Ironskin

Charlie steps in front of Mother and Helen, pushes them back with a pale, dirty hand. Helen is thirteen and useless when faced with this terror. She wrings her hands in her dirty apron and holds Mother tight. Mother is brave, brave enough to let Charlie go forth with the men, even though he is all of twelve.

 

I am not as brave as Mother, Jane thinks. Not brave enough to stay behind. She picks up her stave of iron and follows her baby brother onto the field where the yellow cowslips poke through the black turf.

 

“Jane!” Mother shouts, but she does not turn. “Jane!”

 

*

 

Jane thrashed herself awake. It was cold pale dawn, and Jane’s buoyant hopes for Dorie were fading to despair. The days were all the same now, and Jane went through the morning rituals by rote: locking Dorie into the gloves, helping the listless girl dress and eat and play with her toys.

 

It felt ridiculous to complain about no tantrums … but Dorie wasn’t doing anything at all. Jane had expected the girl’s stubbornness and energy to sustain her through learning this new skill, but now?

 

Jane watched Dorie color on a picture of a rabbit with blue chalk. The girl lay on her stomach, her cheek on her left arm as if she were too tired to lift her head. Her right arm scribbled randomly over the rabbit, but she was using her hand, so though Jane despaired, she did not say a word. Just sat and tried to quench the impotent rage inside her that wanted to jump on Dorie for the tiniest infraction.

 

She tried to turn her thoughts aside from her failure, but that just turned them back to Mr. Rochart, and the frustration of not seeing someone when you wanted to change what you said, wanted to rewrite the whole scene. No, that change of subject didn’t help one bit.

 

Jane breathed in and out on counts of three as she watched Dorie’s gloved hand creep back and forth across the page in short jerks. It was a good thing Jane had the mask on, or Dorie would feel her rage no matter how hard she tried to pack it down inside her where it belonged. What was it that Poule had said? Maybe the calming thoughts really did help? Jane breathed deeply, imagining water filling the mask, the rage steaming off and dissipating.

 

Dorie’s hand moved slower and slower and Jane reached out and gently touched her elbow. “Why don’t you sit up and try a new color?” she said. “Or a new page?”

 

Dorie’s fist opened and dropped the blue chalk. Jane placed a piece of yellow chalk on her mesh-gloved palm. Dorie did not look at the chalk, but just started scribbling on the page again.

 

“Do you want to color the ears yellow?” suggested Jane.

 

Dorie looked at the picture, moved her hand over the ears, and started her slow scribbles again. Her eyes closed as if they were too heavy to keep open.

 

Jane sighed, not understanding why Dorie wouldn’t at least want to do a good job. She liked pretty things—surely that would be a motivator for making the page pretty. Girls this age usually didn’t have to be enticed to attempt to stay in the lines, even if they didn’t always make it.

 

Of course, Dorie wasn’t like any other girls. Jane knew that.

 

But she watched Dorie’s limp curls and slow-moving gloved hand and wondered if they were making any progress at all.

 

*

 

“The old servants’ entrance got blown off with the north wing,” Cook said. “Like as not we’ll get the temporary staff wandering in at the front door today. You’ll be knowing where the side door is to show them if you see them? And the passageway to the kitchen? Little matter for today, but there’ll be none of this front door waltzing-in when the guests are here, I can tell you. Sure and I’m the closest thing Rochart has to a housekeeper, but I won’t see him humiliated for all of that.”

 

Jane sat huddled in the painted white chair in the kitchen, absorbing the unwanted news that there was going to be a house party in two days. “Extra staff,” she repeated.

 

“Yes, to whip this house into something not an embarrassment and to be serving the guests. We’ll be having to open up at least two bedrooms in the damaged wing and maybe three. As well as extra rooms belowstairs for those we’re hiring and the staff of the guests. Still, better pence coming in than pence going out, though why potential clients have to be romanced for a week and not just an eve, I’ll never know. Especially when that puts them here over May Day, and won’t they just be expecting a grand celebration, as if those city folk had anything to do with the ending of the war.…”

 

Dorie had just gone down for her nap, and her naps were longer these days, lasting from just after lunch to near dinner. Jane was torn between worry for the girl and the thought that Dorie was merely tired from the extra physical and mental exertion. Still, if this strange listlessness continued, she would have to go back up to the studio and confess that she was failing. The thought was not appealing.

 

“Is Mr. Rochart busy this afternoon, do you know?” she said.

 

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