A Great and Terrible Beauty, Page 3

  And that’s what comes of small talk.

  Part of me wants to give Tom a swift kick for his arrogance. I’m afraid to say that another part of me is dying to know what men look for in a woman. My brother might be pompous, but he knows certain things that could prove useful to me.

  “I see,” I say in an offhand way as if I want to know what makes a nice garden. I am controlled. Courteous. Ladylike. “And what does make a proper lady?”

  He looks as if he should have a pipe in his mouth as he says, “A man wants a woman who will make life easy for him. She should be attractive, well groomed, knowledgeable in music, painting, and running a house, but above all, she should keep his name above scandal and never call attention to herself.”

  He must be joking. Give him a minute, and he’ll laugh, say it was just a lark, but his smug smile stays firmly in place. I am not about to take this insult in stride. “Mother was Father’s equal,” I say coolly. “He didn’t expect her to walk behind him like some pining imbecile.”

  Tom’s smile falls away. “Exactly. And look where it’s gotten us.” It’s quiet again. Outside the cab’s windows, London rolls by and Tom turns his head toward it. For the first time, I can see his pain, see it in the way he runs his fingers through his hair, over and over, and I understand what it costs him to hide it all. But I don’t know how to build a bridge across this awkward silence, so we ride on, watching everything, seeing little, saying nothing.

  “Gemma . . .” Tom’s voice breaks and he stops for a moment. He’s fighting whatever it is that’s boiling up inside him. “That day with Mother . . . why the devil did you run away? What were you thinking?”

  My voice is a whisper. “I don’t know.” For the truth, it’s very little comfort.

  “The illogic of women.”

  “Yes,” I say, not because I agree but because I want to give him something, anything. I say it because I want him to forgive me. And perhaps then I could begin to forgive myself. Perhaps.

  “Did you know that”—his jaw clenches on the word— “man they found murdered with her?”

  “No,” I whisper.

  “Sarita said you were hysterical when she and the police found you. Going on about some Indian boy and a vision of a . . . a thing of some sort.” He pauses, rubs his palms over the knees of his pants. He’s still not looking at me.

  My hands shake in my lap. I could tell him. I could tell him what I’ve kept locked tight inside. Right now, with that lock of hair falling in his eyes, he’s the brother I’ve missed, the one who once brought me stones from the sea, told me they were rajah’s jewels. I want to tell him that I’m afraid I’m going mad by degrees and that nothing seems entirely real to me anymore. I want to tell him about the vision, have him pat me on the head in that irritating way and dismiss it with a perfectly logical doctor’s explanation. I want to ask him if it’s possible that a girl can be born unlovable, or does she just become that way? I want to tell him everything and have him understand.

  Tom clears his throat. “What I mean to say is, did something happen to you? Did he . . . are you quite all right?”

  My words pull each other back down into a deep, dark silence. “You want to know if I’m still chaste.”

  “If you want to put it so plainly, yes.”

  Now I see that it was ridiculous of me to think he wanted to know what really happened. He’s only concerned that I haven’t shamed the family somehow. “Yes, I am, as you put it, quite all right.” I could laugh, it’s such a lie—I am most certainly not all right. But it works as I know it will. That’s what living in their world is—a big lie. An illusion where everyone looks the other way and pretends that nothing unpleasant exists at all, no goblins of the dark, no ghosts of the soul.

  Tom straightens his shoulders, relieved. “Right. Well, then.” The human moment has passed and he is all control again. “Gemma, Mother’s murder is a blight on this family. It would be scandalous if the true facts were known.” He stares at me. “Mother died of cholera,” he says emphatically, as if even he believes the lie now. “I know you disagree, but as your brother, I’m telling you that the less said, the better. It’s for your own protection.”

  He’s all fact and no feeling. It will serve him well as a doctor someday. I know that what he’s telling me is true, but I can’t help hating him for it. “Are you sure it’s my protection you’re worried about?”

