Education
Floretta awakes in such softness that for a moment, she questions whether she might still be dreaming.
It feels like she’s sinking into a cloud.
She stretches languidly, feeling the delicious clench of the muscles in her back and legs, then rolls onto her side, eyes fluttering shut again.
It would be so easy to go back to sleep, and for a moment, she considers it.
There is no rooster crowing in the distance, no hand hammering at the door and demanding she rise for her chores—
And just like that, her eyes are open and she’s sitting up in the middle of her confectionary snarl of blankets and pillows, staring at the wall, which is covered in a dusty blue wallpaper patterned with small white flowers like stars.
She’s in Boston. She’s in Boston, and home is so far away that she can only think about the distance if she measures it in hours rather than miles, and Father Clemence must be sick with worry for her.
He’s never liked her to be out of his sight for more than a few hours. What will he do without her?
She slides from the bed, digging her toes into the soft plush of the rug, and wonders what she’s supposed to do now.
Uncle John and Miss Cottingsly both mentioned new clothes, which seems to imply that they don’t like the dress she was wearing when she arrived here: would one of her other dresses be more suitable?
She has three, which is an embarrassment of riches none of the other girls in her village can boast. One was her mother’s, and the other two were provided by Father Clemence, who said that she had to meet certain standards if she was going to be seen in public with him.
All three are patched and worn, tattered at the hems and stained on the bodices, but they’re the finest things she’s ever needed.
She looks down at the nightdress she was coaxed into the night before, and understands that her definition of finery will have to change while she’s living here.
The sleeping gown is purest white, unstained, and there are no signs that any part of it has been torn or mended.
Looking at it makes her feel grubby, like she has no right to be touching something so fine.
She tugs the sleeves down, covering the scratched and scabbed backs of her hands, and moves toward the wardrobe.
Even if nothing she owns can be good enough for this house, she can’t wear this nightgown any longer.
She’ll dirty it with her presence, and that feels like a sin.
She’s always struggled not to be a sinner.
It seems unfair to subject the nightgown to her failure.
The cleanest of her dresses is hanging in the wardrobe, front and center like an offering.
Floretta would be happier if she could bathe before putting it on, but she doesn’t know how to go about asking for a bath, and she doesn’t want to leave the room so immodestly dressed.
She pulls the nightgown off over her head and pulls the dress on the same way, doing up the buttons on the back with quick, practiced fingers.
It’s been years since she needed to see in order to get dressed.
Father Clemence always said it was inappropriate for him to help her with her bows or buttons, or anything that might show more of her skin than her dresses themselves exposed.
The thought of him sends a spike of sorrow through her heart, and she finishes getting dressed with grief slowing her fingers, moving through it like she’s swimming through molasses.
There is a knock at the door as she fastens the final button, and she turns, struck silent by surprise. Seconds tick by, and the knock is repeated. Floretta swallows, mouth gone dry, and finally calls a hesitant “C-come in?”
The door opens, and Deborah is there, looking perplexed. “Did I wake you?” she asks, stepping inside. “No: I see you’re dressed. Miss Cottingsly won’t like that dress, but until we have something newer for you to wear, it’ll have to do. Did you rest well?”
Floretta cannot speak. Her mouth is a bone lost in the desert: her heart is the vulture come to carry it away.
Deborah sees her silence for the terror that it is, and sighs. “This is all too much for you, isn’t it? Poor child. Your uncle has breakfast set out in the parlor downstairs; he’s asking for you to come and join him. I don’t recommend making him wait. He’s not a very patient man, your uncle.”
“I don’t know anything about him,” protests Floretta. “How am I supposed to know what kind of man he is when I don’t know anything? I don’t know what he does, or how he paid for this house, or why he wanted me, or anything!”
Her last word is barely shy of a wail. Deborah nods, slowly.
“I can tell you he doesn’t like it when people fuss or yell or carry on,” she says.
