A Great and Terrible Beauty (Gemma Doyle #1)(57)

It’s only a dream.

But it felt so real. I put my fingers to my lips. They’re not swollen with kissing. I’m still whole. Pure. A useful commodity. Kartik is miles away, lost in sleep that does not involve me. That part of me I haven’t explored aches, though, and I have to lie on my side with my knees clamped together to stop it.

It’s only a dream.

But most frightening of all is how much I wish it weren’t.





CHAPTER TWENTY


DR. THOMAS HAS PRONOUNCED PIPPA FULLY RECOVERED, and as it’s Sunday and church has been dispensed with, we have the afternoon to luxuriate as we wish. We’re down by the water, casting the last petals of late-summer flowers onto the calm surface. Ann has stayed behind to practice her aria for Assembly Day—the day when our families will descend upon Spence and see what marvels of womanhood we’re becoming.

I toss a handful of crumbling wildflowers. They sit on the lake like a blight before the breeze whips them out toward the deep middle. They settle, take on more and more water till they finally go under in silence. Across the lake, a few of the younger girls sit on a blanket, talking and eating plums, happy to ignore us as we ignore them.

Pippa is lying in the rowboat. She can’t remember anything before her seizure, for which I’m grateful. She’s horribly embarrassed by her loss of control, by what she might have said or done.

“Did I make any vulgar noises?” she asks.

“No,” I assure her.

“Not at all,” Felicity adds.

Pippa’s shoulders relax against the bow. Seconds later, a new worry has them knotted up again. “I didn’t . . . soil myself, did I?” She can barely say this.

“No, no!” Felicity and I say in a tumble.

“It’s shameful, isn’t it? My affliction.”

Felicity laces tiny flowers together into a crown. “It’s no more shameful than having a mother who’s a paid consort.”

“I’m sorry, Felicity. I shouldn’t have said that. Will you forgive me?”

“There’s nothing to forgive. It’s only truth.”

“Truth,” Pippa scoffs. “Mother says I can’t ever let anyone know about my seizures. She says if I feel one coming on, I should say I have a headache and excuse myself.” Her laugh is bitter. “She thinks I should be able to control it.”

Her words pull me down like an anchor. I want so desperately to tell her I understand. To tell my secret. I clear my throat. The wind changes. It blows the petals back against my hair. I can feel the moment slipping away. It sinks under the surface of things, hidden from the light.

Pippa changes the subject. “On a cheerier note, Mother said that she and Father have a wonderful surprise for me. I do hope it’s a new corset. The boning in this one practically impales me with each breath. Ye gods!”

“Perhaps you shouldn’t eat so many toffees,” Felicity says.

Pippa is too tired to be truly outraged. She offers a show of hurt. “I’m not fat! I’m not! My waist is a tidy sixteen and a half inches.”

Pippa’s waist is wasp-thin, as men are rumored to prefer waists. Our corsets bind and bend us to this fashionable taste, even though it makes us short of breath and sometimes ill from the pressure. I haven’t a clue how large or small my waist is. I’m not delicate in the slightest, and I have shoulders like a boy’s. I find the whole conversation tedious.

“Is your mother coming this year, Fee?” Pippa asks.

“She’s visiting friends. In Italy,” Felicity says, finishing her crown. She places it on her head like a fairy queen’s.

“What about your father?”

“I don’t know. I hope so. I’d love for the three of you to meet him, and for him to see that I have actual flesh-and-blood friends.” She gives a sad smile. “I think he was afraid I’d become one of those sullen girls who never get invited to anything. I was a bit that way after Mother . . .”

Left.

That’s the word that hangs in the air, unspoken. It joins shame, secrets, fear, visions, and epilepsy. So many things unsaid weight the distance between us. The more we try to close the gap, the more its heaviness pushes us apart.

“How long has it been since you’ve seen him?” I ask.

“Three years.”

“I’m certain he’ll come this time, Fee,” Pippa says. “And he’ll be very proud to see what a lady you’ve become.”

Felicity smiles and it’s as if she’s turned the sun on us both. “Yes. Yes, I have, haven’t I? I think he’ll be pleased. If he comes.”

“I’d loan you my new kid gloves but my mother expects to see them on my fingers as proof that we’re somebody,” Pippa sighs.

“What of your family?” Felicity turns her sharp eyes on me. “Are they coming? The mysterious Doyles?”

My father hasn’t written in two weeks. I think of my grandmother’s last letter:

Dearest Gemma,

I hope this letter finds you well. I’ve had a touch of neuralgia but you shouldn’t worry as the doctor says it’s merely the strain of caring for your father and will abate when you are home again and able to help shoulder the burden as a good daughter should. Your father seems to be comforted by the garden. He sits for long stretches on the old bench there. He’s given to fits of staring and nodding off but otherwise is at peace.