The Violet Hour (5 page)

I kick out my leg, admiring the damasked colors of alternating black-grape and Tuscan-red about a full white center.

I am no stranger to gifts, and know they always come with a price. Father showered me with presents from my very first touring recital about Europe.

My tiny self, however, soon learned these fancies were as transient as an English sky.

Father was just as likely to cast them into the fire as he was to give them.

Silas thrusts out his hand. “The finishing touch.” The sequined masquerade mask is adorned with matching colored feathers, which grow like wings from the sides.

I nearly clap in delight. Sarah beams back, misreading my joy.

I will be virtually unrecognizable
.

“I…haven’t the words to thank you.”

“Nor I.” Sarah clutches her equally fantastic gown of candlelit ivory. Its V waist and scalloped gathers remind one of a cross between a wedding gown and a regal princess. Irony spreads my lips into an eager smile. Sarah could be the titled one.

“Oh, I am sure I shall think of something.”

Something in his voice conjures a shiver.

Silas turns to open and step through the door, leaving a gust of night air in his wake which blows the temporary happiness from the room.

Sarah’s anxious eyes meet mine and we both dress in silence.

* * *

The night is utter perfection. To accent the white flowered house, Silas, ever the showman, arranged for a thick flock of swans to be released into the black waters the moment our riverboat leaves the dock.

Some now skate across the lake, whilst others skitter about as white ghosts along the bay shore.

‘
Oohs and Ahhs
,’ lilt behind me in a myriad of ladies voices. The riverboat is brimming with all of Charleston’s high society.

Silas stands on the dock, staring at the vessel like a lover. It is his salvation…at least monetarily.

I smooth my new dress and Jonesy gives me an approving nod.

I lean to whisper, “It’s perfect. He shall never recognize me now.”

Two well-to-do men nod and smile as they pass. One dressed as an obvious dragon, the other an ambiguous…toad?

Jonesy’s raises a thick brow. “Really? You might not be recognized as
you
. But that costume, I’m afraid, makes you stand out like a gazelle among goats.”

My face burns and my fingers flit nervously about the hem like frantic birds. “You mean the costume will
draw
attention?”

Jonesy laughs. “
You,
my dear, will draw attention no matter how you try to blend in. You’re utterly breathtaking.”

His eyes skate across my face. “But you really don’t know that, do you?”

Sarah swishes to his side. His eyes instantly leave me and see nothing else but her face. His hand strays, clandestine, to her side, to gently smooth her fingertips and I am struck with revelation.

They are in love.

A wave of gratefulness sweeps through my chest. Sarah so deserves to be loved. And by just such a man. Fear and longing pushes the sentiment out, leaving a hollow space in my chest.

I wish to be loved.
But not just any love.

For what I’ve seen, to be alone is better than to be yoked in lovelessness.

“Allegra?” Sarah searches my face. She always knows, can instantly read my distress.

“I am fine. You best get along. The guests will complain without a proper waitress.”

She nods to us both and disappears into the ever-thickening crowd of multi-colored masks.

The boat shudders away from the port and Silas leaps dramatically aboard at the last possible moment. His booming voice cutting across the murmuring throng.

“Good evening. We welcome you to Charleston’s Fancy, where all things are possible. We have a spectacular show prepared for you, designed to tempt all your senses. And our guest house still has two openings, if, after partaking you are too overwhelmed and inclined to stay.”

He nods to the Maestro Plimpton. “Without further ado.”

The riverboat pulls away from the mainland and the violin quartet begins their customary introductory interlude.

My eyes sweep the hillside. Something moves in the dark. My heart climbs to my mouth. I struggle to focus on my surroundings, wanting only to see him. It has been a fortnight.

Brighton.

Mr. Plimpton raises his hands and our instruments follow suite as if the whole orchestra are marionettes, attached to his baton.

Crrack!

Ladies and men alike startle in a collective jump. With a few nervous chuckles, all eyes shoot heavenward.

An eruption of red rockets speed toward one another, detonating seconds before impact into white sparkles which linger, glittering in the sky like ethereal diamonds.

I stare, enraptured.

“Allegra,” Jonesy whispers.

The music begins. A piece by Bach.

I know it by heart, my fingers need no minding; they trace the path on my strings like a familiar road. I need not read the music. Truth be told, I only need to read the music once.

My eyes flick between the hill and the sky like a metronome as my heartbeat pounds in my ears, my breath heaving my chest. My fingers pluck the piece of their own accord.

Two, four, six starbursts explode; the very colors of my gown.

Brighton sets gaslights blazing, one by one, which flicker and are somehow magnified, perhaps by prisms? An eerie mist rises across the hillside, hiding him from me. I grind my teeth in irritation, a primal need to imbibe of his presence, overwhelming every bit of me.

I stare at Marietta in the row ahead of me and see the gooseflesh on her pudgy arm. She has seen him as well.

He has not departed. Please, let him still be up there
.

My chest aches. I fight the urge to cast down the cello and leap into the bay; to swim and swim. Till I find him, wet and cold, and let his skin warm mine.

Constant explosions light the sky, white and cornflower blue, raining down across the bay, again and again like luminescent raindrops.

The light show reflects in the water, mirror-like, like Alice’s Wonderland looking glass, come to life.

I picture the upturned faces of mermaids and sea creatures staring up at the surface in awe.

And my fingers
stray.

The mourning tune they play does not match the joy and rebelliousness of the dancing lights overhead. Of his soul.

