Midnight in Everwood

by M. A. Kuzniar

  ‘It seems my years of studying the fine art of persuasion were not wasted after all.’ Frederick grinned. ‘Drosselmeier is eager to reach new customers ahead of opening his latest venture. And everybody who’s anybody in this city will be attending our Christmas Ball; I merely pointed out what a brilliant opportunity it would be for him to advertise. He readily agreed and is prepared to engineer it at cost to himself. He’s a dammed fine inventor, I’m certain you shall have the finest of all sets.’

  ‘It sounds wonderful. Madame Belinskaya might finally crack a smile upon hearing the news,’ Marietta said and Frederick snorted.

  ‘I have already accepted the deal on your behalf; now go and relax.’ He nodded towards the steam gathering in the bathroom; a rose- and bergamot-scented storm. ‘I’ll have a plate sent up for you.’

  When he took his leave, Marietta disrobed in her white bathroom, peeling back the thin bandages on her feet. The floorboards were cold and she stepped into her claw-footed tub with a hiss and a sting. She lay back, melting into the bathtub. The water settled around her in a delicious moment, easing the winter that had seeped into her joints. Closing her eyes, she breathed in the perfumed aroma, allowing her thoughts to drift unmoored. They floated out of her control, onto the Rose Adagio and the forbidden audition. Trying to tug them in one coherent direction, planning how she might attend, failed. The memory of her previous conversation with Frederick unhinged her concentration. As did the knowledge that there were institutions for ladies of a certain mindset. She was at an impasse. How could she battle against the limitations on her freedom if doing so would bear a steeper cost? Her mood disintegrated.

  Later, she ate alone from a silver tray. Cheese tart with butter-rich pastry, a crystal dish of ratafia trifle, orange segments. Her silk sheets welcomed her but sleep slipped further and further away as her worries clamoured louder than the call of her dreams.

  The performance drew closer and her future was held tighter than ever in her parents’ grasp.

  Unless she could find a way to audition.

  Chapter Eight

  Upon awakening the following morning, Marietta felt an insatiable urge to be idle. It was a Sunday and there were no ballet classes or rehearsals to absorb her time. Nor was there any luncheon or afternoon tea she was promised to attend. She slipped a white cotton tulle peignoir over her night chemise and stretched, luxuriating in the time unspooling out before her. She breakfasted long after her parents and brother before donning her woollen winter coat and stepping out into the gardens.

  Wide stone steps led down onto the frost-encrusted lawn that swept out before her. The sky was gunmetal-grey, the trees skeletons, the remnants of the rose and wisteria garden rendering the landscape bleak. A spectral fog drifted by. In the distance, the manicured lawns fell away to the most expensive view in Nottingham: the castle. Though castle was a generous term, Marietta mused, stepping onto the lawn, as it better resembled an ornate mansion perched on Castle Rock, the original edifice having been destroyed hundreds of years prior. The frosted grass crisped beneath her buttery kidskin boots, buckled at her ankles, and a solitary thrush’s song fluted out. Marietta paused to search out the bird when an accompanying crunch sounded.

  Drosselmeier’s voice was arresting in the haunting expanse. ‘At once a voice arose among the bleak twigs overhead in a full-hearted evensong of joy illimited.’

  ‘I would not have placed you as an admirer of Thomas Hardy,’ Marietta said. ‘You do not strike me as a man enamoured with Romanticism.’ At last she spotted the black-spattered cream breast of the songbird. It granted them a final tune before spreading its wings and vanishing into the silvered air. Marietta turned to Drosselmeier.

  ‘Is that so?’ He smiled but offered no opinion. ‘Forgive me for imposing myself upon you. You cut such a romantic figure wandering through the mist before the castle that I felt quite compelled to join you.’

  His black gloves were clasped behind his back, a Chesterfield coat in charcoal tweed with a velvet collar keeping out the worst of the chill, his top hat a hasty addition, the fact betrayed by his dislodged hair.

  ‘You are most welcome to accompany me,’ Marietta said, glancing back at the house. It loomed at their backs, a commanding presence in Georgian stone and columns. She half-expected to see Miss Worthers peering from one of the uppermost windows, as if her chaperone could sense Marietta was in the company of a suitor alone.