  His jaw tightens again. “I’ll overlook that last comment. If you won’t think of me, of yourself, then think of Father. He’s not well, Gemma. You can see that. The circumstances of Mother’s death have undone him.” He fiddles with the cuffs on his shirt. “You may as well know that Father got into some very bad habits in India. Sharing the hookah with the Indians might have made him a popular businessman, one of them in their eyes, but it didn’t help his constitution much. He’s always been fond of his pleasures. His escapes.”

  Father sometimes came home late and spent from his day. I remembered Mother and the servants helping him to bed on more than one occasion. Still, it hurts to hear this. I hate Tom for telling me. “Then why do you keep getting him the laudanum?”

  “There’s nothing wrong with laudanum. It’s medicinal,” he sniffs.

  “In moderation . . .”

  “Father’s no addict. Not Father,” he says, as if he means to convince a jury. “He’ll be fine now that he’s back in England. Just remember what I’ve told you. Can you at least promise me that much? Please?”

  “Yes, fine,” I say, feeling dead inside. They don’t know what they’re in for at Spence, getting me, a ghost of a girl who’ll nod and smile and take her tea but who isn’t really here.

  The driver calls down to us. “Sir, we’ll be needin’ to pass through the East, if you want to draw the curtains.”

  “What does he mean?” I ask.

  “We have to go through the East End. Whitechapel? Oh, for heaven’s sake, the slums, Gemma,” he says, loosening the curtains on the sides of his windows to block out the poverty and filth.

  “I’ve seen slums in India,” I say, leaving my curtains in place. The carriage bumps its way along the cobblestones through grimy, narrow streets. Dozens of dirty, thin children clamber about, staring at us in our fine carriage. My heart sinks to see their bony, soot-smeared faces. Several women huddle together under a gaslight, sewing. It makes sense for them to use the city’s light and not waste their own precious candles for this thankless work. The smell in the streets—a mix of refuse, horse droppings, urine, and despair—is truly awful, and I’m afraid I might gag. Loud music and yelling spill out onto the street from a tavern. A drunken couple tumbles out after. The woman has hair the color of a sunset and a harsh, painted face. They’re arguing with our driver, holding us here.

  “What’s the matter now?” Tom raps against the hood of the carriage to spur the driver on. But the lady is really giving the driver what for. We might be here all night. The drunken man leers at me, winks, makes an extremely rude gesture involving his index fingers.

  Disgusted, I turn away and look down an empty alley. Tom’s leaning out his window. I hear him, condescending and impatient, trying to reason with the couple in the street. But something’s gone wrong. His voice grows muffled, like sounds heard through a shell held to the ear. And then all I can hear is my blood quickening, thumping hard against my veins. A tremendous pressure seizes me, knocking the air from my lungs.

  It’s happening again.

  I want to cry out to Tom, but I can’t, and then I’m under, falling through that tunnel of color and light again as the alley bends and flickers. And just as quickly, I’m floating out of the carriage, stepping lightly into the darkened alley with its shimmering edges. There’s a small girl of eight or so sitting in the straw-covered dirt, playing with a rag of a doll. Her face is dirty, but otherwise, she seems out of place here, in her pink hair ribbon and starched white pinafore that’s a size too big for her. She sings a snippet of song, something I recognize faintly as being an ol
d English folk tune. When I approach she looks up.

  “Isn’t my dolly lovely?”

  “You can see me?” I ask.

  She nods and goes back to combing her filthy fingers through the doll’s hair. “She’s looking for you.”

  “Who?”

  “Mary.”

  “Mary? Mary who?”

  “She sent me to find you. But we have to be careful. It’s looking for you, too.”

  The air shifts, bringing a damp chill with it. I’m shaking uncontrollably. “Who are you?”

  Behind the little girl, I sense movement in the murky dark. I blink to clear my eyes but it’s no trick—the shadows are moving. Quick as liquid silver the dark rises and takes its hideous shape, the gleaming bone of its skeletal face, the hollow, black holes where eyes should be. The hair a tangle of snakes. The mouth opens and the rasping moan escapes. “Come to us, my pretty, pretty . . .”

  “Run.” The word is a choked whisper on my tongue. The thing is growing, slithering ever closer. The howls and moans inside it making every cell in my body go ice-cold. A scream inches its way up my throat. If I let it out, I’ll never stop.

