Title: ON THE MIDNIGHT STREETS
Synopsis (On the Midnight Streets is the first in a planned series):
Peralton is a city of walls, and seventeen-year-old Chantilly Rosewater is trapped in the war between them. From poverty-stricken urchins to wealthy society darlings, no one is safe from the corruption that has woven its way into the heart of the kingdom of the Mendlands. Only the Midnight Hatter, a cunning thief with a shadowy identity, dares defy it - but when he abducts Chantilly, no one is sure what a middle-class-girl-turned-socialite can do for a brewing revolution. With every day edging closer to chaos, Chantilly’s decisions could mean the breaking of a country - how hard is she prepared to let the knife fall?
Chapters:
1-5: Chantilly is notified of the inheritance. She spends the workday with “the hat boy” and some wealthy girls. Chantilly’s family travels to the Upper City; Chantilly is overwhelmed by society life. Charles is curious about Chantilly as her family assimilates into Upper City circles. Chantilly holds her coming-out ball.
6-10: Chantilly is plagued by insecurity. Charles proposes and Chantilly is abducted at her wedding. Finn wreaks havoc at the wedding and brings Chantilly to the Lower City. Chantilly meets the thieves. She attempts escape but nearly dies, rescued by Finn.
11-15: Charles resolves to find Chantilly. Chantilly joins the rebellion. She begins training. Chantilly’s sister worries about her. Chantilly goes to the Upper City disguised as a servant.
16-20: Chantilly adapts to servants’ conditions. Chantilly’s sister contemplates her own problems. Chantilly steals Alastair’s blackmail documents. Alastair convicts innocents. Chantilly rendezvouses with the thieves.
21-25: Charles finds clues about Chantilly. Chantilly steals the royal seal. Alastair executes innocent people and sets a reward for the thief. A riot is stopped. Finn is betrayed to police.
26-30: The thieves give money to the poor. Alastair threatens Finn. Charles is conflicted about oppressing the poor for justice. The thieves discuss a response to Alastair’s threat. Finn tries pulling Chantilly out of the Upper City.
31-35: The servants in Chantilly’s household are questioned. Another riot occurs. Alastair deploys spies. Chantilly returns to the Lower City. Charles witnesses an execution and doubts his cause.
36-40: The thieves free prostitutes from a brothel. Alastair issues another threat. A nobleman makes a dubious offer to Finn. Finn holds a rally. The nobleman sends a negotiator, Chantilly’s father.
41-45: Chantilly tells Finn about her past with her father. Finn stops citizens from doing something rash. Finn’s stepmother is killed. Chantilly is unsure of the revolution. Alastair is almost assassinated.
46-50: Charles is convinced he saw Chantilly at the assassination attempt. The thieves plan a protest. Charles finds the thieves’ location. Chantilly expresses doubts. Finn almost confesses his love to Chantilly when Charles seizes her.
Characters:
A. Chantilly becomes stronger yet uncertain as part of the revolution.
B. Finn is conflicted about his personas: the “hat boy” and the thief, which he partially resolves.
C. Alastair is barely managing his corrupt kingdom, resulting in paranoia.
ON THE MIDNIGHT STREETS
One - Chantilly
If I were the heroine in a novel, I'd feel something coming. It would be as clear to me as if there were grim, thunder-laden clouds clustering around my head, and I would know it, better than anything I ever have. I would get a stirring in my chest, maybe, or at least a choice sentence or two of foreshadowing.
But I'm here and it's quite plain that the blood running through my veins is the common red stuff and not ink off of a printing press. And it's even plainer that I don’t know what's in the wax-sealed letter on the table any more than I know what I'll look like thirty years from now.
It’s a letter, Chantilly. The worst it can do is nick your fingers.
No one is awake yet to see my cowardice - do I leave it for Mother to open? should I burn it? - though I’m embarrassed all the same. There isn’t the faintest reason why anyone wealthy enough to have a wax seal would bother with us. We have nothing to fear.
Before I can talk myself out of it, I open up the envelope. I have to blink two, three, four times when I see it: the king’s crest, Clarabel’s dagger overrun by flowers, in gold at the top of the page. My first thought is that this must be some colossal prank, but the paper is too thick, the letters too crisp. Below the crest and the date, the letter is stiffly addressed to Mother:
To Miss Diane Rosewater -
We regret to inform you on this unfortunate day that your esteemed relative, His Grace the Duke of Fellonsley, or Reginald Harneld, has passed away. On behalf of His Majesty the King of the Mendlands, we would like to extend our sincere condolences for this most dreadful loss and an invitation to attend a service in His Grace’s honored memory on the first day of the coming month, at three hours past noon, at the Harneld plot of Peralton’s Upper City burial grounds.
I drop the paper. Surely this must be a joke of some kind; I’ve never heard of any Harnelds, much less met one related to us - and a duke at that. I could never even dream of setting foot in the Upper City of Peralton, where the wealthy make their homes. And why now, when the duke is dead and gone, does the king deem fit to tell us he existed? For a moment I can only stare, paralyzed, and then swallow hard as I force myself to read the remainder.
As His Grace’s nearest surviving relations, you and any family members have inherited Henlow House, His Grace’s title and duchy, the house’s staff and household items, and the full contents of the Harneld fortune, totaling to a monetary sum of approximately fifty million arors. Due to the presence of an estate head whenever possible being an absolute necessity, a carriage will arrive at ten o’clock tomorrow morning in order to convey you, your family, and all of your possessions to your new domicile in the Upper City.
Sincerely,
His Majesty’s Residential Council
I don’t realize how badly I’m shaking until I see my hand, fluttering like a flag in a gale. Defeated, I slump into the nearest chair with a vague notion that if this letter is authentic - and I don’t see who would craft such an elaborate way to trick Mother - I’ll still have to go to the bookshop today to work. I pack a small, round loaf of bread into a satchel to eat when I get there, since I’m running behind anyhow. The other rooms of the boardinghouse we live in are probably empty by now; I don’t hear a sound through the thin plaster walls.
As I pull open our main door, I call, “I’m going!” in the general direction of where my mother and sisters are sleeping. I’m always the first to leave in the morning, and already I’m regretting not staying to help them, to steady them, to do something. But I’m going downstairs to the first floor too fast for me to turn around. My mind’s only coherent thought is that if I don’t hurry, I’ll be late.
Then I’m outside and there’s rain clawing at my eyes. I have to stop to rub it out, reorient myself. This early in the day, mist tends to make visibility poor, so the Middle City is gaslit. Thick sheets of rain pound the cobblestones and the air breathes chill with fog. The streetlamps glow a dull orange above the people, and above those, the occasional airship drifts lazily across the sky, pouring black smoke. Shops and houses stand in their shabbily dignified array, their colors rubbed out by the constant autumnal downpour. As I expected, people are already roaming the streets. Some walk with a clear destination, like me, while others meander, with an arm sometimes raised as a makeshift umbrella. Wind rushes at me, demanding to be noticed. I shiver and gaze up at the sky. It’s a stubborn whitish-gray, and I’ll wager that won’t change until the sunset this evening.
It’s all so beautiful.
From the sides of the road, people shout hellos to me - Anselm, the foreign baker who still speaks with the slightest accent; Mrs. Pritchard, who taught my sisters and me to read when we were small; Lottie, who brought Mother flowers every day for a month after Father left. I smile and wave back, but all I really hear is a letter telling me ten o’clock tomorrow morning, Upper City. Disconcerted, I pause to wipe away the water in my eyes, water that I pretend is nothing more than rain.
It’s cold, I think hurriedly. Cold. Cold. Cold. Walk. I haven’t been this late in years.
Why should you worry? You’ll be gone tomorrow, says a voice in my mind.
What will you tell Mr. Whitaker? chimes another. You know he can’t manage without you. Before I can react, I’m attacked by a flood of thoughts: frail Mr. Whitaker falling from one of the bookshelf ladders, Mr. Whitaker rushing to make a delivery.
Pipe down and don’t nag the poor girl, a third snaps.
