A Feast of Sorrows, Stories

by Angela Slatter

  Cordelia takes a relieved breath and finds Bethany, who holds Henry close, looking at her. Cordelia smiles and focuses once more on the mouth of the sepulchre, where the first group of attendants returns to the light, quickly stepping aside so the next can deposit their own burden. She’ll not tell her sister about the mist or how it felt; Bethany needs no encouragement to laugh at her. She does not wish to be regarded as mad as well as weak, but Cordelia knows as surely as night follows day that around them, in the trees and foliage which weaves their way through the graveyard, there are things, other things, which move and watch, breathe and sleep, dream and desire. Things that the clever rich folk of Lodellan don’t believe in for it is not fashionable. But those with less money and more sense still leave offerings on the graves; the sexton still plants lavender over the common burial pits where the indigent and unloved lie, in hope of ensuring they rest in peace; and mothers in the slum quarters still warn their children not to listen to the sound of the jingling copper bells hanging from some of the yews and oaks in the bone orchard. Though she’s told no one Cordelia has seen them on occasion, the things that shift and threaten, when she’s come to visit the grave of one friend or another. She holds her daughter closer.

  Later, at the wake at the Considine house, Cordelia finds herself alone with Belladonna. A small bubble of quiet, of suspended time, forms around them; outside it there is well-mannered noise, conversation, people attired in haute couture black weeds moving in a strange kind of dance. Cordelia touches her friend’s hand gently and says how sorry she is. Belladonna pauses, tugs at her veil and shows her face. The transformation is terrible: the once-silver eyes are dead grey ice; the elegantly high cheeks are hollowed and the skin drawn tight, with a yellow tint; the pouting mouth is slack, the lips strangely thin, and poised as if a howl might force its way between them at any moment. There is such guilt and such burden.

  “How can I go on? Knowing we—I—harboured a viper in our bosom?” Belladonna’s voice is so low that Cordelia can barely hear. She squeezes the other woman’s arm tightly, hoping for sympathy and strength to flow into her. She thinks, although she tries not to, how Bethany told of the boy Japheth’s body: thrown onto the midden heap outside Lodellan’s walls. While she can understand the urge, she still considers such an act vindictive and short-sighted: no carefully constructed coffin to either help him rest easy or keep him from haunting the city until the last trumpet sounds.

  “My dear Bella, you have no need of guilt. You did not employ him in an ill house, did not subject him to evil influences. However his heart and mind were turned, the cause was not here. Not you.” Cordelia lightly strokes the other’s sleeve. “Mourn your friends by all means, but you had no role in their deaths, please set aside that woe.”

  Tears flood the other woman’s eyes, as if the kindness is unbearable. She pulls from Cordelia and flees, to the upper levels of the house, covering her face as she goes. Cordelia feels empty, bereft. She shakes her head; her mind is adrift, her emotions high with the tragedy striking so close to home. She just needs time, as does Bella, to recover, to feel as if the ground is solid beneath them once again. Blinking, Cordelia turns to the ballroom—the only room big enough to hold the crowd—now hung with black crepe and wreaths of lily and rowan, acanthus and asphodel.

  Henry, Victoria, and Torben will be in one of the auxiliary parlours, playing in desultory fashion with what pass for friends amongst the children of the rich. Across the room Cordelia spies Edvard, part of a group of sombre-looking men. Their expressions are carefully maintained, but she suspects she knows what they hide: a combination of judgment and fear. Judgment of Leon Agnew, that he did not protect his family, and fear that he could not do so. Fear that there but for the grace of God went each and every one of them. Edvard has spent the past few days ensuring weapons are hidden throughout their house, that Henry knows where they are and so do the coachman and footman. Not Cordelia, though, nor Victoria nor Bethany, nor Mrs B, nor Merry, for if the menfolk failed to defend them, what could women possibly do?

  One of his companions says something and Cordelia watches as Edvard’s face pinches, sours. His reply makes the other man wither and shrink, and she wonders what has lit her husband’s serene temper so quickly. She senses someone beside her: Bethany, pale and lovely, hair beneath an ebon lace mourning bonnet, her dress of charcoal satin with tight pintucks that Merry’s clever fingers took hours and hours to achieve. At her breast is an oval broach, glass-fronted, showing the coil of blond hair that belonged to their mother. By rights it should have been Cordelia’s but it was the sole possession Bethany managed to keep during her stay at the orphanage and Cordelia never had the heart to insist when her sister had already lost so much.

