Chapter 6 Metamorphosis
Metamorphosis
“We shall begin with the very fundamentals,” Alice says, pacing the sitting room as Béatrice watches from the doorway. “Rise
to greet me.”
Cora stands from the settee with a smile.
“No.” Alice’s voice sounds like a hatchet falling.
Cora gawks at her. “What did I get wrong?”
“Nearly everything. Stand where I am now and I will demonstrate.” Alice takes Cora’s place on the settee. Her eyes alight
on Cora’s and brighten very slightly. She rises like a marionette pulled by strings. “You see? Upward without lurching, a
faint smile, no teeth, mainly in the eyes. Extend a hand.”
Alice bends downward like a willow bough as she presses her gloved hand into Cora’s.
“What a pleasure to see you,” Alice says quietly. Her smile sloughs off. “Your turn. Try again.”
Cora sits. Stands. Glides elegantly to the doorway to take Alice’s hand. “What a pleasure to see you.”
“That,” Alice says, closing her eyes, “was deafening. Quiet decorum. Quiet. You must learn to modulate your voice.”
“But . . .” Cora stops, adjusting her volume. “What of the rest of it? The movement. Better?”
Alice and Béatrice exchange a glance. Béatrice laughs, then muffles it with her hand.
“Again,” Alice orders. “This time a little less like a puppy bounding from a basket, more like, I don’t know . . . a self-possessed
young woman?”
Lesson Five: Table Manners ~ November 14
“Wrong. Try again.”
Cora squints so deeply at the intricately laid table that Alice worries the girl will start to form wrinkles on top of all
her other now-apparent deficits. “This one?”
Cora holds up the salad fork.
“You guessed that last time.” Alice closes her eyes, breathes slowly through her nose. “The oyster fork, Cora.”
“Why don’t you just point to it?”
“We learn best through struggle.”
By the time Alice has opened her eyes, Cora is at long last holding the correct, small, three-tined utensil from among the
fourteen other bits of silver.
“Good,” Alice says. Cora slumps with relief. “Identify the rest for me, and then you may eat.”
Lesson Twelve: French ~ November 17
“Il fait beau, n’est non?”
“N’est-ce pas.”
Béatrice’s corrections are a far sight gentler than Dagmar’s German tutorials.
It’s almost enough to make Cora actually look forward to these French sessions.
Nevertheless, after correctly repeating the pleasantry, she cannot help but grumble, “Am I really expected to be fluent in two other languages? German, yes, that makes sense, but French as well?”
Béatrice offers a kindly wince. She opens her mouth to answer, but Alice’s voice cuts through the sitting room.
“Any well-bred young lady of New York society, let alone European, will have learned French from a very young age.”
“What about you, then?” Cora asks. “You taught yourself perfect French back in that Poughkeepsie boardinghouse? I find that
hard to swa—”
“You need only be conversational,” Alice says. “Memorize key phrases you can drop here and there, as the occasion warrants.”
Dagmar pokes her ruddy face into the salon and says something in her native language that Cora can’t even begin to sort out.
As Alice follows the cook out of the room, her German reply makes Dagmar boom with laughter.
“Say, Béa, what expletives can you teach me?” Cora asks sweetly. “I do believe the occasion warrants it.”
Lesson Twenty-Two: Whist ~ November 22
Alice, Cora, Béatrice, and Dagmar sit about the card table.
Alice has her eyes shut. “And what have we learned?”
Cora shrugs in desperation. “Never play against Dagmar?”
“Correct.” Alice sighs.
Dagmar gathers the loose coins and bills from the table. With a single swipe of her large arms, the cook strides away, whistling.
Lesson Thirty: The History and Politics of Central Europe ~ November 27
“It’s actually rather fascinating,” Cora says as she paces the perimeter of the living room rug, practicing a gliding gait
as requested. “The rapid progression in the past twenty years from North German unification to the Treaty of Frankfurt in
1871, then the—”
“You cannot appear too intelligent,” Alice interrupts, once again. “And you’re beginning to slump.”
Cora straightens with a tight, sardonic smile. “I hadn’t realized you wanted the other Cora’s views. In that case . . .”
She rearranges her features into a gauzily dim expression—an imitation of a sheep she was fond of back on the farm, not that
Alice need know that—and recommences her gliding along the rug’s fringed edge.
“Ach, you see, eet is not unlike zees United States, excepting zat our states are ruled by kings and princes. Now imagine
eef your Presseedent Arthur made an arrangement wiss Mexico, saying, yass, go ahead, you may take all the cows from Texas,
thees ees fine. Zee people of Texas vould not be happy, I think?”
Alice has her fingers pressed to her mouth—whether to keep from laughing or crying, Cora can’t tell.
“Pull that accent way back, if you please, to match my own,” she finally says, her eyes sparkling. “But better. Much better.”