I can’t deal with them, not today of all days, so I ignore them all instead, weaving my way around a thickening mass of pedestrians. Faintly, I remind myself to keep my eyes trained in front of me and walk faster, confound it all.
“Chantilly Rosewater, you wait there!” someone yells from behind. “If you walk any further, I’ll -”
I whip my head around to see my sister Chamomile, waving a small green pocketbook. My heart sinks. How could I have forgotten that? Stunned, I take it from her and mumble thank you, but Chamomile only shakes her head.
“Blast, it’s cold,” she says miserably. Her reddish-blonde hair is matted with water, and her teeth chatter. I blink in surprise. Chamomile Rosewater, who has never once agreed to wear matching clothes all her life, has thrown on a light wool dress, without even a pinafore for cover, and a shawl - both the same shade of brown.
“You’re going to work in this?” I ask, skeptical. “You’ll catch your death, Chamomile.”
She huffs crossly. “If Velvet hadn’t made me come after you with your -”
“All right, all right.” Part of me knows full well that she would do anything for our fragile little Velvet, and yet I’m still touched that she brought the pocketbook, however irritated she pretends to be about it. My mouth opens to to say have you seen the letter? but somehow manages to twist itself into a breezy, “Off to work now, for both of us. I’ve got to run.”
Chamomile rolls her eyes and sprints away, nearly soaked to the skin. I’ve gauged the weather wrong, it seems, underestimated it. Goodness knows how airships fly in this downpour, I think as I half-run to the other side of the street. The bookshop is tucked away behind an inn, so I have to squint to find it.
I pass by the time-beaten statue of Queen Clarabel at one of the corners, Clarabel in all her fierce and lovely glory. The tale of the girl-queens who took up arms against a despot is this kingdom’s roots, the story we all wear over our hearts. Rosalind and Clarabel, who helped lay the first of these cobblestones under my feet, whose bravery shattered walls and brought down a fortress. And even as I watch the statue for a moment, a boy presses three fingers to Clarabel’s stone-set dagger for luck.
Will I see you in the Upper City? I want to ask her, silly as it is. I think I can see her eyes twinkle just so at the edges, and I have my answer. Somewhat sadly, I reach up to clasp her firm, weather-worn hand. A touch of warmth spreads through me despite everything, easing some of the chill from my shoulders.
Luckily, I manage to cover the rest of the twisting route to the bookshop in good time. There are children skipping rope by the door when I get there, singing some sort of nonsense about a hatter and thieving and dust that makes me smile. I shoo them away, albeit reluctantly, and fumble around in my satchel for the key to the shop door.
The smell of books, of paper, of the thick stirrings of adventure, greets me as I come inside. My friends stand at attention on a dozen or so shelves around the room. In one corner, I keep the books I love too much to sell; in another, the books that are too worthless to see the light of day. Some shelves are filled with the encyclopedias and textbooks, a few house the novels, and all of them are organized neatly by author’s name. In the back of the shop, there is a special section for the very old books, the ones that leave memories on your fingers when you turn their pages. Tidy and thrilling and all under my care.
My pride, my joy.
I bite back the stinging that overtakes me. I’ve watched people give their hearts away, watched them weep, in the nooks and crannies of this shop. I can’t leave this, inheritance or not. The crown wants me to go gallivanting off to the Upper City tomorrow? What becomes of this place, then? Who’ll look after everyone if I’m gone? And part of me, too, would like to think that the bookshop will miss me back. I can’t help but feel as if it’ll wish I were sitting there behind the clerk’s desk months or years from this moment.
I let a breath whoosh out and take a seat. Today I’m still Chantilly Rosewater, decidedly Middle City and more in love with the spells cast by letters than any boy. Almost poetic, I think wryly.
The Belridge Manor beckons to me, and, secure in the thought that perhaps it’ll be a quiet day in the shop, I open it up to Chapter Seven from memory. Secret rooms, dastardly yet wickedly handsome villains, a witty ghost or two - who am I trying to trick? I belong here.
I’m about to pick up where I left off yesterday when the door to the bookshop opens and a boy walks in, his worn-out hat drenched from all the rain.
Two - Chantilly
Taking up his usual seat in the corner, the hat boy flashes me a brief smile. He seems somewhat preoccupied and fidgety today.
“Have you any books,” he says abruptly, “about government?” I raise my eyebrows. Usually he asks for something along the lines of pirates or haunted castles or diabolical masterminds. I know that he loves a good novel, full of adventure and true love - and I should. The hat boy has come in nearly every day for the past eight years.
“Why do you ask, hat boy?” Though I’ve known him since I was nine years old, we’ve never asked for each other’s names. I’ve never thought to, and besides, names prove to be of little importance when so much time has gone by.
“Thoughts, thoughts, thoughts...” he says. He won’t be any more specific than that, I can see, so I just shake my head and walk towards the bookshelves. After a moment, he gets up to follow me. We scan the rows and rows of books using a tacit system: the hat boy looking higher because he is taller, and myself looking lower. Lapsing into a companionable silence, we move on to the next shelf. The faded spine of one book catches my eye.
“There!” I say, triumphant. “On Monarchy.” The hat boy walks over and watches as I pull the book out and hand it to him. He flips through it, eyes catching fragments of each page, and a smile forms on his face. The this-is-the-right-book smile. He cocks his head to the side thoughtfully.
“You’re a wonder, did you know that?” he says. A peculiar expression is in his eyes. Suddenly flustered, I redden. He nods as if chastened by my reaction and returns to his corner.
About an hour passes without a single new book-buyer. There is nothing new there. Once in a while the hat boy’s ice-blue eyes flicker over to me. His is a friendly gaze, and I, contrary to expectation, have never found his eyes chilling.
The door opens, bringing in a chorus of giggles. A group of tittering girls around my age enters, wearing dresses far too expensive-looking to be Middle City wares. I look over at the hat boy, roll my eyes, and mouth “novel readers”. He smiles even though I realize I have broken his concentration. Apologetically, I mouth “don’t mind me” and rise to greet them.
The novel readers are Upper City girls who have developed a taste for novels - usually ones involving scandalously descriptive romance. It seems Upper City people consider it idiotic for young ladies to read novels of any sort, so they come to Middle City bookshops with the thin protection of a few friends and a hastily improvised alias. Afterwards they deem it quite the daring escapade and secretly read their novels. I get a fair amount of them, some of them regulars. Naïvely, they trust in a girl their own age to keep their little secret.
Today’s novel readers look new, though. The apparent leader, a tall, preposterously pretty brunette, looks surprised to see only a girl sitting at the front desk. I can feel her eyes distastefully appraising my worn Middle City dress. Her gaze snaps back up to my face when I clear my throat.
“What’ll it be today, ladies?” I ask sweetly. The brunette puffs herself up proudly, though I haven’t the foggiest idea what she has to be so smug about.
“My Dungeon Love,” she says. “Marlaine Castlewick, you know.” I beat back the overwhelming urge to burst out laughing. Every one of Marlaine Castlewick’s novels are a mind-numbing load of soppy drivel and uncomfortable closeness to the characters’ “physical relations” with one another, as it were. If I ever have the misfortune of meeting the woman, I plan on boxing her ears soundly. I let the Upper City girl see none of this, instead faking an obliging smile.
“Of course. One copy for each of you, I presume?”
“Yes, please. Thank you ever so much.” The Upper City deserves credit - every resident I’ve met has frighteningly impeccable manners. I nod and walk to the bookshelves, searching the spines for the hateful name of Castlewick. Once there, I pull out seven copies of My Dungeon Love. Out of the corner of my eye, I see the hat boy, barely containing his laughter at what must be a look of abject despair on my face.
I get back to my waiting customers. Habitually, I play for some more money. “Perhaps you’d like to purchase a few more books, since you may not return for a time, Miss - ?”
“Turner,” she says, and winks, so smoothly and effortlessly that I find myself jealous. “For now.”
I smile, allowing “Miss Turner” to believe that I find this amusing, too. “So, any more books?”
