Chapter 5

Sybil devoted the next morning, after Blake and the children left, to finishing Bettina’s book. The Butterfields’ history was all there. Josiah had died a hero’s death in the First World War. They had lost their entire fortune in the Crash of ’29, and Bertrand’s bank had closed, which bruised his spirit badly, along with everything else. Their daughter Lucy died that year as well, before her father’s death, which had added to his sense of devastating loss and grief. He had lost three of his four children by then, which shattered Gwyneth too.

Bert had fought valiantly to maintain their home, but their greatly reduced circumstances and Lucy’s death had been too much for him. He had died in his sleep of a heart attack a year later, in 1930, at the age of sixty, just as Michael had guessed. And Gwyneth had lost too much by then, and too many people she had loved. She had sunk into a deep depression, and Bettina had returned from Europe to comfort her and help her sell the house. They had sold many of their valuables, some art, and Gwyneth’s and her mother’s jewelry. Their whole life had changed. After the house sold, she had gone back to Europe with Bettina, and lived with her and Bettina’s second husband, Louis de Lambertin, who was a kind man, and Bettina’s daughter, Lili, who was twelve years old then. Gwyneth died two years later in 1932, during a hard winter, of pneumonia, like Lucy three years before. She had lost her will to live when Bert died and she sold the house. It was a sad end to their story, but she had no desire to live without him and never adjusted to her life in France, with no home of her own and only her daughter’s charity to support her.

Bettina and Louis had no children of their own, and he had adopted his stepdaughter, who grew up more French than American, and had no memory of the States, only of France. Lili’s late father’s family had no interest in her, nor contact with her, and had never desired any. Louis and his family had embraced Lili as their own. Bettina spoke French fluently, and spoke it with Lili.

The book said that Lili had been a nurse during the Second World War, and when it was over, she married a doctor she had worked with, Raphael Saint Martin. They had a son, Samuel, a year later in 1946. Lili would have been twenty-eight by then, Sybil calculated, as she read the details she had only skimmed before.

Bettina’s husband Louis died of causes she didn’t mention, in 1950, when she was fifty-four. He had been eighteen years older than she was, so it was a reasonable age to die at the time. He divided his considerable fortune between his widow and adopted daughter, and two months after his death, Bettina had returned to San Francisco and bought her parents’ home from the family that had purchased it from Gwyneth when Bert died twenty years before. In her book she said that she had been happy there until her final days, when she wrote the book, in 1980. She wrote that for thirty years, she had been content in the home where she’d grown up, and the obituary that had come with the material from the bank indicated that Bettina Butterfield de Lambertin had died peacefully in her sleep six months later, at eighty-four. There was a photograph of her with the obituary, and Sybil noticed that she looked like an older version of Gwyneth.

In the book, Bettina said that once she moved back in 1950, Lili had come to visit her in San Francisco every few years at first, but she had been busy with her husband, Raphael, and son, Samuel, who was only four when Bettina moved back to San Francisco. She said she had seen Samuel only a few times as a young child after she left France. She mentioned that Lili had health problems and later on could no longer make the journey to the States. At the end of her life, Bettina hadn’t seen Samuel since he was a child, nor Lili in several years. Sybil wondered if Lili had even been able to come for her mother’s funeral. The bank seemed to know that Lili had died ten years after her mother.

Sybil felt a wistful sorrow for all of them as she closed Bettina’s book. They had been so closely tied to each other, and so many things had happened to them over the years. Some of them were events that one couldn’t avoid in life, and others tragic accidents that must have marked them forever, like Magnus dying at six, and Josiah and Bettina’s first husband getting killed in the war. It reminded Sybil that the night she and her family had dinner with them had been January 1917 for the Butterfields, exactly a hundred years before the year the Gregorys were living in. In the Butterfields’ world, America had not yet entered the war, and Josiah was still alive.

She wondered, what if she or Blake could warn them of what would happen next, and change the course of their destinies? Could one do that a century later? They were meeting in a neutral space in time. And did Josiah have a choice then? What if he didn’t go to war? His family would have been proud of him when he went. And he would have been considered a coward and a disgrace if he had shirked his responsibility and stayed home. There seemed to be no way to alter the course fate had designed for them, but it was so painful knowing what would come and the losses that would occur. And a hundred years later, no matter what Sybil tried to warn them of, they would all be dead anyway. As far as Sybil knew, the only one who could be alive now was Samuel Saint Martin, Lili’s son, and any children he might have. The Butterfields by name had all died out, and their bloodline had continued somewhere in France.

