by Abigail Agar
“You’ll break that leg all over again, won’t you?” The Duke sighed, tugging at the dark strands of his beard.
The Duke retreated to his own bedroom, with a four-poster bed and a large window overlooking the immaculate royal gardens. The fountains no longer ran, due to the winter months fast approaching, and the trees sparkled orange and yellow, flickering in the last light of the Friday evening. He reached into his bag, his heart heavy, hunting for his violin—for it was in these moments, when he felt most alone, that he ached to play. But more often than not, in recent days, placing a bow to string had reminded him only of Marina.
He’d even brought some of the pieces they’d written together, the pages on which she’d scribbled, with him to the palace. But he struggled to look at them, feeling the emotion that they’d generated together flow from the page, from Marina’s hand.
The following night would be the ball. Already, the money from the Queen had been transferred to his account; his business would carry on as one of the best in the country. But he sensed that every single time he played the violin, throughout the rest of his life, he would ache with the memory of Marina. He would remember the darkness that she had filled with laughter and her own form of light.
All of life was pain. All of life was memory. He had no choice but to face it, his heart heavier than ever before.
Chapter 34
Marina felt she’d given herself over to fate and, perhaps, received the only “yes” she would ever be allowed again. For the following morning, after her request to Elizabeth, Elizabeth booted her awake with a firm foot, thrashing her back and forth on the cot, and muttering, “If you’re going to go to this godforsaken ball, my darling, you best be getting up now. You’re required at the big house immediately.”
Marina bolted to her feet, tearing her boots on and swiping her fingers through her knotty hair. She gave a slight glance to herself in the mirror, catching only sagging eyes, baggy cheeks; the face of a much older woman. She was only a few months past her 20th birthday, and yet her body ached.
She pattered behind Elizabeth, walking the small trail from the servant’s quarters to the big house. En route, they saw the carriage house, where Lucas leaned heavily against a carriage, smoking a cigarette. He looked a bit more filled out than he’d been back in Leeds: his stomach stretching over his belt, his shoes a finer leather.
Although he still maintained his position at the carriage house, Marina had heard that he was cosying himself up to his brother. His eyes glinted as she passed him, a strange green. They spoke of anger. Anger that she hadn’t agreed to give herself to him. Anger that he’d yanked her all the way to London, and she no longer spoke his name.
He nodded to her. She felt it was strange that he was the last vessel she had from the Duke’s estate. In him, she could remember that fateful day they’d spent, finding the ledger at the music instrument shop and tearing back to tell the Duke the truth. “Such a romantic girl you are, Marina,” her mother had spat. It had never been a compliment.
Now, she felt awash with the romance of the past. It was all she’d have forever.
Once at the big house, Elizabeth tugged her into a large dressing room, where her older, regal-looking sister introduced herself and set Marina to work, pinning and sewing up the last of the Lady’s gown. The gown was a golden colour, laid out on a dress stand beside a wide open window. It was a surprisingly stunning day for the end of October, with a blistering blue sky. Marina marvelled that to her, this was the kind of day that would bring the apocalypse.
Surely, the world would end when the sun shone brightest, when her heart was the most full, when she felt awash with possibilities.
Marina set to work, her eyebrows furrowed. Elizabeth’s sister mentioned that Elizabeth had stated that Marina might be a bit of trouble. “I’m surprised. You haven’t said a single peep since you came in here,” she spoke. She had an air of elegance to her, assumedly because she spent so much time in this other universe. The big house.
Marina chose not to utter a sound in response. She tied off a string, and then sprung back, inspecting her work. From where she stood, the stitches were too teensy to see. She gave the work a nod of approval before marching towards the left sleeve, eager, to begin again. As long as her fingers moved and her eyes focused, she held no panic about the approaching ball.
An hour before departure, the Lady of the house arrived for the final fitting. She strutted into the room wearing her garter, her stomach oozing out from all sides. Her skin was a strange, off-yellow colour as if she’d been recently ill. Her make-up had already mostly been finished: powdered a bit white, with pink lipstick and rouge. When she smiled—a momentary thing, of course—she lent sight of her yellowing teeth.
Marina bowed down, assisting the Lady with putting on the dress and then stitching it up the back. All the while, the Lady tittered, speaking of the many grand men and women who would be at the ball that evening. She rattled one name after another, making Marina’s head spin. But when she made mention of the music—and of the Duke of Wellington—Marina snapped her head up.
The Lady seemed to notice Marina for the very first time at this moment. She arched her brow—perfectly drawn to her face—and demanded, “What’s gotten into you? This foolish girl seems to have something to say.”
Elizabeth’s sister scowled down at Marina, her lips shoving out from her face. “Shut up, girl,” she murmured, her voice hardly audible.
