A Great And Terrible Beauty (11 page)

When I rush full-speed into my room to retrieve Mary Dowd’s diary, I run headlong into the back of Brigid, who is supervising the training of a new upstairs maid.

“I’m terribly sorry,” I sputter with as much dignity as I can, considering that I’m flat on the floor with my skirts up to my knees. Running into the broad Brigid is a bit like flinging myself into the side of a ship. There’s a ringing in my head and I fear I may go deaf from the crushing force of her.

“Sorry? Aye, and you should be,” Brigid says, yanking me to my feet and straightening my hem to a modest level. The new maid turns away, but I can see her slender shoulders bobbing from her stifled laughter.

I start to thank Brigid for helping me to my feet, but she’s only just begun her tirade.

“Carrying on in that way, galloping like a stallion about to meet the gelder’s knife! Now, I ask you, is that any way for a proper lady to conduct ’erself? Hmm? Now wot would Missus Nightwing say if she was to see you makin’ such a spectacle o’ yerself?”

“I am sorry.” I look down at my feet, hoping this passes for contrition.

Brigid makes a clucking sound. “I’m glad you’re sorry, then. Wot’s got you in such a rush, then, hmmm? Mind you tell old Brigid the truth. After twenty-some-odd years ’ere I’ve got keen eyes, I do.”

“I forgot my book,” I say, stepping quickly to my wardrobe. I grab my cape and slip the diary inside.

“All that runnin’ about, nearly killin’ folk for a book,” Brigid grumbles, as if it were she and not me lying dazed on the floor a moment ago.

“Sorry to have troubled you. I’ll just be off,” I say, attempting to sail past her.

“’Old on a minute. Let’s be sure you’re presentable first.” Brigid takes my chin and tilts my face toward the light to inspect it. Her cheeks go pale.

“Is something the matter?” I ask, wondering if I’m more seriously injured than I thought. Brigid’s backside may be formidable, but I don’t think I could’ve sustained a bleeding head wound from my battle with it.

Brigid drops my chin, backs away a bit, wiping her hands on her apron as if they’re dirty. “Nuffin. Just . . . your eyes is very green. That’s all. Go on, now. You’d best catch up wit’ the others.” And with that, she turns her attention to Molly, who is apparently using the feather duster in the wrong way, and I am free to go about my business.

THE
GIRLS
ARE
TAKING
SOME
FRESH
AIR
WHEN
I
COME
out to the great lawn. The sun has held all day, and now it’s a bright blue afternoon. Low clouds drift lazily across the sky. Up on the hill, the chapel stands straight and tall. Out on the green, the younger girls have wrapped a blindfold around the eyes of a little brown-haired girl. They spin her in circles, then scatter like marbles. She puts her arms out unsteadily, wobbles across the lawn, calling out “Blind man.” They yell back “buff,” and she feels her way toward their high-pitched voices. Ann’s sitting on a bench, reading her halfpenny paper. She spies me but I pretend I don’t see her. It’s not very kind of me, but I want to be alone.

The forest off to my right looks inviting, and I dart into its cool shelter. The sunlight leaks through the leaves in bits of warmth. I try to catch its sweetness in my fingers but it drips through them to the earth. There’s a stillness here, broken only by the muffled calls of “buff” from the girls’ game. Mary Dowd’s diary sits quietly inside my cape, her secrets weighing the pocket down against my thigh.

If I can discover what she wants me to know, perhaps I’ll find a way to understand what is happening to me. I open to a new page and read.

December 31, 1870

Today is my sixteenth birthday. Sarah was quite saucy with me. “Now you will know how it is,” she said. When I pressed her to tell me more, she refused me—I, who am like her very own sister! “I cannot tell you, my dearest, dearest friend. But you shall know soon enough. And it shall be as a door opening for you.” I don’t mind saying that I felt very cross with her. She is already sixteen and knows more than I, dear diary. But then she took both my hands in hers, and I cannot feel anything but fondness for her when she is so very kind with me.

What exactly is so glorious about being sixteen is beyond me. If I’d hoped Mary’s diary would get more interesting or insightful, I was mistaken. But there’s nothing else to do, so I find another passage.

January 7, 1871

Such frightful things are happening to me, dearest diary, that I am afraid to recount them here. I am afraid to speak of them all, even to Sarah. What will become of me?