  ‘I have been given to understand that I am to devise a set for your rendition of The Sleeping Beauty at your annual Christmas Ball.’ Drosselmeier paid close attention to Marietta as they walked through the gardens. She shifted away as he continued to speak. ‘I confess, I am very much looking forward to attending.’

  Marietta smiled. ‘You are too kind. I myself am eager for my first glimpse of your set; I’m sure it will be nothing short of wondrous.’ Each year the Stelle’s Christmas Ball was the talk of the city but this was the first year Marietta’s ballet studio had been invited to perform. As it was her final year of dancing, it was customary to perform on a stage in the theatre but Theodore had swiftly put an end to that notion. Marietta had persuaded him it would be more appropriate to dance at their ball and, in a rare moment of sentimentality, he had concurred.

  Drosselmeier’s frosted eyes lingered on her face. Marietta shifted their path onto a trajectory that circled back towards the house. She glanced up at the clouds haunting the sky above. ‘Such unfortunate weather we have been suffering through lately,’ she said, attempting to shift their conversation, puzzled by the change in his demeanour.

  Drosselmeier stepped up onto the stone mezzanine outside the morning room. He towered above her. A light wind tossed up Marietta’s hair, left free and trailing down her back in a moment of rebellion. Drosselmeier tracked it. His slender fingers opened and closed. ‘And yet my set will pale in comparison to you,’ he said, his voice silkier.

  Marietta’s smile was tight. ‘I hope it will be a performance worthy of your praise,’ she said by rote, her manners grafted on her down to the marrow.

  Drosselmeier’s answering smile was slow, his eyes never leaving her face. Marietta could almost feel his attention; a tangible beast with an overpowering appetite. His voice pitched lower. ‘I must tell you, your earlier surmise was quite incorrect. I have long found myself fascinated with Romanticism. One of its influences arose from my homeland, after all; Sturm und Drang.’ He took her hand, holding it between his.

  Marietta had been about to sidle past him to gain entry into the house but his hands gave her pause. Her breath caught in her throat and disappointment scudded through her at the thought, sudden and unbidden, that he might be on the verge of a proposal. ‘Forgive me, my German isn’t up to the same standard as my French. Storm and ambition, was that?’

  Drosselmeier stepped nearer. ‘Very close. Though drive would be a better fit. I’m a driven man, Miss Stelle. What I covet, I find a way to possess.’

  ‘How fortuitous for you. Now if you’ll be so kind as to excuse me, I have a pressing matter to attend to.’ Marietta forced a pretty smile. The gardens suddenly felt too large and empty, the house too silent. There were staff in every room; why had none passed the windows and given her reason to demur?

  Drosselmeier retained a hold on her hand. ‘I was hoping I might steal a moment more of your time.’

  She glanced up at him, searching for a polite refusal, one which wouldn’t cause offence, when a prickling awareness took root in her. One that whispered of something unnatural, something uncanny. She froze, staring at his irises, storming around his pupils, at the shadow-twitch of a mouse tail whipping back inside his coat pocket. It was as if he had been wearing a mask since that first dinner and now it had unfurled once more. Long enough to afford her a glimpse of something else beneath. Her senses flared; a shiver darted down her spine. ‘What are you?’ she whispered without thinking.

  Drosselmeier started and dropped her hand. His mask of careful pleasance snapped back in place. The s
udden motion reclaimed Marietta’s senses and she shook her head. ‘Forgive me, I am quite fatigued from rehearsals,’ she said with a light laugh, smoothing the edges of the conversation back together, even as her heart still beat sparrow-quick in her chest.

  ‘There is nothing to forgive,’ Drosselmeier said smoothly. ‘I shall enjoy watching the result of your diligence. Watching you.’ His hand lingered against the small of her back under the pretence of guiding her back to the house. Her discomfort deepened as she felt him wind a lock of her hair around his finger.

  Marietta walked upstairs to the drawing room she shared with Frederick. The memory of Drosselmeier’s touch swam inside her, slippery as jelly sweets. Upon opening the door, Frederick and Geoffrey’s conversation startled to a close.

  ‘My apologies, it wasn’t my intention to intrude.’ Marietta made to leave.

  ‘Nonsense, there’s no need to leave on our account,’ Frederick said, pouring brandy from a decanter into two glasses and handing one to Geoffrey, who was surveying Marietta.

