Chapter Six #3
“We have been very unfair to tax you so!” I could feel Henry watching us, back and forth, and continued: “We’ll have to do something different tomorrow.
” Resolving to spend more time in places that framed Sigrid’s character unfavorably, I turned to Henry.
“Perhaps a walk through the gorge? It’s quite steep and rugged, but I am certain we are all up to the task. ”
He shook his head. “Best avoided in the rainy season. It gets slippery.”
“We could take a rowboat out on the lake,” I suggested.
He frowned. “Too precarious.” After a moment’s pause, he proposed: “Perhaps we could go for a ride?”
Sigrid stood from her rock and dusted her hands. “I am an accomplished rider.”
“Of course you are,” I responded, quiet enough so no one could hear.
We met the following day in the Tremaines’ stables. I had brought my own mare and Henry’s stood outside, saddled and waiting. We walked along the stalls, looking to pick a horse for Sigrid.
She stopped in front of a black stallion, twice as tall as she was. “How about this one?”
Henry shook his head. “That is Cedric, and he belongs to one of my father’s men-at-arms. I do not think he would take kindly to him being borrowed.” He moved forward to the next stall. “Here, this one is Old Bess. She’s friendly.”
“No one wants to ride a horse named Old Bess.” Sigrid wrinkled her nose. The stable smelled of hay and animals: mud and old leather and the distinct ammonia of horse urine.
I patted Bess on the nose, conciliatory, and took a step forward to the next stall, where a horse was snorting and switching its tail, a roiling energy trapped beneath his chestnut coat.
“Not that one,” Henry said. “That’s Lawrence.”
“Lawrence?” I repeated.
“I know a Sir Lawrence,” Sigrid exclaimed. “What a funny name for a horse.”
“Lawrence is a devil,” Henry warned.
“It sounds like this one is suited only for more accomplished riders,” I said, and Henry nodded at me appreciatively, extending a hand and squeezing my shoulder.
His grasp was light but not insignificant.
Unable to help myself, I turned back to Sigrid, eyes ablaze.
“Certainly, Sigrid, you might feel better suited for Old Bess?”
She lifted her chin, eyes lingering where Henry’s hand had been a moment before. “I have been well tutored in the equestrian arts since I was practically a babe.”
“One of the mares would be a fine choice,” Henry said, gesturing forward. “Lawrence is new and skittish.”
“Henry.” I turned to him. “Do not question Sigrid’s absolute mastery over our equine friends.”
“Indeed.” She drew herself upward. “I have spent many a pleasant afternoon on the backs of all sorts of horses, and I am sure Lawrence will be no different.”
Henry looked concerned. “You do not know the terrain.”
“The terrain here is dirt and rocks, just as it is elsewhere,” I reasoned. My shoulder still felt warm.
“Come,” Sigrid said to him. “You must let us have our fun where we can!”
She and I regarded one another. We each had our schemes and, for the briefest of moments, they had intersected. It almost felt like friendship. We both had to look away.
Contrary to my desires, Sigrid did prove to be a satisfactory rider. The three of us trotted out and into the woods, supplied with a small picnic prepared by the Tremaine kitchens. Henry rode ahead. Sigrid and I, slowed by our side-sitting saddles, rode alongside one another.
My lesson with Agatha had been suspended for the day.
Spending time with suitable men in suitable company was the one permissible excuse for missed instruction.
(This was logical, for the entire point of the instruction was to support me in interactions with suitable men in suitable company.) It was freeing and wonderful to be outdoors in the exact middle of the day, when the sun was highest in the sky and the frost had melted from the grass.
Caught up in the moment, I was startled when Sigrid started talking.
If I had paid attention, her smile might have warned me.
“It is precious, your little infatuation,” she said.
“I beg your pardon?”
“With Henry! It makes one feel a kind of…” She searched for the right word. “Delight.”
I watched her, ever so aware of Henry, just paces ahead.
“And I want you to know,” she continued, “that there is no ill will between us. Regardless of how I do choose to proceed. You see, I haven’t made up my mind.
But it has been very instructive to observe the desires of others.
How could I be certain Henry is truly covetable if I did not see him coveted by another?
That is, after all, how we determine value, isn’t it?
A jewel is only worth as much as people are willing to pay. ”
Her speech had provided me an opportunity to recover. “One might argue a jewel has intrinsic value and beauty in its own right.”
“No matter the difference, it is the highest bidder that secures the jewel in the end.” A large smile. One of her best.
I watched Henry’s back, up ahead and out of earshot. “Yes, and it must be paid for with the most appropriate currency.”
“In my experience, the type of currency matters a great deal less than the quantity. And if we understand each other clearly, I do not believe a tally would yield you any favors.” Sigrid, sideways on her horse, was already facing me, and she leaned over, as if to suggest our closeness.
“I mean this as a kindness, naturally. A message from a friend. It does not do one good to get too far ahead of oneself. It results only in disappointment.”
I could look at her no longer and turned my attention ahead. I did not want Sigrid to have what she desired. No matter myself in the equation: I wanted her life to put a check on her expectations.
We stopped for our meal midafternoon. Henry unfolded a quilted coverlet and we perched upon it: Henry with his legs stretched in front of him, and Sigrid and I on either side, our dresses spread.
“Why, you look just like a mushroom,” Sigrid exclaimed, gesturing to the way my dress had billowed around me.
Watching her snicker and flirt with Henry, my own food turned tasteless.
Sigrid had every advantage. She was accomplished and educated.
She had the right family and the right manners and the right looks.
She bathed her hair in beer and kept her skin as pale as the day she was born.
