Summary
A soot-smudged Glasgow seamstress, hurled into the velvet-lined abyss of a limousine’s fender, becomes the bruised guest of a copper-heiress whose chandeliers drip like frozen champagne; inside that mausoleum of marble busts and moth-eaten tapestries, the girl’s marrow is slowly irradiated by the phosphorescent smirk of the mistress’s half-brother—an aesthete who collects reputations the way others collect stamps. When his courtship curdles into casual cruelty, she flees to a warren of gaslit stairs where Sicilian fingers, still warm from picking pockets, press a crust of bread into her palm. Together they chase a rumor of salvation: a chalice smuggled from Glastonbury ruins, said to pulse like a trapped star. Each time the goblet changes hands—pried from locked vitrines, smuggled under burlap, bartered for quinine—it leaves a constellation of burns on whomever dares believe grace can be stolen. By the time the river reclaims it, the girl’s lungs no longer rattle; the thief’s fingerprints have been scorched clean; the bachelor has learned that remorse is simply love that arrives too late, wearing the clothes of its own ghost.
Synopsis
Poor Bessie MacGregor is struck by the automobile of wealthy Mrs. Templeton Orrin and is taken home to live with her. But Bessie leaves when Mrs. Orrin's brother, J. Warburton Ashe, trifles with her love. Thief Tony Pantelli befriends her in the tenement where she finds a room, tries to obtain money for her care from Ashe, and, failing, steals a goblet that Ashe has brought home from England, thinking it may be the Holy Grail. The goblet, which gives off a glow and is reputed to have healing powers, is recovered, stolen again, again recovered and stolen, and finally lost in a river. Meanwhile, Ashe exonerates Tony in night court, realizes he really loves Bessie, now cured, and is reunited with her.
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