Revenant Eve (15 page)

“I saw this, once,” Aurélie said in a low voice. “Before we left Saint-Domingue. There was nearly a fire on board
L’Étourneau
, and the third mate said Fiba and I were at fault, that we left untended candles. But we took a lamp. That was the rule.
Maman
believed us, though everyone thought we were the last ones in the hold. And later, when the third mate was caught stealing, they knew we didn’t lie. But before he was caught,
Maman
knew our words were true.”

“That’s because she trusted your words rather than what she expected to hear. I think your aunt trusts only what she expects to see and hear, and not your words.”

Aurélie leaned against the mirror, her face troubled. “She believes that Nanny is wicked and a heathen, so she does not trust me? But she
has never seen Nanny! Never heard her speak. My Nanny is not wicked.”

“No. But Aunt Kittredge doesn’t know your Nanny, and she only believes those who have her respect. I don’t think anybody from Jamaica has her respect.”

Aurélie nodded sadly. “I think this is right. So what must I say? I hate to lie.
That
is wicked.”

“I don’t know what’s right here, but I think she’ll only believe you if tell her that you walked away and fell asleep in the dell and dreamed about the fae and dancing.”

“But that’s not true. I was not asleep, and in my dreams, there are many strange people, but never these fae.” She scowled down at her hands. “If I say this lie, she will believe me?”

“I think so. Because it will match the world she understands.”

“And then she will punish me.”

“I think that is going to happen no matter what you say.”

“Good.” Aurélie’s scowl deepened. “I will deserve punishment, for telling lies.”

That’s what happened. From the second I saw the angry, smug lift to Aunt Kittredge’s upper lip, my budding dislike of the woman zapped straight to the red zone, especially when she rubbed in her power over Aurélie by making her kneel and beg pardon before the entire family. I knew she was convinced of right, and that forcing Aurélie to kneel was conventional behavior for the time, but I hated how much angry enjoyment she was getting out of her moral superiority.

Aurélie’s head was bowed, and tears of shame dripped onto her hands, but I could see the faces of the family: Uncle Kittredge troubled, clearly wishing himself elsewhere; James equally uncomfortable; Cassandra’s chin high like her mother’s, though her puckered brow indicated ambivalence, and little Diana squinting solemnly at them all as if trying to bring them into focus.

Aurélie was confined to the schoolroom, forbidden access to the garden for the rest of the month, and made to write out, in her best hand, a book of sermons. The only outside activity permitted was going to and from church.

Aurélie went upstairs to mope with the intensity of the thirteen-year-old who has been wronged. I waited impatiently for her to come to the mirror again. It was finally time to begin communicating—to start the process of making sure both our futures would be secure.

I’d kept amending my long-rehearsed speech over time, except for my opening sentence, one I was fairly sure any girl would love to hear:
How would you like to marry a prince?

The next day, Miss Oliver saw fit to deliver her own lecture, ending with, “Young ladies must remember that reputation begins in the schoolroom. Mrs. Kittredge will scarcely be able to arrange a suitable marriage if the gentleman hears whispers about fanciful tales and taradiddles, to put it no higher. No gentleman of worth could envision such a woman heading his household.”

Cassandra looked quite saintly, knowing the lecture was not aimed at her. Aurélie dropped her head in a submissive posture, but I could see her scowl, and so I thought: Ah-ha, my moment has come.

As was her habit, she touched the mirror when she returned to her bedchamber to dress for dinner. Before she could start in about how unfair it was to be lectured for something she had not done, I gave her my line, “How would you like to marry a prince?”

And waited for the squee, and the “Oooh, tell me what to do!” so I could establish myself as her best bud.

She looked at me in horror. “She wouldn’t!”

“Who wouldn’t? And, um, wouldn’t what?”

“
Maman promised
me I could choose whom I should marry for myself, as she did. She’s not going back on her word?”

“No. That is, I don’t know any more than you do. I told you, I cannot communicate with anybody but you.”

She looked slightly relieved, then wary. “So why would you say such a horrid thing?”

“Horrid?” I repeated, aghast.

“What happens to princesses? They turn into queens.” She drew her finger across her neck.

“But not all queens end up on the guillotine,” I said, mentally flailing.

“No. The queen of England is married to a madman. The queen of Sweden, her king was assassinated dancing at a ball. The queen of Prussia, her king is ruled by his
maitresse en titre
.” Aurélie paused, then said, “I am not precisely certain what that means, but Fiba and I overheard talk about it, and we know it is horrid. Who would want such a life? Not I! I want to go home, and marry a privateer.”

I stared at her, my lovingly prepared speech as blown to bits as my expectations. When I was her age, half my classmates had fantasized about somehow getting from Los Angeles to England to marry Prince William; then again, he lived a fairy tale life—the worst battle he’d ever face would be with nosy paparazzi. Princes in Aurélie’s time weren’t always handsome, smart, or safe. And princesses didn’t get to pick whom they would marry.
I should have thought this through.

Aurélie was still regarding me warily. “Duppy Kim, why did you say that?”

Still flailing wildly, I glanced into the room, and pointed at a schoolbook labeled
The Kings of England
. “I was just thinking about what it might be like for English princesses,” I said weakly.

