Jane looked up to see Helen’s new husband shaking his head at them. Handkerchief and Shoes cackled at the intrusion, while Pince-Nez hummed softly.
“But each stolen child is given a gift,” said Pince-Nez dreamily. Her face softened, and for a moment Jane saw a glimpse of the beauty she might have been. “A gift to take back to the human world, years and years later.…”
“Where’s yours, you bat?” said Shoes. “In your knickers?”
Handkerchief roared with laughter.
“Bah—enough!” said Alistair. “Come, Jane, you mustn’t become one of these harpies already. Take a turn with me.” He took her hand and pulled her up and into the children’s dance.
There was a moment of shock as she realized this was the second man to deliberately touch her this month. Though Mr. Rochart had not needed the attraction of a clingy silver dress to touch her shoulder (twice), press her hand.
Jane did not find Alistair Huntingdon handsome. She was not sure that Helen truly did, either, despite him having the features that Helen had often designated as male beauty. His hair was curled, his nose straight, his teeth white and present, but Jane did not find the arrangement of it all pleasing. More to the point, his ruddy face lacked character—both in the moral sense and in the individual sense. But perhaps she was biased from having only seen the face of one man for the last month, a man with a million oddities inscribed on the map of his face, a man who had lived. The comparison—the fact that she was thinking about this comparison—made her pause.
Alistair was looking at the silver curves of her dress, not at the iron behind her veil. Jane could not decide if that was a blessing or not. But then he smiled politely and raised his gaze to somewhere around her ear. Nodded at the old fiddler, who started one of the popular waltzes—“The Merry Mistress,” Jane thought. Though the family she worked for would never have approved, Helen had snuck off to the ten-penny ballroom (girls no charge) more than once, dragging Jane along as chaperone. Jane did enjoy the music. She would sit on a white-painted metal chair, sip a sugared coffee, watch her sister flit and flirt.
Now Alistair’s free hand took her waist and he led her smoothly into the steps of a waltz. “Helen was very glad you came,” he said. “She would hardly talk of anything else. You must come back at holidays.”
“That is very kind of you,” said Jane. She had waltzed before the war; she was pleased to find the movements still in her feet. She did not like the touch of Alistair’s hand on her waist—it seemed too warm, too insistent—but she smiled at her sister’s husband and tried not to think about it.
“We don’t want you to give up on life,” he said. “No sitting around with the old biddies anymore.”
“I was enjoying watching the children dance,” said Jane.
“You are easily amused,” he said, laughing.
Alistair seemed harmless enough. His foibles were evident from her short study of him—he was indolent, too fond of a life of pleasure and drink. From the way he’d avoided the war he must be a coward, though it wasn’t likely that his inability to fight would affect his marriage. Helen herself had admitted these faults—stated in the same breath that she was sure he would mend them, once he was settled—but counted herself lucky for more reasons than just his wealth and relative charm. So many men of their age had been lost in the Great War. Alistair might be a decade older, his birth might be no better than the Eliot girls’ own. And yet, for the penniless governess to land him was a coup.
But was it worth it?
“… and the roses alone cost—oh, but you would be shocked. And then that man couldn’t tell the difference between ‘open’ and ‘overblown.’ It’s the difference between a woman who wields her assets wisely and a common … well. Not a polite word, but he understood the analogy once I made myself clear.”
Jane focused her wandering mind on Alistair’s boasts. “But surely Helen would’ve been satisfied with something simpler. She is not greedy.”
Alistair laughed. “I told your sister that your affliction had made you innocent. You have no idea of what is required to maintain one’s position.” He leaned in closer to the good side of her face, his breath hot on her ear. “They are ravening wolves, my dear. Each harpy ready to tear me and my bride down. This is the world we must live in. Your sister and I must be … perfect.”
“And you fear you are not?”
“I see you smirk, but your cynicism is truly na?veté, Jane! The common folk weary of the endless sacrifice yet to be made after the war. They must be shown, and indeed, they thrive on our doings. We are the morale of a lost generation, and as such, my cravat must be sharp and new, my plain yellow hair curled and set. My home must be stocked with the latest technology even as it is invented—did you mark the gaslight? And yet there are so few men left, everything is easier for me, you understand.”