The Sweet Far Thing (21 page)

“I can’t imagine Brigid leaving her bed in the night to mark the stones. She complains about her back day in and day out,” I remind them.

Cecily dips her brush in the pail of murky red water. “Suppose that’s a ruse. What if she’s really a witch?”

“She does know a lot about fairies and such,” Martha says, wide-eyed.

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It’s becoming a game, this suspicion.

Felicity’s eyes match Martha’s. She leans close. “Come to think of it, didn’t the bread taste just like the souls of children? I shall faint!” She puts a hand to her forehead.

“I’m quite serious, Felicity Worthington,” Martha scolds.

“Oh, Martha, you’re never serious,” Felicity teases.

“But why mark the East Wing with blood?” I ask.

Cecily mulls it over. “For revenge. To frighten the workers.”

“Or to raise evil spirits,” Martha offers.

“What if it’s the sign of a witch or…or the devil?” Elizabeth whispers.

“It could be for protection,” Ann says, still scrubbing.

Elizabeth scoffs. “Protection? From what?”

“From evil,” Ann replies.

Cecily narrows her eyes. “And how do you know this?”

Ann suddenly realizes she’s walked into it. “I—I’ve read such things…in the B-Bible.”

Something hard flashes in Cecily’s eyes. “You did it, didn’t you?”

Ann drops her brush into the pail and the water splashes her apron with muck. “N-no. I…I d-didn’t.”

“You can’t bear our happiness, our talk of parties and teas, can you? And so you want to ruin it for us!”

“No. I d-don’t.” Ann retrieves her brush and resumes cleaning, but under her breath she mutters something.

Cecily turns Ann around to face her. “What did you say?”

“Stop it, Cecily,” I say.

Ann’s face is flushed. “N-nothing.”

“What did you say? I should like to hear it.”

“I should too,” Martha says.

“Oh, Cecily, really. Do leave her alone, won’t you?” Felicity says.

“I’ve a right to hear what is said behind my back,” Cecily declares. “Go on, Ann Bradshaw. Repeat it. I demand that you tell me!”

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“I s-said, you’ll be sor-sorry someday,” Ann whispers.

Cecily laughs. “I’ll be sorry? And what, pray, will you do to me, Ann Bradshaw? What could you possibly ever do to me?”

Ann stares at the stones. She moves the brush up and down in the same spot.

“I thought not. In a month’s time, you shall take your rightful place as a servant. That’s all you were meant to be. It’s high time you accepted that.”

Our work finished, we empty the disgusting water from the pails and trudge toward Spence, exhausted and filthy. Talk has turned to the masked ball and what costumes we shall wear. Cecily and Elizabeth want to be princesses. They’ll have their pick of silks and satins from which to fashion pretty dresses.

Fee insists she will go as a Valkyrie. I say I should like to go as Miss Austen’s Elizabeth Bennet, but Felicity tells me it is the dullest costume in the history of costumes and no one should know who I was, besides.

“I should have told Cecily to jump in the lake,” Ann mutters.

“Why didn’t you?” I ask.

“What if she told Mrs. Nightwing I painted the stones? What if Mrs. Nightwing believed her?”

“What if, what if,” Felicity says with an irritated sigh. “What if you stood up to her for once?”

“They hold all the power,” Ann complains.

“Because you give it to them!”

Ann turns away from Felicity, wounded. “I wouldn’t expect you to understand.”

“No, you’re right. I shan’t ever understand your willingness to lie down and die,” Felicity barks. “If you won’t at least try to fight, I have no sympathy for you.”

The day is as regimented as a soldier’s. French is followed by music, which is followed by a joyless luncheon of boiled cod. The afternoon is taken up with dance. We learn the quadrille and the waltz. As it is wash day, we are sent to the laundry to give our linens and clothing to the washerwoman, along with a shilling for her work. We copy sentences from Mr. Dickens’s
Nicholas Nickleby,
perfecting our penmanship. Mrs. Nightwing strides between the neat rows of our desks, scrutinizing our form, criticizing the loops and the flourishes she feels fall short of the mark. If we have an inkblot upon the page—and with our leaky nibs and weary fingers, it is nearly impossible not to—then we must start the whole page over again. When she calls time, my eyes have begun to cross and my hand will surely never be rid of its ghastly cramp.

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By the time the evening rolls around, we’re exhausted. I’ve never been so grateful to see my bed. I pull the thin blanket up to my chin, and as my head dents the pillow, I fall into dreams as intricate as mazes.

The lady in lavender beckons to me from her cloak of London fog. I follow her into a bookseller’s. She pulls books furiously from the shelves, searching until she finds the one she wants. She lays it open and begins to draw, covering the page in strange lines and markings that put me in mind of a map. She inks the page as quickly as possible, but we are interrupted by the sound of horses. The lady’s eyes grow wide with fear. The window crackles with frost. Cold fog creeps around the cracks in the door. It blows open suddenly. A wretched monster in a tattered cape sniffs the air—a Winterlands tracker.

“The sacrifice…,” he growls.

I wake with a start to find I’ve pulled every one of my books from the shelf. They lie in a heap upon the floor.

Ann calls to me in a sleep-soaked voice. “Gemma, why are you making such a racket?”

“I…I had a nightmare. Sorry.”

