Of Noble Family (34 page)

Still, her flattery seemed to have the desired effect, because Mrs. Ransford took the drawing from her and looked at the front of the ballroom where the curtain was intended to go. “It goes all the way to the ceiling?”

“I know it is a tremendous distance to span, but Sir David already laid an anchor thread across the ceiling. The warp threads for the snow are quite thin—filaments, really—so you should be able to fling them over the anchor rather carelessly and then alter their placement afterwards.”

Mrs. Ransford's gaze went vacant as she looked into the ether to where Vincent had placed an anchor thread across the ceiling of the ballroom earlier. “It seems as though it is the sort of thing that might be done by rote.”

“The spinning of the filaments, yes, but it will need a discerning eye to make the snow fall in a pleasing manner. It must be regular, but not unvarying, with the occasional flurry.… Of course, if you want an assistant to help with the weft, then I can arrange that, but you still remain my first choice to oversee it.”

“Mm. I can see why you would not trust it to one of the slaves.” She sniffed. “Folk glamour can be charming enough, but cannot compare to English training.”

“Quite.” Behind Mrs. Ransford, Jane caught Dolly rolling her eyes and had to suppress a smile. “Should you like an assistant?” With any luck, Mrs. Ransford would delegate the majority of the work to the assistant, and they would not need to make any changes afterwards.

“No, thank you. I did the whole of the previous glamural with only a little help from the other ladies. Negroes want a tasteful eye.”

“Ah. Well. If you change your mind I should be happy to—” She broke off as a movement at the main door of the ballroom caught her attention. Nkiruka stood on the threshold. She had not expected Nkiruka to come, given that she was in mourning. The older woman, who had never been tall, seemed to have shrunk in the three days since Jane had seen her last. Her skin had an ashen cast to it, and her shoulders hunched forward. “Forgive me, but she recently lost her daughter. Do you mind if I…?”

Mrs. Ransford wrinkled her nose. “That is very Christian of you. Go ahead.”

Absently handing Mrs. Ransford her drawing, Jane hurried across the floor.

As she approached, Nkiruka gave Jane a smile. “Thought mebbe you need help. Look good.”

“Oh, my dear. I am so, so sorry for your loss.”

Nkiruka looked down, face twisting a little. She shrugged and shifted her weight. “She gone somewhere better. Miss her.” She thumped her chest twice. “But it better so.”

The thought that death in childbirth was better than life as a slave could not escape Jane. She compressed her lips in frustration at their inability to effect changes on a large scale at the estate. It was too much to hope that small changes like a blanket or a dress could provide any comfort, but Jane had nothing else to offer. “If there is anything I can do…”

“You got work? House too empty. All the picknee an' dem…” She shrugged again, shaking her head, which was still inclined towards the floor. “Need something to do.”

It would be difficult to find two individuals whose person was more distinct than Nkiruka and Vincent, yet Jane was put very much in mind of him in that moment. “Of course. I should be very glad of your assistance.”

*   *   *

Almost immediately, Nkiruka threw
herself into the project with vehemence and proved to be an invaluable help. Jane and Vincent usually worked alone, with the occasional use of assistants in the early phases of large glamurals, such as their cloudscape for the Duke of Wellington. That piece was very large and had been commissioned with only two weeks to create it, so they had, by necessity, employed assistants for much of the foundation work. The finish of the piece, however, had just been the two of them.

And yet, Nkiruka's suggestion that they bring in several glamourists from other estates had been entirely correct. From the harvest festivals, Nkiruka knew exactly who the best artists among the slaves were. Mrs. Whitten offered to make contact with the slave owners and arrange for the loan of their labour for the charity, and in short order they had slaves coming in from all parts of Antigua. It was one of the unexpected advantages of being on such a small island.

Nkiruka was present daily and helped Jane make arrangements with the slaves, being well aware of their abilities. After consulting with Frank on the usual practises in Antigua, Jane and Vincent had determined that it would not raise any eyebrows if they were to offer the slaves a small fee for their labour.

