The Gates of Sleep (25 page)

“Why don’t you show me what is suitable for the
young lady, Miss Eldergast,” Marina said, with some humor, “And we’ll
pick something or other out.”

“Well, you’re in deep mourning, of course,”
the dressmaker said hesitantly, “So these are the samples I
brought—”

“Black, black, and black, of course.” Marina
sighed, picked up the stack of swatches, and sat down next to Miss Eldergast,
putting them in her lap. She added bitterly, “And it matters not at all
that I never knew my parents; the sensibilities of society must not be
outraged.”

Of course, I could be in mourning for the happy life I
had in Killatree.

Miss Eldergast hesitated, somewhat taken aback. “Yes,
yes, of course,” she said hastily, clearly trying and failing to find
some polite response to Marina’s bald statement. “Now, if you could
choose from among
these
for a riding habit and walking skirts—”

It didn’t take very long to make her selections;
although the choice of fabric was wider and the number of patterns Miss
Eldergast was able to execute much larger than the dressmaker in Holsworthy was
able to offer, there were only a limited number of ways in which to dress in “black,
black, and black.” What was suitable for the young lady, at least
according to Madam Arachne, was the strictest possible interpretation of
mourning, without even the touch of mauve, lavender or violet that as a young
unmarried woman she should have been able to don without offending anyone.

I shall look like Queen Victoria before this is over.
Or one of those melancholy women who are would-be Gothic poetesses.

Still, there was no doubt that Madam was equipping Marina
generously, and in the height of fashion, the only exception being that
everything suitable had high necks and high collars. Not that this would be too
onerous in the winter, but when summer came, black and high collars were going
to be difficult to bear.

Time enough to worry about that when the time comes,
she told herself. For now, heavy silk blouses and shirtwaists, unlike the very
plain things that she’d been dressed in so far, were going to be made
exactly to her measure and ornamented lavishly with lace, ribbon, and flounces.
Beautifully soft skirts and jackets were getting braid, tucking, ruffles,
beading—

It would have taken a harder heart than Marina had not to
be enchanted by the clothing that the dressmaker had planned for her. Madam
Arachne had only given orders as to the color and general design, not to the
specifics, nor to the amount to be spent. So the modiste was going to create
garments similar to the kind that Madam Arachne herself wore—lavish, and
stylish.

And I hope that Madam doesn’t contradict that
plan.

“Have you any preferences as to what I deliver first,
miss?” the modiste asked at last, packing up their selections with care.

“Unless Madam says differently, the riding habit,
please,” Marina begged. “I’m dying for some exercise.”

The dressmaker smiled wanly. “Indeed, miss?”
she responded, just as Mary Anne returned. The maid gathered the poor little
woman in without a single word, polite or otherwise, to Marina, and took her
off, leaving Marina alone.

This was her chance; she walked across the room to a door
she had noticed behind a swag of ornamental drapery, and tried the knob. The
door swung open easily.

The room revealed was, indeed, another bedroom, this one
with all the furnishings under sheets. But the sheets didn’t hide the
carpet, walls, or the curtains on the bed, which were even more flamboyantly
scarlet than in Marina’s sitting room. Not a feminine decorating scheme,
either; this was a distinctly masculine room. And now that she thought about
it, the sitting room and her own room had been given ruffles and flourishes
that, taken away, also left a distinctly masculine appearance in the room.

This single glance told her what she had wanted to know. If
ever there was a room utterly suited to a young male Fire Master, this was it.
So these rooms must have once been the home of her uncles Sebastian and Thomas!

She closed the door, and let the swag of drapery fall back
to hide it with a feeling of satisfaction. And if the surroundings she found
herself in were at odds with her own preferences and her Element—now she
no longer felt so stifled and overheated by them. How could she? Here, more
than anywhere else (unless she discovered her Aunt Margherita’s room) she
was closer to the people she’d known than she had been since she’d
been taken away from them.

