The Sweet Far Thing (50 page)

“This one about the light bearer isn’t too awful,” Ann offers.

I grimace. “Is that the one in which Florence Nightingale appears on the battlefield like an angel, or is it the poem that likens Admiral Nelson to a Greek god?”

Felicity leaves the piano and joins us on the floor. “I can’t stop thinking about last night. It was the most exciting time yet in the realms.”

“You mean the Winterlands,” Ann whispers. “And you really saw Eugenia Spence there, Gemma?”

“She didn’t appear to us,” Felicity sniffs, and I fear it shall become a competition.

Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv
erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

“I told you everything,” I say, defending myself. “Do you realize that we can save her and the realms?”

Felicity purses her lips. “
You
can, you mean.”

“
We
can,” I say, correcting her. “But first, we must find the dagger Wilhelmina took, and I’ve no idea where to look.”

“Perhaps it’s here at Spence,” Ann suggests.

“We don’t even know that Wilhelmina is trustworthy. After all, she stole it, didn’t she?” Felicity muses.

“I think she made a mistake and now she means to redeem herself by leading me to it,” I say.

“But why take it in the first place?” Felicity presses.

“You’re supposed to practice your performances!” Cecily chides, hands on her hips.

“They are helping me to select a poem,” I answer with as much disdain as is possible.

The doors swing open, and I fear that Mrs. Nightwing has come to reproach us for not working harder.

Instead, she calls for Ann.

“Miss Bradshaw. Will you come with me, please?”

Head down, Ann follows her out, and I can’t imagine what sort of trouble she could be in.

“At last,” Cecily says, gloating.

“Cecily, what do you know?” Felicity asks.

Cecily twirls in a pirouette. “Her cousins have arrived from the country to take her away. Brigid is upstairs now packing her case.”

“But they can’t!” I cry as Felicity and I exchange horrified looks.

“They decided it was time.
High
time, if you ask me.”

“Well, we didn’t!” I snap.

Cecily’s mouth opens in an outraged O just as Miss McCleethy makes her appearance, and I curse my timing. “Miss McCleethy, will you allow Miss Doyle to speak to me so appallingly?”

Miss McCleethy levels her gaze at me. “Miss Doyle? Is an apology called for?”

“Do forgive me, dear Cecily.” My smile is as false as a street vendor’s remedies.

Cecily’s hands fly to her hips again. “Miss McCleethy!”

I rush to Miss McCleethy’s side. “Is it true? Have Ann’s cousins come for her?”

“Yes,” she answers.

Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv
erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

“But they can’t do that!” I protest. “She doesn’t want to go with them! She’s not meant to be a governess. She—”

Something resembling true concern shows in Miss McCleethy’s hard face. “It was Miss Bradshaw herself who arranged for it.”

It’s as if Miss McCleethy’s words are spoken underwater. I can scarcely make sense of them, and a cold dread tightens in my stomach.

I run for the stairs and take them two at a time, Felicity calling my name and Miss McCleethy demanding order. When I reach our room, completely out of breath, Ann is sitting on her bed wearing her drab brown traveling suit and modest wool hat. She makes a neat pile of her halfpenny papers and the fashion magazine Felicity handed down. The program for
Macbeth
sits on top. Brigid tucks the last of Ann’s clothes into her suitcase.

“Brigid,” I pant. “Could I have a moment with Ann?”

“All righ’ then,” Brigid says, sniffling. “Close the case proper. And don’t forget your gloves, dearie.” Our housekeeper bustles past me, dabbing at her moist eyes with a handkerchief. It’s just Ann and me.

“Tell me it’s a lie,” I say.

Ann closes her case and sets it on the floor at her feet. “I left you the halfpenny papers. Something to remember me by.”

“You can’t go with them. You’ve a position in Mr. Katz’s company waiting for you. The world’s stages!”

Anguish shows on Ann’s face. “No. That was for Nan Washbrad, whose beauty speaks for itself, not Ann Bradshaw. The girl they want doesn’t exist. Not really.”

I throw her case onto the bed, open it up, and start unpacking it. “Then we’ll find a way. We’ll make it work with the magic.”

