Chapter 19
Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much,
Which mannerly devotion shows in this;
For saints have hands that pilgrims’ hands do touch,
And palm to palm is holy palmers’ kiss.
Romeo and Juliet—Act 1, Scene 5
“Please, I’m begging you, Maggie. Go look.”
“For the last time: no! I promised Bridger the next dance. Have Winny do it for you.”
Violet wrung her hands until it hurt, peering into the gallery running alongside the north wall of Pressmore.
Behind them, the dancing was in full swing, partners skipping up to each other, skimming hands, sharing glances, then parting once more.
The quartet and their insistence on reels, vigorous and soaring, was beginning to give her a headache.
The gallery, ordinarily a place for calm reflection or an amiable conversation, had become the very nexus of fear.
“Winny is too tender, I would never make her deliver bad news,” said Violet, pleading. She clung to Maggie, who was already trying to escape from her.
“I haven’t been paying attention to the auction at all, and why would I?
I’ve no money to spend on anything, and my book isn’t popular enough to even be a prize.
” Maggie relented and took Violet by both hands, squeezing her fingers through the damp silk of her gloves.
Maggie was resplendent in her red gown; the new gold braid Winny had added along the neckline dazzled under the chandeliers.
“Someone will place a bid, Violet, even if it must be me. I hope you are prepared to paint me for a shilling.” Maggie lifted Violet’s head with a light push under her chin.
Violet forced a smile for her sister. “It would be the most I’ve ever made.” Just as quickly, she subsided into despair. “But it would be such a waste! I’ve been so diligent this month, and for what? For a pity shilling?”
“What are we bickering about, ladies? No matter the subject, I must offer an opinion.”
Miss Regina Applethwaite materialized as if blown in on a whisper of billowy snow.
Icy as the storm battering the estate, she was a wealthy, delicate beauty and once rival to Maggie.
They had set aside their misgivings for each other when Regina helped publish Maggie’s novel.
Regina herself was a novelist of growing renown.
“Violet is going to pieces because nobody is bidding on her portrait sitting,” said Maggie.
“I knew it! You did look at the auction.”
“I would be more than willing to place a bid, Violet,” Regina offered, graciously lowering her eyelashes. “It will be sensational! You can paint Lucia and I together.”
Regina had arrived at Pressmore with a mysterious Spanish companion, an heiress who spoke little but communicated plenty with her penetrating eyes.
Miss Lucia Ramos had been immediately enchanted by the playacted vignettes dotted around the property and was likely off watching one while Regina made her rounds.
“This is a far better solution,” said Maggie, visibly relieved. “Regina can offer the sort of sum your skill deserves, and I will not have to part with a hard-earned shilling. Now, if you’ll both excuse me, I should like to dance with my husband.”
Maggie twisted away from them, bounding back into the ballroom, where another song was about to begin.
The estate hadn’t hosted a crowd nearly this large since Ann and Lane’s lavish masquerade wedding.
Many of those in attendance were barely acquaintances to Violet, but Ann and Lane maintained a robust social calendar; it was no surprise that so many guests had leapt at the chance to spend Christmas with the Richmonds.
Like at all of Ann’s parties, there would be dancing and merriment until dawn.
“Come along,” said Regina, processing into the gallery and weaving among the tables and plinths showing the various prizes on offer.
Violet was beginning to wish she hadn’t worn white with shining accents, for Regina had donned the same and made it look undeniably more fashionable.
Regina was a woman of five and twenty, tall and slender, with the upright bearing and sky-high chin of a person confident in their good looks.
Her very straight white-blond hair was swept beneath a festive silver turban.
A few of the white feathers tucked into that headdress tickled Violet’s ear as Regina led her along.
They passed a display with a first edition of Regina’s wildly popular book, Sable Falls, along with a personalized letter from her.
The card laid out in front of the prize already showed a number of interested bidders.
Regina sighed with satisfaction at the sight of it.
