Glamour in Glass

by Mary Robinette Kowal

  The January wind whipped off the coast and lifted sails and skirts alike. Despite the chill, Jane stood at the rail of the Dolphin, feeling as if a series of stays were releasing their laces with each length they moved away from the shore. Vincent stood at her back with one hand steadying her against the pitching of the boat. Like most professional glamourists, he eschewed gloves even in public. She could not regret this departure from fashion, though she had yet to embrace it herself. The warmth of his hand seemed to travel through her body, and she leaned into him, relishing the waves as an excuse for the public display of affection.

  As they left the harbour for the deeper water of the Channel, several of the other passengers bent over the rail, emptying their breakfasts into the harbour, but Jane felt not the least bit of queasiness.

  She inhaled the salty tang of the sea air and lifted her face to the sun, relishing the sense, if not the fact, of being alone with her husband. If she could wish away the other passengers and have only this quiet space with Vincent, she would. Still staring at the ocean, Jane sighed. “I wish a Sphère Obscurcie could work at sea.”

  “Why is that, muse?”

  “So that I might kiss you here on the deck without shocking our neighbours.”

  Nodding his head toward a particularly unhappy traveller, who leaned over the rail as though worshipping Neptune, Vincent said, “I rather think that they are past being shocked. I wonder if I could work one.” He drew his hand away from her back. Even before she faced him, Jane knew the expression she would find on his countenance. He stared at the horizon, concentrating on some equation in the middle distance. “I have been taught that glamour will not work on a moving ship, but have not had the opportunity to test it for myself. In theory.…”

  “Do you ever stop theorizing?”

  He brought his attention back and curled the corners of his lips in the small smile that was the most she had seen him give in public. “There are times, yes. You have been present at all of them.”

  As the ship swayed, it brought them closer together, and Jane found she did not care what anyone on board thought. She could not recall the last time she had been with Vincent and had no obligations. Here, nothing could make claim upon their time. They had no social acquaintances aboard, nor work to prepare for.

  Vincent tilted his head. “What are you smiling about?”

  “Well.” Jane took his hands. “You did say this was our honeymoon, and since we cannot work glamour, I thought perhaps there were other ways in which we might pass the time.”

  “Indeed there are. I brought my watercolours. Or, if you prefer, I have Herr Scholes’s treatise on the reciprocation of light and shadow.” His face kept a mien of utter seriousness except around the eyes, which wrinkled with amusement.

  “A reciprocation, I think.”

  “As do I.” Vincent took her hand and looked around the deck, his grip tightening for an instant before he released her. “May I help you?”

  He addressed two young ladies—girls, really—who stood not far from them, staring quite openly. The one behind, younger and with a head of dark curls, nudged her sister forward. They were clearly sisters, with the same upturned nose and thick brows. “Pardon, but are you … that is to say … did you?” Her words seemed unable to form into sentences. She suddenly thrust a slender pamphlet at Vincent. “We saw you? In London?”

  Vincent took the paper gently, his hand nearly twice the size of the girl’s. “Ah. Yes. You did.”

  “I told you!” The younger girl nudged her sister again.

  He showed it to Jane, steadying the paper against the stiff breeze. It fluttered so that the image on the cover seemed to move. It was an engraving, crude and hastily rendered, of their glamural at Carlton House, with the words “New Year’s Souvenir” emblazoned in large type above it. The text below described the festivities in great detail, mentioning everything from the quantity of cake to the worth of the plate. Jane made a note to let her mother know the figure. Then her attention caught upon a sentence.

  The glamural, created entirely by Mr. David Vincent, is one of the most complete …

  There was no mention of her.

  A penny publication did not signify much, yet Jane could not help but feel that her exclusion confirmed all that she had felt that last night at Carlton House. She was an unnecessary part of the weave of their glamour. Trying to put her sour feeling aside, Jane smiled at the girls. “Did you attend?”

  Bouncing on her toes, the younger girl answered Jane’s question, but directed her words at Vincent. She gazed at him with all the adoration a schoolgirl might bring to bear upon an older man. “It was wonderful! Oh! Sir! Mama says you are the best glamourist in England!”

  Vincent coughed, his face reddening. “Your mother is very kind.”

  “Would you … that is, may I be so bold as to ask…?” The elder girl twisted her fingers together and gazed at him so wistfully that she might have been before a prince in a bedtime story.

  Her sister broke in. “Oh, please, sign it! That way we can prove that we met you!”

  Her outbursts, which could only be rendered in justice with a superfluity of exclamation points, had begun to draw the attention of their fellow passengers. Vincent, who had no trouble conversing with the Prince Regent without seeming to note his rank, stammered and hemmed. Patting his coat pockets, he looked around helplessly.

  Taking pity on him, Jane opened her reticule and produced a small pencil that she used for taking notes while they worked. Handing it to Vincent, she tried to find amusement in the embarrassment he so obviously felt at being singled out for attention. Of course, it was understandable that the pamphleteer would only mention the most famous personages in his accounting of the fête, and Jane was as yet an unknown. But though it was a prideful wish, she hoped someday to see the words Mr. and Mrs. Vincent appear with a notice of their work.

