Chapter Nineteen #2
“Girls,” Lavinia said. “I need more air. You must move to give me a window.” They stood and crouched and reshuffled, a frenzy of oversized hoopskirts and petticoats. When they had resettled, I realized I hadn’t managed to track which twin sat where.
There was a two-hour carriage ride to sort it out.
As we approached the castle, at long last, an afternoon of waiting came to an end and all accelerated.
The sky had gone dark. The path to the palace’s walls was lit by a series of torches, and the large gate, surrounded by white-coated guards, stood open.
Ahead of us, and behind us, there was carriage after carriage, like a strand of pearls.
We left our wraps in the carriage and, bare-shouldered, were handed down by royal footmen and ushered inside.
The entry hall was filled with flowers and lit by hundreds of candles, moving pricks of light that danced in the chandeliers and sconces and on the many tables.
Gloved men and women gathered in groups, jostling for their moment of presentation.
We lost Lavinia and her children in the crowd.
Young women eyed one another, holding their trains over their arms, before they were ushered in small groups into the royal antechamber.
We moved closer to the double doors at the end of the chamber, awaiting our turn.
My daughters were breathless and overwhelmed.
Rosamund bloomed, spinning as she looked at the painted ceiling above.
I gently pulled on her arm to still her.
Mathilde had gone grim—her way of showing she understood how serious this all was.
All over, mothers were muttering last-minute instructions into daughters’ ears.
In the antechamber, an attendant helped each girl lower her train and smooth it behind her. We could partially see ahead, into the throne room, and watched as each was presented. Some simpered and smiled. Some held small bouquets or sprays of flowers. Some were so nervous they could barely speak.
“Where is the prince?” Rosamund whispered. “I do not see him.”
“He must have stepped out.” I fought dismay, for I did not see him, either. “Hush now.”
Nervously, I pulled the girls aside, pretending we needed more time with their trains, waving other women ahead of us. Finally, when we could delay no longer, Rosie and Mathilde handed their cards to the herald at the door and we walked through, into the throne room.
Sigrid stood on a raised platform wearing the largest pannier I had ever seen. Her hips extended by feet on each side. A jewel the size of an egg hung from a necklace. We moved forward, into the stronger light, as the herald announced us.
“Miss Rosamund Tremaine and Miss Mathilde Tremaine of Bramley Hall,” the herald announced. “Chaperoned by Lady Etheldreda Bramley.” The three of us sank into curtsies.
Sigrid watched with interest. “Why, they look just like you, Etheldreda. Who would have thought there could be three of you.”
Behind us, I felt the room tighten with attention: The queen was talking.
“Indeed, Your Majesty.” I stood back up. “Though I see their father as well.” All the ghosts of Agatha’s little wounds were making themselves known to me. A throbbing in my knuckles. The feel of fingers grasping my upper arm.
“So, Henry’s daughters have made it to my ball after all.
” Sigrid’s expression was unreadable, but my attention went to Rosie and Mathilde, whose necks had gone taut.
I could not see their faces, but I watched the discomfort in their shoulders.
They had not expected mention of their father—had not expected to be singled out by the queen.
“We are honored,” I replied without smiling.
Sigrid laughed. “I am sure of it. Where is the third? The … half daughter? Stepdaughter?”
“Ill,” I said, too quickly. I wanted to ask where Simeon was but couldn’t bring myself to reveal my interests. Instead, I added: “I hope we will have the honor of greeting the princess as well?”
“Ill,” Sigrid replied, mimicking the same intonation of my own invocation of the word.
All three of us, Rosie, Mathilde, and I, made the quick implied noises of sympathy the occasion demanded, but we were saved from formulating any real response when a side door opened—a disguised panel springing forth from the wall—and the prince entered.
He strode to his mother’s side, turned, and saw us.
“Hello,” he said, in a tone of both surprise and familiarity—one that threw the room into quick relief.
Agatha released her tight grip on my arm.
The girls, wrapped and cosseted in all their finery, goose bumps on their shoulders, loosened.
How the inflection of one word could promise the world!
So much was riding on a moment—a bat of an eye, a gesture with a wrist. All of us curtsied, murmuring quietly.
