Tina Connolly - Ironskin

“… and the roses alone cost—oh, but you would be shocked. And then that man couldn’t tell the difference between ‘open’ and ‘overblown.’ It’s the difference between a woman who wields her assets wisely and a common … well. Not a polite word, but he understood the analogy once I made myself clear.”

Jane focused her wandering mind on Alistair’s boasts. “But surely Helen would’ve been satisfied with something simpler. She is not greedy.”

Alistair laughed. “I told your sister that your affliction had made you innocent. You have no idea of what is required to maintain one’s position.” He leaned in closer to the good side of her face, his breath hot on her ear. “They are ravening wolves, my dear. Each harpy ready to tear me and my bride down. This is the world we must live in. Your sister and I must be … perfect.”

“And you fear you are not?”

“I see you smirk, but your cynicism is truly naïveté, Jane! The common folk weary of the endless sacrifice yet to be made after the war. They must be shown, and indeed, they thrive on our doings. We are the morale of a lost generation, and as such, my cravat must be sharp and new, my plain yellow hair curled and set. My home must be stocked with the latest technology even as it is invented—did you mark the gaslight? And yet there are so few men left, everything is easier for me, you understand.”

“Of course,” Jane murmured. Her temper was flaring at his assessment of her as naïve .

“Your sister is a natural beauty, but she lives in an age where beauty plus art can equal perfection. No matter the state of the rice imports or whatever boring thing is claiming her husband’s attention, you see how the Prime Minister’s wife draws the eye. Helen must learn her art.”

“The art of taking a lover?” she said pointedly, but he laughed this off, unaffected by her rudeness. He was insufferable, and she let go of his hands, pulled back from the dance. “Thank you, Mr. Huntingdon, but I tire easily,” she said.

Alistair’s fingers lingered at her silver waist. “You will never land a husband that way, you know. Keep your veil over your face, dance even when you are fatigued. It is the only way to win the war between men and women.”

“The only way, is it?”

He leaned closer and she could smell the spirits on his breath. His cheeks were flushed. “Perhaps you are not as naïve as you seem. Perhaps you know that your charms could win a man in the dark, before he sees the imperfections under your mask. Come to the ballroom and I will whisper in your ear what man may be thus caught. I know all their secrets, you know. I will find one for you. Tell you his weaknesses, tell you in what curtained room you may find him tonight.…”

Jane squirmed free from his touch. “I do not require such assistance, sir.” Her cheeks flushed as her temper struggled to burst free. “Perhaps you had better return to your guests.”

He straightened, smiled, seemingly not offended. “Remember I am ever at your service.” A short nod and he was gone.

Jane backed against the wall, her breaths short and furious, rage lighting her cheek, bursting flame against the iron mask. “The Merry Mistress” finished with a flourish, and the old fiddler eyed her with concern. For a breath only, then he swung into a foxtrot. The children danced, the women cackled, and Jane felt as though the air had been squeezed from her chest. Pince-Nez’s face swung in front of her, the old woman dreaming of a time when to be snatched by the fey might still be romantic—a shattered illusion, a vanished past.…

Helen drifted in on the arm of a young man, her face lit with laughter. Halfway through she saw Jane’s mutinous expression and excused herself with a smile and flutter.

She whisked Jane into the corner. “What is it?”

“I have employment,” Jane said through fierce breaths, holding back angry tears that flickered orange at the corners of her eyes. “I am independent.”

“Shh, I know,” said Helen. She rubbed Jane’s arm in a calming gesture she often used when Jane became overwrought. “You’re my brave sister. Breathe.”

But Jane was too incensed to stop. “I am not grasping blindly for a husband, no matter what yours may think of our family.”

“Come, Jane, that’s too unfair. What did Alistair say to you?”

Jane did not think that Mr. Huntingdon’s infuriating words were meant to be a pass at her—they were merely his own horrid assessment of the world they lived in. A brief shut of the eyelids—thoughts of cooling water, putting out the fire. Feel Helen’s calming touch, let it soothe the rage.

Jane studied her sister’s face, her heart rate slowing, the orange fog clearing. “Tell me, Helen.” A breath, another. “Do you love him?”

Helen’s pink-and-white face closed off and she let go of Jane. She laughed, copper curls tossing backward; took a swallow of her champagne. “Enough to grace his bed tonight.”

Jane knew the look: stubborn Helen, determined to see a madcap course to the end of it.

Helen’s eyes danced back to her young man. She pulled away from Jane and into his waiting, willing flirtation, her champagne sparkling green-yellow in the gaslight. The room was an extension of Helen, chartreuse-glowing champagne, the glitter of citrine, topaz, aquamarine, waxy pearls, and the shiny tops of curled hair. Glittering and silent, a shiny mask of gaiety hiding all.

Jane would get no truths from her.

The next morning was very long. Mr. Rochart had wired Alistair that she would be picked up after lunch, and Jane longed for that time to arrive. She did not belong in that house, and every bored remark and cutting observation of the others over their strong tea or hair-of-the-dog cocktails confirmed that.

But if she did not belong there, did she belong at Silver Birch Hall? At least she was needed there. Perhaps she would never be comfortable anywhere; perhaps she had not that gift. Jane sat on a loveseat and tried to amuse herself by sketching the languid figures as she listened to Helen and Alistair and the remaining houseguests trade snide news from the wedding. Every one of them had a hangover, and they complained about that, and their gossip that morning was particularly caustic and cruel. The ropes of jewels and bright silk day dresses seemed too gay for the tired and cranky bodies underneath. Jane stirred milk into the bitter dregs of her tea and hoped for each lukewarm sip to quell the sick feeling from the aftermath of too much sugar, too much nerves, too much attention.

“Why, that’s Helen to the life,” drawled one of them, and Jane found a rope of pearls dangling into her sightline as Gwendolyn or Gretchen or Gertrude Somebody-or-other peered at her sketch. The woman had red bow-painted lips that did not match the lines of her mouth.

“Jane is quite talented,” agreed her sister.

“Are you going to color it in?” said Gertrude.

“I’m not very good with a brush,” Jane admitted.

“You should’ve studied art at a good school,” said Gertrude. “Then you would know how to use color, for a picture without color is like … what is it like, somebody?”

“Like a girl without a figure,” said Alistair. “Technically correct, but not worth looking at.” Gertrude laughed appreciatively.

The casual words flicked like a whip. Didn’t they think she would love to have studied with real artists? It was too easy to see that other life, the one without the war. Oh, she was not fooling herself, she would never have been a real artist, but with a better education she would have been skilled enough to teach. She might have been a special instructor at a private school, and she would not have been asked so casually why she chose to be so unskilled. A lack of money had killed off one avenue, a lack of normalcy the next, and she had been pruned into this strange and twisting branch that should never have grown at all.