CHAPTER SEVENTY-ONE
* * *
THE MORNING WE ARE TO LEAVE IS AS BEAUTIFUL A SPRING day as I’ve seen.
When the time for goodbyes comes at last, Felicity, Ann, and I stand uncertainly on the front lawn, our eyes searching for the dust on the path that signals the coach’s arrival. Mrs. Nightwing flips down the collar of Ann’s coat, checks to be certain that my hat is pinned securely and Felicity’s case is latched properly.
I feel none of it. I am numb.
“Well,” Mrs. Nightwing says for about the eighteenth time in a half hour. “Have you enough handkerchiefs? A lady can never have too many handkerchiefs.”
She will be Nightwing, regardless of what horrors occur, and just now, I am glad of her strength, from wherever it springs.
“Yes, thank you, Mrs. Nightwing,” Ann says.
“Ah, good, good.”
Felicity has given Ann her garnet earbobs. I’ve given her the ivory elephant I brought with me from India.
“We shall read of your admirers in the papers,” Felicity says.
“I’m only one of the merry maidens,” Ann reminds us. “There are other girls.”
“Yes, well. Each of us must start somewhere.” Mrs. Nightwing tuts.
“I’ve written to my cousins and told them not to expect me back,” Ann says. “They were awfully angry.”
“As soon as you’ve become a sensation on the London stage, they’ll be clamoring for tickets and telling everyone they know you,” Felicity assures her, and Ann smiles. Felicity turns to me. “I suppose the next time we meet, we shall be proper ladies.”
“I suppose so,” I reply.
And there’s nothing more to say.
A cry goes up from the younger girls crowded on the lawn. The carriage is coming. They nearly trample each other to be the first in with the news.
“Enough,” Felicity grouses, and slides into the carriage away from the throng.
Ann’s trunk is secured with ropes. We embrace and do not let go for the longest time. At last, she climbs the steps into the carriage for the trip to the train and London and then the Gaiety Theatre. “Goodbye,” she calls, waving from the carriage’s open window. “Till tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow!”
I raise my hand in a half wave, and she nods, and we let that be enough goodbye for now.
Within a few hours, I’ll be back in London at my grandmother’s house, preparing for the dizzying whirl of balls and parties that comprise the social season. Come Saturday, I shall curtsy before my Queen and make my debut in society while my family and friends look on. There will be supper and dancing. I shall wear a beautiful white dress and ostrich plumes in my hair.
And I couldn’t care less.
* * *
CHAPTER SEVENTY-TWO
* * *
THE CARRIAGE COMES TO CARRY US TO SAINT JAMES’S Palace. Even our housekeeper cannot hide her excitement this evening. For once, she looks at me instead of around me. “You look quite beautiful, miss.”
“Thank you,” I say.
The seamstress is just putting the finishing touches on my dress. My hair is piled high upon my head and crowned with a tiara and three ostrich feathers. I have long white gloves that reach the tops of my arms. And Father has presented me with my first real diamonds—in a delicate necklace that shimmers against my skin like dewdrops. “Lovely, lovely,” Grandmama pronounces until she is presented with the bill. Then her eyes grow large. “Why on earth did I agree to those roses and beads? I must have been out of my mind.”
Tom gives me a peck on the cheek. “You look wonderful, Gem. Are you ready to take that long walk?”
I nod. “I think so. I hope so.” My stomach flips.
Father offers me his arm. He is very frail, but charming. “Miss Gemma Doyle of Belgravia, I presume?”
“Yes,” I say, laying my hand upon his, my arm at the proper angle to my body as I’ve been taught. “If you say so.”
We wait in the procession with the other girls and their fathers. We’re all as nervous as new chicks. This one checks to be certain her train is not offensively long. That one holds so tightly to her father’s arm I fear he shall lose the use of it. I do not see Felicity yet but I wish I did. We strain our necks for an early glimpse of the Queen on her throne. My heart is beating so very fast. Steady, Gemma, steady. Breathe in.
