“Be René?”
“I pretended to be a boy, in Jamaica. I was ever so free,” she said wistfully.
James pursed his lips, then said, “My old clothes are in trunks in the attic. Let me see if there’s something in there you can wear. Just don’t let ’em see you, or they’ll set up a screech and we’ll find ourselves in no end of trouble.”
Aurélie fervently agreed, and a short time later, they met in the gallery, a long, high-ceilinged room that doubled as a ballroom if they threw open the back doors to the second parlor, used only for company. As Cassandra and the fortepiano were safely in the front parlor, they could engage with their swords without worrying about discovery.
At first, James seemed somewhat uncomfortable with Aurélie wearing his clothes, even though she was nothing more than a little stick figure in the flapping shirt, waistcoat, and thick breeches. It was the idea more than the actuality that appeared to bother him.
The next problem came when they attempted their first pass. James was used to the art of gentleman’s dueling, with its attention to correct position and poise, and its many strictures. Aurélie had been coached to strike hard and fast, using her small size to disable an opponent before she ran.
After some stinging blows from her whip-fast, focused attack, James betrayed surprise, chagrin, and then wary respect. The lesson took an abrupt turn toward the serious, and both got an excellent workout.
He might have asked her out of idleness and boredom, but by the end of half an hour, he’d become as enthusiastic as she was, and when their hour ended, he was a fair way toward treating her like a little brother. Aurélie had found a friend at last.
As the weather brightened into spring, the two met for an hour or so on every day that Cassandra had singing lessons, for she could not always be trusted; if Cassandra thought something improper, she felt it her duty to tattle to their mother.
Their talk ranged widely. Aurélie described life in Jamaica, and James talked about his hope to someday command a regiment. His elder brother Will, at Winchester College, was the bookish one, he explained. The family hoped that Will might one day make his way into Parliament. He usually spent his holidays with friends, in particular one who was the second son of a viscount.
As soon as the weather warmed enough for rambles in the tangled park that stretched up into the wild hills behind the garden, James took Aurélie out for target practice. He sneaked her pistol out of the iron box where it had been locked, so that she might use her own weapon.
She didn’t dare go out in her borrowed clothes, for she was too visible from the many windows, but once they were beyond the neat hedgerows, she kirtled up her skirt, baring her thick woolen stockings.
The two shot at rocks set on a fallen tree. James showed her how to load and fire his fowling piece. Just as he respected her wild have-at-you style of fencing, he had been amazed at the quality of her French-made flintlock pistol, small as it was. They traded their weapons back and forth, comparing their range and seeing who could load fastest.
The rest of her time was taken up with lessons and domestic pursuits. Cassandra, encouraged by her mother to correct Aurélie’s English, claimed it was a duty, but could not quite hide her obvious enjoyment of implied superiority. Thus, Aurélie seldom had the chance to finish a sentence, with the result that she became quieter around the family, except for James, who told her he found her occasional lapses into French word order or regularized verbs as delightful as her accent.
James had completely taken over as Aurélie’s chief confidant, so my careful speech had yet to be heard. I should have expected that, I came to realize. When I was her age, I had zero interest in adults—I never asked strange ones their names, they were always Mr. or Ms. Somebody, or else Teacher, or Doctor, or Police Officer. I was the invisible friend who listened to her and watched over her when she needed me, and that was that.
I knew it would change.
TEN
EACH MORNING AURÉLIE FLUNG OPEN her windows and sucked in lungfuls of fresh air. Sometimes she came to the mirror to tell me the names of blossoms. Once she asked if I knew what was blooming in Jamaica or Saint-Domingue, and when I shook my head, she turned away.
She was happier, and busy: Miss Oliver let the girls go out into the garden in the afternoons if they worked hard in the morning.
The garden was bordered by a ha-ha fence, which partly obscured the home farms down slope and also the wild tangle of woods up the hillside. The girls were not permitted to venture beyond the ha-ha unless accompanied. James and Aurélie had done their shooting well behind the barns. Cassandra would never go beyond the southern hedge, declaring that the stink of the farm made her ill.
