about the mansion. Even though the Clairbornes had lived here for a long time it lacked the warmth and personality that a family usually imparted to a home. Why, it felt like a cold museum. The pieces looked like things amassed, collected for their value only, and the immaculate condition and appearance of everything around us gave me the impression that these were unused things, things only for show, a home on display, but not a home in which people really loved and lived.
We were brought to a sitting room on the right, where we found a velvet sofa and a matching settee arranged to face a high-backed deep blue velvet chair embroidered with gold, its dark walnut arms and legs scrolled with hand-carved designs. It looked like a throne set atop a large Persian rug. The remainder of the floor was uncovered blond hardwood.
Between the chair and the settees and sofas was a long matching walnut table.
After Abby and I took our places on the settee and Gisselle was wheeled in beside us, I had a chance to gaze around at the scenic wallpaper and the framed oil paintings of various scenes on the sugar plantation. On the mantel was another stopped clock with its hands pointing to five after two. Above that was a portrait painting of a distinguished-looking man who had been captured slightly turned and peering down, giving the impression he was someone royal.
Suddenly we heard the definite tap, tap, tapping of a cane on the marble hallway floor. Mrs. Penny, who had been standing near the doorway, remembered something and hurried back to us.
'I forgot to tell you, girls. When Mrs. Clairborne enters, please stand,' she said.
'And how am I supposed to do that?' Gisselle snapped.
'Oh, you're excused, of course, dear,' she said. Before Gisselle could say anything else, all eyes turned toward the doorway for Mrs. Clairborne's entrance, and then Abby and I rose.
She paused in the doorway, as if waiting to have her picture taken, and gazed over us, moving slowly from Abby to me and then to Gisselle. Mrs. Clairborne looked taller and stouter than she did in any of the portraits around the school. Also, none of the portraits depicted her with the bluing in her gray hair that now looked thinner and shorter, barely reaching the middle of her ears in length. She wore a dark blue silk dress with a wide collar, buttoned to the base of her throat. Hanging on a silver chain was a pocket watch encased in silver, the small hands frozen at five after two.
I wondered if either Abby or Gisselle had noticed the odd thing about the clocks.
I lifted my gaze to the large teardrop diamond earrings that dripped from her lobes. Her dress had sleeves with frilly lace cuffs that reached the base of her palms. Over her left wrist she wore a diamond and gold bracelet. The long, bony fingers of both her hands were filled with precious-jewel rings, some set in platinum, some in gold and others in silver.
Even in her pictures, Mrs. Clairborne had a narrow face that seemed out of place on her portly body; only in person, it seemed even more so. Because of the way her long, thin nose protruded, her dark eyes seemed to be set even more deeply than they were. She had a wide, thin mouth, so thin that when her lips were pressed together, it looked like a pencil line drawn from inside one cheek to the inside of the other. Her complexion, unaided by any cosmetic touch whatsoever, was pasty white, spotted with brown aging marks on her forehead and cheeks.
I quickly decided that the artists who had done her portraits had used their imaginations almost as much as they had used her as a model.
She stepped forward and leaned on her cane.
'Welcome, girls,' she said. 'Please, be seated.'
Abby and I quickly did so, and Mrs. Clairborne walked directly to her chair, tapping her cane after each step as if to confirm it. She nodded at Mrs. Penny, who sat on the other settee, and then Mrs. Clairborne sat down and hooked her cane over the right arm of the chair before gazing at Gisselle for a moment and then looking at Abby and me.
'I like to have a personal relationship with each of my Greenwood girls,' she began. 'Our school is special in that we do not, as most public schools are prone to do, treat the students as if they were numbers, statistics. And so, I would like each of you,' she said, 'to introduce yourself to me and tell me a little about yourself. And then I will tell you why I decided a long time ago to ensure that Greenwood continues, and what I hope will be accomplished there now and in the years to follow.' She had a firm, hard voice, as deep as a man's at times. 'Afterward,' she continued, 'tea will be served.'
She finally softened her expression, even though it was more of a grimace to me than a true warm smile.
'Who would like to begin?' she asked. No one spoke up. Then she fixed her gaze on me. 'Well, since we're all so shy, why don't we start with the twins, just so we won't make any mistakes as to who is who.'
'I'm the crippled one,' Gisselle declared with a smirk. There was an unheard gasp, as if all the oxygen had been sucked out of the room. Mrs. Clairborne turned to her slowly.
'I hope only physically,' she said.
Gisselle's face filled with blood and her mouth fell open. When I looked at Mrs. Penny, I saw she wore an expression of satisfaction. Mrs. Clairborne was heroic in her eyes, and she couldn't be put off balance. I imagined girls a lot smarter than Gisselle had tried and found themselves just as she found herself right now: eating her own words.
'I'm Ruby Dumas and this is my sister, Gisselle.' I started quickly so I could fill the embarrassing silence. 'We're seventeen years old and we're from New Orleans. We live in what is known as the Garden District. Our father is an investor in real estate.'
Mrs. Clairborne's eyes grew small. She nodded slowly, but she studied me so intently I felt I was sitting on a mound of swamp mud and slowly sinking.
'I'm quite familiar with the Garden District, a most beautiful area of the city. There was a time,' she said a bit wistfully, 'when I used to go to New Orleans quite often.' She sighed and then turned to Abby, who described where she and her family now lived and her father's work as an accountant.
'You have no brothers or sisters then?'
'No, madame.'
'I see.' She sighed again, deeply. 'Are you all comfortable in your rooms?'
