he speak to everyone with such cold flatness or did such a chill frost only my father and me? Time would tell.

My father nudged my arm and gave me `the look.' I translated.

Such looks came constantly during our journey to America. I saw more of them than I did the passing ocean.

Mr. Worthington had paid our fare, thirty dollars each… thirty dollars to travel in the bowels of one of the great steamships crossing the ocean faster than the wind. It was a week living in hell.

Not allowed on deck, I had begun to dream of fresh air before the journey ended. They fed us little else but soup or stew, we slept in huddled masses on the floor in our clothes beside our luggage and had only salt water to wash ourselves.

Few of the others understood the sharply delivered instructions of the ship's crew given only in English. I was one of the few.

My role as translator had started then, and though I tried to teach Papa the language through the long empty hours on the ship, he had learned to say only a few words; he understood even less. Instead, he would give me `the look' and I would translate as best I could.

The ship docked in New York. We rose up from our burial place and saw the sky, breathing deep. The sight of the giant lady and her torch overwhelmed us. We had heard of her, her welcoming. The people who worked at her feet were not so kind. I feared, despised, and pitied them. Their jobs were difficult; they could not show us too much kindness. To them, we were no different from the colored, what Italians called mulignane. The nastiness of it became my reality. They stripped away our humanity; we could have been heads of lettuce. Yet they were just doing their work.

They tagged us like cattle, put us in rooms to stand, waiting. We stood in lines for hours, herded through, telling our names over and over.

So many lost their real names. If they couldn't write, those who registered us went by sound alone, mangling many, wrong names these newcomers would carry for the rest of their lives. Worse were the ones they sent back. They had endured for nothing.

Then the inspections…our clothes, our hair, our mouths, our bodies. Endless invasions making us feel less than human. The constant questions, the same again and again. Thorough and hurried at the same time. They hurried us so fast, often I didn't have time to understand myself. They hurried us, as the butler did now, as if they couldn't wait to get us to a place where they could not see us.

Birch pointed to his left.

“This pantry here serves both the breakfast room just behind it and the dining room. A marvelous convenience for the family.”

He said mahvelous as if he were one of them.

He opened another door, plain wood and frosted glass. Into another foyer, a simple if bright one of windows and white tile. The floor, the walls, the ceiling, all of small white squares of tile. Then to the staircase.

It rose and fell away from us. I looked up and down; I could see the white grillwork and polished wood banister spiral away in perfect symmetry. I stood in the middle, moving neither up nor down. It was a landing named nowhere.

“This is the servants' staircase. It is the only staircase you shall ever use.”

Birch stopped and turned to us. “Ever.”

My father needed no translation to understand.

“They may use it from time to time.” He said “they” as if the word referred to a king or a queen. “But rarely. Downstairs, if you please,” he instructed.

I had known we traveled to a rich man's house, but I never imagined a place like this. I became aware of our ragged appearance, clothes old and worn before the hard journey, now so very much worse, our ragged suitcases holding only more ragged clothes. The coarse wool scratched me for the first time in my life. My foot shrunk away from the top step; I could not see where they led.

Before he closed the door to the marble hallway—though I didn't know then it must never be called a hallway—I looked back.

The girl still stood at her place by the pillars; she could have been a sculpture at its feet. Her clothing was so fine. Her dress was short, hem falling between knees and ankles; it puffed all around her from something that lay underneath. It seemed to hover about her, fabric as fine as angel's wings.

Something nameless, a creature I had never met, was born in me that was to live within, eating away, for many years.

She stared at us still, but it wasn't a mean stare. Curious, yes, and something else, I thought. Perhaps that something else was just my own hope.

“Wait right here.” Birch instructed me, pointing to a distinct spot at the bottom of the stairs in a large foyer of the same white tile. “Right…here.” He pointed again. I did not know which I was more compelled to do, curtsey to him or slap him.

He took my father by the arm and led him through another frosted door and then another, their footsteps growing ever fainter, their silhouettes fuzzy as if they walked out of this world to another. With each step they took, the churning in my gullet twisted tighter. I found myself standing alone amid people in constant motion. My feet once more pestered me to run.

Most were women, some middle-aged, most young. Their features as alike as their uniforms: fair-haired, light-skinned, blonde or soft brown hair, most with blue eyes like pieces of glass with pointed edges.