  ‘I am certain you would rather enjoy your privacy,’ Marietta said, knowing that for the two of them, these moments alone were scarcer than they would like.

  ‘Are you quite all right?’ Geoffrey inquired. ‘You look rather out of sorts; perhaps you had better rest a moment.’ With a head full of dark curls, golden-brown skin, sharp cheekbones and full lips, it was no wonder Geoffrey had commanded the attention of many ladies before he had become engaged. A brocaded gold waistcoat over his white shirt and scarlet necktie did nothing to dispel his attractiveness and Victoria had been among those that were greatly disappointed to learn that he was now betrothed. It amused Frederick to keep a tally.

  Marietta sat herself in a wing-backed chair. The emerald velvet was worn but her French cashmere plum tea dress was thick and soft, her legs cosseted by a frothery of petticoats. ‘I was waylaid in my walk in the gardens by Dr Drosselmeier,’ she said, glancing up at Frederick. ‘He gave me a most peculiar feeling. And now I cannot help but wonder who he is and where he came from. Why has he refused to speak on anything that occurred before his arrival in Nottingham?’

  Frederick frowned. He leant against the mantelpiece, his brandy alchemised to golden silk by the fire flickering in the grate.

  ‘How diverting; it has been some time since we’ve had a decent scandal to gossip over,’ Geoffrey said, his gaze soft against Frederick. He reached for the decanter on the walnut side table and poured himself a second snifter. ‘Tell us precisely what occurred and spare no details.’

  Marietta relayed the events in the garden back to them. She flushed upon describing how Drosselmeier had caught her hand, trapping her in the conversation. How he had touched her without invitation. The jelly sweets squirmed inside her and she pressed her fingers to her lips.

  Frederick rubbed the growing crease between his eyebrows. ‘Seriously, Marietta, you are allowing your imagination to descend into fantasy. Perhaps the man simply values his privacy, which he is well entitled to. He doesn’t owe us an inventory of his personal history; neither does that make him a nefarious character simply for failing to provide one.’

  ‘I’m telling you, Frederick, there is something about him. As if he is the proverbial wolf clad in sheepskin. I can feel the wrongness gnawing at my bones.’

  ‘Do you recall when the nanny read us fairy tales before we were put to bed?’ Frederick asked.

  Marietta gave him a puzzled look. ‘Yes, what of it?’ Their nanny had been an affectionate older woman with the most beautiful book of bedtime fairy tales. Stories of fairies and elves, water nymphs and sprites, painting the dawn with violet petal-brushes, skimming over rivers on the backs of moths, dancing in the final wink of starlight. Marietta’s dreams had been swollen with longing and she’d embarked on boundless quests to uncover the creatures’ magical world, convinced there was a hidden glittering layer of enchantment buried beneath the dull veneer of everyday life.

  Frederick laughed. ‘You became so infatuated with the notion of discovering those elusive fairies at the bottom of our garden that you tore all your hems and dirtied your finest satin slippers searching until Father put a stop to the bedtime stories.’

  ‘He sat me down and informed me that the stories were eating away my logic,’ Marietta remembered aloud. ‘It wasn’t until sometime later that I came to the realisation that he hadn’t meant literally. All those years I had been imagining the fairy tales nibbling at my mind like a parasite, feasting on old memories and facts as if there was only so much room inside my head.’ She smiled wryly.

  ‘You do have a tendency to let your imagination roam wild,’ Frederick said in a gentler tone. ‘But Drosselmeier is a decent and clever man; you have no reason to think ill of him.’ He loosened his emerald necktie and sat beside Geoffrey, who rested a hand on his leg. Both men were at ease in Marietta’s company since she had learnt of their relationship and it gladdened her to see evidence of this.

  Marietta turned her attention to her brother’s beau. ‘And you, Geoffrey? Do you share Frederick’s opinion?’

  ‘Sorry, old girl, I do. It sounds rather as if the doctor was trying to muster up the courage for a proposal.’

  Frederick held his arms out, a showman seeking recognition. Marietta gave him a cold stare. ‘Do you remember teaching me how to play chess?’

  Frederick grinned. ‘Of course. I still maintain I was an excellent teacher; to this day you play like a woman possessed.’

  ‘Only once I had mastered the strategy of the game. As I sat behind the board for the first time, aware of the myriad pieces and moves at play, you instructed me to follow my instincts. It was the wisest counsel you’ve ever imparted to me.’

