The Deepest Night (6 page)

Chapter 7

To my great astonishment, the graduation ceremony was to take place out-of-doors, upon the wide, open green of Iverson’s front lawn. It was a picturesque enough setting, with the cerulean sky and trimmed grass, the rose gardens framing it all in pathways of flouncy bright blooms. Even the animal-shaped hedges looked nearly benign. But out-of-doors meant the sun, and the sun meant parasols, a bobbing sea of them above the audience in their wicker chairs, a handful more held by those of us stranded in our row upon the makeshift stage.

A patchy breeze tugged at the trim of our formal uniforms like a fussy toddler wanting attention.

The trim was black lace. Every inch of our formal uniforms, in fact, was black, because they’d been dyed that way about a month past to honor the death of our school patron’s eldest son.

Which meant that I was clad in the most stifling outfit imaginable from neck to toe, perspiring and miserable in the heat of the day, for no good reason. The breeze wasn’t strong enough to cool, and the parasol I’d been handed before being ushered up to the stage was also made of lace. I sat dappled in fiery sunlight.

“What a silly to-do,” Malinda was grumbling. As ever, she’d been seated at my side. “When we’ll be seeing all these same people at parties as soon as next week.”

“
Some
of us will,” Lillian corrected her, with a smug glance at me.

“Yes, I guess this
is
something for Eleanore to remember. You
will
remember it, won’t you, darling Eleanore? When you’re back with all the other sad, tatty orphans in your sad, tatty orphanage, mucking about in the Scottish slums?”

I gazed at the parasol sea before me, dark shade hiding porcelain faces, fans undulating, diamonds flashing. Silks and linens and hats and feathers. Servants weaving through with lemonade and champagne.

Not a single snatch of conversation I’d overheard had been about the war. It was all who had seen whom where, and when, and whom they’d been with, and what they’d been wearing.

“Oh, yes,” I said softly. “It would be quite impossible to forget such a magnificent display of affectation.”

It took Malinda a moment to untangle my sentence. Then she straightened, her cheeks going pink.

“Well! I like that! Here you are amid your betters, and you have the nerve to say something like that!”

“I have the nerve for rather a lot of things, actually.” I turned my head to hold her eyes. “You’ve no idea.”

“I don’t doubt it!”

“You seem indisposed,” I said, darkening my voice. “Indeed, darling Malinda, I fear you’re horribly ill.”

It wasn’t nice of me. I know that. But sometimes the best way to fight nastiness is with a good, sharp dose of something even nastier.

I turned away again as she began panting, pulling at the collar of her shirtwaist.

The very first row of the audience held the most important people, I assumed, because Mrs. Westcliffe was there, and some old men in fine coats, and one young man in particular at the end of the row, dressed in black like me, but with a starched white shirt and a dove-gray waistcoat and tie, and a ruby ring that wasn’t his on his right hand.

Like everyone else, Armand’s face was obscured by the shade of his hat. Unlike everyone else, however, I felt him staring at me. I could always feel it when he stared.

Malinda began to make small mewling noises under her breath. She sounded distressingly like a sick kitten.

I leaned in close. “You’re fine,” I said, and went back to gazing out past the parasols.

I hadn’t been able to tell Armand about Scotland. I’d smoked to his room twice since that night, but he’d never been there; I thought it likely he hadn’t been at Tranquility at all. I’d hoped it meant he’d gone to London, as he’d said, and sold my pinecone.

I had no intention of mucking about in slums any longer, not in Scotland or anywhere else. If Westcliffe wasn’t having me back next year anyway, there was no point in doing what the government or any of the adults ordered me to do.

I would take my money from Armand, purchase some decent traveling gear and a ticket to Someplace Else. I would empty my chest of gold into my suitcase, board a train, and not look back. Never mind Westcliffe and Armand and Jesse and the Splintered Sisters of the Holy Whatever. Not only was I magical, I now had means. If I desired to disappear, no one would ever find me.

After I was settled somewhere, I would think about—
think
about—rescuing Aubrey.

If Jesse truly expected me to risk my life for a stranger, he could damned well come to me in a dream and tell me so himself.

