Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet No. 17 Read online

  But the Duchess was still unsatisfied.

  Perhaps no one girl could have appeased her. Eldred seemed happy enough in his animal way. His bride was everything that her parents had advertised.

  Yet there was something wrong with Gracinet, of that the Duchess was sure. She puzzled over it as she took her bath, as she ordered new bed hangings, as she fussed over her lap dog. She worried about it while receiving guests and while shortening guest lists afterwards. It nagged at her as she sat in her private workroom and sorted and labeled new specimens of dried porcini and ink-caps obtained from foreign markets. And then, as if one of her more troublesome powders had suddenly dissolved because at last the tea was at just the right temperature, the problem became clear.

  Gracinet was decidedly bookish, her conversations filled with literary allusions. The Duchess overlooked her quoting Soltari over breakfast. She smiled tolerantly when her daughter-in-law declared that Eldred's manner was right out of The Voyage of the Sun.

  But during the annual Hunters’ Banquet, when Gracinet compared her husband to the mysterious Durial of the Brinnelid and Eldred grunted, “Who? Never heard of him,” in front of the most cultured people of Turing, the Duchess decided she'd had enough. No wife of Eldred (who had never met a book he liked) must be allowed to put him in so bad a light. Of course the mother of her future grandsons should be intelligent, the Duchess thought, but she should also have the grace not to show it. From that moment the Duchess was convinced that her daughter-in-law must be stopped from asserting her superiority over them all.

  "My dear child, you look poorly,” said the Duchess to her daughter-in-law some few days later.

  "It's just my monthlies, Your Grace,” said the girl apologetically. The Duchess smiled and tapped her on the arm.

  "I have just the thing. You sit right here and I'll make you a bit of my special tonic."

  "Are you sure? I don't want to put you to any trouble."

  The Duchess assumed her warmest manner. “Now, Gracinet, my dear, there's no need for you to suffer every month. You're my daughter now, and your health is important to me.” And off she bustled, quickly locating the packet she had made up for this occasion, and calling for a maid to heat water for tea.

  Gracinet, being new to Turing, saw no reason to excuse herself from having tea with the Duchess. She was uncomfortably aware that her mother-in-law did not like her. Why, she could not fathom; and her husband was no help on that score, for when Gracinet had asked him how she might have displeased the Duchess, he'd said, “Gracious! Don't get on her bad side, whatever you do! That's all I need!"

  She was finding this wife business both difficult and rather boring. Her husband had little use for her outside of the bedroom. His mother ran the household and brooked no interference. The Duchess's ladies were older women who loved to gossip and shake their heads over the follies of the young. Noting their mistress's aversion to her daughter-in-law, they followed Gracinet with pitying eyes but did not befriend her. It was unfortunate that she had no little hobby, such as that of her mother-in-law, to amuse her. Gracinet supposed that things would change when she became a mother, and produced children of her own to care for.

  In the meantime, she read, embroidered, and offered literary conversation at mealtimes.

  The Duchess returned with a steaming cup.

  "Drink it up directly, my dear,” she said. “Monthly tea is best drunk hot."

  Gracinet obediently complied. It was mild-tasting, faintly bitter, with a woodnut flavor. “I'm beginning to feel better already,” she murmured as the warmth eased her aching belly and thighs.

  "Let's keep this between ourselves, dear,” the Duchess said. “This tea is terribly expensive, and I don't want every woman in Turing coming to me for a cup each month."

  Gracinet promised. “You're so kind to me,” she said.

  The Duchess merely stroked her daughter-in-law's forehead and took the empty cup away.

  From that point on, Gracinet gratefully drank the monthly tea provided by the Duchess. She suffered no more monthly discomforts: no cramps, or bloating, or exhaustion, or irritability. But it was around this time that she began to feel more isolated than ever. For whatever she said, whatever opinion she offered, she was bound to be either contradicted or ignored.

  If Gracinet were to say, “My, it's cool out today,” someone would be sure to glare at her and snap, “It's unseasonably warm."

