“I don’t like all one color,” said Rose, “but I like our frocks.”
I knew she did. She’d been saying so all day. She liked the way they matched up with themselves, which is to say they were white, white, white.
But that’s what young ladies wear to garden parties. White.
Rose was to attend the party. Dr. Rannigan said she might.
“Robert will like the way I match.” Rose turned so I might do her buttons.
I pressed my lips together so I wouldn’t say what I’d said so often in the past few days. That Robert might choose not to come; that he might feel awkward; that he wouldn’t have any friends at the party.
But Rose had heard me often enough. “I’m his friend. He would come because I’m his friend.”
“You’re all buttoned, Rose.”
Once, I would have called her Rosy.
Or Rosy Posy.
Funny how I kept thinking of our pet names since that rainy Two-Pint Friday at the Alehouse, when Father called me Briony Vieny.
“I look pretty,” said Rose.
She did, too. The dress was drifty and Grecian in shape, with a high bodice that flowed into a great shoulder bow. Mine was identical. The party had proved to be a lot of work, and in the end, Pearl abandoned her plan to design two dresses. We’d look like twin Grecian oracles, rather pale from staying in our cave. Also minus the prophetic powers, which was a pity. If I could look into the future, I’d know how I saved Rose from the swamp cough. I hadn’t had a single idea, so far. Two weeks and no ideas.
“Do you suppose Robert’s here yet?”
“Why don’t you go see,” I said, which left me to do my own buttons, but that was better than going mad. “Don’t forget, Dr. Rannigan says you must wrap up well, and that you mustn’t stay at the party past ten o’clock.”
It also left me with some brain-room to think about how to save Rose. One needs an entire absence of Rose to be able to think about her. If she died, I could think about saving her all the time.
There’s a riddle in there. I’ll suggest it to the Sphinx.
Rose came dancing over the moment I descended the stairs. “Leanne is here, and because of my eye for color, I said her frock is Persian green, and she said, ‘Right you are!’ ”
Her cheeks were actually faintly pink. Rose smiled her pearl-strand smile, her real-girl smile.
“I asked her how old she was,” said Rose, “and she said she was very old indeed. Father said it was rude to ask, but Eldric said Leanne was joking and I mustn’t believe her. He said she’s just his age, which is twenty-two.”
Rose led me through the kitchen, which was a most peculiar feeling. Usually it’s I leading Rose.
“Eldric has decorated the garden in blue and white. He said it was inspired by the Orient, but Leanne said it was À la Japonaise.”
We stood at the kitchen door. “May I open it now?” Eldric had forbidden any of us even to peek at the garden. He’d been most secretive about his arrangements for the party, and had taken to skipping meals in order to work on the final details.
“I see you put on your shawl,” I said. “Very good.”
But Eldric had taken dinner with us yesterday—I suppose he couldn’t very well not show up, as Father had invited Mr. Clayborne. Mr. Clayborne said it looked as though Eldric was working hard; and Eldric gave him a gray little smile and said he was; and then Mr. Clayborne had to go and say he wished he could once, just once, see Eldric work hard at something useful, such as university, or a profession.
“I prefer that you open the door,” said Rose.
Blast Mr. Clayborne! Why did he have to go and refer to his blighted hopes, with Eldric looking as though he’d worked himself to death? He was still six or seven feet of boy-man, but he no longer hummed with energy. I don’t know how a great boy like Eldric can look translucent, but he did. He was burning out, all wick and no wax.
“I prefer that you open the door,” said Rose.
The door? I came back to the world. Sorry Rose, yes, the door.
This is the difference between Eldric and me. Had it been my job to transform the garden, I would have removed the clothesline. Clotheslines always make me think of undergarments, and although I’ve never been to Japan, I don’t imagine a memory-whiff of undergarments is at all À la Japonaise.
But Eldric had added clotheslines, strung them all about to encircle the garden. From them hung sheets, lined up hem to hem, and tethered to the ground with stakes. He’d created a three-sided walled garden. The fourth side opened to the river.
I hadn’t known Eldric could paint. The sheets were white, the paint was blue, and together, they blossomed into a blue-and-white landscape: cranes and spray-foam seas and snowy mountains and cherry blossoms.
The western sky was bright. Eldric’s shadow slouched against the garden wall, quite dwarfing him. I bounded toward him, bursting to tell him he was a genius—as much a genius in his own Eldric way as Fitz was in his own Fitz way—but then slithering up the wall came a second shadow, all bouncing ears and shell-like hair.
I un-bounded at once, which was both embarrassing and un-oracular. Where was my Delphi cave? I needed to hide.