Until, that is, I see if Sally can manage to smuggle
letters out for me.
With friends among the lower servants, what had seemed
impossible yesterday was no longer. There was still the matter of obtaining
postage, but if she got her hands on some money…

Well, meanwhile, she needed to make concerted efforts to
please Madam Arachne; the sooner it appeared to her new guardian that Marina
was settling in and being obedient, the sooner opportunities to act on her own
would appear.

After some hunting, she found her instruments, her music,
her needlework, and her books tucked away in a cupboard in the sitting room, no
longer in the boxes or baskets that they had been packed into. While she waited
for the odious Mary Anne to come fetch her for another luncheon ordeal, she
began shelving her books among the ones she had purloined from the library.

As she did so, she couldn’t help but notice that some
books she would have expected to have with her were not there.

The missing books were an odd assortment; Greek and Latin
philosophers, essays by some of the Suffragrists that Elizabeth admired, and
some weighty history books. The problem was, since Marina had not seen these books
packed, she could not say for certain that she’d actually had them with
her—Jenny and Sarah had been overwrought, and there was no telling what
they had and had not packed. The books had been in her room and should have
been boxed—but those horrid lawyers had been in a great hurry, and they
might not have waited for everything.

Still… novels and poetry were there, including the
scandalous poetry of Byron and sensational books by other notorious authors,
and some rather daring, if frivolous, works in French. What was missing were
books that were—well—
serious
in tone.

She didn’t quite know what to make of that. Why take
away serious literature and leave the frivolous, even the demi-scandalous?

On the other hand, it wasn’t as if there was anything
among them, except the essays, that she probably couldn’t find in the
Oakhurst library.

Still, if someone had gone through her books, discarding
some just as her entire wardrobe had been discarded, it was very likely that
someone would continue to monitor her reading. Which meant that perhaps she had
better hide her etiquette books a little better. Maybe no one would take
them—but Mary Anne seemed determined to see her humiliated.

Why? Well, there was a very obvious reason—as long as
Marina remained a naive and socially inept bumpkin, Mary Anne was guaranteed a
position. Trained as a lady’s maid she might be, but Marina could not
imagine any real lady putting up with the woman’s airs for very long. If
novels were to be believed, a proper lady’s maid was silent, invisible,
and kept any opinions she might have to herself.

If Marina ever got to the point where Madam Arachne was
satisfied with her, Mary Anne would probably find herself out of a position.

And she certainly will when I am
twenty-one!

Unless, of course, she could sufficiently cow her charge to
make her think that Mary Anne could not possibly be dispensed with.

So—the removal of the “serious” books
might be on Madam’s orders, to ensure that Marina concentrated on
learning social graces and didn’t bury her nose in a book. But Mary Anne
would find it in her best interests to remove anything that would help Marina
do without her. Having confiscated books once, she certainly wouldn’t
hesitate to do it again.

Definitely, Marina had better hide her latest acquisitions.

Where? Not in among her clothing—Mary Anne would be
sure to find them there. And the first place anyone would look for hidden
treasures would be under the bed or the mattress.

In
my
room
—

The thought was parent to the deed; within a moment, she
had gathered up her purloined books and whisked them into Sebastian’s old
room. She shoved them under the mattress, smoothed over the dust-cloth, and
hurried back to the sitting room. When Mary Anne returned, she was putting her
instruments and music away.

“Do you suppose there would be a music stand I could
have here?” she asked the maid diffidently.

“You should practice in the music room, miss,”
Mary Anne replied with a frown. “That’s what it’s for. You
wouldn’t want to disturb people with your practicing.”

So, music practice was among the permitted
activities—though who she was going to disturb was a mystery, since she
hadn’t seen anyone but servants except Madam since she arrived, and this
wasn’t the servants’ wing.

Well, perhaps Madam was planning to entertain soon, which
would put guests in this wing.
Hmm. She must have taken my parents’
suite.
It would, of course, be the largest and best-appointed. Somehow she
couldn’t imagine Madam settling for anything less.