  If she said, “Can I help with that?” the reply was invariably, “I doubt it."

  If someone's spectacles were missing, and Gracinet said, “I saw them on the hall table,” she was simply ignored.

  Not only the intimates of the ducal circle responded to her in this way. Servants scorned her and refused her requests. Strangers, even, found whatever Gracinet said to be worthless. The only kindness in her life was that her mother-in-law unfailingly prepared, month-in and month-out, that cup of monthly tea.

  As a result, Gracinet grew shy and anxious, saying less and less. She wished she could not mind so much, being dismissed and cut down at every turn. She wished she were brave. She wished that she could shout out a blazing fury of words that could not be ignored. Was there anything she could say that wouldn't be wrong? Any phrase, any formula that was safe?

  Eventually silence became her only defense. If she said nothing, she would not be cut down. Tall and pale, Gracinet receded to the background of every gathering. She withdrew from public life. She was terrified of becoming pregnant and raising children who would treat her every utterance as wrong. Her husband installed a mistress at the other end of the house; Gracinet dared not protest.

  The Duchess was pleased with the results of her experiment. The bearded toadstool, the active ingredient in her monthly teas, fascinated her with its ability to provoke unpleasant responses to Gracinet's every word. There was a complex mechanism at work here, well worth study. She had never before worked with a mushroom that affected the interaction between a subject and those around her. Despite her foreknowledge, the Duchess saw her own reactions affected. Even when she could see the spectacles on the hall table, she felt a revulsion at hearing the facts stated by Gracinet. It was a relief when the girl began to keep her mouth shut.

  True, if the girl never spoke it was impossible to measure the effects of different dosages. But there were other fungi to study. She had recently heard of the tawny ink-cap, which, when well-rotted and tawny no more, yielded an ink that compelled the writer to record only the truth. She longed to test it on her steward, whom she suspected of amassing a small fortune at her expense. She readied a page in her journal to be devoted to the steward's case. Science would not be denied.

  For Gracinet, the silent days and months piled one upon the other, adding up to silent years. Over time, she felt insubstantial, corroded by cowardice, worm-eaten by words she dared not express. Even then she found no dignity in keeping silent, for she became a figure of derision—her speechlessness made her an easy target. Some equated her silence with stupidity.

  The Duchess made no effort to correct this notion.

  Gracinet sought consolation in books. The library became her refuge. When she was quite sure she was alone, she read aloud to hear the sound of her own voice, even if she limited herself to others’ words. She found that certain forms of literature lent itself to this kind of treatment. She read aloud Bakinjar's Sermons, Linnek's Letters from Doriven Prison, and the epic Tale of the Abbess of Pim. On her daily solitary walks she whispered the Blackwater Sonnets. She gave voice to Soltari's Ice Comedies and to the Tragedies of Irsan the Younger, trying out different accents on different parts. Anyone overhearing her would conclude that she was quite mad, but the reverse was true: Gracinet was fighting to stay sane.

  * * * *

  One hot and humid afternoon while in the library, Gracinet found the obscure book for which she had been looking, and settled on the floor by the bookcase to read. That is why, when they entered the room, the two gentlemen did not see her. She remained as sh
e was, hidden in the shadow of the jutting bookcase, hoping that they would quickly select a book and leave; but, to her horror, one stationed himself on the sofa in the middle of the room while the other roamed about, taking down likely books, flipping the pages, putting them back in the wrong places.

  "Are you looking for anything in particular?” said the voice from the sofa.

  "Not really. Just something to amuse me while I'm here.” He snapped another book closed. Gracinet imagined the cloud of dust that resulted: the library shelves were seldom attended to. Sure enough, the man sneezed.

  "Don't you find the people amusing enough?"

  "What, His Grace and that lot? Hardly. This is probably the dullest house in Turing."

  "Oh, come now,” said the voice from the sofa, “it's not all that bad. The Duke's lively enough, once you get him out of the house and away from his mother. Not a bad sort, really."

  "I met his mistress. Gives herself airs. I'm surprised he never married."