  “What do you think he said?” she says idly, wistfully. “What are they discussing?”

  “Surely, sister, you’ve enough gumption to find out?” Bethany’s tone is sharp and it cuts. Why don’t you ask him yourself? Keep at him until he answers?”

  Cordelia knows her shock and hurt are writ large on her face; Bethany shows no sign of caring, and continues, “Why do you insist on being wilfully ignorant? I swear, Cordelia, you were never such a fool when we were small.”

  Cordelia thinks that unfair; Bethany was so young when her older sister left Singing Vine. What recollections could she possibly have? She has the uncomfortable feeling, though, that Bethany is right; as a child and young woman Cordelia was outspoken and inquisitive, insistent, and always, always gained the knowledge she wanted, needed. She did not dwell in ignorance, and no one ever told her certain things were not her concern. How did she become as she is now? Did she give up all at once? Or bit by bit, unaware of how she was changing? Lessening just to make life easier? She turns her mind from the idea of growing dim, of diminishing. It seems too hurtful, too fearful. She blinks, feels Bethany’s hand on her arm.

  “I’m sorry, sister, I should not have spoken so. It is . . . the grief.” Bethany bats away tears or so it seems. “They speak of men’s matters, of commerce and the like. They will discuss Agnew’s failure as man and husband, protector and guardian of his family. They’ll opine how terrible a monster that boy must have been to do this thing, to overcome one such as Leon. Then they will grow quiet and discomforted until someone mentions a mistress to break the tension, the residence he keeps her in on Courtesans’ Row, the clever things she does, and how happy it makes him to know she is his refuge from a demanding wife and puling offspring.”

  Cordelia wonders if Edvard is one of those men, if he visits another woman in a tall house that she can imagine all too vividly: red velvet drapes, luxurious sofas, beds hung with silks and fine netting, walls decorated with erotic frescos from which inspiration might be taken. Cordelia shakes her head; Mrs Bell sewed a swan’s feather into Edvard’s pillow the day of their marriage, a sure way to ensure fidelity she’d said. Cordelia feels quite unstable already without the weight of Edvard’s possible secrets tumbling onto her. She absently pats Bethany’s cheek and moves off before her sister can say something even more disturbing; she feels, yet again, that she no longer knows the girl she raised as her own. It is her age, she thinks, she is finding herself. It will settle, eventually, and they shall rub along nicely once more.

  Cordelia tries to change the direction of her dreams, encourage them back towards happier terrain; she knows, though, that they will not obey her entirely, or indeed for long. But still it seems she succeeds as the days before the Winter Solstice Ball run together. In her sleep, she could swear the fire is real, that the scent of burning wood and roasting chestnuts tickle her nostrils. She picks pleasant scenes as she once did the sweetest cherries from a bowl. She is sure she can hear the crackle and snap of twigs, the small avalanches of cinders and glowing coals through the grate, that she can hear the laughter in the house. She turns in her slumber, enjoying the warmth, the memory . . . yet that changes once again all too soon.

  The air in the house is thick with mourning. Cordelia finds i
t hard to breathe, harder still to see the expressions of shock on her children’s faces. They’ve never been faced with loss or grief in their short lives; she feels she has failed to prepare them. Edvard’s parents were long-dead by the time he married, and her own parents’ deaths occurred when Henry was very small. Their world has been intact, hermetically sealed from heartache, and she searches desperately for a way to make them smile again. Cordelia leaves Merry at home, does not even mention that they are going out. The girl has been heavy-eyed, inattentive, hard of hearing since news of the Agnews and their murderer was heard; she has refused to discuss the matter though Cordelia has tried to offer comfort. Even Mrs B has failed to draw anything from her, or so she has told Cordelia. Cordelia wonders if the girl has been outside the city walls, walking the paths that have been worn through Lodellan’s great midden heap by scavengers who go on two legs as well as four, looking for the body of the boy she loved.

