Page 2 of A Court of Sugar and Spice
Once the luggage is piled onto the metal square he indicated, he opens a panel in the wall and flips a lever. With a clank and a whirr, the platform lurches into motion, lifts, and begins to glide up the staircase, following the line of the banister up to the second floor.
“Marvelous!” Louisa claps. “Papa said you were a great innovator.”
“Did he?”
“Yes,” I put in. “We would love to see your workshop.”
“No one enters my workshop,” says Drosselmeyer curtly. Then in a gentler tone he adds, “Though I could show you my exhibition room. It’s where I display my inventions once they are completed. In fact, I’m hosting a dinner party tomorrow night, and many of the district’s most esteemed families will be represented.”
“You don’t say.” Louisa shoots me an excited glance. “May we attend this fine dinner?”
“Louisa,” I hiss reproachfully.
But Drosselmeyer smiles. “Of course! You are part of the household now.”
“Glorious!” Louisa claps her hands. “I know just what to wear.”
She dances up the carpeted staircase, following the platform that carries our luggage. I follow more sedately, just behind our godfather.
“Do people buy the things you make?” I ask.
“Sometimes. Certain things I prefer to keep for myself.”
“I understand that. There are some paintings I’ve done that I could never bear to part with.”
“Yes, your father told me you were an artist. Didn’t seem too pleased about it. Fritz could never see the value in beauty for beauty’s sake—always thought a thing must have a purpose. But what is life without a little gratuitous beauty?”
“Exactly.” Eagerness surges in my heart. Maybe here I’ll have someone to speak with about art styles and different media, about perspective and color theory.
Louisa’s room and mine are on the second floor, connected by a beautiful lavatory complete with a shining copper tub. The wood paneling is dark, and so is the furniture; but there are lovely porcelain vases on the heavy dressers and side tables, and each vase is filled with wintergrass, redbud branches, and fluffy white snowbloom.
Drosselmeyer helps us transfer the luggage from the stair-lift to the rooms. Before he leaves us to unpack, he says, “Dinner will be in the first-floor dining room at seven o’clock. You may go anywhere you like in the house, but the third floor is reserved for my workshop, my study, and my suite. Please respect my privacy.”
Louisa is sitting on my bed, and after the door closes behind him she says, “When he puts it likethat, it feels wrong to think about exploring the third floor. Why couldn’t he have simply glowered and declared it forbidden? Then I would have no compunction about going up there. Now, if I do, I’ll haveguilt, because he framed it as a respectful request.” She sighs, plucking at the corner of a crocheted blanket.
“Face it, Lou—he’s neither a rake you can charm nor a monster you can hate.” I throw her a satisfied smirk. “How very sad for you.”
“It is. But that dinner tomorrow night—thathas promise, provided the guests are not all stuffy old gentlemen and their wrinkled ladies.”
“Age doesn’t make someone uninteresting. I would argue the opposite.”
“But it does make them unmarriageable.” Louisa slides off my bed. “I’m off to hang up my dresses and see which ones need pressing. I suppose I’ll have to press them myself, as usual—I haven’t seen any servants, have you?”
“No. Perhaps Uncle Drosselmeyer shares Papa’s dislike of hired help.”
“Just our luck.”
She disappears through the shared bathroom, and I can hear her humming and throwing things about as she unpacks.
My methods are far more effective—a simple matter of transferring my neatly folded clothes into drawers or the wardrobe, placing my painting kits on top of a bureau, and laying out my cosmetics on the dressing table. I’m rather fond of makeup; it’s paint, after all, and I do love enhancing the natural beauty of a thing.
I pause to check my face in the dressing-table mirror. It’s a decent mirror, though the edges are darkened and spotted with age. At least it doesn’t distort my features.
My traveling dress is fine enough for dinner, so I don’t bother to change. Instead I walk to the far end of my room, where the wall bellies outward into a bay window. There’s a half-circle seat, thickly padded with cushions, with built-in drawers underneath. The window frames are ornately carved, arched and peaked like the windows in a chapel. The feathery curls of frost on the panes glow faintly orange with the last light of the setting sun. I press a palm to the cold glass, then think better of it and rub away my fingerprints with my sleeve.
Next I walk around the room, testing the gaslamps. They’re all in fine working order except one, which tends to gutter and fade before flaring up again. I turn that one all the way down.
Louisa is still humming and thumping around in her room. Much as I love my sister, she tends to take over any excursion and dominate any room she’s in. This could be my only chance to do a little exploring on my own.
