Most of my pity was reserved for Diana, whose mother scolded her daily for poking along so head-bent she was bound to grow round-shouldered, and perhaps Diana ought to use the backboard. As for being short-sighted, well, nothing in the house had ever changed position an inch, so there was no need to peer like a mole. Grandmother Kittredge was shortsighted, but her spine was as straight as a ramrod: nag, nag, nag.
When Aurélie was not in the schoolroom, Diana lurked in the library as much as she could. Aurélie poured all her free time into music, books, talk with Diana, and practice with James.
James’s eighteenth birthday had come and gone, nothing being said about buying him a cornetcy and shipping him off to the army, except vague words about maybe when he turned twenty. He and Aurélie continued their practice. She had gradually grown into James’s old clothes, which were shabby from frequent secret washings in the cows’ rain barrel.
Then came the day in early January when James showed up at the barn, plainly upset.
Aurélie had been warming up by lunging at the target they’d painted on a post. She turned, smiling a welcome, but her smile vanished when she saw him in the doorway. “James? What is amiss?”
His face flooded with color, which then ebbed as he perched on a barrel. “I—I hardly know what to say. I hate to tell you this. Peaching on my own mother. But I think you should know.”
Aurélie set aside her weapon and pressed her hands to her chin. “Oh, is it bad news from Jamaica?”
“That’s just it. I—you know, the letter you wrote, and put on the tray for the post? Well, I went back into the book room, for I forgot my—oh, Aurélie, I’d give the world not to be the one to tell you, for it’ll overset you. It did me. But my mother didn’t see me enter, and, well, the truth of it is, I saw her put your letter into the fire.”
“My letter?”
A nod.
“Into the fire? Was it misspelt? Was the direction writ incorrectly?” Aurélie asked, her voice higher on each question.
He sighed. “She didn’t even open it. She picked it up off the tray, and cast it into the flames without so much as a by-your-leave.” He bent his head, struggled, then said, “It was…it had the manner of habit. As though she’s done it before.”
“All my letters? Into the fire?” Tears welled and slowly dripped down her cheeks. “So that’s why I’ve had no answer. How can I write to my mother?” she whispered, and made a visible effort to get control. “I must write to her. I will write. How can I get to the postmaster?”
“I’ll ride a letter over,” James said immediately, then he looked perplexed. “But I’m puzzled what to do when your mother writes back, for I must give our direction, and you know that Mother sorts the post each morning. I think she reads it all, too, for the seals are always broken.”
“Can we have Maman direct a letter to one of your friends?”
“I could rely upon my friend Tom Badgerton, say, or George Kidwell, but Aurélie, if post arrives at their houses but directed to you, it’d cause talk all over the neighborhood before you could wink an eye.”
Aurélie clasped her thin hands, then flung them apart. “Could I have them addressed to a false name? I could use René!”
“That would cause even more talk,” James said. “The letters would still have to be fetched.”
Aurélie took a deep, unsteady breath. “Do you think Aunt Kittredge also burned any letters to me?”
James looked away, obviously acutely uncomfortable. “My mother once said that the sooner you understood your home to be here, the happier you would be. And then, you know, a letter might have had bad news and overset you.”
“I would have been equal to it,” she responded tearfully. “I don’t know how they are. We girls are not permitted to look at the newspaper, for Aunt Kittredge says it’s full of things unfit to be seen, except if you’re a man.”
“There isn’t much about Jamaica in the newspapers, at least so I understand. You know I’m not much one for reading. My father talked about a peace a year or two back. Something about rebellious slaves, and the governor, and the military commander, I forget his name.” James now looked resolute. “But I’ll begin looking out news, how’s that?”
One step, two, and his arms came around her, gently. Awkwardly. The gesture melted the last of her self-control, and she began to weep into his bony shoulder. He tightened his grip. She clung to him.
And though I’d swear he had no designs, and she hadn’t shown the least sign of boy-interest, that hug seemed to give him courage and wake her up to some new ideas.
