Page 2 of The English Wife

“No, nor in the card room or the conservatory. Don’t you think I’ve looked?” Anne sounded deeply impatient, but then Anne always sounded impatient. At least, with Janie.

“They’re not with you?” Realizing how idiotic that sounded, Janie said hastily, “I’d thought Bay was with you.”

It had always been Bay and Anne, from the time they were children, creating elaborate theatricals, keeping each other’s secrets, speaking in grimaces and symbols that only the other understood. Janie’s childhood had consisted of the echo of laughter from another room, the rustle of fabric disappearing around a doorway, voices that faded as she pursued them.

But they were adults now, all of them. She wasn’t the baby in the nursery anymore.

“He needed to consult David over something or other.” Anne’s voice was tense. “There’s to be a spectacle in the gardens at midnight. David designed it.”

It was like Anne to use the architect’s first name, regardless of propriety. But then Anne would probably say she had no reputation left to lose.

“Then shouldn’t you be asking Mr. Pruyn?” Janie was aware of how priggish she sounded, but she couldn’t help it. Something about Anne brought the prunes and prisms out in her, made her purse her lips and narrow her shoulders.

Anne cast her a withering look. “I did. He said Bay went to find Annabelle.”

The whimsy of it struck Janie. “It’s like a children’s game—everyone following everyone else.”

Anne was not amused. “Do you want to explain to Aunt Alva why the dancing is delayed?”

The invocation of Janie’s mother was enough to kill any hint of humor. “Has Mother said anything?”

“Who do you think sent me?”

Janie and her cousin exchanged a look, united in reluctant partnership.

It would have been like Annabelle to have gone up to the children, but if she tilted her head, Janie could see two small figures in white nightdresses between the heavily carved balusters of the minstrel’s gallery, the shadowy shape of a nursemaid behind them.

“Did you say there’s to be a spectacle in the garden?” No point in being hurt that Anne knew more than she; Anne always knew more than she. Doubtfully, Janie said, “They might have gone to supervise.”

Her mother would have. Her mother would have personally managed every aspect of the entertainment. Annabelle had never struck her as that sort of hostess.

Still, what did she know of Annabelle? For all that Annabelle was her brother’s wife, they had never proceeded beyond a polite reserve. It wasn’t that Annabelle was unkind; just distant, like the image of the moon reflected on water.

Janie wasn’t sure whether the fault was with Annabelle or herself. She suspected the latter; for whatever reason, she didn’t have the gift of easy intimacy. There was no one in the world Janie counted as truly an intimate except for the characters that lived beyond the pages of the plays in her father’s library.

“Come along, then.” Anne was already moving towards the back of the hall, her heels clicking rapidly on the flagstones.

“Outside?”

“No, to Sherry’s. Yes, outside.”

Footmen in livery were stationed on either side of the door, which they opened without question or comment.

“Our wraps—”

“We’ll just be a moment.” Anne’s breath misted in the air. She moved sure-footed across the sleet-crusted flagstones, leaving Janie no choice but to follow or fall behind.

Janie followed.

The gardens had been hung with Chinese lanterns, creating sinuous lines of light in the dark, meandering pathways to the river. In the summer, the air would be rich with the scents of roses, jonquils, and carnations. Lavender would edge the paths, and knot gardens would bloom, fragrant with herbs. Now, hothouse flowers wilted in stone urns, their colors blurred by the light fall of snow that lent an otherworldly shimmer to the scene.

The falling flakes seemed insubstantial, but they caught on Janie’s lashes and blurred her vision, the snow and the lantern light casting rainbows at the corners of her eyes, turning the midnight gardens into something between fear and fairyland. The heavy brocade of her skirts tangled around her legs, impeding her progress. Janie’s dancing slippers had been designed for marble floors, not ice and snow; she could feel the cold creeping through her stockings as she stumbled and slid in Anne’s wake.

Ahead of her, dancing in and out of view in the lantern light, she could see the reflection of the great house shivering on the river, all fanciful battlements and crenellations, like the drowned towers of a mythical castle.

For a moment, Janie thought she saw the form of a woman floating on the water, long, dark hair streaming out behind her, skirts decorated in pearl and aquamarine turning slowly to shades of gray as the water seeped into their folds—

She turned again and the image was lost, the house behind them just a house, the river hidden by the trees. Janie swiped a wet lock of hair from her face and wondered why she had let herself be cozened by Anne yet again, had allowed Anne to lead her where she shouldn’t go, when Bay and Annabelle were undoubtedly warm and dry inside, opening the German, from which Anne and Janie would be conspicuously absent.