“Yes, please. Do you have any recommendations?” The please that she manages to fit in whenever humanly possible has started to grate on my nerves, but I know that she means well, so I keep quiet. Bending down, I take out seven copies each of The Queen’s Hands, Window Seat, and Guillotine. All three are novels with substance and yet have enough convoluted love triangles to entertain these girls. Someone has to introduce them to proper novels, no?
I come back to the counter as a smaller girl begins to stare at me curiously, most likely Miss “Turner’s” sister by her face. I distribute the books to the eager girls when, mildly, the girl staring interrupts.
“Are your eyes naturally that color? All purple, I mean,” she says. Miss Turner immediately rounds on her.
“Lavinia! Manners!” she says, horrified. She looks ready to hit the poor girl, so I intervene.
“It’s fine. Nothing wrong with being curious - but yes, they are, Miss Lavinia.” Lavinia sags in relief, the look of terror disappearing from her features. Out of the corner of my eye, I can’t tell what the hat boy is doing. If I didn’t know better, I would say he was bristling.
We continue in awkward silence. Quietly, I give Miss Turner our prices, eighty arors per book. She pays for everything hurriedly, dismissively, and I remember that these copper coins clinking into my hand are nothing to her. Enough for so many of my family’s expenses, one thousand six hundred eighty arors in all, is but a wave of the hand. It sends an unexpected anger coursing through me, but I contain it like I always do. These Upper City girls don’t know any better - do they? My thoughts are cut off by Miss Turner leaning in to whisper something to me.
“Would you, perchance, know who he is?” With her head, she motions subtly to the hat boy.
“Why do you ask?” Irrationally, I feel protective of him, even though there has never been anything remotely romantic between us and he could probably shake these girls off without a thought.
“He is quite dashing, isn’t he? Looks like someone out of a novel,” she replies dreamily. I’ve never really given thought to it, but I realize that yes, the hat boy is very handsome. “Does he have a sweetheart?”
“Miss Turner, I try, as a general rule, not to ask my customers about their personal lives.” I hope I’ve ended the discussion. Instead, she saunters to where the hat boy is now genuinely focused on On Monarchy. He’ll be annoyed, I think. Being brought out of the depths of a book is one of the things he seems to truly hate.
Miss Turner flips her hair flirtatiously. Revolting. “Hello,” she says, leaning onto his shoulder. Disgustingly, she runs a hand slowly over his arm as if to feel how strong it is. I nearly scoff. A blind girl could see that he’s strong.
He shudders violently and pulls away with alarming speed. “Look,” he says, practically spitting the dagger-words at her, “if I wanted to be harassed by a pack of flighty, immodest girls who think they can pickpocket and molest whomever they like, I would be in a brothel, not a bookshop!” The acrimony in his voice is shocking; I know him to be soft-spoken and kind to a fault. It’s quite a blow, too - Miss Turner and her entourage immediately stalk out of the bookshop. I laugh. She forgot to thank me, a grievous bit of misconduct in Upper City terms.
“Well, she certainly won’t be coming here again. None of them will.” Though I say this lightly, the hat boy’s face falls.
“I just lost you seven customers,” he says in disbelief. “How boorishly insensitive of me.”
“Already forgiven,” I say, putting a hand on his shoulder. Unlike Miss Turner’s earlier encroachment, this seems perfectly natural and the hat boy makes no move to shrink back. “I mean, how funny was that? Not many people have the skill to rile an Upper City girl to the point of losing her manners.”
“You can always make me feel better,” he says. His smile is wistful, almost sad. This isn’t unusual for him, but today I sense something restless under it. His eyes fall on me again, and his demeanor changes to one of urgency. “I have to say this. Before it’s too late. I - I... well, I...” Every time he reaches this point, he stops as if someone’s held his tongue. “I just... I never learned your name,” he finishes abruptly. Something tells me that’s not what he was trying to say, but my mind provides no logical alternative for it, not in this strange situation.
“My name is Chantilly Rosewater.” His eyes light up and he says my name to himself over and over again, as if he doesn’t want to forget it. I start to ask, “and you?” but he is already gone, into the buckets of rain.
And his hat was only just beginning to dry.
Three - Chantilly
The carriage has stopped at the wall.
Again I have to fight the urge to shrink down into my seat, ashamed of how disheveled I must look, when a thin, balding man, presumably the wall inspector, leans his head in through the window.
“What’s yer business in the Upper City, good sir?”
The young man who greeted us when we boarded answers. “I’ll be escorting Her Grace the Duchess of Fellonsley and her daughters to Henlow House.”
“And you are, sir...?”
“The Marquess of Willoughby,” the boy replies, his face steely. “Charles Mareil.” His tone would be stern if not for the slightest wobble at the edges of his words, as if he’s unused to turning his family name into a tool. “And I would like to be shown respect as is befitting to my station.”
The inspector bows his head sheepishly. “Of course, my lord marquess. Pardon me.” He motions towards the wall, and an iron gate is rolled upwards by an unseen crank, rattling heinously all the while.
“Good day,” Charles says, more coldly now. All traces of uncertainty in his manner have disappeared, and as our carriage rolls past the gate guards, he seems almost proud at the sight of everyone one of them bowing deeply at the waist. Then something in him snaps and the harsh light in his hazel eyes dims.
I wonder for a moment if any of the gate attendants know that of the five in the carriage, only Charles - his lordship - was really born any higher than they were - but of course they did, I chide myself. Our plain, rough clothes and our plain, rough hands, and our manners, the plainest and roughest things of all, make it more than obvious.
I don’t even notice until the wall-gate is shut that we’ve left the Middle City and all I can see of it are the ever-present airships lumbering about in the sky. The carriage forges on, and every minute that it doesn’t pause is a new ‘farthest away from home I’ve ever been’. Beside me, Velvet, Chamomile, and Mother are all craning their necks around to snatch a last glimpse of the crowded buildings we love. Amongst them, I can pick out the gray-brown roof of the bookshop. It’s all I can do not to wave goodbye at it; the only thing keeping me is Charles’s too-attentive stare.
“Duchess,” he says, oddly earnest, “I trust that you will not have any trouble settling into Henlow House? I could send over some staff from our Kempton Estate if that would be helpful.”
Startled, Mother turns to face him. “I... was not aware that a man as young as yourself had the authority to move your staff.”
He reddens, more than a little flustered. “That is - w-well, I - could request for my esteemed father to do so.” He’s composed himself more rapidly than I ever could. “I only thought Lady Chantilly -” and he cuts himself off hastily when he sees our questioning faces. Lady Chantilly, I think, perplexed. Lady Chantilly is me. Chantilly is her ladyship. Middle City people don’t much care for formality, so in my mind, “Lady Chantilly” is still someone else who has taste and puts on ladylike airs whenever she needs to, anyone but me.
No one is sure how to continue, so I peek out the window instead of reflecting on the way we all shift uncomfortably in the too-soft carriage seats. The sky overhead is gray - at least I know that’ll stay the same - but decidedly clearer. No airship smog dares cloud the view of the wealthy. We seem to have reached the Upper City’s main road, a backbone of sorts. On either side of the carriage, sprawling storybook manors stand surrounded by gardens filled with all manner of flowers. Every so often, I sight a servant tending to the absurd gathering in front of a massive house. But when I look more closely, there is a pattern to the pruning of these floods, and even the colors of the flowers repeat themselves.
Upper City people leave nothing to chance.
Nothing to chance, nothing to chance, I repeat to myself as Henlow House, serenity and wealth and uncertainty, gets unbearably closer.
***
I never thought it possible that Lottie Merton would look even taller wearing a pressed-and-starched uniform, with her stick-thin build and head full of brown curls, which she shakes at me in disbelief.
“Let’s get you changed into more ladylike clothes, Chanti - m’lady,” she says finally, rifling through a trunk of clothes. “The new Henlow House butler has taken the liberty of ordering a temporary wardrobe from some renowned Upper City dressmakers while you make yourself comfortable here.” Any remnant of my cheerful Middle City friend is gone, replaced by a businesslike, subservient worker. Belatedly, I recall Mother saying a year or two ago that Lottie had taken a position in an Upper City estate.
