A Great And Terrible Beauty (3 page)

A very good school. Charming young ladies. It is, word for word, what my grandmother said after we’d spent two weeks at Pleasant House, her home in the English countryside. She’d taken a long, appraising look at me, with my freckled skin and unruly mane of red hair, my sullen face, and decided that a proper finishing school was what was needed if I was ever to make a decent marriage. “It’s a wonder you weren’t sent home years ago,” she clucked. “Everyone knows the climate in India isn’t good for the blood. I’m sure this is what your mother would want.”

I’d had to bite my tongue to keep from asking how she could possibly know what my mother would want. My mother had wanted me to stay in India. I had wanted to come to London, and now that I’m here, I couldn’t be more miserable.

For three hours, as the train made its way past green, hilly pastures, and the rain slapped wearily at the train’s windows, Tom had slept. But I could see only behind me, whence I’d come. The hot plains of India. The police asking questions: Had I seen anyone? Did my mother have enemies? What was I doing alone on the streets? And what about the man who’d spoken to her in the marketplace—a merchant named Amar? Did I know him? Were he and my mother (and here they looked embarrassed and shuffled their feet while finding a word that wouldn’t seem too indelicate) “acquainted”?

How could I tell them what I’d seen? I didn’t know whether to believe it myself.

Outside the train’s windows, England is still in bloom. But the jostling of the passenger car reminds me of the ship that carried us from India over rough seas. The coastline of England taking shape before me like a warning. My mother buried deep in the cold, unforgiving ground of England. My father staring glassy-eyed at the headstone—
Virginia Doyle, beloved wife and mother
—peering through it as if he could change what had happened through will alone. And when he couldn’t, he retired to his study and the laudanum bottle that had become his constant companion. Sometimes I’d find him, asleep in his chair, the dogs at his feet, the brown bottle close at hand, his breath strong and medicinally sweet. Once a large man, he’d grown thinner, whittled down by grief and opium. And I could only stand by, helpless and mute, the cause of it all. The keeper of a secret so terrible it made me afraid to speak, scared that it would pour out of me like kerosene, burning everyone.

“You’re brooding again,” Tom says, casting a suspicious look my way.

“Sorry.”
Yes, I’m sorry, so sorry for everything
.

Tom exhales long and hard, his voice traveling swiftly under the exhalation. “Don’t be sorry. Just stop.”

“Yes, sorry,” I say again without thinking. I touch the outline of my mother’s amulet. It hangs around my neck now, a remembrance of my mother and my guilt, hidden beneath the stiff black crepe mourning dress I will wear for six months.

Through the thinning haze outside our window, I can see porters hustling alongside the train, keeping pace, ready to place wooden steps beside the open doors for our descent to the platform. At last our train comes to a stop in a hiss and sigh of steam.

Tom stands and stretches. “Come on, then. Let’s go, before all the porters are taken.”

Victoria Station takes my breath away with its busyness. Hordes of people mill about the platform. Down at the far end of the train, the third-class passengers climb off in a thick tumble of arms and legs. Porters hurry to carry luggage and parcels for the first-class passengers. Newsboys hold the day’s papers in the air as far as their arms will stretch, screeching the most enticing headlines. Flower girls wander about, wearing smiles as hard and worn as the wooden trays that hang from their delicate necks. I’m nearly upended by a man buzzing past, his umbrella parked beneath his arm.

“Pardon me,” I mutter, deeply annoyed. He takes no note of me. When I glance to the far end of the platform, I catch sight of something odd. A black traveling cloak that sets my heart beating faster. My mouth goes dry. It’s impossible that he could be here. And yet, I’m sure it’s him disappearing behind a kiosk. I try to get closer, but it’s terribly crowded.

“What are you doing?” Tom asks as I strain against the tide of the crowd.

“Just looking,” I say, hoping he can’t read the fear in my voice. A man rounds the corner of the kiosk, carrying a bundle of newspapers on his shoulder. His coat, thin and black and several sizes too big, hangs on him like a loose cape. I nearly laugh with relief.
You see, Gemma? You’re imagining things. Leave it alone.

“Well, if you’re going to look around, see if you can find us a porter. I don’t know where the devil they’ve all got to so fast.”

