Midnight in Everwood

by M. A. Kuzniar

  Her ballet mistress glided into the studio, her spine as straight and unyielding as the starched collars returned from the Stelle launderer, despite the antique silver-plated cane she used. Olga Belinskaya had been born in St Petersburg in the early nineteenth century and was a former Imperial ballerina at the Maryinsky Theatre. She oozed glamour and refinement in a pastel chiffon gown, each step, each movement considered and elegant. Few lines dared creep across her classic Slavic features, her green eyes sharp and framed with false eyelashes, her silver hair pinned in a bun, shrouded by an emerald silk scarf.

  ‘Pozhaluysta,’ she said, sweeping a hand out. Marietta caught a flash of the sapphire cocktail ring rumoured to have been gifted to her by one of the tsarevnas after an exquisite performance of the pas de deux in the second act of Giselle had brought the young princess to tears. ‘Continue.’

  ‘I have finished.’ Marietta swept a hand over her forehead. ‘I wouldn’t wish to intrude on class time.’ She might be The Honourable Marietta Stelle, but in this studio Olga was of higher rank.

  Olga struck the floor with her cane. ‘You are in my studio, devushka; it is in my purview to decide when the class begins. Show me the Rose Adagio.’

  Marietta swallowed her protests; Olga was authoritarian in her teaching, and if anyone disobeyed, the following class would hold an empty space at the barre. She stepped into the allegro entrance. One of the most technically challenging pieces in ballet and pinnacle of the role of Aurora she had been cast in for their upcoming performance of Tchaikovsky’s The Sleeping Beauty, she was unused to performing it as a solitary adaptation, striking high balances en pointe.

  ‘Pay attention to the shape of your arms; remember, dancing is in the details. Register the music and respond accordingly.’

  There was no music playing but as Marietta spun slowly in place, keeping the arch of her back taut, she imagined the sweet strains swelling and spilling out into the studio. Ballet was the golden key to a world of her own, one which she never desired to leave. She pirouetted, lost within that world, spinning out into a high arabesque, when she became aware that the door was cluttered with onlookers; the rest of the class had arrived.

  Olga ignored them. ‘Your balance must be poised and assured. Tilt your face up,’ she snapped with another thud of the cane. She stepped closer, until Marietta was enveloped in the heady scent of Jicky, her trademark perfume; a swirl of lavender and vanilla with an animalistic heart that felt overwhelmingly intimate. ‘Feel the movement, it must be as ephemeral and fleeting as a wing taking flight.’ She raised Marietta’s chin with her cane. Marietta wobbled, struggling to maintain her balance on a single pointe. ‘Ballet resides in your bones; it courses through your blood. For a dancer, it is the very essence of our identity, stripped down to its rawest, most intrinsic parts; you cannot leave it behind any more than you could forsake your own soul. Feel it. Feel the exquisite pain that comes from the purest form of love, for that is what it means to dance ballet.’

  Olga walked away. Marietta was dimly aware of her calling for the others to enter and the studio filling with regimented lines of dancers. The air was thick with glances towards her and curious whispers. She took her place at the barre, Olga’s voice still echoing through her.

  An uncomfortable prickling gave way to a seeping awareness. She could not sleepwalk through a life of luncheons and dinners and a marriage that would pin her in place, a butterfly with steel pins puncturing its wings, preserved and beautiful in its glass cage though its heart beat no longer.

  She needed to set herself free.

  Chapter Three

  The following week was fleeting and stormy. Rain churned the skies over Nottingham, darkening their evenings and thickening the mood within the townhouse. It seemed the more Marietta tried to hold onto her final days of dancing, the faster they slipped away from her. The dark clouds pressed down on her as rehearsals for the Christmas performance of The Sleeping Beauty grew in intensity, punctuated by discussions and decisions over the dancers’ futures, and the frivolous gossip on Drosselmeier that seemed to be voiced wherever Marietta went. As she stretched at the barre between rehearsals, the conversation of two of her acquaintances fluttered over her.

  ‘Mother’s cabled to Paris for a sylph dress for my Company audition. I do hope it arrives in time. I shall be most vexed if I have to perform without it; evoking the tone of La Sylphide is paramount,’ Victoria said, pinning her chestnut hair into a glossy bun and dousing herself with a liberal cloud of La Rose Jacqueminot. She let out a theatrical sigh. ‘I do wish my father could write a ballet to showcase my talents; Marie Taglioni was unspeakably lucky.’

