Page 55

Catherine puts down the ladies’ journal she was reading when I slip into her room. “Well?”
She’s recovered from her tantrum, her face cleaned of streaked tears and her hair neatly pulled back. Cool and calm, she’s hardly the picture of a woman jilted by her lover. It seems like years ago that I left her crying on her bed to go to Barrett House, not a couple of hours.
I shake my head. “He’s not coming back.”
She doesn’t move or say anything, just studies my face for a moment as if there might be something else written there that I’m not telling her. “I see,” she says finally. “You were gone an awfully long time just to find out that he’s not coming back.”
“It’s a long walk.”
She turns back to her journal of colorfully dressed ladies with tiny waists, flipping the pages with studied nonchalance. “Well in that case, I guess it’s no use moping about. August Pierce can rot in hell.”
“I’m sorry, Catherine,” I say with my hand on the doorknob. I want to go back to my room, cuddle up under my warm blankets and hibernate until Friday. If it weren’t for the promise of seeing Mr. Barrett in five days and the memory of his hand warm against my cheek, thinking about Catherine’s broken engagement and what it means for our family would chew me up from the inside.
I’m about to make my escape when she says, “I think I’ll call on Mr. Barrett soon. It seems ages since we last spoke, and I really ought to thank him for everything he did for August and me, even if it didn’t work out as I’d hoped.”
The door swings away from my grasp as I stop cold in my tracks. Swallowing, I quickly say, “I already thanked him on your behalf. I don’t think you need to bother.”
“Oh, it’s not a bother.” She puts down the journal and stretches her arms above her head in a lazy show of casual indifference. “I want to.”
My mouth is dry, and before I can tell her that Mr. Barrett won’t have anything to add to the subject, she asks, “Don’t you ever get bored here, Lyd?”
“What do you mean?” I close the door and sit back down, my suspicion outweighing my desire to flee.
“I mean we used to entertain all the time in Boston, and here there’s barely a handful of anyone you could call polite society. Now that Mr. Pierce is gone I would be hard-pressed to name another gentleman besides Mr. Barrett.”
My stomach contracts into a hard pit. “Catherine, please don’t,” I whisper.
She shrugs her delicate shoulders, the pearly blue of her dress setting off her ivory skin. I vaguely wonder when exactly she’ll start showing, when she’ll get fat.
“I know you may find this hard to believe, but I consider Mr. Barrett a good friend, and we’ve enjoyed each other’s confidences in the past. Well don’t look so stricken,” she says, raising a brow. “You’ve told me yourself you don’t have any feelings for the man. I’m the eldest daughter of the wealthiest man in New Oldbury, and of Mr. Barrett’s business partner. It’s only natural that we should find ourselves thrown together.”
“But you ignored him whenever Mr. Pierce was around!”
Catherine’s face darkens and she snaps the journal shut. “Grow up, Lydia. You know the position I’m in. Do you really want to destroy Mother? Besides, you’re too young...too...” She trails off, as if mentally cataloging all the possible ways in which I’m lacking. She finally settles on, “Too serious. What could Mr. Barrett possibly want with you?”
I don’t know what it is about my sister, but she has the power to cut me down like no one else. My insecurities come rushing back, winding their way up my bones like ivy. Maybe my memory is betraying me, making me think that the warmth in Mr. Barrett’s eyes was friendship and not admiration. Maybe his voice hadn’t caught when he said there was something he wanted to ask me. Maybe he came to his senses, and his visit on Friday will just be to tell me that he made a mistake in kissing me, that he didn’t mean to give me any ideas. Maybe Catherine is right.
I chew my nail, refusing to rise to her bait. What could I say anyway that would convince her to leave him alone?
“I think I’ll call on him Thursday,” she says with a cutting smile and returns to her journal as if I weren’t even there.
A sharp prick of pain stabs at me, and looking down I realize I’ve bitten my nail down to the quick. There’s only one thing that I know for sure, and that is Catherine will stop at nothing to get what she wants.
* * *
I don’t fool myself into thinking that I could fall asleep even if I wanted to that night. Instead, I sit by the window, replaying every moment of my visit to Mr. Barrett’s house, from our laughter, to our kiss, and his promise to come on Friday for me. And then I remember Catherine’s veiled threats and my heart sinks. How can I compete with my beautiful sister if she chooses to throw herself at him?
I’m wondering what tricks Catherine might have up her sleeve, when a movement catches my eye in the garden. The pale lady hasn’t made an appearance since that night in the summer, but now that I’ve stared the fleshless face of Mary Preston in the eye, the lady that roams the garden holds no terror for me.
But then I peer closer out the window and catch my breath. It’s not the pale lady. It’s Emeline.
Without even pausing to put my shoes on, I fly down to the garden.
“Emeline!” I can’t help the excitement that bubbles up in me to see her. But as I draw nearer, my pace slows. Her face is bloated and her eyes cloudy. Something is hanging from the corner of her mouth, and my stomach flips when I see it wriggle. A maggot. I push down my revulsion.She’s my sister,I tell myself. But it’s wrong. No matter how I long to see her, she shouldn’t be here. And if what Mary Preston said was true, then it’s my fault.
Coldness from the wet grass seeps up through my shoeless feet as I stop in front of her. The night is thick and murky, and Emeline is little more than a pale wisp in the darkness. She looks up at me, running her hand carelessly under her mouth and sending the maggot to the ground.
“I’m lonely,” she says without preamble.