Carrie Brown - The Stargazer's Sister

He stops. “Well? What have you to say to me?”

“It is very good news, William,” she says with formality. “I am very happy for you.”

He stands still. For a moment they regard one another. A breeze from the window stirs the papers on the table.

Then he comes forward and grabs her shoulders, gives them a shake.

“I knew you would come round,” he says. “I told Mary that you would. She’s terribly afraid of you, you know.”

He kisses her cheek.

“Well, we shall be a family now, yes?” he says.

—

THAT NIGHT WHEN LINA retires to her room, she picks up her daybook. She sits at the table by the window, a candle beside her. She looks out into the darkness. There are clouds — it is no night for viewing the stars. Only the moon is visible from time to time, its familiar face appearing when the clouds part.

She writes the date, August 12, 1788, and one sentence: My brother is engaged to marry.

There seems nothing more to say. Or nothing more she will commit to paper.

She closes the book.

—

THE WEDDING IS SMALL, just the two families — though the Baldwins are great in number — and a few friends. The littlest Baldwin brothers and sisters strew rose petals outside Saint Laurence’s church in Upton.

Lina seats herself across the aisle from the Baldwins. She hears people enter the small church behind her, but she does not turn around. Then she feels a hand on her shoulder. She turns. Stanley has taken a seat in the pew behind her. Sarah, beside him, smiles at Lina, but there is sympathy in her expression.

Lina touches Stanley’s hand and then turns back to face the priest, and to regard William’s and Mary’s backs as they stand together at the altar.

When they kneel, Lina looks up at the sunlight pouring down through the narrow stained-glass windows, dropping color across the floor and over her hands, folded in her lap.

She wears the green dress that she wore for her first performance at the Octagon. The silk is thin in places. Sarah, who is clever about such things, has trimmed it for her, but she feels patched and shabby. She is aware of her scarred face for the first time in many years, of the oddity of her physical presence; she is smaller than many of the Baldwin children, with their perfectly milky skin and fine yellow hair.

Her gloves, too long for her arms, have had to be rolled at the elbow.

She remembers the wedding in Hanover so many years before, the boys singing in the street afterward.

This is the great mystery, the priest had said. Your wife will be like a fruitful vine within your house. Your children will be like olive shoots around your table.

And she remembers her father, moaning from his chair before the fire. Oh, my dear. You are neither handsome nor rich.

—

AT THE BALDWINS’ HOUSE after the ceremony, Mr. Baldwin brings her a glass of sherry where she stands by the long drapes at one of the windows in the parlor. The day is warm, and she is nervous, the conversation around her loud. She drinks thirstily. A servant returns again with another and then another glass. She is embarrassed when her glass is always empty, but she is grateful to have something to do with her hands. Though Mr. and Mrs. Baldwin and their guests have many questions for William, who stands with his arm around Mary’s waist, no one asks Lina anything about herself or her role in the work. The children run past her, shrieking. Outside, two dogs chase each other over the grass.

Across the room, Mrs. Baldwin speaks with a lady Lina does not recognize; when Lina sees them glance at her, she turns quickly to look out the window — she does not want to be caught staring — but the movement makes her dizzy. She grasps the curtain to steady herself.

Then William is at her elbow. “Lina?”

Children’s merry laughter sounds. Someone plays the pianoforte in another room. A smell of roses comes to her. She watches the sunlight move across the rug, a pattern of pink and yellow blossoms — and little black bees? She leans closer — and curling vines. Slowly she brings her gaze up to William’s face.

“You’re unwell,” he says, his hand on elbow. He bends near. “Too much wine, Lina,” he says in her ear. “Take no more, please.”

Somehow Stanley is found to escort her home.

Mary stands at the front door, her hair wound prettily with flowers. She leans forward to kiss Lina’s cheek.

“Sister,” she says. “I know we shall be friends. I have told William that we shall find the nicest lodgings for you. And you must have whatever you like from Observatory House, of course.”

The front steps under Lina’s feet tilt. She feels nauseous.

“What?” she says.

Stanley’s hand appears under her elbow. “Come, missus,” he says. “Sarah is at home, waiting for us.”

Lina stares at Mary.

Mary’s eyes flit unhappily to William’s.

An uncomfortable expression crosses his face. “Go with Stanley, Lina,” he says. He leans forward and kisses her forehead. “We will see you in a couple of weeks.”

She dislikes it when he kisses her on the forehead. It is a kiss for a child.

She knows he and Mary are going on a wedding trip to Wales and to the Lake District. It will be the longest period she has spent away from William since her arrival in England.

Stanley leads her down the drive toward the horses and their carriage. She wobbles, feeling the pebbles of the drive beneath the thin soles of her shoes.

When she is seated beside Stanley, Lina turns back. William and Mary stand at the front door of the Baldwins’ house. William has his arm around Mary’s waist again. He lifts his hand to wave.

Stanley raises the reins, and the carriage lurches forward. When they round the bend and are out of sight of the house, Lina leans quickly over the side of the cart and is sick.

Stanley begins to pull up on the reins to stop the horses, but she sits back up, wiping her mouth with her glove. She then takes off the glove and throws it into the tall grass by the road.

“Go on,” she says. “Please. Go on.”

She finds a handkerchief and presses it to her mouth.

Stanley glances at her. “It’s very hot,” he says. “You’ll feel better now that you’ve been sick. Could happen to anyone. All right now?”

The carriage rocks. The trees on either side of the lane bob up and down. She holds on to the seat.

“What did she mean by that?” she asks Stanley. “That they shall find other lodgings for me.”

Stanley looks straight ahead. He says nothing.

She looks at his profile for a moment. Understanding dawns.

“Very…kind of them. Of my Bruder, ” she says faintly.

Stanley reaches across the seat and takes her hand.

“Not how I would put it,” he says, squeezing hard, “if you ask me.” He glances at her. “It’s just how I feel,” he says. “Sorry.”

“You knew, ” she says. “You already knew.”

“I offered to look for you,” he says, and she hears now his anger and frustration, “but she said their servants will take care of it.”

“I see.”

He squeezes her hand again.

“Why?” she says. “Why must it be this way?”

Stanley shakes his head. “I don’t think they’ve thought it through,” he says. “It’s a poor decision, I’d say. Sarah says so, too.”

Lina closes her eyes, but it makes her feel sick to do so, and so she opens them again. She wants desperately to get home, to shed her sorry old dress, which now smells of vomit, to wash her face, and to mount the stairs to her rooftop observatory.

—

SHE DOES NOT BELIEVE the day could be any worse, but when she arrives home, she finds on her desk in the laundry, propped against a wrapped package, a letter written in Mary’s hand and signed by both her and William. They have given her — as a gift — five days in London, while they are on their wedding trip.