  Harriet, who was as matter-of-fact as Victoria was inclined to sweeping romanticisms, replied, ‘Someone once informed me that a pair of her pointe shoes were purchased for a sack of rubles by a group of obsessed balletomanes that had them cooked and served with a sauce for dinner.’

  Victoria wrinkled her nose. ‘How perfectly ghastly.’

  Marietta idly wondered what sauce they had selected.

  ‘Though you ought to be dancing to your strengths, not appealing to your vanity or romantic fascinations after one too many attempts at ensnaring the latest prospects in town.’

  ‘You make me sound like a common street girl!’ Victoria laughed a note too high.

  Harriet’s smile was saccharine. ‘Perhaps if you stopped pursuing the elusive Dr Drosselmeier, your variation would be perfect by now. I mean, really, you have yet to even meet the man.’

  ‘I hear no one has had the good fortune to host him yet, though half of society have already started to plan their weddings,’ Victoria grumbled. ‘He’s the most eligible bachelor we’ve seen in quite some time.’

  ‘I heard he came to possess a fortune under mysterious circumstances and that’s why the man is so secretive.’

  Victoria sighed. ‘Perhaps I had better refocus my energy on my variation.’

  ‘That would be wise. What have you decided to perform for the panel?’

  With a belated start, Marietta realised she was being drawn into the conversation. ‘I shall not be auditioning,’ she said with a smile as pinched as her mood. ‘My family have quite forbidden it.’ It had long been ordained that she was to relinquish her dancing and be married at the age of twenty-one, which she would turn on the eve of the new year.

  ‘Why? Auditioning for the Company is more than a great privilege; it’s an honour.’ Victoria’s hazel eyes gleamed in earnest as she slid deeper into her stretch. Marietta could count the freckles that clambered across the bridge of her nose, plastered over with pale powder in a failed effort to paint them out of existence. ‘Their ballet dancers tour in the finest theatres, perform for the most distinguished of audiences, dance in Paris and Vienna and St Petersburg.’

  ‘Though it’s different for society women, isn’t it?’ Harriet’s brown eyes held a touch of contempt. As a black woman, her life was contorted with challenges and obstacles that Marietta knew she could never understand. Marietta had been given every opportunity and privilege but Harriet, though she was a ward of Victoria’s uncle, had had to fight to earn her place at the same ballet studio. Marietta’s mother had done nothing to help relations after she had made it clear that she cared not for Marietta’s ‘frivolous dancer friends’, discouraging social invitations between the women. Victoria, Harriet and Madame Belinskaya were never extended an invite for luncheons at the town house nor afternoon tea in the city, and consequently Marietta often found herself on the periphery, longing to be one of their close companions.

  Marietta inclined her head. ‘I am obliged to fulfil my familial expectations.’ The words lodged themselves inside her heart like barbs. She schooled her face not to reveal her inner turmoil.

  Victoria pursed her lips. ‘Why can you not perform both? I’m a society woman and I’m not about to let a few old-fashioned-minded relics dictate what I can and cannot do with my life.’

  Harriet scoffed. ‘But your mother is a militant s
uffragette and most decidedly not a baroness.’

  Victoria sent a scathing look in her direction and Marietta concealed a smile. She could never quite discern whether the two women were the most intimate of friends or the shrewdest of rivals, camouflaged as confidantes.

  Though it disquieted her to admit it to herself, she carried a deep and unrelenting envy of them both. Victoria possessed an impeccable turnout as if she’d been born with her hips positioned at right-angles, and Harriet’s leaps and jumps seemed to rewrite the laws of gravity. The three of them had commenced their dancing careers at a tender age and had since witnessed each other’s victories and disappointments alike. Marietta could still recall the tartness of the lemon soufflé she’d eaten that day as the taste had lingered during that pivotal first step into the world of ballet.

  She’d stood beside Harriet and Victoria, three young girls in pristine white dresses, filled with childish dreams and fancies, as Madame Belinskaya had prodded their legs with her cane, terrifying each of them before proclaiming, ‘Khorosho – good.’ Classes had begun that same day. Victoria and Harriet were already steadfast friends, having been raised as cousins, leaving Marietta on the periphery. An awkward child, at first she had preferred the relative solitude. Lately she was beginning to wonder if she should have ingratiated herself with them more. Her entire life was sliding towards an inevitable future, unless she chose to derail it, and she found herself short of allies.

