The Sweet Far Thing Read online

  Grandmama’s face furrows into worry. “It is a fashionable room, is it not? Do you say that it is not fashionable?”

  “I didn’t say that. Only that it would be nice to let in the light.”

  Grandmama eyes the drapes as if considering. But it is short-lived and she once again regards me as a village’s missing idiot. “The sun will only fade the settee. And now, if we have dispensed with matters of decorating, you would do well to dress. We leave at half past.”

  A silent maid welcomes us to Mrs. Sheridan’s well-appointed library. The sight of so many books comforts me, which is more than I can say for the gray wool suit. It chafes and itches till I could scream. Mrs. Jones has laced me so tightly in my corset that if I dare take two sips of tea, one shall surely come out again. Five other girls have come with their mothers. I am horrified to find that I do not know any of them, though they seem to know each other. Even worse, not a one has been forced to wear drab wool. They look as fresh as spring, whilst I resemble the spinster aunt every girl dreads as chaperone. It is all I can do not to confide to the girl closest to me: “If I should die during tea—asphyxiated by my own corset—please do not let them bury me in such a hideous dress or I shall come back to haunt you.”

  I’m under no illusions that this is simply tea; it is a marketplace, and we girls are the wares. While the mothers talk, we sip our tea silently, our smiles mirroring theirs as if we are players in a pantomime. I must remember to speak only when spoken to, to echo the sentiments of others. We work in concert to maintain the clear, pretty surface of this life, never daring to make a splash.

  With each question, each glance, we are being measured in the exacting scales of their minds, teetering in the balance between their expectations and their disappointments. This one laughs too frequently. That one’s hair is coarse, her skin ruddy. That girl wears a dour expression; still another stirs her tea far too long, while one unfortunate girl daringly ventures that she finds the rain “romantic,” and is told quite firmly that the rain is good only for the roses and for bringing on rheumatism. No doubt her mother will scold her mercilessly in the carriage and blame the misdeed squarely on the governess.

  For a brief while, the women ask us questions: Are we looking forward to our debuts? Did we enjoy this opera or that play? As we give our slight answers, they smile, and I cannot read what is behind their expressions. Do they envy us our youth and beauty? Do they feel happiness and excitement for the lives that lie ahead of us? Or do they wish for another chance at their own lives? A different chance?

  Soon the mothers tire of asking us questions. They fall into talk that does not concern us. During a tour of Mrs. Sheridan’s gardens—of which she is exceedingly proud, though it is the gardener who has done all the work—we are left to our own devices, thank goodness. The trained masks melt away.

  “Have you seen Lady Markham’s tiara? Isn’t it exquisite? I’d give anything to wear a tiara such as that, even for a moment.”

  “Speaking of Lady Markham, I suppose you have heard the gossip?” a girl named Annabelle says.

  The others are immediately drawn in. “Annabelle, what is it? What has happened?”

  Annabelle sighs heavily but there is a certain joy in it, as if she has been bottled up all this time, waiting for a chance to share her news. “I am burdened with a confidence I will disclose only if you make promises not to share it with anyone else.”

  “Oh, yes!” the girls promise, no doubt thinking of who shall be first to hear the unfortunate tale.

  “I have heard that Lady Markham has had a change of heart and that she may not present Miss Worthington at court after all.”

  The girls put gloved hands to mouths but their glee shows like a slipped petticoat. They’re glad for the gossip and doubly glad it’s not about them. I don’t know what to say. Should I tell them that Felicity and I are friends? Do they know?

  The chorus begins: “Oh, dear. Poor Felicity.” “What a scandal.” “But she is so very cheeky.” “Quite right. It is her own fault.” “I do adore her, but…” “Indeed.”

  Annabelle cuts in. Clearly, she is the queen bee among them. “Her independence does not endear her to the ladies who matter. And then there is the question of her mother.”

  “Oh, what is it? I do hate my governess, for she never tells me a thing!” a girl with apple cheeks and a dainty mouth says.