I stared too.

All wore black blouses buttoned to the top, sleeves puffed at the shoulders, and full black skirts. All wore crisp white aprons; some aprons covered their whole body, others only their skirts. Atop their pinned hair, some white caps covered whole heads, while others wore dainty lace headdresses. The differences were small. I thought them particular to a precise position in the household. I did not know which was which. They were as strange to me as this new country—new world—I found myself in.

They hurried past, carrying all sorts of items: dishes, linens, mixing bowls. To the one, all stumbled a step at the sight of me. I shivered beneath cold glares. Eyes racked me from top to bottom. They were uniform in their quick dismissal.

A few men passed me. Like the women, their clothes told of their positions. Two men, one young and one old, wore dark suits, full jackets, and pants, while three others, all young and handsome, wore waistcoats and fancy shirts and ties like Birch. One of these men, really a boy not much older than me, winked as he walked past. I pursed my lips as I tilted my nose up and away from him.

Two others stood out, incomparable to the rest, as was Mr. Birch.

I glimpsed the man through a wide archway into a kitchen as large as a cavern filled with a huge wood table topped with copper, cast iron ovens all in a row, and everywhere copper pots and pans, and strange devices I had never seen. He stood, vibrant, in all white, a double-breasted white jacket, a white kerchief tied about his neck, and the strangest hat I'd ever seen; it had no brim, just a band of white circled about his head. The rest rose high, a pleated puff of fabric, like a crown. This man issued orders; he did not yell but spoke strong and firm. His accent was strange to my ears. It wasn't Italian but there was something similar about it. Those he spoke to jumped, with a quick, “Yes, Monsieur le Chef.” Their response explained his speech.

“And who might you be?” She stood before me, hands curled fists on near non-existent hips. She wore all black as well, yet no apron. Her blouse boasted sharply pressed pleats, her skirt was fuller; both had a shine to the fabric, clearly finer than those of the other women. From her waistband hung a circle of keys, a huge ring of them, more than I had ever seen.

She spoke as Mr. Birch did, with such emphasis on the `t's' and the long `o' sound. English.

While northern Italians disliked southern Italians, no one disliked Italians as much as the English and the Irish. Hope, what there was of it, fluttered out the window as quickly as a trapped bird once released.

This was my introduction to Mrs. Briggs, the housekeeper. She was as thin as a fire poker and just as hotly sharp. I learned quickly that she ruled this roost as well and as cruelly as any general ruled an army.

“Well don't just stand there, girl, ansah me?”

Squinty black eyes bore into me; lips pinched into a tight line.

“I'm-a…,” My clipped nails dug into my palms, my legs beneath my tattered skirts quivered. “I am…” I rushed to correct my mistake. Too late.

“You ah an I-talian,” she announced, face twisting with her displeasure. “Why are you in this house?”

I opened my mouth, nothing. Yet salvation came.

“Not to worry, Mrs. Briggs,” Birch called out to us from the doorway, striding fast, my father no longer with him. My relief had a sharp bite of worry to it.

“A word, if you will, Mrs.” He called her Mrs. though she wore no wedding ring. Mr. Birch motioned his large head to a room just off the hall to my right. He unlocked the door and they rushed inside; I had only a glimpse of what looked like a nice, simple sitting room, the kind I grew up playing in back home. The twang of loss and longing struck me as the clock does midnight; it stung my eyes with tears.

At first, I heard nothing, then murmurs that grew to voices raised, none too pleased. Then, finally, unhappy acceptance.

They rushed out as fast as they rushed in. They stood before me. The woman's face was far more curdled than it had been when she went in.

“So, you ah to be a new seamstress,” Mrs. Briggs didn't say my name. I'm sure she knew it by then, knew all about me. “You had better be good, for the mistress and our young lady wear only the finest.”

“Good, si, I am.” The words flew from my lips. Too fast. Nerves flapped my mouth faster than my mind could stop them.

“Yes, well, we shall see about that.” Mrs. Briggs turned to Mr. Birch. “I'll show the girl to her room then.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Briggs.” Mr. Birch blustered air, shoulders dropping.

“Up with you,” the sharp-boned woman waved a hand at the stairs.

I hesitated. I wanted my father, wanted to know where he was. If I took a single step away, it would be a step away from him.