Some of these were older women that Nkiruka had suggested Jane speak to about her book, but some were young men or women who were quite gifted. The young women, in particular, had been trained in European-style glamour for their roles as lady's maids, but several had begun by learning Igbo- or Asante-style glamour from their mothers. None of them could be engaged for long, perhaps only two hours one day and then not again for another three days, but it was well worth it. It relieved Jane to have glamourists who could take some of the burden off of Vincent.

Still, she and Vincent were often the last ones to leave the ballroom. He had stopped trying to help at the estate altogether. Whether it was that or sheer exhaustion, he had been sleeping deeply at night. The dark circles under his eyes had begun to fade, and his appetite seemed to have returned.

As they were working one evening, Jane amending her notes by candlelight and Vincent putting the last touches on a frozen waterfall, a sudden boom cracked the air. Jane dropped her quill. It sounded like nothing so much as cannon fire. Vincent spun towards the open doors of the ballroom. He staggered for a moment and caught himself on a chair.

“Vincent!”

“Only dizzy. I turned too quickly, nothing—” He broke off as another crack sounded, this time with a flash of red.

Straightening carefully, he stepped towards the doors, Jane close behind him. Three more of the cracks fired in rapid succession, each accompanied by a different colour of light. Jane relaxed as they walked outside. “Fireworks.”

From the prospect of the Whitten estate, they could look south towards English Harbor. From the fort that stood on the hill over the bay, a series of fireworks painted the sky. Vincent smiled at them for a moment, then sobered. He slipped his arm around Jane and pulled her close. “Let us go back in.”

“What is—oh.” She had forgotten the date. For most of the United Kingdom of Great Britain, Ireland, and Faerie, the sixteenth of June represented a major holiday. It was the day that Wellington had defeated Napoleon in the Battle of Quatre Bras.

It was also the day that Jane and Vincent had lost their first child.

She pulled his hands down so that his arms went around her stomach. They stood thus, leaning against one another so that it was not possible to say who was supporting whom. Jane leaned back and rested her head against him, caressing his hands where they held her. “It seems strange to think that we would have had a three-year-old with us.”

“Mm…” He kissed her temple. “I doubt we would have come.”

“No. Nor to Murano, for that matter.” She sighed. “I might have resented that, but for now all I can think is that after we return to England, I never want to leave home again.”

He chuckled. “Travel is not always this fraught. Most of our tour of Europe was completely without incident, your mother's nerves excepted.”

“Agreed, though I suppose the presence of a child would at least have made your father more reasonable on the subject of heirs.”

“Not—” Vincent cut himself off and sighed, apparently recognising that it was too late to stop the sentence. “Not really.”

Jane had never asked about the sex of their child. She had been too frightened of all that being with child had entailed, so when she miscarried, her guilt made her want to pretend that it had never happened. Vincent must have asked, or been told. “A girl?”

She felt him nod more than saw it. Perhaps because of Melody's son, Jane had somehow expected it to have been a boy. Though her own parents had had only daughters. “Did you name her?”

“It did not seem right to do so without you.” He left unsaid that she had not wanted to know.

Knowing that it had been a girl, a daughter, made the loss tangible in ways that it had not been even in the immediate aftermath. Somewhere, among the soldiers who died at the Battle of Quatre Bras, Jane and Vincent had a daughter buried. Jane found herself weeping.

They remained thus until the fireworks had faded and only the stars and moon lit the sky.

*   *   *

They had been at
work on the glamural for a little over two weeks and their team of glamourists had developed a good working rhythm. Though the charity ball was only eleven days away, the ice palace showed every sign of being finished on time. The bulk of the large effects were in place, and their efforts had moved to finishing touches.