Ann puts her hand on mine, stopping me. “Don’t you see, Gemma? It would never work. Not forever. I can’t be who they want me to be.”

“Then be someone else. Be yourself!”

“Not good enough.” She twists her gloves in her hands, crumpling them into a ball and straightening them out again. “That’s why I sent the letter asking them to come for me.”

I think back to the night of Ann’s audition and the letter in her hands, the one she had so much trouble posting. She never meant to go with Lily Trimble and Mr. Katz. I sink onto her bed; her case rests between us. She puts her things back in and latches it shut.

“Tell me, then, what was all that trouble for?” I bite the words off.

“I’m sorry, Gemma.” She tries to touch me but I shrink away. “If I leave now, I can remember that day as it was. I can always believe that I could have done it. But if I take that chance—if I go to them as
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv
erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

myself and fail…I couldn’t bear it.”

Felicity bursts through the door and blocks it. “Don’t you worry, Ann. I won’t let them take you.”

Ann pulls on her gloves and grabs the handle of her case. “Step aside, please.”

Fee opens her mouth in protest. “But—”

“Let her go, Fee.” I want to kick Ann—for not trying. For giving up on herself and on us.

Ann’s face falls into a well-trained mask that betrays no emotion. She might use that talent to thrill audiences from the world’s stages. Instead, she will use it to ease into the lives of her cousins so seamlessly that it will be as if she has never existed at all. And I see now that she might have made a good magician as well as an actress, for she knows how to make herself disappear.

Suitcase in hand, Ann marches down the stairs for the last time. Her shoulders are straight and her back is stiff but her eyes are blank. She’s even begun to walk like a governess. Down the hall, I can hear the phonograph playing, McCleethy putting the girls through their careful paces.

Mrs. Wharton waits at the bottom of the stairs with Mrs. Nightwing and Brigid. Mrs. Wharton wears a confection of a dress—beaded and feathered and overwrought. “Ah, here’s our Annie now. I was just telling Mrs. Nightwing how fond I know you’ll become of our house in the country. Mr. Wharton and I have named it Balmoral Spring, as Balmoral is so dear to Her Majesty.”

“What a ridiculous name for a country house,” Felicity mutters. “Have they never spent a spring at Balmoral? It makes one long for English winters.”

Mrs. Wharton chatters on about the nuisance of maintaining a country estate in the proper style and how her days are made a ruin by constantly keeping after the servants. Brigid gives Ann a handkerchief though she’s the one who could use one.

“No shame in service,” she says, cupping Ann’s chin tenderly. “You remember your old Brigid.”

“Goodbye, Ann,” Felicity says. “It won’t be the same without you.”

Ann turns to me. I know she’s waiting for some hint of kindness—a kiss, an embrace, even a smile. But I can’t muster any of it.

“You’ll make a fine governess.” My words are like a slap.

“I know,” she answers, a slap of her own.

The girls crowd the foyer. They sniffle and make a fuss as they never did while Ann was here and it might have mattered. I can’t bear it, so I slink off to the great hall and peek out from behind the drapes as Ann and her sudden admirers step outside.

A footman secures Ann’s case and, after tending to Mrs. Wharton, he helps Ann into the carriage. She pokes her head out the window, holding fast to her one good hat. I could rush after her, give her a kiss on the cheek, send her off with a fond farewell. I could. It would mean the world to her. But I can’t make my feet move.
Just say a proper goodbye, Gemma. That’s all.

Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv
erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

The reins are snapped. The horses kick up dust. The carriage jolts as it makes the turn around the drive and toward the road. It grows smaller and smaller till it’s nothing more than a dark speck moving away.

“Goodbye,” I whisper at last, when it no longer matters and there is no one to hear it but the window.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

ABSENCE IS A CURIOUS THING. WHEN FRIENDS ARE ABSENT, they seem to loom ever larger, till the lack of them is all one can feel. Now that Ann has left, the room is too big. Try as I might, I cannot fill the space that remains. I find I miss the snoring that pestered me so; I miss her gloomy character and silly, romantic notions and macabre fascinations. A half dozen times during the day, I think of some small observation I should like to share with her—an aside about Cecily or a complaint about the porridge that might make them both more bearable—only to realize that she isn’t here to enjoy it.