Aurélie roamed all over the garden, now that everything was in bloom. She loved the roses most, snuffing in the fragrances that must have reminded her of flowers in the islands.
While cruising along the ha-ha and peering into the wood one day, Aurélie stopped Cassandra, who was describing in detail the latest letter from her cousin Lucretia, and casting sighs about the hundred eternities before the cousins’ expected visit.
“What is that music?” Aurélie asked, when Cassandra paused to draw breath.
“What music?” Cassandra said, hands on her hips. “I don’t hear anything.” Her emphasis on the “I” did not admit of the possibility that another’s perceptions had merit—one of the less endearing characteristics she’d picked up from her mother.
Aurélie stood poised on her toes, peering into the wild wood, which was dappled with golden light and blue shadows.
Cassandra sighed loudly. “If we must stand about in the sun, you ought at least to fetch your bonnet. Mama does not want you getting all burnt black as a cork again. She said so a thousand times. You are still horridly brown.”
I writhed in futile anger not just at Cassandra’s thoughtless bigotry, but at how superior she was about it. It’s typical of the time, I reminded myself. She’s no worse than anyone else.
But it didn’t make me feel any better. As for Aurélie, she ignored Cassandra, staring intently into the wood for half a minute more. The way she stood there peering, head at an angle, made it clear that she heard something. Whatever it was didn’t reach me.
She followed Cassandra inside, returned to the fortepiano, and warmed up with scales. She worked through her Haydn and Scottish airs. Then she bent over the keys, her brow knit as she tapped out the same pattern of notes, an entrancing bit of melody with two chord changes in it. She kept changing keys, and frowning.
Lessons became more irksome as April spooled away toward May. Only Aurélie seemed unaffected by the first warm spell of the year, though the others looked flushed and damp. Aurélie continued to wear her winter gowns, which were made high to the neck, the sleeves long, though the younger girls had shifted to lighter muslin and cotton prints. Cassandra talked continually of July, when the governess was given a month to visit her home, which meant a month off from school as well as the longed-for visit from her maternal cousins.
This talk of a month’s vacation surprised me with its forward-looking generosity, for I remembered the horrible lives of governesses in the Brontes’ books and those by Elizabeth Gaskell. But then some things that the kids let fall made it clear that Miss Oliver didn’t get paid for the time she was gone. July was the month that various portions of the family often visited others, and Aunt Kittredge didn’t feel she was getting her money’s worth if some of the governess’s pupils were traveling or busy with visiting cousins. So the solution? Don’t pay her at all, but send her packing for a month.
On the first of May, the kids were granted a half-holiday. James had planned to go fishing and offered to take the girls along if they brought a hamper of food.
Aunt Kittredge saw them off after issuing scolding reminders to Cassandra and James to watch out for Diana, and, in a determinedly nicer tone, tucking all kinds of “dears” into it, reminding Aurélie to stay out of the sun. “It’s in your best interest, as I am
certain your dear mother would agree, once we hear from her.”
Aurélie bobbed a curtsey, uttering her French-accented thanks, while her gaze kept stealing toward the garden border.
At last they were released, Aurélie and Cassandra carrying the hamper between them.
James led them to the old garden gate. When I say “old,” I mean ancient, far older than the house. The stones were covered with moss that didn’t quite hide the faint indentations of Celtic knotwork, half-hidden by a tangle of climbing roses whose blood-red hue reminded me of Dobrenica. Sorrow—regret—worry about Alec suffused me, as I watched Diana brush her fingers over the dark green mossy indentations.
“Ugh!” Cassandra slapped her sister’s hand away. “You needn’t get filthy before we’ve gone ten paces.”
They passed through the gate and walked on. James led them over the top of an old hill, so thick with tangled growth that little sunlight penetrated. The air was cool and still. Diana fretted about branches hitting her face and thistles in her stockings.
