CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Two days later, Roelynn and Micah arrived to begin their private dancing lessons. At first, everything seemed wrong. Adele and I knew how to perform various country jigs, and we even had some rudimentary knowledge of the more formal dances like the minuet, but I at least felt clumsy and stupid when it came time to try most of the other complicated steps. I was used to hauling wood and shaking out wet laundry and scrubbing the stains off the good carpet; I was not used to putting my hand on a man’s shoulder or setting it on his sleeve and moving my body through a precise series of movements.
Micah was exceptionally patient with me, constantly reassuring me that I had not hurt him when I crushed his toes with my heel, but that only made me feel worse. I wasn’t quite sure how I had drawn Micah as a partner, anyway. Well, yes, I was. Adele, whom I had expected to link hands with Micah herself, had made certain she was standing by Alexander when the first bright notes of the music sounded. So she had been paired with Alexander; Roelynn, who had no intention of ever dancing with her brother, had turned naturally to Gregory; and that had left me to stumble through the figures with Micah.
It was just the sort of behavior I had come to think of as typical of Adele. I knew she wanted to dance with Micah. It was obvious, by the quick and hopeless looks he sent in her direction, that he wanted to dance with her. Roelynn, who had frankly told us she thought Alexander was the most handsome young man she’d ever seen, clearly would have preferred him to Gregory. And, well, I would not have minded learning some of these intricate steps while being lightly held in Gregory’s arms. Thus Adele must make everything impossibly difficult by ensuring that the longed-for combinations did not occur. Another instance of pushing over the china bowl to shatter on the floor.
But I was supposed to be dancing with Micah, and so dance with Micah I would, if I could catch the knack of it. He was not particularly skilled at the pastime himself, for he was such an earnest young man, but he knew enough not to disgrace himself with titled ladies in his father’s ballroom. So he corrected me in a grave voice when I missed a step, and pulled me gently in the proper direction when I tried to twirl away. When I nearly brought us both crashing into the pointed edge of the mantel, he turned his shoulder sharply into the corner and took the brunt of the impact. You would not think that learning a dance was the best field in which to come to appreciate another person’s character, but in this case it was. After we had completed a half hour of clumsy dipping and swaying, I was half in love with Micah myself, just for his invariable kindness. If his other virtues were half so steadfast, he was a rare prize indeed.
“There, that was much better,” he said as our latest trial ended. “A little practice, and you’ll be very good.”
“After this, you’ll be well prepared to squire the rawest young girl around your father’s ballroom,” I said, trying to make a joke of it. “No one can possibly step on your feet more often than I did.”
“You’re so light that I hardly felt it,” he said gallantly, and we both laughed.
Roelynn pushed her dark hair back from her face and smiled at all of us. “This is so much fun,” she said. “Better than a full orchestra and a hot ballroom on a summer night.”
“Let’s take a break for refreshments, and then change partners for the second half of the hour,” Gregory suggested.
I found myself interested to see what would happen when it came time to pair up again. Would Roelynn’s determination outsmart Adele’s subtlety? We all stood around sipping lemonade and munching on sweet cookies, and I watched as Roelynn edged toward Alexander and Adele made conversation with Gregory. I hid a smile in the yellow swirls of my drink. I would probably be poor Micah’s partner for this second round as well.
“Everyone rested? Good,” Gregory said, and wound up the music box again. He set it on the mantel to play, and then calmly pushed through the small knot of dancers to take my hand. “Pair up,” he said.
Roelynn turned instantly into Alexander’s arms, and Adele had no choice but to accept Micah’s courtly and humble bow. I ducked my head to hide a laugh.
From the very first measures of the music, it was clear that this was the way the six of us were meant to dance.
Adele and Micah moved smoothly into the first figure of the waltz, catching each other’s cues with the ease of long friendship. Her hand rested so lightly on his shoulder that I was sure her fingers did not crease the fabric, and his palm was placed at her waist with such formal correctness that he could have been dancing with the queen herself. But there was something about the way they responded to each other, something about their parallel rhythms, that made it obvious they were no strangers to embracing. Nothing in their faces gave them away. Adele did not blush or giggle. Micah’s expression did not relax into a foolish grin. But they knew each other; they loved each other. I did not see how words or expressions could have made it any plainer.
“Ah,” I heard Gregory sigh in my ear, and I knew he was seeing what I saw. But I did not respond. I merely turned my gaze to assess the other couple in the room.
Alexander and Roelynn, it appeared, had just this very instant invented the delights of dance. No silly restraint here, no pretense of indifference. They held each other rather indecently close and twirled around the room with a gait that was perilously close to romping. He gazed down at her with that alluring smile on his face, all-melting brown eyes and sensuous curved lips. She was laughing up at him with a face so pretty and so inviting that I could hardly believe he did not kiss her on the spot. She was a hoyden and he was a rogue, and it was impossible to believe either had ever had a more perfectly suited partner. They were so engrossed in each other that I was willing to believe they did not even hear the music, that they merely kept to the beat because it matched the frolicking cadence of their hearts.
“Ah again,” said Gregory, who apparently could always tell what I was seeing and what I was thinking without any hints from me.
