~*~
“Do you think this is pretty, Violet?”
I nodded enthusiastically at the fabric Hannah extended to me.
She frowned. “Don’t lie, sister. Besides, I want this to be for you.”
I smiled. “Actually, I do like it. It’s the prettiest gray. It’s not really gray, is it? It’s almost silver, like the breast of a pigeon.”
“Nice description. That was lovely. You should be writer, Vi. And yes, it’s a great blend, this fabric. It’s a silk blend, so it’s not as expensive as pure silk. It doesn’t quite have the sheen of pure silk, but still, it’s lovely, hmm? You can see in the sheen, an almost pearly shine of peachy-pink, don’t you think?”
“Yes, yes I do. Now, that was a lovely description. Perhaps we both should be writers.”
My sister’s grin vanished. Hannah fingered the gray fabric then looked up at me, scowling. “Don’t look at me like that.”
“Like what? I was just worried I’d said something to offend you.”
Hannah shook her head. “I hate it that you all keep looking at me like I’m about to break.”
I left my mouth open, gauging what my expression was and how to change it. “I—I don’t think you’re about to break.”
She studied my eyes. “No, you don’t. You think I’m already broken.”
“No. Never.”
She stepped closer to me, clutching the silver cloth. “Well, then you’re the only one. I know there’s not one man who will marry me now. I know I’ll never have the children I wanted. I know my life as I knew it is over. I am broken. I am only a burden to everyone from here on out.”
“No. No, Hannah,” I cried. I tried to whisper, but the tears, I didn’t try to cover. “That’s not true. There are good men out there who would die to marry such a beautiful, talented woman—”
“I’m tainted now. I see it on everyone’s faces.”
“No.” I struggled with my voice. It sounded thick and warbled, but I fought through to say, “You’re not a burden nor will you ever be a burden to me. You’re all I have in this life.”
“You have Mathew.”
I looked around the store while wiping away my tears. Mother and Mrs. Jones were a few yards away, talking about an orange swath of cloth. I swallowed and lowered my voice. “I’d give him up. I’d give it all up for you. Say the word, and we can venture to Paris where you can become a world-renown dressmaker. Or—or—Africa, I’ve heard the fields somewhere around Ethiopia have these five foot tall purple flowers. We could live in the purple flowers. Or Egypt, we could see the pyramids. We have the whole world, Hannah. We could storm this world and take it by force, if we wanted.” I was clumsily jesting, smiling up into my sister’s forlorn face.
“And go somewhere where no one would know my name or that I was . . .” Hannah looked deeply into the gray fabric. Her shoulders slumped and one lone tear trekked down her recently hollowed cheek.
“Yes.” I clutched one of her hands. “We could go anywhere you’d want.”
She sniffed and smiled slightly as she looked back at me. “Is there a reason you picked Paris first?”
“For dress making, fashion. ‘Tis the city of fashion, I assumed. But I don’t know. Is there another place where a dress maker could make money?”
Hannah’s blonde eyebrows drew together tightly. “For fashion? That’s why you picked Paris? Not because of Monsieur Beaumont?”
“He lives in Marseille, not Paris.” I grimaced and swallowed. I shouldn’t have revealed so much.
“Violet . . .” Her face changed dramatically. She had been so bitterly sad and angry, but now she looked at me with such fierce affection. “Will you do me a favor?”
“Of course.”
“There will be a time, soon, when . . . No. How do I say it?” Her eyebrows puckered. “You have always been so sound with reasoning. I never envied you for it. I’m sorry, but I pitied you instead—how you were always the most pragmatic person I’d ever known.” She checked around the store, as if to assure herself no one listened. “You love him, don’t you? You’re in love with Monsieur Beaumont.”
I began to shake my head, but I stopped. Heat blazed my cheeks, and I felt it drop down into my chest. I nodded.
“Do you love Mathew too?”
I nodded again. “I’m an evil woman. I don’t know what’s wrong with me to—”
“You aren’t evil, sissy. You’re human, after all. It makes me like you all the more, honestly. You’ve been like the—what are they called?—the Brahmin? Yes? Yes, like those people, almost inhuman with how you carried on after Da passed away—doing the work of three men on the farm, still spinning for Mother, and your only vice was reading your books until the early morning hours, going through candles like they were kindling. Not much of a vice, if you ask me. You weren’t even reading any romances. Anyway, so you fell in love with a couple of wonderful men. What of it? Just—this is what I want of you—I want you to listen to your heart. Stop being so practical and start living your life with your heart. I know that may sound like especially poor advice, coming from me . . .”
“I would never think that,” I blubbered.
Hannah smiled while tilting her head toward me. “I’m sure everyone else thinks I’m such an idiot, wandering off in the woods in the middle of the night to convince a man to marry me. But I have to tell you, it wasn’t my heart that led me that night. No, it was . . . impetuosity. That letter he’d written about reconsidering our marriage, well, I panicked after receiving it, and promised to do his bidding, which included meeting him secretly. I knew better, my heart was telling me not to go, but I so wanted to be married. Damn the consequences, I was getting married. Now, I’m not fit to be married.”
“No!”
“Yes!”
“There are wonderful men out there,” I pleaded. “I know it. Some men wouldn’t care about . . . Some man out there would take one look at you and only think to himself what a wonderful, bright, and funny woman you are.”
Hannah let a soft ironic smile capture her face. “I always knew you were a dreamer, underneath all the responsibility which you wear so nobly, underneath the breeches and the mud—under all of that is a girl who dreams of better days, of Fae people, and of men who wouldn’t care that I’ve been soiled.”
I choked and gripped her hand firmly. “You are not soiled. God damn it!”
Bless me, she actually laughed then. “We do have to do something about the swearing though.”
I knew then that I’d have to figure out, even if it was constantly at my own expense, how to get my sister laughing for the rest of her life.