The garden was filling with Oohs and Aahs, which were accompanied by guests and the rustle of evening wraps and little tendrils of scent. Pearl appeared bearing a great roast beef, and the energy of the crowd surged toward the banquet table. Corks popped and glasses clinked and Father, who’d been put in charge of the roast beef, said “Ouch!” as he cut himself.
I wandered to the river. Paper lanterns dotted the apple tree, where the swings had once hung. It was a crabbed little thing. It’s hard to imagine Rose and I were ever small enough to swing from it.
Footsteps came up behind me, with quite a bit of pounce. Eldric?
“Champagne, milady?”
What a dreadful thing, to have confused Cecil with Eldric.
But Cecil was pouncy all over. He seized my hand and said, “I’ve had a rather interesting thought.”
Imagine, a thought!
The sun was orange and setting fast. Its reflection oozed up and down the river in thick marmalade ripples.
“Don’t you want to know what it is?”
“Don’t you think,” I said, “that Eldric ought to have built one of those curly little bridges over the river?”
“I beg your pardon?” said Cecil.
“It would have fit in so well with the Japanese theme. My theory is that the rivers in Japan are only an excuse.”
“Come sit down and talk sensibly for once.” Cecil tugged at my hand. “The food is lovely and you might quite like my idea.”
“An excuse, you see, to build those cunning little bridges. Eldric would have painted it blue, of course.”
“Damn it all, Briony! It’s always Eldric this and Eldric that with you. I don’t wish to speak of Eldric. I wish to speak of us.”
He scooped up my arm, swung me round.
“Let go, Cecil,” I said. “I’ve a strange dislike of being forced.”
“But Briony,” he said, “I’m so full of good spirits. I could walk to London, I think!”
Why didn’t he?
After a moment, I realized we’d turned into an audience for the production of Garden Party, by Eldric Clayborne. The stage was illuminated with candles and paper lanterns and glowing cigars and little fires just starting up in a half-dozen braziers.
To the left unfolded the drama of Father and the Carving Knife.
Sorry. Stage right is what I meant to say.
Upstage center unfolded the drama of Mrs. Trumpington’s heel and a bit of soggy earth.
On stage left unfolded the drama of Rose and the absent Robert. She stood between Eldric and Leanne, and although I couldn’t hear her words, I knew she was inquiring after him, and I imagined Eldric was probably saying that no, he didn’t think the invitation could have gone astray.
How tiny Rose was between the two of them. I saw exactly how I’d look should I ever stand next to Leanne, which I shall endeavor not to.
Rose looked like an underdone sugar cookie.
Downstage center unfolded the drama of the Brownie and Mad Tom, both making straight for Briony Larkin. “Black-eyed girl!” called Mad Tom. The Brownie was silent.
“I’ll get rid of the fellow!” Cecil knotted his fists and sprang forward. It was all I could do to catch at his coat.
“It’s only Mad Tom!” I said.
There was a tacit understanding among the villagers that he might wander in and out of parties and weddings and other private events. But tacit implies the ability to make inferences, which is why Cecil didn’t know.
“It be you what taked my wits,” said Mad Tom. “I knows it by the blackness o’ your eye.”
And it had been Mad Tom who’d carved the sunflowers and daisies on Mother’s tombstone. Well, not exactly Mad Tom, but the person Mad Tom used to be before he went mad.
“I needs ’em, black-eyed girl. I needs ’em sore, I does.”
“I haven’t got them. But if you take yourself there”—I pointed to the banquet table—“you shall have bread and roast beef.”
And a bit of the Reverend Larkin’s blood.
“I’ll get us a table, shall I?” said Cecil. “In one of those warm nooks. I know milady is often cold.”
I liked the word warm, but I disliked the word nook, as it meant sharing a small space with Cecil. And there was still his idea to endure.
He took up too much space in the nook. Not his body, although it was large enough, but his energy. I’d seen him like this upon several occasions, but I’d never been trapped with him.
“You’re out and about so much more these days,” said Cecil. “Why don’t you join us on Blackberry Night?”
This was his great idea? “You’re mad!”
Good girls didn’t romp about on Blackberry Night. Father has strong opinions about it. His biggest, fattest sermon of the year is all about Blackberry Night, which is also Michaelmas, when is also when the Archangel hurled the Devil from Heaven. Naturally, this annoyed the Devil considerably, and he goes about on that night, spoiling the blackberries.
“I’ll protect you,” said Cecil, laying his hand over mine.
I whipped my hand away. “Cecil!”
