Chapter 9

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When I wake, it's an actual bright blue morning with real sun streaming through the

window, making windowpane patterns on the floor. Everything outside is golden. No one

asking me to steal anything. No young cloaked men issuing cryptic warnings. No strange,

glowing little girls standing guard while I rummage about in dark places. It's as if last

night never even happened. I stretch my arms overhead, trying to remember my strange

dreams, something about my mother, but it won't come back to me. The diary's in the

wardrobe, where I intend to let it gather dust. Today, revenge is first in my mind,

"You're awake," Ann says. She's fully dressed, sitting on her tidily made bed, watching

me.

"Yes," I answer.

"Best get dressed if you want a hot breakfast. It's inedible once it's cold." She pauses.

Stares. "I cleaned away the mud you tracked in."

A quick glance down and ah, there it is, my dirty foot sticking out from the stiff white

sheet. I quickly cover it up.

"Where did you go?"

I don't want to have this conversation. It's sunny out. There's bacon downstairs. My life is

starting over today. I've just made it official. "Nowhere, really. I simply couldn't sleep," I

lie, managing what I think passes for a radiant smile.

Ann watches as I pour water from a flowered pitcher into a bowl and scrub at my mudcaked

feet and ankles. I step behind the dressing screen for modesty's sake and pull the

white dress over my head, then sweep a brush through my Medusa curls and secure them

in a tight coil at the base of my neck. The hairpin scrapes against my tender scalp on the

way in, and I wish I could just wear my hair down as I did when I was a young girl.

There is the problem of the corset. There's no way that I can tighten the laces at my back

by myself. And it would seem that there is no maid to help with our dressing. With a sigh,

I turn to Ann.

"Would you mind terribly?"

She pulls hard on the laces, pushing the air out of my lungs till I think my ribs will break.

"A bit looser, please," I squeak. She obliges, and I'm now only uncomfortable instead of

crippled.

"Thank you," I say when we're finished.

"You've got a smudge on your neck." I do wish she would stop watching me. In the small

hand mirror on my desk, I discover the spot, right below my chin. I lick my finger and

wipe it off, hoping this offends Ann enough that she'll look away before I'm forced to do

something really horrible—pick at my scabs, examine a blemish, search for nose hair—in

order to gain a little privacy. I give myself one last glance in the mirror. The face staring

back at me isn't beautiful but she isn't something that would frighten the horses, either.

On this morning with the sun warming my cheeks, I've never looked more like my

mother.

Ann clears her throat. "You really shouldn't wander around here alone."

I wasn't alone. She knows it, but I'm not eager to tell Ann about my humiliation at the

hands of the others. She might think it bonds us together as misfits, and I'm an oddity of

one, my strangeness too complicated to explain or share.

"Next time I can't sleep, I'll wake you," I say. "Goodness, what happened here?" The

inside of Ann's wrist is a nightmare of thin, red scratches, like Crosshatch stitching on a

hem. It looks as if they've been gouged there by a needle or a pin. Quickly, she pulls her

sleeves down past her wrists.

"N-n-nothing," she says. "It was an a-a-accid-d-ent."

What sort of accident could leave such a mark? It looks deliberate to me, but I say only,

"Oh," and look away.

Ann walks toward the door. "I hope they have fresh strawberries today. They're good for

the complexion. I read it in The Perils of Lucy" She stands on the threshold, rocking back

and forth on her heels slightly. Her unnerving gaze falters a little. She examines her

fingers as she says, "My complexion could use all the help it can get."

"Your complexion's fine." I pretend to fiddle with my collar.

She's not bought off so easily. "It's all right. I know I'm plain. Everyone says it." There's a

hint of defiancé in her eyes, as if she's daring me to say it isn't true. If I disagree, she'll

know I'm lying. If I say nothing, she'll have her worst fears confirmed.

"Strawberries, you say? I'll have to try some."

The glazed calm is back. She was hoping for the lie from me, for one person to disagree

and tell her she's beautiful. I've failed her.

"Suit yourself," she says, leaving me alone at last to wonder whether I'll ever make a

single friend at Spence.

