“My deal with you has a caveat,” Christopher cut in, addressing Will. “You are out of this house. You can have full board and lodging at the barracks. It is more proper.” His meaning was clear as he glanced at Angelika.
Will offered no resistance and pointed in the direction of the orchard. “I am aware that the house is at capacity. I have already been clearing out one of the servants’ cottages up on the hill. I think it will suit me very well.”
“It’s all settled,” Victor said, slapping his hands together so loudly they all jumped. “What a host I am. This is a dinner for the record books.”
“How so?” Lizzie inquired with a laugh as he pulled her onto his lap.
“Jelly has one and a half suitors. Will shall soon reintroduce himself to us. Chris has the look of a bloodhound. Clara is a secret artist. You have founded a secret society. I am a genius. When I find my proof . . .” Victor lost a little of his swagger and looked out at the dark fields surrounding them. He then seemed to shake himself. “Let’s set off the crackers to celebrate.” He lifted his voice and roared, “I say, Mary—”
“Already bringing ’em,” Mary said from the doorway, holding a wooden crate. “But these will wake the baby.”
“Oh, what a shame,” Angelika said with patent relish, and everyone laughed, except Will.
He hung back as they all tipped their faces to the sky, dazzled by the starbursts. Angelika turned around to exclaim to Will, but he was gone, replaced by the silhouette of a sow, skulking along the wall.
“You’ll miss it.” Christopher put his hand on her lower back, facing her forward. His fingertips pressed so warm and firm, she felt a pop-fizz of utter splendor right down to her bones.
She could not deny it.
Chapter Seventeen
Blackthorne Manor was dead quiet.
“Hello?” Angelika called, walking through the house. “Where is everybody?”
It had been almost a week since the night of the secret-society formation under the stars, and as always, Victor was right. Being in a secret society was not very exciting. Nor was being courted by two competing men. She hadn’t seen Christopher since that night, and Will was occupied fixing up his new cottage.
“Angelika Frankenstein, the woman who managed to secure two suitors, only to never see them again,” she said out loud to the portrait of her mother. “Mama, I think they both have forgotten about me.”
Caroline didn’t appear to care.
Desperate for some conversation, Angelika went to Victor’s bedroom, where the door stood open. The poor bed was crooked from the wall. It was a good thing he was giving Lizzie a break from his ardent natural science activities; unless they were somewhere else. Lizzie would surely be with child soon. Angelika felt a terrified pulse run through her whenever she thought of that. She was being left behind.
Wouldn’t it be nice to be so passionately occupied herself, in a lake house as the roses bloomed? What worried her was this: in her nightly erotic dreams, the face of the man changed without her permission.
Angelika halted at the window and watched as Jacob worked Percy on a long lead in a circle, trotting him over ground poles. The animal gleamed, and his ears were pricked forward.
“Everybody is occupied today, even my horse. What would I do with my time if I lived completely alone?” Angelika asked herself out loud. “What would I do if I could do anything?”
Her new awareness of her various privileges told her this: she was already at that decision point. She did not have any strong urge to go out to the laboratory. But she did remember her mother’s fabric and trimmings in the trunk at the foot of her bed.
“Perhaps I will try making Edwin something new to wear,” she decided aloud. It felt like a good, cheery thing to do, and she went off with a new purpose, to find a sharp pair of scissors. “I could pay the tailor to give me lessons to refresh my skills. I could embroider my own quilt.”
Technically, Will was the last project she had worked on, and his comment about mindless needlepoint did echo in her mind, but he was whitewashing the walls of his new address; was his pastime any better? He was pulling away rapidly and had seemed so eager to leave the manor house he’d practically run away. She’d resisted the urge to visit him at least fifty times.
She repeated her mantra aloud now:
“Let him make the effort. I must have an invitation.”
