We arrive in the orange grove by early evening, and even with the stage set up and the band tuning its instruments and the crowd of people I’ve never met, I can see that this place is not like the rest of the mansion. It’s wild, with uneven lengths of grass as high as my uncomfortable heels or my knees. It reaches into my dress like thin rubbery fingers. Ants crawl around the rims of crystal glasses and make lines up trees. All the greenery hums and rustles.
I don’t recognize most of the faces here. Some are attendants setting up heaters for the food or perfecting the paper lanterns. Others are well-dressed, polished to the point of being borderline greasy, all first generations.
“They’re Housemaster Vaughn’s colleagues,” Deirdre whispers to me, standing on a foldout chair and adjusting my bra strap so it will stop sliding down my arm.
“The House Governor doesn’t have friends of his own. When Rose took ill, he stopped even leaving the property.”
“What did he do before then?” I ask, smiling like she’s saying something delightful.
“Designed houses,” she says, and fluffs my hair around my shoulders. “There! You look so pretty.”
My sister wives and I start the night as wallflowers, which is what our domestics have coached us to do.
We hold hands with one another, share a cup of punch, look pretty and wait to be introduced. One at a time the strangers, first generations, steal us for dances. They put their hands on our hips and shoulders, getting too close, forcing us to smell their crisp suits and aftershave. I find myself looking forward to the moment when they’ll release me, when I can catch my breath beneath the oranges. Jenna stands beside me, all danced out. Despite her ever-present resentment for her captivity, she is a fantastic dancer. Fast or slow, her body moves like a flame or a ballerina in a music box. Her long, lean limbs move as naturally as a weeping willow in the wind. She smiles at our husband as she moves, and he blushes, overcome by her beauty. But I know what her smile really means. I know why she’s enjoying this night. It’s because his dead wife still lingers here, and he’s in agony, and she wants him to know that his pain will never go away.
Her smile is her revenge.
Now she stands beside me and plucks an orange from its branch. She turns it in her hands and says, “I think we’ll get off easy tonight.”
“What do you mean?” I ask.
She nods ahead of us, to where Cecily is slow dancing in Linden’s arms. Her white teeth can be seen beaming even from here. “She’s captured his heart for the moment,” Jenna says. “He hasn’t let her go for a second.”
“You’re right,” I say. He has given all of his dances to Cecily. He has spent the rest of his time staring in awe at Jenna. He hasn’t looked at me at all.
Jenna is plucked away for another dance, having gained many admirers with her versatility and charming smile. I’m left alone to nurse punch from a crystal glass. A cool breeze washes through my hair, and I wonder where Rose fell ill. Was it where the attendants are arguing over not making enough chicken for the occasion? Where Cecily and Linden have snuck away from the dance floor to giggle in the tall grass? And where did the scattered ashes fall? And what were those ashes, and what really became of Linden and Rose’s dead child?
As the night presses on and the guests thin out, Jenna and I sit in the grass while Adair and Deirdre comb the tangles from our hair. Linden and Cecily are nowhere to be found, not even when we slip away to bed much later.
The following day Cecily stumbles into the library sometime after noon looking pale and dazed. There’s a hazy smile on her lips that won’t go away, and her hair is a mess. It’s like a brushfire filled with casualties.
Gabriel brings the tea, and Cecily pours in too much sugar as usual. She doesn’t talk to us. There are pillow creases on her face, and she cringes whenever she moves her legs.
“It’s a pretty day,” she finally says, long after I’ve moved to my overstuffed chair and Jenna has begun pacing the aisles.
She doesn’t look right. Not right at all. Her usual verve is subdued, and her voice is gentle like wind chimes. She seems like a wild bird that has been tamed and is surveying its captivity in a daze in which captivity doesn’t seem so bad.
“Are you all right?” I ask her.
“Oh, yes,” she says. Her head cants to one side, then the other, and then she gently rests it on the table.
Across the room Jenna shoots me a look. Her mouth doesn’t move but I understand what she’s telling me.
Now that Cecily has finally gotten what she wanted of our husband, this means Linden has tucked Rose safely inside his memories, and he’s ready to visit the beds of his remaining wives.
Cecily looks so small and helpless, as happy as she may be, that I say “Come on” and gently bring her to her feet. She doesn’t object, and in fact wraps her little arm around my back as I guide her to her room.
Linden is a monster, I think. He’s a vile man. “Can’t you see she’s still a little girl?” I murmur.
“Hm?” Cecily raises her eyebrows.
“Nothing,” I say. “How are you feeling?”
She climbs into the bed, which is unmade and looking as though she just left it, and as her head reaches the pillow, she stares at me with cloudy eyes. “Brilliant,” she says.
I tuck her in, and I notice the small bit of blood on the sheets.