“You wanted to come,” Cassandra said. “I told you that you should remain in the nursery, like the baby you are.”
“I’m not a baby. I cannot see them.”
“Of course you can see them. Anybody can. Stop putting on airs to be interesting, or we shan’t bring you again.”
James ran ahead. A few moments later, his glad shout ended the squabble. “Here!”
He pointed with pride of discovery to a grassy bank under the shade of a willow. “Oh, capital!” Cassandra cried, and took charge of spreading out the cloth and unpacking the hamper. She handed plates to Aurélie to set out, and put Diana in charge of unfolding the cloth wrappings from the food, which short-sighted Diana was able to do.
James put together his fishing rod and tramped off to the stream in search of a good spot to sit.
Aurélie carried James’s share of the lunch to him, then rejoined the sisters. For a while, all was quiet as they chose among the cold meats, cheese, bread, and tartlets that had been packed up for them. The food and the cool shade revived them.
After they’d eaten, Cassandra volunteered to repack the hamper before ants could discover it. Aurélie carried the pitcher down to the stream to fill with water, and Diana wandered around from sun splash to shadow, bent over as she examined dainty violet sprigs of bellflower, blush pink dog roses, and yellow iris along the stream bank.
Aurélie kept glancing in one direction as she helped put away the leftover food. When they were done, she said, “Who else shares this wood?”
James, who had pretty much ignored the girls thus far, gave a guffaw. “The fairies!”
Cassandra heaved a loud sigh. “Do not be a simpleton, James. You know how angry Mama will be if Diana starts prating of that nonsense again.”
James turned his head. “Diana, you are old enough to know that talk of fairies is a taradiddle, are you not?”
Diana tossed her head in a fair assumption of her sister’s gesture. “I know better than to talk about fairies to Mama.”
Cassandra turned a sour look James’s way. “Very well. But I don’t see why you need mention them at all.” She then said to Aurélie, “This is our land. Though sometimes the farm children will come up here. Why, did you hear them? You have very quick ears if you did, for I’ve heard nothing except birds scolding.”
“The singing,” Aurélie said. “And a fiddle.”
“There’s no singing,” Cassandra stated. “Or a fiddle. It has to be birds.”
“Might I go a little ways down that path, just to see?”
“I want to go with her,” Diana said.
“Now look what you’ve done,” Cassandra said crossly to Aurélie. “She’ll be pouting about it forever.”
James called, “Recollect we’ve an equally long walk back.”
“And I think it’s going to rain,” Cassandra added, looking around. “The air smells of thunder.”
“I was used to walk much longer,” Aurélie said. “I don’t mind at all.”
Cassandra looked up at the treetops and sighed. “If you must. But stay within hearing distance, and be quick about it.” She turned fiercely on her sister. “And you help me to pack the rug.”
“Bon,” Aurélie said happily and scampered down the path.
All I heard were her steps on the path and the quiet hiss and rustle of her skirts as she pushed past long, tangled grasses and wildflowers. For a time she plunged deeper into the blue-green shadows of the wood, making me wonder if she was going to get herself lost, until splashes of golden sunlight appeared between the tree trunks.
Aurélie slowed when we reached an enormous oak that bordered on a sun dappled dell, the mighty over-arching branches pleached with those of a hawthorn in lacey bloom across the dell to the left; and to the right, the square-cracked, knobby branches of an ancient ash. Sunlight shafted down through those branches onto a circle of tall green grass and wildflowers, about which butterflies dipped and flickered.
Aurélie halted at the verge, gazing in wonder at betony and bluebells, columbine and loosestrife, muskmellow and snapdragon, just to name a few—an impossibility of wildflowers.
Then she said to the empty dell, “Who are you?”
Between one blink and another (not that I had eyes for blinking) there They were.
…Behold the chariot of the Fairy Queen!
Celestial coursers paw the unyielding air;
Their filmy pennons at her word they furl,
And stop obedient to the reins of light…
Shelley’s lines come close to the shock of their glorious appearance, limned in golden shafts. I heard the music at last, an elusive, compelling melody.