Uneasily, I say, “Lottie, you needn’t pretend we’re strangers,” and her strained expression relaxes.
“To think that I’m to be your personal maid,” she says with a smile. “When Mr. Tollner - the butler, you know - told me the new ladies had probably never worn a corset before, I didn’t expect someone who would rather die than put one on.” As if to accentuate her point, Lottie takes a wooden framework out of the clothes chest roughly shaped like an abnormally small waist.
“Oh, is that...?” It looks even more imprisoning than I remember. “The stuff of nightmares,” I groan.
“We should fit this, your ladyship,” she interrupts brightly.
“Don’t call me that.”
“Once you’ve got this on, my lady, you won’t even notice what everyone is calling you. You’ll be too busy trying to breathe.”
***
Idle: inactive, not in use, my mind spits at me. Also, without purpose, pointless. It seems Lottie was right - I feel as if I’ve been sitting here for as long as I can remember, cautiously inhaling, even more cautiously exhaling, struggling to stay conscious. She laced it tighter than I thought possible, and bone-reinforced wood lances painfully over my back and chest.
“Doesn’t anyone in the Upper City work at all?” I wonder aloud.
“Of course not. Working is a thing of the bourgeoisie,” someone replies in a mock-simpering voice. “So very middle class, m’lady.” The person speaking strides into the lavishly decorated sitting room, gripping a feather duster like a weapon. He cleans some of the fine china on the mantelpiece before turning to me with what I would call a smirk if it weren’t so improper. He’s dark-haired and cold-blue-eyed, around five and thirty years old, with a small confident tilt to his walk as if the ground will be shaking any moment now and he’s ready for it.
“Please forgive my ignorance, Mr...?”
“Tollner, young miss. Sebastian Tollner,” he says with a bow. “Butler of Henlow House. You’ll find a basic ladies’ etiquette book upon returning to your bedroom, and your coming-out cotillion is scheduled for next week.”
“Next week? Honestly, isn’t that a bit long?”
“Nonsense. If I am to keep this house in order for such an important occasion, I do need some measure of time, your ladyship. I intend to make a name for Her Grace the Duchess’s hospitality.” His manner seems severe, but his face breaks into a genuine smile when he says it, as if to tell me he’s joking. With a theatrical flourish - Sebastian - Mr. Tollner, I correct myself harshly - motions grandly to the room around us. “Welcome to the Upper City.”
He bows again, and my skin crawls with a lingering wrongness, so unsettling that I have to push down the instinct ordering me to curtsy in return. My corset jabs my spine in what must be a gleeful taunt.
Something in me knows that I haven’t heard the last of it.
***
Two days shuffle by with all the precision of a well-placed word, in and out of hours like the hissing underbelly of an engine. I’m never quite tired but drained, watered-down, world-weary in every sense. The corset has dulled to a constant pain in my back. Lottie never remarks on the way I mutter darkly to myself when the tutor, employed by the crown for my “education”, admonishes me on my posture or the fingers I use to hold my tea, but I can feel her eyes, merciless, pleading. Every morning we have a silent battle over who gets me dressed.
She always wins.
“Miss Rosewater, how are you adjusting to the Upper City?” She throws up the question conversationally - and its sends a jolt through me to think that, yes, rich girls do have conversations with their maids. Rich girls like Lady Chantilly Rosewater.
“Well enough, thank you.” I even shore myself up with a smile, one that kills me ever so slightly.
“Please forgive my impertinence,” she says in the subdued, polite voice I’ll never be able to master, “but I don’t think you are, my lady.”
What are you apologizing for, Lottie? I open my mouth to ask, but my words strangle each other in my throat.
“And why would that be?”
“Your lessons seem to fray your nerves a bit, if you don’t mind my saying so.” Her tongue is so much lighter on its feet than mine, and I have to pause before I answer.
“I do admit it’s all quite exciting. I may have gotten over-anxious towards you, Lottie. My apologies.” Lottie looks at me skeptically.
“You have to try harder.”
Taken aback, I can only blurt, “What?”
She sighs like there’s a knot in her chest that her breath needs to weave around, stepping back from my tangled hair to clasp her hands together. “Pardon me, it wasn’t my place to go scolding you, your ladyship.”
“Lottie.”
“It’s just that out there, they don’t like you.”
An overdue twinge of indignation hits me full force. “But they haven’t even -”
“I know they haven’t. Hear me out, Lady Chantilly. Those lords and ladies, if your armor is anything less than perfect, they’ll find a way to get under it. They want you out of their game, no matter how good a heart you’ve got. There’s no room for good hearts here. I’ve seen it happen. If they wound you once, they’ll do everything their power - and that’s quite a lot of power - to bleed you dry.”
I swallow hard as guilt stacks up inside me. “I’m...”
“For all our sakes, learn,” she begs, as if she’s throwing down a gauntlet.
I can only stare at it growing cold on my drawbridge.
“I would hate to see something so terrible happen to you, my lady,” she finishes.
With a sigh, I pick the gauntlet up.
Four - Charles
Mother’s face is flushed scarlet with fever, and she wakes with a smile even weaker than it usually is, laid out on her hospital bed.
“Charles,” she says brightly, propping herself up on one elbow, “you shouldn’t have.”
“Don’t fret about me, Mother. I only came to make sure you’ve been getting enough rest.”
“I’ve gotten nothing but rest.” She still speaks with a surprising strength, and her cheerfulness seems natural, if bitter. “How are Edward and your father doing?”
It unnerves me, the hopeful tilt to the question, so much that I want to lie for her. I want to give her one last thing to hold onto before she - I don’t let myself finish. “Edward hasn’t been since the day before yesterday and Father is at a company meeting.”
“Well, nothing for it,” she sighs, and this time the disappointment shows, fleetingly, until she wraps it up and pushes it down with a jerky pat-pat-pat of my hand. “What about you, Charles? Anyone special in your life?”
It infuriates me that my own mother feels she has to tiptoe in these careful circles around me when I can hear her real questions - when are you going to marry? When are you going to settle and finally bring something good into the Mareil family?
“You’ve probably heard, but the Duke of Fellonsley’s heiress has arrived. She has a daughter three months or so younger than I am.”
“Oh? Hmm. You escorted them to Henlow House, didn’t you?”
“Well, yes, seeing how I’m to head the Residential Council sooner or later.”
“The daughter, what was she like?”
“Lady Chantilly? Short, reddish hair, peculiar purple eyes. She didn’t say much, but she wasn’t rude, either.”
Mother hmms again and decides, “You should give her a chance. The next Duchess of Kempton will have to be a good one, since I seem to have outstayed my welcome.” Her voice disappears into a cough as she gestures ruefully to her bedridden form.
“Mother, don’t say -”
“Don’t avoid it, dear. And stop your moping,” she scolds jokingly, reaching out to grasp my hand. When I search for the pulse in her wrist, it is feeble, each beat stumbling over the next. I choke on a sob, swallow it. “I was the one who played winner-takes-all in my day, and I didn’t often lose.”
***
All I hear are my own footsteps. The echoes they make off the extravagant hallway seem brash and disrespectful, like they have for too long now. This is all I share with Lady Chantilly, this feeling of being an intruder in my own house.
Give her a chance, Mother said. I have to squeeze my eyes shut to get it out of my head, to let everything float down to earth.
A middle-aged woman straightens as I enter one of the drawing rooms, folding up a newspaper with hurried, sweeping motions. “Apologies, my lord,” she says crisply. “I didn’t see you come in. The morning paper’s just got here.”
“Mrs. Linacre, I’ve told you that you can lighten up a bit around us,” I reassure her. Charles Mareil, I name myself. Marquess of Willoughby, son of a duke, face of this house. Smile. “You’ve been working here for over ten years - you’re almost family.”
“I could never, your lordship.” Mrs. Linacre shakes her head with the same vehemence that first struck me about her. With Mother - I can’t bring myself to think it - ill, she picks up every loose end in the house.