There's just enough time to make the morning's first stop—a little offering of appreciation

for Felicity's kindness last night—and then I'm off to breakfast, suddenly famished. As

I'm late, I manage to avoid seeing Felicity, Pippa, and the others. Unfortunately, it means

I cannot also avoid the now lukewarm eggs and porridge, which are every bit as bad as

Ann predicted and then some. The porridge congeals on my spoon in cold, thick clumps.

"Told you so," she says, finishing the last of a piece of bacon that makes my mouth water.

When we report to our first class, Mademoiselle LeFarge's French lesson, my luck runs

out. Felicity's clique of girls is clumped together in their seats, waiting for me. They

guard the back row of the small, cramped room so that I'm forced to walk the gauntlet

past them to take a seat. Right. Here goes.

Felicity sticks out her dainty foot, stopping me in the narrow row between her wooden

desk and Pippa's. "Sleep well?"

"Quite." I give it an extra cheeriness it doesn't deserve, to show how little I'm bothered by

schoolgirl pranks in the night. The foot remains.

"However did you manage it? Getting out, I mean?" Cecily asks.

"I have hidden powers," I say, amusing myself with this rueful bit of information. Martha

realizes she's been left out of the night's foolery. She can't bring herself to say so. Instead,

she tries to be part of them by mimicking me.

"I have hidden powers," she singsongs.

My cheeks go hot. "By the way, I did secure the object you requested."

Felicity is all attention. "Really? Where do you have it hidden?"

"Oh, I didn't think it wise to hide it. Might not be able to find it again," I say, cheerily.

"It's sitting in plain view on your chair in the great hall. I do hope that was the best place

for it."

Felicity's mouth flies open in horror. I give her foot a little shove with my leg and move

up to a desk in the front row, feeling the heat of their gazes on my neck.

"What was that all about?" Ann asks, folding her hands neatly on her desk like a model

pupil.

"Nothing worth mentioning," I say.

"They locked you in the church, didn't they?"

I lift the lid on my desk to block out Ann's face. "No, of course not. Don't be silly." But

for the first time I see the hint of a smile—a real smile—tugging at the corners of her

mouth.

"Will they never get tired of that one?" she mutters, shaking her head.

Before I can respond, Mademoiselle LeFarge, all two hundred pounds of her, sweeps into

the room with a cheery "Bonjour." She grabs a rag and rubs it vigorously across the

already clean slate, prattling on in French the whole time, stopping to ask the occasional

question, which, I'm panicked to discover, everyone has the answer to—in French. I

haven't the faintest idea what's going on, French being a language I've always thought

sounded vaguely like gargling.

Mademoiselle LeFarge stops at my desk, claps her hands together in discovery. "Ah, une

nouvelle fille! Comment vous appellez-vous?" Her face hovers dangerously near mine so

that I can see the space between her two front teeth and every pore on her wide nose.

"Beg your pardon?" I ask.

She wags a chubby finger. "Non, non, non … en Français, s'il vous plait. Maintenant,

comment vous appellez-vous?" She gives me that hopeful, wide smile again. Behind me,

I hear snickering erupt from Felicity and Pippa. The first day of my new life and I'm

stumped before I begin.

It feels like hours before Ann finally volunteers a helpful "Elle's'appelle Gemma."

What is your name? All those strangled vowel sounds to ask one bloody stupid question?

This is the silliest language on earth.

"Ah, bon, Ann. Tres bon." Felicity is still stifling her laughter. Mademoiselle LeFarge

asks her a question. I pray she'll stumble through it like a cow, but her French is

absolutely flawless. There is no justice in the world.

Each time Mademoiselle LeFarge asks me something, I stare straight ahead and say

"Pardon?" a lot, as if being either deaf or polite will help me understand this impossible

language. Her wide grin closes slowly into a scowl till she gives up altogether asking me

anything, which is fine with me. When the grueling hour is finally over, I have learned to

stumble my way through the phrases "How charming" and "Yes, my strawberries are very

juicy."

Mademoiselle lifts her arms and we all rise in unison, recite the goodbye. "Au revoir,

Mademoiselle LeFarge."

"Au revoir, mes filles," she calls as we place books and inkwells inside our desks.

"Gemma, could you stay for a moment, please?" Her English accent is bracing as cold

water after all that flowy French. Mademoiselle LeFarge is no more Parisian than I am.

