Page 39 of Now Comes the Mist

“Lucy, what’s wrong?” Mina asks quietly.

What’s wrong is that something has changed in me, something I cannot easily confess in the light of day. If this were morning, I would give her my usual response: a flippant remark, a sparkling laugh, and then a change of subject. But night has fallen, and I have no desire to pretend in the shadows of the bed we share. I feel braver by moonlight. And I am so tired of pretending.

Mina rolls onto her side to face me. “You cannot hide anything from me, you know. I told you this afternoon that I feel connected to Jonathan, and I am to you, too.”

My heart gives a little leap. “You love me that much?”

“I always have.” Mina by daylight would have spoken the same words, but in a different manner: fond, sisterly, careful. But Mina by moonlightallows a tremor to enter her voice, and I remember again that day at the beach and the first tentative press of our lips. “You said earlier that you were jealous of Jonathan. Well, I am jealous of Arthur. I can feel how happy you are, happier than when you left London. But there is something else. Something like … a kind of thirst, as though you have tasted a wine you wish to drink forever.”

I can’t help shivering. But the thirst she senses in this moment is not for Arthur, and how can I tell her I desire another man, even if he is only in my dreams? Even with the courage the shadows give me? She might never look at me the same way again, my tender-hearted Mina who is devastated by the mere idea of Jonathan straying. “There’s nothing wrong, exactly,” I say. “I think I am nervous about giving up my freedom for marriage.”

“As am I. It will be wonderful, but it will be an immense change.”

“Arthur cut his visit short because of me, and I am still embarrassed about it,” I confess. “I’m afraid I threw myself at him as soon as Mamma left the room.”

Mina chuckles. “Kissing your husband-to-be is nothing to be ashamed of.”

“We didn’t … we didn’t just kiss.”

She lifts her head from the pillow. “Lucy!” she says loudly.

“No, no, notthat,” I say hastily. “We were alone in the parlor, on the sofa, and I climbed into his lap. He got a bit … excited, threw me to one side, and fairly ran back to London when I asked him to come to my room that night.”

Mina’s hands are pressed over her mouth, though whether from delight as well as horror, I cannot say. “Oh, poor Arthur. Is that why he stayed only an hour after coming all that way?”

“Yes,” I say miserably. “And I’m still angry with him.”

She laughs and puts an arm over me. “I don’t blame you in the least,” she says. “There have been times with Jonathan where I’ve felt a bit … impatient myself. Like something had taken hold of me. A kind of hunger and longing and curiosity.”

“It feels like electricity to me. Or free falling.” I think of the delicious scratch of Arthur’s chin against mine as we kissed in the parlor, my body pressed to his even though we could hear the servants’ voices a room or two away. And I shiver when I remember the stranger’s soft, cold lips closing around my fingers. “Have you and Jonathan ever … How far have you …”

Even in the darkness, I can sense her blushing. “Certainly not as far as you and Arthur, by the sound of it,” she says, giggling. “Though we, too, have been alone in the parlor. No, we’ve only kissed and held hands, and he touches my face sometimes. I think if I were brave enough to try with him what you did with Arthur, he would have reacted the same way.”

“How, by fleeing like a panicked rabbit?” I ask, and she laughs and gives me a squeeze. “Would you? I mean, would you ever be brave enough to climb into Jonathan’s lap?”

Mina by moonlight gives me a playful smile that sends a flutter through my stomach. “I don’t see why not,” she says, and I grin at her, delighted by the bravery the darkness lends us both. “They pursuedusfor marriage, did they not? Why shouldn’t we pursue them back?”

I hug the arm she keeps draped over me, almost clinging to it, because I know what comes next. This side of Mina, full of fun and mischief and daring, never lasts long, however much I want it to. And indeed, she sighs a moment later and removes her arm, rolling away onto her back. When she speaks again, it is in the prudent, cautious voice of governess Mina.

“Ah, but this is silly talk,” she says gently. The sober expression that has replaced her smile is like a cloud obscuring the moon. “We are fortunate girls to be marrying two kind and honorable men, who only wish to do what is proper and right.”

I feel it again, that knife of disappointment that cuts me each time she and I dance along the edge of such a conversation, only for her to pull away at the last moment. For some reason, it hurts more than ever tonight. “But what is more proper and right than pleasing one’s wife?” I argue. “Arthur and I will marry on September twenty-eighth, my birthday. I will be Mrs. Holmwood.”

“But you are speaking of the future. It has not happened yet, and so Arthur feels that he cannot come to you. Not in that way, not yet, for the sake of your virtue.”

“But what difference does a wedding make?” I ask, irritated. “It is only a party. I wear a white dress and we receive gifts. It is no one’s business what happens between us or when.”

“I see your point,” Mina says, trying to soothe me. “I do. But upholding tradition—”

“Is required only of women. Men have needs they satisfy elsewhere. Did you not allude to that earlier?” I ask, deftly aiming my sharp words, and she flinches. “Arthur and Jonathan, I am sure, will not comeinexperienced to the marriage bed. These misgivings of theirs are only to preserveourvirtue. Why should we not satisfy our needs as well?”

“Because this world was neither made by us nor for us. Believe me, I see the unfairness of it, too,” Mina pleads. “I only meant that doing everything you can to start your marriage off properly can only be a good thing. Arthur believes this, too, don’t you see?”

I sit up in frustration. “You always do this,” I say. “Deep down, you agree with me, but then you pretend not to. You are never truly on my side.”

She sits up, too, flustered. “But, Lucy, Iamon your side! You know that I see your point, and that I love you too much to blame or judge you.”

I press my face to my knees. I am not certain why I expected anything different. Even with her determination, her intellect, and her belief in the importance of female independence, Mina will always sit quietly in the boat life gives her, trying not to disturb the water, while I swim frantically against the current. She and Arthur love me, but they will never understand me.

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