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“Thank you, Papa.”
“Yes, well,” he says. “And now, if you don’t mind, I should like to dance with my daughter on the occasion of her debut.”
He offers his arm and I take it. “I should like that very much.”
We fall into the great continuing circle of dancers. Some leave the floor, tired but giddy; others have only just arrived. They are eager to wear their new status as ladies, to be paraded about and lauded until they see themselves with new eyes. The fathers beam at their daughters, thinking them perfect flowers in need of their protection, while the mothers watch from the margins, certain this moment is their doing. We create the illusions we need to go on. And one day, when they no longer dazzle or comfort, we tear them down, brick by glittering brick, until we are left with nothing but the bright light of honesty. The light is liberating. Necessary. Terrifying. We stand naked and emptied before it. And when it is too much for our eyes to take, we build a new illusion to shield us from its relentless truth.
But the girls! Their eyes glow with the fever dream of all they might become. They tell themselves this is the beginning of everything. And who am I to say it isn’t?
“Gemma! Gemma!” Felicity is pushing through the crowd, her chagrined chaperone struggling to keep up as the dowagers look on, disapprovingly. It is only an hour into her debut and already she has them spinning like tops. And for the first time in days, I smile.
“Gemma,” Felicity says, catching up to me. Her words tumble over each other in a torrent of excitement: “You look beautiful! How do you like my dress? Elizabeth tottered a bit—did you see it? The Queen was magnificent, wasn’t she? I was terrified. Were you?”
“Utterly,” I say. “I thought I might faint after all.”
“Did you receive Ann’s cable?” Felicity asks.
I received a lovely telegram from Ann this very morning, wishing me well. It read:
REHEARSALS ARE SPLENDID STOP THE GAIETY IS THRILLING STOP BEST OF LUCK WITH YOUR CURTSY STOP YOURS ANN BRADSHAW
“Yes,” I say. “She must have spent her future wages on it.”
“When the season ends, I am to accompany my mother and Polly to Paris, then stay on.”
“What of Horace Markham?” I ask warily.
“Well,” she begins, “I went to him. By myself. And told him I didn’t love him and didn’t wish to marry him and that I would make a perfect fishmonger of a wife. And do you know what he said?”
I shake my head.
Her eyes widen. “He said he didn’t want to marry me, either. Can you imagine? I was rather wounded.”
I laugh a bit, the first laugh I’ve had. Feels odd and near a cry.
“Paris, then. What will you do there?”
“Really, Gemma,” she says as if I don’t know anything and never will. “It is where all the bohemians live. Now that I’ve my inheritance, I might take up painting and live in a garret. Or perhaps I shall become an artist’s model,” she says, delighting in how scandalous this sounds. Her voice drops to a whisper. “I’ve heard there are others like me there. Perhaps I will love again.”
“You’ll be the toast of Paris,” I say.
She grins widely. “Do come with us! We could have such a merry time together!”
“I think I should like to go to America,” I answer, the plan forming with my words. “To New York.”
“That’s grand!”
“Yes,” I say, brightening a bit at the prospect. “It is, isn’t it?”
Felicity holds more tightly to my arm. “I don’t know if you have heard the news, but I would tell you before anyone else does. Miss Fairchild has accepted Simon’s suit. They are betrothed.”
I nod. “That’s as it should be. I wish them happiness.”
“I wish her luck. Mark my words, Simon will lose all his hair and be fat as Fezziwig before he’s thirty.” She giggles.
A new dance is called. It brings fresh excitement to the crowd. The floor fills as a lively tune gives new life to the party. Holding hands, standing together in a crush of silk and flowers, Felicity and I watch the dancers moving as one. They spin about like the earth on its axis, enduring the dark, waiting for the sun.
Felicity squeezes my hand, and I feel the slightest hint of realms magic pulsing there. “Well, Gemma, we survived it.”
