The Gates of Sleep (43 page)

Today, Mary Anne ordered her to walk the long gallery with
a proper stride without the string. She began, taking steps half the size of
the ones she was used to, and feeling as if she was taking an age to traverse
the distance.

“Now, mind, if you’re in a great hurry, and
there’s no one about to see you,” Mary Anne said, as she reached
the other end of the Gallery, “then go ahead and tear about with that
gallop of yours. But if there’s anyone who catches you at it, they’ll
know in an instant that you’re a country cousin.”

Eh?
“What on earth do you mean by that?”
she replied—pitching her voice so that it carried without shouting, which
had been Madam’s personal lesson for the afternoons when she wasn’t
at the vicarage.

“You can’t race about a townhouse like that
without tripping over or running into something,” the maid replied
smugly. “Nor on a city sidewalk. You have to take short strides in a
city; dwellings are smaller, there’s much less space and more people and
things to share it. Why do you think people talk about going to the country to ‘stretch
their legs’?”

“I hadn’t thought about that,” she
admitted.

“I’m not going to put a book on your head,
though Madam said I should,” the maid said thoughtfully, watching her as
she approached. “That’s only to keep your chin up and your
shoulders back. I must say, for someone tossed about in a den of artists, you
have excellent posture.”

“My uncles used to have me pose for ladies’
portrait bodies and busts, so that the ladies themselves only had to sit for
the faces,” she said, giving a quarter of the truth. “And I posed
for saints, sometimes—Saint Jeanne d’Arc, for one. You can’t
slouch when you’re posing for something like that. They have to
look—” she pitched her voice a little differently now, making it
gluey and unctuous, like the utterly wet individual who had commissioned a
Madonna and Child once, when she was very small and posing as Jesus as a young
child, with Margherita standing duty as Mary.

“—
drrrrawn
up, my child,
drrrawn
up to Heaven by their faith and their hair—”

For the first time in all the weeks that she had been
afflicted with the maid’s presence, Mary Anne stared at her—then
burst out laughing. Real laughter, not a superior little cough, or a snicker.

“By their
hair?”
she gasped. “By
their
hair?”
Tears rolled down her face to the point where she
had to dry her eyes on her apron, and she was actually panting between whoops,
trying to get in air. Marina couldn’t help it; she started giggling
herself, and made things worse by continuing the impression. “As if, my
child, they are
suspended
above the mortal
clay,
by means of
a
strrrrring
attached to the tops of their heads—”

“A string?” howled Mary Anne, doubling over. “A
string?”

When she finally got control of herself, it seemed that
something had changed forever, some barrier between them had cracked and
fallen. “Oh,” the maid said, finally getting a full breath, the red
of her face fading at last. “Thank you for that. I haven’t had such
a good laugh in a long, long time.” She dabbed at the corners of her eyes
with her apron. “Imagine. A string. Like a puppet—” she shook
her head. “Or suspended by their hair! What fool said that?”

“A fool of a bishop who got his position because he
was related to someone important,” she replied, with amusement and just a
touch of disgust at the memory. “Who knew less about real faith than our
little vicar down in the village, but a very great deal about whom and how to
flatter. But my u—guardian Sebastian Tarrant needed his money, and he did
a lovely painting for the man, and since it was for a parlor,
that
is
how he painted it. To be ornamental, just as if it was to illustrate something
out of King Arthur rather than the Bible. Sebastian said he just tried to tell
himself that it was just an Italian bucolic scene he was doing, and it came out
all right.”

She smiled at the memory. She could still remember him
fuming at first over the sketches that the Bishop rejected.
“Damn
it
all, Margherita! That pompous ass rejected my angels! Angels are
supposed to be
powerful,
not simpering ninnys with goose-wings! The
first thing they say to mortals is
‘Fear not!’
for heaven’s
sake! Don’t you think they must be saying it because their very
appearance is so tremendous it should inspire fear? The angels
he
wants
don’t look like they’re saying ‘Fear not!’, they look
like they’re saying, ‘There there’.
…”

“Mary Anne,” she said, sitting down—
insinuating
herself into the chair, as the maid had just taught her—”I know that
you aren’t comfortable going to church with me. I don’t see why you
should still have to, honestly—in the beginning, yes, when I might have
done something foolish like crying to the vicar about how horrid my guardian
was and how she was mistreating me, but not now. Why don’t you ask Madam
to be excused?”