But Marina’s fingers had begun to quake, even as she stitched up the back of the dress to the Lady’s wide-set neck. The Lady snapped her fingers, crying out, “Girl, tell me. Why are you having some sort of epileptic fit back there? Should I have someone else take up the stitching of my dress? You do know the importance of this evening, don’t you?”
Marina forced herself to focus, her eyes narrowing in on the last of the stitches. She made no peep, knowing full-well that if she argued, or even said what was on her mind, she would be left behind. She felt the occasion of the royal ball swarming towards her, wild and alive. And she felt that if she missed it, she might, herself, die. Certainly, she would no longer have a reason to live.
“Regardless,” the Lady continued, returning to her regal tone, “the Duke of Wellington’s said to have fitted the orchestra with an entire new selection of some of his instruments. I know my dear husband isn’t a great lover of music, but I have to admit, I’m a romantic in that sense. Last time we went to a ball, I grew so woozy from it. Nearly fell to the ground.”
Marina snipped the last of the string near the Lady’s neck, narrowly missing her perfectly-wrapped curls. She stepped back, admiring her work, then glanced down at her black rag-like dress—suited, perhaps, for a kitchen maid. Certainly not a woman about to assist a grand Lady of the house with her ball attire for the evening.
The Lady noted this, to her credit. She pointed a thick finger towards the far wardrobe, speaking in a guttural voice. “If you like, my dear, you can have a perusal through my old things, from previous nights. I can’t imagine anything will fit your outright skeletal frame, but it’s probably better than what you’re wearing just now. I can’t very well have you reeking of kitchen cabbage at the royal palace, can I?”
Marina tapped towards the wardrobe, gripping the golden handle and twirling it open. Within, a selection of perhaps thirty dresses and gowns awaited, all smashed together in a glittering array of colours. Marina’s fingers glazed across them, feeling the different textures, the different nights in the midst of regal crowds.
“Take whatever you please, as long as it doesn’t overpower this one,” the Lady howled from behind her, gesturing towards her golden gown. “Something dark, perhaps.”
Marina opted for an elegant, dark green gown, which trailed perhaps two inches too long and pooled out a bit at her stomach. She cinched it and pinned it, moving quickly as the Lady reared up from her stool and began to strut towards the door. Time was moving far too quickly. Marina scrubbed her cheeks with a splash of
water from the basin in the corner, and then took a final glance in the mirror. She looked very much like a maid, playacting a grander life. But it would have to do.
Lucas manned the carriage that would take them to the royal ball. Marina skirted her eyes away from him as she entered the carriage behind the Lady, adjusting her gown to ensure that it didn’t snag on the carriage wheels. The Lady’s gown filled one-half of the carriage completely, widening out on all sides of her, so that Elizabeth’s sister and Marina had to sit on the opposite side. As the carriage cantered towards the palace, Marina studied her hands: already so scabbed and red, like those of a rat’s, in the few weeks since she’d left the Duke’s mansion.
Would she look strung-out? Exhausted? Would the children still find solace in her, or would they retreat? Marina was reminded of baby birds. When they fell from their nest, you weren’t meant to touch them, as their mother would no longer recognise their scent. Perhaps it was the opposite, in this way. Marina had fallen so far from the Duke’s estate that she now reeked of peeled potatoes and the Lady’s face powders. She was a separate entity.
The carriage arrived at Buckingham Palace, aligning itself behind a half-dozen carriages that were dropping their Dukes, Lords, and Ladies off behind the golden gates. Marina strained for some sign of the Duke’s carriage, a familiar face above the horses, but then reasoned that he must have already arrived.
When it came time for their carriage, Marina shuffled from the side, fumbling onto the mud and nearly toppling over. From above, Lucas cackled at her. She frowned up at him, her nostrils flared.
“Get up, girl,” the Lady said. “Stop dawdling.”
Marina assisted the Lady down the first step, towards the rock walkway below. She brought her skirts from the ground, allowing her own emerald ones to cut across the mud. To do her job well, Marina had to hunch slightly as she walked, but she kept her eyes up and scouting. Dukes, Lords, and Ladies walked with their chins high—Lords’ firm hands upon their Ladies’ lower backs, guiding them like sheep. Buckingham Palace, before them, seemed to swallow them up: each person, so elegant, like a piece of glittering candy.
Marina tried to imagine how she might tell herself the story of this night, into her old age. She tried to gobble each image—the Lord who knelt to give his young wife a small kiss on the cheek, as they stepped into the marble-laden foyer; the young girl, perhaps thirteen, wearing a light pink gown and twirling beneath the chandelier; the child, perhaps five years old, who, upon first hearing the string instruments, leapt up against his father’s arm, squealing.
These men and women and children seemed to stare directly through Marina as if she didn’t exist. But this gave Marina the opportunity to stare directly back—to inhale the images, the sounds, and the life.