  Yet taking the children to the carnival the morning of the Ball is a mistake, which she understands only as they step beneath the archway entrance, and she once more trickles coin into the toothless old woman’s hand. This is the final day, the crowd is thin, and the troupe are already packing up: there are fewer toys and gewgaws on the stalls, most of the makeshift stages have been pulled down and only the girls who climb the enchanted ropes are performing. Their air is one of boredom, barely concealed impatience; they’re the last act, thinks Cordelia, the one most likely to attract attention. Does this happen every time the show moves on or is there a ballot and the girls drew the short straw on this occasion?

  Her offspring remain listless, indeed their languor seems to increase as if infected by the apathy of the dying carnival. Cordelia sighs heavily and Bethany, strangely compassionate, takes her arm as they wander aimlessly through the partially deconstructed landscape. Torben, Victoria, and even Henry amble in front of them like lambs. Bethany does not even rouse herself to make disparaging remarks and Cordelia is grateful her sister has at last developed some kind of restraint.

  The sight of her babies so passive, so downhearted, is depressing. Normally she would have to shepherd them, drag them back into easy reach, or have Merry do it. The longer she watches, the heavier the oppression becomes, but she fights it until she sees the cart with the coloured candles—much fewer than last time, whether due to sales or packing she cannot know—and the woman who makes them, the tallow-wife, who stares at her with an unfathomable gaze. That is when she feels her chest compressing, compacting, growing tighter; finds the air harder to pull into her lungs no matter how deeply she breathes.

  “Take care of them for me, Bethany,” she gasps, pulling away from her sister. “I must walk.”

  And Bethany nods and lets her go, as if recognising what Cordelia needs most right now is solitude, not worry nor sympathy.

  Cordelia pushes and shoves her way through the dwindling crowd as if she’s a fishwife on the docks of some town that actually has an ocean, has something more than the river that’s become sluggish and brown over the years. It’s all she can do to keep from breaking into a run. She’s out now, beyond the enigmatic gaze of the tallow-wife, gone from the press of bodies; the noise and chatter diminish behind her as she walks faster and faster and her ladylike shoes beat a desperate rhythm of escape along the main road.

  Farther away from Lodellan, she feels she can breathe again, and she slows, stops. Between the trees is a building, a low dilapidated affair of wood bruised by time and weather. Cordelia moves toward it; the roof has fallen in at some point, a tree grows through the western wall, the door hangs by one tenacious hinge alone, and the windows have long been shattered. She searches her memory and finds something at last, snags it, draws it up. Tales of a woman many years ago, the city’s finest coffin-maker though none recall her name. Her demise was murky and led to whispers and rumours about her true goings-on, though Cordelia cannot recall precise details try though she might.

  She looks at the tumbledown structure, at the wreckage of what someone sought to build. She thinks of her parents, of the Singing Vine and what its loss meant to them. She thinks of the Agnews, how their lives were lost but their possessions remain, to do no good to anyone. She thinks that the destruction of things should not mean the ruination of a life.

  Cordelia looks over her shoulder, looks at the road that leads away, is struck by the scandalous idea that she could simply keep going.

  Then she remembers the child that grows inside her, remembers the children she has already birthed, recalls Mrs B and Merry, Edvard and Bethany. She thinks on the pillars of her existence and is ashamed she could contemplate such cowardly flight. Cordelia turns on her heel and returns to the carnival.

  The old woman on the gate lets her through, waving away the coins she offers. More, she points the direction in which she might find her family. Cordelia gives the candle-maker a wide berth.

  She espies the children at a tiny petting zoo. Victoria and Torben seem more animated as they fuss over the baby animals: there’s a bear cub, a pony, a lamb, a calf, and a wolf pup; kits of snow fox and badger. Henry kneels, with no thought for his expensive kerseymere breeches, beside an exotic kitten with fur of black and orange stripes, which eyes the other animals as if they might provide its luncheon.

  For a few moments she cannot see Bethany and anger begins to boil at the perceived lack of responsibility. Then she is there, her tall slender sister with her golden curls held in place by fine black netting, wearing yet another exquisite black mourning gown made by Merry’s clever, miserable fingers.

  Bethany is gesturing at someone Cordelia cannot see until her sister moves aside and there is Mr Farringdale once more, this time gripping a magnificent bouquet of flowers: red roses, asters, carnations, daffodils, daisies, forget-me-nots, and hyacinths . . . in fact so many blooms that are out of season Cordelia wonders how he got them and how much this tribute cost. This token of his affection, however, goes unnoticed, uncollected, unaccepted, and Cordelia is pierced by the expression of loss on the little man’s face.

