Laura Schlitz - Splendors and Glooms

He accepted it gracefully and opened it to see the picture within. Against an ivory background was a weeping willow tree, less than an inch high. Each branch and frond was fashioned from snippets of human hair. “Ah, so this is for mourning! The hair is from your dead brothers and sisters, I suppose.”

“How did you —?”

“Servants talk, I am afraid, and such a sad story begs to be told. Povera Clara!” He held out the locket so that she could take it back. “But you were not made for weeping, little madama. You should laugh — as you did today — and you should dance. You shall dance.” He smiled. “Shall I tell you how?”

His voice was gentle, encouraging. Against her will, Clara’s eyes met his. It seemed to her that they were terrible eyes: the whites slightly reddened, the irises as opaque as granite. She could not look away.

“You are weary of mourning, are you not? You want to laugh and to dance . . . and there is something else, yes? No, do not deny it; I can see into your deepest heart. You carry a secret, don’t you, mia piccina ? Something that haunts you and makes you feel you are a very wicked girl . . . ?”

Clara stared at him dumbly. After a moment, she moistened her lips and whispered, “Yes.”

“I thought so.” He nodded. “Now, listen to me,” he said, and he lowered his voice still further. His whisper was so muffled that Clara could scarcely hear him. She understood nothing that he said and she did not try. The bit of sticking plaster under his chin moved as he spoke, and she wondered if it might fall off. She could smell the gin on his breath and the Macassar oil that stained his collar, but she did not step away. She stood as if she had taken root, trembling at first, and then still. By and by she was as calm as she had ever been in her life.

Bau! Bau! The gold watch was striking. Clara looked down and saw that it was back in her hand. All at once she realized that it was safe to come to her senses. Grisini had gone. The hands on the watch stood at half past six.

“Dr. Wintermute, I would be grateful if you would look in on Miss Clara.”

Dr. Wintermute closed his book, marking his place with one finger. It was eight thirty at night and his first break in what had been a long day. He had been called out before dawn to deliver a baby and returned home just in time to see the performance of the fantoccini. At the end of the show, he had seen his daughter disgrace herself, casting his wife into something close to hysterics; before he could calm his wife, he had been summoned to treat an ill-tempered duchess with a stone in her kidney. When he arrived home, his wife was still distraught and his solitary dinner was overcooked. As he sat with his book before the fire, the last thing Dr. Wintermute wanted was to be assigned a new duty by his daughter’s governess.

None of this showed on his face. Like Clara, Thomas Wintermute could make his countenance a mask. He regarded Miss Cameron with a look of courteous interest. “What is the matter, Miss Cameron?”

“She won’t stop crying,” answered the governess.

Dr. Wintermute kept his finger inside his book. “I should have thought that today’s incident might teach Clara the value of repressing her feelings.” He frowned at Miss Cameron. He had hired her because he thought her stern common sense might balance his wife’s excitable nature. “Let her cry herself to sleep. I don’t suppose it will hurt her.”

Miss Cameron did not seem satisfied. After a moment, she said bluntly, “I don’t like the look of her.”

Dr. Wintermute set down the book. The simple statement, I don’t like the look of her, was enough to set his heart hammering. Dear God, if the child was ill . . . He told himself there could be nothing wrong. If Clara had been anyone else’s daughter, he would have said she was as strong as a little pony. But the nightmare of the past would be with him till the day he died. When the cholera struck, the children had been taken ill very suddenly. He remembered his wife’s face as she wept over the bodies of the children he had been unable to save. As he followed the governess upstairs, he was praying silently, though he wore the same look of calm interest on his face.

Clara was in bed. She lay very still, with her clenched hands on top of the blankets. Dr. Wintermute turned up the gaslight so that he could examine her. She looked more like a child who had suffered a shock than one who had misbehaved at a birthday party. Her pupils were dilated. Though her cheeks were wet, she held her facial muscles rigid, as trying if to demonstrate as little grief as possible. At the sight of her father, her chest heaved, but she did not speak.

“Now, then,” Dr. Wintermute said soothingly, “what’s all this about, Clara?”

Clara gulped. “Mamma said —” She could not finish the sentence, but gazed at him with tears streaming down her cheeks. She tried again. “Mamma —”

“Your mamma is in bed,” said Dr. Wintermute, “and you must be like her and go to sleep. Miss Cameron.” He raised his head to look across the room, where the governess stood. “I think Clara should have a cup of hot milk with plenty of sugar and a teaspoon of brandy. Will you see to it, please?”

Miss Cameron answered, “Yes, sir,” and left the room.

Dr. Wintermute drew a chair beside the bed. He felt his daughter’s forehead. Her skin was clammy, and her pulse was a little too rapid. She curled her fingers around his hand. “Sit up and let me examine you.”

Clara sat up obediently. Her face twisted as she tried to cry without uttering a sound. Dr. Wintermute bent over so that he could listen to her chest. “Have you any pain?”

“No, Papa.”

“Are you dizzy? Thirsty?”

“No, Papa.”

“Have you a headache?”

“No, Papa.”

Dr. Wintermute reached in his pocket for a handkerchief, only to recall that he had given his handkerchief to his wife. It occurred to him that he had spent the day ministering to female creatures, and all of them had cried. Clara, reading his gesture, dug under her pillow and drew out a handkerchief of her own.

“My dear, you must stop crying. You behaved badly today, but your mother will forgive you.”

“She won’t,” said Clara. “She told me so. I went to see her after the party — I wanted to say I was sorry — and she said that — that I insulted their memories and that God was punishing her — and the only child He spared her had a — a h-heart of stone.” A huge sob rose in her throat, making her shoulders jerk. “She said she didn’t think she could ever forgive me. She said that.”

Dr. Wintermute winced. He did not doubt Clara’s word. He knew the kind of thing his wife could say when she was beside herself. He often marveled that Ada, who wept at the sight of a whipped horse or a malnourished child, could be so merciless with her tongue.

“She only loves the Others,” Clara sobbed. “They c-can’t do anything bad because they’re dead.”

“Listen to me, Clara.” Dr. Wintermute took his daughter’s hands and squeezed them tightly. “Stop crying and listen. Your mother loves you dearly. She should not have said those things to you.”

Clara gazed at him with startled eyes. Dr. Wintermute felt a surge of guilt. He had betrayed his wife.

“But you must remember,” he went on quickly, “we must all remember, how much your mamma has suffered.” He cleared his throat. “Today wasn’t your birthday alone, you know. Your brother Charles Augustus —”