The music was certainly gorgeous, providing a backdrop of romance and swells of passion. The orchestra was situated near the far end of the ballroom, with its thirty or forty players, their heads down and their eyebrows stitched tight together. Marina’s Lady sniffed at this, seemingly with approval. “It’s quite true what they said,” she offered.
“What’s that, My Lady?” Marina asked.
“It’s quite true about the instruments. Look at them. Incredibly fine work, the Duke of Wellington’s done. I can’t imagine a better musical instrument maker. I may speak with him shortly, regarding a harp I’d like him to craft for my nephew.”
Marina felt as though she’d swallowed her tongue. “Where is the Duke, My Lady?” Marina asked, straining to see the horizon of the ballroom. She peered across the gliding dancers, their up-dos and their crooked noses, trying to find the Duke or his children.
But the Lady busied herself in conversation with another woman, flailing her hand towards her and crying out, “You can’t imagine how gorgeous you look, darling.”
Marina stepped back, pressing her hands against her back and thrusting her hips forward. Everything in her body ached as she turned her eyes from corner to corner, hunting for them. Her ears strained, piecing through the swells of the violins and cellos. Why couldn’t she hear Lottie’s familiar squeal? Why couldn’t she make out Christopher’s volatile laughter?
Her eyes returned to her Lady, who she was meant to be watching over, taking care of. If she did a proper job at this, she sensed she would be allowed to further functions throughout her life. Perhaps she could live for them. They would be fits of light in a sea of darkness.
The Lady was near a table of hors d’oeuvres, reaching for a glass of champagne. As her arm snaked outward, however, Marina watched as part of the table crumpled to the side—as if an entire leg of it had given out. Glasses of champagne began to turn over, slipping from the table and crashing to the ground. Marina’s Lady let out a shriek before turning back towards Marina, as if this was all her fault. Her gown was now stained with champagne, which dripped to the marble ground below.
The music waned in the wake of this crashing. But soon, the violins swelled around them again, filling Marina’s ears. Marina raced towards the table, watching as the last ten champagne glasses scattered to the ground. Lords and Ladies collected in a circle around the table, watching as something shuffled beneath the tablecloth. It was almost animal-like, bumping against the cloth. Then, a small shoe snuck out from beneath. Marina dropped to her knees, so that her own dress fell into the puddle of champagne. She was careful to avoid the broken glass.
Beneath the tablecloth, she heard snickering, then a shriek. “Shhh! You’re going to get us caught!”
“We’ve already been caught, silly! Don’t you see, you’ve broken the table!”
“Where is Claudia? She can get us out of this.”
Marina felt a grin stretch over her cheeks. Her heart swelled. She reached for the tablecloth, flipping it up to discover Christopher and Max, hunkered beneath the table, each of their hands filled with cookies and other snacks. Crumbs dotted their cheeks. When they looked up at her, they did so like wild animals, found in the forest. They’d been captured.
But within seconds, their faces, too, returned to wide grins.
“Marina!” Max cried, first, before tossing his cookies to the ground and leaping, placing his arms around her neck.
Marina hugged him back—hard, feeling her eyes fill with tears. Christopher joined the hug seconds later, throwing his arms around both of them. “Marina! What are you doing here?” he demanded, still laughing.
Marina couldn’t stop the tears, not now. She hugged them tighter, remaining on her knees. Around them, the crowd of Lords and Ladies had grown even quieter, sensing something was amiss. Max drew his head back, placing his hands on her cheeks. His eyes were large and orb-like when he finally spoke. “Why did you leave us, Marina?”
Marina felt her heart crackle in her chest. She sniffed, trying to give the boys her most optimistic smile. “Never mind that, darlings. Where are your sisters? I want to say hello to all of you. To everyone.”
“Excuse me, girl,” Marina’s Lady said coolly from behind. “Get yourself off the floor and assist me. You know why you’re here, don’t you?”
Christopher and Max turned eagle eyes towards the Lady, with Christopher looking almost ominous as if he might charge towards her, fists flailing. Marina held him back, rising to her feet to face her Lady.
“They’re only children, My Lady,” Marina whispered. “I’ll ensure they’re taken to a better environment, so that something like this, um, accident doesn’t occur again. I’ll be back shortly to clean your dress.”
The Lady sniffed, her eyes pinching tightly together. When she spoke, she seethed with anger. “Get yourself back here this instant, girl.”
But already, Marina had fled, placing her hands behind Christopher and Max’s backs and pressing them away from the champagne table, away from the glittering glass that threatened to tear through their little feet. Marina blinked wildly, tears spinning down her cheeks. She knew only her first instinct, which was to protect these children from harm. It was to uphold their laughter an
d their joy, above all things.
Christopher and Max began to skip alongside her, gripping her hands, as they’d done in the moors near the mansion. To them, surely, this day was no different. Suddenly, Marina was back in their lives, and certainly it would be forever, this time. Max pointed a rogue finger towards another tower of cakes and cookies, squealing. “Marina, we have to go!”
