Page 2 of This Vicious Hunger
Politeness dictates that I should have stood a little straighter to show interest when she entered, or at least pulled off my gloves; I still could do both of those things. Instead, some small spark of defiance holds me bent slightly over the potting bench with soil on my dress. I doubt my behaviour will change anything she has to say.
“Aurelio liked when I maintained the garden,” I explain. “So I’m maintaining it.”
That much was true enough. Or at least he hadn’tdislikedit. Growing, nurturing, those are women’s work and they suggest a kind of maternal feeling I’m sure Aurelio was relieved to see. Of course, he never knew about the books I’d read about thescienceof plants, how sometimes I dreamt in kaleidoscopic images of what their leaves and stems might look like under a microscope. I never let him see how much I liked the germination stage, how I’d started to make my own herbarium sheets, and how badly I preferred this preservation and study to the endless flower arrangements I left to the housekeeper… More secrets.
Madame huffs. She glances around the greenhouse, which is already transformed from the pallid, empty space it had been when Aurelio and I first married. Now it is roaring with colour, the trellises overloaded with roses and honeysuckle, ivy and jasmine and clematis. The air is thick with the floral scent—and still Madame’s perfume dominates. I try to hide my distaste.
“Well. You certainly have green fingers.” She smiles as she says this, a wry smile the likes of which I’ve never seen on her face. It unsettles me. Finally I pull my gloves off, inching my sleeve down over the poison ivy rash and turning to face her fully.
“Did you need something…?” I ask. “Only I ought to go and talk to the cook if you’re staying for dinner—”
“No need.” Madame runs a hand under her greying chignon, smoothing it in the way I know she does when she is under pressure, the way I have seen her do during dinner parties when her grandchildren complain.Manners, I’m sure she is thinking. I shrug. “Let’s not beat about the bush, Thora dear. With Aurelio… gone…” She swallows. “With him gone. Well. There’s your future to consider, and I really don’t think—”
“Ah.” It’s come sooner than I expected, the axe landingthud. I assumed I’d have a week at least before questions of my future began. “So soon?”
If Madame is offended she doesn’t show it, blustering on as though I haven’t even spoken.
“I still have three daughters looking for good matches—dowries needed, you understand, that are much larger than yours ever was. I simply do not want you here, cluttering up the house, nor do I think you’d wish to stay any longer than your mourning requires. The LeVand obligation was in sickness and in health, not into the great beyond.”
I stay silent. Madame is not inclined to let me get many words out once she starts, and frankly I’m happy to let her talk.
If I was another sort of woman I might be panicked. All this talk of dowries and obligation—I should be wondering: What will happen to me? I have no father to return to. My mother is dead. I have no other family, no other marriage prospects. Aurelio was my only shot at this marital life. I suppose the fear is there, somewhere, in the questions I know Ishouldask, but most of the time it hides beneath the numbness, which I suppose looks a little like grief.
“I’m not trying to be unkind, girl,” Madame continues. “I should never allow you to be thrown to the wolves. Which is why…” She pauses, her expression growing furtive. Then she pulls out an envelope from inside her spencer, bent where it has rested between the jacket and her gown. Its side is torn neatly with the edge of a letter opener. “I thought, perhaps, you might consider this.”
She hands it to me. The paper is creamy, heavy, and I imagine that I can smell grass tangled in the weave of it, and the warm, dusty scent of books. Not only is it open; it is addressed to me.
I raise an eyebrow and glance at my husband’s mother, but she doesn’t flinch. She only nods at the envelope again, waiting for me to pull the letter from its sheath. I don’t know if she is expecting me to kick up a fuss about her keeping the letter from me, if that’s why she’s come to speak to me herself, so it doesn’t spread through the house and make her look bad—or if she wants to gauge my reaction for another reason.
Either way, I fight to keep my expression neutral as I pull the paper out and unfold it. I scan the letterhead, its curling scroll like the ironwork of an old gate, and my breath catches. The university.St. Elianto.I want to murmur the name like a prayer. My heart thumps wildly, pulse thundering in my ears.
Suddenly the numbness is gone. I read the letter, limbs buzzing nervously.
“What is this?” I demand, glancing at Madame and then back to the paper to make sure it’s real. “This is postmarked weeks ago. Who is this Petaccia?”
“He’s a botanist—a fellow at the university. I opened the letter by mistake,” Madame says in a way that makes me think this is a lie. I wonder how many other communications I might havereceived if not for her. “And since the letter arrived so soon after your marriage I thought it best that I dealt with it. Your grief over losing your father was still much too raw to be responding to condolences.” I say nothing, forcing my jaw to lock so I don’t snap at the absurdity of this coming from the woman who forbade me from wearing mourning black after my father’s funeral because it wasn’t “befitting a new bride.” “Apparently your father and this doctor of science were good friends years ago but lost touch.”
“This says something about a scholarship.” I force the words out. “What scholarship? Why does it matter?” The beginning of an emotion too big to process begins to unfurl in my belly. I clench my fists and my teeth and take comfort in the dull ache.
“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. There was an offer of some sort between this doctor and your father when he first married your mother. We received something similar for Aurelio’s education—”
“Yes, I’m familiar with the general idea. If my father had a son, he would have had a free education,” I say, bitter understanding washing through me. All this time, all those stories, they weren’t just fanciful what-ifs from my father; he had an offer of a scholarship—only all he had was a daughter. A fresh mixture of guilt and shame curdles inside me. “Why is any of this relevant?”
“With Aurelio’s passing I have taken the liberty of writing to this doctor on your behalf.” Madame’s expression shifts again, pride lighting her up like a candle. “I informed him of my son’s death, your widowhood. He expressed his deep condolences, you see, and I thought he might be the sort of man who could be persuaded, given a little nudge…” She pauses, watching my face like I’m a mouse and she a hawk. I feel as though she has punched all the air from my lungs.
“You asked him to take me on?” I whisper. “As a student?”
“I did.” Madame’s smile grows, a little sly now. “I know it’s not what you would have hoped, but really your prospects are extremely limited. And a life of study is far better for the LeVand name than that of the nunnery…” Madame says. There’s a note of genuine condolence in her voice and I realise with a jolt that she has no idea. She has no idea what this means, how badly I want this, what I would do to get it. She does not realise that this is the gift I have prayed for my whole life. I forcefully straighten my face once more.
“Thank you, Madame,” I say, infusing my voice with a hint of regret. Just a hint. It wouldn’t be polite to argue anyway, but it’s best she thinks I am speechless from courteous disappointment rather than sheer excitement. “I appreciate all you have done for me.”
She takes in the riot of plants in the greenhouse again, eyeing the dirt on my gown with a flicker of disapproval. “Think nothing of it,” she says. And I know what she is really saying isLet’s not speak of this again.“It’s what Aurelio would have wanted.”
Chapter Two
Less than a week after my mourning ends, I leave my marital home and all its secrets behind. This morning when I dressed I shed my mourning clothes and headwrap and joyfully greeted the spring warmth where my shorn hair curled at my neck.
It takes three hours to reach St. Elianto from the city. On the journey I hum the marching song my mother always favoured and engage in polite conversation with the driver of my cart, delighting in the sound of my boxed luggage bouncing as we hit stones in the road.
