Page 74 of The Scarlet Ball

“You are afraid like Ginny never was,” he said.

“Whatever do you mean?” I asked, my hand on the door. I wasn’t faster than he was, not by a long shot, but if I rolled out straight into the snow, if I screamed as I did it—

He settled comfortably into the cushions, stretched out across the seat without Mrs. Howard to remind him of his posture. It was a longer trip that day, out to Long Island City for Mrs. Ingram’s famous squab dinner, where the birds were flown for the first and last time before the guests and then brought down for the roasting.

“I do not think you are her. That one lived all her life till recently under my wife’s watchful eye, and when she learned fear, even that was planned, controlled so that it would turn her into neither a rabbit nor a brigand. No, you’re something else. You’re angry and afraid like she’s never been.”

When he saw the tension in me, he seemed surprised and then embarrassed. He had not meant to scare me. To him, this was merely idle chatter to pass the time until we came to our destination.

“You must know that I do not care about that. Born of my wife’s line, plucked from a gutter, found on the river, what’s it to me? I’ve been told I may not eat you, and for love of her, I will not.”

“Why?” The word came out sharp, almost a challenge. Sebastian was all appetite, and Mr. Howard could be no different.

“Why, for love, of course.”

“And because she feeds you other things.”

“Yes. You would not starve a hunting dog or a stud bull, would you? She is very kind to me. But she knows and I know that they are not what I truly want.”

I must have looked as dubious as I felt, because he frowned, staring briefly out the window. He wasn’t irritated with me, I realized. It was only that for him, this never needed words or even thought.

“I love my wife,” he said finally. “I love her because she is my wife. We met more than fifty years ago. She called, and it was so sweet that I had no choice but to turn my head and listen.”

I thought of the river of blood at the White Ball, that moment where it felt as if the top had been skinned off the world. I remembered imagining what it might be like to travel down a river like that one. I hadn’t imagined what it might be like to be called up it.

“She was so strong. This winter is nothing to that one. The first snows fell in October, and I do not know if the sunlight dared come through before the end of April. The cows froze standing up in the field, and if you went among them, you would see their eyes at the last, great and sad and so cold. The van Haans, her people, were dairy farmers, you know, or at least, they farmed the people who tended the cows. She knew the slaughter yards. She knew what it took to swing the hammer so that it falls right between the eyes.”

The image arrested me, Mrs. Howard who in some long-ago age was a girl in a white dress. Instead of a fan or a reticule in her hand, I imagined her with a bloodied stockyard hammer, and it was no cow before her with great sad eyes, either.

“You call, and we come, and at first it seems like the greatest game.” He smiled slightly. “We love games before we know to love anything else. Isn’t it always the way of it with you women? You play such games. You show us how skilled and clever you are, what beautiful trophies you would be to gratify our vanity. You dance with us and prove yourselves brave, you follow the rules to show us how fair you are; if you are bound, then we must be as well if we wish to have you, and by God and all His saints, we do want to have you.”

We sank into silence then, quiet all the way to Mrs. Ingram’s country house. When the pigeons took flight, the weak winter sun glinted sparks off their wings, and before they were netted and brought back to earth for our meal, they were so beautiful.

The winter season picked up the speed of a stone rolling downhill, and every night there were easily a half-dozen invitations to weed through, throwing out those from social climbers, those from enemies, those that just sounded downright dull.

For this task, I had Mielle, who would present me with a choice of events Mrs. Howard had deemed appropriate, and then an outfit suitable for those chosen.

“Honestly, you could send me straight to Hell if you offered it to me on your little silver tray.”

Mielle ignored this remark.

I sighed. “The Lafittes’ dinner, I think, and afterward an appearance at the Blackwoods’ salon. What’s the matter with you?”

“I do not understand.”

“You do. You’ve been quiet for weeks now. Are you angry with me?”

I meant for it to come out challenging; instead it was plaintive, definitely not the way for Iphigenia Marshall to speak to her lady’s maid.

“I am not angry with you.” Mielle went to feed the discarded invitations into the fire. “I have said what I have said. I have shown you the truth of where you stand. You must do with it what you will.”

The memory came, acorn buttons rolling around in the hearth.

“I listened, I heard,” I insisted. “But I don’t intend to be eaten. And I haven’t been eaten yet, have I?”

The look she gave me was so infuriating that I turned away from her in a sulk.

Far from being eaten, I had been left entirely alone. I had told Sebastian to stay away from me, and he had. At first it was nerve-wracking, because I had not expected him to abide by my words; I thought I would see him lurking on the fringes at the balls, across from me at the dinners, but he was nowhere to be found, and I continued to tell myself I was relieved.