“You won’t be doing yourself any favors if you lose your composure.
I know you’re only a child. I know you should be focused on childish things.
But that isn’t how things happen here, and if you want to do well in your uncle’s household, you’ll need to adapt quickly. ”
Floretta composes herself, sniffling as she wipes her nose with the back of her hand. “Tell me about him,” she says, almost a command.
“He’s a stern master, and he keeps his household with a firm hand; Miss Cottingsly is his eyes and ears belowstairs, and you can’t say anything around her that you don’t want getting back to your uncle. She allows no secrets to linger in her domain.”
Floretta says nothing, waiting for more.
“As to his profession, he’s a scientist of sorts. He doesn’t like it when others interfere with his business. He’ll tell you more when he thinks you’re ready to hear it.”
“But I’m here now.”
“So you are, young miss,” agrees Deborah. “And as presentable as we’ve given you the tools to make yourself. Come, have a seat at your dressing table, and I’ll brush out your hair for you. You have such lovely hair, it seems a shame to let it tangle and snarl as you have. Let me take care of it.”
Floretta is tired and scared and alone. She allows herself to be directed to a seat in front of a large silvered mirror, sitting pliantly while Deborah collects her brush and moves into position behind her, beginning to gently coax the knots out of her hair.
“As to why your uncle wanted you, I would lay a guess that it’s because he considers you to be already his own.
He has no other living relatives, and has never taken a wife.
There’s power in blood relation, and he wouldn’t want that power loose in the world when it could be safely contained inside his walls.
Consider it a compliment of sorts, that he would want to keep you close enough to keep you safe. ”
“He’s not my father, though.” The statement is also a question, and a test, sounding out the waters of her confusion for any deeper drop-offs, any hidden dangers.
“No, he’s not.” Deborah sounds so sure that Floretta relaxes slightly, letting her half-formed worry go.
“Even if he were the sort of man who would press himself upon his own sister’s child, he’d never be the sort of man who could leave his own child behind.
When he received the letter from your village, he had no idea what it might be about.
I heard him discussing the matter with Miss Cottingsly, and while your mother’s name was mentioned, it was in the context of debts or inheritance, although he thought both quite unlikely.
It seems that he was wrong. You are a debt and an inheritance at the same time, something to care for and comfort, which could bring either great good or great ill upon his house. ”
Deborah doesn’t sound like she cares which of those two choices should come to pass; her voice is serene, her hands steady as she runs the brush through Floretta’s hair, pressing a little deeper with every careful sweep.
Floretta lifts her eyes to the mirror, watching the woman behind her.
Deborah is paler than most of the women in the village, protected from the sun as she is by the walls of Uncle John’s house; no laboring in the fields for Deborah, with her soft hands and unbowed back.
Her hair is ash brown, and her eyes are a deep, almost muddy blue.
She’s no great beauty, no temptation to a man who lives alone, and she holds herself less like a servant than she does like a traveling ambassador from some far-distant land.
It’s that paradox of carriage that puts courage into Floretta’s tongue. “I saw you glowing last night. Why were you glowing? How were you glowing? No one glows except for the winter women, and they never come inside houses where they might get warm enough to thaw.”
A stutter as the brush catches in her hair, Deborah’s hand slipping on the handle before she recovers herself and takes a deep breath. “The winter women?”
“They come out when the snows fall, sometimes. There was one for a long time. She had black hair, like broken ice, and she walked and didn’t leave any footprints behind.
She went away last winter, and the new winter woman is blonder than anyone else I’ve ever seen, so blonde it’s like her hair is all the way white, and she still stumbles sometimes.
She still leaves footprints behind.” How Father Clemence had scolded her when she’d pulled him out into the field to see!
The winter woman’s feet had been substantially larger than Floretta’s own, but that hadn’t stopped the good father from accusing Floretta herself of running barefoot through the snow when she’d breathlessly pointed at the prints, pressed deep and crisp into the surface of the snowbanks.