The search for scissors brought her to her father’s study, where she found Sarah, diligently completing her hour of required reading and writing. She sat knock-kneed on a small stool in a dim corner, with a book on her lap and a slate abandoned by her foot. She flinched when Angelika’s shadow fell across the page.
“Hello,” Angelika said to her. “How are your studies?” She didn’t need to wait for Sarah’s reply. The girl looked wretched. “Don’t sit slumped on this stool. Come, sit at the desk. Show me what you are working on.” She wrote out the alphabet, and they read and wrote for an hour.
Angelika felt a corresponding glow in her chest as Sarah worked, and how with each passing minute the girl was growing in confidence to speak and engage. Doing good things for people felt marvelous. Wouldn’t it be a fine thing for Will to walk in during a study session to witness this good deed? He usually only witnessed her dismal failures. She remembered the boardinghouse.
“I could buy you a bag of coal if you like. How much is it?” Angelika patted herself for coins.
“I am warm from my walk back in the evenings; it is no matter.”
Angelika regularly saw Sarah at bedtime and lighting the fires at dawn. She pictured ravines full of bad men. “And how far is this walk?”
This interrogation was causing Sarah to grow increasingly uncomfortable. “I am not complaining.” She got to her feet and backed around the desk. “Mistress, please do not think I am unsuited. I can work harder. My parents need me to work.”
“That’s not what I am leading toward. I am very happy with you.” Angelika could have kicked herself for her carelessness. Sarah was her responsibility now, as long as she was mistress of Blackthorne Manor. “Where’s Mary?”
“She had another one of her turns. But don’t say anything, please. I must go help with lunch.” Sarah rushed out of the room, turning in the direction of the kitchen.
“Someone has made that girl skittish, and I think I know who.” Angelika scowled and began the long trudge upstairs. And trudge she did. By the time she took her last step into the servants’ quarters in the attic of Blackthorne Manor, she was short of breath and wheezed for an embarrassingly long time against the stair rail with her heart drumming in her ears.
“And to think—Mary makes this trip, every day.” Once she could breathe again and the beads of sweat were wiped from her brow, Angelika felt composed enough to discuss Sarah’s living arrangements. She just had to muster some courage.
She had probably ventured up here once as a child, but was brutally chastised by Mary. She could feel the gusts of wind through the dark slate roof. One leap of excitement and Mary would crack her head clean through.
There was only one door, painted a dark maroon, with a silver horseshoe nailed to it. Angelika knocked meekly. There was no answer. One knew instinctively not to go into a sleeping bear’s den, and it took courage to push the door open a crack. The scent of wet wool was released.
“Mary,” Angelika said. “I must speak with you.” There was still no answer. “Are you ill?” She pushed the door open wide and stood there, completely astonished by what she saw.
Mary’s tiny home was how Angelika imagined a mouse might live. Every wall surface was decorated with . . . scraps. The old woman had apparently kept every offcut of fabric, discarded garment, pretty soap paper, or decorated parchment. Similar colors were overlaid and grouped together in a pleasing harmony, and in the dim light from the one dormer window Angelika could appreciate the artistry applied.
“A lifetime of Frankenstein refuse has been repurposed,” Angelika marveled quietly. Had she ever thought to buy her a gift during her trips to Paris? The old woman would have been in raptures over a few yards of silk, or gold fringing. “This is something we have in common. I, too, am passionate about fine fabrics.” She ventured in further, but could not stand at full height. “Is this why her back is so bent?”
A dish of glass marbles was glowing on the windowsill, beneath a drying row of ancient undergarments that Angelika would not see fit to wipe Belladonna’s face with. Doll making must have been her hobby, because she had a row of simple creations made of wooden clothespins, each with a little gown and a painted face that made Angelika smile.
There was no sound or movement deeper within the room. Fearing what she might find, she stepped closer to a pair of curtains and peeked through.
Mary was lying on her back, mouth open wide and skin sagging over her skull, and Angelika’s heart almost leapt out of her throat. But then she made a crackling inhale, and everything was all right again.