  Now, Harriet’s deep-set eyes bored into Marietta’s. ‘Chasing after your dreams is a peculiar kind of suffering; it is not for the weak-hearted or cowardly-minded. It requires deep strength and endless determination.’

  Marietta took a sharp inhale. ‘I am perfectly aware of what it would take, thank you.’ Determination raged through her like a fire, licking her nerves, her sinews. A plan was beginning to fashion itself in her mind; a way in which she could foresee snapping out of the mind-forg’d manacles.

  ‘Feet in fifth, we shall begin with pliés,’ Madame Belinskaya called out with the trademark thud of her cane, the floor at the front of the class pockmarked from her passionate outbursts. A simple melody was coaxed out of the weary piano by the equally weary Vassily, their resident pianist, who was as grey as Madame Belinskaya was illustrious. In a rustle of silks, the ballet dancers fell in line. Marietta held her chin high. Though it seemed easier to acquiesce to her parents’ wishes, she knew if she did so, it would haunt her for the rest of her days. And Marietta Stelle was neither weak-hearted nor cowardly.

  When Marietta returned from rehearsal, she was greeted by the tittle-tattle emanating from her mother’s private drawing room during afternoon tea with her closest circle of confidantes and fellow traders in gossip.

  ‘Young, too, to possess a full head of silver hair, though I do suppose it lends him a certain gravitas,’ Adelaide, Geoffrey’s mother, had mused as Marietta had wandered past the door.

  ‘I’ve heard the poor soul is recently widowed,’ Vivian, Ida’s cousin, said with an affected sigh.

  ‘Well, I heard that he has never married but has returned to England to secure an advantageous match. Apparently the doctor possesses a grand fortune.’

  ‘No doubt he shall be seeking a wife to manage both the town house and his debut into society,’ Ida said with a careful air of insouciance that caused Marietta to pause in the carpeted hallway. ‘I have already extended the invitation for him to dine with us.’

  Marietta frowned at the nearby Tiffany Favrile lamp, brought over on the steamer after a visit to New York.

  ‘You must tell all. It has been quite some years since Edgar passed; perhaps Drosselmeier would consider me,’ Vivian said between clinks of the bone china teacups. ‘I hear he’s rather handsome.’

  Adelaide let out a peal of laughter. ‘Oh, Vivian, you do tickle me sometimes.’

  ‘Yes, quite,’ Ida agreed. ‘My cousin is most humorous.’

  Marietta’s smile was a secret shared with the William Morris honeysuckle wallpaper alone. She turned back downstairs to the ballroom, leaving her mother to the seething thoughts that had undercut her tone.

  She could practically taste the curiosity rippling through her mother, deep and insatiable. She sympathised with the man, for Nottingham was rife with rumours of him and it seemed every direction she turned she found herself confronted with talk of him. And, although Marietta would not admit it to anyone, she was becoming intrigued by this mysterious new arrival.

  Chapter Four

  It wasn’t until two days later that the Stelle family made the acquaintance of high society’s latest obsession: Dr Drosselmeier.

  When Marietta returned home from rehearsals that evening, she entered her bedroom to discover a new dress hung on her triptych screen, pre-selected by her mother to wear for dinner, signalling that they were to entertain company. It was blush rose chiffon, pinned in at the waist by means of a diamond brooch, and long-sleeved, with delicate ruffles frothing down the bodice. Marietta let the pearl-speckled lace sleeves trail through her fingers. They were as translucent and delicate as if they had been crafted from moonbeams. Ballet was poetry in motion and Marietta lived to lose herself in dance, but returning home to find this was a jarring reminder of the life she was expected to lead.

  ‘My dressmaker in Mayfair assured me that the ruffles will aid in disguising your lack of assets,’ Ida said, appearing behind her in a whirl of rose water and satin.