  Annabelle’s eyes twinkle. “Three years ago, Mrs. Worthington went abroad whilst her husband, the admiral, was at sea. But everyone knows she ran off to Paris to be with her lover! If Admiral Worthington were not the hero he is and a favorite of Her Majesty’s, Miss Worthington would have no place at all in decent society.”

  I know a great deal about the horrors the admiral has visited upon his daughter, how he went to her bedroom late at night as no father should. But I swore to keep that secret for Fee, and who would believe it even if the truth were told? People have a habit of inventing fictions they will believe wholeheartedly in order to ignore the truth they cannot accept.

  “But there is more,” Annabelle says.

  “Tell! Tell!”

  “I overheard Mother telling Mrs. Twitt that if Miss Worthington does not make her debut, her inheritance is forfeit. Her grandmother’s will states most emphatically that she must make her debut ‘as a lady in fine moral standing,’ else the money shall go to the Foundling Hospital, and Felicity will be at the mercy of the admiral to chart her course.”

  Felicity wants nothing more than to have her freedom. But now she’s in danger of losing that dream. I cannot keep the blood from rising in me. My cheeks must be crimson for all to see. If I could, I would box Annabelle’s lovely ears. My corset’s too tight, for I can scarcely breathe. My skin tingles; my head is light, and for a moment, it is as if I leave my body.

  “Ow!” Annabelle cries, turning to the girl beside her. “Constance Lloyd! How dare you pinch me!”

  Constance’s mouth opens in a surprised O. “I didn’t!”

  “You most certainly did. I can feel the bruise rising on my arm!”

  The other girls try to contain their glee as Constance and Annabelle engage in a war of martyrdom. The lightheadedness I felt a moment earlier has vanished, and I feel strangely fine, better than I have in ages.

  “When I mentioned we might host an English garden party, Mrs. Sheridan gave me the queerest look. Do you suppose she thought it too ordinary? I felt it would make quite a nice party. Don’t you?”

  Grandmama has pestered me for the entire carriage ride home with such natter. She frets constantly over every possible slight or imagined judgment. Just once I wish she would live her life and not care so much about what others think.

  Of course, I’ve my own fretting. How can I tell Felicity what I’ve heard without upsetting her? How does anyone talk sense to Felicity? It is like trying to tame a force of nature.

  “I think an English garden party is quite lovely and appropriate. It isn’t a Turkish ball, granted, but even Her Majesty finds such displays unseemly. Was it discussed among the young ladies? Did they find fault with it?”

  “No, it was not discussed.” I sigh, leaning my head against the side of the carriage. The London gas fog is settling in. The streets are murky, the people appearing like phantoms. I spy a young man with dark curls and a newsboy cap, and my heart leaps. I half lean out the window.

  “Pardon me! You there! Sir!” I call.

  “Gemma Doyle!” my grandmother gasps.

  The young man turns. It’s not Kartik. He offers the day’s news. “Paper, miss?”

  “No,” I say, swallowing hard. “No, thank you.” I settle back against the seat, determined not to look again and raise my hopes unnecessarily. Where are you, Kartik?

  “That was most impolite,” my grandmother tuts. Her eyes narrow with a new thought. “Did they find something wanting in you, Gemma, at the party? You didn’t speak too freely or behave…strangely?”

  I grew claws and bayed at the moon. I confessed that I e
at the hearts of small children. I told them I like the French. Why is the fault always mine?

  “We spoke of Mrs. Sheridan’s flowers,” I say evenly.

  “Well, nothing wrong in that,” my grandmother says, reassuring herself. “No, nothing at all.”

  By late evening of my last night in London, my misery has reached operatic proportions. Grandmama takes to her bed early, “exhausted” by the day’s events. Tom is to dine at the Athenaeum at the behest of Lord Denby.

  “When I return, I shall be a great man,” he says, admiring himself in the mirror over the mantel. He has a new top hat, and it makes him look like a well-heeled scarecrow.

  “I shall practice my genuflecting whilst you are away,” I respond.

  Tom turns to me with a sneer. “I’d send you to a nunnery, but even those saintly women haven’t the patience for your petulance. But please don’t see me out,” he says, striding for the door with a spring in his step. “I shouldn’t want to interrupt your sulking by the fireside.”

