Shana Abe - The Sweetest Dark

It’s all a mistake, I thought. She’ll look up, she’ll look at me and tell me it’s all been a mistake, I’m too peculiar, I’m not wanted here after all. I’ll have to find my way back to the station. I’ll have to speak to Jesse again and hear that music, and what if he touches me—

The woman’s head lifted. She was older than the absolute black of her hair had suggested. Her features were finely lined; the corners of her lips had wrinkled into puckers.

“Miss Jones. You are quite late.”

“I beg your pardon,” I replied automatically, although a spot of resentment began a sudden burn in my chest, dispelling some of the nausea. What was I supposed to have done? Pushed at the train with my bare hands to force it faster?

Perhaps she noticed my instant of rebellion. Perhaps not. Her eyes seemed to narrow, but it might have been merely the poor light.

“You may be seated.”

I moved to the wing chair nearest me, sinking like a child deep into the leather.

“I am Mrs. Westcliffe, the headmistress of Iverson.”

I tried to inch up higher in the chair. “How do you do?”

“How do you do. I’d like to commence our relationship by speaking with you plainly. I trust you won’t mind. You’re a rather different sort of student than we typically host here at the school. Your records indicate that you are not without intelligence, so you will perceive this fact for yourself soon enough. I have no wish to alarm you or to shame you, but, apart from the servants, you will not find a peer here at Iverson.”

I thought of the divine Chloe and her less-than-divine laughter.

“Oh,” I said, sinking back again.

“The Iverson School for Girls attracts young women from the most elite families across the empire. We are considered the foremost educational opportunity for such young women, and hence it is imperative our reputation remains unsullied. I want to assure you that I will personally do whatever I must to protect my students and this school from any hint of impropriety.”

She paused, gazing at me. It was pretty clear where she thought any hints of impropriety would be coming from.

“I understand,” I said.

“We are also fortunate enough to enjoy the patronage of the Duke of Idylling himself, whose own social connections are, of course, unimpeachable.”

“Of course.”

Mrs. Westcliffe shot me an abruptly beady look. “It is due to the duke that you are here before me now. His allowance for the castle and its grounds includes the proviso that, for any given semester, at least one scholarship student must be in attendance, preferably one from out of the area so as to lessen tensions amongst the locals. Whatever my misgivings about your previous circumstances, I find myself perfectly in accord with the duke’s wishes. Honest charity is never to be frowned upon, nor are intentions of the purest nature.”

She paused again, waiting, so I added another, “Of course.”

It seemed to mollify her; the beady look softened. “Your classes will be identical to those of every other pupil in your year. In this respect, at least, you will be equal. What you learn here will be up to you, Miss Jones. But I will add frankly that graduation and a magnanimous letter of recommendation from this school will place you at the top of any governess list in proper British society, and with good reason.”

“Thank you,” I said, because I was not without intelligence, and by then I’d learned my cue.

Mrs. Westcliffe inclined her head, a gracious queen in her gilded realm.

Governess. I wanted to sigh out loud, but it was an enormous boon, I knew. Most girls from Blisshaven went straight to the workhouses when they were too old for schooling. They became the necessary hands populating the vast city factories: ropemaking, sewing machines, beer.

Or they became willing bodies for the streets. More money, less time. Less life expectancy, too, usually.

“On to more-practical matters. A schedule of your courses awaits you in your room, along with any required texts. You have been allocated six uniforms, five for everyday classes and one for more-formal school functions. I presume you have the sum of your belongings in that case? And that you have presentable garments for the weekends?”

“Yes, ma’am.” If you wish to call a pair of threadbare skirts and darned stockings presentable.

“Students are permitted a single item of personal jewelry with the uniform. Something discreet, naturally. A cameo brooch. A filigree pin, a pearl. Possibly a small watch, should the chain drape well enough. Some of the girls have taken to wearing gold bangles. It’s a slightly vulgar fashion, I feel, but as long as it is only one bangle and you show it to me first so that I may be certain it is appropriate, that may suffice, as well.”

“Yes, Mrs. Westcliffe,” I said gravely. “I shall show you any bangle I wish to wear first.”