I stray from the piece. Throwing the entire orchestra off.

The music halts in a jangle of discordant notes. Except for my cello.

I compose on command.

I stare, enraptured by the lights, my arm sawing in perfect synchrony with every burst of light. I wince in pain as my fingers stroke the neck of my cello, following Brighton’s lead.

With every fiery burst of color,
staccato notes.
With streaming showers of sparks—
long, melodic pulls of my bow across the vibrating strings
.

Jonesy recovers first. He accompanies me, following my lead on his violin, as best he can.

A few brave souls follow suite, their instruments playing harmony about my melody.

All the patron’s eyes stray back to the sky. Out of the corner of my eye, I see a woman cover her chest, overcome with emotion.

I spy another couple join hands and a third press her trembling lips together at the beauty—the marriage of light and sound.

I writhe and ache, following his lead, keeping time with his lights with my fingers.

His lights tell a story, as does my music.

It is as if our minds are dancing, sharing a wavelength, and he doesn’t even know it.

Or does he?

I finally see him, through the mist. His face severe with emotion, his head cocked in question.

The boat is close enough he can hear the music. My music.

His stare skips through the crowd till he finds me and our eyes connect.

Gooseflesh tears across my chest, down my back and stomach. The heat on my chest relights and I fight the urge to scratch it.

Finally the show concludes in a maelstrom of
booms
and
pop, pop, pops
of sparkling blazes. As if heaven has exploded, and its stars are escaping to earth.

I halt, chest heaving, sweating and breathless.

Fear stops my heart,
realizing what I’ve done.

Jonesy’s foot taps in anxious accord with my heartbeat.

Then a great resounding
, applause
. It rings through the night, almost as loudly as Brighton’s fireworks.

Men and women shoot to a standing ovation. It begins on the lower deck, and then spreads like an ocean wave to engulf the upper as well.

My eyes find Silas—his face beet-red. But as he observes the crowd’s reaction, his expression gives way to rapture, and he too begins to slowly clap. My stomach plummets to wallow in relief to my boots.

Brighton turns his stare to me, with the same worshipful gaze, for a heart-halting moment.

And is gone.

* * *

After my victory on the riverboat, my bed couldn’t hold me. Sleep eluded me much the same way the cool winds tried but could never quite manage to breech the ever-warm Charleston shallows.

I steal out of the cottage, praying Sarah will not wake and panic in my absence.

I know my plan to be foolish. I know, if caught, I will at best, lose employment—my weak tether to freedom—or at worst, lose my life?

If Brighton is dangerous.

The sour taste of fear floods my mouth.

But a hidden
something
in his dark blue eyes made me doubt that gruff façade.

Jonesy would scoff and tie me to a chair for such weak reasoning, but Jonesy is not here.

I approach the dingy and scramble into it with a quick glance over my shoulder.

The water slops over the boat’s side, and I begin to fervently row; my thoughts straying to Monsieur Lafayette, my father’s security chief. The man was the sole reason I had ever learnt any practical task. Otherwise, I would’ve been bound to drift through this world, my only knowledge to compose music and attend tea.

I steer the boat with confidence, picturing our many escapes to the Lake Country while father was away on business.

Truth be told, I would not have managed my escape without him.

With knowledge, even simple, everyday knowledge, comes power.

The dingy approaches the isle. I hold my breath, my eyes scouring the shore but this eve, nothing appears out of the ordinary.

The boat makes the crossing to Fire Isle quickly in the calm water of the night.

As if the bloody rock is expecting me.

Ridiculous.

I shiver nonetheless.

This is the name whispered in the parlor’s back home. Near Fire Island, Charleston. Where my mother drown. Where she took her life.

Swinging my legs over the side, I slosh into the shallows to secure the boat.

I turn to stare at the shore from whence I came. Snowy egrets and pelicans dot the surf, bobbing up and down like feathery buoys. But here…nothing.

No birds.

I secure the dingy and hurry from the water, light-headed from the steady pounding of my heart.

Tearing my eyes away from the Charleston shore and relative safety, I slink into the foliage. The isle is like a fae place; its green ferns swallow my feet as easily as the moss which gloms to the trunk of every tree. Resurrection fern, they call it. I shiver at the pun.

What am I looking for? This is madness.

I finger the pistol Jonesy thrust upon me.

Once he heard my story, he insisted I needed protection. And had insisted on training me to use it. Which had been no small feat. We’d have to leave Charleston proper for any sort of privacy.

The rush of flowing water calls somewhere to my right. If a dwelling existed on this craggy rock, it would most definitely be near the water. I keep pace alongside it, skulking through the deep green ferns, never letting the undercurrent leave my hearing.

My eyes dart back and forth, searching for alligators. No doubt the isle is crawling with them.

Fire Isle. I knew why the locals called it such. Storms supposedly occurred over the island more than anywhere else in Charleston. But I had not yet seen evidence to warrant that name.

Night birds call as dusk descends in earnest. Fear grips my chest, squeezing my airway shut.

I have a light—but should I use it?

Soon it shall be utterly black and I will be paralyzed, afraid to move through the wood without its reassurance glow to guide my steps.

Fear’s metallic taste fills my mouth. The dark. I am not so fearless to be caught here without light.

I can still see where the woods break to the beach. Embracing defeat, I pick my way through newly downed trees toward the moonlight. I bolt and soon stand on the beach, chest heaving, regretting my impulsivity. And equally detesting my cowardice.