There’s a moment of profound sadness that can be dispelled only by summoning my anger.

She chose to leave,
I remind myself as I put the needle to my embroidery, sing hymns, and practice my curtsy for the Queen. But if the fault is hers, why do I take it to heart? Why does her failure also feel like my own?

I am glad when Miss McCleethy, acting as games mistress, calls us outdoors to play at sports. Several girls amuse themselves with lawn tennis. Some intrepid souls take up fencing, with Felicity leading the charge, a fierce gleam in her eye. A small group campaigns for cricket, “just like the boys’ schools!”, but as we have no bats or balls, it’s a moot point, and grumbling, they are forced to settle for croquet.

I am for hockey. Running about the lawn, stick at the ready, cradling the ball down the field, passing it successfully to a teammate, shouting without restriction, all the while with the wind in my face and the sun on my back, is most invigorating. I should like a bit of hockey to clear my mind and sharpen my senses, to make me forget my loss. I find I should like to hit something with a stick.

Miss McCleethy calls to us from the lawn without restraint. “That will never do! Your chum needs an assist, Miss Temple—look sharp! You must work together, ladies, toward a common goal! Remember: Grace, strength, beauty!”

She may speak to the others, for I’ve done with assisting. I tried helping Ann, to no avail. When the ball is in play again, Cecily and I race for it at the same time. My blasted skirt tangles in my legs a bit—oh, what I wouldn’t do for the freedom of trousers just now—and Cecily gains the advantage. She may be closer but I don’t yield. I want it. More importantly, I don’t want her to have it, else she’ll be smug for a week.

“I’m for it!” I call.

Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv
erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

“No, no—I have it!” she shouts.

Our sticks lock, and she gives mine a smack with hers. One of our opponents, a thick girl with ginger hair, seizes the moment. She reaches between us and steals the ball, setting up a most brilliant play.

“I told you I had it, Miss Doyle,” Cecily says with a tight smile.

“Clearly, you didn’t,” I reply with a false smile of my own.

“It was mine.”

“You’re wrong!” I insist.

Miss McCleethy strides onto the field and separates us. “Ladies! This is hardly a demonstration of proper sportsmanship. Enough, or I shall give you both poor conduct marks.”

Glowering, I return to form. I should like to show Cecily—show them all—what I can do. No sooner have I thought it than the magic rears inside me with new force, and the ball is all I can see. I’m as bold as Richard the Lion-Hearted as I race down the field, outwitting my opponents. This time, the play will be mine.

Cecily is quick, though. She’s nearly to the ball. “I have—”

I run hard, knocking Cecily down. She sprawls on the grass and begins to wail. Miss McCleethy comes at a clip.

“M-Miss M-McCleethy!” she blubbers. “She deliberately charged me!”

“I did not!” I protest, but my red cheeks show the lie for what it is.

“You did so!” Cecily wails.

“You’re being babyish,” I say, putting the blame back on her shoulders.

“All right, that’s enough. Miss Temple, part of sportsmanship is keeping a stiff upper lip.” Cecily’s mouth opens and I gloat. “And you, Miss Doyle, are far too hot, it seems. Cool your temper off the field, please.”

“But I—”

“Your recklessness might cause an even graver injury, Miss Doyle,” Miss McCleethy says, and I know she isn’t speaking solely of the game.

My cheeks burn. The other girls snicker. “I am not reckless.”

“I’ll have no further argument. Off the field until you have regained your composure.”

Mortified and angry, I walk past the smirking schoolgirls and the chuckling workers and straight into the school, not caring that I’m demonstrating the most appalling lack of sportsmanship.

Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv
erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

Bloody McCleethy. If she knew what I know—that Eugenia Spence is alive in the Winterlands and trusts me and not her—she might not speak to me that way. Right, I’ve more important matters at hand. I crawl into Felicity’s tent, where I’ve left our copy of
A History of Secret Societies,
and, lounging on the settee in the great room, proceed to read it anew, hoping for some clue to the hiding place of the dagger.

With a sigh, I resign myself to combing through it page by page, though 502 pages is so many to wade through, and I curse authors who write such lengthy books when a few neat pages of prose would do.