Chapter Nineteen
The morning of the ball, I yanked my curtains open at first light, allowing myself a moment to appreciate the blushing daybreak. The sun rose with all the shyness of a new bride. But, like the muffins Wenthelen served us for breakfast, this initial calm crumbled quickly.
Mathilde, whistling past as Elin carried a bucket of hot water upstairs, sneered: “It’ll be cold at the rate you’re going.
” Rosamund, unable to find her flowered hair ornaments, accused Mathilde of borrowing and losing them.
Elin, advising Rosie that virtue was the source of happiness, not hair ornaments, earned herself an icy look of scorn.
In the end, all three of them took turns washing in the same tub. I sent them to their chambers to begin dressing and left to take my own bath, alone, in my room.
Half submerged, I looked at my naked torso.
Bony knees that rose from the bathwater like islands.
Once, long ago, I had been attended to. Hair washed.
Oils rubbed into my skin. Herbs scattered in the tub.
Now my body bore the marks of living. Skin that had gone milky.
A belly that had stretched for children.
Hands—wrapped, now, around shivering shoulders—that had labored.
I was an aging lady of the house, pruning in tepid bathwater, because there was no one to heat it for her.
I was older than my own mother had ever been.
And yet, I did not feel old. I recognized the face that I could see in the looking glass.
I knew the beating heart in my chest. I felt vaguely astonished to have children who were adults themselves.
I squared myself, squeezing my shoulders.
So many years had ticked past—through drudgery, necessity, injury—as if leading to this moment.
To the evening’s ball. To what I hoped would be a turning point.
I had reason to be hopeful. The gift the prince had sent was proof. Simeon appeared to be favoring my daughters. The painting now sat in Rosie’s chambers. Propped against the window, a dark square backlit by sun. She was likely whispering to it as she readied. Making eyes at the frameless canvas.
As my girls had bid me, the day before, I’d removed the thick gold frame and taken it into the village. The gilded molding had sat on the seat of the chaise beside me, covered in a sheet, blind to the scenery—muddy farms and untrimmed hedges—along the lane.
As I drove, I reassured myself. It had only been a few short days since I had pawned the cameo. The pawnbroker himself had thought it unlikely anyone would be interested in a depiction of a strange woman. My mother was no mythological figure.
But, from the moment the bell rang above my head and the pawnbroker looked up, I knew his news would not be good.
“Lady Bramley!” Leonard rushed from behind the counter to take the sheet-clad object from my hands. “What is this? What have you brought? Allow me to help you.”
The shop looked the same as ever: boxes of flatware and shelves of pottery. A sword missing the jewels in its hilt. “It’s a picture frame. Genuine gold leaf, you’ll see. Here, put it on the counter.”
As he began to pull aside the sheet, I looked him in the eye. “Do you still have it?”
“Lady Bramley—” he began.
“You said you would keep it set aside. And that no one would be interested in it.”
“Lady Bramley—” he tried again.
“And it is ever so important to me, so I hope that it is right where I left it.” I was delaying, I knew.
“I am sorry.”
I nodded and looked away. “Who took it?”
He wrung his hands, apologetically. “You know I cannot share.”
“Who has the picture of my mother?” I demanded, then quickly put a hand over my mouth. I had not intended to reveal the depth of my desperation. I saw, in the pawnbroker’s eyes, pity.
I made myself turn away. My anger was misdirected. It was not Leonard who had cost me the necklace. It was a stepdaughter who hadn’t followed through on what was promised.
And now, rising from the lukewarm bath, I found I had no kindness left for Elin.
I could see my dress waiting for me, hanging from a picture rail. The garment was as delicate as a flower, held together by neat and even stitches, gathered in at the waist and then expanding, the skirt falling and barely grazing the floor.
When it was lowered over my head, Wenthelen fastening the buttons down my back, I could see in the looking glass that the layers of fabric and all the careful handiwork had done their job.
“Not half bad,” Wenthelen observed.
I nodded, smoothing my hands over the lemon-colored taffeta, and caught Wenthelen’s eyes in the reflection. “Pull in those laces until I cannot breathe.”
Rosie and Mathilde came down first. “You look wonderful,” I told them, and meant it.