The maid gave her a measuring look. “I believe that I
will, miss. And you are correct in thinking that Madam assumed you might do
something foolish. There was, after all, no telling how you’d been brought
up out there—nor what you’d been told about Madam.”

Oh yes; something has fallen that was between us. She
is never going to be a friend, but she’s not my enemy anymore.

“Well—” she shrugged. “What child
likes a strict tutor? But the child has to be readied for business or
university, and I have to be readied for society. I know a great deal from
books, and nothing at all about society.”

There. That’s noncommittal enough.

Mary Anne unbent just a little more. “A wise
observation, miss. And may I say that thus far you have been a good pupil, if
rebellious at first.”

Marina smiled and held out her hand to the maid. “I
promise to be completely cooperative from now on, even if I think what you’re
trying to teach me is daft.” She lowered her voice to a whisper as the
astonished maid first stared at, then took her hand in a tentative handshake. “Just
promise to keep the fact that I posed for saints a secret. Reggie and Madam
already think I’m too pious as it is.”

“It’s a promise, miss.” The handshake was
firmer. “Everyone has a secret or two. Yours is harmless enough.”

“And I’d better practice walking if I’m
not to look like a country-cousin Monday in Exeter.” She got to her
feet—ascending, rather than heaving herself up—and resumed her walk
up and down the Gallery.

But she couldn’t help but wonder just what that last
remark of the maid’s had implied.

Everyone has a secret or two. Yours is harmless enough.

To Marina’s immense relief, all she had to do was act
naturally on the trip to Exeter to keep Reggie amused. It was, after all, her
first train ride, and she found it absolutely enthralling—they had their
own little first-class compartment to themselves, so she didn’t have to
concern herself about embarrassing rather than amusing him. The speed with
which they flew through the countryside thrilled her, and she kept her nose
practically pressed against the glass of the compartment door for the first
half of the journey. By the time she had just begun to tire—a little,
only a little—of the passing countryside, it was time to take breakfast,
and for that, they moved to the dining car.

This, of course, was another new experience, and she looked
at the menu, and fluttered her eyelashes and let Reggie do all the ordering for
her. Which he did, with a great deal of amusement. She didn’t care. She
was having too much fun. Eating at a charming little dining table with lovely
linen and a waiter and all, while careening through the countryside at the same
time, was nothing short of amazing. Mind, you did have to take care when
drinking or trying to cut something; there was certainly a trick to it. For
once, there was an advantage to wearing black!

The enjoyment continued after they disembarked from the
train, though the sheer number of people pouring out of their train alone was
bewildering, and there were several trains at the platforms. In fact, it seemed
to her that there were more people on their train than were in the entire village
of Oakhurst! And they all seemed to be in a very great hurry. For once, the
Odious Reggie was extremely useful, as he bullied his way along the platform,
with Marina trailing in his wake. Literally in his wake; he left a clear area
behind himself that she just fitted into. The engine at rest chuffed and hissed
and sent off vast clouds of steam and smoke as they passed it, and she followed
the example of the other passengers and covered her nose and mouth with her
scarf until they were off the platform.

The Odious Reggie continued to prove his utility; he took
her arm as soon as they were out of the crush. She didn’t get much chance
to look at the terminal, though; he steered her through a mob of people who
streamed toward the street. Once there, he commandeered a hansom cab and lifted
her into it.

“Head, heart, hands, or soles first?” he asked
genially, once he was safely in beside her. She could only shake her head in
bewilderment.

“Lightest first, then, since I’m likely to end
up as your beast of burden.” He tapped on the roof with his umbrella, and
a little hatch above their heads opened and the driver peered down at them
through it.

