A Great and Terrible Beauty
Page 31
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
WE’VE BEEN GIVEN THE DAY TO REST AND REFLECT, and so Mademoiselle LeFarge is surprised to see me at her classroom door. She’s positively flummoxed when I hand her five neat, orderly pages of French translation.
“This is all quite good,” she announces after careful inspection of my work. There’s a smart new vase of flowers on her desk where the tintype of Reginald used to sit. She stacks the papers and offers them to me with her corrections noted in ink.
“Good work, Mademoiselle Doyle. I believe there’s hope for you yet. Dans chaque fin, il y a un début.”
My translation skills aren’t quite up to this one. “In the end, also, is a debutante?”
Mademoiselle LeFarge shakes her head. “In every end, there is also a beginning.”
The rain has stopped but it has ushered in a bracing autumn wind that pinkens my cheeks till they look freshly slapped. October blooms in bursts of red and gold. Soon the trees will lose their cover and the world will be laid bare.
Miles from here, Pippa lies in her coffin, fading into memory, a bit of Spence legend to be whispered late at night. Did you hear about the girl who died in that very room down the hall? I do not know if she regrets her choice. I like to think of her as I saw her last, walking confidently toward something I shan’t see, I hope, for a very long time.
In a world beyond this one, that river goes on singing sweetly, enchanting us with what we want to hear, shaping what we need to see in order to keep going. In those waters, all disappointments are forgotten, our mistakes forgiven. Gazing into them, we see a strong father. A loving mother. Warm rooms where we are sheltered, adored, wanted. And the uncertainty of our futures is nothing more than the fog of breath on a windowpane.
The ground is still wet. The heels of my boots sink in, making it a rough walk, but I see the wagons of the Gypsy camp just through the trees ahead. I’m on my way to deliver a gift. Or a bribe. I’m not entirely certain of my motives just yet. The point is that I am on my way.
The package is wrapped in today’s newspaper. I leave it outside Kartik’s tent and slip back into the trees to wait. He comes soon enough, carrying some squab on a string. He notices the package and spins around to see who might have left it. Seeing no one, he opens it and finds my father’s gleaming cricket bat. I don’t know if he’ll accept it or find it insulting.
His hands run along the wood in a caress. A hint of a smile tugs at the corners of what I have come to realize is a most beautiful mouth. He picks a crab apple from the ground and tosses it into the air. The bat makes a gratifying crack as it sends the apple soaring, flying high on a lucky combination of direction and possibility. Kartik lets out a small yelp of satisfaction, and swats at the sky. I sit and watch him hit the apples, again and again, until I’m left with two thoughts: Cricket is a wonderfully forgiving game, and Next time, I must get him a ball.
Forgiveness. The frail beauty of the word takes root in me as I make my way back through the woods, past the caves and the ravine, where the earth has accepted the flesh of the deer, leaving nothing but a bone or two, peeking above Kartik’s makeshift grave, to prove that any of this ever happened. Soon, they’ll be gone too.
But forgiveness . . . I’ll hold on to that fragile slice of hope and keep it close, remembering that in each of us lie good and bad, light and dark, art and pain, choice and regret, cruelty and sacrifice. We’re each of us our own chiaroscuro, our own bit of illusion fighting to emerge into something solid, something real. We’ve got to forgive ourselves that. I must remember to forgive myself. Because there’s an awful lot of gray to work with. No one can live in the light all the time.
The wind shifts, bringing with it the smell of roses, strong and sweet. Across the ravine, I see her in the dry crackle of leaves. A deer. She spies me and bolts through the trees. I run after her, not really giving chase. I’m running because I can, because I must.
Because I want to see how far I can go before I have to stop.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
LIBBA BRAY is the author of five and a half plays, a few short stories and essays, and lots of things that, in her words, “should never see the light of day.” She has worked as a waitress, a nanny, a burrito roller, a publishing plebe, and an advertising copywriter. Raised in Texas on a steady diet of British humor, underground bands, suburban dysfunction, and bad TV, she somehow managed to escape with only a few seriously deranged haircuts. She lives in Brooklyn, New York, with her husband and son.
Published by
Delacorte Press
an imprint of
Random House Children’s Books
a division of Random House, Inc.
New York
Text copyright © 2003 by Libba Bray
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Bray, Libba.
A great and terrible beauty / Libba Bray.
p. cm.
Summary: After the suspicious death of her mother in 1895, sixteen-year-old Gemma returns to England, after many years in India, to attend a finishing school where she becomes aware of her magical powers and ability to see into the spirit world.
[1. Magic—Fiction. 2. Supernatural—Fiction. 3. Boarding schools—Fiction. 4. Schools—
Fiction. 5. England—Social life and customs—19th century—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.B7386Gr 2004
[Fic]—dc21
2003009472
eISBN: 978-0-375-89049-9
v3.0