  “Inscribe it to Miss Cornell and Miss Caroline Cornell!” Miss Caroline Cornell, the younger, bounced on her toes again. “That way our friends will be certain that we met you!”

  “Of course.” He penned his name on the page below the illustration and began to return it to them, then checked his motion. “Jane?” Vincent offered her the page.

  “Oh, no.” Finding herself the sudden object of the girls’ curiosity did much to relieve Jane’s sensation of being left out. She had no wish to be thrust into the public view, only to have her work recognised, and even that was vanity speaking.

  “You did half the work.” He pressed the pencil into her hand. Inclining his head to the Misses Cornell, he bowed slightly. “My wife is my creative partner, you see.”

  “But … what? That is … I mean … how? What did you do?”

  “Did you see the anemones?” Jane asked.

  This broke Miss Caroline’s questionable reserve. She darted around her sister to bounce in front of Jane for a bit. “Truly! I loved those! They exactly matched my dress, you know!”

  “I am glad to hear it.” And glad too, that she had taken time to adjust their colour.

  “Where did you learn to glamour so beautifully?” Miss Cornell managed to complete a question at last.

  “Well … I learned from tutors when I was a girl, and the subject interested me, so I read books and practised quite a bit.”

  “Oh! We have a tutor too, but he is ever so dull!” Miss Caroline pouted. “I wish you could be my tutor!”

  “Would you show us how you made them?”

  Jane turned her palms out helplessly. “I wish I could, but the boat is moving too fast.” Seeing the confusion in both girls’ faces, Jane could not help but wonder what their tutor had taught them. “Glamour is attached between the ether and the earth. When we travel, the folds get pulled out of our hands too quickly to govern, so it is not possible to maintain a glamour and have it travel any distance without constant effort. At this speed, it would be too exhausting to be manageable or even safe.” That inability to work glamour at sea was, in fact, one of the th
ings which had kept Britain safe from Napoleon during the war. Any advantage the French might have had through their longer history with glamour was lost when approaching an island nation.

  Miss Cornell tugged on her curls, thinking. “Is it like … I lost my pocket handkerchief to the wind. Is it like the wind?”

  Jane hesitated, thinking the comparison through. “Somewhat. No metaphor is precise in describing glamour, any more than a metaphor can precisely describe light. We use a mixture of them to touch on the different aspects of glamour.”

  Miss Caroline stood on her toes, clapping her hands. “Oh! I always thought it was more like marionettes than fabric!”

  Schooling her expression to hide her laughter, Jane asked simply, “How so?”

  “Because! You move your hands here”—she waved her hands in front of her in a pattern that could not have produced any sensible expression of glamour—“to create something over here!” She hopped to the left, nearly toppling over with the movement of the ship.

  Jane clapped her hands with understanding. “Just so. Yes, you see the difficulty. Embroidery is the closest one can come to describing creating a detailed glamour such my anemones, and yet one cannot embroider at a distance.”

  “Why can not people invent words for glamour instead of borrowing from other things?” Miss Cornell screwed up her face.

  “Some words are specific to glamour, but you will not find those until you have practised further.”

  Vincent had retreated a few steps away, the relief at having escaped obvious in the set of his shoulders. Not minding the girls’ inquiries, Jane spent some time with them, explaining a few simple things about glamour that language sufficed to deliver until their parents called them away. Before going, the Misses Cornell pressed Jane to sign their pamphlet and swore their eternal devotion to her as well.

  As soon as she was certain they would not see, Jane smiled and joined Vincent at the rail of the ship. “Oh, my dear. I have never seen the like of that.”

  He grunted. “This is why my father did not want me to use his surname. The spectacle.”

  Laying her hand on his, Jane rubbed her thumb against the fine hairs across its back. “Is it … is this normal for you?”

  “Well … they were younger and more conspicuous in their enthusiasm, but yes, the part of a glamourist is often to be a curiosity. People assume that because my art is on display, I myself must also be an exhibit for their attention.”

  Jane remembered well their first meeting, and how he had given her his shoulder when she approached him. “I am sorry.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I did the same when we met.”

  “Ah, Jane.” He lay his other hand over hers, holding it with both hands. “I regret every moment I kept you at a distance.” Leaning down, Vincent kissed her. Jane, in sight of the entire ship, returned the kiss with enthusiasm.

  Five

  Travel and a Little Napoleon

  The prevailing winds were against their ship, and so the trip across the Channel took a full two days. Jane found that not even the rough weather could dampen her joy in their transit. The Prince Regent’s favour had extended to arranging a private cabin for them. Though it was no larger than the linen closet at Long Parkmead, with Vincent’s company the cabin seemed cosy rather than cramped.

  Even so, she was glad to disembark in Calais and get her first taste of life on the Continent, but the port was quite filled with English travellers, so many of them that there were few places where she did not hear the accents of home. Jane consoled herself that once they left the city behind, she would find a more authentic experience of France en route to Belgium as they travelled in La Diligence.

  In truth though, the Vincents’ travel from Calais to Binché was little different from any trip in a public carriage despite the charming name of France's national system of carriages. The diligence was too crowded for comfort, and the views out the windows—though of unfamiliar scenery—were only glimpsed by twisting one’s neck.