I want to protest further, but instead I glance over the newspaper, its reckless headline proclaiming: ROYAL HORSE STOLEN, MIDNIGHT HATTER ESCAPES AGAIN! The phrase ‘Midnight Hatter’ snags someplace in my mind, so I turn to Mrs. Linacre, a passing ‘what’s this?’ already halfway out of my mouth.
“Thief-lord, they call him,” she scoffs. “He steals from the crown like nobody’s business, he does. And he never leaves corpses, just knocks the guards cold so they won’t remember a thing, and he leaves a hat and a calling card as if he’s a gentleman. Just the usual balderdash the papers like to pounce on.”
“It says here that it’s likely he’ll strike the crown much more directly next, and that he swears by Rosalind?” Mrs. Linacre rolls her eyes before she can stop herself, but she of all people knows it’s useless when I’m interested. “This Midnight Hatter must be quite the character.”
No one swears on Rosalind’s name; she was a girl-queen just as Clarabel was, yes, and she had as much a hand in the old revolution that founded this kingdom. But she is the one they push under the carpet, the one who had whispers locked in her head and died young.
“Aye, and he’s naught but an oddity, a ghost. A trick of the light, if you will,” she says, and clicks her tongue as if I’m eight years old again. “That showy quicksilver trail he leaves will soon be the last evidence he ever really existed.”
“All right, Mrs. Linacre, I surrender. Here, I’ll turn to the society pages for some common sense.” She sputters but waves a hand dismissively as if to say do as you like.
Still chuckling softly, I skim through a block of text until phrases like ‘Lady Chantilly Rosewater’, ‘cotillion to remember’, and ‘catch the eyes of gentlemen’ blur together and grind at me. My groan rushes out a little too loudly and then dies, like cobweb after cobweb blowing away in my ribs.
***
There’s already a sizable throng milling around the front of His Majesty’s Brocade Theater by the time I catch sight of it. The hansom cab driver gives me a nod bordering on curt and clipped “have a good evenin’, sir”, waving me out unceremoniously after I hand him his fare. It’s not been more than three seconds when he speeds off without so much as a by-your-leave.
“Lord Willoughby, I didn’t see you there.” Yvette Scarleigh materializes, her expression shifting demurely behind her fluttering fan. Flirtatiously, she lets her lips curl upwards, but no blush intrudes on her face. Her brown eyes shine hard and flat, aloof and calculating. She most certainly did see me there, of that I’ve no doubt. Beside Yvette, her mother Octavia waits for her opening, as quiet as etiquette dictates. They both sink into deep curtsies, which does nothing but leave me flustered.
“Lady Hightrill, Lady Yvette,” I say at last. I bow and add, “Please, allow me to lead you in.” They lower their heads in perfect synchrony, and suddenly all I can think is, Girls and their bloody conquests.
To my relief, they don’t seem eager for conversation outside in the frost-tinged fall evening, so we hurry inside painlessly enough. I have to wade through the chattering crowd for a small eternity, glancing this way and that for our seats. When I find them, Octavia makes a show of placing Yvette and me next to each other, a coy smile on her face the entire time. Charles Mareil, you confounded fool, why did you agree to this?
Yvette is the daughter of an earl, it’s true, and by far the most socially skilled available girl in Peralton. She sank her claws into me years ago - every family in the Upper City expects to call her the Marchioness of Willoughby within a matter of months, and the servants at home occasionally venture to ask me strangely prying questions about weddings. And Father never speaks more archly than when Yvette comes into our discussions.
Try as I might though, I can’t look at Yvette Scarleigh and see a mere hostess and decent dowry. I see a girl, one who, if she does love me at all, must do it as a hawk loves its prey.
The theater lights dim and a hush falls gently over the audience like a thick layer of smoke. The play, A Lady’s Downfall, opens slowly and a bit dully. Yvette leans over to whisper something in my ear, but I miss it.
“Come again?” I ask as unobtrusively as I can.
“I was only inquiring as to what you thought of the... new arrivals,” she says. Every time she can keep my attention fixed on her, she glows with triumph. Even in the half-shadows, her smug expression seems to pin me down into my seat.
“Oh, they’re all very well.” If I say any more, she’ll seize on it, and the least I can do for the Duchess of Fellonsley and her daughters is not send Yvette on the warpath towards them.
“And what of Lady Chantilly?” Her eyes narrow slightly. “Was she pleasant?”
The prudent thing would be to give her the same unconcerned reply I fed to Mother, but this is coming from the head that considered courting Chantilly just to spite Lady Yvette.
“Pleasant enough, yes. Very pleasant indeed.” My voice is sharper than I meant it to be, but it’s all I need. On the stage, the leading lady, Constance, looks to be making some headway into the real plot. I turn so that I’m fully facing the stage, hoping Yvette is satisfied. The storyline of the play is weak, disjointed, so much at times that I stifle yawns - but the storyline, apparently, is of no consequence tonight. When Constance discovers that the prince of the realm and her long-lost sister have been scheming against her, I give the appropriate gasp, not really concentrating.
Once the shock has died down, Yvette taps my shoulder again. “This play is so very apt, my lord, is it not?” Despite myself, I want to hear why, so I nod.
“Blood and guts and romance,” she says with affected disinterest. “Society life at its best.”
I’ll not be reeled in my another one of your witticisms - but I clear my throat in what I hope is a subtle manner and respond, “Certainly, Lady Yvette. How observant of you.”
“The romance, however, must be warned against,” she goes on, showing a trace of amusement, “for it is often false.”
“I agree,” I say. “We seem to spend so much of our time acting our emotions out that we have no idea what to do when the real ones hit us.”
A bolt of understanding passes between us, but I want to dismiss it as a product of the unearthly glimmer of the theater’s lights. We’ll never be in love, this girl and I, and that space, that silence, says what a pity and blinks out. I have a feeling it visits us too often. But every love that won’t happen is a pity, I suppose.
The curtain on the stage closes, and applause brims in the audience. Another curtain will open tomorrow night, and the next night, and the next, until we’re all gone. I clap. Slowly and deliberately, but clapping nonetheless.
Five - Chantilly
If anyone asks me to dance, I’ll be as good as dead. And yet, Mother reminds me, tonight is mine. This ball is in my honor. The thought makes me cringe.
“You should treat it as a gift,” she says, not unkindly. She doesn’t want to make me even more anxious, she never does, but whatever gift this is, I want so badly to hand it right back.
“Tell us if you meet Lord Willoughby again,” Velvet interjects. She can hardly hide her anticipation - bits of it have been leaking out ever since we met Charles, like shards of sun. “Tell us if you dance with him, you hear?” For her sake, I nod, though I’m sure she can see that my confidence hangs by a thread.
Chamomile glances at our youngest sister before looking me in the eye, unreadable. “Step on his feet for us, Chantilly,” she decides with an air of finality. “Show him what Middle City girls are made of.”
“What she means is good luck,” Velvet jumps in again. She glares at Chamomile, fearlessly, with that good-natured, thirteen-years-of-experience annoyance she has. “They’ll love you, you’ll see.”
I can’t muster much more than a tightening of my face that is likely more of a grimace. I smooth out my white satin gloves to distract myself, but what Velvet’s said bothers me: They’ll love you.
Will they really? Do I want them to?
***
A short while into the evening, I realize the hardest part of this will be remembering the names of titles of everyone who happens to make small talk with me. Lord Risholt is the elderly man who was the previous Duke of Fellonsley’s friend, Lady Catherine is the girl near my age who acts like a different person every time I ask her something, Lord Fairfax is the bachelor who dodges anyone interested in his upbringing - my head is spinning in the worst direction it ever has. This is the rest of my life, this measuring of people and filing them away, and I am already exhausted.
Books have always turned these glittering balls into magic, and part of me wants to turn to them accusingly, question them about what other lies they’ve told me.
“Lady Chantilly, shall I have the honor of your hand for this set?” someone inquires rather breathlessly, and in front of me is the Marquess of Willoughby, Charles Mareil, the boy who came with us into the Upper City. My first thought is that it’s terribly gallant of him to offer, and I accept without protesting. He relaxes somewhat, almost in relief, and I’m puzzled for a moment until I see another girl staring daggers at me a little ways away. I make a note to avoid her if I can; the last thing I need is an enemy, especially one who seems as haughty and prickly as she does.
