Dreamhunter Duet: Dreamquake Part 21

"The Presentation Ball is in five nights," Laura Hame added, as though to explain something vital.

"Laura wants to stay till the very end of the ball," the young man said. He blushed and looked around nervously, as though he had no right to speak. Then he squared his shoulders. "But I will sign up to play the night of the ball, and for however long the dream lasts after that."

"I can come back too, and sleep with Sandy-only not on the night of the ball," Laura said. Her chafed cheeks dimpled.

Alexander Mason looked stony.

Grace Tiebold turned around in her chair to look at the young dreamhunters. She froze, staring, then said, "You should shave, Alexander." She sounded wrathful. The director couldn't imagine what the boy had done to offend her, or what his position was among this talented and high-handed family.

Grace turned back to the director. "These young people should wait outside while Tziga and I settle details."

"It's been a pleasure to meet you, Miss Hame, Miss Tiebold, Mr. Mason," the director said.

The young people left, the girls whispering fiercely. The director busied himself with the paperwork.

Rose said to her cousin, "I hope you can get rid of that rash by Sat.u.r.day night."

"What rash?"

"On your chin."

Laura touched her chin. She gave a secretive smile, then she looked at Sandy. "Aunt Grace is right, you should shave," she said.

"Oh-it's a kissing rash," Rose said. "I've heard about those."

8.

OSE STOOD IN THE LOWER HALLWAY OF THE FOUNDERSTON HOUSE, READY MINUTES BEFORE EVERYONE ELSE, THOUGH hers had been by far the most involved preparations. Her hair had been washed and loosely curled in the morning, then pinned into seemingly artless whorls and tendrils shortly after lunch. After dinner it was decorated with real pearls, both fixed pins and drops that shimmered and shimmied every time she moved her head. Rose had been sponged down, powdered, and perfumed by eight o'clock and had gotten into her stockings and slip, then finally her dress. She'd had a maid to help her, hired especially for the occasion, since the household ordinarily had no need of ladies' maids. The maid had worn cotton gloves to protect the l.u.s.trous silk of Rose's ball gown from her hands. Rose was gloved now too, in one of the five pairs she had gotten for the season. She had covered herself with her white velvet cape. She was ready-ready to be presented to society, and to make a spectacle of herself. It was nine p.m. The ball was to begin at nine-thirty.

Where was everyone?

Rose tapped her foot. She didn't touch anything. She began to imagine that dust and cobwebs would jump off the walls, that fingerprints would float off the banisters beside her and drop greasily onto her clothes like soot from a ship's funnel.

Rose heard a door latch. It was the back door. Laura pushed through from the kitchen, walking backward, her brilliant skirt bunched in one hand. In the other she had a large canister of film. She had her gloves on, but her hands were poking out from the unb.u.t.toned openings at her wrists. There was a small spray of dark mud on the back of her skirt.

"This is it!" Laura said, panting. She opened the door under the stairs and went into Chorley's darkroom. Rose followed her, stopping in the doorway when she caught a whiff of all the chemicals.

Laura put the film canister on the table and opened the drawer where Chorley kept his pasteboard labels. She uncapped a bottle of ink, dipped her pen.

"Be careful," Rose said.

Laura stopped, pen poised. "You're right. What should I put? I can hardly write 'd.a.m.ning Evidence,' can I?"

"I meant don't get ink on your gloves."

Laura laughed, overexcited. She'd been like this all week. At times she was deliriously happy, at other times she seemed paralyzed by gloom. The dream alone couldn't explain it. Rose supposed that it was whatever Laura and Sandy were up to-more than kissing maybe. She felt left out, and left behind. It wasn't that she saw herself as less grownup than Laura, because Laura wasn't acting particularly grownup-she wasn't acting like anything, except perhaps a string of firecrackers lit at both ends and dropped in the street. It was just that Rose found she couldn't imagine what it took to generate this crazy pitch of feeling.

"I've come home every day just to watch for his sign," Laura said.

She meant her monster's sign, his five stones in a line. Rose said, "There I was thinking you'd come home to bathe in b.u.t.termilk, like me."

Laura hadn't spent the last days washing her hair in chamomile (or rosemary in her case) to brighten it, or having manicures and pedicures. Instead, she would come back from Fallow Hill midmorning, with Sandy Mason in tow, and they'd sit in the library or parlor alone together. Chorley had pointedly opened the door the one time they'd closed it.

"I came downstairs about fifteen minutes ago and heard a knock on the door, then someone tormenting the pump in the yard. He'd come in the back and left the film on the steps. With a note." Laura pulled a paper out of the top of one glove and pa.s.sed it to Rose.

