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“I won’t have a birthday until 1820,” said Agnes. “I’m glad there’s a leap day in 1820 because I’ll be sixteen, and that’s the most important birthday.”
“I wish you’d told me.” Elf was still staring, rotating her glass. “I’d have tied ribbons on your shovel.” She blushed and set her glass down. “Or you could have done something else, something more celebratory.”
They loved the idea of her tying ribbons on their shovel.
“I wanted to dig,” they said.
“Usually Georgie wants to see fireworks,” said Phipps, wagging his brows. “Vauxhall.” He gave Georgie a speculative look. “The country doesn’t deliver by way of fireworks. Or rope dancers. That is regrettable.” He turned to Agnes and Elf. “Last year on Georgie’s birthday, a large party of us went to Vauxhall and saw Madame Saqui dance on a rope strung high above our heads. She danced, plumed and spangled, at the very stroke of midnight, rockets exploding in the air. Hard to beat that.”
Elf had lowered her eyes to her plate.
Agnes’s were wide as saucers. “Beatrice hasn’t written a word about rope dancing.”
“It’s not the be-all and end-all.” Georgie shrugged. But memories crowded their mind, shimmering with different-colored lamps strung from the trees of Vauxhall. With cut-glass lusters surrounded by gilt theater boxes. And when Elf glanced up, she seemed aware that distant lights had summoned them away.
After dinner, everyone repaired to the drawing room to drape on the softest furniture and drink champagne.
Agnes draped adjacent to Phipps.
“Let’s play rhymes!” she said to him.
Elf draped adjacent to Georgie. “Why didn’t you tell me it was your birthday?”
“I forgot it myself, until this morning. I spent the day getting used to it. Four and twenty.”
“Antique,” she murmured. “I could almost collect you.”
They grinned. Her humor still surprised them. And so did her presence beside them. Elfreda Marsden. Eternally aloof, infinitely scornful, with those sharp eyes and that sad mouth. They’d wanted her, and wanted not to want her, and wanted her regardless for so very long. The idea they’d first formed of her was a stark sketch, a few strokes, black and white. The reality was messier, contradictory, complex, not otherworldly at all, but human, and that much more irresistible.
“I need something that rhymes with Beatrice.” Phipps spoke loudly and skeptically.
Georgie glanced over.
Agnes was giggling with anticipation. She drained her champagne and poured herself more.
Georgie’s glance slid past, around the room, still decorated to their mother’s taste. It fell back on Elf.
“These past three years, I’ve wondered,” they said, in a low voice, “if she forgets. On this day, of all days, she probably can’t help but remember.”
That meant somewhere, at some time today, their mother had been thinking of them.
Elf’s eyes were soft. She pressed closer.
“I forfeit,” said Phipps.
“You can’t forfeit,” cried Agnes. “Think harder.”
“Georgie, help.”
Georgie glanced over again. Phipps was scratching his brow.
“Forfeit,” said Georgie.
“So many things rhyme with Beatrice.” Agnes gulped her champagne. “Flea circus! Tea service!”
Georgie raised their brows.
“Ah.” Phipps nodded agreeably. “I am humbled.”