Charles - I’ve given up on thinking of him as ‘Lord Willoughby’ or a marquess - notices her, and he explains, “Lady Yvette... she’s not a hostile person. She’s very amiable once one is introduced to her.”
“I’m sure she is,” I say, wincing inwardly at my hesitation. Is this how I show myself to society? Are the guests here meeting Chantilly Rosewater or some other girl who gives smiles out like they’re worthless and flows into conversation too easily? After Lottie’s outburst, I only know that I did try to improve - I wasn’t sure how I’d done. The matronly tutor sent by the king, a spinster soft-spoken from years of cautious treading, said you’ve learned very fast, my lady as if it troubled her.
Changing skins shouldn’t be as simple as trading in a work dress for jewels and a silk frock, I think. It’s not right. None of it is. If I part with Chantilly Rosewater for a stranger whose only cares are riches and dishonesty, the vulture call money will win the whole blasted game. The thought rushes up at me at an angle, and the vaulted, ornate ceiling of the ballroom seems to tilt. Distantly, I hear the scattered hum of the musicians tuning.
“Lady Chantilly, shall we dance?” Charles is looking at me askance, and instinctively I marshal my features into line again. More falsehood will break you, my mind hisses at itself, but I let my hand find itself in his as the dancers take a breath for the first set.
The firmness of his grip, the warmth of it, feels so oddly like the truth.
Whatever it is, it’s gone in an instant, replaced by confusion. No one has thought to prepare me for the rushed beginning of a dance, the fluttering of lace-clad birds taking off in the arms of affluent men. Across the floor, Lady Yvette, the girl none too pleased to see me swept up by Charles earlier, twirls with a vengeance, pins glinting in her dark hair. I order my arms, my feet, to mimic her. A flurry of colors and finery bleeds into my eyes and I can’t stand all this light - velvet, feathers, sparkling laughs, garish painted smiles -
“Are you quite all right?” Charles’s hazel eyes are clouded with concern as he steers me deftly past several couples. I want to believe he’s saying out of real interest and not politeness, and I”ll admit I’ve imagined this more than once, the handsome young man worried for my well-being.
“Oh yes, my lord. A display of nerves at my own coming-out ceremony would be unseemly, surely,” I say gamely. I don’t add everyone does seem to have forgotten who the ball is hosted for, interestingly enough, though it looms dark and foreign on my tongue.
I resolve to bask in the novelty of dancing with an attractive boy instead: step and step and step. Even Charles’s good looks are something of a surprise, suddenly noticeable now that so much frippery moves and breathes under one roof. He is tall and graceful, with uncanny eyes like earth or sand, easing me into light banter that feels anything but contrived. I daren’t think that any of this has meaning to it, but I’m grateful to him anyhow for sheltering me during the opening of the ball. He even coaxes laughs out of me every so often, stunned but delighted.
When the set ends, something like disappointment rises and falls inside me. My curtsy and thank-you are the most sincere things I’ve done all day, all week - and, it seems, I haven’t stepped on his feet at all. But for once, earning a telling-off from Chamomile doesn’t feel so bad.
The moment I step off the dancing floor to ask Mother how I did, I’m ambushed by a barrage of girls who engulf me in compliments.
“Lady Chantilly, your dancing is impeccable!”
“Lady Chantilly, I must congratulate you on adapting to rapidly -”
“Your dress, Lady Chantilly, is exquisite. Wherever did you get it?”
I fight through them as patiently as I can and toss the last oh-I-couldn’t somewhere into the onslaught when another voice lashes at me from behind.
“You will dance the next set with me?” It’s more of a command than anything; any hesitancy has been thrown in as an afterthought. I pray for some inkling of recognition in the man’s face, going over my tutor’s lessons.
Don’t refuse a dance, ever. Hold your head high and accept, but not too quickly. Remember that you are unreachable to all but the gentleman, and even his chance is only a small margin.
Disdainful, crooked-nosed, sallow - Lord Trenville, marquess, twenty-one years old. Unmarried because everyone refuses him.
Unreachable, my mind presses.
Unreachable but honest, I retort. Unreachable but still a person who is touched by everything. How do they do this - how do they turn their daughters into sculptures, give them masks, let them be defined by status and grandeur? How do they go their whole lives without airing out the haunted spaces inside?
I hold Lord Trenville’s gaze with a promise: I am more than this. I will be more than this.
I think before I say yes this time. We step out to dance, warily, and Lord Trenville fires question after question at me while he attempts a semblance of elegance.
“Do you fancy yourself rather political at all? Well-versed in high matters?” I try to shake my foreboding, but it’s difficult when his tone is dropped like a threat on the ground.
“Unfortunately, no.”
“The rabble” - I bristle at the venom he injects into the word rabble, when he must be referring to my old friends, my Middle City neighbors - “are demanding more freedoms. And if they do turn violent against the more... privileged, even the greatest estates will be in jeopardy without skillful men to guide them.”
Heat spreads through me like the sour blow of a whip. Who is he to insinuate? The meaning in his treacherous words is clear: he aims to steal Henlow House from under our feet. This is his weapon, ridiculing the estate run by a woman. My best efforts can’t keep my jaw from clenching or my head from pounding. I search for an excuse to strike the grin off of Lord Trenville’s face, and finding none, have no choice but to bottle myself up. I don’t exist for marquesses to prod in a cruel imitation of courtship.
My sole comfort, my anchor, is his frown at my silence. The feeling of withholding an angry flash, all he might need to ruin my reputation, is beautiful - and somehow, this seems more natural to me than the first set with Charles. Maybe it’s because deep down, I know that most men will not grant me power in my own right, here or anywhere, without some sort of clash first. Lord Trenville doesn’t open his mouth again, and he makes his getaway cleanly once the dance comes to an end. When the next tap on my shoulder comes, I’m half-expecting it, prepared to refuse the man delicately until I come face to face with Lady Yvette.
“I’ve been hearing a great deal about you, Lady Chantilly,” she says, carefully bland, “from our dear friend Lord Willoughby.” I will my features not to react to the mention of Charles, but Yvette’s frown in return tells me it hasn’t worked.
“All right,” I say. I can’t conceal the nervous lurch in the back of my mouth that shows in my speech.
She leans in, her hand clamping, viselike, on my wrist. “I see you aim to snatch the rosebush’s best. Take caution.”
My lips twitch of their own accord. The rosebush’s best? Then again, if she is trying to frighten me into avoiding Charles, she must be afraid of me, likewise.
The notion of being feared tastes alien, though I remember it’s one that might very well resurface. With an ominous raise of her eyebrows, Yvette glides away, her point made. Her fingers have left red marks on my arm that are already fading.
I lift a glass of pale wine from the nearby refreshments table and gulp it down. I tell myself to drink in faith, to drink in beauty, to drink in the strength to become a lady to be reckoned with. And perhaps - perhaps I do, somewhere along the way.
Six - Chantilly
Anything to be anywhere else.
A month has passed, dreamlike, since the ball. People call on us as if they’re merely completing chores; we wave them in, we wave them out. Of all things, my legs are sore, from curtsying to earls, to duchesses, to anyone who owns Upper City land and speaks nicely in my general direction. I don’t usually think about raising my voice - novel heroines who do always earn my dislike within the first chapter - but every day my thoughts grow louder and louder. I’ve learned to endure the itch of lace or satin on my skin, the shaky, tenuous movements I have to use so I don’t trip over my dresses. Charles appears a few more times, and whenever I see him there is nothing to tell me what to think. Servants, other than Lottie, won’t ever look me in the eye, and I wish they would.
I haven’t dreamt in my sleep for weeks, plagued by insomnia until my eyes have no choice but to close, and tonight will be much the same.
Part of me wants to get up and pace, but it would be cruel to wake someone and bring them into my troubles. I think of the Middle City with a pang. Granted, I had problems there, too, like anyone. But there I was Chantilly with a purpose, Chantilly who ran the bookshop, Chantilly who did something. Here I am helpless as servants scurry about working, and when I offer help, they turn me away respectfully but rigidly.