“Excellent. As tomorrow is Sunday, all that will be required of you is to attend services in the chapel. After that, you may explore the grounds at your leisure. It will give you time to learn the castle, as well.” She rose to her feet, and I did the same. “I feel we are to get on, Miss Jones. I hope I am not mistaken.”

She stuck out her hand, surprising me—I thought I’d just get a royal dismissal. Her grip on my fingers was both chill and firm.

“Almeda will show you to your room. Allow me to be the first to say welcome to you, Eleanore Jones. Welcome to Iverson.”

...

I learned that night that the loveliest, most lonely sound in the world is that of the sea striking the shore. It rocked me into slumber, echoing my drowsing pulse.

The room assigned to me had clearly never been meant to serve as a bedchamber. It consisted of the upper floor of one of the towers, with a high ceiling and curved walls that made the bed jut out awkwardly no matter where I moved. There was no rug and no fireplace. Come winter, the tower would be an icebox, but at least there was a pile of quilts at the foot of the bed.

I didn’t care. I could not recall a time in my life when I had slept in a room of my own; the cell at Moor Gate did not count. That I didn’t have to scrap for a better pillow or drawer space or a clean chamber pot seemed an indescribable luxury. Princesses, I thought, running my hand over a quilt, lived sovereign like this.

The solitary window of my room once was probably little more than an arrow slit but at some point had been widened and glazed. The glass shone in a thousand diamond-bitty pieces, many of them splintered but all still in place. I’d shoved at the rusted hinges to open it, peering out at the view, and that was when I realized that the castle was on an island.

We had crossed so many bridges in the carriage, I’d stopped counting them. Plus, I’d been fiercely focused on blocking Jesse’s music from my mind. But from my window I could see the bridge that connected us to the mainland, a slinky wooden track braced with pillars that sank into the waves, foam bursting silver against them. It looked to be nearly a mile long.

A mile of sea from here to there. I don’t know why that thought seemed so pleasant.

I was a princess in a very dark tower. I banged my shin twice against the bedpost, trying to maneuver to the bureau, and my hip once against the bureau, attempting to grope my way back to the bed. There was an armoire, too, but I didn’t feel up to wrangling with anything pointy like hangers or hooks.

I’d found two candles but no matches, and knew better than to look for a light switch.

“Castle’s not wired for the electrical,” Almeda had informed me as we climbed the tower stairs. She was heavyset and huffing for breath by the second landing, tackling each stair with a substantial stamp of her foot. By her apron and cap, I’d guessed she was the head maid or chatelaine, but she’d not volunteered the information, and I had not asked.

“We make do with good old-fashioned means here,” she’d panted. “Coal and the like. Fine, traditional ways. You’ll get a filled lamp for your room and two candles per month. Don’t waste ‘em, and don’t go asking for more than that, because you won’t get more, eh?”

Eh, indeed.

It happened that the lamp was missing—perhaps one of the less frugal girls had pinched it—and the candles, without matches, were useless. But after I had unpacked my case by touch and found my way into my nightgown and settled into the bed, the moon had risen just enough to pearl the window, and the diamond panes began a slow, dazzling show of light that made the darkness no longer matter.

I fell asleep with my stomach growling and the sea beyond my tower striking the land, striking, striking, a giant’s hand against a huge hollow drum.

But for a single passing dream of a caress to my forehead—a whisper of sensation, safe and gentle and then gone—I slept deep.

Here is the list of weapons I counted in the headmistress’s serene golden chamber:

The candles from the chandelier.

The poker and its stand by the fireplace.

The pink-daisied porcelain lamps, which had been unlit, on the secrétaire and side cabinet and reading table.

Every single oil painting, remarkably flammable.

The curtains.

The crystal vases.

The bronze-framed mirror.

The glass face of the clock.

The inkwell.

And, of course, the letter opener on her desk, made of hard, sharp bone.

Hattie Boyd once held a letter opener she’d snatched from a nurse’s hand to the jugular vein of Mrs. Buckler, the most vicious matron in Moor Gate. She held it there until she was promised one of the beef-and-potato pasties being served to the staff for supper. It cost her a blackened eye and two entire months in the isolation cell in the basement.