We move forward by excruciating inches, the courtier calling the name of each girl in the procession. One girl wobbles slightly, and word snakes back through the line in terrified whispers. No one wishes to be singled out.
“Courage,” Father says with a kiss, and I wait my turn to be alone in the chamber of Saint James’s Palace. The doors are opened. Down at the end of a very long red carpet sits the most important woman in the world, Her Majesty, Queen Victoria. She is rather stern in her black silks and white lace. But her crown sparkles so that I cannot look away. I am to be presented to Queen Victoria. I shall proceed as a girl and return as a woman. Such is the power of this ceremony.
I feel I shall faint. Oh, I shall be ill. Stuff and nonsense, Gemma. You’ve faced worse. Stand tall. Back straight, chin out. She is but a woman. Indeed she is—a woman who happens to be Queen and who holds the entirety of my future in her wizened hands. I shall be ill. I know it. I shall fall upon my face and live the rest of my days, disgraced and odd, in a hermitage in the south of England, accompanied by fourteen cats of varying size and color. And when I venture out in my old age, I shall still hear people whisper, “There she goes…the one who fell….”
The courtier calls my name, loud and strong: “Miss Gemma Doyle!”
The longest walk of my life is under way. I hold my breath as I travel the stretch of carpet, which seems to lengthen with each step. Her Majesty is a solemn monument of flesh and blood in the distance. She is so very like her portraits that it is startling. At last, I reach her. It is the moment I have both wanted and feared. With as much grace as I can muster, I lower myself like a soufflé falling in upon itself. I bow low to my Queen. I do not dare breathe. And then I feel her tap upon my shoulder firmly, compelling me to rise. I back slowly from her presence and take my place among the other girls who have just become women.
I have done what they expected of me. I have curtsied for my Queen and made my debut. This is what I have anticipated eagerly for years. So why do I feel so unsatisfied? Everyone is merry. They haven’t a care in the world. And perhaps that is it. How terrible it is to have no cares, no longings. I do not fit. I feel too deeply and want too much. As cages go, it is a gilded one, but I shall not live well in it or any cage, for that matter.
Lord Denby is suddenly at my side. “Congratulations,” he says. “On your debut and on that other matter. I understand from Fowlson that you were quite magnificent.”
“Thank you,” I say, sipping my first glass of champagne. The bubbles tickle my nose.
Lord Denby lowers his voice. “I also understand that you gave the magic back to the land, that it exists as a resource for all.”
“That is true.”
“How can you be certain that this is the right course, that they won’t misuse it in the end?” he asks.
“I can’t,” I answer.
His horrified expression is quickly replaced by a smug one. “Why don’t you let me help you with all that, then? We could be partners in this—you and I, together?”
I hand him the half-empty glass. “No. You do not understand true partnership, sir. And so we shall not be friends, Lord Denby. On that one point, I am certain.”
“I should like to dance with my sister, if you please, Lord Denby,” Tom says. His smile is bright but his eyes are steely.
“Of course, old chap. There’s a good man,” Lord Denby says, and drinks the last of my champagne, which is as much of me as he shall ever have.
“Are you all right? What an insufferable ass,” Tom says as we take a turn on the dance floor. “To think I once admired him.”
“I did try to warn you,” I say.
“Will this be one of those ghastly ‘I told you so’ moments?”
“No,” I promise. “And have you met your future wife yet?”
Tom waggles his eyebrows. “I’ve met quite a few promising candidates for the position of Mrs. Thomas Doyle. Of course, they will have to find me charming and utterly irresistible. I don’t suppose you could aid me in that pursuit with a little bit of…?”
“I’m afraid not,” I say. “You’ll have to take your chances.”
He twirls me a bit hard. “You’re no fun at all, Gemma.”
Later in the evening, I approach my father before he can slip off with the other men for brandy. “Father, I should like to have a word, if you please. Privately.”