A scrawny newsboy happens by and offers to fetch us a hansom cab for twopence. He struggles to carry the trunk filled with my few worldly belongings: a handful of dresses, my mother’s social diary, a red sari, a white carved elephant from India, and my father’s treasured cricket bat, a reminder of him in happier days.

Tom helps me into the carriage and the driver pulls away from the great, sprawling lady that is Victoria Station, clip-clopping toward the heart of London. The air is gloomy, alive with the smoke from the gaslights that line London’s streets. The foggy grayness makes it seem like dusk, though it’s only four o’clock in the afternoon. Anything could creep up behind you on such shadowy streets. I don’t know why I think of this, but I do, and I immediately push the thought away.

The needle-thin spires of Parliament peek up over the dusky outlines of chimneys. In the streets, several sweat-drenched men dig deep trenches in the cobblestones.

“What are they doing?”

“Putting in lines for electric lights,” Tom answers, coughing into a white handkerchief with his initials stitched on a corner in a distinguished black script. “Soon, this choking gaslight will be a thing of the past.”

On the streets, vendors hawk their wares from carts, each with his own distinctive cry—
knives sharpened, fish to buy, get your apples—apples here!
Milkmaids deliver the last of the day’s milk. In a strange way, it all reminds me of India. There are tempting storefronts offering everything one can imagine—tea, linens, china, and beautiful dresses copied from the best fashions of Paris. A sign hanging from a second-story window announces that there are offices to let, inquire within. Bicycles whiz past the many hansom cabs on the streets. I brace myself in case the horse spooks to see them, but the mare pulling us seems completely uninterested. She’s seen it all before, even if I haven’t.

An omnibus crowded with passengers sails past us, drawn by a team of magnificent horses. A cluster of ladies sits perched in the seats above the omnibus, their parasols open to shield them from the elements. A long strip of wood advertising Pears’ soap ingeniously hides their ankles from view, for modesty’s sake. It’s an extraordinary sight and I can’t help wishing we could just keep riding through London’s streets, breathing in the dust of history that I’ve only seen in photographs. Men in dark suits and bowler hats step out of offices, marching confidently home after a day’s work. I can see the white dome of St. Paul’s Cathedral rising above the sooty rooftops. A posted bill promises a production of
Macbeth
starring the American actress Lily Trimble. She’s ravishing, with her auburn hair loose and wild, a red gown cut daringly low on her bosom. I wonder if the girls at Spence will be as lovely and sophisticated.

“Lily Trimble is quite beautiful, isn’t she?” I say by way of trying to make pleasant small talk with Tom, a seemingly impossible task.

“An actress,” Tom sneers. “What sort of way is that for a woman to live, without a solid home, husband, children? Running about like she’s her own lord and master. She’ll certainly never be accepted in society as a proper lady.”

And that’s what comes of small talk.

Part of me wants to give Tom a swift kick for his arrogance. I’m afraid to say that another part of me is dying to know what men look for in a woman. My brother might be pompous, but he knows certain things that could prove useful to me.

“I see,” I say in an offhand way as if I want to know what makes a nice garden. I am controlled. Courteous. Ladylike. “And what does make a proper lady?”

He looks as if he should have a pipe in his mouth as he says, “A man wants a woman who will make life easy for him. She should be attractive, well groomed, knowledgeable in music, painting, and running a house, but above all, she should keep his name above scandal and never call attention to herself.”

He must be joking. Give him a minute, and he’ll laugh, say it was just a lark, but his smug smile stays firmly in place. I am not about to take this insult in stride. “Mother was Father’s equal,” I say coolly. “He didn’t expect her to walk behind him like some pining imbecile.”

Tom’s smile falls away. “Exactly. And look where it’s gotten us.” It’s quiet again. Outside the cab’s windows, London rolls by and Tom turns his head toward it. For the first time, I can see his pain, see it in the way he runs his fingers through his hair, over and over, and I understand what it costs him to hide it all. But I don’t know how to build a bridge across this awkward silence, so we ride on, watching everything, seeing little, saying nothing.

“Gemma . . .” Tom’s voice breaks and he stops for a moment. He’s fighting whatever it is that’s boiling up inside him. “That day with Mother . . . why the devil did you run away? What were you thinking?”

My voice is a whisper. “I don’t know.” For the truth, it’s very little comfort.

“The illogic of women.”

“Yes,” I say, not because I agree but because I want to give him something, anything. I say it because I want him to forgive me. And perhaps then I could begin to forgive myself. Perhaps.