Aurélie clapped her hands in delight as the magnificent winged chargers and their airy chariot descended gently from the sky, large as life, ethereally glowing.
The chariot touched down to the grass so lightly that no flowers bent, no grass was crushed. The horses tossed their heads, manes rippling, and sparks flew where they pawed the ground, though not a blade of grass stirred: they were lighter than thistledown.
From the chariot stepped a tall woman whose moonbeam hair flowed in silken rivers to her heels. Her gown floated about her, swirling wisps of smoke and starlight. Next to her, a male who made Tolkien’s Legolas look coarse and uncouth by comparison, his clothing as unabashedly tight and revealing as hers, except for honest-to-Romantic Poets ruffled shirt, with lace cuffs to his knuckles. His hair, the color of flame, was almost as long as hers. I swallowed hard and pulled my gaze away with a pop I could practically feel.
“Welcome!” Princess Moonbeam said, lifting her hands in a gesture of benevolent invitation. Her eyes glowed. Really glowed, like gems with sparks of fire in their depths, shifting to different shades as she moved: sapphire, emerald, topaz.
Her skirts flared and settled as from the trees danced a host of figures nearly as beautiful as she. The melody shifted up a half step, then repeated its enthralling pattern, livelier than Pachelbel’s Canon in D, more captivating than Ravel’s Bolero. From the shadows emerged the musicians playing on wind instruments of gold, and silver hammers on crystal, ringing the sweet sound of chimes.
The figures were an amazing variety, among them dryads with bark skin and leaves for hair, others more like the moonbeam and flame couple, as they formed in circles and began to dance.
Like a flight of butterflies released, a troupe of little girls appeared, and took hands to ring Aurélie. They danced around her three times, then broke their ring, two girls reaching. She took their hands and joined the circle to dance with them, her husky squawk of a laugh charming among their giggles like tinkling chimes.
Princess Moonbeam walked straight up to me.
“Welcome to our dancing dell. Please join us.”
“You mean, you can see me?” I asked.
“See you!” Her laughter was as sweet as the silver hammers on glass. “Why should I not?”
I looked down, and there I was! I stuck
out my sandaled foot. There was my chipped toenail polish. Above that, my favorite blue skirt, swinging at my knees. I smoothed my hands down the embroidered linen blouse I’d bought at Madame Celine’s exclusive shop in Riev, and suppressed the desire to give a whoop of pleasure.
“Join me,” Princess Moonbeam said with another of those inviting gestures, “in refreshment. You must be hungry, so very long separated spirit from flesh.”
She indicated a table festooned with fantastic flowers, and set with plate after plate of mouth-watering delicacies, but the first thing on my mind was Alec.
“Very long?” I asked, my pleasure chilling. “How long?”
“Come. Eat and drink. We can discourse at our leisure, whilst the young disport in play.”
I looked into her lovely topaz eyes, her joyful smile, and said slowly, “Okay, I’m trying to catch up as fast as I can, here, but one thing I do remember. If you people—beings—are who I think you are, then the food thing might not be a great idea.”
“Well spoken.” Her laughter was surprised, intimate. “You are quite welcome to partake, but I bow to your caution. It is always wise to step warily when one is in new country.”
“Well, this country is not new to me, but this time is. If the past can be new. And this situation. The Kittredge family doesn’t seem to know about you. Why are you here?”
She gestured. “This is a traditional dancing dell. The wood is ours and has been, though your folk occasionally come through.”
“So you don’t interact with the Kittredges?”
“Is that who lives in the barren domicile? They took down the old dwelling, which was filled with charms,” she said, “and built that new shell. The people who passed out of life were long our friends. You know the dwelling was once called Undrentide.”
“Undrentide? I was told that the house is called Undertree. Or maybe ‘Undertree’ is the modern form?”
She laughed softly. “Undrentide means midday. It is always midday here.”