“Good.” He nodded, pleased. “We’ll have our first dance lesson tomorrow.”
“Very well. But Moussa,” I said, standing to go back to the house. “What happened to the girl? The one from the feast?”
Moussa twisted his beard, lost in thought. “I don’t know. But I left her my bandora.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
We spent our days in the orchards, picking apples. Rosamund stitched and stitched. I repeated the etiquette lessons that had been instilled since their earliest days. We picked more apples. Moussa gave dance lessons in the hall, walking through minuets, quadrilles, and cotillions. We reviewed posture and deportment: how to stand, how to walk, how to exist in a room. We picked more apples. We discussed titles and calling cards and accepting dances. We practiced the art of polite conversation. Still, we picked more apples. Moussa tapped out the beat of music on the floor of the hall. We sorted the apples. We resized our corsets, and panniers, and petticoats. Elin sewed a sleeve to the hem of her dress. We sat through rounds and rounds of fittings and alterations, pinching and pinning, and stitching, and hemming, until even Rosamund wanted to sew no more.
For a girl’s royal introduction, her dress needed a train exactly three yards long, and she had to wear a feather on the back of her head high enough that it would be visible to Her Majesty when she entered the room. Despite the season, necks and shoulders were to remain bare.
The girls had little experience with such outfits. Country dances and small dinner parties were trifling by comparison. Channeling Agatha to the best of my ability, I explained to them, step-by-step, what they must expect:
“Leave your wraps in the carriage. Do not bring them into the ball. As you enter, walk with your train folded carefully over your left arm.” I stood in the middle of their small sewing circle and demonstrated with an imaginary dress. “You will await your summons in an antechamber and then, when called, make your way to Her Majesty. Let down your train, which will be spread out immediately by an attending lady- or lord-in-waiting. Before you enter the room, hand the card bearing your name to the attendant, who will announce you.”
“What will you wear?” Rosamund asked.
“Neither feathers nor a train.”
“Will you dance?”
I laughed at the question. “Now, when you see the queen, you must curtsy until you are very nearly on the floor.” I demonstrated this as well, bowing to Mathilde, who sat up, happy to play the part of the queen. I took her hand in my own and kissed the back of it, close to her knuckles. “Kiss the queen’s hand. Just so.”
I turned now to Elin. “Youare a lord’s daughter, so she may instead kiss your forehead. You will need to watch her carefully and follow Her Majesty’s lead.”
Addressing all of them once more, I continued: “Rise, and then do not forget to curtsy again. Do not talk unless she asks you a direct question. Back out of the room. Do not turn your back to her, or any other royal person in the room. Only then”—I twirled my wrist, indicating an imaginary party ahead of me—“do you enter the ball.”
“If our necklines are bare, then we must have lace trimming,” Rosamund announced.
“And we do not yet have hair feathers,” Elin worried.
“I have used all my fabric for the train,” Mathilde said, “and have none left for a matching petticoat.”
I looked at the concern on their faces and did my best not to mirror it. I had already sat down and charted the expenses. Even with a wagonload of apples going to market, there would not be enough to cover what was needed. When I had tallied my columns, the numbers gave me a kick in the gut. I had already cut so many corners, I was holding a circle. I did not know where else to trim.
“Mama,” Mathilde continued, “I know we have not the resources, but I do believe we need these items.”
“Elin,” I snapped. “I still have not seen those pennies from the ashes. You’ll pay me after market tomorrow and you’ll get what you need.” I turned to Rosie and Mathilde. “And you, too. Keep picking the apples, as many as you can.”
If it took ten wagonloads of fruit and the ashes of a thousand fires, I was resolved: Our household would not show so much as a hairline crack in our facade.
The next day, Moussa emptied his coach of its wares. As Alice and Wenthelen loaded the carriage with bushels of apples, I carried Lucy to the outside mews.
“You’re going to have to stay here for a little while,” I told her. “We have to be proper ladies now and I can’t have you in the house muting all over the place.”
She didn’t so much as blink at me.
“I will find time to take you hunting soon,” I promised. We had skipped our hunt that morning—and a few others—in service to our preparations for the ball. “But I did prepare you a bath. See?” We neared her block, which sat on a circle of gravel. I had set out a basin of water.
She stepped freely into it, taking time to first gnaw at her talons and then, more extravagantly, use her wings and tail to throw water on her back. When she was finished, she began to preen, sliding her beak through each feather and letting out small noises of content.
“It’s just for a little while,” I said.
She ignored me and continued her preening. I waited, looking around at the back of the house, out at the trees, and up at the sky, as if a falcon deserved its privacy.
I had brought along my mother’s cameo, and, as Lucy roused, I took the necklace from my pocket. The depiction, carved from shell, was strung on a strand of seed pearls. My mother had had a patrician nose and tapered jaw. I held her countenance against my lips—readying myself—before sliding it back into my pocket.
I left Lucy, fastened to the iron ring on her block, to weather in the yard. She did not look at me as I walked away, but instead had her eyes trained somewhere in the distance—toward the forest, the trees, the smaller birds, and the insects. It reminded me of staring out the window during my lessons with Agatha. “I’ll take you out for a hunt soon,” I promised.