Felicity nearly trips in her mad rush to get out the door,

"Mademoiselle Felicity! There's no need to hurry."

"Pardon, Mademoiselle LeFarge." She glares at me. "I've just remembered that I need to

retrieve something important before my next class."

When the room thins out to just the two of us, Mademoiselle LeFarge settles her bulk

behind her desk.

The desk is clear except for a tintype of a handsome man in uniform. Probably a brother

or other relative. After all, she is a mademoiselle, and older than twenty-five—a spinster

with no hopes of marrying now, otherwise what would she be doing here, teaching girls

as a last resort?

Mademoiselle LeFarge shakes her head. "Your French is in need of much work,

Mademoiselle Gemma. Surely you know this. You will have to work very hard to stay in

this class with the other girls your age. If I don't see improvement, I will be forced to

demote you to the lower classes."

"Yes, mademoiselle."

"You can always ask the other girls for help, if need be. Felicity's French is quite good."

"Yes," I say, swallowing hard, knowing full well that I would rather eat nails than ask for

Felicity's help.

The rest of the day passes slowly and uneventfully. There are elocution lessons. Dancing

and posture and Latin. There is music with Mr. Grunewald, a tiny, stooped Austrian man

with a weary voice and a look of defeat stamped across his sagging face, every sigh

saying that teaching us to play and sing is one step below being tortured slowly to death.

We're all competent, if uninspiring, with our music—except for Ann.

When she stands up to sing, a clear, sweet voice comes pouring out of her. It's lovely, if

somewhat timid. With practice, and a little more feeling, she could be quite good,

actually. It's a shame that she won't ever get the chance. She's here to be trained to be of

service, nothing more. When the music is over, she keeps her head down till she finds her

seat again, and I wonder how many times each day she dies a little.

"You have quite a nice voice," I whisper to her when she takes her seat.

"You're just saying that to be kind," she says, biting a fingernail. But a blush works its

way into her full, ruddy cheeks, and I know that it means everything to her to sing her

song, if just for a little while.

The week passes in a numbing routine. Prayers. Deportment. Posture. Morning and night,

I enjoy the same social outcast's status as Ann. In the evenings, the two of us sit by the

fire in the great hall, the stillness broken only by the laughter coming from Felicity and

her acolytes as they pointedly ignore us. By week's end, I'm sure I've become invisible.

But not to everyone.

There is one message from Kartik. The night after I discover the diary, I find an old letter

from Father pinned to my bed with a small blade. The letter, rambling and sloppy, had

hurt to read, and so I had stuffed it into my desk drawer, hidden away. Or so I thought.

Seeing it on my bed, slashed, with the words you have been warned scrawled across

Father's signature chills me to the bone. The threat is clear. The only way to keep myself

and my family safe is for me to shutter my mind to the visions. But I find I can't close off

my mind without closing off the rest of me. Fear has me retreating inside myself,

detached from everything, as useless as the scorched East Wing upstairs.

The only time I feel alive at all is during Miss Moore's drawing class. I had expected it to

be tedious—little nature sketches of bunnies nuzzling happily in the English countryside

—but Miss Moore surprises me again. She has chosen Lord Tennyson's famous poem,

"The Lady of Shalott," as an inspiration for our work. It's about a woman who will die if

she leaves the safety of her ivory tower. Even more surprising is that Miss Moore wants

to know what we think about art. She means to have us talk and risk giving our opinions

instead of making painstaking copies of cheery fruit. This throws the sheep into complete

confusion.

"What can you tell me about this sketch of the Lady of Shalott?" Miss Moore asks,

placing her canvas on an easel. In her picture, a woman stands at a tall window looking

down on a knight in the woods. A mirror reflects the inside of the room.

It's quiet for a moment.

"Anyone?"

"It's charcoal," Ann answers.

"Yes, that would be hard to dispute, Miss Bradshaw. Anyone else?" Miss Moore casts

about for a victim among the eight of us present. "Miss Temple? Miss Poole?" No one

says a word. "Ah, Miss Worthington, you're rarely at a loss for words."