There’s a strange, knotting feeling in my stomach. What could be so terrible that she couldn’t confide in her own diary? A breeze comes, bringing the sound of girls.
Blind man. Buff.
The next entry is dated February 12th. My heart beats faster as I read.

Dearest diary, such blessed relief at last! I am not mad, as I feared. No longer do my visions overtake me with their power, for I have begun to control them at last. Oh, diary, they are not frightful, but beautiful! Sarah promised it would be so for me, but I confess I was too afraid of their glory to let myself enter fully. I could only be pulled along against my will, fighting it. But today, oh, it was glorious indeed! When I felt the fever coming on me, I asked it to come. I choose this, I said, and stuck my courage fast. I did not feel a great pressure pushing in on me. This time, it was no more than a gentle
shudder, and there it was—a beautiful door of light. Oh, diary, I walked through it into a realm of such beauty, a garden with a singing river and flowers that fall from trees like the softest rain. There, what you imagine can be yours. I ran, fast as a deer, my legs powerful and strong, and I was filled with a joy I cannot describe. It seemed I was there for hours, but when I came
through the door again, it was as if I’d never left. I found myself again in my room, where Sarah was waiting to embrace me. “Darling Mary, you’ve done it! Tomorrow, we shall join hands and become one with our sisters. Then we shall know all the mysteries of the realms.”

I’m trembling. Mary and Sarah both had visions. I am not alone. Somewhere out there are two girls—two women—who might be able to help me. Is this what she wants me to know? A door of light. I’ve never seen such a thing—or a garden. There’s been nothing beautiful at all. What if my visions aren’t like theirs at all? Kartik told me they would put me in danger, and everything I’ve experienced seems to prove him right. Kartik, who could be watching me right now, here in these woods. But what if he’s wrong? What if he’s lying?

It’s too much for my head to hold right now. I tuck the book away again and thread in and out between enormous trees, letting my fingers trail over rough bumps on ancient bark. The ground is littered with acorn shells, dead leaves, twigs, forest life.

I reach a clearing and there in front of me is a small, glass-smooth lake. A boathouse stands sentry on the far side. A battered blue rowboat with only one oar is anchored to a tree stump. It slides out and back with the breeze, wrinkling the surface slightly. There’s no one around to see me, so I loose the boat from its mooring and climb in. The sun’s a warm kiss on my face as my head rests against the bow. I’m thinking of Mary Dowd and her beautiful visions of a door of light, a fantastical garden. If I could control my visions, I’d want most to see my mother’s face.

“I’d choose her,” I whisper, blinking back tears.
Might as well cry, Gem
. With my arm across my face, I sob quietly, till I’m spent and my eyes scratch when I blink. The rhythmic lapping of the water against the side of the boat makes me go limp, and soon I’m under sleep’s spell.

Dreams come. Running barefoot over forest floor in the night fog, my breath coming out in short white wisps. It’s a deer I’m chasing, its milky brown flesh peeking through trees like the taunts of a will-o’-the-wisp. But I’m getting closer. My legs picking up speed till I’m nearly flying, hands reaching out for the deer’s flank. Fingers graze the fur and it’s no longer a deer but my mother’s blue dress. It’s my mother, my mother here in this place, the grain of her dress real on my fingers. She breaks into a smile.

“Find me if you can,” she says, and runs off.

Part of her hem catches on a tree branch but she tears free. I grab the scrap of fabric, tuck it into my bodice, and chase her through misty woods to an ancient ruin of a temple, its floor scattered with the petals of lilies. I’m afraid I’ve lost her, but she beckons to me from the path. Through the mist I chase her, till we’re in the musty halls of Spence, up and around the endless stairs, down the hallway on the third floor where five class pictures hang in a row. Follow her laugh up the final flight of stairs till I’m standing, alone, at the top, in front of the closed doors to the East Wing. The air is whispering a lullaby to me . . .
Come to us, come to us, come to us
. Push open the door with the palm of my hand. It’s no longer a scorched ruin. The room is alive with light, golden walls and gleaming floors. My mother is gone. Instead, I see the little girl huddled over her doll.

Her eyes are large and unblinking. “They promised me my dolly.”

I want to say
Sorry, I don’t understand,
but the walls melt away. We’re in a land of barren trees, snow, and ice, of harsh winter. Darkness moves on the horizon. A man’s face looms. I know him. Amar, Kartik’s brother. He’s cold and lost, running from something I can’t see. And then the dark speaks to me.