  "Oh, weren't you introduced to the wife? I guess they didn't trot her out for the occasion. Rumor has it she's an idiot. I couldn't tell, myself. They say her family covered it up until after the wedding.” Gracinet felt her stomach knot. She knew what was said about her.

  "And the old lady stood for it? I shouldn't think she was the kind to allow that sort of thing."

  "Ah, the Dowager Duchess must have had her reasons. She always does. Notice how nothing happens around here without her say-so? How the Duke defers to his mother in the least little thing? If the Duchess said ‘Marry this stick,’ you can bet he'd have done it."

  "But why?"

  The restless fellow joined his companion on the sofa, who lowered his voice. “The Dowager keeps ‘em all in line. The old Duke, too, before he died."

  "I don't quite follow your meaning."

  "Well, I daren't be more plain. Just, whatever you do, don't have tea with the old lady."

  "Are you serious?"

  "On my life, I am. There've been some mighty peculiar tea-parties in this house. She's famous for them. Notorious is more like it. Tea with unusual ingredients, if you know what I mean. If you're invited to one, make an excuse, invent a dead grandmother, a summons to the king, anything at all, and get out."

  "Why has no one put a stop to it?"

  "Well, nothing's proven. Perhaps that footman who thought he became a snake after sundown was already going mad. It happens. And that maid with the three bouts of temporary blindness for no known reason? Coincidence. Maybe the story about the two stable boys is just an ugly rumor. But I'd be careful, just the same."

  His companion laughed nervously. “Indeed I will."

  Gracinet had heard enough. She rose and stepped out from behind the sheltering bookcase, startling the two men on the sofa considerably. They gaped as she swept by them without a word. Whatever would they make of her now? At any rate, she supposed, they were unlikely to stay for dinner.

  She had to think. Her feet took her down the hall, down the long staircase, and out onto a familiar garden path, without her conscious mind registering the fact. She had to tease apart the facts, like the matted hair of the Duchess's odious little lap dog. Gracinet had no doubt that the monthly tea did more than ease cramps. What a fool she'd been! The maid, apparently, was not the only one who had been blind. If only she'd listened, if only she'd observed! There were years of onlys weighing upon her.

  Her retreat, her aloofness, had been her undoing. And she had collaborated in her own silencing. She had hidden; she had cringed.

  "It's not me,” she said aloud, and realized that she was alone in the shady grove past the kitchen gardens. It was cooler here, and the young trees around her seemed like companions. “It's not me,” she told them. “It was her. All along it was her.” Gracinet found she was shaking, and tears streaked her face. The trees stood silent and still in the face of her storm. “'Drink it up, dear.’ Oh, I could choke her on her own brew!” Grief for the lost years surged up and overwhelmed her; Gracinet sank to the ground and wept.

  When the tears had stopped and her face felt like a wrung-out washcloth, she bent to clean the twigs and leaves clinging to her dress, and considered what to do next. I'll pretend to drink the tea, she thought, and see if its effects wear off. But I won't let the Duchess know. It will be better if she thinks I am not a threat. Then perhaps I can find a way to stop her.

  She glanced at the house, bright in the sunlight beyond the trees, with its many windows blindly glittering. Oh, yes, thought Gracinet. She must be stopped.

  * * * *

  She didn't know just when the feeling began, but the Duchess sensed, somehow, that she was being watched. A footfall in an empty corridor, an open window she was sure she'd latched, an unlocked door ... Perhaps it was just age, she thought. Perhaps she was forgetting things. Perhaps there was a mushroom out there that would sharpen memory. She would have to check her notes.

  It was an unproductive time for her researches. A recent shipment of rare specimens had been water-damaged—slimy with mold and completely unusable. Her agent had apologized profusely. And her new steward had inexplicably lost the latest shipment. Drat the man! She was surrounded by incompetents. These delays would retard her investigation into a truffle that caused people—even those with the most perfect pitch—to sing off-key. It quite spoilt her temper.

