A Mosaic of Wings

by Kimberly Duffy

  “Nora!” her mother said on a breath of shock. “That’s enough.”

  Nora glanced around the table. Lucius’s neck had mottled, and he clenched his fork with white-tipped fingers. Mr. Primrose stared at her with his mouth open and redness infusing his face, as though her insult had been a physical slap.

  The dining room, which only moments ago had been filled with the scent of celebratory food, the sound of clinking glass and china, the presence of friends wishing her well, had now turned into a mausoleum—quiet, the air growing thin and smelling of regret.

  The curls piled atop Nora’s head and dripping down her neck offered nothing but exposure. She couldn’t hide from the shocked expressions on her guests’ faces, the censure in Lucius’s eyes, the disappointment in her mother’s.

  “This is what happens when a woman is overly educated. It gives her all kinds of odd notions.” Lucius’s booming words filled the silence, and he shook his head, his expression twisted into a parody of compassion. Nora saw the heat flash in his eyes, though.

  Her face burned. Her mother turned sad eyes toward her, her hands fluttering above the table like the wings of an injured butterfly before settling at her waist. Something else peeked from behind the veil of disappointment, though. Anger? A cold fist gripped Nora’s throat. She couldn’t remember another time her mother had been angry with her. Perplexed, yes. Even frustrated. But this . . . this rigidity in the gentle slope of her jaw . . . it spoke of something more than embarrassment at a breach of manners.

  Nora scraped back her chair and stood. “Please excuse me. I’m feeling unwell.”

  She darted from the dining room as fast as her unwieldy skirts allowed. In the hall she met one of the hired servers, who carried a large tray heavy with platters of chicken Lyonnaise. Nora pushed past him in her rush to the stairs, ignoring his shout as the tray fell and sent poultry, sautéed onions, and china crashing to the tiled floor.

  Through her bedroom window, Nora saw the last guests leave. The buggy’s wheels crunched across their gravel drive, and she watched until the light from the lamps wavered, then disappeared.

  She dropped the curtain and sank onto her bed. She’d done it again. And she didn’t even know why. Yes, Mr. Primrose had been boorish, but she had encountered similar people many times before and hadn’t felt the need to put them in their places.

  She pulled a satin pillow into her arms and hugged it to her chest. Maybe it had been misplaced anger toward Lucius and his plan for the journal, but she had hurt her mother and offended a guest celebrating her in the process. Mr. Primrose’s behavior had been deplorable, but so had hers. Lucius had every right to be angry. And so did her mother, even though that had been surprising.

  She set the pillow aside when she heard heavy footsteps in the hall. They paused outside her room before Lucius entered without knocking, her mother trailing behind him.

  “You have no idea what you’ve done.” His quiet voice held back the rage Nora could see in his eyes.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t think—”

  He sliced his hand through the air. “No, I don’t suppose you did. Which is ironic, given your little speech.”

  Nora sank against her bedframe, and the turned spindles bit into her back. “I will see him tomorrow and apologize.”

  “Yes, you will,” Lucius said, “but that may not be enough.”

  “Enough for what?”

  He looked at her mother, whose face had turned pasty. She crossed the room and sat beside Nora. “Your stepfather was hoping Mr. Primrose would offer him credit. That he would continue to print the journal for us at a substantially reduced rate until we began turning a profit again. Mr. Primrose was offended, Nora.”

  Nora saw Mr. Primrose’s red face. The way he sat, frozen to his seat, grasping his lapels as though they alone would redeem his wounded pride. “How long has the journal been in trouble?”

  Lucius tugged at his cravat, loosening it. Nora wished she could pull the ridiculous lace from her throat. Maybe then she could breathe again. “That doesn’t matter,” he said.

  “Of course it does.” She jumped to her feet. “You’ve dragged my father’s magazine into the mud. You’ve turned it into a rag not worthy of the paper it’s printed on. And now you’re telling me you don’t even have the resources to continue printing it?”

