Stepsister(20)

“Are you quite certain about the date, Isabelle?” Maman asked, her tyrannical tone giving way to a bewildered one.

“Yes. Go back to your room now. I’ll bring you your supper,” Isabelle coaxed, taking her mother’s arm.

But Maman, suddenly vexed again, shook her off. “Octavia, put that book down!” she demanded. “You’ll ruin your eyes with all those numbers.” She strode across the room and snatched the book from Tavi’s hands. “Honestly! What man ever thinks, Oh, how I’d love to meet a girl who can solve for x? Go get dressed. We cannot keep the countess waiting!”

“For God’s sake, Maman, stop this!” Tavi snapped. “That ball was ages ago and even if it wasn’t, the countess doesn’t want us anymore. Nobody does!”

Maman stood very still. She said nothing for quite some time. When she spoke again, her voice was little more than a whisper. “Of course the countess wants us. Why wouldn’t she?”

“Because she knows,” Tavi said. “About Ella and how we treated her. She hates us. The whole village hates us. The whole country does. We’re outcasts!”

Maman pressed her palm to her forehead. She closed her eyes. When she opened them again, the febrile brightness had receded and clarity had returned. But something else was there, too—a cold, menacing anger.

“You think yourself very clever, Octavia, but you are not,” she said. “Before the prince came for Ella, I had five offers of marriage for her. Five. Even though I turned her into a kitchen girl. Do you know how many I’ve had for you? Zero. Solve that equation, my dear.”

Tavi, stung, looked away.

“What, exactly, do you expect to do with all your studying?” Maman asked, waving the book in the air. “Become a professor? A scientist? Such things are only for men. If I cannot find a husband for you, who will keep you when I’m no longer here? What will you do? Become a governess to another woman’s children, living in some cold attic room, eating leftovers from her table? Work as a seamstress, stitching day and night until you go blind?” Maman shook her head disgustedly. “Even in rags, Ella outshined you. She was pretty and pleasing, and you? You make yourself ugly with your numbers, your formulas, your ridiculous equations. It must stop. It will stop.”

She walked to the hearth and threw the book into the fire.

“No!” Tavi cried. She leapt out of her chair, grabbed a poker, and tried to rescue it, but the flames were already blackening the pages.

“Finish dressing, both of you!” Maman ordered, striding out of the room. “Jacques! Bring the carriage!”

“Tavi, did you have to upset her?” Isabelle asked angrily. “Maman!” she called, running after her mother. “Where are you?”

She found her trying to open the front door, still calling for the carriage. It took Isabelle ages to get her back upstairs. Once she had her in her bedroom, she helped her undress and gave her a glass of brandy to calm her. She tried to get her to eat, but Maman refused. Eventually, Isabelle managed to get her into bed, but as she was pulling the covers over her, Maman sat up and grabbed her arm. “What will become of you and your sister? Tell me?” she asked, her eyes fearful.

“We’ll be fine. We’ll manage. Stepfather left us money, didn’t he?”

Maman laughed. It was a tired, hopeless sound. “Your stepfather left us nothing but debts. I’ve sold the Rembrandt. Most of the silver. Several of my jewels …”

Isabelle was exhausted. Her head hurt. “Hush, Maman,” she said. “Go to sleep now. We’ll talk about it tomorrow.”

When she returned to the kitchen, she found Tavi kneeling by the hearth, staring into the fire. Isabelle took the poker from her hand and tried to pull the book out of the grate, but it was too late.

“Stop, Isabelle. Leave it. It’s gone,” said Tavi, with a hitch in her voice.

Isabelle’s heart ached for her. Steady, logical Tavi never cried. “I’m sorry. I just wanted to help,” she said, putting the poker down.

“Do you? Dress my hair, then,” Tavi said brokenly. “Rouge my cheeks. Make me pretty. Can you do that?”

Isabelle didn’t reply. If only she could make Tavi pretty. And herself. How different their lives would be.

“I didn’t think so,” said Tavi, staring at the ashes of her beloved book. “I could solve all the Diophantine equations, extend Newton’s work on infinite series, complete Euler's analysis of prime numbers, and it wouldn’t matter.” She looked at Isabelle. “Ella is the beauty. You and I are the ugly stepsisters. And so the world reduces us, all three of us, to our lowest common denominator.”





Twenty-One


Deep within the Maison Douleur, a tall grandfather clock, its pendulum sweeping back and forth like a scythe, ticked the minutes away.

Maman and Tavi were both in bed, but Isabelle couldn’t sleep. She knew she’d only toss and turn if she tried, so she stayed in the kitchen and sat by the hearth, picking at the supper she’d fixed for Maman.

Once, she welcomed the night. She would climb down the thick vine that grew outside her bedroom window and meet Felix. They would gaze at the night sky and count shooting stars, and sometimes, if they were still as stones and lucky, they would see an owl swoop down on her prey or a stag walk out of the Wildwood, his antlers rising over his noble head like a crown.