Midnight's Song (8 page)

“Elissa, this is your cousin, Stella.”
Grandmamma told me, seemingly unfazed by the sour look on her
granddaughter’s face. “You’re both around the same age. Stella, why
don’t you properly introduce yourself to our new guest?”

The entire table eyed her, and Stella
refused to even look up. Her mother acted similarly, but they
didn’t pay quite as much mind to her as they did to the younger
one. Stella said nothing, only taking her napkin and gingerly using
it to dab her cheeks.

“So Elissa,” Wren suddenly interjected
in an attempt to save the moment, “How’s life in the Katie
Isles?”

Whatever attempt
this had been to connect with me was obviously a failed one.
Hard,
I had wanted to
tell her.
Bitter. Hot. Starving.
They were all words I could have used to explain
to them what that impoverished life was like. Though, I knew that
no matter what I said or did this wasn’t a winning situation.
They’d never understand.

“They’ve remained rather unchanged
since your last visit.” I bluntly told informed them, leaving my
relatives tongue-tied as I fell into silence.

A maid came by with a tray of food and
scooped up a spoonful of it just as I had finished my sentence. All
at once, a colorful array of fruits, vegetables, berries and
who-knows-what were heaped onto my plate. I was momentarily
dumbfounded. This alone had to be three times what Papa and I had
eaten at home! The servant then proceeded to dig into another bowl
of strange food – but I looked up and stopped him.

“Please –” I began, waving a hand as
the baffled servant froze in place. This was more than enough, too
much even. Before I could finish my plea, the entire family began
to protest.

“Oh please Elissa, you must eat!” My
grandmamma told me from her end of the table. “Please Molly, give
her another spoonful!”

The next thing I knew, the entire
family was a stir about how skinny I was.

“You are so skinny my dear! You must
get some meat on those bones!” Wren nudged.

“The girl is quite gaunt,” Beeti broke
her silence, speaking up in a way that I knew was intended to be
anything but benevolent. The next words were Stella’s and were
clearly meant to burn:

“She’s quite scrawny for her age as
well! Perhaps when we feed and train her she’ll grow a few
inches.”

Boom. I knew it was
coming. It was bound to be brought up.
Feed me and train me,
I
thought,
Emily was right about these
people.
Though, the way Stella spoke of me
sounded more like I was some kind of dog. I looked up at her, both
hurt and partially baffled.

“Stella, please!”
Grandmamma reprimanded the girl, “Be gentle! There’s nothing wrong
with Elissa’s height. If she grows, she grows. Her training has
nothing to do with it.”

The chastisement
didn’t do much to comfort me. I was still quite baffled as to what
Stella meant by
train
and
feed
.
More specifically, I wondered what was meant by that constantly
repeating word,
train.
I knew the meanings of both words, but now it seemed that
they had entirely different implications. I didn’t even need to say
a word; my expression did so for me.

“What Grandmamma means,”
Wren interjected, “is that we intend to educate you. While you’re
here, we’ll be caring for you and refining you. You’ll also be
educating you in the ways of our etiquette. That way you will have
the adequate experience and training to prepare you for this life,
should you choose it.”

“
Like a dog…”
I could have sworn I
heard Stella whisper.

To everyone else, the affront fell on
deaf ears. I expelled a breath of air from my chest and looked down
at my plate in an attempt to forget about it. There, I was met with
just as much distress. My stomach ached, but so did my pride. There
was a myriad of different forks and spoons lined up next to my
plate that I was hopelessly clueless with. I almost resolved to use
my hands to eat it, but I quickly caught sight of Stella’s piercing
glare again and feared too much ridicule to proceed.

“We have high hopes for
you, Elissa. With a bit of work, I know that in a few months you
will be a prime example of what the Devereaux’s are all about!”
Grandmamma suddenly spoke up in complete confidence.

Of course, I knew what she was truly
implying. I was going to take lady lessons.

I had been right when I had assumed
that my first meeting with the entire family would be the
equivalent to gawkers at a circus act.

“
Look at that poor, hungry girl!”
I
imagined they would say.
“We must change
her at once!”
This was what it was all
about. Turning rags to riches. As if that reality wasn’t harsh
enough for an uncultured girl like me; the next words would come as
quite the shock:

“In fact,
Beeti
has taken it on as
her personal task to help you become a proper
lady
.
”

Beeti? She feigned a
patronizing smile. Then, I looked over at my sour-faced cousin.
Stella avoided my eyes and kept her nose in the air. That’s when I
realized something borderline terrifying.

I was going to have
to spend the next three years of my life living with
her.

“We will begin your
preparation right away. After breakfast, you will arrive at the
baths for grooming. Then, the tailor will take your measurements as
to make you something to suit your…
stature.
” Beeti’s last word didn’t
seem quite as condescending as I’d expected. “I have also taken it
upon myself to ensure you receive a proper education. I have hired
a very well-regarded academic to be your tutor, Dr. Monica
Blackwood.

Grandmamma nodded in
intense approval along with all of the others at the very mention
at the name. Obviously, this person was quite respected among the
Devereaux clan. Could it have been some sort of a humiliating ploy?
The aunt looked up at me, eyes flickering.

“Your lessons begin
tomorrow.”

“You have at least taken
care to remove the hair from your underarms,” Beeti remarked as I
rose my arms above my head. If I hadn’t shaved them, why was that
her business?

I had been taken to the
bathhouse and undressed by the attendants – wrapped only in a small
towel so that Beeti might come and dissect me. She had to know what
she was working with. I knew that she enjoyed stripping away my
dignity.

