What Is Visible: A Novel by Kimberly Elkins Read Free Book Online Page A

people.” She seemed almost frantic that Julia be entertained by these facts, but she was not.
    Julia removed her hands from Jeannette’s. “She was supposed to be well gone by now. Chev promised. You promised.”
    “I’m so sorry, but Miss Swift and I—”
    “Where is she now?”
    “Well, she wanted— She dug her heels in and refused to leave…She’s touring your stateroom.”
    Julia thought she might cry. Laura, of all people, in her room, the most special room that she’d been waiting for all her life? All her newfound goodwill toward the girl left her in a violent exhale. She grabbed Jeannette’s arm. “Take me there.” She glanced back at Chev, but he was still holding court with the pressmen. She pulled Jeannette headlong down the deck. “Which stairs?”
    Jeannette pointed, and Julia dragged her along, almost colliding with a sailor who stepped out of the way just in time. To Julia’s annoyance, Jeannette turned to gaze at the fellow. “At least we’ve gotten to look at some lovely seamen,” she whispered. “Every outing with the feeble has its saving grace.”
    They walked down two flights of narrow steps and took a right into a long hallway. Jeannette stopped before an open door, and Julia closed her eyes for a moment before she could summon the will to enter. She had expected to be carried over this threshold in her beloved’s arms, but here she was stepping over it alone, to find her palace occupied by the one person she had done everything to prevent spoiling this moment.
    They stood in the doorway of the stateroom and watched as Miss Swift stood over Oliver, who was intent on examining the rug, thicker and softer than the carpet of the corridor’s floors.
    “Oh no,” Miss Swift said and bowed slightly in apology to Julia. “I’ll get them out in just a minute.”
    Oliver flopped down on his belly and rolled until he found a patch warmed by the sun streaming in through the twin portholes. Miss Swift gave him a nudge with her boot, but he didn’t move, his face enraptured by the light. Laura skirted the corners of the room, touching everything with deliberation: the filigreed frame of the divan, the cubbyholes of the mahogany secretary desk, the brass faucets of the marble basin. When she reached the double bed laden with its silk sheets and eight pillows in brocade covers, she stopped and held out one finger, letting it sink slowly, inch by inch, into the plump damask coverlet of palest gold. She made a small, strangled noise in her throat; it was not her noise for Doctor or the new one she had mastered for Julia in approximation of her name, but a sound that neither Julia nor Jeannette had heard before.
    Julia took a step into the room, a step toward the bed, and Laura turned, her finger still plunged into the linens. Julia was positive the girl knew exactly who she was, she could always tell. As if on cue, Laura swayed and then retched, spraying the bottom of the spread with vomit.
    “Oh my,” said Jeannette, but still she didn’t move to enter. Miss Swift pulled Laura away from the bed, and the two of them sat down on the carpet with Oliver, who was engrossed in an examination of the armoire’s lower handles carved in the shape of bulls.
    “How in heaven’s name did she get enough food in her to accomplish such a feat?” Miss Swift said. She plucked a handkerchief from her coat pocket, and wiped at Laura’s mouth and the trickle of sick on her chin. To Julia’s astonishment, Miss Swift began to giggle. “It’s not funny. I’m sorry,” she managed, but she couldn’t stop herself; she laughed harder. She was helpless to it now, the fit overtaking her. Laura felt the convulsions in her teacher’s arms and twisted away, ducking her head.
    “You will pull yourself together and see that this mess is cleaned up,” Julia said, holding her handkerchief in front of her nose. “This is…this is…”―and here she thought she might begin to weep―“my marriage bed.” She