This is what I remember from the momentous 1915 Observance of Graduation at the Iverson School for Girls, Wessex, England:

Westcliffe taking the stage for her welcome speech, which was about—surprise!—the virtues of modesty and faith, and how this was unquestionably one of the most promising classes of young ladies she’d ever had the pleasure to host.

(Sophia, hiding her mouth behind her hand: “She says that every year.”)

Malinda playing the upright piano that had been rolled into place beyond the podium; she’d recovered enough by then to destroy only a few bars of Stella and Beatrice’s treacly duet.

My head beginning to ache.

Chloe Pemington walking up the stairs to the stage, enveloped in a cloud of overripe perfume. She’d won some sort of award from the professors for perfect deportment.

(Sophia, snorting.)

Chloe accepting her engraved silver chalice with a condescending nod, floating like a sylph across the stage. Men in the audience transfixed.

Sophia after that, reciting her book passage with a familiar crisp yet singsong elocution that had the headmistress beaming, because apparently she couldn’t tell when she was being mocked.

My head, throbbing.

Another speech from one of the front-row gentlemen, who mumbled so severely I couldn’t make out a single word besides
wives
. Although I suppose it might have been
knives
.

The hot broken bits of sunlight on my arms and lap, blinding.

Lillian, Mittie, and Caroline and their poem, entitled “An Ode to Good Old Iverson, My Home of Homes!”

Demons with machetes inside my skull, hacking to come out.

And then Lord Armand Louis, striding past me without a glance to take the podium, about to give the speech that would change everything.

“I hope you will forgive the Duke of Idylling’s absence on this important day,” he began, his voice smooth and commanding, the very opposite of Mr. Mumbler. “My father sends his best wishes to each of you, and most especially to each of the young women graduating from this fine school, of which he is quite justly proud. I realize I am not so eloquent nor so fluent in public discourse as His Grace, but I shall do my best to be an adequate speaker in his stead.”

Armand paused to flash a smile at the audience. Four of my classmates released audible, smitten sighs.

“I believe I echo my father’s sentiments when I state that it is imperative, even in turbulent times, to celebrate the importance of learning and perseverance. Indeed, in times such as these, recognition of such achievements becomes even more significant. What else do we truly fight for? We fight for the glory of our country, of course. For our king. But also for our way of life. Our way of thinking. Of being.”

Was this some emerging
drákon
skill? I’d never heard him speak like this before. He was cool and calm and mesmerizing. He had all of us, including me, leaning forward in our seats, hanging on his words.

Armand removed his hat and let the sun illuminate him entirely. Shining dark hair, intense blue eyes. The harsh light along his white shirt and skin cast him almost aglow.

“Iverson is an ideal illustration of who and what we are. Of what we must defend. The welfare of your daughters is dear to every fighting man out there, I promise you. They risk their lives for them, for us. Such a sacrifice is overwhelming.

“I was reminded of this recently by a student from this very school. A tenderhearted girl who came to me with an idea, one I hope you will all embrace as fervently as I did. Miss Jones? Miss Eleanore Jones? Where are you?”

Oh, God.
I shrank back in my chair. What was he doing?

Armand pretended to search the crowd for a few seconds before spotting me cowering under my parasol. He gestured emphatically in my direction.

“Ladies and gentlemen, it is due to this girl that a plan has been set into motion that I hope will benefit the lives of a good number of soldiers and their families. As many of you know, my home, Tranquility at Idylling, is large—and largely empty. With my father’s blessing, I intend to fill those empty rooms with heartbeats, with souls. I am going to transform Tranquility into a convalescent hospital for our own wounded soldiers.”

Another pause, and a gradual, rumbling, swelling resonance from the crowd that I read as part approval, part disbelief. Armand spoke again, louder, before the sound could grow beyond him.

“And I am delighted to inform you that this same kind girl, as true an example of the Iverson spirit of generosity and service as ever was, has volunteered to spend her summer there as our very first nurse!”

Armand took a half step back from the podium, smiling again, allowing the swell of sound to crest into happy applause. Then he walked straight to me, bowing before me and lifting a hand in an invitation to take mine.