Despite everything, I’m never allowed to steal an hour or so in what I’m told is our massive library. I need a story. I can tell that I’m constantly missing them because something in me is always aching; in my sleep I can feel it sometimes, penetrating the dead-weary black. Even though the family that has lived with me for my entire life is still here, sweet little Velvet and not-so-sweet Chamomile and even-tempered Mother, being without books makes me alone. The one thing that has comforted me lately is the thought that I have held to the promise I made to myself: to stay true to the Chantilly I really am.
A little too much, I think, says a voice in my head. Why can’t you at least adapt a bit? Why can’t you try to enjoy what’s being given to you?
I like to think that all the voices clamoring for attention in my mind are ultimately working for my benefit, that they’re meant to help me. It’s a pity that they all contradict each other so much that they end up being rather destructive.
Think of all the Upper City people you’ve met. They’ve made the place a part of themselves, so why won’t you? This one must not speak up very often, for the sound of it is somewhat unfamiliar.
Obediently, I start thinking. We have met the Cleackers - the baronet and his wife learned to love one another after their arranged marriage; Catherine, their daughter, has such random shifts in mood that she seems to be two separate people from one moment to the next; Colin, her younger brother, is very shy and polite. The Hawkinses from Prockelhurst have two daughters, the Ladies Lavender and Lavinia. As fate would have it, they are the pack leader and the inquisitive sister who bought novels from me on my last day in the bookshop. Whenever she sees me, Lavender will slip me a conspiratorial wink that makes my stomach squirm. Yvette’s family, the Scarleighs, preside over the earldom of Hightrill. Lady Hightrill is a fearsome woman, with a long neck, sallow complexion, and a set of nerves like knives. Her husband cowers in her shadow and caters to her every wish. Yvette is their only daughter, and she seems well on her way to growing up like her mother, only about fifty times as intelligent and therefore fifty times as intimidating. The Mareils from Kempton - I falter. The mother, I’ve heard, is terminally ill, and Charles’s father, the duke himself, has a taste for brothel women. There are whispers of an illegitimate daughter whose name begins with a T. Charles’s younger brother, Edward, has a horrible gambling problem. I suppose that with that much money at one’s disposal, it would be easier to develop one.
The newcomer voice waits for me to finish listing as the tediousness of it takes over. I imagine myself glaring at it but the thought doesn’t come. It only looks down at me contemptuously - why do all the voices take advantage of my short stature? - when I tell it, none of them seem to be truly happy.
But at least if you accept the Upper City, you’ll allow the possibility of happiness, it says.
No, no, no, I don’t want to hear this, I think, pulling the bedclothes up over my ears in a childish attempt to block it out. I know this story, and the ending isn’t good.
Really? The voice seems to actually consider my opinion for a moment, and for that moment, I’m tricked. But that will never happen, of course.
When I hear it speak again, it echoes so loudly in my head that my eyes tear up, and the malice in its tone suffocates me.
Tell me the story, then.
A tear leaks out of my eye onto the pillow. I roll onto my back, swallow hard, and whisper the words to the ceiling.
“I think my father’s name was Robert, but I’m not sure anymore. I’ve willed myself to forget.” I pause to catch my breath. It has hitched in my throat.
Go on, the voice says, impatient.
“He and Mother grew up together in the Middle City, and she’d been in love with him for as long as she could remember. Then finally he loved her back, and it was bliss, but before they could marry, he was shipped off to the military.” Mother didn’t tell me all this until I was fourteen and she decided I was ready. “They were both eighteen, young and a little too hopeful. That’s how Mother described it, anyway.” She said that when he was young, my father was the most gentle and kind and beautiful boy in all the world. “When he returned six years later, he was almost gone inside. Mother tried to love him, she really did. I think today she tries to love him still, in her mind...”
I explain to the heartless voice that this was only a short leave of absence for him, that my father impregnated Mother and then left without a word. Two years later he came again, on another leave, and little two-year-old Chantilly thought he was the best thing in the world. He gave me anything I wanted and told the most wondrous stories. He soothed me after my nightmares, which were vivid even then. He really was a devoted father. Or at least this is what I tell myself.
He left again and soon Mother was swelling up with her second child. It was only then that I saw the bruises all over her, refusing to go away. Part of me always knew that he had inflicted them. Around that time, Mother sank into a deep, deep sadness. Often I would hear her cursing her own weakness through a thick layer of tears. The difference between him and her was that he drowned his sorrows in liquor and she never did. She kept away from it; it’s one of the many things I admire about my mother.
That last time he came, I was four years old. Mother was ready to defend herself and her children, to cast him out, to bar him from us. But the bastard charmed his way through her composure. Chamomile and I both looked to him for comfort, but he was distracted. Most nights he would come home recklessly inebriated and beat Mother with his fists and his slurred words. I feared him then. I shied away from his soft calls and his presents. Even when it was plain to see that Mother was with child, he went on hitting her without restraint. That, I know, is why Velvet turned out off, her mind somewhat slower than those of other children. But Mother was getting stronger.
I remember the night she gave him the boot. He begged her not to. He said he wanted to stay for good this time, to marry Mother and raise his darling girls the right way. He was so persuasive that, had I been Mother, I would have caved in, no questions asked. When she finally threw him out after bearing him for half the night, I knew: beneath her staid exterior, my mother is made of steel.
I’ve never doubted her since.
I try to end it like that, on a hopeful note, so that the voice doesn’t see that it has bested me. I press my lips together tightly to keep them from trembling. It’s no use, though. My eyes are burning and my pillow is wet. The voice is silent for a time, allowing me to hope. It speaks again sounding bored.
How does this relate to what I was telling you earlier? Belatedly, I begin to get angry.
My father, he made... his experiences in the military so much a part of him that he let them take away who he was, and it ruined Mother’s life. Are you suggesting I should do that to her a second time? I wipe the tear-streaks off of my face furiously.
If you become an Upper City lady, you will open windows of opportunity for her, you dolt, the voice says. Face it, Chantilly. You’re only clinging to your bumbling self for your own sake while you hurt everyone else with your obstinacy.
Stop it. Shut up. The tears have filled my eyes again. If I blink, they will spill over. Shut up, shut up, shut up - but not even repetition dulls the bite of the voice’s words.
You are superficial, Chantilly Rosewater. It enunciates every syllable as if to deliver maximum sting. Superficial. The word clatters inside me. My breathing is fast and feverish. It is everything that I’ve always feared. Fear. The voice latches onto the new word. I’m acquainted with your fears, it tells me. In the run-down boardinghouse that is your mind, your fears and I lodge in adjoining rooms. They’re delightfully unpleasant neighbors.
I panic. Other nights have never been like this, never so close and rancid. My skin is covered in a sheen of cold sweat, and only the thought of Chamomile sleeping in the room keeps me from crying out. A picture pushes into my thoughts. I don’t want to see it, for it might be another way of taunting me. It is devastatingly clear. In it, Mother is ridding herself of my father. She is about to close the door on his despicable form. I sit bolt upright in my bed. Something stirs within me - hope, maybe. With my arm I make an emphatic swinging motion. I am slamming the door on the sadistic voice. For good measure, I slam again, this time feeling the full relief of having it gone. All is silent as death.
A sinister, trailing-off chuckle from the depths of my subconscious tells me that while I may have claimed this battle, I haven’t yet won the war.
Seven - Chantilly
In the morning there are whispers, though thankfully none of them come from my own mind. Lottie has disappeared, finally persuaded to take a day off, so Yvette has “generously” offered to step in as my companion for the morning. She tells me after breakfast that there has been a rash of robberies lately - and all apparently perpetrated by the same thief.
“They say that he leaves one of those tailored gentlemen’s hats for everything he steals, along with a calling card reading ‘courtesy of the Midnight Hatter.’” Yvette’s eyes glimmer with the satisfaction of holding my attention. “They’re expensive, too, with imported materials sewn in, which is completely baffling for the police.”