Mrs. Briggs's bony fingers pinched my shoulders, clamping, she turned me and nudged upward. There was no heaven waiting for me there.

When Papa and I had first stood outside this mansion they called a `cottage,' we stood shivering from cold fear. Scrolled columns and statues surrounded us, beside us, above us. They threatened, guarding even though they were stone. It looked like the palazzos of the wealthy signori built on the mountainsides of Italy. From our home, we could see them hovering on the horizon like clouds. Like clouds, always out of our reach.

My father's shoulders had turned, turned back toward the path on which we approached. If minds had hands, mine would have pushed him there. He faced the door once more. I held my silence. As we looked at what would be our future home—no, that wasn't right. It would never be our home, but the place we lived; my true home would ever haunt me, becoming grander as each spectral memory invaded my mind. As we looked at it, we thought it was a two-storied building. It was not.

The basement, from where Mrs. Briggs and I started to climb, hid from the outside, and there was another subbasement below the first, she told me so, as if this were her home, though I hoped never to see it, just as I hadn't seen it from the outside. Yes, the floors where the most work took place lay beneath the ground's surface.

As we continued upward, Mrs. Briggs took it upon herself to inform me of all the servants in the house. I couldn't keep up with such a list.

I stopped listening and started counting; there were more than forty people here to serve four. If she meant to overwhelm me, she succeeded. If she meant to make me feel like nothing, she succeeded there too.

I grew dizzy, nauseous, as she rattled on as to who did what, or more importantly, what some didn't do.

“Mr. Birch, Chef Pasquel, and I rule this roost. Howeva, the personal maids and valets are far superior to the footmen, the stable boys, or the upstairs maids. Mr. Birch does not serve dinner or empty ashtrays, nor is he expected to answer the door. The mistress's maid does not clean her room, does not even make the bed.”

She babbled, layering rule upon rule like frosting on a cake. Too many to remember; too confusing not to break. It would only be a matter of time. Did all of America live by such rules?

As we climbed, I found yet another surprise, another hidden floor. Here were the servants' quarters. From the outside, this floor looked like a row of carved vertical indents held up by carved brackets, all of the same peach-colored stone, a parapet not to keep marauders out, but the servants hidden.

As we hurtled the last step, I stopped mid-stride. I found myself not in a dungeon as I expected, led there by the fiery dragon that was Mrs. Briggs, but in a simple dormitory of rooms. I didn't know then that the constant juggling and fighting for good servants were part of the life of the rich, `the servant problem,' I would later hear it called. Mr. Worthington had built a nice servants' floor, hoping to keep his staff pleased and in his employ.

A wide hallway with polished wood floors stretched the length of the house. In two places, my head dropped, eyes widening at the large rectangles of glass squares etched with stars. I saw the light of the sun and my gaze flew upward. Above them, windows in the roof matched their size and shape. Sunlight flowed through the very floors and ceilings as if the owner could command the sun above him as well and as easily as he did all the people beneath him.

On each side of the hall, numbered doors led us on.

Mrs. Briggs brought me into the one that would be my room.

“All the single rooms are occupied,” she informed me. “You shall have to share.” Were a single room available it would not be mine to have. I knew which rung on the ladder I stood; I had not yet stepped off the ground. Whenever she looked at me, her eyes started at my face, but always moved downward, always darkened with distaste.

The room was far larger than I expected. Two beds hugged the walls, each with a large white steel headrail, a smaller one at the foot. There were two closets, two chests of drawers, two chairs, and a large dressing table that sat before the window between the beds. It was far more than I had ever had at home; it did not make me miss home any less. Home was not a place or things.

The windows were a surprise, the secret of this floor revealed. Through the mullioned panes, I spied a small roof, level with the bottom of the window, a roof of small rectangles of stone. Just beyond, a grey high-shingled wall, the wall that on the outside appeared as carved stone, the wall hiding us away. At least the windows let in the natural light, but it came from nowhere. I could not see the sun or it me.

“You shall be sharin' this room with Greta,” she told me, accidentally dropping her `g,' not so superior in truth after all. “You shan't see her much. A kitchen maid works the longest hours.”

She turned her back to me, yet I heard her mumble, “And that's what you should be.”

I pretended not to hear, though I did it badly. I would become a master at it soon enough.

