Chapter 20

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Dr. Thomas has pronounced Pippa fully recovered, and as it's Sunday and church has

been dispensed with, we have the afternoon to luxuriate as we wish. We're down by the

water, casting the last petals of late-summer flowers onto the calm surface. Ann has

stayed behind to practice her aria for Assembly Day—the day when our families will

descend upon Spence and see what marvels of womanhood we're becoming.

I toss a handful of crumbling wildflowers. They sit on the lake like a blight before the

breeze whips them out toward the deep middle. They settle, take on more and more water

till they finally go under in silence. Across the lake, a few of the younger girls sit on a

blanket, talking and eating plums, happy to ignore us as we ignore them.

Pippa is lying in the rowboat. She can't remember anything before her seizure, for which

I'm grateful. She's horribly embarrassed by her loss of control, by what she might have

said or done.

"Did I make any vulgar noises?" she asks.

"No," I assure her.

"Not at all," Felicity adds.

Pippa's shoulders relax against the bow. Seconds later, a new worry has them knotted up

again. "I didn't… soil myself, did I?" She can barely say this.

"No, no!" Felicity and I say in a tumble.

"It's shameful, isn't it? My affliction."

Felicity laces tiny flowers together into a crown. "It's no more shameful than having a

mother who's a paid consort."

"I'm sorry, Felicity. I shouldn't have said that. Will you forgive me?"

"There's nothing to forgive. It's only truth."

"Truth," Pippa scoffs. "Mother says I can't ever let anyone know about my seizures. She

says if I feel one coming on, I should say I have a headache and excuse myself." Her

laugh is bitter. "She thinks I should be able to control it."

Her words pull me down like an anchor. I want so desperately to tell her I understand. To

tell my secret. I clear my throat. The wind changes. It blows the petals back against my

hair. I can feel the moment slipping away. It sinks under the surface of things, hidden

from the light.

Pippa changes the subject. "On a cheerier note, Mother said that she and Father have a

wonderful surprise for me. I do hope it's a new corset. The boning in this one practically

impales me with each breath. Ye gods!"

"Perhaps you shouldn't eat so many toffees," Felicity says.

Pippa is too tired to be truly outraged. She offers a show of hurt. "I'm not fat! I'm not! My

waist is a tidy sixteen and a half inches."

Pippa's waist is wasp-thin, as men are rumored to prefer waists. Our corsets bind and

bend us to this fashionable taste, even though it makes us short of breath and sometimes

ill from the pressure. I haven't a clue how large or small my waist is. I'm not delicate in

the slightest, and I have shoulders like a boy's. I find the whole conversation tedious.

"Is your mother coming this year, Fee?" Pippa asks.

"She's visiting friends. In Italy," Felicity says, finishing her crown. She places it on her

head like a fairy queen's.

"What about your father?"

"I don't know. I hope so. I'd love for the three of you to meet him, and for him to see that

I have actual flesh-and-blood friends." She gives a sad smile. "I think he was afraid I'd

become one of those sullen girls who never get invited to anything. I was a bit that way

after Mother…"

Left.

That's the word that hangs in the air, unspoken. It joins shame, secrets, fear, visions, and

epilepsy. So many things unsaid weight the distance between us. The more we try to close

the gap, the more its heaviness pushes us apart.

"How long has it been since you've seen him?" I ask.

"Three years."

"I'm certain he'll come this time, Fee," Pippa says. "And he'll be very proud to see what a

lady you've become."

Felicity smiles and it's as if she's turned the sun on us both. "Yes. Yes, I have, haven't ft I

think he'll be pleased. If he comes."

"I'd loan you my new kid gloves but my mother expects to see them on my fingers as

proof that we're somebody," Pippa sighs.

"What of your family?" Felicity turns her sharp eyes on me. "Are they coming? The

mysterious Doyles?"

My father hasn't written in two weeks. I think of my grandmothers last letter:

Dearest Gemma,

I hope this letter finds you well I've had a touch of neuralgia but you shouldn't worry as

the doctor says it's merely the strain of caring for your father and will abate when you are

home again and able to help shoulder the burden as a good daughter should. Your father

seems to be comforted by the garden. He sits for long stretches on the old bench there.

He's given to fits of staring and nodding off but otherwise is at peace.

Do not fret about us. I'm sure my shortness of breath is nothing at all We shall see you in

two weeks' time along with Tom, who sends his love and wishes to know if you've found

him a suitable wife yet, though I feel certain he said this in jest.

