“Arms out, please,” the tailor said around a mouthful of pins.
Matthew held his arms out.
He was standing on the fitting box in the back room of the shop, in a black evening suit that was still mostly chalk lines and pins, while Julian sat in the only chair with his phone in his hand.
The same tailor had made every suit the Voss men had worn to the Sylvester Ball for as long as Matthew could remember.
Matthew hadn’t needed one in a long time.
He hadn’t been to the ball since he was sixteen, and he had never really wanted to go back.
This year, though, their father wanted the whole family there, so Julian had driven him down to the old town himself to make sure he actually arrived.
Julian had obviously come prepared for an argument.
He had spent most of the drive explaining why this year mattered, and he still had more reasons ready.
“Uncle Conrad asked whether you were coming,” he said.
“Father asked too. More than once. And he’d like you to look like a Voss for once, not like someone who sleeps in a greenhouse.”
“Fine,” Matthew said.
Julian looked up from his phone.
“Fine?”
“I’ll come.”
“Just like that?”
Julian studied him, plainly trying to figure out what he was up to, but Matthew kept his eyes on the tailor’s pins.
As it happened, he did mean to be at the ball this year, just not for his father’s sake.
Coco would be wearing the comb that night, and he intended to be somewhere close by when she did.
That meant he would need more than one suit.
As the heir, he would be on show all night, with his father, Ashby and most of the city looking at him.
The Gentleman, on the other hand, would have to be someone who wouldn’t draw much attention to himself, in a plain black suit and a plain black mask he could buy anywhere.
Julian’s phone rang, so he went out to the front of the shop to take the call.
Matthew waited until the door had closed behind him.
“I’ll need a second suit,” he told the tailor.
“Plain black. Something that wouldn’t stand out too much.”
The tailor took the pins out of his mouth.
“By the thirty-first, sir?”
“If you can. I’ll pay for that one in cash.”
Their father went through the family accounts every Friday, and Matthew was sure he would notice a second evening suit if it appeared on the bill.
The tailor only nodded and wrote it down in his book, without asking a single question.
When Julian came back, the tailor was already folding away his tape measure.
“Both suits will be ready on the thirtieth, gentlemen,” he said.
Julian turned to Matthew.
“Both?”
“Both.”
“Why would you need two?”
“In case I spill something.”
Julian held his gaze for a while, then let it go, or at least seemed to.
He had always left Matthew’s nights to Matthew, regardless of what he thought of them.
Matthew knew that too, it was like a silent shared truth between them, and he was grateful for it.
Outside, the narrow streets of the old town were full of people carrying shopping bags.
Julian stopped beside the car.
“You do know it’s a masked ball,” he said.
Matthew hadn’t given a mask a single thought.
“Father will expect us masked like everyone else,” Julian went on.
“So please don’t come up with something ridiculous at the last minute.”
“I’ll make sure to ask the night desk.”
Julian took a deep breath.
“Something normal, Matthew.”
***
That night, at seven minutes past three, Matthew picked up the phone in the Glasshouse.
“Good evening, night desk.”
“Miss Ellis. I’d like a mask, please. One that makes me look like someone else entirely.”
“For the Sylvester Ball, sir?”
“Yes. Will you be there yourself?”
“I’ll be at the desk, sir, as always. All night.”
“That seems a shame.”
There was a short pause on the line.
“Any particular color for the mask, sir?”
“Surprise me.”
“Certainly, sir.”
He hung up and sat back in his chair, smiling to himself.
Lately, these calls had become the part of the night he looked forward to most.
He was surprised to find that he was sorry she wouldn’t be at the ball, but he couldn’t have explained why.
He found himself wondering what she would come up with this time.
He rather hoped for something elegant.
The next night, a little after three, someone knocked on the Glasshouse door.
Miss Ellis was standing outside in her uniform, holding a large round hatbox with both hands.
“Your mask, sir.”
He carried the box to the table, while she stayed in the doorway as he lifted the lid.
Inside, wrapped in tissue paper, was a pigeon.
It was a full-head carnival mask, covered in gray feathers that shone green around the neck.
It had a short beak and two round orange eyes that stared up at him out of the box.
He studied the pigeon for some time, determined not to laugh in front of her this time.
Then he raised his eyes to her.
“You asked to look like someone else, sir.”
“I was thinking of someone… I don’t know… handsome?”
“You didn’t specify, sir. I improvised.”
“I should probably tell you that my brother asked for something somewhat normal.”
He lifted the head out of the box and put it on.
Through the eyeholes, the Glasshouse looked very far away.
He saw Rhea stand as straight and polite as ever in the doorway, but he also saw a tiny little smile at the corner of her mouth.
“How do I look?” he asked from inside the pigeon.
“Like someone else, sir.”
After that, she wished him a pleasant evening and went back down to her desk.
He had been trying to make Miss Ellis smile for weeks, and a pigeon apparently seemed to have done the trick.
Interesting, he thought.
He then put the head back on and turned to the glass wall.
In the dark glass, a pigeon in a paint-stained sweater looked back at him.
He took it off again and set it on the table, where it went on staring at him with its awkward orange eyes.
He could always call down and ask for another mask.
That would mean admitting she had won, though, and he would rather go to the ball as a pigeon than lose to Miss Ellis.
The longer he looked at it, though, the more he liked the idea.
The pigeon covered his whole head, so nobody at the ball would see his face.
When he needed to become the Gentleman, he could hide the head among the potted palms in the Winter Garden next door and change into the plain black suit.
People would be looking for a pigeon, not for him, and with four hundred masks in the ballroom, nobody would notice it was missing for a while.
Nobody would ever suspect a pigeon of being the Gentleman either.
Besides, he quite liked the thought of his father’s face when the heir to the Voss walked into his ballroom as a pigeon.
He laughed out loud, alone in the Glasshouse, although for a moment it almost seemed as though the pigeon, still staring at him, was enjoying the joke too.
***
He was still awake at six, sitting on the bench by the Glasshouse door with the pigeon head beside him, watching the lights come on across the lake.
In a few days he would walk into that ballroom for the first time in twelve years.
That was where Julian found him when he came up to see to his bees.
Julian stopped in the middle of the roof, with one glove still in his hand.
“Please tell me that isn’t your mask.”
“I’m sorry to disappoint, but it kind of is.”
“You’re actually wearing a pigeon to Father’s ball?”
“She chose it.”
“Who did?”
“The night desk,” Matthew said, somewhat lost in thought.
He wasn’t looking at Julian anymore, but out at the lake, which was shimmering in the light of the hotel’s stars.
They would be turned off soon for the morning.
Julian looked from the pigeon to his brother and back again, then gave him the long, patient look he usually saved for the hotel’s most difficult guests.
“…I see.”