“They are in the kitchen. Drying, I believe,” said Fairweller.
Azalea inched her way so she could see a sliver of the entrance hall below. Fairweller kept his head down, focusing on pulling on his black gloves. He had a rosy bruise on his face.
“We were right, then!” said Flora. “They were being washed.”
“They were being dyed,” said Fairweller. “For mourning. Good day.”
Fairweller left before the girls could ask him any more questions. Instead, after the door had slammed, the girls turned to Azalea, their faces puzzled.
“Morning?” said Flora.
“Oh,” said Azalea. She had forgotten about this part of a person’s death: the isolation, the clocks, the clothes, the rules, the entire year of it—and the silence. Now, it came back, a heavy weight. She exhaled slowly. “Mourning.”
Delphinium screamed when they found their dresses, hanging from lines in the kitchen like black shadows. Every stitch of cloth they owned had been dyed unrecognizable.
“It’s just a color,” said Azalea soothingly as Delphinium cried over her favorite rose-colored dress, now black. “It’s all right.” She helped unpin the dry dresses and laid them neatly on the servants’ table, a pile for each girl. Some were still in the large washtub, billowing night in black dye.
Azalea had the girls dress right there in the kitchen, over bowls of hot porridge. And while they dressed, Azalea told them everything she knew about mourning.
She told them about how balls and promenades and courting weren’t allowed, and how they were to keep inside, not even allowed out to the gardens. She told them that the windows would be draped for a year and that they would have to get used to wearing black for a year, too. And she told them about the clocks, how they would be stopped at the time of the person’s death, and that music wasn’t allowed, either.
It took a while. When she had finished, the girls all looked like miserable, drooping black blossoms.
“Is d-dancing allowed?” Clover stammered.
Azalea bit her lip and turned her head away.
“Oooh!” Delphinium lifted a dainty hand to her forehead, closed her eyes, and fell back onto the wood floor. Thum-thump thump.
She lay on the floor, unmoving.
“Oh, get up, Delphi,” said Bramble. “When people really faint, they bang their heads up on the floor. It’s very unromantic.”
“A year!” Delphinium cried. “We’re not allowed to dance for a year! I’ll die without dancing!”
“M-Mother would let us dance,” Ivy peeped.
At the mention of Mother, the girls’ composure, frayed already, fell apart, and Azalea found herself in the midst of sobbing girls.
Azalea wanted to sob, too. She hated this feeling, one of dancing a step she did not know, confused, bumbling over her dance slippers to get it right. It happened so rarely—she knew every dance—that fumbling through the movement frightened her.
This was a thousand times worse. The palace, known for its tall, mullioned windows that dappled light through the halls, would be muffled with drapery, turning day into pitch-black. They would be kept inside, trapped in a cage like those peeping birds at the wire-and-bottle shop on Hampton Street, and only allowed out on Royal Business…which would not be often. If Mother were here—
Azalea’s throat grew tight, and her chin trembled. She hated herself for it. Mother would have known what to do. Biting her lip to keep from crying, Azalea pulled out Mother’s handkerchief. Silver shone in the light, followed by that peculiar tingling sensation. Azalea’s throat untightened, and she was able, almost, to smile. There was something to that handkerchief. Azalea did not know what.
But Azalea did know one thing: She was a fast learner. When she fumbled through a dance step, it was only a moment before she caught the rhythm and glided back into the motions. If Mother could smooth things over, then she could, too.
Azalea helped Delphinium up from the floor, and lifted five-year-old Ivy to the table, spooning her a bit of extra porridge from the pot. Ivy had an insatiable appetite. Azalea gently wiped faces and soothed their cries.
“Hush,” said Azalea. “It’s only for a year. I’ll watch out for you all. I promise.”
The next evening, the girls set the table in the dining room, their moods as dark as the drapery. The dining room was a fine old space, with a long table, cabinets, and arched doorways flanked with curtains. The hearth in the great fireplace cast a light over their sullen faces, not really making up for the muffled window light. They heard the tower chime seven, the silverware clinking against the plates.
“They can’t stop that clock,” said Delphinium, raising her pointed chin. “You’d need an actual clocksmith for that.”