  “You needn’t worry,” I say, turning back to the fire with a sigh. “You shan’t.”

  My season has not even begun and already I feel a failure. It’s as if I’ve inherited a skin I cannot quite fit, and so I walk about constantly pulling and tugging, pinning and pruning, trying desperately to fill it out, hoping that no one will look at me struggling and say, “That one there—she’s a fraud. Look how she doesn’t suit at all.”

  If only I could get into the realms. Oh, what is happening there? Why can’t I get in? What has become of the magic? Where are my visions? To think I once feared them. Now the power I cursed is the only thing I long for.

  Not the only thing. But I’ve no power over Kartik, either.

  I stare into the fire, watching the fat orange flames jumping about, demanding attention. Deep inside each one, a thin blue soul burns pure and hot, devouring every bit of tinder to keep the fire going.

  The mantel clock ticks off the seconds; the steady sound lulls me into drowsiness. Sleep comes and I am lost to dreaming.

  I’m enveloped by a thick mist. Before me is an enormous ash tree, its twisted arms reaching up toward a vanished sun. A voice calls to me.

  Come to me….

  My pulse quickens, but I can see no one.

  You’re the only one who can save us, save the realms. You must come to me….

  “Can’t get in,” I murmur.

  There is another way—a secret door. Trust in the magic. Let it lead you there.

  “I have no magic anymore….”

  You’re wrong. Your power is extraordinary. It builds within you and wants release. Unleash your power. That’s what they fear, what you must not fear. I can help you, but you must come to me. Open the door….

  The scene shifts. I am inside the Caves of Sighs before the well of eternity. Below the icy surface of the water lies Miss Moore, her dark hair spreading out like Kali’s. She floats beneath her glass prison, lovely as Ophelia, frightening as a storm cloud. I feel a shudder across the very marrow of my bones.

  “You’re dead,” I gasp. “I killed you.”

  Her eyes snap open. “You’re wrong, Gemma. I live.”

  I wake with a start to find myself still in the chair, the mantel clock showing half past eleven. I feel odd, feverish. Strands of hair hang limp by my mouth, and my blood pumps ferociously. I feel as if I’ve been visited by a ghost.

  It was only a dream, Gemma. Let it alone. Felicity’s right—Circe’s dead, and if her blood is on your hands, you’ve nothing to feel shamed about. But I cannot stop shivering. And what of the other part of the dream? A door. What I wouldn’t give for a way back into the realms, to the magic. I’d not be frightened of it this time. I’d cherish it.

  Hot tears spring to my eyes. I’m useless. I can’t enter the realms. I can’t help my friends or my father. I can’t find Kartik. I can’t even be merry at a garden party. I’ve no place. I poke at the dying fire, but it falls to splinters. Seems I’m hopeless at that, as well. I toss the poker to the floor and bang my hand upon the mantel. I should like to drown in heat and banish the shivers.

  My fingers tingle; my arms tremble. The same dizziness I felt earlier returns. I feel as if I might faint.

  A sudden hot breath pushes through the mouth of the chimney. The fire blazes to life. With a loud shout, I pull my hand away and fall to the floor. At once, the fire sputters and dies.

  I hold my hand in front of my face. Did I do that? My fingertips still tingle ever so slightly. I point them toward the quiet fireplace, but nothing happens. I close my eyes. “I command you to make a fire!” A blackened log splinters and falls to soot. Nothing.

  Footsteps tap-tap nervously down the hall. Mrs. Jones hastens into the room. “Miss Gemma? What has happened?”

  “The fire. It was out, and then it caught all of a sudden so that the whole of the fireplace was aflame.”

  Mrs. Jones takes the discarded poker to the last of the kindling. “It’s out now, miss. Might be soot in the chimney. I’ll call the sweep tomorrow first thing.”

  Tom has come home, and though the hour is late, I hadn’t expected him until much later. He pours himself a tumbler of Father’s scotch and settles into a chair.

  Mrs. Jones casts a disapproving eye. “Good evening, sir. Will you be needing me?”

  “No, thank you, Mrs. Jones. You may retire.”

  “Very good, sir. Miss.”