Sybil was still thinking about it when she decided to try to dine with the Butterfields again that night. Blake and the children came home to find their evening clothes laid out on their beds, where Sybil had left them that afternoon, and when she walked into Charlie’s room to find something for him to wear to dinner, like a blazer and gray slacks, she saw Magnus there, playing marbles with her son. She gave a start, and then all three of them laughed. She was happy to meet Magnus again, despite his dirty face and grimy hands. He looked like he’d been playing in the garden all afternoon.

“What are you two up to?” she asked, smiling at both boys and sitting down on Charlie’s bed, as though Magnus were any ordinary friend.

“He’s teaching me to play marbles,” Charlie said happily, delighted with the promised visit. Magnus had said the night before at dinner that he would come to play with him the next day, and Sybil was pleased to see that he had. There was a bond between the two families now that even time could not displace. “I’m going to show him my videogames after this.” Sybil couldn’t help wondering how that would work. How would Magnus adapt to games that were a hundred years ahead of his time? It was an interesting turn of events.

Alicia wandered into the room with milk and cookies for Charlie, while Sybil watched them, and she asked her for a glass of milk and cookies for herself as well. Alicia looked surprised and returned with them a few minutes later. As soon as she left the room, Sybil handed them to Magnus, and he guzzled the milk and ate the cookies like any normal playmate of Charlie’s. There was nothing ghostly about him. But Alicia had been totally unaware of him and didn’t see him, which Sybil found interesting too.

Charlie asked him about the secret passages in the house, but Magnus said he didn’t know where they were, if there were any.

She took out Charlie’s blazer, gray slacks, and a shirt and navy tie and laid them on the bed, as the boys looked at her quizzically.

“What’s that for?” Charlie asked her. It wasn’t Christmas or Thanksgiving. “Why do I have to get dressed up?”

“I thought we’d try to have dinner with Magnus’s family tonight,” she said easily, and Magnus grinned happily.

“My grandma’s in a really bad mood, though,” he warned them. “Uncle Angus’s dog, Rupert, ate her embroidery this morning, and she said she was going to boil him for dinner. I don’t think she really will, though. She usually likes him, but she was really mad about her embroidery. She was making napkins for my mother, and he ate them all. And she said Uncle Angus playing the bagpipes gave her a sick headache.” He used the terms of his time to refer to common ailments, and it reminded Sybil of Victorian novels she had loved to read when she was young. “He plays really bad,” he said about his great-uncle, and all three of them laughed. “My mother says he gives her a headache too.”

Sybil left them to their games then, as Charlie started to introduce Magnus to his PlayStation, and Magnus was fascinated by the intricacy of it. The two boys were squealing with excitement and shouting when she moved on to Caroline’s room, and ran into Alicia in the hall.

“Is he all right?” She looked concerned about the violent noises emanating from his room. She didn’t know the children yet, but it didn’t sound right to her.

“He’s fine. He just gets a little overexcited when he plays with his PlayStation. He just got a new one for Christmas.” She wondered if she should tell her that he had an imaginary friend, in case she heard him talking to Magnus, but she decided not to mention it yet.

She laid Caroline’s only long dress out on her bed, they had bought the dress when her best friend’s mother remarried in New York six months before. Sybil wanted her family to look respectable for the Butterfields that night, to make up for how unsuitably dressed they’d been the night before. She didn’t want them to think they were savages, and she hoped they’d reappear since they had invited the Gregorys to join them again that night. She hoped they’d meant it. She thought about renting tails for Blake and Andy, so they could be dressed as the Butterfield men were, but instead she took their dinner jackets out and laid them on their beds, with their cummerbunds, suspenders, dress shirts, and black satin bow ties. Andy had just gotten his first tuxedo for a deb ball he’d gone to before Christmas, for the sister of one of his friends. Sybil was sure their dinner jackets would be enough to satisfy even Augusta.

And then she dove into her own closet and came out with a black velvet dress with a big white satin ruffle and a low back. She’d had it for a year and she loved it. She had been saving it for a special occasion, and this was it. She felt a little crazy getting everything ready, and Blake looked at her in confusion when he saw his dinner jacket on the bed when he got home from the office.

“Are we going to something black tie tonight? You didn’t tell me.”

“I thought we’d dress for dinner with them tonight, so they know we’re respectable.”

“Them?”

“The Butterfields,” she said cautiously, wondering how Blake would react to wearing black tie for no special reason, and her acting as though dressing up for a family of ghosts was normal. But maybe it was for them now. She wasn’t quite sure how to react to it herself.

“Oh,” Blake said, and then sat down on their bed, next to his tuxedo. He didn’t object, he just looked confused. “Are we going to do this every night now?” He couldn’t imagine wearing a tuxedo on a daily basis, and didn’t want to, even though the previous evening with them had been fascinating and enjoyable.

