“Ethel!” Henry saw me. “You’re here!”
I stepped forward. “Indeed.” I did not have yellow hair, but I was now seventeen—with all the bodily changes that entailed—and I hoped he would notice.
The yellow-haired girl took note of me. Henry, trotting over, looked pleased, and I saw the yellow-haired girl take note of this, too.
He turned back to look at her, though he addressed me. “Ethel, may I have the honor of introducing Miss Sigrid Camelia White, daughter of Sir Harris White, and our guest at the lodge.”
I dropped into a curtsy, gathering the folds of my skirt in one hand and bending the other arm slightly at the elbow, just as Agatha had taught me. When I finished, I thought I saw the faintest hint of a smirk on Miss Sigrid Camelia White’s face, but then it was gone.
Henry continued: “Sigrid, this is Ethel, the brewer’s daughter. She lives over that hill.”
A pause. “A treat to make your acquaintance,” Sigrid chirped, and waited for Henry to offer a hand so she could climb off the short wall. She gave me the slightest approximation of a curtsy. I could feel her taking in my dress—a simple, everyday garment, distinctly different from the patterned brocade on her own bodice. Perhaps my first lesson that women have their own kind of armor.
She said: “So you live here, for all the seasons?”
I nodded. “Every one since I was born.”
“Ethel knows her way around better than any,” Henry offered.
“Do tell me, then”—Sigrid widened her eyes—“what there is to do? The men have their hunting, of course… but I’ll be here all season and…” She gestured out expansively to the world around us and offered me a brilliant smile.
Sigrid had a manner of smiling after saying something offensive— a toothy visage that convincingly went all the way to her eyebrows, her whole face transforming, eyes going clear, demanding forgiveness before you realized you’d been insulted. She was beautiful. It was a beautiful smile. And I would come to regard it as her dancing bear: distracting and not without a hint of danger.
“The same things people do anywhere,” I said.
She looked out, toward an imaginary horizon, for her view was blocked by a wall of the barn. “I imagine it gets lonely.”
No sisters. No mother. I had kept a rabbit as a girl, until it ran off. I stopped myself from looking down and met Sigrid’s eyes instead. “Only if you’re someone who requires constant companionship.”
“Well, I’m certain there is plenty to amuse us all,” Henry interjected. “Ethel and I like to take Miriam, my merlin, out in the afternoons. You might join us, Sigrid.”
Henry pointed down toward the mews. Sigrid nodded, twisting a lock of her hair around one of her fingers. Neither of them looked at me, so I did not have to conceal my distress.
For the following weeks, Sigrid joined us for every one of our outings, appearing each day in clothing unsuitable for our excursions: silk shoes that could not walk through the frost-tipped grass and fine gowns that collected nettles and brambles and a large sun hat and veil that distracted Miriam. But, other than offering herself up as a distraction, Sigrid did not interest herself in the falconry.
Dutifully, Henry continued to teach me. And Sigrid, wholly indifferent, would perch on a log or rock. Because of my physical proximity to Henry, and because we were the ones with a shared interest, I did not feel as threatened by Sigrid during these daytime lessons. But, each evening, when suppertime neared, I would have to say goodbye and the two of them would leave together, returning to the hunting lodge for a formal supper with their families.
I imagined these meals, creating pictures in my mind of braised meat and gravies, Sigrid’s smile lit by the candles, Henry’s eyes tracing her pale fingers and painted lips as she ate elaborate pastries and succulent desserts. I imagined that, for the briefest of moments, she would knock his knee beneath the table, and blush, as though it had been an accident. I’d think about these scenes in my own family’s hall, sitting in candlelit darkness with my father and brother and a plate of salted beef.
Despite my jealousy, Sigrid’s arrival shifted one thing for the better: With a third, I could see Henry without subterfuge, and our daily meetings were now made known to our families. It was for this reason that, a few weeks after their arrival, I—via an invitation issued to my entire family—was finally welcomed to sup at the Tremaines’ lodge.
My social position straddled the line between well born and the working class. As a landowner and successful tradesman, my father was respected. But he was not a gentleman. And, though Agatha had tried everything in her arsenal to prepare me, I strained not to reveal that it was my first dinner in an opulent hall. We ate partridge and lettuces and vegetables and cheese.Wait for the head of the table to start, Agatha’svoice reminded me. Between my father and brother, Henry’s father and six brothers, and Sigrid’s own family, the room was overwhelmed with men. Their rows of eyes ignored us. We women—myself, the mothers, Sigrid, and her sister—receded. And neither Sigrid nor I was seated close enough to knock knees with Henry.
Over the course of the meal, it became clearer why she chose to spend her time in the fields with the frost and brambles and sunlight. While there were plenty of options for companionship, Henry was— I saw it—the best of the group. His eldest brother, Edmund, the heir, was supercilious and had a perpetual drop of liquid hanging from the tip of his nose. The one who followed, Eben, was resentful and haughty. In one meal alone, he did not hesitate to dress down two different servants. The fourth, the one after Henry, a man named Eyvin, was born different from everyone else, and, though kind, was unable to have long conversations, or converse in any intelligible manner at all. And the remaining brothers were still young, the youngest not even included at the meal and still dining with his nursemaids. As for the women, Sigrid’s sister, Mary, was modest to the point of apologizing for speaking, and it was obvious within minutes that Sigrid and her mother disliked each other’s company. Henry, by contrast, was handsome and kind and warm. Both Sigrid and I tittered at each of his jests.
“It is most interesting,” his father, a silver-haired and clean-shaven man named Errol, said, after one of our peals of laughter, “to see such a friendship blossom between you three.” Both Sigrid and I quieted immediately, understanding the careful edge in his statement.Do not draw attention to yourself, warned Agatha. But the assertion helped me understand that my presence in our trio had the inverse effect of enabling Sigrid to spend time with Henry as well. I wondered, with a small amount of concern, whether that was the purpose I played in Henry’s family’s eyes.
“Do not stop your laughter,” his father continued, addressing only Sigrid, “for its melody brightens our gathering.”
My concern increased.
After the meal, the women went into the drawing room, and I was separated from Henry and my family. The two mothers took up a game of piquet at a table in the corner, and Sigrid’s sister, Mary, brought out her needlepoint. Sigrid reclined on a chaise, intending, it appeared, to do nothing. For lack of a purpose, I went over to the window to take in the view.
Through the pane—glass, not parchment—the landscape was dark. I could make out the reflection of the room behind me better than the world outside, so I was able to see when Sigrid’s mother motioned that Sigrid should go over to me as an act, it seemed, of charity. Sigrid flung her fan aside and stood.
“Hello,” I said. I didn’t turn to greet her when she came up beside me, for I could see her face fine in the rippled glass.
“I am stuffed as full as a roast pig at a feast.” She placed a flat hand against her waist.