For a moment, he regards me warily, but then his apprehension seems to be forgotten. He does not remember what occurred the last time we had such a talk, the night of Spence’s party. I did not need magic to take that memory from him; he has denied it to himself.
We duck into a musty sitting room whose draperies smell of ancient cigar smoke. There are many things we could speak truth of just now: his declining health, the battles I have seen, the friends I have lost. But we shan’t speak of them. It will never be any more than this, and I suppose the only difference now is that I know that. I must pick my battles, and this is the one I have chosen.
“Father,” I begin, my voice quavering. “I ask only that you hear me out.”
“That is an ominous tone,” he says with a wink, trying to lighten the mood. How easy it would be to forget everything I mean to say. Strength, Gemma.
“I am most grateful for this evening. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome, my dear….”
“Yes, thank you…but I shan’t attend any other parties. I don’t wish to continue my season.”
Father’s brows knit together in consternation. “Indeed? And why not? Haven’t you been given the best of everything?”
“Yes, and I am most grateful for it,” I say, heart hammering against my ribs.
“Then what is this nonsense?”
“I know. It makes no sense. I’m only just coming to understand it myself.”
“Then perhaps we should discuss it another day.” He starts to rise. Once he does, the conversation will end. There will not be another day. I know this. I know him.
I put my arm on his. “Please, Papa. You said you would hear me out.”
Reluctantly, he sits, but already he has lost interest. He fidgets with his watch. I have little time to make my case. I could sit at his feet as I did when I was a child, let him stroke my hair. Once, it was comforting for us both. But this is not a time for comfort, and I am no longer a child. I take the chair opposite him.
“What I mean to say is, I don’t imagine this life is for me. Parties and endless balls and gossip. I don’t wish to spend my days making myself small enough to fit into such a narrow world. I cannot speak with their bit in my mouth.”
“You’ve quite a dim view of them.”
“I mean no harm.”
Father sighs, irritated. “I don’t understand.”
A door is opened. Music and chatter from the dance intrude on our silence until the door is mercifully closed again, and the party is no more than a dim murmur on the other side. Tears prick at my eyes. I swallow hard.
“I am not asking you to understand, Papa. I’m asking for you to accept.”
“Accept what?”
Me. Accept me, Papa. “My decision to live my own life as I see fit.”
It is so quiet that I suddenly wish I could take it back. Sorry, it was only a terrible joke. I should like a new dress, please.
Father clears his throat. “That is not as easy as you make it sound.”
“I know it. I know I shall make beastly mistakes, Father—”
“The world does not forgive mistakes so quickly, my girl.” He sounds bitter and sad.
“Then if the world will not forgive me,” I say softly, “I shall have to learn to forgive myself.”
He nods in understanding.
“And how will you marry? Or do you intend to marry?”
I think of Kartik, and tears threaten. “I shall meet someone one day, as Mother found you.”
“You are so very much like her,” he says, and for once, I do not wince.
He rises and paces the room, hands behind his back. I do not know what will happen. Will he grant my wish? Will he tell me I am foolish and impossible and sentence me back to the ballroom, with its whirl of satins and fans? Is that where I belong? Will I regret this tomorrow? Father stands before a large portrait of a rather grim woman. She sits, hands in her lap, an unreadable expression upon her face, as if she expects nothing and will likely get it.
“Did I ever tell you the story of that tiger?” he asks.
“Yes, Father. You did.”
“No, I didn’t tell you everything,” he says. “I did not tell you about the day I shot the tiger.”
I remember the moment in his room after the morphine. I thought it nothing more than ramblings at the time. This isn’t the story I know, and I am afraid of this new story. He doesn’t wait for my answer. He means to tell it. He has heard me; now I shall hear him.