“I don’t know. This is new for me too. Magnus came to play with Charlie today. They had a good time together. He said his grandmother was in a bad mood because Uncle Angus’s dog ate her embroidery.” Blake didn’t know whether to laugh or cry as he listened.

“I think I need a drink. Have we gone crazy? Are we in The Twilight Zone here? This is beginning to feel like a weird movie.” And yet when he’d been with the Butterfields it felt totally comfortable, and even pleasant. He had liked talking to Bert on a variety of subjects. Their ideas and their opinions were not so different, although times had changed radically since Bert had been a banker a hundred years before. But good economic principles still held up over time. “What if we get all dressed up and they don’t show up?”

“Then we’ll look great having pizza in the kitchen,” she said, smiling at him. “But I think they will. They invited us to dinner tonight. And we were all dressed like such a mess last night.”

“They didn’t seem to mind,” he said, seeming relaxed about it. “Except the grandmother, of course. But she probably won’t approve of us tonight either.” And then he shook his head again. “Listen to us. They’re real to us, Syb. Has everyone forgotten they’re ghosts?”

“Very real ghosts,” she reminded him. “And we happen to be living together. I was thinking about it today, when I finished Bettina’s book about the family history. There’s so much we know that they don’t, about what’s going to happen to them. It doesn’t seem fair. Why can’t we warn them?”

“Because you can’t change destiny, life isn’t fair, and they’re already dead, for whatever reason, no matter what we tell them.”

Sybil nodded and knew it was true. “They probably have more to teach us than we can teach them, even though they don’t know our future. But we can use them as examples. It’s so strange being trapped in a time warp, yet when we’re with them, it feels so right,” Sybil said as she headed for the bath to get ready for dinner.

“I hope they show up,” he called after her, as he took his dinner jacket to his dressing room, and then realized that the space had once been Bert’s. He wondered where Bert dressed now. He had looked impeccable the night before.

They were both in their evening clothes when they rounded up their children, who had grudgingly gotten dressed up for the evening to indulge their mother. Magnus had left Charlie an hour before, dazzled by playing with the PlayStation. Charlie told his mother that Magnus had been good at it, for a beginner. And they all headed to the dining room at seven-thirty, guessing it was the time for dinner. The room seemed quiet at first, as they approached it, and Blake suspected no one was there, but as they reached the door, they saw that the Butterfields were getting seated. Bert and Gwyneth smiled broadly when they saw the Gregorys and waved them into the room. Augusta examined each of them closely when they walked in, and Sybil and Blake and their children greeted her formally. Angus teased them about how respectable they looked.

“Bought some decent clothes, I see. Lovely dress,” he said to Sybil, nearly fawning over her when he saw the low back and admired her slim figure, and his sister gave him a wicked look and told him to sit down.

All the young people were delighted to see one another, and the Gregorys took the same places as the night before. Phillips bowed politely to Sybil and held her seat for her. She felt like a queen as she sat down and Bert complimented her on her dress, as Augusta made a comment about their being informally dressed for dinner. At the time, white tie and tails were the appropriate dinner dress, and black tie was considered informal, but they passed muster with everyone else.

The talk that night turned to the war in Europe, and whether or not President Wilson would allow the United States to get involved. The war had been raging in Europe for three years by then, and America had stayed out of it so far, much to everyone’s relief, and particularly Gwyneth’s.

“You must be worried about Andy too,” she said kindly. And Sybil didn’t know what to say. It was a hundred years later, and there was no risk to him. Only to Josiah.

“He’s applying to college for the fall,” Sybil said and changed the subject. He had three more weeks to apply, and then they’d have to wait till March for the results. He had applied to Princeton, Harvard, Yale, and Dartmouth. He was thinking of applying to Stanford too, but didn’t think he’d get in. Two of his friends and he had become interested in the University of Edinburgh, which was an unusual choice. Andy liked everything about it except the weather, and going to school in Europe appealed to him. Andy mentioned it at dinner and Uncle Angus heartily encouraged him.

“Wonderful school. I went there myself. Much livelier than Oxford or Cambridge. You should apply. Use my name if you like.” Andy smiled at that, and couldn’t imagine they’d remember him unless he had built the school, but decided to look at it online again that night. He was considering Oxford, but the University of Edinburgh sounded like more fun.

“Thank you, sir. I’ll read up on it again tonight,” Andy promised.

“Good lad,” Angus said, and complained that his sister hadn’t allowed his dog in the dining room, since Rupert was in disgrace for the napkins he’d destroyed.