  ‘With such games, yes. You are prone to overthinking. Yet in the ways of men, you are painfully naïve.’

  The betrayal bit deep. ‘In that case, I shall leave you to your libations,’ Marietta said, standing.

  ‘If he truly intended anything nefarious, I would be the first to spring to your defence, Ets,’ Frederick said, a little gentler. ‘To me it merely sounds as if the man has taken an interest in you. Spare him a little compassion; it is not always easy to be bold on matters of the heart.’

  Chapter Nine

  ‘I don’t suppose you’ve seen Miss Worthers this afternoon, Sally?’

  ‘You just missed her, miss. She had the carriage take her into town for a spot of shopping.’

  Marietta went downstairs. Frederick stood in the hall, fiddling with the silver cufflinks his valet had fixed in his sleeves.

  ‘Frederick, I don’t suppose you would escort me to ballet? Miss Worthers seems to have forgotten her obligation and I fear I’m going to be terribly late.’

  ‘Sorry, Ets. You’ve caught me on my way out to reconvene with Geoffrey for a spot of billiards at the club. Why don’t you ask Mother?’

  Marietta gave him a look. ‘Are you deliberately being insufferable? You know how Mother feels about ballet. Besides, she’s calling on a friend.’ She had yet to forgive Frederick for calling her painfully naïve a few days earlier.

  Frederick shrugged. ‘It looks as if you’ll have to give this one a miss then.’ A footman cloaked him in his winter coat and he hurried down the steps and onto the porch that swept out before the townhouse, where the family chauffeur was waiting for him with the automobile. The same one Marietta had specifically requested. She took a deep breath, suppressing her irritation, half-frozen on the front step. Though it was early, winter had already seized the afternoon, transmuting it to deepest dusk. The sky was stained like wine, the edges of clouds tinged with purpling scarlet.

  Jarvis shut the front door behind her to keep the heat in. Carlton, the chauffeur, started the engine and the motor trundled past her. Frederick stuck his head out and gave her a jaunty wave as he was driven past. Resentment stole into Marietta’s mood. She couldn’t afford to miss an entire rehearsal, not when she had been cast in the principal role. A role which she needed to perfect for her upcomin
g audition. If only her father didn’t possess such ridiculously out-dated views. Her eyes fell on the automobile displayed further back in the drive.

  Theodore’s Rolls-Royce 10 H.P. With twin cylinders and a massive horsepower of ten, the Rolls-Royce was his prized possession, one which not even the chauffeur, had he been here, was permitted to drive. That pleasure was reserved for Theodore alone. Marietta slid her gaze back onto the house behind her. The curtains were drawn against the early night, its inhabitants either otherwise engaged or occupied outside the slumbering townhouse.

  Pulling on her leather gloves, Marietta strode towards the Rolls, her breath pluming. After a moment’s consideration, she began the process of starting the engine. When it hummed to life, she slid into the driver’s seat, stunning herself with her own audacity.

  Despite being a behemoth, the white automobile handled lightly and with precision. Marietta grinned, stroking the wheel as it purred and preened beneath her touch. It was faster and smoother than the old Rover in which she’d learnt to drive. Her plait whipped over her shoulder as she drove out of the wrought-iron gates and through the estate with no one any the wiser. ‘Thank you, Freddie,’ she murmured.

  It had been two years since she’d insisted on him instructing her how to drive an automobile in secret, much against their father’s wishes. The day had dawned clear and bright with the snap of autumn in the crisp fallen leaves. Marietta’s hair had flown out behind her as she’d accelerated down the roads hidden behind their country estate, hitting over twenty miles per hour, the countryside flaming with the rich colour of a fox’s tail.

  Now, she chugged past an assortment of stately homes, past the castle and through the city centre as night sighed and settled in. The dome of the town hall was a shadowed husk, the last of the lamplighters trailed past ancient spired churches and modern department stores, their streetlights sputtering to life. And everything dripped with festivity. Carols leaked from church doors, chestnuts roasted on carts and children pressed their faces against toyshop windows. Tomorrow would bring December. Marietta cast her gaze over the streets, her sudden freedom wild and heady. A woman, dressed in evening silks, looked askance at her as she drove past. ‘How very scandalous of me!’ Marietta called out, giddy with her own daring.