Jane was outwardly discussing the floor of the glamural with Nkiruka and Louisa, but she was in fact watching Vincent. He was placing the enormous folds that would make the icy ceiling of the palace. Overhead, a deep night sky sparkled with stars that peeked through the aurora borealis. Its greens and purples rippled in slow waves across the length of the ballroom. Though the ceiling of Jane's design had been separated into crystalline fragments, each piece was so large, that even Vincent needed to take frequent breaks as he worked. Glamour's tendency to drift towards the earth before it was tied off made creating the sharp edges of the ice at that distance a challenge.

Vincent had created two of the pieces thus far, and after the second, he had been so dizzy that he had been compelled to sit for a time. Not long enough, Jane thought. His cheeks were still quite flushed.

She became aware that Louisa was waiting for a response. “I am so sorry. I was distracted for a moment. Could you repeat that?”

Nkiruka snorted. “That man of yours, eh?”

“Yes. So sorry. He has a history of overworking himself, and I was trying to decide if I should intervene.” Jane resolutely pressed her hands together. “Now … Louisa, you had a question about the snow?”

“Yes, madam. I was thinking about the frost on the windows and how we used the Hobbson's pleating to make that and the snow. Could we use it on the floor as well?”

“Instead of the Vantrose plait? It will require longer to place.”

“But it slower, so it is not so wearying.” Thanks to their efforts on the book, Jane and Nkiruka had a much larger common vocabulary of glamour than when they started. Nkiruka stretched a piece of blue-white glamour between them. “Look. Use
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with your Hobbson's pleating. Is so snow look?” She slid the flat of her palm in a peculiar sideways motion that Jane was eager to try herself. Where her hand passed, the blue-white sparkled into something that looked like thousands of ice crystals.

“Oh—that is much easier than what I had planned. Yes. Let us do that.” She glanced to Vincent, who had tied off the folds and stood bent over with hands braced upon his knees. “Will you excuse me?”

With a knowing look, Nkiruka waved her away and returned to conversation with Louisa. Jane hurried across the ballroom as quickly as she could. A run was not possible, but a hurried waddle soon had her by his side. He was panting and sweat-soaked. “Are you all right?”

“Stupidly dizzy.” In spite of the speed of his breath, he did not sound distressed. “I keep forgetting that I am out of condition. No glamour for months. Then two weeks back at it.”

“Shall I get a chair?”

“I only need a moment.” His breathing did seem to be calming. “Oddly, I think I have missed this.”

“Missed being dizzy? This may explain much in your work habits.”

He chuckled, head still bent down. “Did you not spin in circles when you were a child?”

“Yes. When I was a child.” Though her own dizziness had become less frequent, Jane still took care when standing. As much as she rebuked him for overwork, she would rather have a fatigued and laughing Vincent. After the months of seeing him slowly break from the strain of dealing with his father, being merely dizzy seemed a delightful change.

“There is something about pushing to the edge of what one can do…” He tilted his head to the side and looked at the ceiling out of the corner of his eye. “It turned out well, though, eh?”

With the panels of crystalline ceiling in place, the edges of ice caught the aurora borealis and refracted the light into glimmering beams. The night sky seemed almost like a velvet setting for jewels, so deep and rich was the blue. He had added pale wispy clouds, just enough to diffuse the light as they drifted across the sky. “It takes one's breath away,” Jane said.

“I can vouch for that.”

She laughed. “You do make me worry sometimes.”

“Since I worry all the time about you, that seems only fair.”

“You need only watch me waddle as proof that everything is well.” She had passed the seven-month mark, and it seemed their child had celebrated by suddenly increasing in size.

“You do not waddle.”

“Then you are not paying attention, for which I am glad.”

“I assure you that I most decidedly pay attention when you move, or speak, or laugh. You do not waddle.”

“And I assure you that this last week, I have most decidedly begun to waddle. Shall I take a turn around the room to prove it?”

“Muse.” His smile, even when his head was upside down, had a decidedly rakish cast. “If you want me to prove that you still have my full attention, it will require the carriage and a return to our chambers. A turn around the room will not suffice.”