  The diligence exchanged passengers at inns, crossings, and stables so that they had an unending variety of new travel companions. Jane cared not at all. None of the other passengers took notice of them, and the freedom from responsibilities delighted her nearly as much as what little scenery she could glimpse.

  For the first two days they travelled without concern, slowed only by a log across the road, which delayed their progress by some hours. As the diligence rolled through the country, Jane was enchanted by the differences between France and England. Not that she found France in any way superior, but the local garments, which changed with every region through which they passed, were endlessly charming. At one stop, the local women had red borders on their aprons. When they halted for a quick nuncheon at an inn in the north of France, the women wore heavy wooden clogs as they walked through the mud of the stable yard. In another region, white fichus were the order of the day.

  But as the diligence bounced across the landscape, what Jane most wished for was more padding upon the seats. She was, therefore, delighted when the carriage slowed and then stopped, as this would offer a chance to escape its confines. Outside, she could hear a muffled conversation, but no coachman appeared to open the door. She hoped that it was not another log across the road, though even that might be welcome if it afforded them the opportunity to stretch their legs.

  After a few minutes, one of the other travellers—an old matron whose black lace marked her as a widow—peered out the window and tutted loudly. She turned to the young girl travelling with her and said something disapproving in Flemish.

  Jane sat on the other bench, by the door, with Vincent acting as a human shield between her and the German soldier who shared their bench. He would not have been objectionable as a companion were it not for his propensity to eat whole garlic cloves. Curious as to what the matron had seen, this soldier now leaned across the diligence to look out the small window in the door, though there was a window on his side of the carriage as well.

  “We are in a field,” he said in heavily scented English.

  The door flew open and a man with a cravat wrapped around the lower part of his face looked in. He held a pistol.

  Jane cringed against the side of the carriage, the shock of the gun combining with the strong memories of the last time she had beheld a gun at close range. Vincent sat forward, putting his arm in front of her as though that could shield her in some manner.

  In French, the man said, “Out. All of you.”

  Vincent went first, though Jane would have held him back if she could. Within moments, she and the other passengers were standing beside the diligence. Three ragged men faced them, the one with the gun and two more with rusted sabres. A fourth held the horses, and a fifth stood atop the carriage with another pistol pointed at the coachman.

  The German soldier said something in French, but his native tongue so coloured the language that Jane could scarcely understand him. She heard only the word, “Napoleon.”

  The ragged man with the pistol replied hotly. The others joined in, also shouting various imprecations at the German. She gathered they were Bonapartists set on taking the diligence for their cause and was not surprised that the German did not join his former allies.

  Lowering his voice, Vincent said, “Dearest, do you remember your Beast?”

  “Yes.” She could not see what their ill-fated tableau vivant had to do with the current situation.

  He then turned to the soldier and, to her surprise, spoke to him in German. This provoked a furious outburst from the rebel with the pistol, but a nod from the soldier.

  The Flemish lady spoke up then, gesturing sharply with her fist at the ruffians who held them. “Napoleon? Feh!” She spat on the ground. Her young charge grabbed her arm and pulled her back all too late.

  One of the sabre bearers advanced with his blade raised.

  Vincent said, “Jane. Frighten the horses. Jetzt!” He and the German sprang to action in the same instant.

>   Startled, Jane could only stare for a moment, then she gathered herself and stripped off her gloves. With her hands bare, Jane threw the folds of the Beast around her, caring little about artistry in her haste. Raising the arms of the horrible creature, she menaced the horses.

  The German clambered onto the top of the diligence while the rebel there struggled with his gun. His footing was upset as one of the horses reared, tearing its traces free. The postillion took advantage of this to urge the horses forward. His coachman helped the German subdue the gunman on the carriage while the Bonapartist holding the horses flung himself out of the way of their charge.

  Jane dropped her folds of glamour and turned to Vincent in time to see him punch the ruffian with the gun in the nose. The man dropped to the ground. Scarcely had he fallen when Vincent turned to the man with the sabre who had threatened the old woman. Jane grabbed folds of glamour convulsively, as if she could weave some sensible illusion to help her husband from twenty paces.

  The remaining sabre-bearer still threatened, so she could at the least remove the old woman and her charge from harm. Jane lifted her skirts and hurried to their side. She wove a Sphère Obscurcie to mask them from the rebels’ view. The young girl was crying, but the matron seemed ready to take up a sabre herself. Jane put her finger to her lips. “They cannot see us,” she whispered. They stared at her, uncomprehending, so she repeated it in French and Italian. When this did not quiet the girl, Jane glanced back to see how close the rebels were, and beheld something astonishing.

  Vincent had somehow disarmed one of the sabre-bearers and was now fighting the other with the liberated sabre. While Jane had known that her husband was quite fit, she had not realized he had any skill with weapons. Yet Vincent wielded the weapon as though he were well used to it. Indeed, with his superior height and reach, it took but moments before he had reached past his opponent’s guard to strike him in the upper arm. This drawing of first blood did nothing to ease Jane’s fears.