  Ballet had lent Marietta a willowy figure, the endless pliés and battements resulting in hard muscle tone, slim hips and a flat chest, all of which were terribly unfashionable. Ida pursed her lips, scrutinising the ballet dress Marietta was still wearing; simple and diaphanous enough to allow the wearer to leap through the air. ‘Must you wear that unseemly ensemble about the house? It is most improper.’ The first time Marietta had worn it, Ida had practically had a fit of the vapours.

  ‘Is there a reason for this excessive primping?’ Marietta eyed the lustrous shine of Ida’s gown. In deep cobalt, it evoked memories of sun-dappled water from summers spent luxuriating on the French Riviera, where both the days and skies seemed to stretch out endlessly. Scattered with sequins and embroidered with jet beads, it was more ornate than the ones she tended to don for family alone, accompanied by silk gloves and a double string of pearls.

  ‘Dr Drosselmeier has graciously accepted our invitation and is dining with us this evening,’ Ida answered as Marietta disappeared behind the large triptych screen. Painted in dark rose, it dominated a corner of her bedroom, although it was a room of generous proportions. Roses clambered across a wallpaper of silver firs, dark wooden floors lay underneath, softened with ivory carpets, and a set of bay windows overlooked the frosted street. The thick fabric of the curtains from one window sashayed across the wall to meet the next, creating the perfect concealment for the barre Frederick had built her some five years ago. Marietta exchanged the white ballet dress she’d been rehearsing Aurora’s springing steps in for a chemise and S-shaped corset that would cajole some curves into existence.

  ‘We’re to be the very first to host the good doctor,’ Ida continued proudly. ‘As I understand it, he is quite the mystery. Young to have forsaken medicine for an unusually frivolous pursuit, and he possesses such a grand fortune for a family no one has heard mention of before.’

  As Marietta emerged from behind the screen, Ida said, ‘You may be dismissed, Sally.’

  Marietta’s lady’s maid – a quiet, mousy woman in her late twenties with wide-set eyes that regarded the world in much the same manner as an injured squirrel might – bobbed a quick curtsy and scurried out. ‘If you’ll allow me, dear.’ Ida grasped the laces of Marietta’s corset.

  ‘Really, Mother, I am perfectly capable of managing myself. You do terrify poor Sally,’ Marietta said to no avail. She heard her mother’s shake of her head in a tinkling of diamond and jet earrings.

  ‘You are far too negligent with your own ministrations. And that girl is too twitchy and eager to please for my liking
. I have taken note of the dinners she has allowed you to attend improperly dressed.’ She pulled on the lacings, forcing Marietta’s hips to thrust forward, her back to arch and her chest to form the pouter pigeon front.

  ‘That will be sufficient.’ Marietta’s words rushed out in a single breath as Ida ignored her plea and further tightened the lacings before tying them, securing Marietta in her coutil, batiste and sateen confinement. ‘I had been given to understand that the new style of corsetry did not impair lung function,’ she said drily.

  Ida ignored this comment, too. ‘When Dr Drosselmeier joins us, I expect you to play the gracious hostess befitting of your rank. You are not beautiful, Marietta; no prospective Wordsworths shall ever wax lyrical on your allure. However, beauty fades and grace may last a lifetime. Tonight, I expect you to be charming. There will be not a mention of politics, dance or other scandalous subjects you have been known to pollute our discourse with. Nor any tiresome quarrelling with your father. Why you seem so determined to challenge him, I shall never understand.’ She paused to survey her daughter, whose cheeks were blooming with pent-up frustration. ‘Though you do possess a darling rosiness tonight, dear. How fortuitous that it complements the shade of your dress.’

  While Ida summoned Sally, Marietta glanced in her cheval mirror. She wondered if their dinner guest disliked the theatricality of high society with its litany of social conventions as much as she did. A toymaker, she thought to herself. How … refreshing. At least he should prove to be more interesting than her litany of suitors who introduced one tiresome line of conversation after another. No doubt they were the first to host him due to their status as one of the richest families in the city, and certainly the most influential, thanks to her mother’s efforts in social elevation. She sighed at the thought of Victoria’s inevitable interrogation when she discovered the fact and wondered if Drosselmeier was aware of the effect he’d had upon the mothers in the upper classes. The rumours she’d heard fluttered around her thoughts and she was irritated to find herself rather curious after all. She straightened up when Sally re-entered the room to assist in dressing her. Her new gown fell in soft folds to her white Moroccan leather shoes, daintily heeled with three little straps.