On Blackberry Night, the lads and lasses run barefoot through the swamp, pretending to try to catch the Devil; but it would appear the Devil catches them instead, for they consume quantities of beer and wine, and they shed their clothes, and there are always a number of surprise weddings come Advent.
How does Father feel about Blackberry Night?
He’s against it.
“I’m so in love with you,” said Cecil.
I looked into his fallen-angel eyes. How convenient if I could fall madly for him. I could marry into stained glass and a lawn made of money.
“All the more reason I should decline your kind invitation.” What did regular girls see in him that I didn’t?
“I won’t touch you,” he said. “I’ll protect you.”
Some girls choose to marry into stained glass without the madly-fallen bit. But I, at least, would need quite a lot of stained glass.
“I can protect myself.”
“You don’t know Blackberry Night,” he said. “You’ll find, I think, that your father has kept you rather ignorant of the world outside the Parsonage.”
There wasn’t enough stained glass in the world that would convince me to marry Cecil Trumpington: aspiring highwayman and prig.
“I know more than you give me credit for,” I said.
This was the wrong thing to say. It was provocative. It made Cecil lean in still farther and say, “Do you,” with a most unpleasant inflection on the do.
Cecil teased me to reveal my worldly knowledge, and I found amusing ways to sidestep his questions, and on we went with this for quite a while until it occurred to me that this is what is called flirting.
It’s a tedious exercise.
It takes no more than a single brain cell to flirt, making it perfect for Cecil and leaving me another few billion to admire the paper napkins, which Eldric had folded into pagodas. To smile at the long-toed dragon feet Eldric had crafted for the braziers. Their claws were painted gold. And to glance from time to time at Eldric and Leanne. Mostly they were wandering about drinking champagne, but I once caught her hiding from Mad Tom behind Eldric. What? The superb horsewoman afraid of poor Mad Tom? She did look ridiculous.
I was jealous, wasn’t I? I wanted to be Eldric’s only friend. But that’s not the way the world works, Briony. You have only one friend, but regular people have dozens.
Yes, I was jealous. I was practicing one of the seven deadly sins (although it doesn’t actually take much practice). I probably had all seven.
Anger?
Absolutely. I was especially gifted there. So have a care, Briony! You don’t want to blow them all to cinders.
Gluttony?
Just look at my shining plate.
Pride?
Absolutely. I hated myself, but I also loved myself in a hateful way. I loved being clever, I loved being special, I loved being a witch.
Lust?
Don’t think about that! But my eyes wandered to Eldric and Leanne. Had they done what Pearl and Artie had done? Stop, Briony! Bad things happen when you’re jealous.
Cecil leaned in too close. I felt his hot breath on my cheek. Why didn’t I care whether he’d engaged in the Pearl-and-Artie activity? “You’ve gone all dreamy,” he said.
I leaned away. He’d gone all lusty.
“I can’t take my eyes off Leanne,” I said. Look at someone else, Cecil. “Don’t you think her beautiful?” Don’t lust after me, Cecil. I’m not a regular girl.
“Too bold for my taste.” Cecil took possession of my hand again, tugged me toward him. “I prefer the white goddess style.”
The white goddess rose, the Brownie rose. “What did I say about forcing me about? Are you tipsy?”
“Not tipsy!” said Cecil. “No, not that, and I promise I won’t—Look here, I’ll fetch you a sweet!”
He leapt up, bounded for the sweets table. It looked very much as though he was drunk. But he bounded steadily enough (for a bounder, that is), and he returned with three dishes of trifle, Eldric, and Leanne.
They’d been playing at Metaphor, which had set them to laughing immoderately and sploshing champagne everywhere except inside of themselves. Just as well, perhaps, as I suspected they already had plenty inside. Eldric pulled out a chair for Leanne, but she preferred to stand, and so, of course, did he.
“Leanne is a Klimt, of course,” said Eldric.
“Is she?” I’d never heard of a Klimt, but I was in no danger of exposing my ignorance, for Eldric staggered into an explanation of what was Klimt-ish about her.
It seemed that Klimt was a painter in Vienna, and it also seemed that Eldric had visited Vienna. He’d told Leanne but not me. Eldric knew just how Klimt would paint Leanne, which was all in gold, with flowers growing from her hair, and he’d arrange her clothes, just so—
Leanne interrupted. “She’s a little young for Klimt, don’t you think?”
“Oh sorry, sorry, so sorry!” said Eldric.
Eldric was tipsy. Cecil was something else.
I was young, I was dressed in white, I was an underdone sugar cookie next to Leanne’s shot-silk taffeta, glinting blue and green, except that there were fewer glints than there might have been, which was because there wasn’t as much taffeta as there might have been, which was because Leanne wore her skirts right up to her ankles, quite exposing her enormous feet.