“Now, where is your table, dear? Point the way. Shall we decide together on a sum that feels right? What would be suitably philanthropic without embarrassing you? Five pounds? Ten? You shouldn’t take the empty card personally, Violet, for everyone expected a portrait by Bilbury, and you are not yet a known quantity.
” Here, Regina paused and swept her fingertip across Violet’s nose.
Violet had once found Regina’s natural condescension irritating, but it amused her now, for she knew that above all else, Regina cared about solidarity with others of her sex, and Violet admired that.
Regina herself had put forward most of the funding for Maggie’s first novel.
“You will appreciate, of course, that I said yet. A shame nobody in this homespun backwater could appreciate her presence, which would have been elevating if they had the patience to see it.”
“It’s a disgrace how she was treated,” Violet muttered.
“Her paintings will endure,” said Regina, lifting the pen. “History will be the final judge.”
Maybe that was true. Maybe Cristabel’s time in Cray Arches was no more than a footnote in her life. She hadn’t written, and Violet felt silly suddenly for missing her. Perhaps Cristabel had already forgotten them. Could anyone blame her?
“A woman starts one measly fire and society throws a fit,” Regina said under her breath, still puzzling over what to bid.
“If a male artist had done it, we’d be tying ourselves in knots making it part of his grand mythology rather than a career-ending scandal.
God in heaven, Caravaggio killed a man in a brawl, and you don’t hear anyone whining about it. ”
Before Regina could touch pen to paper, her companion, Miss Ramos, melted out from the shadows of the gallery.
She was out of breath and clutching a black fan to her throat as she hurried toward them and took Regina’s hand.
“There is the most delicious commotion in the front hall.” Her accent provided a slight purr on the Rs and a lisp on the sibilants in her sentences.
There existed an air of the Old World about her, as though she ought to be painted with pigment and egg yolk on vellum, her exquisitely delicate, narrow face Van Eyck saintly.
“What sort of commotion?” Regina demanded.
“An unwelcome visitor,” said her companion. Her dark brown eyes sought Violet. “Your aunt does not want to let him in.”
Violet didn’t wait to hear more. Nobody except Miss Ramos seemed to care about the drama unfolding in the entry, so Violet weaved through clusters of bidders or those just standing in the gallery watching the snow gradually rise around them.
The gallery ran the length of the posterior of the house, connecting to the smaller drawing room where Violet often had breakfast when she stayed.
From there, it was a sharp right through the open doors leading to the front hall.
There, a small number of people had gathered beneath the woodsy profusion of holly, ivy, and spruce hanging from pillar to pillar.
Her aunt was present, out in front like a damask sentinel.
Ann, Cousin Lane, Winny, Emilia, and several staff fanned out behind the elder Mrs. Richmond.
The grand doors were open onto the night. Violet hugged herself against the bracing cold that burst into the house with swirls of snow.
“You should have never invited him!” Mrs. Richmond was saying in a furious whisper to Ann. “Now I am forced to look ungracious before our guests. But he cannot cross this threshold! I will not allow it. Bloom, keep everyone away from here until the man is gone.”
The butler turned away to do her bidding, gently shooing guests back into the deeper rooms of the house.
Ann, arms crossed, did not seem to be backing down. “If this evening is to benefit the Florizel, then he is most welcome. It is he who provided the materials for the theater to be repaired. Mr. Lavin tells me more and more supplies arrive daily.”
“And so what? That is very kind of him, I suppose, but it has nothing to do with me,” Aunt Mildred replied.
“There must be something I can offer that would change your mind,” said Ann.
She smiled her most persuasive smile, inching closer to Aunt Mildred.
It was known among the family that the two women did not often see eye to eye; Mrs. Richmond considered Ann too flamboyant, too immodest, too foreign, and Ann knew her mother-in-law to be stringent, judgmental, and traditional.
“Why don’t you redecorate the ballrooms this year?
You can do whatever you like with them, and I will applaud all of your choices. ”
Aunt Mildred’s mouth fell open in shock. Violet didn’t stay to hear her answer or entertain more bickering; she sidestepped the group and marched out into the freezing cold.