What else could I do? I placed my fingers over his and he lowered his head to press a kiss upon my knuckles. The applause grew even louder.

“Voilà,” he murmured, a word that only I could hear.

Well, forget about my piano performance. There was no way I was going to try to follow that.

One hour later, at the al fresco reception, beneath some anemic clouds and that unrelenting sun:

“A moment, Miss Jones.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“You are certainly full of surprises. Why did you not mention to me your conversation with Lord Armand regarding the hospital?”

“Uh … I beg your pardon, ma’am. I assure you, I was as amazed as you when he spoke of it today.”

“Had you bothered to tell me you’d volunteered as a nurse for the summer, you might have saved many of us a good deal of trouble. It is not an uncomplicated task to arrange a future, Eleanore. A good many people went to some effort on your behalf to secure your place at the Callander orphanage.”

“I beg your pardon, ma’am.”

“Indeed. Had I any inkling of your interest in
nursing
, I might have arranged to send you to one of the many worthy hospitals already in existence.”

“It—it was a very sudden interest, ma’am.”

“Plainly. Is that champagne I smell on your breath?”

“No, ma’am. I wouldn’t dream of—”

“Good day to you, Miss Jones.”

“Good day. Ma’am.”

Chapter 8

The next day was Saturday. Technically, only Sundays were marked as Visitors’ Day at Iverson, but since the school year had officially ended, it seemed that rule was done as well. The castle was filled with sounds of girls laughing and crying their goodbyes, of doors slamming and the heavy, plodding footsteps of the menservants carrying trunk after trunk down the main stairs to be loaded up in the line of automobiles along the drive.

Mrs. Westcliffe had arranged for tea service in the front parlor, and that’s where most of the parents lingered, quenching their thirst and girding their loins for the coming months. Girls out of uniform—at last, out of uniform!—darted every which way, eager not to miss a single departure of a classmate they’d probably despised only yesterday.

I, too, walked the halls out of uniform. Which meant that instead of wearing black or white, I was in brown: plain brown blouse, brown twill skirt, scuffed brown boots. Every single child at Blisshaven had worn this color. I wondered sometimes if it was to make us even more invisible than we already were.

The ends of my sleeves cut short just above the bones of my wrist. Only three months ago, they’d been the right length. My boots pinched smaller, too, and the top buttons of my skirt strained to pop free. The only thing that fit well at all any longer was the cuff of golden flowers I wore.

The cuff that Jesse had made for me out of real, living flowers transformed into gold.

I might have sold it, instead of the pinecone. But I was as likely do that as to chop off my arm.

I was approaching the open doorway of the parlor, trying to ignore the inviting aromas of spice cake and tea and cucumber sandwiches wafting through, when voices reached me. A cluster of people, stationed near the door.

“Mamá, I told you—she’s a very little nobody from nowhere. She has no money, no family, and no friends.”

Aha. Lady Chloe, sounding petulant.

“Excuse me,” countered a new someone. “But
I
am her friend.”

Sophia! My feet slowed.

“Very charitable of you, my pet, very charitable.” A man this time. Lord Pemington, perhaps? “I have always admired your generous nature.”

“Thank you, Papa.”

“Yes, yes.” A woman now, impatient. “But how did this scholarship girl manage to wrangle an invitation to Tranquility for the entire summer?”

“Armand is in love with her,” said Sophia.

“He certainly is
not
,” hissed Chloe. “She’s connived her way in, that’s all. She’s a scheming little chit! Anyone can see that!”

“Anyone but Lord Armand, it would appear,” said the woman. “And no wonder, what with this unfortunate business about his father! The poor boy, his head must be muddled. This won’t do. This won’t do in the least.”

I whipped past the open doorway, but no one was looking at me, anyway.

Invisible, remember?

The castle kept any number of secrets locked within its stony heart. Among my favorites—and the most useful—were the hidden passageways that tunneled behind the walls, connecting different floors and chambers from the rooftop all the way down past the dungeons. Some of them had been sealed up or filled in with rubble; those that were left intact seemed to have been forgotten, lost to generations of memories gone to dust.