“But I found myself stuck on the sculpture,” said Eldric, and for a moment I pictured him impaled on a monument, until I realized that he was still playing at Metaphor. “What sculpture would Leanne be, do you think? You’re so clever, Briony, you’ll know at once.”
An old one, missing its head.
“Unlike you, I haven’t traveled,” I said, and dug into my trifle, which I’d ordinarily have enjoyed, as it was simply bursting with cream and custard and rum. But I wore white and I’d never been to Vienna, so what was the point of anything?
“I know what Briony would be,” said Cecil. “She’d be a Dresden figurine.”
“One of those dancing ladies?” I said. “They’re not sculptures, and anyway, I’d end up breaking myself.”
“I absolutely must step away from the fire,” said Leanne, shaking her laughing hair and looking at Eldric with her curling eyes. As the two of them moved back, Mr. Clayborne joined us to wish Leanne a very happy birthday.
“It’s your birthday?” I said.
“Tomorrow, actually,” said Leanne.
“We’re going to raise a glass at midnight,” said Eldric.
This was a birthday party. I was glad her birthday was tomorrow, which was the first day of August. I didn’t want her to have been born in July. July was a jolly sort of month, not all hot and puffed up on itself.
Oh, August One! I remembered making Eldric laugh that day in the Alehouse, when I was guessing at his birthday. And here we were: Leanne was an August One. Wouldn’t Eldric remember how we’d laughed?
I paid little attention to the conversation, although I did hear Mr. Clayborne say that Eldric looked perfectly dreadful, which I’m glad to say he did.
“Briony!”
I jumped, but it was only Rose, tugging at my sleeve, announcing that the Mirk and Midnight Hour was upon us.
I pressed my hands to my ears. What had I been thinking—or not thinking! I’d let Rose’s ten o’clock bedtime slide by, but Rose had kept an eye on the clock. She’d warned me of the midnight chimes.
My hands on my ears hardly muffled the chimes, which are wonderfully penetrating. So was Eldric’s voice, calling for attention. “Let us raise our glasses to Leanne on this, her twenty-third birthday!”
“Why, Eldric!” cried Cecil. “I never thought you’d take up with an older woman!”
That’s about as clever as Cecil gets, but everyone laughed. It was the champagne, no doubt. Cecil positively glowed. I do have to admit he has lovely skin.
Rose pulled my hands from my ears.
Eldric acknowledged Cecil with a flat Cheshire Cat smile, then tugged it into a real smile as he saluted Leanne with his glass. “To Leanne, the best companion a man could ever have.”
The guests broke into a chaos of laughter and teasing. Eldric blushed. Leanne didn’t. Perhaps she runs on petrol, not blood.
Eldric had been thinking of Leanne that night, the night of our communion, the night of the Bitch. He hadn’t been communing with me at all. He’d been communing with thoughts of Leanne.
“The party’s over.” Rose’s voice was choked with tears. “And Robert didn’t come.”
“The party’s not over,” I said, which was idiotic, as I oughtn’t to encourage Rose to stay up.
“Yes, it is,” said Rose. “It’s always over at the Mirk and Midnight Hour.”
“Let’s go, then.” I couldn’t bear to look at Eldric with Leanne anymore. I was jealous. And why not?
There are no preconditions for jealousy. You don’t have to be right, you don’t have to be reasonable. Take Othello. He was neither right nor reasonable, and Desdemona ended up dead. I wouldn’t mind Leanne ending up dead. I wouldn’t mind exploding her into fireworks of peacock and pearl.
Who cares about pearls, anyway? They’re overrated, in my opinion. What is a pearl but a bit of sand and oyster spit?
Rose and I went inside. I didn’t say good-bye. This is the advantage of having a sister like Rose. You never have to say good-bye.
Up we went, up the crumple of stairs to our room, with Rose crying the whole time and worst of all, the Brownie following. He wasn’t begging yet, but he soon would be, begging for his story.
“Read me a story,” said Rose.
“But Rose—”
“Please, mistress!” When the Brownie looked up, one saw mostly the sharp tip of his long nose. “Make me my sweet story!”
“There are no stories!” I spoke to Rose, of course, only to Rose. The Brownie needn’t think I was speaking to him.
I said what I always said about the books having burnt, and Rose said what she always said about wishing her book had burnt, and I didn’t ask what I always don’t ask, which is what on earth is her book? Then I laid myself down where I belonged, on my side of the do-not-cross line. I belonged in the imprint of my own self, which as always, was right next to Rose.