The handwriting was in smudgy charcoal, the letters evenly sized and backward sloping. The note read: "I am under Market Bridge." Rose turned the paper over and saw that it was a paste-scabbed strip from some bill advertising a dream.

"I have a bone to pick with him," Laura said. "It's almost as if he knows and is avoiding me." Then, "d.a.m.n ball."

"d.a.m.n inconvenient Presentation Ball," Rose said. "d.a.m.n untimely debut." Then, waspishly, "Our big milestones are very different these days, aren't they?"

"Yes." Laura was blunt. "But you want this film to see the light of day just as much as I do."

"True," said Rose. She came all the way into the darkroom, forgetting her fear of the contaminating chemicals. She took the canister from her cousin and stowed it in a drawer. "We'll hand it over to Da tomorrow. He can deliver it to the Grand Patriarch. Or straight to the Commission of Inquiry. His decision."

From the hallway Grace called, "Rose! Laura! Where are you?"

Rose swept out of the darkroom, clutching her cape around her. Laura followed, struggling to stuff her hands back into her tight kid gloves. Grace started fussing. "Where's your wrap, Laura?"

Laura dashed into the kitchen to retrieve it. When she returned to the hall, her father had appeared. He kissed her on the forehead and said, "Have fun." He kissed Rose too and wished her the very best of luck. "I wanted to go, but I don't think I can manage the excitement."

Grace was fl.u.s.tered. "Rose-are you all together under that cape? I didn't get to inspect you."

"Ma, I'm a work of art," Rose said.

Grace hustled her family down the front steps.

Rose was muttering mutinously that it was silly to take the car when the People's Palace was only five minutes' walk away.

"You must be delivered to your debut, Rose. You can't walk there," her mother said.

"Here, let me help you with that," Chorley said to Laura. He'd been watching her attempts to fasten the b.u.t.tons on her right wrist with her left hand. He helped her into the car, sat beside her, and bent over her hand. She felt his fingertips on the inside of her wrist and said, dreamily, "Sandy will be there."

Everyone laughed. "Yes, we know Sandy will be there," chorused Rose and Grace.

At the People's Palace there was a separate entrance for the debutantes and their mothers. This took Grace and Rose straight up the building's secondary staircase to the debutantes' dressing room. It was, in fact, a series of rooms, one where they left their coats, then a large, mirror-lined room with love seats and ottomans, then an innermost room, with attendants in black-and-white uniforms, and lavender-sprinkled towels, big bottles of cologne, and a seamstress-should one be required. Rose looked at all these elaborate comforts and mused on the value Founderston put on the female offspring of its first families. It all made her feel rather like a prize racehorse being transported to an important fair.

The rooms were crowded with slender girls in white and their generally more substantial mothers, in every conceivable color. Grace, accustomed to dream palace finery, had welcomed the chance to get into something plain. When Grace removed her daughter's white velvet cape, she felt that she was indeed unveiling a work of art. She stood beside Rose and basked in her daughter's glow. Rose shone, she scintillated, and she towered over most of her peers, even in her flat-heeled dancing slippers. Grace saw various mothers bridle at the sight-the shock-of Rose's beauty. Rose's friends' reaction was quite different. As soon as they caught sight of her through the crowd, they squealed and rushed over to Rose, who collapsed into their cl.u.s.ter, hugging and bouncing around, a giggly girl again. Grace blinked away tears. She was glad Rose couldn't hold her composure-it was just too much, too soon, and could serve only to isolate her, to set her apart, among older male admirers. Grace could imagine it already, the sterile triumph that was waiting for her daughter, who, she judged, was too young to escape the traps of flattery.

Mamie's mother was determined to make the best of the ball, to put on a brave face, and to show her daughter how to do it. As she said to Mamie when she was making her final, short-tempered motherly adjustments to her hair and wrap, "There are some things that are simply expected of ladies, and that is that." Mrs. Doran wasn't blessed with docile children, but Mamie could usually be relied on to be calm, if only as a result of being chronically unimpressed. However, for the past week, Mamie had been stuffing herself shamefully, and for the last twenty-four hours, on and off, she'd been vomiting. Mrs. Doran was determined that her daughter wasn't actually ill but was only giving way to nerves.

Everything necessary had been done for the girl's debut. She had a double strand of pearls-a gift from her father. She'd had five hair appointments till they found a style that suited her. And she had gotten her way about her deviant black-and-white gown. She had her black gloves, her crown of flowers. Mamie's interests had been served with the best possible care, attention, and expense. And now, her mother thought, it was time for Mamie to show that she could make the best of her lot.