Certainly Westcliffe didn’t know about the tunnels, nor did the other students or staff. But Jesse had. And now I did.

I stood alone on the cold, flat slab that was the floor of another fine secret: Iverson’s grotto. It was a cavern, really, a natural bubble in the bedrock of the island that had been reinforced with man-made pillars and this smooth embankment of limestone. Seawater lapped at the edges of the embankment, making the softest, softest of sounds. It entered and exited through another significant hole in the rock at the far end of the cavern. The only way in or out of this place was through that hole—or else the secret tunnel that had led me here.

The grotto had been designed as a refuge for the medieval castle folk. As a place of escape should invaders come and Iverson fall. The tide came in, and rowboats could steal away out the hole. The tide went out, and all other boats would be stranded, unable to pursue.

It was a place of refuge for me, too. It was here that Jesse had first explained to me about who I was. What my Gifts would mean.

Where we had broken bread together and kissed, and wrapped ourselves in blankets and laughed at fate.

I crossed my arms over my chest, warding off the chill; it was always much cooler here than anywhere else. I gazed down at the seawater, a strange silvery radiance at my feet, dancing its subtle silvery dance.

His hair had been blond. His eyes had been green. If I closed my own I could still see them, the summer storms behind them when he looked at me, and I wondered how much longer they’d remain so clear in my memory. It was already getting harder to summon the exact pitch of his voice.

I squatted down and touched my fingertips to the water, then brought them to my lips. The salt water tasted like tears.

“I miss you,” I said. The grotto took my words and bounced them back at me:
you-you-you
 …

No one else answered.

“I have to go soon,” I said.

 … soon-soon-soon … 

“And I don’t know if I’ll be back. I—I’ll try, though. I’ll try.”

 … try-try-try … 

“Damn you,” I whispered. “I hate you for leaving me behind.”

 … hind-hind-hind … 

“Lora.”

I stood and flicked the water from my hand, composed myself, then turned and faced the concealed door in the cavern wall behind me.

Armand, of course. Iverson Castle had been his home once upon a time. He knew about the tunnels, too.

“I thought I might find you here.”

“Looks like you were right. Why aren’t you upstairs bidding adieu to all the schoolgirls in love with you?”

“All those heaving bosoms and soggy pledges of eternal devotion,” he said, reaching my side. “Who can bear it?”

The walls of the cavern were studded with minute crystals. They blinked in time with the shifting sea, framing him in sparkles.

I returned to regarding the seawater at my feet. This close to the end of the embankment, my boots were getting wet. “I was going to tell you that I’m being sent to Scotland. But it seems you’re rather more crafty than the rest of us.”

“One of my finer attributes, if I do say so myself.”

I thought of the packet of never-to-be-redeemed train tickets upstairs on my dresser, and my threadbare Blisshaven clothing still tucked in its drawers. I thought of Mrs. Westcliffe’s face in the audience after Armand’s announcement, how she had looked as if she’d swallowed a toad.

“I wasn’t actually going to go,” I said.

Armand bent his head, lower, lower, until he invaded my line of vision and I had no choice but to meet his eyes. “You’re welcome, waif.”

“Thank you.”

He straightened into a stretch, both arms out. “How about that? You uttered the words and lightning didn’t strike you dead.”

“Is it true, though? Are you really going to make Tranquility into a hospital?”

“Convalescent hospital, and yes, it’s true. I’ve already been in contact with the minister of defense, who’s assigned all the correct people to the project and assures me I’m a damned fine lad who’s doing a damned fine thing.”

A hint of something in his voice. Not irony, but something veiled and biting like it.

“Not just for me, then,” I said.

“No.”

“Aubrey,” I realized.

He looked full at me again. “I can’t join up. You know that. After Aubrey left for the Royal Flying Corps my father pulled every string possible to keep me out the fight and stuck in England, so sod him. I’ll stay here—at least for now—but on my terms. Putting those wounded men in Tranquility will be the best thing that’s ever happened to it. Perhaps it’ll even give the place a soul.”

“I’m glad,” I said simply.

“Good.”

 … ood-ood-ood … 

“Listen,” he said. “You should learn how to swim.”

“Why?”