“So close . . .”

I come to with a snap and for a moment, with the sun glinting off the water in sharp peaks, I’m not sure where I am. I do know that my heart is hammering away in my chest. The dream seems more real than the water licking at my fingers. And my mother. She was close enough to hold me. Why did she run? Where was she taking me?

My thoughts are interrupted by the sound of low, girlish laughter coming from behind the boathouse. I’m not alone. The laugh comes again and I recognize it as Felicity’s. Everything collides in me. Longing for my mother, who slips away from me even in dreams. The layers of mystery in Mary’s diary. The shiny-slick hatred I feel for Felicity and Pippa, and all those who flit through life without a care. They’ve picked the wrong day, the wrong girl for cruel pranks. I’ll show them cruel. I could snap their slender necks like twigs.

Careful. I’m a monster. Better run for safety. Fly away on your little deer hooves.

I’m out of the rowboat quiet as feathers falling on snow, creeping around the other side of the boathouse, sticking close to the cover of bushes. It’s not me who’s going to get a fright today. Not on your life. The giggling has softened into murmuring and something else. There’s a deeper voice. Male. The Torture Twins are not alone. All the better. I’ll surprise the lot of them, let them know I won’t be their willing fool ever again.

I take two steps closer and jump out in time to see Felicity locked in an embrace with a Gypsy. She sees me and lets out a bloodcurdling scream. I scream. She screams again. And now we’re both panting while the white-shirted Gypsy takes in the skittish sight of us, startled bemusement showing in his gold-flecked eyes and in the arch of his thick, dark eyebrows.

“What . . . what are you doing here?” Felicity gasps.

“I might ask you the same question,” I say, nodding toward her companion. To be found alone with a man is shocking—a reason for a quick and necessary wedding. But to be found with a Gypsy! If I were to tell, Felicity would be ruined for life. If I were to tell.

“I am Ithal,” he says in a thick Romanian accent.

“Don’t tell her anything,” Felicity snaps, still trembling.

Mrs. Nightwing’s strident voice cuts through the forest, moving toward us. “Girls! Girls!”

Sheer panic passes over Felicity’s gray eyes. “Dear God, she can’t find us.”

A dozen voices call out our names. They’re getting closer.

Ithal moves to hold Felicity. “
Bater
. Let them find us. I am not liking this hiding.”

She pushes him away, her voice harsh. “Stop it! Are you mad? I can’t be found with you. You’ve got to go back.”

“Come with me.” He takes her hand and tries to lead her away but she resists.

“Don’t you understand? I can’t go with you.” Felicity turns to me. “You have to help me.”

“Is this a request from the girl who locked me in the chapel last night?” I say, folding my arms across my chest.

Ithal tries to slip an arm around her waist, but she pulls free.

“I didn’t mean anything by last night. It was just a laugh, that’s all.” When she sees that I’m not amused, she tries a different tack. “Please, Gemma. I’ll give you whatever you want. My pen set. My gloves. My sapphire ring!”

She moves to take it off her finger but I stay her hand. As delicious as it would be to watch Felicity squirm under Mrs. Nightwing’s interrogation, it’s better to know that she’ll owe her escape to my charity. That should be punishment enough for her.

“You’ll be in my debt,” I say.

“Understood.”

I shove her toward the lake.

“What are you doing?”

“Saving you,” I say, and push her in. While she sputters and shrieks in the cold lake water, I point Ithal in the other direction, toward the woods. “Go now if you ever want to see her again!”

“I will not run like a coward.” He plants his feet stubbornly, adopting what he must think is an heroic pose. He’s just begging for a pigeon to fly by and relieve itself.

“Do you really think you’d ever see any of her inheritance? She’d be cut off without a cent. If you weren’t slapped in leg irons and hanged in Newgate first,” I say, invoking the name of London’s most notorious prison. His face blanches but he’s still standing his ground. Male pride. If I can’t get him out of here, we’re done for.

Kartik appears from behind a tree, startling me. Except for his black cloak, he’s dressed just like a Gypsy—kerchief about his neck, colorful vest, pants stuffed into high boots. In halting Romanian, he speaks to Ithal. I don’t know what he’s said but the Gypsy leaves quietly with him. On the path, Kartik glances back and our eyes meet. For some reason, I find myself nodding in a silent thank-you. He acknowledges my nod with a curt one of his own and the two of them move quickly toward the safety of the Gypsy camp.