Page 57 of The Phoenix Bride
The water hits me with a force nearer to a slap than a rainfall, smacking me in the face and chest. It is hot enough still that it is steaming—it doesn’t burn, but it feels like a brand somehow. It stinks like one of David’s decoctions, bitter and citrus and theiron tang of the pot. My hair sticks to my brow, my nightshift clings to me like a second skin. As the water drips from my chin, I begin to tremble—but it is with anger, not cold.
“Is that all of it?” I ask Alice.
“There’s still more in the pot,” Margaret replies.
“Well,” I say to her, “I am still in love with him, so I suppose you should use the rest of it, too.”
She recoils as if I have hit her. Meanwhile, Alice shakes her head. “I don’t think—”
“Do it,” I tell her.
“Do it,” Margaret echoes.
The second sluice comes, less a shock than the first, but no less intense. I keep my eyes open the entire time, despite the stinging caused by the herbs in the water, and I stare directly at Margaret. She stares back at me. We are two girls again, twins splashing in the river by our childhood home, each daring the other to dive in; or perhaps I have already dived in, and she is trying to pull me out. I’m sure that’s how she sees it. I’ll have to disappoint her.
“Enough,” Margaret says sharply when Alice prepares herself for another swing of the cauldron.
I push my sodden hair back, wringing water from it. “By all means, keep going if necessary.”
“Enough,” Margaret repeats. Alice puts down the pot.“Clearly, it isn’t working.”
I sigh. “You knew it wouldn’t work, Maggie. You can’t really have thought I wasbewitched.”
“I don’t know what I thought. I suppose I hoped, foolishly, that this might help you somehow.”
“I don’t want your help.” I shake the water from my fingers, step away from the tree. “I’m going back to bed.”
I walk back toward the door, ignoring the way the hem of mydress is dripping, the goose pimples on my damp skin. Then Margaret calls after me and I pause, despite myself—although I don’t turn to look at her.
“You need my help,” she says. “As I need yours. You need to stop living in this fantasy you’ve created. You can find happiness again, Cecilia, but it can’t be with him. You know that in your heart. I’m certain you do.”
I can’t respond. My throat tightens; a trail of water runs down my cheek. Without acknowledging her, I go back into the house.
—
The next day, Margaret comes in the morning, acting as if nothing has happened. She has my peach-colored gown draped over her arm.
“Sir Grey has come for a visit,” she tells me.
What choice do I have? I stand, stiff and doll-like, as she and one of the maids dress me. Our eyes meet in the mirror; gray meets blue, storm against sea, and I feel the icy sensation of Margaret’s disdain crawl down my neck. We have never resented each other like this before. It is my fault as much as hers, I suppose. But I can’t bring myself to regret it.
Once I am deemed presentable, she sits me in my desk chair and puts my embroidery hoop in my lap.
“Stay there,” she tells me, “and I will bring him up.”
She leaves with the maid. Sullenly, I stitch three stitches of my embroidery. It is a posy, and it looks like child’s work. Unthreading the needle, I hold it in the light of the setting sun; it glints like a rapier. I turn it back and forth, watching the blade flash. I drop it. It skids away to slip underneath the bed.
Groaning, I go to retrieve it, crouching to the floor to reach for it. Instead of the needle, my fingers brush fabric. I tug the object out to see that it is David’s green jacket, the one he lentme the second time we met. I suppose this explains where it has been these past few weeks. It is soft and heavy, with wool the shade of the underside of a leaf. I should throw it away, but instead I clutch it to myself and stare blankly at the wall, taking several ragged breaths that feel as if they have been torn out ofme.
Someone knocks on the door. Then there is the sound of a key turning, and it opens. Still kneeling on the floor by the bed, I raise the jacket to shield myself from view. It doesn’t work, of course.
“Hello, Cecilia!” Samuel Grey says. “Awfully sorry to come into your room like this—I know it’s not proper—but, well, your sister was insistent you could not leave it, and that I ought to see you anyway. But perhaps you do not want me here all the same. Should I leave?”
I put the jacket down and look at him. He has his dog, Duchess, with him, tucked beneath his arm; he is wearing a lavender silk jacket the same color as my bedspread. There must be something utterly woeful in my expression, despite my efforts to affect a smile, because he flutters his hands and says, “Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.”
He brings Duchess over to me, and she shoves her cold nose against my elbow. Sam pats my shoulder awkwardly, squatting beside the bed. “Is something the matter?”
“Pardon,” I tell Sam, mortified.