“It is proving to be a most interesting dance lesson,” I said, my voice very low.
“Yes, but at least you were expecting it to be,” he replied, his tone as quiet as mine. “I had no idea.”
I risked a quick look up at him. He was smiling down at me, his teeth very white against the dark curls of his beard. “With Roelynn, you never know what to expect,” I said.
“But you are not surprised about your sister.”
I did not answer.
One thing did surprise me, however, and that was how immeasurably my dancing had improved once I was partnered with Gregory. Perhaps, because he was a professional, he was just much better at this particular pastime than Micah was. He knew what kind of mistakes an inexperienced girl was likely to make, and he gently guided her feet in the proper direction. Perhaps he just held me a little closer, so that it was easier for me to anticipate his actions, move left when his body moved right, dip when he wanted me to bend. Perhaps the previous half hour’s practice had taught me more than I realized at the time. Perhaps—oh, perhaps I merely liked him better, wanted to please him more, and felt lighter in his arms.
Though that was ridiculous, and I had no interest in falling in love with him and inevitably breaking my heart and feeling as if I wanted to die once he and his handsome companion rode out of Merendon in a few weeks’ time. So I schooled my features into a serious expression and paid closer attention to the music so that I did not miss the signal to reverse directions.
“What? Why are you frowning at me?” Gregory asked immediately.
“I’m not frowning. I’m concentrating.”
“It will be much easier if you merely follow my lead. No concentration required.”
“I don’t know if it’s possible for me to do that.”
He laughed softly. “No, I suppose not. But you’re managing very well despite the fact that you’re thinking about it too hard.”
“I imagine everyone dances well with you,” I said, and I could not keep the slightest note of despondency out of
my voice.
He laughed again. “Now, how shall I answer that without lying?”
“Don’t even try. It’s obvious you’re such a gifted dancer that you make every girl seem skillful in turn.”
“I’ve always liked to dance,” he said, releasing my hand so that we promenaded side by side for one turn around the room. When the music gave its notice, we faced each other again and I replaced my hand on his shoulder. He continued as if there had been no pause. “But I don’t believe I have ever enjoyed any dance as much as this one with you.”
I waited for that clarion blast to sound in my head, the insistent bleat of liar, liar. But it did not come. Odd as it must be to him as well as to me, Gregory was speaking the truth.
The dancing lessons continued on exactly this way for the next full week. Every session would begin with us paired up in some way that suited none of us, and Adele was usually the reason for that; every session ended with the arrangement of partners that seemed to make everyone happiest. I don’t know what the men discussed among themselves, but never, not once, did Adele or I make any comments about our dancing partners.
That left Roelynn to rhapsodize about Alexander’s multiplicity of charms. He was handsome; he was funny; he was graceful; he was generous. Generous? How did one discover a trait like that on a dance floor? It turned out that she and Alexander had spent some time together, on the odd afternoon here or the cool evening there, as the week unfolded. “And he bought me some flavored ice at the booth that’s gone up at the edge of town, and he paid to gain us admittance into the tent where the singers were performing,” she said. “Oh! And he bought me the sweetest doll with a painted porcelain face and hair that I think is real hair. I hope it didn’t come from a dead person.”
“Generous indeed,” Adele said, predictably amused. “Just how much money do you think a dancing master’s apprentice has to waste on pretty girls? Not much, I would think.”
“No,” Roelynn said sunnily. “Which makes me think he is spending it on no one but me.”
It was clear that Roelynn had fallen in love with yet one more ineligible young man. I was in no position to criticize the time she spent with him, however, since I seemed to be committing the same indiscretion myself. Not that I was off dallying with Alexander—oh no. I was spending pleasant hours outside the makeshift ballroom with the dancing master himself.
It seemed strange to me, considering how many hours of his day were booked with lessons, how much free time Gregory managed to find. When I was working in the kitchen, he frequently came in for an informal cup of tea. When I was bringing in wood or weeding the garden, he joined me more often than not and contributed his own strength to the chore. Many times when I had errands to run, he found some excuse to come along, and then he carried my packages home or sometimes—like Alexander—treated me to some sweet offered by the streetside vendors.
I particularly remember one stroll down the main boulevards of Merendon after we had had six days of lessons. The town was not yet as crowded as it would be in the final days before Summermoon, but it was starting to fill up. Jugglers practiced their routines in the green spaces; singers offered up their voices on the street corners; vendors set up carts in any convenient cul-de-sac and sold everything from meat to ale to pastries. The weather was so fine and the collective mood was so good that it seemed as if the festival had already arrived and merely stretched itself out to accommodate a season instead of a day.
I was accosted probably eight different times during the hour we took to pace down one street and up another.
First I was approached by a clutch of young boys, maybe eleven or twelve, who came running up and calling my name. “Eleda! Eleda!” they cried. Children this age never bothered asking tricky questions to discover which twin was which. They just grabbed my fingers and squeezed to see how much power I could put in the return grip, or tossed me a ball to see which hand I instinctively used to catch it. This always satisfied them. They were always right.
“Eleda, he was cheating!”
“I was not!”