“Did you know that”—his jaw clenches on the word— “
man
they found murdered with her?”

“No,” I whisper.

“Sarita said you were hysterical when she and the police found you. Going on about some Indian boy and a vision of a . . . a thing of some sort.” He pauses, rubs his palms over the knees of his pants. He’s still not looking at me.

My hands shake in my lap.
I could tell him. I could tell him what I’ve kept locked tight inside.
Right now, with that lock of hair falling in his eyes, he’s the brother I’ve missed, the one who once brought me stones from the sea, told me they were rajah’s jewels. I want to tell him that I’m afraid I’m going mad by degrees and that nothing seems entirely real to me anymore. I want to tell him about the vision, have him pat me on the head in that irritating way and dismiss it with a perfectly logical doctor’s explanation. I want to ask him if it’s possible that a girl can be born unlovable, or does she just become that way? I want to tell him everything and have him understand.

Tom clears his throat. “What I mean to say is, did something happen to you? Did he . . . are you quite all right?”

My words pull each other back down into a deep, dark silence. “You want to know if I’m still chaste.”

“If you want to put it so plainly, yes.”

Now I see that it was ridiculous of me to think he wanted to know what really happened. He’s only concerned that I haven’t shamed the family somehow. “Yes, I am, as you put it, quite all right.” I could laugh, it’s such a lie—I am most certainly not all right. But it works as I know it will. That’s what living in their world is—a big lie. An illusion where everyone looks the other way and pretends that nothing unpleasant exists at all, no goblins of the dark, no ghosts of the soul.

Tom straightens his shoulders, relieved. “Right. Well, then.” The human moment has passed and he is all control again. “Gemma, Mother’s murder is a blight on this family. It would be scandalous if the true facts were known.” He stares at me. “Mother died of cholera,” he says emphatically, as if even he believes the lie now. “I know you disagree, but as your brother, I’m telling you that the less said, the better. It’s for your own protection.”

He’s all fact and no feeling. It will serve him well as a doctor someday. I know that what he’s telling me is true, but I can’t help hating him for it. “Are you sure it’s my protection you’re worried about?”

His jaw tightens again. “I’ll overlook that last comment. If you won’t think of me, of yourself, then think of Father. He’s not well, Gemma. You can see that. The circumstances of Mother’s death have undone him.” He fiddles with the cuffs on his shirt. “You may as well know that Father got into some very bad habits in India. Sharing the hookah with the Indians might have made him a popular businessman, one of them in their eyes, but it didn’t help his constitution much. He’s always been fond of his pleasures. His escapes.”

Father sometimes came home late and spent from his day. I remembered Mother and the servants helping him to bed on more than one occasion. Still, it hurts to hear this. I hate Tom for telling me. “Then why do you keep getting him the laudanum?”

“There’s nothing wrong with laudanum. It’s medicinal,” he sniffs.

“In moderation . . .”

“Father’s no addict. Not Father,” he says, as if he means to convince a jury. “He’ll be fine now that he’s back in England. Just remember what I’ve told you. Can you at least promise me that much? Please?”

“Yes, fine,” I say, feeling dead inside. They don’t know what they’re in for at Spence, getting me, a ghost of a girl who’ll nod and smile and take her tea but who isn’t really here.

The driver calls down to us. “Sir, we’ll be needin’ to pass through the East, if you want to draw the curtains.”

“What does he mean?” I ask.

“We have to go through the East End. Whitechapel? Oh, for heaven’s sake, the
slums,
Gemma,” he says, loosening the curtains on the sides of his windows to block out the poverty and filth.

“I’ve seen slums in India,” I say, leaving my curtains in place. The carriage bumps its way along the cobblestones through grimy, narrow streets. Dozens of dirty, thin children clamber about, staring at us in our fine carriage. My heart sinks to see their bony, soot-smeared faces. Several women huddle together under a gaslight, sewing. It makes sense for them to use the city’s light and not waste their own precious candles for this thankless work. The smell in the streets—a mix of refuse, horse droppings, urine, and despair—is truly awful, and I’m afraid I might gag. Loud music and yelling spill out onto the street from a tavern. A drunken couple tumbles out after. The woman has hair the color of a sunset and a harsh, painted face. They’re arguing with our driver, holding us here.