within any material. Because of this, we have the ability to make Haälbeck doors from it.”
“And what happened to Mr. Haälbeck?”
“Pardon?” Stanton said, even though Emily knew he’d heard the question just fine.
“Is he alive, or dead, or what? His soul is in the wood of all these doors … what does that mean for him?”
“He can still communicate with the people who use the doors—you heard me greet him just now. But I’m afraid that he hasn’t much to talk about. He complains about rusty hinges and badly oiled locks. The years have left him much more like a door and much less like a human.”
Emily shuddered. “That sounds like a terrible fate for someone’s soul.”
“There are worse ones,” Stanton said. Emily would have asked him to elaborate on that comment, but at that moment the maid, in her crisp black and white, appeared at the door to show Emily up to her room.
“I unpacked your things from the hotel, but I’m not sure they sent everything.” The maid sounded worried. Emily peeked into the open closet where her things had been hung. Buffalo coat, wrinkled gray dress, apron, straw hat, Pap’s old pants …
“They sent everything,” Emily said. She did wish that she’d thought to tuck a few cakes of that beautifully wrapped soap into her saddlebag.
“Oh … good!” The maid brightened. “Well, my name is Dinah. Mrs. Quincy sent word that dinner is to be served at eight. I’ll be happy to help you dress or do your hair, if you require.”
“I don’t think I’ll need help.”
“That’s a shame. You have such pretty hair, I’d be pleased to do it for you,” Dinah said. “I can tell that it’s all real. So many women wear false hair these days.”
“False hair?” Emily said.
“Oh, yes. Lots of hair is the fashion, of course, so women without much will pay to get more. Poor girls sell their hair down at the shops on Mason Street.” Dinah eyed Emily’s hair approvingly. “You’d get a pretty penny for all that hair of yours.”
“I think I’ll hold on to it, thanks.” Emily smiled as she pulled off her kid gloves and laid them on the bureau. Dinah reached for them with a little frown.
“Oh, miss, what have you done to these?”
“Rode a hundred miles on a big black horse,” Emily said. “It’s murder on the gloves.”
“Oh,” Dinah said vaguely, as if Emily had just quoted some impenetrable scripture in Tibetan. “Well, I can clean them for you, if you’d like. Get some of the stains out, maybe …” She did not sound optimistic. Clutching the battered gloves, she paused with her hand on the doorknob.
“If you don’t mind my saying it, miss … you certainly don’t seem like most of Mrs. Quincy’s friends. Meaning no disrespect, of course.”
“No,” Emily said drily. “I doubt very much I’m like any of Mrs. Quincy’s friends.”
At eight o’clock precisely, Emily was dressed and ready for dinner. Dinah had restored the kid gloves to some of their former softness by rubbing them with lanolin, but there was nothing to be done about the stains.
“I don’t know why ladies have to wear white gloves anyway, miss. Nothing but heartache, if you catch my meaning.”
Emily did indeed.
Mrs. Quincy had returned at half past six, and in a foul mood, too, if the harassed look on Dinah’s face was any indication. Emily had consented to let Dinah arrange her hair, but Mrs. Quincy seemed quite put out by the fact that she was not the sole focus of Dinah’s attention. Emily had given up on her entirely and was twisting her hair up into a simple bun when Dinah finally hurried into her room.
“I’m so sorry, miss! I can see to you properly now. Mrs. Quincy is finished and has locked herself in the parlor.”
Emily raised an eyebrow as the girl came to stand behind her, taking an ivory-backed brush and running it through Emily’s hair with quick neat strokes.
“Locked herself in the parlor?”
“Oh, she does that every night,” Dinah said. She bent closer to Emily. “I think she likes to take a dram or two.”
Within a quarter hour, Emily was dressed and coifed. As a concession to the grandness of the home, Emily put her mother’s gold and amethyst earrings through her ears, where they winked and sparkled.
When she came downstairs, she found that Mrs. Quincy had unlocked the doors of her sanctum to admit Stanton (the dram apparently having been drunk prior to his arrival), and the two of