“Oh?” I am only half listening, though on any other day I would find this fascinating.
“He never kills, either. All the men on guard are usually perfectly fine, but they all swear that they only saw a shadow wearing a top hat and a grin like devil’s ink before everything went black. The Middle and Lower City children even have a song about him, the poor things.”
“How does it go?”
“The Midnight Hatter’s a gallant thief; he only kills when he must -
but when he does, slash and crack - is he human? - only just!
The Midnight Hatter’s the lord of the night; his knives will never rust -
and coming’s the day when he’ll have his way and leave us with nothing but dust!”
The song has a rollicking tune and a quick beat, perfect for games and children’s dances. I shudder at the thought of such a dangerous thief being turned into a harmless rhyme.
Mildly, I say, “I wonder where he’ll strike next?” Internally, I’m thrown off by Yvette’s sudden openness. It seems that she really does intend for us to be friends.
“Oh, by the way, Chantilly dear,” she says. I suppose that our “friendship” includes addressing each other by our given names now. “I’ve been thinking that it's high time for you to become more well-versed in our quaint Upper City customs.” The way she says well-versed is almost imperceptibly menacing, and I know that she is referring to the ball and Charles. I know that she is issuing a threat, ignoring every urge I have to protect my right to him. Don’t you dare make another mistake, she is saying. After several minutes, she leaves with the most innocuous of goodbyes.
***
Later in the day, the Duke of Kempton, Charles’s father, calls on us with both of his sons in tow. He owns a tea company and seems to be perpetually in some meeting or other, so this is my first time being introduced to him.
We exchange greetings and get the niceties over with. Before I can protest or register what is happening, almost everyone has fled from the room and Charles and I are alone. He takes my hand, shooting a tingle up my arm. Some logical portion of my mind screams stop, warns of impropriety, but it’s quelled in an instant.
“Come.” His voice is faint and nervous as he takes me outside through a door I never knew existed. We are in a sheltered clearing, tucked away behind a section of walls, bathed in thin sunlight. Small white lilies grow in clusters on the ground. Their sweet scent wafts through the soft afternoon breeze. The sky is a bold azure tinged with gold, and a solitary cloud scuds across it like someone lost in the woods.
“How did you know this was here?” I’m short of breath. “It’s lovely.”
“So are you,” he says in the same hushed whisper. He realizes what he’s just said and blushes. “Forgive me. I have been far too forward.”
“No, no, not at all.” We draw nearer to each other unconsciously, naturally. The wind ruffles his blond hair and his eyes are hazel, shades of brown playing with light.
“I was going to prepare a speech,” he says, in a painstakingly quiet voice, “but it’s flown straight out of my head now that I’m this close to you.” Abashed, he clears his throat. “Clarabel’s hands, I don’t know how some people do this so smoothly.”
Confused, I blink out of my half-trance. “What?”
Charles takes a shaky breath. “Lady Chantilly Rosewater,” he says, “will you do me the honor of being my wife?”
I think I gasp, but all is a blur, so I can’t be sure. When he just barely brushes his fingers over mine, my heart stops. “I...”
Of course, I have to say yes. Lottie informed me a few days ago that the reason all the girls are after Charles is because of his massive future inheritance, second only to the king’s, on top of his looks. His looks. We are so close that my thoughts are jumbled. Somehow his being taller than me feels so natural, because I can look up into his eyes and see the sky, too.
“Lady Chantilly?” He sounds anxious, unnecessarily so. He should know that any girl he asks will invariably say yes.
“Yes, Charles,” I say, savoring the feeling of his name on my tongue, more right than any title I could pin on him. The lilies around us dance and sway like fairy bells. “Yes, yes, yes, Charles, I’ll marry you. Yes.”
He is astonished, speechless, as if he was expecting me to refuse. I give him a reassuring smile and squeeze his hand, which has never left mine in that space of time. And then, hesitantly, blissfully, we both lean in and our lips meet. After the initial Oh! that runs through my mind, I find that a warm, contented feeling is spreading through me, like sunbeams and the smell of lilies. My mind is awash in color and emotion. His hand slides around my waist while his other hand rests in my hair, twirling languorously. We are both inexperienced and tender in this imperfect art of kissing, but I know that we will have all the time in the world to teach it to each other. And I am still myself. I kiss Charles again. My heart is filled with the jubilance of this first, perfect time and my triumph over the cruel voices shut inside me. Closer and closer and closer we touch, again and again and again. He is the very personification of wonder, and I know with certainty that if I ever fall in this decadent little maze, he will be there to catch me. I am happy and I remain Chantilly Rosewater. The voice that attacked me last night is wrong. And here is Charles, who loves me for myself and nothing else. More than anything, that makes me feel beautiful for the first time in my life. The afternoon is sweet and golden.
When we finally pull away from each other, we are both radiant.
***
My corset is far too constricting. I don’t know whether my breathlessness today is because of that or because of the anticipation. Today is the day. Today is our day. Today, I will marry Charles Mareil, Marquess of Willoughby. For now I have my hands clasped firmly together in front of me, because the alternative is to let them wander about touching things and ruining them. All the same, I can’t help but run one hand over my hair, which has been cajoled into a waterfall of interlinked, red-blonde braids with pearls and lilies woven in. I look at myself in the mirror yet again, as my eyes are pulled there against my will. The seamstresses have worked wonders with my less-than-perfect figure, enveloping it with layers of flowy white silk. My bodice is white with gold lace laid over it and the sleeves are a feather-light gossamer material. The neckline sports the same fabric and dips just enough to appear chaste but flirtatious, a combination I didn’t even think was possible. The folds of the skirt hide luminous rows of pearls. Around my throat I wear a simple gold chain with another pearl hanging from it. A veil covers my face and on my head there is a gold circlet wrought in the shapes of lilies. Some of me is ashamed that I reek so much of wealth, but I try to revel in the feeling of being cherished by more than three people at a time. And all thanks to Charles. Deeper than my schoolgirl admiration of him is my gratefulness at his generosity. This marriage will ensure that Mother, Chamomile, and Velvet will be financially secure for the rest of their lives.
We are in the largest and most prestigious hall in all of Peralton, and the grand reverberations of the Mendlands’ traditional marriage bells make use of its size. I try to take a deep calming breath before being cut short by my infernal corset. This thing must be the only remotely bad part of the day - Lottie laced it twice as tightly as usual, just when I was beginning to accept it. One of the maids passes by as I mutter obscenities at it darkly.
“You look marvelous, your ladyship,” she says, not a hint of rancor in her voice. It never ceases to amaze me how the servants can be perfectly civil to their inconsiderate employers. I smile in thanks but don’t attempt to speak, since the tightness of my corset will make my voice come out as a ridiculous, tinny whine. My heartbeat matches the sonorous rhythm of the bells.
“Charles Mareil, as you have come to her, so Chantilly Rosewater shall come to you,” the unioner says from outside my little brides’ chamber. He is the man responsible for administering the vows. “As adversity and courage came to the queens Clarabel and Rosalind of old, so they will come to you. The queens bless your marriage.”
My thoughts trail off into wonderings. Clarabel and Rosalind were the first rulers of the Mendlands. Legend has it that they, as girls no older than I am now, led an uprising against the despotic warlord who was ruling at the time. Their passion and fortitude inspired the downtrodden people of that land to overthrow the tyrant and blaze a glorious new trail, founding our kingdom, the Mendlands, in the process. The story is tweaked here and there every time one hears it told, but any version of it fills one’s heart with pride. But why?
I suppose that it is the rebellion bit that always kindles that spark. In my mind, rebellions paint a picture - not an altogether pretty picture, mind you, but one full of love and loss and sacrifice and people so idealistic, so real in their emotions, that they give their lives wholeheartedly for that hopeless vision of a perfect, utopian society. It has more than a little romanticism to it, that idea, and romanticism should never be underestimated in its power.
Of course, I don’t know and I most likely never will. But my aimless daydreams are snuffed out when a hand covers my mouth and I feel myself being shoved roughly into some sort of sack, so fast that I don’t even think to scream.