Evidently Reggie knew exactly where to go, too. He rattled
off a name, the hatch snapped shut, and they were off, the horse moving at a
brisk trot through streets crowded with all manner of vehicles—including
motorcars. Marina couldn’t help it; she stared at them with round eyes,
causing Reggie still more amusement.

“Soles” proved to be Reggie’s first
choice; the cobbler. This was for the very simple reason that the shoes would
have to be sent, being “bespoke,” or made to Marina’s
measure. She chose riding boots, two pairs of walking shoes, and at Reggie’s
urging, a pair of dancing slippers. When she protested that she had no use for
such a thing, he laughed.

“Do you think I’m going to let you keep
treading on my toes in what you’re wearing now?” he said, making
her blush. “Dancing slippers, m’gel. My feet have had enough
punishment. If you’re going to keep treading on them, let it be with soft
slippers.”

From there, they went to the glover—which was a thing
of amazement to her, that there was an establishment that sold nothing but
gloves—and she got a full dozen pairs, all black, of course, but of
materials as varied as knitted lace and the softest kid-leather. Reggie
overruled her completely there, when she would only have gotten one satin pair
and one kid. He’d gone down the entire selection in black, picking out
one of everything except the heavy wool, and two of the kid.

Then the milliner. And at that establishment, Reggie
excused himself. She had conducted herself with dispatch—or at least, as
much as would be allowed, given that the cobbler took all the measurements
necessary to make a pair of lasts to exactly duplicate her feet—but here
she stopped in the entrance and just stared.

Hats—she had never
seen
such hats, except in
pictures. Enormous cartwheel picture-hats, hoods, riding hats, straw hats,
little bits of netting and feathers that could hardly be
called
a hat,
plain, loaded with everything under the sun.

“I’ll be back in an hour, m’gel,”
Reggie said, patronizingly. “I expect by that time, you’ll have
just gotten started.”

By that point, an attentive young woman in a neat skirt and
shirtwaist had come up to them. “Whatever she wants, and put it on Madam
Arachne Chamberten’s account,” he told the assistant, and took
himself off, leaving Marina in her hands.

Marina shook herself out of her daze, and determined that,
although it was unlikely she was going to escape with only the single hat she
had promised Reggie, she was going to keep her purchases down to only what she
needed. She faced the eager assistant. “I’m in full mourning,”
she said firmly. “So we will not be purchasing anything frivolous. I need
a riding hat. And a foul-weather hood, or something of the sort—”

“Yes, indeed, miss,” the assistant said with
amusement, sounding fully confident that the very opposite was going to happen.

No you don’t—she swore to herself, despite the
fact that her eyes kept going to a particularly fetching straw for summer.

When Reggie returned, she was waiting for him—with
only a single hatbox. Granted, there were three hats in it, but she had managed
to select items that fit together neatly so as to all fit in a single box. It
had been a narrow escape, but she’d done it.

“One
hat?” Reggie asked incredulously,
staring at the box.
“One
hat? You’re escaping this Aladdin’s
cave with
one
hat?”

“No,” she admitted. “Three small ones.”

“It’s one box. It counts as one hat. My heart
fails me!” He clutched theatrically at his chest, and the assistants
giggled over his antics, stopping just short of flirtation with
him—probably because the milliner’s eye was on them.

“Off to the bookshop, then,” he said, “Then
luncheon at the Palm Court, and the old firm, then homeward bound.” He
scooped up her, her hat- and glove-boxes, and carried them all off to the
waiting cab.

If there was one blot on the day so far, it was that Madam
seemed to have accounts everywhere, and not a single actual penny had changed
hands, so Marina hadn’t been able to say something like “Oh, I’ll
take care of it while you visit the tobacconist,” and keep back a
shilling or so for herself.

The same case proved to hold at the bookshop—which
was the biggest such establishment that Marina had ever seen, and had actual
electric
lights, which had been turned on because of growing overcast that threatened
rain. She tried very, very hard not to stare, but it was extremely difficult,
and she couldn’t help but wish for such a thing at Oakhurst.