  Heart pounding hard against my ribs, I say again, stronger, “Run!”

  The thing hesitates, pulls back. It sniffs at the air, as if tracking a scent. The little girl turns her flat brown eyes to me. “Too late,” she says, just as the creature turns its unseeing eyes toward me. The decaying lips spread apart, revealing teeth like spikes. Dear God, the thing is grinning at me. It opens wide that horrible mouth and screeches—a sound that loosens my tongue at last.

  “No!” In an instant I’m back inside the carriage and leaning out the window, yelling at the couple. “Get out of the bloody way—now!” I shout, snapping at the horse’s rump with my shawl. The mare whinnies and lurches, sending the couple rushing for the safety of the tavern.

  The driver steadies the horse as Tom pulls me down into my seat. “Gemma! Whatever has possessed you?”

  “I . . .” In the alley, I look for the thing and don’t find it. It’s just an alley, with dull light and several dirty children trying to steal a hat from a smaller boy, their laughter bouncing off stables and crumbling hovels. The scene passes behind us into the night.

  “I say, Gemma, are you all right?” Tom is truly concerned.

  I’m going mad, Tom. Help me.

  “I was simply in a hurry.” The sound coming out of my mouth is a cross between a laugh and a howl, like the sound a madwoman would make.

  Tom eyes me as if I’m some rare disease he’s helpless to treat. “For pity’s sake! Get hold of yourself. And please try to watch your language at Spence. I don’t want to have to collect you only hours after I’ve deposited you there.”

  “Yes, Tom,” I say as the carriage jostles back to life on the cobblestones, leading us away from London and shadows.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  “THERE’S THE SCHOOL NOW, SIR,” THE DRIVER SHOUTS.

  We’ve been riding for an hour across rolling hills dotted with trees. The sun has set, the sky settling into that hazy blue of twilight. When I look out my window, I can’t see anything but a canopy of branches overhead, and through the lacework of leaves, there’s the moon, ripe as a melon. I’m starting to think that our driver must be imagining things, too, but we crest a hill and Spence comes into glorious view.

  I had expected some sweet little cottage estate, the kind written about in halfpenny papers where rosy-cheeked young girls play lawn tennis on tidy green fields. There is nothing cozy about Spence. The place is enormous, a madman’s forgotten castle with great, fat turrets and thin, pointy spires. It would take a girl a year just to visit every room inside, no doubt.

  “Whoa!” The driver stops short. There’s someone in the road.

  “Who goes there?” A woman comes around to my side of the carriage and peers in. An old Gypsy woman. A richly embroidered scarf is wrapped tightly about her head and her jewelry is pure gold, but otherwise, she is disheveled.

  “What now?” Tom sighs.

  I poke my head out. When the moonlight catches my face, the Gypsy woman’s face softens. “Oh, but it’s you. You’ve come back to me.”

  “I’m sorry, madam. You must have mistaken me for someone else.”

  “Oh, but where is Carolina? Where is she? Did you take her?” She starts to moan softly.

  “Come on now, missus, let us by,” the driver calls. “There’s a good lady.”

  With a snap of the reins, the carriage jostles forward again as the old woman calls after us.

  “Mother Elena sees everything. She knows your heart! She knows!”

  “Good lord, they’ve got their own hermit,” Tom sneers. “How very fashionable.”

  Tom may laugh but I can’t wait to get out of the carriage and the dark.

  The horse draws us under the stone archway and through gates that open onto lovely grounds. I can just make out a wonderful green field, perfect for playing lawn tennis or croquet, and what looks like lush, overgrown gardens. A little farther out lies a grove of great trees, thick as a forest. Beyond the trees sits a chapel perched on a hill. The whole picture looks as if it’s been standing this way for centuries, untouched.

  The carriage bounces up the hill that leads to Spence’s front doors. I arch my neck out the window to take in the full, massive scope of the building. There’s something jutting up from the roof. It’s hard to make it out in the fading light. The moon shifts from under a bank of clouds and I see them clearly: gargoyles. Moonlight ripples over the roof, illuminating bits and pieces—a sliver of sharp tooth, a leering mouth, snarling eyes.