She gave a hiccough. Stepped back a little. Looked up. He leaned down, kissed her eyelids…and before either of them took another breath, they were lip-locked like—well, like teenagers.
THIRTEEN
I HAD TOTALLY NOT FORESEEN that.
They sprang apart, looking around wildly, then he studied the ox harness hanging on its peg as if his future lay written there, and she pressed her fingers to her lips, horrified. But she wasn’t running out the door.
I’ll cut out the Romeo and Juliet conversation that ensued. It took them forever to fumble their way through the tangle of oh-nos, and what-ifs, and though they were both certain that they would be cast into the outer darkness if his parents found out, I was thinking, Could this be why the parents have been dragging their feet about sending James off to the army? Could it be they never intended letting Aurélie’s dowry marry out of the family? Because when I considered it, they couldn’t not know about the hours the two spent side by side shooting in sight of the farm workers, though I was fairly certain they didn’t know about the trousers and fencing practice in the barn.
Romeo and Juliet finally remembered the time after interminable professions or love, honor, and fear. Aurélie ran upstairs to the loft to change back into her respectable girl clothes as James stood guard as if expecting a six-headed hydra. Then they slunk out opposite doors of the barn, looking around so guiltily that anyone who saw them would instantly have wondered what was going on.
When Aurélie got back to the house, she came straight to the mirror. “Did you see?” she said breathlessly.
“Yes,” I said. “I can’t help seeing what you see when you are excited.”
“Are we wicked?” she asked with sorrow.
No more wicked than any other normal teenager, I thought, but this was a different age. “Just keep it to kissing,” I said. “Any more will cause big trouble.”
She blushed deeply and, for the first time, I wondered if anyone had ever given her the Facts of Life talk before she left Jamaica, because Aunt Kittredge certainly hadn’t. The girls were scolded if they even mentioned the word beaux, and lectured on ladylike behavior and pure thoughts. Aurélie hastened off in embarrassment, and I remembered that my presence made me the perfect deterrent.
A teenage crush wasn’t going to hurt anyone, I thought. They’d fall out of their purple passion as fast as they’d fallen into it.
On a bright day some weeks later, Cassandra appeared triumphantly in the schoolroom with two magazines in hand. “Mama subscribed to the Gallery of Fashion! We may each order a gown to be made up by Miss Tolbert,” she declared, naming the local seamstress. “We are not going to our first assembly looking like a pair of country mice in gowns we made ourselves.”
Aurélie took the magazine she was handed, asking, “Is James to attend with us?”
“James?” Cassandra repeated, as if Aurélie had declared that the sky was yellow. “What for? He refuses to learn dancing.” She went back to paging through her magazine, without seeing the tell-tale blush under Aurélie’s skin. “Just as I thought! The waist rises higher every season. And hair is dressed in Psyche knots, still. When will they give over this taste for everything Grecian?”
Diana had been ignoring them, crouched near-sightedly over a dusty old tome, as usual, but at that last word, she looked up and blinked owl-like. Then she came around and bent over the magazine in Aurélie’s hands, before sayi
ng dismissively, “Grecian! Those odd gowns are no more Grecian than I am.”
“It is printed right there, Miss Pert,” Cassandra retorted.
“I can show you things Grecian. There is a book of drawings taken from Greek vases and drinking cups, downstairs in the—”
“Those books are quite wicked,” Cassandra cut in. “If Mama knew you were looking at those—”
“They are classical,” Diana zapped her back.
“Classical studies are not for the gentle sex.” Cassandra tossed her head and twitched her shoulders. “Those books are for Will. You had better not be caught looking at them, and I will not sully my eyes with such.” She turned her back on her sister, and scowled down at the magazine. “What is more important is this horrid tube shape. Who can look good in this, pray? The drawings make it pretty enough, but these females look every inch of twelve feet tall. That one would make me look like a barrel, unless my stays crack my ribs. I like this one well enough, but Mama would not let me wear pearl gray sarcenet, even without the pelisse of tobine stripes.”