Sigrid covered a look of momentary consternation—she had not known we knew her son—gratifying my hurt pride.
But the small satisfaction was somewhat nullified when the queen put a hand on the prince’s arm.
It was an intimate gesture, the worrying, rubbing grasp of a mother—the unconscious bid to secure your child to you, to confirm them, to feel them.
What devotion could be communicated in such small friction.
It was my first moment of viewing them side by side, and understanding, more instinctively and less rationally, the extent of their connection.
They looked so alike. That yellow hair. The same curved pull at their lips.
A question started to form in my mind, an uneasy prickle, but the prince shrugged his mother away and sauntered two steps toward us before I had a moment to examine my feelings.
“Splendid of you to come,” he said, stopping in front of Rosie.
She looked back to me, as if for confirmation, face aglow. “Your Highness,” she replied, turning.
He gestured toward the ballroom doors. “I just have to finish all this”—a wave of a hand in the air, insouciant and suggestive of plenary and oppressive duty—“and then we will dance.”
We, he had said. A promise. A delightful, fat little promise that offered the possibility of an entire kingdom. I couldn’t meet Sigrid’s eyes, for I did not want to see anything on her face that denied it.
The attendant had ushered in another girl behind us, and we took our cue to step forward.
Rosie and Mathilde kneeled. Sigrid held out two gloved hands and they kissed her knuckles.
I was distracted from the discomfort of this—my daughters, kneeling, before Sigrid—because I noticed her glove did not have an empty finger.
It must have been stuffed with cotton. A small vanity reminiscent of a lace ribbon tied to a blood-spotted bandage.
It was all over quickly. We were soon backing from the room, making way for the next round of girls in feathers, pushed along like jewels on a strand, the great moment behind us.
My daughters’ eyes widened as they took in the ballroom.
Skirts made from every manner of silk and brocade swirled and swayed across the dance floor.
Sumptuous drapes partially shrouded an entire wall of enormous windows.
Oversized mirrors reflected countless chandeliers and sprays of flowers.
Silver and crystal-laden banquettes supported towers of exotic sugared fruits and spherical pastries.
Wealth had been measured and displayed in every manner of sugar and glass.
“The music!” Rosamund clapped her hands. Her curled hair sat in a luxurious pile on her head, escaping tendrils prettily framing her beaming face. She looked with delight at the orchestra playing at the other end of the room.
“There is so much food.” Mathilde surveyed the banquettes.
“Without there being much to actually eat.” Along the edges of the dance floor, tables were covered in cascading bowls of punch and molded blancmange and goblets of mulled wine.
Tureens of white soup—punch made from veal broth, cream, and ground almonds—steamed beside jellies and sweetmeats and platters of small biscuits and light wafers.
“Do not eat the prawns,” I told them, eyeing the towers of shrimp.
“If you must use the facilities, make sure you are accompanied at all times. And do not drink too much punch. You must not dance with unknown men. But do not refuse a dance if you are asked. Try not to be a wallflower. Avoid dark-colored liquids for the sake of your dresses. And I know it is your first ball, but try not to look gobsmacked, Rosie. And try to show some felicity, Mathilde.”
“But I am gobsmacked,” Rosie whispered, the light of a hundred chandeliers reflecting in her eyes.
“And it is hard to feel felicitous when you have persistently emphasized the great import of this evening,” Mathilde accused me.
“Then pretend. Obviously.” I widened my eyes back at them. “You must be presentable.”
“Yes, Mama,” Rosie said.
Mathilde put a pretty smile on her face. “Had I been aware that being presentable entailed diminishing one’s sentiments to the point of insignificance … perchance I would have refrained from harboring any at all.”
“Oh, hush,” I snapped, for Lavinia had spotted us and was making her way over, daughters in tow. “And do not dance with just anyone, for your evening will get full and you won’t be able to accept a dance with the prince.”
“You have told us both to dance and not to dance, to avoid men and to accept them.” Mathilde counted these instructions off on her fingers.
Rosie interrupted her, tugging on my sleeve plaintively, like a small girl. “Do you really think the prince will dance with me?”
“I think you have reason enough to hope for a dance—with him and any other eligible man.”