Caroline flirted with Josiah, and Andy was extremely attentive to Lucy, who had worn a gauzy pink dress that made her look like an angel with her fair skin and pale blond curls. Blake watched his two older children carefully. However agreeable this was, he didn’t want them losing track of reality and falling in love with ghosts. He was going to mention it to Sybil later that night.

The adults enjoyed a lively conversation, and Gwyneth and Sybil got to chat for a few minutes. Gwyneth was fascinated that Sybil had studied both architecture and design, curated museum shows, and wrote articles for newspapers. Blake had been bragging about her dedication during dinner, and Gwyneth was wide-eyed with admiration and in awe of Sybil’s talents. She was artistic herself, but had no real outlet for it.

“It must be so wonderful to work,” Gwyneth whispered, and her mother stepped in immediately, having overheard her.

“Don’t be ridiculous, Gwyneth. What would you want to do? Take in washing? Be a governess? Leave work to the men, and do something more useful with your time.” Augusta added that Gwyneth used to do lovely watercolors but had stopped when she had the children. And Gwyneth added modestly that they weren’t very good.

“I don’t have time,” she said to her mother.

“Nonsense, they’re old enough now. You should take it up again.” But Gwyneth was much more excited to hear about what Sybil did. She thought it remarkably brave of her, and she was impressed by the way Sybil expressed her opinions without offending anyone, and remained feminine at the same time. She thought her very modern. The two women had formed an almost instant rapport, and Gwyneth thanked her for allowing Magnus to come and play that afternoon. “He had a wonderful time,” she told her new friend, and Sybil said he was welcome whenever he wanted to visit them.

They all lingered over coffee and dessert that night, not wanting the meal to end. Gwyneth told Sybil that at formal dinners the women normally went into the drawing room at the end of the meal and left the men to their cigars. But with close friends, they no longer did. It was a practice Sybil had heard about but never seen, except in old films.

Bert said they might go to their home in Woodside soon for a few days to ride their horses. They kept them there, and he was thinking of getting a new motorcar, a Cadillac, and asked Blake’s advice about it, who admitted he knew very little about cars but would love to see it when Bert got it, and then realized he never would, because it was long gone.

“I’d love to learn to drive,” Bettina whispered to Andy, and he smiled at her.

“You should. My sister does,” he said matter-of-factly, not thinking of how rare it would be for Bettina in 1917, and considered quite racy for her as a woman.

“At sixteen?” She looked shocked. “Did you teach her?” she asked hopefully, and he didn’t want to explain about driver’s ed in school, so he said yes. Bettina didn’t go to school—she was twenty-one—but when she was younger, she had been tutored at home in languages, history, literature, and the feminine arts, such as drawing and needlework and writing poetry. Her father had said proudly at dinner that she wrote very well, and might write a book one day. She wanted to write a family history, she said, even if she didn’t publish it. It jolted Sybil to realize she had just read it.

“If she does, she’ll wind up an old maid,” her grandmother predicted. “Women do not need to write books. Men don’t like it.” She was very definite about it, although there were women authors of their day.

Eventually the time came when Phillips appeared with the tray of after-dinner drinks, and they followed him into the living room, as Blake explained to Bert the concept of the company he was running. Gwyneth and Sybil talked about their children, and the young people followed, talking and laughing, with Augusta and Angus bringing up the rear. And just as they had the night before, when they reached the living room, which Sybil had filled with flowers for them, the Butterfields disappeared and the Gregorys stood looking at one another, alone in the room. They had done it again. No one was surprised this time, and they walked slowly upstairs, talking about their new friends.

“This is really strange, Mom,” Andy said, turning to his mother on the stairs with a troubled expression. Sybil didn’t attempt to deny it.

“I know it is. Things like this happen apparently, but they’re hard to explain.” No one disagreed with her, but they had all enjoyed the evening, even more than the first one. And being appropriately dressed had made them feel more at ease.

When Blake and Sybil got to their room, he took off his dinner jacket and stared at her, as though seeing someone new. She looked exceptionally beautiful, and he hadn’t seen her in an evening gown in ages. It was very romantic.

“You look spectacular tonight,” he said, as he took her in his arms and kissed her. And Sybil smiled as he held her.

“You look very handsome too.” She had always loved seeing him in evening clothes, and thought he was very dashing.

“Maybe they have the right idea, dressing for dinner every night,” Blake said, as he unzipped her dress and she stepped out of it. He admired her body in the soft light in the room, with the moonlight coming through the window. He wanted to say how strange it was to be dining with ghosts, but the odd thing was that it didn’t feel wrong, just different. It felt right to both of them, and they were both happy in their new home and new city. But all he could think about now was his wife, whatever century they were in. It really didn’t matter to him, he loved her whatever year it was.