  Lydia tugged at Nora’s sleeve, her trembling fingers tangling in the ribbons at Nora’s elbows. Nora jerked away. “Mr. Primrose had been considering you as a prospective wife, Nora. He’s seen you and thinks you’re beautiful. He so wants to marry, and Lucius had been speaking about you for a long time. That would have solved everything. It could have meant more than an extension of credit. It could have meant a forgiveness of debt.”

  A vein in Lucius’s neck throbbed. “I had it in hand. You, with your need to prove yourself, have caused our current dilemma. Your bitterness at not being allowed to behave like a man has possibly destroyed everything. You are merely deflecting your mistakes.”

  “My father would have never allowed this to happen.” Nora dropped her eyes to the knotted fringe edging the rug, unable to meet her stepfather’s gaze. She’d been so wrong. Had succumbed to her wounded pride. But Lucius, with his poor management and arrogance, had brought them to this place. “And I’d never agree to marry a man who doesn’t believe in me, no matter what he offered you.”

  Lucius crossed the room, the tips of his fashionable, two-toned shoes coming into view. She focused on the buffed leather, even as his words lobbed stones at her conscience. “You have spent years comparing me unfavorably to your father. Do not do so again. I am tired of defending myself against a dead man who so obviously failed at parenting.”

  Nora’s mother choked back a cry, and Nora looked up to see her pressing a fist to her mouth. But Lydia said nothing, and Nora saw every tear dripping down her cheek as a silent betrayal of her father’s memory.

  “The only thing my father failed at was trusting and befriending you. If he could see what you’ve done to his work, his family . . .” Nora shook her head. “You couldn’t have been half the father he was. Just like you’re not half the scientist. And if my mother is honest, you aren’t half the husband either.”

  Lucius released a guttural cry, and spittle flung across Nora’s face. She jerked her head away and stumbled back a step, her legs hitting her bed. Lucius turned and kicked her insect cabinet, setting the glass plates wobbling. After he stormed from the room, Nora and her mother stared at each other.

  “He’s never been this angry.” Lydia curled into a ball atop Nora’s bed, making her silk-draped figure as small as possible. “Why must you say such things? He really tries. He’s not a terrible husband, and he’s had no experience in parenting. You can’t expect him to fill your father’s shoes.”

  Nora sank down beside her and patted her back. “Don’t be too upset. He’ll calm down.”

  Lydia lifted a tear-stained face and shook her head. “I think you’ve pushed him too far. He knows he can never please you. Why have you never been able to give him a chance?”

  Nora ignored her mother’s cynicism and questions. Lucius didn’t care a whit about her opinion, just as Nora didn’t care about his. But her mind whirred with ways to make everything right. She hated that her ill-timed words may have caused harm to the journal. She’d apologize to Mr. Primrose, of course, but once that task was accomplished, she’d find a job. If she received the scholarship, she’d work through school and use every penny to save the journal. Maybe she could talk Lucius into turning it over to her now, before he destroyed it past redemption.

  Alice appeared in the doorway, wringing her hands.

  “What is it?”

  “Miss, I’m afraid Mr. Ward has—” she darted a glance behind her, then moved in closer—“lost his mind.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  Before Alice could answer, Lucius pushed in behind her and, without looking at anyone, pulled open Nora’s insect cabinet drawers and removed f
our cases. He stacked them in his arms, then left.

  Nora leapt off her bed. “What are you doing?”

  Lucius didn’t answer. His footsteps thumped down the back stairs. Nora dashed after him, and as she exited the kitchen doorway into the backyard, she could see flames licking the sky. Her stomach dropped as Lucius threw the first case into the bonfire.

  “No!” Her cry reverberated across the yard and was caught up in the flames. She ran toward him, but Lucius ignored her as he tossed the cases onto the burning logs. Glass shattered, sending off popping sparks as it expanded in the heat. A groan slid past Nora’s slack lips as light bounced off the metallic blue and green wings of a dozen beetles. Her Calosoma scrutator slid from its base as the pin melted.

  Her first mounting.

  Her father stood behind her, his arms, thick with muscle and blond hair, wrapped around her shoulders as he helped arrange the beetle’s legs just so.