Felicity tilts her head, pretends to consider the sketch, but I can tell she already knows

what she wants to say. "It's a lovely sketch, Miss Moore. Wonderful composition, with

the balance of the mirror and the woman, who is rendered in the style of the pre-

Raphaelite brotherhood, I believe." Felicity turns on her smile, ready to be congratulated.

Her apple-polishing skills are the true art here.

Miss Moore nods. "An accurate if somewhat soulless assessment." Felicity's smile drops

fast. Miss Moore continues. "But what do you think is going on in the picture? What does

the artist want us to know about this woman? What does it make you feel when you look

at it?"

What do you feel? I've never been asked that question once. None of us has. We aren't

supposed to feel. We're British. The room is utterly silent.

"It's very nice," Elizabeth offers, in what I've come to realize is her no-opinion opinion.

"Pretty."

"It makes you feel pretty?" Miss Moore asks.

"No. Yes. Should I feel pretty?"

"Miss Poole, I wouldn't presume to tell you how to respond to a piece of art."

"But paintings are either nice and pretty or they're rubbish. Isn't that so? Aren't we

supposed to be learning to make pretty drawings?" Pippa pipes up.

"Not necessarily. Let's try another way. What is taking place in this sketch right now,

Miss Cross?"

"She's looking out the window at Sir Lancelot?" Pippa phrases it as a question, as if she's

not even sure of what she's seeing.

"Yes. Now, you're all familiar with Tennyson's poem. What happens to the Lady of

Shalott?"

Martha speaks out, happy to get at least one thing right. "She leaves the castle and floats

downstream in her boat."

"And?"

Martha's certainty leaves her. "And… she dies."

"Why?"

There's a bit of nervous laughter, but no one has an answer.

Finally, Ann's bland, cool voice cuts the silence. "Because she's cursed."

"No, she dies for love," Pippa says, sounding sure of herself for the first time. "She can't

live without him. It's terribly romantic."

Miss Moore gives a wry smile. "Or romantically terrible."

Pippa is confused. "I think it's romantic."

"One could argue that it's romantic to die for love. Of course, then you're dead and unable

to take that honeymoon trip to the Alps with all the other fashionable young couples,

which is a shame."

"But she's doomed by a curse, isn't she?" Ann says. "It's not love. It's beyond her control.

If she leaves the tower, she will die."

"And yet she doesn't die when she leaves the tower. She dies on the river. Interesting, isn't

it? Does anyone else have any thoughts? Miss… Doyle?"

I'm startled to hear my own name. My mouth goes dry instantly. I furrow my brow and

stare intently at the picture, waiting for an answer to announce itself. I can't think of a

blessed thing to say.

"Please do not strain yourself, Miss Doyle. I won't have my girls going cross-eyed in the

name of art."

There's a burst of tittering. I know I should be embarrassed, but mostly, I am relieved not

to have to make up an answer I don't have. I retreat inside myself again.

Miss Moore walks around the room, past a long table holding partially painted canvases,

tubs of oil paints, stacks of watercolors, and tin cups full of paintbrushes with bristles like

straw. In the corner, there's a painting propped on an easel. It's a nature study of trees and

lawn and a steeple, a scene we can see echoed through the bank of windows in front of

us. "I think that the lady dies not because she leaves the tower for the outside world, but

because she lets herself float through that world, pulled by the current after a dream."

It is quiet for a moment, nothing but the sound of feet shuffling under desks, Ann's nails

drumming softly on the wood as if it were an imaginary piano.

"Do you mean she should have paddled?" Cecily asks.

Miss Moore laughs. "In a manner of speaking, yes."

Ann stops drumming. "But it wouldn't matter whether she paddled or not. She's cursed.

No matter what she does, she'll die."

"And she'll die if she stays in the tower, too. Perhaps not for a long time, but she will die.

We all will," Miss Moore says softly.

Ann can't let it go. "But she has no choice. She can't win. They won't let her!" She leans

forward in her seat, nearly out of it, and I understand, we all do, that she's no longer

talking about the lady in the picture.

"Good heavens, Ann, it's just a silly poem," Felicity gibes, rolling her eyes. The acolytes

catch on and add their own cruel whispers.

"Shhh, that's enough," Miss Moore admonishes. "Yes, Ann, it's only a poem. Only a

picture."