Even then, she sat in gloves and her ridiculous hat—a wide-brimmed, silk-lined topper made from grass woven together in a pattern as intricate and delicate as lace.
She had thwarted all my attempts to cast her unfavorably.
I could not rid myself of her buzzing laughter.
She was like an insect that returned to one’s meal again and again.
But, watching her pinch tiny bites of sweet pudding into her mouth, the action reminded me: Sigrid had been raised to keep her hunger bridled.
Women, in her world, were not meant to express desire or thirst or appetite.
Women were not meant to express. But I had always sat at a table of men who ate with their fingers, ripped flesh from bone, laughing as the fat glinted on their lips and chins.
And it was only recently I had understood I was supposed to be different.
When Sigrid complained of the warmth of the sun, adjusting her brim to better shade her complexion, I suggested we take a different, quicker route home.
Leading our small caravan, I devised my plan.
As Henry had boasted weeks before, I knew every part of our little township, each river and stream, the worst bits of the bog, the oversized beehives and hidden hollows and unkempt hedgerows.
I knew, also, how challenging the steep, rocky trail I had selected could be.
My mare was sure-footed and I set a fast pace.
Henry, whose gelding was solid and slow, fell behind.
Sigrid’s horse was ignoring her directions, but, oblivious, she kept close behind me, prattling on about a variety of subjects—fine linen as sun protection, an incident where a cook had tried to pass off a cheat bread that was not made with white flour, a silver girandole her mother believed had been stolen—unaware of my rancor.
I was stewing, urging my horse to go faster than I should have, wishing I could at least observe some uncertainty in Sigrid, when I saw the ground-nesting wasps ahead.
I didn’t slow—the quickest flash of a decision.
The horse’s hooves made sharp noises on the stones.
It was only when I was nearly upon them—Sigrid pondering aloud which spices would be best to chew for fresh breath—that I wondered if I was making a mistake.
Doubt settled heavily into my chest. The option to call out and warn her presented itself, hanging in the air.
I felt, suddenly, cold certainty, and a sense of wrongness.
I directed my mare to the side, around the nest, and said nothing. When I passed, I turned back, to watch.
Unaware of the danger, Sigrid kept her horse in the middle of the path. Lawrence stepped into the nest, then abruptly lifted his hoof from the ground and stomped, swishing his tail. His ears pricked.
“Look out,” I said, half-heartedly. I had created the situation and was now powerless to stop it.
Sigrid, confused, gathered her reins tighter. The horse, agitated, still held his hoof—stung—limply above the ground, and started to dance, to one side then the other. I pulled off the path, backing my mare up, whispering calm breath into her ears.
Next to Sigrid, the insects began to emerge, growing in numbers. She let out a scream. “They’re on me, they’re on me—get them off!”
“Sigrid,” I called out, backing away, afraid my own horse would spook. “Keep your calm. You must keep your calm.”
She didn’t listen or couldn’t hear, and I continued, loudly: “Stop shrieking. Your horse. Sigrid! Your horse!” I was shouting myself now, for Lawrence was panicking, bucking up.
The wasps attacked them both—Sigrid and the animal were covered in stings.
The insects continued to dive, subjecting girl and horse alike, again and again, to their brutal assaults. I heard Henry shouting from behind us.
“Grab the reins,” I called. “You must calm down!”
The horse reared once more and lost his footing.
His frame toppled sideways, away from her, and I watched it happen, terrified, aware of each hoof and the weight of the animal’s body.
She landed on top, but cried out in fear or pain.
I dismounted, and Henry was rushing toward us, and as quickly as we could both manage, we were at Sigrid’s side, attempting to remove her from the ground and from the wasps, which were stinging indiscriminately.
“We need to get you up,” I said.
“Yes, you idiot!” she cried. “My hand is trapped!”
“Here,” Henry said, trying to maneuver her. We worked to free her as the horse writhed. I felt a wasp sting my forearm, and then another my neck. Sigrid and the horse were both heaving in pain. We managed to pull her off just a moment before Lawrence sprang up and dashed for the bushes.
It was then that we could see Sigrid’s hand and she started screaming anew. It was a different scream and one I recognized. Unmistakable, chilling: It was the cry of an animal that fears it will die.
Henry and I brought her back to the hunting lodge.
She was too afraid to climb on his horse, and so he carried her, her hand dripping blood down his side.
She was pale and gray, and her hand, when I could bear to look at it, was filled with wrong-angled fingers, pulverized in places, a mash of meat and tendons.
Sigrid’s screams were met with her mother’s.
A doctor was called for. There were breathless long moments and a sense of urgency—a pulsing energy of injury that made me feel both a desire to be close and the need to get far, far away—until Henry and I were sent outside for our uselessness.
We were both badly shaken. I was shaking. Without discussion, we went to the mews, which were empty.
Henry paced back and forth, and finally—I had been waiting for him to speak first—said: “Horrible. Truly horrible.”
“Henry, I—”
“I should have been closer. I could have tried to grab the reins or—”
I held up a hand, insisting he quiet. “Henry, I could have stopped it. I should have.”
“You can’t stop a horse from spooking.”
“Well, then, neither could you. But you’re not understanding me. I picked the route. We were quarreling and—”
“You were quarreling?”
“It was an awful decision. If I’d known what would happen—”
“You were quarreling?” he repeated.
“The poor horse—will he be all right? Will he come home?” I deeply regretted what I had done to that horse.
“Ethel,” Henry said, severely. “What were you quarreling about?”
I paused my hand-wringing. “You,” I said, in surprise. We locked eyes. “Of course,” I added.
He strode over to me and took my face between two firm hands and kissed me, hard.
“Forgive me,” he said, taking a step back. “But what is there to quarrel about?”