Greta's side of the room was bright and alive. A merrily squared quilt covered her bed, pictures hung from the wood rail circling the room painted pale yellow, a lovely, embroidered pillow sat on the chair. The other side looked barren and empty; my side.

“Put your things away.” She pointed to the chest and the closet. “I'll be right back with bedding and something decent for you to wear.” She looked offended as her gaze scratch over me.

She left me there. I sat on my bed, wondering if I would ever breathe again.

My father had promised me this would be a better life for us, as he had promised my aunts it would be. He had filled my head with the wonder that was life in America. I did not know them then as the fairy tales they were. This room was to be “my home” for the rest of my days. My skill with a needle put to use keeping the fancy clothes of the very rich in perfect condition.

I heaved a gulp of air.

In Italy, I would not have such a fine house. I would have married a simple boy from our simple town, and we would have lived in a simple house. But it would have belonged to us, to me. I would have made clothing for my husband and myself and, if blessed, our children. The clothes would have belonged to us. I would have earned a few lira sewing for others in the village, money for my family.

Here nothing would belong to me. I would take no pride in my work, for the people who wore the clothes would never notice it. I would make a little money, but with no family to share it.

I could no longer call my life my own.

* * *

When I finally saw my father again, he was sitting at the far end of the long table in the servants' dining room just off the kitchen, another small and cramped rectangle. He sat alone. There were at least three empty chairs on either side of him; the other servants bunched themselves together at the other end like grapes.

There was another table, a small round one, in the back, right corner. At that table sat Mr. Birch, Mrs. Briggs, the chef, and another man whose face I hadn't seen yet. No one need tell me why. One day I would learn they—the rulers of the ruled—were called the “Swell Set;” I would have another name for them. The real “servants” belonged at the long table. There were ranks within the ranks; I was in a maze with no clue of which path to take.

I rushed to my father, but his guarded look buffeted me. I slowed, sat beside him. In hushed Italian, we told each other of our day. He had fared better than I had. He had his own small room to sleep in and work in, a space of his own, filled with the incredible tools and wood Mr. Worthington had waiting for my father and his talented hands.

As he told me of it all, his eyes gleamed; he rubbed his hands together in anticipation. I hated Papa for a sharp moment—a sharply jealous moment—hated he should be so pleased.

Yet I couldn't break him of it; I hadn't seen him happy since before Mama grew ill. What sort of daughter would I be to deny him this? One that would surely and sharply have displeased my mother.

I told him of my room and that I would share it with another girl. Though I hadn't met her yet, I was sure she sat somewhere along this table. When I told my father of the sewing room Mrs. Briggs had shown me, my enthusiasm—what there was of it—was true, a truth I found easy to exaggerate; a small gift to him. The equipment was the best I had ever seen, some I had never seen. My fingers, so skilled with a needle, guided and trained by my mother when I was a young child, longed to begin work, which I would in the morning.

I watched my father's eyes as they took all of me in them.

“Your clothes, they are fine,” he said in Italian.

My uniform would be the same as most of the other women: a simple black, puffed sleeved blouse, a simple black full skirt, both of cheap cotton. I would wear no apron or cap of any kind. My short-heeled, ankle boots were my own. Though their cracks and worn spots had insulted Mrs. Briggs, there were no others in the house to fit me.

“Shine them up,” she had ordered me, telling me where the shoeshine room was. “I'll get you new ones when I have the time.”

Who knew when that would be? I had rubbed my boots for a half-hour with some linseed oil and a rag.

“Yes,” I responded flatly, hearing my own indifference, “fine.”

His thin lips drooped at the corners until he opened them. Before he could say more, the staff room maid began her parade into the room. In and out, in and out she came, with dish after dish, simple fare of chicken and potatoes and peas. It was the best meal my father and I had eaten since we left Italy.

We sat among the rest of the house staff, as we would at every meal, among them but not with them. They were all there, all the inside servants Mrs. Briggs had named, yet I had no idea who was who. I knew my father hated to reveal his thick accent in the few words of English he could speak. Though one of the most talented and creative people I had ever known, he would not let his speech reveal a false truth. How strange it was for a man with such a great mind, and me, who possessed one as well, to be thought of as simple, simply because we spoke with an accent. Accents sit upon the lips, not in minds, but small minds could not know the difference.