  “You must pin it slightly off-center, Nora. That’s how to keep an insect completely intact.”

  She nodded and slid the pin through its thorax as he kissed the top of her head.

  Every insect, most bound to memories of her father, burned. Her life’s work, her father’s life’s work, turning to ash.

  Nora shrieked and reached for the corner of a case, but the fire crackled and sent out a spray of sparks that nibbled her forearm.

  Lucius, his chin showing hardened determination, turned and walked back toward the house. Nora tore across the yard, and she didn’t look back as she overtook him. She pushed past Alice, who stood in the kitchen with her hands covering her mouth, and raced up the stairs.

  She slammed her bedroom door shut and twisted the lock. “He can’t do this.” Tears clogged her throat. How could he? He knew she saw her father’s collection as her legacy, a thick cord that linked her to him forever.

  Lucius slammed against her door. “Alice!” His shout boomed across the house, and Nora heard Alice join him. “The key.”

  “But, Mr. Ward—”

  “The key if you want to keep your job.”

  Nora gasped and sat in front of the door. She pressed her back against it, her feet braced against the cabinet. The lock clicked, and despite her straining muscles and the desperation making her legs tense, Lucius slid her forward enough that he could enter the room.

  “Please, don’t. I’m so sorry, Lucius. No more.” She threw her arms over the cabinet, pressing her face into its gleaming, lemon-scented top. Please, God, don’t let him.

  But God paid no attention. Lucius flung her away, gathered another four cases, and disappeared.

  Nora sank to the floor, tears dripping from her nose into her lap. Her mother, ineffective in most things and completely useless in this, buried her head beneath Nora’s pillow, her slender shoulders shaking.

  After Lucius had gathered her entire collection and destroyed everything she held dear, Nora made her way outside. The clear sky canopied their yard in stars, and Lucius stood before the dying flames, his hands clasped behind his back.

  She crept through the soft spring grass. It tickled her ankles through her stockings. Such a mundane thing to notice. The charred remains of her cabinet poked from the embers, pointing toward the heavens that housed a God who’d ignored her pleas.

  Beside the fire, a Bombus bimaculatus lay prone in the ash and dirt. Nora sank to her knees and scooped it into her palm, running her thumb over its prickly fur.

  “Little Bumble Bea, come gather with me.”

  “Papa, my name is Nora.”

  “Your middle name is Beatrice, after your grandmother, and she loved walks in the woods. Let’s go find something to honor her by.”

  Nora closed her fingers around the bee and pressed her hand to her cheek. This is all that’s left, Papa.

  Her words clawed past the pain and emptiness swirling in her chest. “I will never forgive you.”

  In a voice so soft it would be mistaken for tenderness coming from another man, Lucius said, “I will not be compared to your father again.” Then he left her alone.

  Nora watched as the dwindling fire licked at the remains of her beautiful collection and said nothing until her mother joined her on the ground. Lydia choked on a cry and touched Nora’s arm, brushing against the burns that throbbed almost as painfully as her heart.

  Nora pulled away and lifted her chin. “Mother, I’m going to India.”

  Chapter

  Eight

  The oxen’s rumps swayed as they pulled the two-wheeled cart, which the driver had called a mattu vandi when he met them at the guesthouse in Madras. Above his head, Nora watched the dirt road wind into a copse of pine trees. All around them the hills dipped and lifted, disappearing into the hazy blue horizon toward the Nilgiri Mountains in the distance.

  Nora raised off the floor a little. She could just spot the large lake thickly fringed by trees. Like jewels strung across a bangle, red-roofed houses crisscrossed the roads leading to and through the Kodaikanal hill station.

  The oxen lowed, and the driver clicked his tongue. When the wheel hit a rock, the cart jostled, and Nora tumbled backward. One of the porters following their conveyance, carrying trunks above his wiry body, shouted at her, and her face filled with heat.

  “You’re going to fall from this cart like you did from the tree on the inlet if you don’t settle into your seat.” Owen pulled his cap from his face and lifted his head.