She rolls over and returns to her dreams. Heart still beating fast, I go about putting my books away.
A
Study in Scarlet
has only a few bent pages but
Jane Eyre
has a wretched tear in it. I mourn the injury done to it as if I, myself, have been cut, and not Miss Eyre. Mr. Kipling’s
The Jungle Book
is mangled.

Miss Austen’s
Pride and Prejudice
is wounded but still intact. In fact, the only book to escape without a scratch is
A History of Secret Societies,
and I suppose I should be grateful something has survived my midnight rampage.

I place them all neatly on the shelf, spines out, except for
Pride and Prejudice,
for I have need of the comfort of an old friend. Miss Austen keeps me company by lamplight until well into the morning, when I fall asleep dreaming only of Mr. Darcy, which is as good a dream as a girl may reasonably hope for.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

“ICAN’T BELIEVE THAT I, ANNBRADSHAW, SHALL SEELILYTrimble perform her greatest role!”

“Yes, well, you will see her, but not as Ann Bradshaw,” I say, bustling about my dressing table. I try the simple straw hat with a deep green ribbon. It does not make me into a beauty, but it is rather handsome.

“I am sorry that you cannot go as yourself, Ann.”

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She nods, resigned. “It’s no matter. I shall see her, and that is all I care about.”

“Have you given thought to your illusion?” I ask.

“Oh, yes!” She beams.

“Very well, then. Let’s give this a try, shall we?”

I take Ann’s hands in mine. She’s still got a bit of magic left inside her and it joins with what I’m giving her. Her joy over seeing her idol is contagious. I feel it traveling from my hand to hers and back again, an invisible thread connecting us.

“Go on, then. Make yourself into whomever you like,” I say, smiling. “We’ll wait for you.”

“It will only take a moment!” she says, exulting. Her cheeks are already rosy. “I promise.”

“This will end in misery, I’ve no doubt,” Felicity grumbles when I go downstairs. She’s fumbling with a bow at her neck. I put my hand over it, and it fluffs out, full and pretty.

“You’re the one always saying the magic’s no good unless we can make use of it here,” I say.

“I didn’t mean for little jaunts to the shows and new hats,” she snaps.

“It means the world to Ann.”

“I can’t see how attending a matinee will change her life,” Felicity grouses. “Instead of being a governess, she’ll be a governess who has been to the theater.”

“I don’t know either. But it’s a start,” I say.

“Hello.”

We turn at Ann’s voice, but it isn’t Ann who’s standing on the stairs above us. It is someone else entirely—a Gibson Girl, roughly twenty years of age, with sumptuous dark curls, an upturned nose, and eyes the color of sapphires. There’s no trace of our Ann in this creation. She wears a dress that could be on the cover of
La Mode Illustrée.
It’s a peach silk confection with black moiré piping and a wide lace collar. The sleeves puff out at her shoulders but taper down the length of her arm. It is topped off by a hat of butterscotch velvet adorned with a single plume. A dainty parasol completes the ensemble.

She poses at the top of the stairs. “How do I look?”

“Simply perfect,” Felicity answers, astonished. “I can’t believe it!”

Ann regards me curiously. “Gemma?”

She’s waiting for my response. It isn’t that she’s not lovely; she is. It’s that she’s no longer Ann. I look for the features I find so comforting in my friend—the pudgy face, the shy smile, and the wary eyes—and they are not there. Ann has been replaced by this strange creature I don’t know.

“You don’t like it,” she says, biting her lip.

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I smile. “It’s only that you look so very different.”

“That is the point,” she says. She holds out her skirts and gives a small twirl. “And you’re certain no one will be able to tell?”

“I cannot tell,” I assure her.

Her face clouds. “And how long will the illusion hold?”

“I can’t say,” I answer. “Several hours at least. Perhaps even the whole day—certainly long enough for our purposes.”

“I wish it could be forever,” she says, touching a gloved hand to her new face.

Cecily prances through, all grins. She wears a beautiful pearl necklace with the daintiest cameo pendant.

“Oh, Fee, come look! Isn’t it absolutely gorgeous? Mother sent it. I shouldn’t wear it before my debut but I can’t resist. Oh, how do you do?” she says, seeing Ann for the first time.

Felicity jumps in. “Cecily, this is my cousin, Miss—”

“Nan Washbrad,” Ann says coolly. Felicity and I nearly burst with laughter, for only we realize that that is an anagram of her name, Ann Bradshaw.

The spell is working well for Ann. Cecily seems absolutely enchanted with Felicity’s “older cousin,” as if she were speaking to a duchess.

“Will you be joining us for tea, Miss Washbrad?” she asks, breathlessly.

“I’m afraid I cannot. We’re to see Miss Lily Trimble in
Macbeth.
”

“I am a great admirer of Miss Trimble’s,” Cecily coos.
Liar.

Ann is like a cat who has cornered the mouse. “What a lovely necklace.” She runs a finger boldly over the pearls and frowns. “Oh, it’s paste.”

Horrified, Cecily brings her hand to her neck. “But they can’t be!”

Ann gives her a look that is both pitying and contemptuous. “I am well versed in jewels, my dear, and I am so very sorry to inform you that your necklace is a forgery.”

Cecily’s face reddens, and I fear she will cry. She pulls the necklace off and examines it. “Oh, dear! Oh!

I’ve shown everyone. They will think me a fool!”

“Or a fraud. Why, I heard a tale recently of a girl who passed herself off as nobility, and when her crime came to light, she was ruined. I should hate for such a fate to befall you,” Ann says, a hardness creeping into her tone.