City of Light Read Online Free PDF Page B

at once I knew why: Gaslight consumed the oxygen in a room; electricity did not.
    Knowing that Thomas Sinclair was the director of the power station at Niagara, I realized the light around me came not from a steam-powered generator at the back of the house, but from the lines of the Niagara Frontier Power Company. These lines already carried electricity from the Falls to light the city’s streetlamps and to operate its streetcars. I felt the awe of witnessing magic: Thomas Sinclair had turned water into light.
    “Grace, when did your father bring electricity into the house?”
    Six or seven steps above me, she turned. All at once she looked like Margaret—the tilt of her head, the inquiring gaze, the way she leaned into the polished banister, with its scrollwork posts as if posing for a portrait. The resemblance was like a knife in me, reminding me of the companionship and happiness Margaret had offered me each day from the moment we met.
    “That was one of the first things Papa did, after Mother—” She stopped. Her wide-set eyes seemed to go blank.
    “Grace?”
    She stared past me, her face a deadened mask.
    “Grace?”
    Startled, she stepped back, then recovered. “And will you be wanting some tea, then, ma’am?”
    I had been away from this house too long. I felt my absence with a cutting sense of regret. Margaret would have expected more from me. I would have expected more from me. But where Grace was concerned, my confidence faltered. That was the problem with love: It made me doubt myself.
    She continued up the stairs. “Mrs. Sheehan and the others are out at a wake,” she said, using the quasi-ghoulish emphasis typical of her age. Mrs. Sheehan was the housekeeper. “I’m looking after things for her until seven.” She ushered me to the library. “Will you wait here, please, ma’am, while I see if the master is ready to receive you?”
    She raced down the hall while I stood at the library door, watching. “Papa, Papa, Aunt Louisa is here!” she called. She knocked on a door at the end of the hall and went in without waiting for a reply.
    Grace had always been boisterous, because no one had ever curbed her except to the limits necessary for her safety. She wasn’t proper, or prim, or demure, or any of the other adjectives young ladies were supposed to be. She was both seen and heard, and openly cherished by her parents. The gossiping ladies of society said, disparagingly, that Tom and Margaret indulged her. They were indulgent, in the sense that they simply loved her, as odd as that would be in some of the other homes of the neighborhood, where the children were polished and groomed by nurses and nannies and presented to their parents for inspection once a day. Even more odd (according to the dictates of society), Tom and Margaret actually enjoyed spending time with Grace. Margaret organized her day around Grace’s school schedule, using the housekeeper only for an occasional pickup or drop-off. Now and again I’d wondered whether Margaret and Grace spent too much time together, preventing Grace from learning how to be alone. However, in the context of the parental neglect which I typically saw, Margaret’s excess was forgivable—especially in light of the secret of Grace’s birth.
    Apart from the doctor, I was the only person who knew that Tom and Margaret had adopted Grace. Often I wondered which other of my students were adopted, for surely some were. But all was kept hidden. After more than a few years of childless marriage, Margaret had feigned pregnancy when she learned that a child from a good family might be available for adoption. She’d worn padding and undertaken a confinement. Dr. Perlmutter had visited her regularly— and collected a fee for the nonexistent delivery, just to make everything appear normal.
    I had been the intermediary, telling Margaret and Tom that because of my work, I was in a position to hear about such things. I had been the one who gave the assurances that