  Oh, poor Mr Farringdale, to hold a torch for such as Bethany. Bethany, who’s refused the richest, handsomest, finest bucks of Lodellan. What chance could he possibly think he might have?

  And her sister turns then, as if she senses Cordelia’s presence, her thoughts. And in that moment Bethany’s face is naked: Cordelia doesn’t recognise this girl whose expression is so fierce and feral, shows too many wishes and wants, too much greed, lust, abandon, arrogance, and pride. And in that moment Cordelia feels as though there is more, much more than an age gap between them . . .

  . . . then Bethany sees her and grins; she is herself again, sweet though mischievous, sometimes cruel but never too much so, a little bold, but not too bold, eyes warming and dancing. She is Cordelia’s little sister once more, not a woman standing on the precipice between light and shadow. Cordelia tries to smile, finds her lips stiff and unwilling, for the memory of her sister’s changed face is too fresh, too raw; it leaves a residue of fear that Cordelia cannot comprehend. She forces the corners of her mouth upwards; dismisses the moment for it is too unreal.

  As she approaches, Mr Farringdale scurries away, no doubt to nurse his heart with the aid of the mulled cherry wine and blackberry port of which he is so fond. Cordelia will speak to Bethany, yes, but not today, not tonight. Tomorrow, after the Ball. There has been enough unpleasantness, and Cordelia is determined to rebuild her family’s happiness. They will stay here as long as the children wish, as long as she can see their joy returning if only in some small measure, for it is a start.

  And Mr Farringdale, poor Mr Farringdale . . . she will make enquiries and investigations. There will be women in Lodellan who would welcome his suit, who would see him as a good, solid investment, someone who would appreciate their kindness and wifely efforts on his behalf. Someone who would mend what Bethany in her youth and hubris has injured.

  Tonight is the winter solstice: the longest night. Tomorrow will be a time of new be
ginnings, the day to start over. Yes. Everything can be fixed.

  The dress is exquisite, a raw silk that contains within its warp and weft all possible variations of purple: lavender, lilac, fuchsia, violet, amaranthine, magenta, periwinkle, mulberry . . . every tone and shade and hue. It skims Cordelia’s trim-for-now figure perfectly, though Merry has had to let it out twice in the fortnight before the ball. She has done so with lips pursed, gaze judging, as if Cordelia has been overeating, doing it on purpose. Alas, all the adjustments—and Merry’s grieving inattention—have left one of the appliquéd roses, which encircle the waist and trail down the skirt like a cascade, somewhat loose. A few quick stitches are required before Master and Mistress Parsifal depart.

  Cordelia’s hair is swept up onto the crown of her head, pale sunlight curls tumbling artfully, although it took more than two hours to get them to look so casual. The gown shifts and changes its colour and mood with every movement, and the necklace, oh the necklace! It is pure magnificence. There will be nothing like it at the Ball.

  Merry’s room is at the top of the stairs, a large attic space fitted with rugs and hangings to keep out the winter chill, a comfortable bed with a richly embroidered quilt full and fat with goose down. Part of the area is set aside for the girl’s sewing: there are three tailor’s dummies, a workbench for cutting patterns and material, a series of shelves with skeins of silk, and drawers wherein lie needles and pins and scissors of various size and shape and sharpness, each intended for a different purpose. But of Merry herself there is no evidence, which makes Cordelia puff an exasperated breath. Yet she’ll not entrust this small task to Annie the parlour maid’s ham-fisted efforts.

  No matter. A tack or two is all that’s needed, a service she did for her own mother many years ago. As long as she is careful not to prick herself and bleed on the fabric, it will be a simple task. She eyes the range of threads and finds the correct hue, then opens the drawers one after another seeking the right gauge of needle. In the last compartment something catches her eye, a flash of silver and green and nacre, a small brooch in the shape of a spray of lilies. The one she gave Victoria for her thirteenth birthday, on the eve of her Presentation Ball, the item the girl wore on the pearl organdie gown with argentella lace. The very brooch Torben has been accused of stealing.