Pippa is suddenly agitated. "But people can be cursed, can't they? They could have

something, an affliction, that's beyond their control. Couldn't they?"

My breath catches in my throat. A tingle starts in my fingertips. No. I won't be pulled

under. Begone.

"We all have our challenges to bear, Miss Cross. I suppose it's all in how we shoulder

them," Miss Moore says gently.

"Do you believe in curses, Miss Moore?" Felicity asks. It seems a dare.

I am empty. A void. I feel nothing, nothing, nothing. Mary Dowd or whoever you are,

please, please go away.

Miss Moore searches the wall behind us as if the answer might be hiding there among her

pastel watercolor still lifes. Red, ripe apples. Succulent grapes. Light-dappled oranges.

All of them slowly rotting in a bowl. "I believe…" She trails off. She seems lost. A breeze

blows through the open windows, overturning a cup of brushes. The tingling in my

fingers stops. I am safe for now. The breath I've been holding whooshes out in a rush.

Miss Moore rights the brushes."! believe… that this week we shall take a walk through

the woods and explore the old caves, where there are some truly astonishing primitive

drawings. They can tell you far more about art than I can."

The class erupts in cheers. A chance to get out of the classroom is joyous news indeed, a

sign that we have more privileges than the younger classes. But I've got a sense of

unease, remembering my own trip to the caves and the diary of Mary Dowd still in the

back of my wardobe.

"Well, it's far too beautiful a day to be stuck here in this classroom discussing doomed

damsels in boats. You may start your free period early, and if anyone asks, you are merely

observing the outside world for artistic inspiration. As for this," she says, scrutinizing her

sketch, "it needs something."

With a flourish, Miss Moore draws a neat mustache on the Lady of Shallot. "God is in the

details," she says.

Except for Cecily, who strikes me more and more as a secret goody-goody, we're giggling

over her boldness, happy to be naughty with her. Miss Moore's face comes to life with a

smile, and my unease slips away.

When I rush full-speed into my room to retrieve Mary Dowd's diary, I run headlong into

the back of Brigid, who is supervising the training of a new upstairs maid.

"I'm terribly sorry," I sputter with as much dignity as I can, considering that I'm flat on

the floor with my skirts up to my knees. Running into the broad Brigid is a bit like

flinging myself into the side of a ship. There's a ringing in my head and I fear I may go

deaf from the crushing force of her.

"Sorry? Aye, and you should be," Brigid says, yanking me to my feet and straightening

my hem to a modest level. The new maid turns away, but I can see her slender shoulders

bobbing from her stifled laughter.

I start to thank Brigid for helping me to my feet, but she's only just begun her tirade.

"Carrying on in that way, galloping like a stallion about to meet the gelder's knife! Now, I

ask you, is that any way for a proper lady to conduct 'erself? Hmm? Now wot would

Missus Nightwing say if she was to see you makin' such a spectacle o' yerself?"

"I am sorry." I look down at my feet, hoping this passes for contrition.

Brigid makes a clucking sound. "I'm glad you're sorry, then. Wots got you in such a rush,

then, hmmm? Mind you tell old Brigid the truth. After twenty-some-odd years 'ere I've

got keen eyes, I do."

"I forgot my book," I say, stepping quickly to my wardrobe. I grab my cape and slip the

diary inside.

"All that runnin' about, nearly killin' folk for a book," Brigid grumbles, as if it were she

and not me lying dazed on the floor a moment ago.

"Sorry to have troubled you. I'll just be off," I say, attempting to sail past her.

" 'Old on a minute. Let's be sure you're presentable first." Brigid takes my chin and tilts

my face toward the light to inspect it. Her cheeks go pale.

"Is something the matter?" I ask, wondering if I'm more seriously injured than I thought.

Brigid's backside may be formidable, but I don't think I could've sustained a bleeding

head wound from my battle with it.

Brigid drops my chin, backs away a bit, wiping her hands on her apron as if they're dirty.

"Nuffin. Just… your eyes is very green. That's all. Go on, now. You'd best catch up wit'

the others." And with that, she turns her attention to Molly, who is apparently using the

feather duster in the wrong way, and I am free to go about my business.