“We’ll have to cross the Channel on the way to East Prussia. It’s not an insignificant distance. We don’t know what might happen.”

I raised my brows and cocked my head. “ ‘We’?”

“Yes,
we
,” he replied, irritated. “Of course
we
. And I’d appreciate it if you refrained from looking at me like that all the time.”

“Like what?” I snapped.

“Like I’m an irksome fly orbiting about your oh-so-marvelous self. Whether you like it or not, Miss Jones, this is a team endeavor, and you and I together make up the team. We can count Jesse in, too, if you like. If that makes it all so much
better
for you. Oh, and the mad duke as well, of course! Couldn’t do any of this bloody nonsense without
him
.”

He walked away from me before I could think of a response. He didn’t just leave me alone there in the cavern, though. He placed his hand on the concealed lever that would open the hidden door, but he didn’t leave.

“You’re not a fly,” I muttered.

“A mosquito, then.”

“Mandy, you’re the only person in the world who’s like me.” I spoke quietly, to defeat the echo. “Perhaps a little too like me. And I—I don’t care to learn how to swim. The sea is cold.”

“Tranquility,” he said, without turning around. “There’s a heated swimming bath inside.”

I paused, astonished. “There is?”

“Yes. And a bowling alley. And a gymnasium. Didn’t you know? Nothing but the wildest extravagances for the mad duke.”

“I never called him that.”
Out
loud.

“You don’t have to. Everyone else does.”

“What do they know? He’s the only one of us gifted with the future by the stars. The only one Jesse talks to.”

“Yes,” said Armand. “The only one.” He sent me a look. “We should go back up.”

“You first. We don’t want to be caught alone together in some deserted dark hall. Westcliffe’ll use any excuse to keep me from you.”

“She can try,” he said.

We weren’t caught, though. Armand vanished into the warren of tunnels, and about five minutes later I did, too, and I didn’t see him again.

The flood of families exiting the castle had slowed to a trickle. There would be a few girls like me who stayed on another night or so, but most of the student population was already gone. The air was choked with the pong of diesel and perfume and sweat, stale beer (from the servants?) underneath. I stepped outside to escape it, walking past the final few automobiles idling on the drive.

Bored chauffeurs puffing on cigarettes looked me up and down. A seagull slung a high, leisurely loop overhead, wings open wide, a hard white chip against the blue.

The motorcar at the front of the line was bright yellow and huge. It needed to be, I presumed, to hold all the stylish Pemingtons and their liveried driver, who was struggling to tie off the last cord binding the trunks in back.

“There you are!”

Sophia crunched across the gravel to me, holding out both hands to take mine like we were the most devoted of confidantes. Chloe and her mother, already seated inside the auto, eyed me suspiciously, probably expecting me to pick her pockets.

“Smile,” she whispered. “They’re watching, aren’t they? Smile like you’ve just won all my money at whist.”

I did, and Sophia smiled in return, laughing, and drew me into a hug.

“How do they look?” she breathed into my ear.

“Like you’ve shamed them for all eternity.”

“Wonderful!” She made a show of touching her lips to my cheek.

“Time to go, pet.” Lord Pemington ambled up from behind, placing a meaty hand on Sophia’s shoulder.

“Yes, Papa. Oh, have you met Miss Jones? Eleanore, my father, Lord Maurice Pemington, Earl of Shot. Papa, Miss Eleanore Jones. She’s the one who’s going to be with Armand all summer.”

“At the hospital,” I added hastily.

“Of course.” Lord Pemington granted me a cursory nod; clearly he had other things to do besides be introduced to a girl from the ghetto, even with Lord Armand’s name invoked. “How do you do, Miss—er—miss. I’m afraid we really must be going, Sophia. You know how your mother dislikes to travel after sundown.”

“I’ll be right there.” Much softer, as he walked to the auto: “And she’s not my mother.”

Sophia glanced back at me, unsmiling now, her blue eyes pale as glaciers.

“Have a grand summer,” I said, because she’d called me
friend
before, even if it wasn’t true.

“I hope to,” she replied. “I suppose we’ll just have to see.”

She went to rejoin to her family without another look.