What Mamie's mother couldn't see was that, while the ball had been still far off, Mamie had been happily scornful about it and anyone who hoped to enjoy it. She'd gone along with plans, scoffing at all the fuss. Then, one night, a week before the event, she woke up with a heart full of dread. This was it, the first occasion in her life on which it would matter that no one much liked her. She wouldn't fit in, wouldn't be just one more goose in the gaggle of girls. She was too serious, too ponderous. She wouldn't be sought out. Her dance card had a number of names on it-friends of Ru, who understood what was expected of them-but no one would actually want to dance with her, or sit with her.

Mamie knew Rose had done her best for her. She also knew Rose understood that Mamie was unattractive-and it seemed to matter to Rose, though perhaps only as a problem with possible, partial solutions. Rose had served her friend;Mamie knew that. But now Mamie was on her own, with her transformed cla.s.smates, and all the people who knew how to behave, how to enjoy themselves, how to rise to occasions.

The Doran family was half an hour late. Cas Doran let his wife, son, and daughter sit in the car for minutes before he joined them. He left the house flanked by officials pa.s.sing him telegrams and taking dictation. Then, when the family got to the People's Palace, Mrs. Doran spotted more officials in black bowler hats. "Cas, this is impossible," she said as she eased her wide self, and wider skirts, across the seat. "Why must the government be in crisis on the night of the Presentation Ball?"

Her husband's fingers closed like claws around her wrist, crushing the links of her diamond bracelet into her flesh. "The government is not in crisis, my dear. You must not say such things. And have you forgotten that you and Mamie do not get out here? That the car will take you around to the north door, and that it is only for reasons of security that I have been delivered before you?"

"I hadn't forgotten." Mrs. Doran settled herself again and rubbed her wrist. She heard Mamie whisper, "Stop it. Just stop it."

Cas and Ru got out. Ru stood waiting for his father at the foot of the staircase. He kept adjusting his uniform tunic, pulling at its hem, twitching its collar. Mrs. Doran wanted to shout at him. The car wasn't moving. It was in a line. And, for all his nonsense about security, Cas was standing on the steps holding court-with no one of any consequence, only his bowler-hatted underlings. She heard him say, "I have no use for another report. I want to see the man. Bring him to me." Then he summoned his son to his side and went up the carpeted steps, pulling on his gloves.

Up in the dressing room, the society matrons presiding over the ceremony of the presentation were marshaling the girls.

Grace kissed her splendid daughter on the little patch of bare arm between her sleeve and the top of her glove. Then she let Rose go.

A matron said, "You young ladies all know which row you'll be in. Please remember that the order of your presentation will be determined by the alphabet, not by any sentiments of friendship."

Grace heard her daughter from among the white, glistening throng. "Yes, girls, we can put friendship in our glory boxes and get it out again after we're married."

There was laughter. One of the other mothers-perhaps someone young enough to remember the society dragons herding her-applauded.

Another mother sidled up to Grace and whispered, "This is all very strange." As they followed their daughters down what seemed like endless hallways and staircases to the ballroom, Grace and this woman, whom she'd never met before, talked about their very different comings of age-Grace at twelve in an ap.r.o.n behind the counter of her father's shop, and the other woman as a governess at seventeen.

The debutantes and their escorts bustled into the Great Hall before the ballroom. As they pa.s.sed under the forty-foot lintel carved with the names of the founders, the woman beside Grace touched her hand and pointed out the name at the center of the shallow arch- Tiebold.

Mamie and her mother caught up with the cavalcade of debutantes at the entrance to the Great Hall. The matrons were lining up the girls-one hundred and five of them, in fifteen rows, seven abreast. The girls had practiced, and the maneuver was quickly accomplished. Mamie was in the fourth row, Rose the thirteenth. Mamie craned over her shoulder to see her friend, highly visible because of her height and radiance. Inadvertently, Mamie caught Patty's eye. Patty was babbling to any of her neighbors who would listen that she shouldn't be nervous, she'd been to all sorts of a.s.semblies all summer in the South. "Fancy dress b.a.l.l.s, cricket club b.a.l.l.s, the Masonic Ball in Canning. Girls who know how to dance don't have to wait to come out. And all the married ladies dance because women are still so outnumbered by the men in our town ..."

"Shhhh ...," said someone.

"Mamie, you're wearing black," someone hissed.

"Perhaps she hopes to start a fashion."

Simpering.

A matron clapped her hands. "Girls!"

"Bloodstock. Brood mares," Mamie muttered at her feet.

"Oh, G.o.d, I need to go again!" squeaked the girl behind her.

From the ballroom came the sound of trumpets and drums, cymbals and violins-their processional music.

Cas Doran left his son in the company of several young naval cadets. (Ru had a commission and was now at the naval academy in Westport.) He joined the throng around the President. There was a flurry of hand shaking among the powerful men of the government. Doran watched the master of ceremonies at the far end of the room conferring with Mamie's grandmother Eugenia Chambers-a woman like some imposing public building that has been flounced, frilled, tucked, and draped with lace.