Lesson Thirty-Six: Table Manners (Again) ~ November 29
“Asparagus tastes like roasted dirt,” Cora grumbles. “Must I actually eat it?”
“Some of it, yes.” Alice drops her a sidelong glare.
Cora reaches for a fork.
Alice swats it away. “With your fingers.”
“You’re joking.”
“That’s what the finger bowl is for.” Alice nods to the crystal dish with lemon water beside Cora.
“I thought it was for drinking,” Cora deadpans.
“Feel free.” Alice shrugs. “But I prefer this.”
She hoists a bottle of Roper Frères Brut. Dagmar, seated across the table, rises, impatient with Alice’s efforts to uncork
it. With a triumphant pop, it fizzes loose from the bottle. Béa hastens to dab the mess with a napkin and pours for them.
Cora’s eyes widen as she reaches for her own sparkling drink. “I’ve never had real champagne before.”
“Oh, another rule,” Alice adds, offhand. “Never fully empty your glass.”
Cora blinks. “Even if it’s champagne?”
“Especially if it’s champagne.” Alice nods for Béatrice to pour herself a glass too. “But as this is Thanksgiving, I think
we can bend the rules a bit.”
They all raise their glasses to clink above the turkey crown.
Lesson Thirty-Eight: General Comportment ~ November 30
Cora sits pinioned between Béatrice and Dagmar on the settee, half of which is consumed by Dagmar’s derriere.
Cora continues smiling blandly at Béatrice. “The opera is rather diverting, isn’t it? Which is your favorite composer? I’m
partial—”
“You’ve not given her time to answer before proffering your own opinion,” Alice drones from the doorway. “Which would be seen
as inordinately boorish. Never mind the fact that you’ve publicly slighted poor Miss Dagmar by not directing that question
to her as well. When in the company of two people, whether at a table, a drawing room, or an opera box, one must always divide
one’s time equally.”
Cora huffs, exasperated. “Any other critiques?”
Alice smirks. “Since you’ve asked, you might practice modulating your volume. A low murmur forces one’s companion to lean
in closer in order to hear, and we want young Harold Peyton to draw very close to you. Remember, a lady always projects quiet
decorum.”
It takes immense quiet decorum to keep Cora from bursting into expletives—German ones, learned by eavesdropping on Dagmar
when something’s gone wrong in the kitchen.
Lesson Forty-Two: Dancing ~ December 2
Cora partners with Dagmar, Alice with Béatrice, the parlor furniture pushed to the far walls to afford them more room for
their waltzes and quadrilles. Béatrice sings various popular tunes for them to keep time to in a sweetly lilting alto.
This is the easiest lesson for Cora by far. She could do these dances in her sleep, though Alice doesn’t seem to notice, or give any credit (perish the thought). She’s barely even looked Cora’s way since they swapped to the polka.
If Cora didn’t know any better, she could swear Alice is too busy actually enjoying herself.
“You are very graceful,” Dagmar grunts grudgingly down at Cora.
“This is nothing,” Cora crows, twirling herself away, the stress of the past three weeks of relentless instruction finally
coming to a head, the desire to let loose, just for a moment, proving too much to bear. She hoists her skirt and launches
into a lilt jig, feet flying with expert precision, movements she hasn’t made in years coming on like a fever dream.
Béatrice claps, but Alice wearily shakes her head. “Never show—”
“Your ankles, I know. It’s impossibly vulgar, far too Irish, but also ever so fun,” Cora breathlessly argues. “You should
give it a try sometime!”
Dagmar, to Cora’s shock, does just that, pulling up her own thick skirts and having a go.
And Alice lets out the most wonderful laugh.
It’s enough to shock Cora into stillness once again.
Lesson Forty-Five: Wardrobe ~ December 9
This lesson, held in Cora’s chamber, concerns a set of newly purchased garments laid out upon her bed. Outside the narrow
windows, it has begun to snow.
Nearly Christmas, Alice thinks absently, which means nearly January, nearly the ball, and the girl is not ready—and yet she can’t help but be charmed by the image of Cora standing reverently beside the mattress, considering the garments
as one might regard priceless artifacts.
Alice is careful to keep her voice mechanical, businesslike.
“Two chemises, skirts, dresses, demi-toilette for daytime. Two dresses that will suit for balls and dinners. And one”—Alice
carefully lifts the last, a pale pink chiffon embroidered with silver rosettes, and Cora lets out a blissful sigh—“for the
opera.”
“Thank you, Alice,” Cora breathes. “I hardly know what to say.”
The moment feels strangely intimate. Rather too affecting. Like sisters might feel, like a normal family, warm with trust.
Perhaps it would have been like this with her own little sister. Had she lived.
A stab of tears threatens Alice’s eyes. She turns quickly away. “No need to thank me, as this is not a gift. We’ll sell each