Page 17 of Now Comes the Mist

“Lucy?” Arthur asks, studying me carefully.

Somehow, I feel that this has become a test for me. I rearrange my features and laugh up at him. “What an adorable child,” I say brightly. “Where would we be without these little angels? His compliment has improved my entire day. Did you hear him? He called me a beautiful lady!”

Arthur’s face relaxes and his gaze grows warm on me. “He is not wrong, you know.”

But as we walk back home, all I can think isYes, he is. The very existence of that child, of any child, is wrong.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Winter ebbs into spring, and as the days grow longer and our journey to Whitby looms, Mamma enters a state of frenzy. In March, she suddenly decides to replace all the draperies in our London house, and her days are spent visiting cloth merchants before finally settling upon a deep green brocade only a shade darker than our original fabric. In April, she leads an army of servants in polishing every surface, repairing errant clocks and wardrobe doors that hang askew, and uprooting the garden so that neat stone paths and useless statues may be installed.

“What has gotten into you, Mamma?” I ask more than once, to which she replies, “I want everything to be perfect for when you inherit all of this, my love.” And when I tell her that there are many more years before that happens, she only pats my cheek before returning to her manic activity, causing me to wonder if my obsession with death is catching. Perhaps I breathe so much mingled longing and fear that Mamma has taken it from the air into her lungs and heart. I cannot see any other reason for this sudden and morbid desire to ready her affairs for me.

In early May, a week before our journey to Whitby, she knocks on my door before dinner—something she almost never does, for by unspoken agreement between two adult women living together, she and I do not disturb each other in our respective sanctuaries. I am on my window seat in the open spring air, dreaming in the light of the setting sun and contemplating the multiple bouquets that grace my dresser and send a cloying scent into the air.

“It looks like a florist’s shop in here,” Mamma says, plucking a few dying blooms out of a vase of snow-white roses. “I’m surprised youryoung men haven’t exhausted their wallets yet, buying you every flower to be had in London.”

“They aren’tmyyoung men, Mamma,” I say, laughing, though I get a thrill from the words.Mymen, whom I own.Myproperty.

“Well, I certainly hope that changes very shortly.” She brings the dead flowers out to the hall, placing them on a table for the servants to discard, before returning. “One of them will have to tire of courtship soon and make the deal official by asking for your hand.”

“Mamma, I am not a business contract,” I protest. “You know very well that these matters of the heart take caution, tact, and time.”

She sits at my vanity table, facing me. “Time? What time do they thinkanyof us have?”

I study the lines around her mouth, her blue eyes, and the shine of her ash-blond hair. “Mamma, what dark thoughts you entertain lately,” I say playfully to mask my anxiety. “Why, pray tell, are you suddenly so eager for me to marry and inherit all of your property?”

“These aren’t dark thoughts,” Mamma says, waving a hand. “You know how impatient I am when things are left unsettled. I like tasks to be done, affairs to be completed, agreements to be reached, and all that. The sooner you marry Arthur and have a dozen children, the sooner I may rest easy and enjoy my old age, knowing that my work as your mother is done.”

“It’s hard to believe that you will ever grow old.” I look down at my hands, slender and pale, the nails like gleaming shells. “Mamma, are you so certain that I will marry Arthur?”

She laughs, looking pointedly at the bouquets around her.

“Those are not all from him. Only the camellias. The other red flowers are from Dr. Jack Seward, and the white roses are from Quincey Morris, as a sign of surrender in a battle of wits we have been waging.” I look with satisfaction at the snowy blooms, thinking of the notes the handsome American and I have exchanged over the past few months. Everything we have written is perfectly innocent, but the meaning between the lines … those, I am relieved no florist shall understand, for they would be horrified by the thought of the virtuous Miss Lucy Westenra expressing herself so openly to any man.

“Lucy, you must choose one eventually. And I think we both know who it will be,” Mamma says indulgently. “You are twenty in September, and it’s time you settled down.”

“Mina turned twenty-four, andsheis not married yet.”

“Because Mr. Harker has been working hard to build up his savings for her and prepare for their life together,” Mamma says. “He is a lawyer’sclerk.Youryoung men are in vastly better positions and need not wait to take care ofyou.”

I lean my head against a plump satin pillow, lazily enjoying my reflection in the mirror behind Mamma. “Well, then,” I say archly, “since you insist upon me marrying at once, I shall propose to one of these men before we leave for Whitby. Will you ask Harriet to lay pillows upon the parlor floor, so I will not hurt myself when I get down on one knee?”

She shakes her head, chuckling. “How absurd you are.”

“No more than you, dear Mamma. You know perfectly well that I would prefer to propose, but society forbids it, so I must linger on until one of my suitors finds the courage to speak. And since you are determined to hope for Arthur, I’m afraid it will take years yet.”

“Years!”

“It took our entire childhood and years of adulthood for him to evenlookat me. So I’m afraid I will be your age before he musters the willpower to ask for my hand.”

“I am not one of your lovesick men, impertinent miss,” Mamma says, waving her finger at me. “Do not tease me the way you do them. Years to ask for your hand, indeed! I wager with you that he will ask before we leave for our holiday. I saw him at the Marshalls’ dinner party last week, watching you talk to Dr. Seward and Mr. Morris.”

I place a hand against my heart in delight. “Was he green with envy?”

“Like the first peas of spring, which Cook will be serving us at dinner,” Mamma confirms, and we both burst into peals of laughter.

“Dear silly Mamma,” I say affectionately.

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