reversed, so that b looked like d.
“How very peculiar!” I exclaimed. Getting up, I held the diary open towards a standing mirror, in which I could easily read,
most frightfully cold. I am wearing no less than nine petticoats
As a cipher, this backwards writing was hardly worth bothering with.
“Why in the world did she write that way?”
“I don’t know, ma’am.”
“Did you ever see her do it?”
“No, ma’am.”
Like any loyal servant, of course she had seen nothing.
There were eight diaries, all of them in the same odd leftward writing, unchanged over a period of years. Settling upon the most recent diary, the only one with blank pages at the – the beginning, actually, as the diaries had been written from the back towards the front – I turned to the last (first) entry, then held it to the mirror and read.
January 2 – I am so dreadfully bored. How can anyone talk of New Year’s Resolutions when no amount of good intentions seems ever to alleviate the suffering in this world? And how can they chatter of perfumes and parties, flounces and necklines and dancing slippers when the streets swarm with orphans and pauper children who have barely even rags to wear, nor shoes for their feet? While their fathers cannot find work and their mothers labour sixteen hours a day in the mills? And while I, in order to be presented to the Queen, practice walking backwards without tripping over a nine-foot train? Mine is a life without any worthwhile purpose, without value, empty of meaning.
Hardly the sentiments of a young woman about to elope with her secret lover!
With a mind full of conjecture I left Lily to replace items in the desk while I crossed the room to see what Lady Cecily had been drawing lately.
On her easel I found an undersized and unfinished pastel of a country landscape, already turning into a shapeless mass of candy-coloured smudge. Atop her art stand lay her pastels.
Broken. Pink, peach, pale green, aqua, sky blue, lavender, powdery brown, all broken to jagged bits.
Most interesting.
I pulled open the drawer of her art stand, finding about what one might expect: pencils, eraser, India ink and art pens still in their box, and – not in a box – sticks of charcoal. Stubs, rather, with blunted tips, dirtying all the contents of the drawer with black powder the way soot besmirched London city. Quantities of charcoal lay everywhere.
Worn to nubbins.
I blinked at the pastel daub on the easel, not a hint of black in it anywhere.
I looked around at the walls and found them innocent of any dark artwork.
After closing the drawer, I crossed to where the maid was tidying the desk. “Lily, where are Lady Cecily’s charcoal drawings?”
“Charcoal?” Moving the jade items of the lady’s writing set from one end of the desk to the other, she would not look at me. “I am sure I have no idea, ma’am.”
I was equally sure that she did, but there was no use saying so. Instead, imagining where I would put artwork if I didn’t want anyone to see it, I went back into the lady’s bedchamber and started peering behind furniture.
In back of both the dresser and the wardrobe I could see sheets of heavy paper, quite large, leaning against the wall.
“Lily,” I called, “you’d better help me get these out, unless you want me to smear them.”
Silently, sullenly, the girl came and helped me push the furniture a few inches away from the walls, so that I could reach behind. Taking the papers by their edges, I carried them to the other room in order to look at them in the light.
One by one I placed them upon the easel, where their size dwarfed that of the pastel.
Not only their size. Their – I scarcely know how to explain. Their temper, one might call it. Nothing could have been more unlike the pinky-bluey blurs that had been framed to hang on the walls. These charcoal drawings were rendered in heavy black strokes, knife-sharp and direct, shockingly unsoftened by any shading.
But
“How very peculiar!” I exclaimed. Getting up, I held the diary open towards a standing mirror, in which I could easily read,
most frightfully cold. I am wearing no less than nine petticoats
As a cipher, this backwards writing was hardly worth bothering with.
“Why in the world did she write that way?”
“I don’t know, ma’am.”
“Did you ever see her do it?”
“No, ma’am.”
Like any loyal servant, of course she had seen nothing.
There were eight diaries, all of them in the same odd leftward writing, unchanged over a period of years. Settling upon the most recent diary, the only one with blank pages at the – the beginning, actually, as the diaries had been written from the back towards the front – I turned to the last (first) entry, then held it to the mirror and read.
January 2 – I am so dreadfully bored. How can anyone talk of New Year’s Resolutions when no amount of good intentions seems ever to alleviate the suffering in this world? And how can they chatter of perfumes and parties, flounces and necklines and dancing slippers when the streets swarm with orphans and pauper children who have barely even rags to wear, nor shoes for their feet? While their fathers cannot find work and their mothers labour sixteen hours a day in the mills? And while I, in order to be presented to the Queen, practice walking backwards without tripping over a nine-foot train? Mine is a life without any worthwhile purpose, without value, empty of meaning.
Hardly the sentiments of a young woman about to elope with her secret lover!
With a mind full of conjecture I left Lily to replace items in the desk while I crossed the room to see what Lady Cecily had been drawing lately.
On her easel I found an undersized and unfinished pastel of a country landscape, already turning into a shapeless mass of candy-coloured smudge. Atop her art stand lay her pastels.
Broken. Pink, peach, pale green, aqua, sky blue, lavender, powdery brown, all broken to jagged bits.
Most interesting.
I pulled open the drawer of her art stand, finding about what one might expect: pencils, eraser, India ink and art pens still in their box, and – not in a box – sticks of charcoal. Stubs, rather, with blunted tips, dirtying all the contents of the drawer with black powder the way soot besmirched London city. Quantities of charcoal lay everywhere.
Worn to nubbins.
I blinked at the pastel daub on the easel, not a hint of black in it anywhere.
I looked around at the walls and found them innocent of any dark artwork.
After closing the drawer, I crossed to where the maid was tidying the desk. “Lily, where are Lady Cecily’s charcoal drawings?”
“Charcoal?” Moving the jade items of the lady’s writing set from one end of the desk to the other, she would not look at me. “I am sure I have no idea, ma’am.”
I was equally sure that she did, but there was no use saying so. Instead, imagining where I would put artwork if I didn’t want anyone to see it, I went back into the lady’s bedchamber and started peering behind furniture.
In back of both the dresser and the wardrobe I could see sheets of heavy paper, quite large, leaning against the wall.
“Lily,” I called, “you’d better help me get these out, unless you want me to smear them.”
Silently, sullenly, the girl came and helped me push the furniture a few inches away from the walls, so that I could reach behind. Taking the papers by their edges, I carried them to the other room in order to look at them in the light.
One by one I placed them upon the easel, where their size dwarfed that of the pastel.
Not only their size. Their – I scarcely know how to explain. Their temper, one might call it. Nothing could have been more unlike the pinky-bluey blurs that had been framed to hang on the walls. These charcoal drawings were rendered in heavy black strokes, knife-sharp and direct, shockingly unsoftened by any shading.
But
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