“I pity them,” Aurélie said seriously. “Do you think my aunt will try to arrange such a marriage for me, because my father was a marquis? But royalty must marry royalty, is that not true? I should be safe from princes.”

“Yes, you should be safe from princes,” I agreed in total defeat, as she went away to dress for dinner.

A
FTER THAT DISASTER,
I decided I had better bide my time and not imagine conversations based on the way girls think now. It wasn’t that I had not known about arranged marriages. I’d studied the evolution of marriage in history classes. What I hadn’t thought about was how marriage looked to girls of that time.

Meanwhile, Aunt Kittredge announced that the Bouldeston cousins would not be invited this year after all, with a stony glance Aurélie’s way. This was also a time when several punishments and reminders for a single misdeed was considered good childrearing by many.

For a few days Cassandra walked about like a thundercloud, for she’d been treasuring up things to show her cousins to impress them. Neither Aurélie nor Diana could speak without being snapped at, the one sharply corrected and the other scolded for being clumsy, slow, and in the way.

Then one morning, Aunt Kittredge said to Cassandra, “Your Aunt Bouldeston writes to invite you to visit Lucretia and Lucasta in July.
You
have earned this treat.” Cassandra was instantly restored to good humor.

The following morning found her downstairs singing and Miss Oliver in the front parlor, talking to Aunt Kittredge—which left Aurélie alone in the schoolroom. She was grimly laboring away at her copy-work when Diana approached her, hugging an old book tight against her front.

“Pray look, Cousin. Here is my favorite poem. It is called ‘Aire and Angels,’” Diana whispered.

Aurélie said, “Your favorite poem?”

“It was writ by Doctor Donne,” Diana said softly, squinting worriedly over her shoulder at the closed door. Whoa—Donne? Diana was not quite ten.

“Great Aunt Edith read it to me when I was small,” Diana went on. “His poems are in the book room. Nobody touches the old books, except me.” Another quick, squinting look, then Diana whispered, “Great Aunt Edith saw the fairies, you know.”

“She did?”

Diana nodded solemnly. “I think I saw them once.”

“
You
did?”

“I think so. I think ’twas real, and no mere dream. I was very small. It was raining, and the clouds parted, and there was a rainbow. Over the farm.” Diana’s arm lifted. “That was pretty. I turned the other way to see if the other end might be closer. There was no rainbow, but a beam of light coming down from betwixt the clouds, just beyond the rose gate. It was there that I saw them. I told everybody, and Mama and Papa scolded me and said it was a dream. Aunt Edith lived with us then. She was very old—she was born in the time of Queen Anne.
She
believed me. She said she saw the fairies many times when she was small, and so did her sister, who married an
earl
.”

Diana issued this fact with solemn conviction, as if everyone knew that the word of a countess was to be trusted.

“Why does no one see them now?”

“I don’t know,” Diana said. “Only that some do. Most do not. Aunt Edith told me stories about the fairies and about magic things. Like how roses have powers against the evil ones.”

“Evil ones?
Oanga
?”

“What is that?”

“The bad magic. Some can change from people to beast or bird.”

“Shape-changers! I found mention of them once, in one of the books on the top shelf.”

Diana scanned the doorway again for lurking parental figures and whispered, “Aunt Edith told me the roses ward the evil ones who drink blood.”

“Aunt Kittredge doesn’t know that about the roses?”

“No. And she thinks the fairies are taradiddles.”

“This word ‘taradiddles,’ it means lies, does it not?”

“Stories. About things untrue. Aunt Edith said that when her father built the new house, all the old charms inside were done away with.”

“Charms,” Aurélie breathed. “What’s that?”

“A charm can be a carved or painted thing. Your fingers feel odd if you touch it. Aunt Edith said that the charms were to make evil go away. There are two in the stone gate by the roses. It feels like velvet when you touch the cross inside the circle, or the one like a four-petaled flower. I’m trying to find out why. Nobody reads those books on the top shelf but me,” Diana confided. “When I turned nine, I set myself a task, to read
all
my aunt’s books, but I must confess, I have no end of difficulties with my attempt to learn Greek and Latin. Oh, I know I’m being tedious, and Cassie always says I’m trying to put myself forward if I talk about books, though I assure you, I mean no such thing.” She took a deep breath. “
Anyway
, these poems, by Doctor Donne, they’re my favorites.”

She leaned against the arm of Aurélie’s chair and pushed a small, gilt book into her hands. “Will you tell me everything that happened with the fairies?”

Aurélie did, leaving out only the necklace, according to her promise. When she came to the part about seeing me, Diana listened with fast breathing and, at the end, begged to be shown me in the mirror.

I don’t know who was more disappointed, the girls or me when Diana couldn’t see me, though Aurélie could. Aurélie described my features, touching the mirror as Diana peered so closely that her breath fogged the glass. “I almost saw something. I think. Though maybe it was just the light, slanting through the window.” She turned away with resignation. “The fairies didn’t sing to me in the garden, or I would have gone with you. And I wouldn’t care about the horrid rain, if I could have seen them.”

The girls heard the governess’s tread on the landing, and Diana scampered out.