Midnight in Everwood(12)
‘See to it that this makes the post at first light.’ She handed the letter over.
Sally nodded and tucked it into her apron. ‘Right you are, miss.’
That night, Marietta dreamt of moons and pearls and wishes that shone harder and fiercer than all else.
Chapter Seven
In the week that followed, Drosselmeier brought light to their evenings as November drew to a close.
On the following Tuesday, he brought a box wrapped in brown paper. Inside, there were rows of tin soldiers, nestled into the velvet lining. Frederick couldn’t resist setting them up in the name of nostalgia and they had marched around, all shiny black boots and vacant polished faces, until Jarvis announced dinner. The soldiers now stood in the cabinet, staring out at everyone as if they were plotting an invasion.
On Wednesday, he joined them for afternoon tea and gifted Theodore an elaborate chess set with chequered squares that slid across to send unwitting opponents’ pieces plummeting to their end. It had already been the battleground of several matchings of wits between Theodore and Frederick. Marietta was tempted to indulge in a game herself but with the tension crescendoing between her and her father, she demurred at his challenge.
On Thursday he had sent Ida her promised piece for the cabinet: a pair of silver candlesticks that hummed with his mechanisms, sending gold-winged bees flying around the petals that held lilac candles in place. When the candles were lit, the entire family dreamt of distant summers and the townhouse was perfumed with orange blossom and apricot tartlets.
On Friday, there was another dinner, where Marietta was presented with a music box that opened to reveal a waltzing princess. A creature of cloud wisps and the pale blue of starling eggs, with a gown that frothed about her legs in as many layers as a mille-feuille. If one sang a short tune to her, a secret compartment for one’s most treasured jewels snapped open and Marietta was rather delighted by it.
The whole family had been enchanted by Drosselmeier as if he had bewitched them, yet each time Marietta exclaimed over his marvellous inventions, mechanised toys and pretty trinkets, she was unable to stop imagining the consequences that might arise from their shared dinners, seeing herself sealed in a specimen box with a label that read, simply, uxorem, her identity reduced to a single word.
Wife.
After a gruelling rehearsal of the Rose Adagio, where she had spent an inordinate period of time balanced on a single pointe, maintaining her position as she rested a hand on Aurora’s suitors, one at a time, Marietta’s toes were blistered and bloodied and she desired nothing more than to submerge herself in hot water. When she returned to her room, Sally handed her a thick envelope. An inky stamp over the seal betrayed its origins.
‘I thought it best to give this directly to you, miss,’ Sally whispered, her eyes flitting from one wall to another, as if they were watching her.
‘You thought right; thank you, Sally. Now, I would be most appreciative if you could draw me a bath.’ Marietta waited until her lady’s maid had scurried into the adjoining bathroom to open the envelope. Her fingers trembled and the paper sliced into her knuckle. A bead of blood fled down the writing, leaving a scarlet shadow.
You have been successful in requesting an audience with The Nottingham Ballet Company. Your audition will be held on the first of December, at four o’clock. Please arrive in a prompt fashion.
Marietta closed her eyes, relief and vexation intermingling, needling her mood into a spiky, querulous creature. It hadn’t escaped her that she was improving at the challenging variation. Enough for it to make a formidable audition performance. Yet, although she had secured herself an audition, with Miss Mary Worthers glued to her affairs, she was no closer to being able to attend it. She committed the letter to memory before feeding it to the fire, watching the words flame with all the brilliance of a jar of sweets. All too soon, they flaked to ash. She could almost taste the lingering smoke and imagined her own melancholia carried the same bitter tang. She instructed Sally to shake half a jar of pink bath salts into her clawfoot tub and was on the verge of disrobing when Frederick knocked at her door, announcing his presence.
She sighed. ‘Can this wait? I’m having a bath drawn.’
‘What a delight you are tonight,’ he said, strolling in and settling himself on her chaise longue, one berry-red shoe resting on a pin-striped knee. He slung a matching pin-striped elbow onto her favourite cushion; hand-stitched black velvet and antique silk with a lace border. Frederick had purchased it for her during a stroll through the Lace Market during the May he had become enamoured with the notion of incorporating lacework into his paintings. They’d wandered arm in arm through the oldest part of Nottingham, now the epicentre of the world’s lace industry, perusing the showrooms and lingering over cream cakes in the corner of a bakery. How distant that day seemed to Marietta now. That very evening, Theodore had summoned her to his study to inform her that after she had seen the year out, she would not be continuing with her dance studio. ‘Prancing about the stage is a pastime for children; it is not befitting of a woman in her twenties,’ he had told her with the finality of death. And Marietta had grieved.
‘Thank you, Sally; that will be all.’ Marietta turned to her brother. ‘I was under the impression that you were staying late at the courthouse today.’
Frederick kneaded his forehead with a knuckle. ‘Father was being particularly pompous; listening to him gave me the most frightful headache. I slipped out early for a drink with Geoffrey. I know, I have not a shadow of doubt I’ll regret it bitterly later—’ he pulled a face, warding off Marietta’s interjection ‘ —but it did lead me to a rather serendipitous encounter.’