  Even her daughter-in-law seemed different, though she was as silent and retiring as ever. But the last time she'd brought Gracinet her monthly tea, she'd noticed an almost imperceptible nod from one of her ladies. Later one of them touched Gracinet on the shoulder when they thought she wasn't looking. And Gracinet had smiled. She wondered briefly if her daughter-in-law was quite as isolated as she'd seemed. But the Duchess shrugged off her misgivings.

  One morning soon afterwards, she discovered that someone had been in her workroom. The polished brass scales, a gift from her late husband, were out of balance. Her notes, though neatly stacked, were out of order. And, at her feet, a single bearded toadstool lay delicately on the carpet. She picked it up and held it in her cupped palm as if it were the head of a newborn infant; and, examining it, considered her options.

  That afternoon, the Dowager Duchess found herself alone in her parlor with Gracinet. While she caught up on some correspondence, she glanced every now and then at the younger woman reading by the window. Her daughter-in-law had changed in some way, although the Duchess could not put a finger on how, exactly. A watchfulness, a sense that she waited for something. Even her posture seemed straighter.

  The Duchess approached Gracinet and looked over her shoulder at the book she was reading. It was the Abbess of Pim, the scene where the foster-son imagined burning down the abbey.

  "...beams burned away, and charred stone left monument to bitter days.

  A hundred years of wind and rain could not scour this wretched place,"

  she read aloud. “I feel that way about this old house sometimes, with all its old memories and misdeeds. What a dreadful thought! Do you ever feel that way?"

  "Sometimes,” said Gracinet without thinking; then her eyes widened, and she turned to face the Duchess.

  Not only had her daughter-in-law spoken, but the Duchess felt no revulsion, no urge to contradict. In that moment the she knew Gracinet had stopped drinking the tea. Her scientist's mind wondered how long it had taken for the effects to wear off, and if there would be any residual symptoms. They stared at each other, each seeing the other clearly for the first time: the pale-haired disciple of science, and the newly determined daughter of literature—each surprised to find the other unmasked at last.

  Gracinet tucked her chin toward her chest, like a horse about to throw its weight into pulling a heavy load, and continued the quote:

  "But I and all my sons to come through all the days and nights unnumbered will remember wrongs done here, here in the broken house of Pim, though it sink beneath the waves and come to rest in dark waters the silent home of scuttling crabs..."

  "Well, then�
�” the Duchess began, but was interrupted by the entrance of a group of ladies and gentlemen, guests of Duke Eldred, who had come to the parlor to set up a card party. Frustrated, the Duchess was forced to play hostess; Gracinet left unnoticed in the commotion.

  As soon as she could manage it, the Duchess took her son aside. “Really, your wife is getting more and more strange,” she said. “Her behavior has become highly unsuitable. I must talk to you about her."

  "After dinner, mother,” said the Duke, pulling out his pocket watch and consulting it.

  "But—” He snapped the gold watch case closed so abruptly she jumped.

  "Our guests, mother, require my attention, and yours. Now is not the time. Worley, man! Let me introduce you to my mother.... “And the Duchess had no choice but to comply with a smile.

  * * * *

  The bell rang for dinner. Duke Eldred offered his arm to the Dowager Duchess, and together they led their guests to the dining room. A pair of footmen opened the double doors wide, and the company filed in.

  Beneath their startled gazes a riot of mushrooms spilled out of bowls set among the elegant place settings and along the sideboard. They filled crystal glasses, swam in glass compotes, swarmed over silver dishes, overran great platters, tumbled over salad plates and were piled high in a great vase like froth. The elegant dinner service hosted colonies of spotted toadstools and ink-caps of many colors, tiny button mushrooms and the giant termite heap mushroom, puffballs of many sizes, stinkhorns, death caps, and porcini, oyster mushrooms and morels, pink trumpets, white truffles, and black ones, too. The Duchess knew many of them—from the arched earthstar to the bird's nest fungus, the elfin saddle to the slippery jack—as well as she knew the shape of her own hands. They were like cities accumulated by a traveler, marks of where she'd been and the journey yet to come.