“He said his marble knocked mine out of the circle, but it didn’t. He moved it with his foot.”
Disputes of this nature, I’d found, were always glaringly obvious to me. As soon as their voices sounded, the timbre of the lie jarred against my internal sensors. “Robbie didn’t cheat, but Martin did,” I said coolly, causing howls of fury to be directed at Martin. “You’d better take back your original marbles and replay those last few games.”
There were a number of harmless blows rained on the unrepentant Martin, and then the whole group moved off like one migratory swarm. We hadn’t gone more than half a block down the street when a woman named Constance hurried out through the door of our finest restaurant.
“Eleda! Wonderful! I was wanting to talk to you. I need to—” She paused and gave me a doubtful look. “That is, is it safe to tell you something in confidence?”
I laughed. “No!”
Constance broke into a smile. “Oh, good. It is you. Come inside and tell me what you think of this. I want to start serving it during Summermoon week, and I think it’s quite tasty, but you will tell me if it is or not.”
“I’ll give my opinion, too,” Gregory volunteered.
She gave him a rather harried smile. She was about my mother’s age, though she had grayed earlier, and her face was perpetually flushed from hours spent in the kitchen. “Naturally, I’d like to hear what you think,” she said politely. I didn’t think she had the faintest idea who he was.
We followed her through the darkened front room with its carefully set tables and went back into the hot, crowded, extremely aromatic kitchen. “I like the way it smells, anyway,” I said, taking a sniff. Beef and onions and bread. Constance appeared to have made some kind of meat pie that was more sophisticated than the traditional dish.
“Yes, I got the recipe from my sister, who lives in Wodenderry. Here’s a small portion for each of you.”
We serve fairly plain fare at the inn, so I don’t know much about fancy foods, but I instantly loved the mix of flavors that exploded on my tongue. I could identify wine and a few spices in addition to the main ingredients, and the bread of the crust was rich with butter. “Constance! This is delicious!” I exclaimed.
“Oh, good, you like it.”
“You got this from someone in Wodenderry?” Gregory asked, holding his plate out for another taste. “Not from any household or restaurant I was ever invited to.”
“So you like it, too?”
“I’ll come back tonight for a full portion if you’re going to practice the recipe again.”
Constance laughed, her pink cheeks even pinker with pleasure. “What do you think I should call it—the Royal Dish? The Perfect Pie? Can I tell everyone you gave it your approval?”
We discussed possible names for the new menu item, I gave permission to use my name, and Gregory and I were on our way again.
“This is proving to be even more enjoyable than I thought it would,” he said, amused. “Though I find myself wondering how the promenade down the street would differ if I was with your sister instead of you.”
I laughed. “Oh, people would be creeping up from the sides of buildings, having waited in the shadows for her to walk by. And then they would tug surreptitiously on her sleeve, and whisper something in her ear, and she would nod and whisper back. Tell them a time and place to meet her, usually, though sometimes she’ll go off with them right that very moment if their story is desperate and doesn’t take much time to tell.”
“And she never repeats the tales?”
“Never a word.”
“That’s a hard job,” he commented.
I grimaced. “I couldn’t do it.”
We stopped next at the dressmaker’s shop. I was sure Gregory would wait for me outside, because it wasn’t the sort of place a man usually likes to enter, but he stepped right through the door behind me. When I gave him a look of surprise, he grinned.
&nb
sp; “I thought I might order a new waistcoat,” he said. It was a lie, I could tell, but a harmless one. I shrugged.
I was here to pick up the frocks my mother, Adele, and I had ordered for Summermoon. Even though Summermoon was a working holiday for us, it was a holiday nonetheless, and my mother firmly believed that everyone deserved new clothing on such occasions. Every year for as long as I could remember, all three of us had gotten new wool or velvet gowns at Wintermoon, and cotton and linen dresses at Summermoon. My father, less interested in fashion, consented to a new vest or jacket about once every five years. This was not one of those years.
I had barely stepped three feet inside the door when Eileen Dawson and her mother came up to me. Eileen was a much more sober girl these days than she’d been a few years ago, but in some ways kinder. At any rate, she was always friendlier to my sister and me than she had been back when we were in school together. I suppose personal tragedy often has that effect—it makes you think more carefully about the way you treat other people. Or it makes you hate everyone else more than you ever thought possible. One of the two.
“Eleda,” she said. “Or is it Adele?”
“Eleda,” I answered, but the shopkeeper called to us from across the room.
“That’s not the right question to ask!” Lissette said. “You must ask her if she would keep your secret!”
Eileen looked at me, her eyebrows arched over her beautiful face. I sighed. How much easier my life would have been if Adele had not been so capricious. “No,” I said. “I wouldn’t.”
“Eleda,” Eileen said, satisfied. “What do you think of this material? My mother wants to buy it for my wedding dress.”
She extended her hands, buried in a length of cool, watered silk. Eileen was even fairer than I was, with extraordinarily blonde hair and pale, pale skin. Her eyes were a blue so light that at times they seemed colorless. She was so delicate that she possessed an ephemeral quality; you could imagine her vanishing into moonlight even as you watched.