Doran had the sense of some threat looming behind him and turned to see a long, black slab of a body-the Grand Patriarch in his robes, his beard combed and oiled and glistening golden-white.

"Secretary Doran," said Erasmus Tiebold. "Are you and your family back in Founderston for the entire season?"

"Yes. My daughter, Mamie, is out this year."

"Congratulations."

There was a silence, then Doran, p.r.i.c.ked by curiosity and a catlike delight in hunting, tried to continue the conversation. "Were you able to get out of the city yourself over the summer? New Year's was very uncomfortable, I hear."

"Alas, no. I must always look forward to the ball season-when the churches are full."

"Indeed? The theaters and dream palaces too, I gather."

Erasmus Tiebold shot Doran a look of scarcely veiled contempt. Doran, inspired by this, went on. "And can you manage to have a quiet season by stocking yourself with sermons well ahead of time?"

"Sermonizing is the least of my work."

Cas Doran nodded, a polite, understanding nod. "And yet I hope you may discover some leisure in the coming weeks. As I say, I predict a peaceful season. And, surely, if the flock is contented, the shepherd is also?"

The Grand Patriarch was silent for a moment, then he replied, "With too much rest I fear I should not know myself."

Doran had to turn away from the old man's cool, keen scrutiny. He thought, "How much can he know? And what can he prove?" Then he recalled the telegrams and second-hand news, the wild reports he'd had all evening, and he shivered. He shivered, but his skin went hot and his muscles hardened and he was filled with a wish for combat and the bodily joy that always came with that.

The master of ceremonies drummed his staff on the floor. The crowd drew back toward the walls of the ballroom, and the orchestra struck up a processional tune.

Cas Doran was surprised how taken up he was by the ceremony. He had always thought the whole idea of the presentation of girls to society relied on the society being more limited than that of the Republic of Southland. Families rose and fell in the Republic. People made fortunes, and their daughters were presented-by now often only to other fortune makers. It was a transplanted tradition, and Doran took it only as seriously as his wife's insistence that the family dress for dinner. The ball was just another silly social exercise that it was pointless to resist. Yet, as he watched the As, Bs, and Cs, Doran was gradually overcome by a sense of suspense. Something important was about to happen. Then came Lillian Danvers, and Rebecca Deal, and Penelope Dische, and, finally, Mamie Doran, who didn't stumble or falter, pa.s.sing from one state to another-schoolgirl to Society-with no visible embarra.s.sment.

Doran relaxed. His mind idled for a time. He refused to think about the mad, fragmentary reports that had come in from the rangers who had arrived in Founderston shortly before he left for the ball. One of these rangers-whichever his officials judged would be the most coherent-would be delivered to him here at the People's Palace. They would find a quiet room, he'd get the stories straight, and he'd make plans. In a short while, he'd make plans.

The entire population of the room held its breath, then sighed collectively as Rose Tiebold dropped into her curtsy and came up again, graceful and glistening, holding up her coiled golden hair like a heavy crown on her slender neck.

Several young men thought to themselves sadly that Miss Tiebold's dance card was bound to be full already.

Minutes later, when the first chords of the first dance had sounded and all the debutantes had taken to the floor, some with their fathers, some with brothers, some with suitors already, one of Maze Plasir's best clients caught him on his way to the refreshment room. The man clutched Plasir's sleeve and stood close to whisper in his ear. "Rose Tiebold," he whispered, his breath wet on Plasir's earlobe.

"No," Plasir said. "I'm terribly sorry, but no."

"Surely, Maze, you can't suddenly have developed scruples?" the client said, bunching his round face so that it looked like a deformed apple that has grown pressed between branches.

"Get away from me!" Plasir hissed.

In the breather after the second dance-a maxina-Rose went back to her mother and showed her card, full except for one s.p.a.ce. "I'm about to meet twenty new people," she said. "But if I like any of them, I won't be able to get a second look."

Grace threw up her hands. "I don't have any advice."

Mamie's grandmother, the formidable Mrs. Chambers, leaned across Grace and told Rose that tomorrow the calling cards would come in. "And a parade of young men's mothers. Next Wednesday there is the President's Ball, then after that Founders Day Ball, the Naval Ball, the Grand Social, and the Carnival Social-and a dozen other private functions. Anyone you like you are bound to see more than enough in the coming weeks."

"That's why you have five pairs of gloves, Rose. And another gown coming," Grace said.

"The girl has only two gowns?" exclaimed Mrs. Chambers.

"Oh, dear," said Grace, and laughed. "I'm no good at this."