My hands, as they always did when I felt surges of affection, sought out their faces, and my children shied away from me as I patted and fixed their hair, fingers fluttering around their necks.
Then we stood in the front hall, waiting.
“I am so impatient. I wish we could leave this instant.” Rosamund sighed.
Mathilde worried the lace on her sleeves. “We shall be late.”
“We are expected to be.” Lavinia and I had agreed, via letter, that we would arrive at half past the start time, as was the custom.
But, because the journey to the palace would take a good while, the sun was still high in the sky.
The ball felt close at hand and yet there were hours to get through before we’d set foot inside the castle.
“And Elin has not come down,” Rosie said.
“I am here,” she called, and we all turned.
She stood at the top of the stairs, lit by a beam of light that reached through the glass above the door.
The deep wine color of the dress set off her pink cheeks.
Elin held her folded train with an elegantly extended arm.
Her figure, normally thin and straight, benefitted from the undulations of her dress.
My girls and I walked toward the base of the stairs, faces upturned.
Elin began to descend. With each passing step, the pretty image she had presented fell apart, slowly, and then all at once.
Elin had, I saw, not finished her hem, and the rough edge of the cloth dragged on the floor. Her eyes looked red, as if from crying.
“Why,” Rosamund said, with genuine surprise, “that is my hair ornament!”
“I can see your undergarments,” Mathilde said, in dismay. Sure enough, her smock was coming through a seam at her waist.
“Elin,” I reprimanded. Her sleeves were different lengths. “You were not able to finish your dress.”
“No.” She shook her head. She came to the bottom step and stopped in front of us. “And it ripped when I was putting it on.”
“It wouldn’t last for one dance!” Mathilde reached out and plucked at the open waist panel, which began to tear away.
“Oh!” Elin cried.
“You could have asked me,” Rosamund said.
“I did!” Elin protested.
“You should have made it clear what, what…” Rosie searched for the right words. “What the situation was!”
“Surely you don’t intend to wear it,” I said.
Elin looked down at the dress. “You insisted I do the ashes first.”
“We did not know help was needed”—I fingered the panel of the dress Mathilde had removed with little effort—“quite so badly.”
“Might she borrow something?” Rosamund wondered.
“She cannot wear a dress that does not meet the requirements—the train, the neckline,” I reminded. The uneven clatter of horse feet outside indicated Lavinia’s carriage had arrived. “And we do not have enough time.”
Elin’s eyes glossed over, wet with tears. “I have nothing to wear.”
“Well, you cannot wear that,” Mathilde observed. She turned to me, plaintively. “She will be laughed out of the room. We will be laughed out of the room.”
“She’s right,” I said. Then, more softly: “You cannot wear that to the ball. And we cannot keep the Enrights waiting.”
Elin’s tears spilled over.
I did not feel so sorry for her. Elin might have worked on her dress from the very beginning.
She might have used the days we were at the picnic, at the market, in the fields picking apples.
She might have told us sooner. At long last, she would see the consequences of her own ineptitude.
But even this was only half true: All was not lost for Elin.
To her, this was just one ball. A singular disappointing night.
She, a pretty-faced daughter of a gentleman, also had an inheritance.
Her life offered choices whereas my girls’ lives were confined to a solitary opportunity.
And I would not allow her to jeopardize their chances.
Her unfinished hems trembled as she swept back up the stairs.
Rosie and Mathilde turned to me, questioning.
Perhaps they had the same doubts. Perhaps I could have helped Elin more.
Perhaps I should have spent more time looking for a solution.
Perhaps I had smudged the line between self-preservation and cruelty.
But the Enrights were knocking at the door, and I could not overlook the fact that my stepdaughter had cost me my most prized possession.
In the Enrights’ carriage, there was much embracing and kissing of cheeks and exclaiming over one another’s dresses. Lavinia had, ludicrously—for a man can only marry one woman—dressed the twins as she usually did: matching outfits.
She sat in between her daughters in the forward-facing seats, so I squeezed into the opposite side with Rosie and Mathilde, grateful that circumstances had kept Elin at home. There was hardly room. Our knees all met in the middle.
“Bethesda,” I greeted one of the twins.
“Bethia,” she corrected me.
“Bethia,” I amended, nodding.
The other leaned forward. “Bethesda.”
“Bethesda,” I repeated.