“Not until you are married,” Diana said, safe on the other side of the room.
“You mind your schoolwork.” Cassandra looked up. “What an odd thought, that Diana will turn sixteen in the nineteenth century. Eighteen hundred! It sounds so odd.” She sighed. “Next year, I am certain I will spoil many papers, writing ‘seventeen’ without thinking. Look at this gown with the pink rosettes. I do so love pink. It is Cousin Lucretia’s favorite color, for Mr. Brummel told her she ought always to wear rose.”
Aurélie paged on, her face troubled.
When she got upstairs, she came to me, and we laid our hands together in the mirror. “An evening gown is bare here.” She touched her throat and collarbones. The necklace had until now been safely hidden, for the sturdy gowns the girls wore buttoned or laced up to the neck. “Did you see those ball gowns, Duppy Kim? Maybe it is the time to confess the necklace? No one is going to steal it here. It should be safe enough in my trinket box.”
I thought of Aunt Kittredge and her sneaky play with the letters. She must have justified her actions with self-assurances about giving Aurélie a good home, and blah, blah, blah—which suggested to me she could just as easily rationalize taking the necklace, claiming it was for Aurélie’s own good.
The necklace might be taken away by force, but the dictates of responsibility could be just as effective. “Your aunt will probably insist you surrender it for safekeeping, because it is made of gold with all those precious stones. Nanny Hiasinte did say you were to keep it on you all the time. Why don’t you put it around your ankle? Nobody will see it there if you are careful and wear thick stockings.”
She nodded slowly. “Then around my ankle it shall go. I’m certain no one will see it there.”
Cassandra and Aurélie were ready and waiting when the Kittredge parents appeared for the trip to the assembly. They started out to the carriage, pausing when a shout halted them. His parents and sister were gobsmacked when James showed up in knee breeches, dancing pumps, and a starched cravat between the high collar-lapels of his new coat.
As the carriage bowled along the rutted lanes, Cassandra didn’t stop twitting James about his sudden interest in balls—did he even know how to dance? What possessed him? Aurélie sat quietly, her head lowered.
From the glow in faces, and the limpness of starched collars, it was clear that the assembly room was stuffy and overheated. The candlelight didn’t quite hide the smoke scorches high on the wainscoting. The chairs set around the perimeter of the room were stiff-backed and uncomfortable, reflecting the more formal styles of the 1740s. But nobody noticed these things, any more than they noticed the odd fit of handmade clothes—that one sleeve was a tad tighter than the other, that added ruffles or lace or brooches didn’t completely hide a grease spot.
The girls were proud of their new gowns. This being their first ball, and their first grown-up clothes, they didn’t notice that the styling was not great and the stitching not all that much better than their own efforts, and faintly puckered at some of the seams.
But there was no escaping the biggest problem: The high-waisted style was not flattering to Cassandra’s body type, whereas it was perfect for tiny Aurélie, who had a figure like a sylph. Her gown wasn’t any better made than Cassandra’s, but the ivory muslin complemented her slanted black eyes with their thick lashes, her profusion of black ringlets, and her flashing, crooked smile with its dimple in one cheek. Even the powder couldn’t diminish her good looks. She wasn’t the only powdered girl there; a local redhead, covered with freckles, was thickly plastered with powder, and so was the squire’s olive-complected daughter, whose mother was an Italian beauty.
Even more striking was Aurélie’s captivating voice, a sultry contralto that contrasted dramatically with the self-conscious, shrill giggles of the other teenage girls. Her French accent had never gone away, adding a stylish air to her speech.
When Uncle Kittredge gave her permission to go out onto the floor with James for the first dance, she moved like a butterfly with completely unconscious grace, her arms shapely because of those daily workouts in the barn. As she and James danced down the line, Aurélie’s effect on the young local guys was like a grenade going off in their midst.