And I certainly wouldn’t want that suite. This is
cavernous enough for me, thank you.

“Yes, but changing temperatures are very bad for
lutes,” Marina replied. “The necks crack very easily. It shouldn’t
be in a room that doesn’t have a constant fire in it in winter.”
This, of course, was not true—but Mary Anne wouldn’t know that.

The maid sniffed. “I’ll have someone find a
stand,” she said, as if conferring a great favor. “In the meantime,
miss, it’s time for luncheon.”

Marina followed the maid to the dining room again; she was
glad to see Peter there, but even happier that she’d had a chance to
study one of those etiquette books last night. The number of supercilious
coughs was far fewer, and if the food was just as bland and tasteless as
before, at least she got a bit more of it this time.

Madam joined her at luncheon as well; Marina could only
watch her covertly, marveling that she actually seemed to enjoy what was set
before her—as much as Madam Arachne ever
appeared
to enjoy
anything.

Halfway through, Madam cleared her throat delicately, “I
should like you to meet my son Reginald this afternoon,” she said, as
Marina looked up quickly. “He can help immeasurably in instructing you in
polite conversation. And as we have a grama-phone, he can also teach you to
dance properly. I am assuming you have never learned?”

She shook her head. “Only country dances, Madam,”
she replied truthfully. “And not often.”

“Well, you’re not completely ungraceful; I
think he can manage,” Madam Arachne said coolly. “Mary Anne, please
show miss to the music room when luncheon is over.”

“Of course, Madam,” the maid said, with a
servility she had not demonstrated until this moment.

Luncheon was very soon deemed to be over, with the arrival
of a blancmange; since Marina detested blancmange, she toyed with her portion
and was not displeased to have it taken away when Madam rose and left to go
back to whatever it was that she was doing. Work, presumably. Something to do
with the estate, perhaps. Accounts. Whoever reigned over Oakhurst would have to
be an estate manager as well as the head of the household; there were the
tenant farms to manage as well as the home farm, and the household accounts to
run.

Or perhaps she was dealing with her own
businesses—after all, hadn’t she said that she had three pottery
manufactories? Or was it four? Marina could not imagine Madam leaving the
details of her businesses to anyone other than herself.

Another trek through the house brought them to the door of
the music room, which had a fire in the fireplace, but which, by the chill
still in the air, had not had one there for long. There was a harp, shrouded in
a cover and probably out of tune, and a piano in the corner, a grouping of
sofas and chairs about the fireplace, and an expanse of clear floor for
dancing. There was also, more prominently, an expensive gramophone on a table
of its own, and records shelved beside it.

Mary Anne simply left her there to her own devices; she
thought about examining the recordings for the gramophone, but if the device
was Reginald’s rather than belonging to the house, the young man might
resent her touching it. So instead, she examined the harp. As she had expected,
it had been de-tuned, but by the amount of wear on it, someone had been used to
playing it often.

Mother, probably.
Marina didn’t really
remember if Uncle Thomas had ever said anything about her mother playing the
harp, but it was the instrument of choice for young women of her mother’s
generation.

“Not a bad instrument, but I’d rather play the
gramophone,” said a careless-sounding male voice from the door. She
turned.

And there he was, leaning indolently against the doorframe.
Posed, in fact. There was no doubt that Reginald was Madam Arachne’s son;
he had her pale coloring, black hair, and finely chiseled features—but
where it was impossible to decide what Madam Arachne felt about anything,
Reginald wore a look of sardonic amusement and an air of general superiority as
casually as he wore his impeccably tailored suit. “Hello, cuz,” he
continued, sauntering across the room and holding out his hand. “I’m
Reggie.”

“Marina,” she replied, not particularly wanting
to offer
her
hand, but constrained to by politeness. He’s
going
to kiss it instead of shaking it,
she thought grimly.
He’ll make
a flourish out of it, to impress me with how Continental he is.