A Great and Terrible Beauty

"Miss Cross, you're looking a bit tired this evening."

"I am rather tired, Mrs. Nightwing." Pippa blushes. Mrs. Nightwing has no idea what's going on while she sleeps off her sherry.

"Best get to bed straightaway for your beauty sleep. You want to look your best when Mr. Bumble comes to call tomorrow."

"Ugh, I'd forgotten he's coming to call," Pippa laments as we trudge up to bed.

Ann stretches her arms overhead in a catlike movement. "Why couldn't you dispense with him? Just tell him you're not interested."

"That should go over very well with my mother," Pippa scoffs.

"We could go back into the realms and make you hideously ugly," Felicity says.

"I think not!"

We've reached the landing. The ceiling is smudged where the gaslights have deposited their grime. Funny how I've never noticed that before.

"All right, then. Say goodbye to Sir Perfection and become a barrister's wife," Felicity says, sneering.

Pippa's lovely face is all worry, but the frown lines smooth. There's a new determination to her brow. "I could simply tell him the truth. About my epilepsy."

The walls are sooty too. So much I haven't noticed.

"He's to come for a visit tomorrow at eleven o'clock," Pippa says.

Felicity nods. "Then let's send him packing, shall we?"

With a yawn, I pass the all-too-familiar photographs, those half-erased women. But it's a night for seeing things for the first time. In its severe black frame, one of the photographs has begun to buckle and ripple behind the glass. Probably the damp. It's sliding toward ruin. But there's something else. When I look closer I can see the smudgy outline on the wall where a fifth portrait once hung. "That's odd," I say to Ann.

"What?" She yawns.

"Look here on the wall. See the mark. There was another photograph."

"So there was. What of it? Perhaps they got tired of it."

"Or perhaps it's the missing class of 1871Sarah and Mary," I say.

Ann drifts off to our room, stretching and yawning. "Fine. You look for it, then."

Yes , I think. Perhaps I will at that I don't believe there was no photograph.

I think it was removed.

My sleep is fitful, filled with dreams. I see my mother's face in the clouds, soft and fair. The clouds blow apart. The sky changes. It swells into a gray beast with holes for eyes. Everything goes dark. The little girl appears. The white of her pinafore, the exotic dress underneath it, stand out in the darkness. She turns around slowly and it starts to rain. Cards. It's raining tarot cards. They catch fire as they fall.

No. I don't want this dream.

It's gone. I'm dreaming of Kartik again. A hungry dream. Our mouths are everywhere at once. The kissing is feverish and hard. His hands rip at the fabric of my nightgown, exposing the skin of my neck. His lips rake the curve there, taking small nips that almost hurt but mostly inflame. We're rolling together, a wheel of hands and tongues, fingers and lips. A pressure builds inside me till I think I might come apart from it. And when I feel I can't take another moment of it, I wake with a start. My nightgown is damp against my body. My breath is shallow. I place my hands rigidly beside me and do not move for a very long time, until at last I sleep and do not dream.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Mr. Bumble comes to call for Pippa at eleven o'clock sharp. He's well turned out in his handsome black coat, crisp shirt, and cravat, clean white spats protecting his shoes, and a brushed bowler in his hand. If I didn't know better, I'd suspect that he was a doting father come to call on his young daughter, not his future wife.

Mrs. Nightwing has readied a small sitting room. She's got her knitting so that she can sit in a corner as the silent chaperone. But we've thought of this, too. Felicity is having a sudden, all- consuming attack of stomach pains. She's upstairs writhing in agony on her bed. Appendicitis is feared, and Mrs. Nightwing has no choice but to rush to her bedside at once. Which leaves me to act as chaperone in the interim. And so I find myself sitting quietly with a book as a rose-colored teacup trembles in Pippa's hands.

Mr. Bumble watches her as if he's appraising a piece of land he might buy. "I take it your ring is most satisfactory?"

It's not a question but a chance to be complimented on his taste.

"Oh yes," Pippa says, distracted.

"And your family? They're well?"

"Yes, thank you."

I cough, flash Pippa an urging look. Go ahead get on with it . Upon hearing my cough, Mr. Bumble gives me a weak smile. I cough again and dive into my book.