“The tiger had gone. He did not come around again. But I was a man possessed. The tiger had come too close, you see. I no longer felt safe. I hired the best tracker in Bombay. We hunted for days, tracking the tiger to the mountains there. We found him taking water from a small watering hole. He looked up but he did not charge. He took no notice of us at all but continued to drink. ‘Sahib, let us go,’ the boy said. ‘This tiger means you no harm.’ He was right, of course. But we had come all that way. The gun was in my hand. The tiger was before us. I took aim and shot it dead on the spot. I sold the tiger’s skin for a fortune to a man in Bombay, and he called me brave for it. But it was not courage that brought me to that; it was fear.”
He drums his fingers on the mantel before the grim-faced portrait. “I could not live with the threat of it. I could not live with the knowledge that the tiger was out there, roaming free. But you,” he says, smiling with a mix of sadness and pride, “you faced the tiger and survived.”
He coughs several times, his chest heaving with the effort. He pulls a handkerchief from his pocket and wipes his mouth quickly, then hides the linen safely in his pocket again so that I cannot see the stain that is surely there. “The time has come for me to face my tiger, to look him in the eye and see which of us survives. I shall return to India. Your future is yours to shape. I shall prepare your grandmother for the scandal of it.”
“Thank you, Papa.”
“Yes, well,” he says. “And now, if you don’t mind, I should like to dance with my daughter on the occasion of her debut.”
He offers his arm and I take it. “I should like that very much.”
We fall into the great continuing circle of dancers. Some leave the floor, tired but giddy; others have only just arrived. They are eager to wear their new status as ladies, to be paraded about and lauded until they see themselves with new eyes. The fathers beam at their daughters, thinking them perfect flowers in need of their protection, while the mothers watch from the margins, certain this moment is their doing. We create the illusions we need to go on. And one day, when they no longer dazzle or comfort, we tear them down, brick by glittering brick, until we are left with nothing but the bright light of honesty. The light is liberating. Necessary. Terrifying. We stand naked and emptied before it. And when it is too much for our eyes to take, we build a new illusion to shield us from its relentless truth.
But the girls! Their eyes glow with the fever dream of all they might become. They tell themselves this is the beginning of everything. And who am I to say it isn’t?
“Gemma! Gemma!” Felicity is pushing through the crowd, her chagrined chaperone struggling to keep up as the dowagers look on, disapprovingly. It is only an hour into her debut and already she has them spinning like tops. And for the first time in days, I smile
.
“Gemma,” Felicity says, catching up to me. Her words tumble over each other in a torrent of excitement: “You look beautiful! How do you like my dress? Elizabeth tottered a bit—did you see it? The Queen was magnificent, wasn’t she? I was terrified. Were you?”
“Utterly,” I say. “I thought I might faint after all.”
“Did you receive Ann’s cable?” Felicity asks.
I received a lovely telegram from Ann this very morning, wishing me well. It read:
REHEARSALS ARE SPLENDID STOP THE GAIETY IS THRILLING STOP BEST OF LUCK WITH YOUR CURTSY STOP YOURS ANN BRADSHAW
“Yes,” I say. “She must have spent her future wages on it.”
“When the season ends, I am to accompany my mother and Polly to Paris, then stay on.”
“What of Horace Markham?” I ask warily.
“Well,” she begins, “I went to him. By myself. And told him I didn’t love him and didn’t wish to marry him and that I would make a perfect fishmonger of a wife. And do you know what he said?”
I shake my head.
Her eyes widen. “He said he didn’t want to marry me, either. Can you imagine? I was rather wounded.”
I laugh a bit, the first laugh I’ve had. Feels odd and near a cry.
“Paris, then. What will you do there?”
“Really, Gemma,” she says as if I don’t know anything and never will. “It is where all the bohemians live. Now that I’ve my inheritance, I might take up painting and live in a garret. Or perhaps I shall become an artist’s model,” she says, delighting in how scandalous this sounds. Her voice drops to a whisper. “I’ve heard there are others like me there. Perhaps I will love again.”
“You’ll be the toast of Paris,” I say.
She grins widely. “Do come with us! We could have such a merry time together!”
“I think I should like to go to America,” I answer, the plan forming with my words. “To New York.”