  Welcome to finishing school, Gemma. Learn to embroider, serve tea, curtsy. Oh, and by the way, you might be demolished in the night by a hideous winged creature from the roof.

  The carriage jangles to a stop. My trunk is placed on the great stone steps outside the large wooden doors. Tom raps with the great brass knocker, which is roughly the size of my head. While we wait, he can’t resist giving his last bit of brotherly advice.

  “Now, it is very important that you conduct yourself in a manner befitting your station while at Spence. It’s fine to be kind to the lesser girls, but remember that they are not your equals.”

  Station. Lesser girls. Not your equals. It’s a laugh, really. After all, I’m the unnatural one responsible for her mother’s murder, the one who sees visions. I pretend to freshen my hat in the brass reflection of the knocker. Any sense of foreboding I feel will probably disappear the minute the door opens and some kindly housekeeper takes me in with a warm embrace and an open smile.

  Right. Give the door another good, solid bang to show I’m a good, solid girl, the kind every eerie boarding school would love to claim as its own. The heavy oak doors open, revealing a craggy-faced, thick-waisted bulwark of a housekeeper with all the warmth of Wales in January. She glares at me, wiping her hands on her starched white apron.

  “You must be Miss Doyle. We expected you a half hour ago. You’ve kept the headmistress waiting. Come on. Follow me.”

  The housekeeper bids us wait for a moment in a large, poorly lit parlor filled with dusty books and withering ferns. There is a fire going. It spits and hisses as it devours the dry wood. Laughter floats in through the open double doors and in a moment, I see several younger girls in white pinafores shuffling through the hall. One peeks in, sees me, and goes on as if I’m nothing more than a piece of furniture. But in a moment she’s back with some of the others. They swoon over Tom, who preens for them, bowing, which sets them to blushing and giggling.

  God help us all.

  I’m afraid I may have to take the fireplace poker to my brother to silence this spectacle. Fortunately, I’m spared from any murderous impulses. The humorless house-keeper is back. It’s time for Tom and me to make our goodbyes, which consist mainly of the two of us staring at the carpet.

  “Well, then. I believe I’ll see you next month on Assembly Day with the other families.”

>   “Yes, I suppose so.”

  “Make us proud, Gemma,” he says at last. No sentimental reassurances—I love you; it’s all going to be just fine, you’ll see. He smiles once again for the adoring crowd of girls still hiding in the hallway, and then he’s gone. I am alone.

  “This way, miss, if you please,” the housekeeper says. I follow her out to a huge, open foyer where an incredible double staircase sits. The stairs branch off both left and right. A bit of breeze from an open window shakes the crystals of a chandelier above me. It’s dazzling. Gobs of exquisite crystals strung along metal crafted into elaborate snakes.

  “Watch yer step, miss,” the housekeeper advises. “Stairs is steep.”

  The stairs rope up and around for what seems like miles. Over the banister, I can see the black-and-white marble tiles making diamond patterns on the floor far below. A paint-ing of a silver-haired woman in a dress that would have been the height of fashion some twenty years ago greets us at the top of the stairs.

  “That’s Missus Spence,” the housekeeper informs me.

  “Oh,” I say. “Lovely.” The portrait is enormous—it’s like having the eye of God watch over you.

  We move on, down a long corridor to a set of thick double doors. The housekeeper knocks with her meaty fist, waits. A voice answers from the other side of the doors, “Come in,” and I’m ushered into a room with dark green wallpaper in a peacock feather pattern. A somewhat heavyset woman with piles of brown hair going gray sits at a large desk, a pair of wire-rimmed spectacles on her nose.

  “That will be all, Brigid,” she says, dismissing the warm and embracing housekeeper. The headmistress goes back to finishing her correspondence, while I stand on the Persian rug, pretending I’m absolutely fascinated by a figurine of a little German maid carrying buckets of milk on her shoulders. What I really want to do is turn around and bolt for the door.