“Your eyebrows need grooming.” She
took a dab of spit and slid it across my brow. “They need to be
more rounded. We’ll take care of that.”

My eyebrows? What was
wrong with my eyebrows? They’d never bothered me. I clutched the
scrawny towel against my body, blushing. As if it wasn’t
embarrassing enough, Stella insisted on being present. The
sour-faced cousin of mine came in and out of the bathhouse acting
as if it was her right to be there. She walked in and out of the
place at whim, this time to gawp.

“Have you begun
perfuming her yet?” Stella nettled. “The girl smells of
fish!
”

I tilted my nose toward my
chest. Did I really smell that bad? Beeti looked up at her daughter
in slight annoyance – but not in any type of rebuke.

“We will perfume her
soon my dear. The baths will take away
Celeste’s
aroma.” It was difficult
to hear such stinging words. They spoke about me as if I wasn’t
there. And,
Celeste?
That was my middle name, not my first.

“Excuse me, but my name is Elissa,” I
spoke up. Beeti glared at me, but didn’t say a word about
it.

“Come now, take off your towel and
follow the attendants. They will take you to the bath.”

For a few moments,
Beeti stared at me and I refused to pull off the towel.
Surely
she did not
intent to put me through more of this discomfiture by making me
strip down before them both. Thankfully, she didn’t. The attendants
came, turned me around and took off my towel just as Beeti and
Stella turned their backs to me and walked out the door. The two
attendants were both women, artificially cheery but devoted to my
health all the same.

“Miss,” One of the attendants began,
seeing my look of dread. “What’s wrong?”

Obviously she hadn’t seen what abuse
I’d just endured.

Before I could reply, both of the
attendants grabbed me by the arms and pushed me into tub of
irritatingly perfumed bathwater. One of the women took my long hair
and yanked a brush through it, pulling at my matted curls until
tears came to my eyes. I still hadn’t lost my distaste for letting
other people brush my hair. This experience would change my
feelings for it no less.

Before I could protest, the attendant
sharply placed it in a clip above my neck before the other began to
scrub me with long, soapy brushes. The woman who had first asked me
of my feelings soon spoke up and posed her question again. I tried
to make it seem as if it was no big deal. Nevertheless, I knew
inside that there was something incredibly strange about Beeti’s
part in this whole thing.

“I’m fine, truly. I just…I’m not used
to being cared for by Beeti like this.” I replied, possibly fibbing
just a bit in order to dodge my own ambiguity.

The maid gave me a
strange look. Her face read guilt and concern as well as fear and
possibly even a bit of confusion. It appeared that she knew
something that I didn’t. It was as if they
all
did, and each person was
revealing it through subtle hints and warnings that I had yet to
understand the meaning of.

The next 4 hours of
my life involved intense scrubbing, plucking, shaving, and rubbing
against my skin. Right after my bath, I was forced into a room
where I was dissected by two stylists with an expertise in hair
removal. There, the estheticians poured a stinging liquid onto my
legs and body that literally
burned
off my stubble for good. After my chemical bath,
they painfully took tweezers and plucked my eyebrows until they
became thinner, rounder brown arches than they already had been.
The end result of this vexing was an extremely uncomfortable
rash.

“Don’t worry, that’s very common with
these chemicals. It should be unnoticeable in a week,” one of the
estheticians remarked as they examined my extensive
burns.

Apparently, my pain
was nothing to them. It was all about looks, wasn’t it? I didn’t
care if it would be gone in a week. I felt the pain now! Despite my
revulsion of this all, I was at least relieved when it was all
over. In the end, Grandmamma took sight my rash and took such pity
on me that she ordered the family seamstress to tailor all of the
dresses in my closet
and
make me all new ones. I generously received the
offer, though I still felt the pain of the searing burns that now
existed on my body and in my soul.

This was a whole new
life for me – one where pain and practicality were inadequate next
to power and impressions. I ached to go to my old home, the one
where no one would dare subject themselves to such pain in order to
assume a title. I wanted to go home, but I knew that was an empty
hope. Instead, I decided that I might be able to lift my spirits
just a little if I was able to do some exploring. After all, in a
place as grand as this – who
wouldn’t
want to uncover its
secrets?

“Aunt Beeti,” I cleverly asked her at
the table that night after having eating a few bites of her rich
tasting but unknown food. “I am quite weary. Might I turn in
early?”

“Fine. I’ll have a servant escort
you.”

“Oh no, I know the way back to my room
alone.” I quickly told her.

“Why should you want to go alone?” She
skeptically replied. Beeti looked to me, almost scolding. “I insist
that you –”

“My word, Beeti! Let the girl go alone
if she pleases,” Grandmamma quickly cut her off. She nodded her
head in dismissal, motioning for the doorman to open the door and
announce my exit. Something in her eye told me that she understood
what I was doing and didn’t want to work herself up about it either
way.

“Thank you,” I mouthed in gratitude as
I exited through the door.

With her blessing, I walked alone
through the hallways of this grandiose palace. I ran my fingers
along the walls and traced the white wooden paneling. I curiously
wandered down the hallway until I found myself at a large corridor
that led into a courtyard. Hearing the symphony of chirping
crickets that awaited me, I stepped outside into the
moonlight.

It was breathtaking. From what I could
see the courtyard was practically a forest in itself. The trees
were lit with paper lanterns and flowering vines crept up and down
every towering and stooping object. There was a gate at the end of
the way that led out of the courtyard to a very well-lit hedge
maze. I couldn’t resist the temptation to wander over.