  Tom glances at me with contempt. “Isn’t it past your bedtime?”

  “How could I sleep knowing that the newest member of the Athenaeum Club would grace our home at any moment with his superior presence?” I bow with an excessive flourish and wait for Tom to return the jab. When he doesn’t, I’m not entirely sure he’s my brother. It isn’t like him to let me have the last word without even a feeble attempt to take me down.

  “Tom?”

  He’s slumped in his chair, his tie undone, his eyes red.

  “They put Simpson through instead,” he says quietly.

  “I’m sorry,” I say, and I am. I might find Tom’s preoccupation with the Athenaeum Club silly, but it matters to him, and it was cruel of them not to have seen it. “Is there anything I can do?”

  “Yes,” he says, draining the last of his glass. “You can leave me be.”

  * * *

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  * * *

  THOUGH I NEVER THOUGHT I’D SAY IT, I’M OVERJOYED TO see the dour, imposing lady that is Spence again. The three days I passed in London were torturous, what with Tom’s sulking, Grandmama’s constant fussing, and Father’s absence. I do not know how I shall survive the season.

  And there is that other matter: my troubling dream and the strange occurrence with the fireplace. The sudden flare of fire was only from stubborn soot inside the chimney—the sweep confirmed it. The dream is harder to dismiss, perhaps because I want to believe that there is a secret door into the realms, that the magic still lives inside me. But wishing won’t make it true.

  The chapel bell tolls, calling us to morning prayers. Dressed in our pristine white uniforms, our hair ribbons securely in place, we traipse the well-worn path up the hill to the old stone-and-beam chapel.

  “How was your visit home?” Felicity asks, falling in beside me.

  “Hideous,” I say.

  Felicity grins. “Well, it was an absolute misery here! Cecily insisted on playing charades, as if we are all still in nursery, and then, when Martha guessed hers straightaway, Cecily pouted. It was Wuthering Heights, and everyone knows that is her favorite book—it’s no mystery.”

  I laugh at her tale, and for a second, I have the urge to tell her of my dream. But that will only bring up the subject of the realms again, so I think better of it. “It is nice to be back,” I say instead.

  Felicity’s eyes widen in horror. “Are you ill, Gemma? Have you a fever? Honestly, I won’t shed a single tear when it is time to say goodbye. I cannot wait to make my debut.”

  Annabelle’s hateful gossip weighs h
eavily on my soul. “And Lady Markham is to present you, is she not?”

  “Yes, as I must have a sponsor to put me forth,” Fee says brusquely. “My father may be a naval hero, but my family hasn’t the standing yours enjoys.”

  I ignore the swipe. The sun has blessed us with the first taste of the warm weather to come, and we turn our faces toward it like flowers.

  “What sort of woman is Lady Markham?”

  “She’s one of Lady Denby’s followers,” Felicity scoffs.

  I wince at the mention of Simon’s mother. Lady Denby has no love for Felicity or for Mrs. Worthington.

  “You know how that sort is, Gemma. They like to be flattered and led to believe that you revere their every word as if it has dropped from Zeus’s tongue. ‘Why, Lady Markham, I thank you for your good advice.’ ‘How clever you are, Lady Markham.’ ‘I shall take it to heart. How fortunate am I to have your counsel, Lady Markham.’ They want to own you.” Felicity stretches her arms overhead, reaching for the sky. “I shall leave that to my mother.”

  “And if Lady Markham were not to present you…what then?” I ask, my heart in my mouth.

  Felicity’s arms drop to her sides again. “I’d be done for. If I do not make my debut, my inheritance shall go to the Foundling Hospital, and I shall be at Father’s mercy. But that won’t happen.” She frowns. “I say, you are quite keen on this subject. Have you heard something?”

  “No,” I say, hesitating.

  “You’re lying.”

  There’s no getting around it. She’ll badger me until I tell her the truth. “Very well. Yes. I heard a bit of gossip in London that Lady Markham was having second thoughts about presenting you to court…because of…because of your reputation. And I only thought, with so much at stake, perhaps it would be best if you were to…to…behave.” The word is no more than a faint imprint.