Fondly,

Grandmama

I close my eyes and try to erase it all. "Yes, they're coming."

"You don't sound terribly excited about it."

I shrug. "I haven't given it much thought."

"Our mysterious Gemma," Felicity says, appraising me a bit too closely for comfort.

"We'll find out what you're hiding from us yet."

Pippa joins in. "A crazy aunt in the attic, perhaps."

"Or a sexually depraved fiend who preys on young girls." Felicity waggles her eyebrows.

Pippa screeches in mock horror but she's titillated by the very idea.

"You forgot the hunchback," I add with a false laugh. I'm widening the distance between

us, sending them off to another shore.

"A sexually depraved hunchback!" Pippa squeals. She is most definitely recovered. We

all laugh. The woods swallow our sounds in echoing gulps, but we've startled the younger

girls across the lake. In their crisp white pinafores, they seem like misplaced loons

dotting the landscape. They blink at us, then turn their heads and resume their chatter.

The September sky is uncertain. Gray and threatening one moment. A patchy, promising

blue the next. Felicity lays her head back against the grassy bank. Her hair splays out and

around the center of her pale face like a mandala. "Do you suppose we'll have any fun at

Lady Wellstone's Spiritualist meeting tonight?"

"My father says Spiritualism is nothing but quackery," Pippa says. She's rocking the

rowboat slightly with her bare foot. "What is it exactly again?"

"It's the belief that the spirits can speak to us from beyond through the use of a medium

like Madame Romanoff," Felicity says.

We both sit straight up, thinking the same thing.

"Do you think…" she starts.

".. that she could contact Sarah or Mary for us?" I finish. Why hasn't this thought

occurred, to me before?

"Brilliant!" Pippa's face clouds over. "But how will you get to her?"

She's right, of course. Madame Romanoff would never call on a pack of schoolgirls.

We've got about as much chance of communing with the dead as we do of sitting in

Parliament.

"I'll do the asking, if you'll help me get to Madame Romanoff," I say.

"Leave it all to me," Felicity says, grinning.

"If we leave it to you, we'll end up in the soup, I fear," Pippa giggles.

Felicity is up, quick as a hare. With nimble fingers she unties Pippa's rowboat and sends

it out onto the lake with a shove. Pippa scrambles to grab the rope but it's too late. She's

moving out, ripping open the surface of the water.

"Pull me back!"

"That wasn't a very nice thing to do," I say.

"She needs to remember her place," Felicity says by way of an answer. But she tosses an

oar after her anyway. It falls short, bobs on the surface.

"Help me pull her back," I say. The loon girls are standing now, watching us in

amusement. They enjoy seeing us behaving badly.

Felicity plops down onto the grass and laces a boot.

With a sigh, I call out to Pippa. "Can you reach it?"

She stretches her arm around the side of the boat for the oar just out of reach. She's not

going to make it, but she stretches further to try. The boat tips precariously. Pippa falls in

with a yelp and a splash. Felicity and the younger girls erupt in laughter. But I'm

remembering the brief vision I had just before Pippa's seizure, remembering the chilling

sounds of splashing and Pippa's strangled cry from somewhere under murky water.

"Pippa!" I scream, rushing into the heart-stopping cold of the lake. My hand finds a leg.

I've got her, and I pull up with all my strength.

"Grab hold!" I sputter, kicking for shore with my arm around her waist.

She fights me. "Gemma, what are you doing? Let me go!" She breaks free. The water

rises only to her shoulders. "I can walk from here, thank you," she says, with indignation,

trying to ignore the giggles and finger-pointing on the other side of the lake.

I feel ridiculous. I distinctly remember an impression of Pippa struggling under the water

during my vision. I suppose I could have been so panicked, I don't remember things

clearly. At any rate, here we are, both safe and sound except for the dripping. And that's

all that matters.

"I'm going to strangle you, Felicity," Pippa mutters as she balances unsteadily in the

water. I throw my arms around her, relieved that she's all right, and nearly pull her under

again.

"What are you doing?" she shrieks, slapping at me as if I were a spider.

"Sorry," I say. "Sorry."

"I'm surrounded by lunatics," she growls, crawling onto the grass. "Now, where's Felicity

got to?"

The bank is empty. It's as if she's vanished. But then I see her disappearing into the

woods, daisy crown perched on her head. She walks casually and easily away without so

much as a backward glance to see if we're all right.