For his sake, I followed his lead, eating without a word. Though I did not speak, I did more than my fair share of listening. I convinced myself it was to learn the language better, a feeble disguise. I fed upon their gossip as I did the meal. My naughty eavesdropping would make my yenta aunts proud. The thought almost made me giggle.

“The mistress has instructed me to find out what the Astor woman has ordered for her fall gowns.” I heard Mrs. Briggs say to Mr. Birch. With a quick glance, I saw she ate her fill, more than I would have imagined from the look of her. Perhaps her meanness devoured the food long before her body.

“You cannot wear that dress at yer wedding, Edna!” The outcry came from a parlor or chambermaid. I knew them by then as those who wore the dainty lace on their heads.

“What?” The sweet-looking girl beside her, Edna no doubt, grew paler, though I didn't think it possible. She looked to one of the footmen closer to my end of the table. He shrugged his shoulders, a groom-to-be unaffected by such nonsense. The bride turned back to the woman. “Why ever not, Beatrice? You know I cannot buy my own.”

“It is bad luck, thas what it is,” the outraged girl, Beatrice, hissed.

“But dear Mrs. O'Brennan has made such a kind offer.”

“Indeed, I have,” chimed in one of the older women, by her all-white clothing, the assistant chef.

A gasp came from the other table. Mrs. Briggs grew ever-sharper dripping in overly dramatic horror. “You cannot do it, Edna. It will be the death of you.”

With her sharp tongue, she told a tale of her niece, one who was to wed on the very day some man shot the president named Lincoln. The ceremony canceled; the bride gave her dress and veil away. The woman who wore it to her wedding died within a week.

Old world suspicious came into the room, beside it fear in a range of tones bouncing off the hard stone like church bells. Their voices told me another tale as well.

We were in a company of mostly English, Irish, and a few Germans. They came from countries where service had been an accepted form of occupation for hundreds of years, where accepting one's rank was a natural order of life. There was not another Italian among them, nor a single American.

I whispered softly to my father who listened with no expression. I'm not sure if it was the story or his shame that he could not understand which kept him so stone-like.

“Ya'd best believe it,” this from another woman.

“I knew you'd agree with me, Nettie,” Mrs. Briggs garbled, her mouth full. They said Italians had no manners.

Nettie sat tall in her chair. Her uniform was much finer than those of the other women, even that of Mrs. Briggs. Her silk black blouse was edged in white lace and cut with fine tailoring. Her black skirt wasn't nearly so full and yet, when she moved, I thought I heard the swish of a petticoat or whatever these women wore as fine undergarments. Her hair was done up smartly and her hands were clean and without callouses. A ladies' maid; the lady's maid.

“Doon' ya know the story of Mrs. Belmont's wedding dress?” she asked the table at large, her voice thick with Ireland. When all at the table shook their heads, she almost seemed to smile as she began to tell.

“Well, Mrs. Belmont had ordered her dress from Worth's, of course.”

I did not know who Worth was, so I did not understand her “of course.” I felt pulled into her tale no matter. I felt I should know more about who this Worth was.

“She ordered it late though and feared it wouldn't arrive in time. So,” Nettie waved a hand, “she had another made in New York. Which she ended up wearin'. When the exquisite Worth dress arrived, she gave it to a friend, I forget which, who had just announced her engagement.”

She paused, whether for effect or breath I couldn't tell.

“And…?” one of the footmen prodded her. The men too were well into the story, but they had no patience for her dramatics.

“And the woman accepted it. Within a few days, the engagement was broken.”

“No!” Edna gasped. She thought twice now about accepting Mrs. O'Brennan's offering, the wariness ran all over her face. I looked upon her heartbreak with sad eyes.

“Oh, but it doesn't end there,” Nettie enjoyed herself now. “That poor broken-hearted woman gave the same dress to another friend. Hers was a sad, unhappy marriage.”

“So are a lot of marriages,” a man whose name I didn't know muttered with a nasty grin.

“Doon' be smart with me, Silas,” Nettie scolded. “For that is not the worst of her story. Not only was she unhappy, but she died. In childbirth. Within a year.”

Nettie sat back in her chair, her pleasure at shocking the room as evident as the shine on her skin.

The room filled with noise once more, allowing me to translate to my father without much notice. They chattered like the gazza