  “I thought you were asleep.” How he could sleep through the amazing sights and sounds and smells, Nora didn’t know. But he’d spent the majority of the three weeks they’d sailed on the steamship from London to Madras snoozing.

  “How can I sleep when you insist on throwing yourself from the cart every time we round a corner?”

  She dug her elbow into his rib cage. “Sit up and look. It’s incredible.”

  He scooted away from her but straightened in his seat. His gaze arced from right to left, and he nodded with approval. “It’s amazing. Kodaikanal is a beautiful place. And the weather is an improvement over Madras.”

  Nora nodded. She’d never experienced heat like Madras. The moment she had stepped off the ship, a thin layer of gray sweat sprang from her exposed skin. Her wool traveling suit had turned into a wet blanket threatening to suffocate her, and she couldn’t get out of the city fast enough. The farther into the hills they traveled, the more lovely the weather became, though. She didn’t blame the American missionaries and British officials for moving their residences to Kodaikanal. It was even more beautiful than Ithaca, and maybe lovelier than paradise.

  They passed just beneath a pear tree, small black and orange birds flitting among its branches. The driver shouted, and the oxen stopped. Standing, he waved at the three porters behind them, and they shuffled toward him. After a rapid exchange in Tamil, the porters hustled onto a narrow road disappearing into the Bombay Shola—the woods on the eastern side of Kodaikanal Lake.

  The driver looked at Nora and Owen. “I send ahead. They fast.” He sat, and they set off again, following the porters at a more leisurely pace.

  Berries hung heavy from the myrtle trees growing along the road, which had turned into a path the farther they followed it. The trees shaded them, casting shadows over the packed dirt and blanketing everything in a hush that whispered ancient stories. Overripe fruit scented the air with spicy incense, and Nora clasped her hands in her lap, compelled to prayer.

  A flash of iridescent rose caught her eye. Grabbing the poles supporting the fringed shade of the cart, she hoisted herself to her feet. “Stop!”

  The driver smacked at the oxen with a whip, and when she vaulted out of the cart and darted toward a tree, he yelled after her and waved his whip as though wanting to smack her, as well.

  “Nora, what are you doing?” Owen called. He huffed and followed her.

  “Look at that.” She stood a foot from the tree, watching the progress made by a flower chafer beetle. “I’ve never seen one with cephalic horns in person. Only in illustrati
ons.” She reached a finger toward it and stroked its pitted thorax.

  Owen watched her with a smile. “I’m sure we’ll see many more interesting things while we’re here. Come on. Our driver is growing impatient.”

  She looked back at the driver, who glared at them from beneath the white cloth wrapped around his head. With a final glance at the insect, she followed Owen to the cart and allowed him to lift her into it. “Do you think I should collect it?”

  “I’m sure they’re endemic to this area. You’ll have another chance.” Owen’s voice sounded tired, which Nora couldn’t fathom, given how much he’d slept on the journey. “Besides, I’m hungry, and I want to meet the team.”

  As the sun dropped behind the hills, they rolled into a neat camp on the edge of the shola. A ring of white tents circled a clearing, a rough cabin holding court in the center. Four men clustered outside a tent. The porters crouched beside a fire, where an old Indian woman rubbed sand into the bottom of a pan. Nora saw her trunks stacked near the tent closest to the cabin.

  A slim man sporting a feathery mustache and dark circles beneath his eyes separated from the group and sauntered toward them, flicking a cigarette. Owen clambered from the cart and held a hand toward her, which she clutched as she climbed out.

  “I’m Frederic Alford, lead researcher. You must be the two sent by Professor Comstock.” His mustache twitched along with his left eye.

  Owen introduced himself, and then Mr. Alford looked at Nora.

  “Nora Shipley,” she said, releasing Owen’s hand.

  A curse slipped through Mr. Alford’s clenched teeth. “I asked John to send me his two most promising students. He assured me he would.”

  “And he did,” Owen said.

  Mr. Alford stared at Nora and sucked at his cigarette. “What will I do with you? The only woman in camp is Pallavi, and she hardly makes an acceptable chaperone. She goes home at night.”