Page 4 of Now Comes the Mist

“He won’t be taking a train the whole way,” she points out, ever the practical one. “The geography won’t allow it. It will have to be hired carriages after a certain point. I’ve marked his journey with a red ribbon pinned to a map and read about all the places he’ll go. I suppose I know more about the history of that region than any self-respecting governess ought to.”

I give a dismissive wave. “Carriages, trains. It doesn’t matter. Just to go somewhere,anywhere, and see new faces and hear new voices. To order tea in a foreign hotel or sit in a dark theater full of strangers or send telegrams home from far-off cities. That’s freedom. That’sliving, my Mina. You could be anyone you wished to be, and no one would be any the wiser.”

“That does sound nice,” she admits.

“Can you imagine rambling around some strange country?” I lift my hand to her neck and trail my fingertips over her porcelain skin, feeling her shiver slightly against me. “Seeing the sights, exploring? Sleeping in a dark room, in a bed you don’t know?”

Mina pulls away, leaving my shoulder cold. “Perhaps Jonathan will take me one day.”

“I don’t mean traveling with ahusband,” I say impatiently. “I mean traveling the way that men do. Alone … or with a friend.”

She laughs. “Alone! Fancy going anywhere alone, without protection.”

“And why not? What do we need protection from?”

“I don’t know,” she says helplessly. “Dangerous men. Thieves, rogues, murderers?”

“Maybetheyneed protection fromme.” I feel the sudden, furious urge to rip the pearl-tipped pins from my hair. “I could be dangerous, too, out there on my own. I just don’t know it because I’ve never been given the chance, and never will. I haven’t the faintest idea who I am.”

“Oh, Lucy,” Mina says, distressed.

I move to the window and yank aside the plum silk drapes. It is dark outside, but beyond the reflection of Mina and me, I can just barely see a deepening winter sky that weeps lacy flakes of snow. “There’s a whole world out there we will never see,” I say, and the familiar despair—urgent, immediate, overwhelming—almost chokes me. “Castles and mountains and forests, and so much more. Is this truly all there is? Silk dresses and engagement rings? It seems to me there is more freedom for us even in death. At least it would be a choice we make for ourselves.”

“Dearest, you are in one of your moods again,” she says gently. In the light of the streetlamps, we can see carriages pulling up in front of the house and people stepping out into the snow. A few curious, eager male faces turn up toward my bright window, and Mina reddens even though we are both fully dressed. She pulls the curtain shut and puts a hand on either side of my face. “This is only youth and high spirits talking. The excitement of the evening. Soon, you’ll be downstairs with your usual parade of admiring beaux, and you’ll forget all of this.”

This is the foundation of our friendship: I produce a wild, unsanctioned idea, always and forever inappropriate for a young lady of my station, and Mina willingly stretches her hand out to meet it—but then always pulls back. Back into safety, into the smothering cloisters of traditional womanhood and all the expectations that bar the way out. And then, to keep from upsetting her, I retract the thought and hide it deep within me once more.

This was exactly how we kissed, that day I was bold enough to try.

I am so tired of hiding.

“My beautiful Lucy. My beloved, my sister, my friend,” Mina says, still holding my face between her hands. “This is partly grief, too, I know. You still miss your father, who told you all about the world. This need to be free is only your longing for him, don’t you see?”

I touch the locket at my neck and turn away, both because she sees far too much and because not even she is allowed to speak of Papa. I am savedfrom having to think of a response by a light knock at the door. “Who can that be?” I ask, too brightly, too gaily, and sail over to it.

Harriet, my maid, stands outside with her arms full of fragrant flowers. “Begging your pardon, Miss Lucy, but these bouquets just arrived for you and Miss Mina.”

“Bouquets!” I repeat, still in that overly delighted tone. I drag Harriet into the room and run my fingers over an ostentatious bunch of scarlet roses, red as the devil. Mina is watching me warily, all too knowledgeable about my moods. “Exquisite. Who could they be from?”

“This one is from Mr. Jonathan Harker, for Miss Mina.” Harriet hands my friend a small cluster of forget-me-nots. I note smugly that, like Mina’s engagement ring, their shade of sky blue does not even remotely match her eyes, but she still brings them to her nose, beaming.

The maid gives me the huge bouquet of roses. “And this is from Dr. Jack Seward.”

“Jack Seward!” Mina says, astonished. “Doesn’t that man work every hour of every day? And yet he took the time to send you such lovely flowers, Lucy!”

“Don’t excite yourself. It’s likely he got his assistant at that dreadful asylum to send these,” I say offhandedly, though I am certain hedidmake the effort himself. That brief interlude with him at the Stokers’ autumn ball, the two of us alone in the conservatory while everyone else was in the drawing room, tells me so. Otherwise, I never should have expected the serious, dark-eyed young doctor to harbor such intense passion beneath all his mundane talk of psychology and human nature. His desire is evident, too, in the flowers he has gifted me tonight, each lurid, luscious rose so full blown as to be almost obscene, the petals readily yielding and opening to my touch. “They are stunning, though, aren’t they?”

“Oh, Lucy, hemustbe in love with you. Red roses mean adoration, of course,” Mina says, her eyes shining. “To think you might soon be a doctor’s wife!”

“Now I think you’re being silly,” I tell her indulgently and look at the third and final bouquet in my maid’s arms. “And who on earth are those from?”

Harriet hands me the picturesque bunch of old-fashioned camellias, each soft rounded flower a warm, rich red. “The Honorable Arthur Holmwood, miss.”

“Arthur? Are you quite sure?” I ask, dropping Dr. Seward’s roses on the dressing table.

“Yes, miss. He handed them to me himself as he came in just now.”

“You may leave us, Harriet,” I say, inhaling the scent of the camellias as she curtsies and closes the door behind her. “Arthur Holmwood, early to a party? This must be another man of the same name. The Arthur I know hardly dares to speak in my presence, let alone attend a large gathering of strangers.”

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