I caught the whispers going around the room: “Yes, most unfortunate, that complexion, but I understand it is to be expected of Spaniards, and she is connected to a Portuguese duke.” “I understand she was sent with a dowry of thirty thousand pounds, and they do not know what she might inherit from the island property when the legalities are settled, for I’ve heard that the Spanish are proving recalcitrant at their end, as you’d expect of foreigners.”
That was the first I’d heard of ‘legalities.’ Of course Uncle Kittredge would not discuss such things before the girls, which meant I wouldn’t hear of them. But it made me wonder what else I wasn’t hearing.
Meanwhile, Aurélie floated happily down the line of the dance, a contrast to poor Cassandra, who had ordered the maid to yank her stays unmercifully tight, making her face blotch with red. She sought to make up for it by talking dramatically of her delicacy to her few partners. With the girls she knew from church, she behaved in a languishing, coy manner, giggling at the end of every sentence and batting her fan. That, she had not learned from her mother.
Aurélie danced every dance. Cassandra danced four. Aunt Kittredge watched with narrowed eyes.
Over the following week, the invitations came to Aunt Kittredge. Though Aurélie and Cassandra were not officially Out, they were considered old enough for country-house parties. Every single invite made a point of mentioning Lady Aurélie de Mascarenhas.
That July, Diana was invited to visit her cousin Alice, whose dad was the baronet, the head of the Kittredge family. Their estate was in Yorkshire. She came home at the end of the month with a subtle alteration in mood.
As soon as they were safely alone, she confided to Aurélie that Cousins Alice and Charles turned out to be interested in the world unseen. “Cousin Charles is supposed to study law, but he intends to go into the church, and he reads everything. We have such good talks! He wrote out the Greek alphabet for me, and showed me how to construe. It is ever so much easier when someone just shows you.”
The girls promptly tackled Latin and Greek.
That December, Sir Henry and Lady Bouldeston arrived with their two daughters for the holidays and to celebrate the close of the eighteenth century. Lucretia and Lucasta Bouldeston looked much like Cassandra—not surprising, as their mothers were sisters, Mrs. Bouldeston having married the second cousin who inherited their estate when their dad died. Lucretia demonstrated a fondness for pink, ruffles, and rosettes, rather showy taste that I could see Philomena did not approve of. But nothing was said…overtly.
Lucretia repeatedly lamented how small and delicate she was and in a way that hinted for compliments. After a few of these she glanced at Aurélie, who really was small and dainty (though she w
ould scorn frailty), and also undeniably gorgeous.
Half an hour spent with Lucretia, and I understood who it was Cassandra had been imitating when she was in public, especially around guys. Lucretia was maybe three years older than Cassandra and had gone to London each spring for the social season. Based on this experience, she spoke as the supreme authority about London society, claiming personal acquaintance with every famous person. Cassandra drank in every word.
Lucretia was also an Olympic champion at passive-aggressive social warfare. It took one day for Lucretia to get a hate going. Her speech was full of little compliments for Aurélie that were really complaints, uttered in a lispy voice and ending with a stinger: “It is a thousand pities that she cannot…” or “I should perish if an unkind thought were to cross my mind, but I feel it my duty to say…” It was all one-way competition, because Aurélie never answered in kind. At first she seemed puzzled, then she just went silent.
For two days, Lucretia and Cassandra linked arms with Aurélie, looking the picture of amity, but as soon as they were out of sight of the adults, they would giggle across Aurélie while making references to secrets, people, and places that Aurélie had never heard of. I don’t think Cassandra intended to be mean, but she had met all the people in Kent whom Lucretia discussed, and also, I don’t think she could resist the pleasure of being preferred. She sure wasn’t at the assemblies.
Lucasta and Diana, being younger sisters, would seem destined to be natural allies, but Lucasta despised Diana for her inky fingers and her books and her total lack of interest in the things that mattered: fashion, romance, and who was secretly in love with whom. Lucasta trailed the older girls, alternately wheedling or serving as dogsbody. Once, after sending her off on an errand, Lucretia warned the other two that she was the worst spy in nature, and to never reveal a secret before her.