The Sweet Far Thing

by Libba Bray

  “Congratulations,” I say, offering my hand.

  “Miss Doyle, may I present Miss Lucy Fairchild of Chicago, Illinois.”

  “How do you do?” I manage to say. I search her face for faults but find none. She’s a true rose.

  “Miss Doyle,” she says sweetly. “How very nice it is to meet a friend of Simon’s.”

  Simon. His Christian name. “You ride beautifully,” I offer.

  She bows her head. “You’re too kind. I am only passable.”

  “Gemma!” I’m relieved to see Felicity coming our way. She’s wearing a small velvet bonnet decorated with a cluster of silk flowers. It frames her face most agreeably.

  “Here comes trouble,” Simon mutters through his smile.

  Felicity greets me warmly. “Happy Easter! Wasn’t it an interminable sermon? Honestly, I can’t see why we have to bother with church at all. Hello, Simon,” she says, deliberately abandoning proper etiquette. “Jaunty hat. Did you take it from a bandstand?”

  “Happy Easter, Miss Worthington. Tell me, when is Lady Markham to host a party in your honor, for I don’t believe I’ve heard my mother mention it?”

  Felicity’s eyes blaze. “Soon, I’m sure.”

  “Of course,” Simon says, smiling in triumph.

  “Simon, I don’t believe you’ve introduced me to your dear companion,” Felicity purrs, turning the full glory of her charm on Lucy Fairchild.

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “Simon,” Lucy whispers, mortified.

  I step in. “Felicity, this is Miss Lucy Fairchild. Miss Fairchild, may I present Miss Felicity Worthington.”

  “How do you do?” Lucy offers her hand, and Felicity grasps it firmly.

  “Miss Fairchild, how lovely to make your acquaintance. You simply must allow Miss Doyle and me to take proper care of you while you are in London. I’m sure Simon—Mr. Middleton—would want us to be true friends to you, wouldn’t you, Simon?”

  “That is very kind,” Lucy Fairchild answers.

  Felicity beams with her victory, and Simon gives a small nod in recognition of his defeat.

  “Do be careful, Miss Fairchild. Accepting Miss Worthington’s ‘proper care’ is not unlike lying down with lions.”

  Felicity laughs. “Oh, our Simon is such a wit, isn’t he, Miss Fairchild?”

  “We would love to stay and chat, but I’m afraid Mother is expecting us.” Simon raises an eyebrow. “Best of luck with your efforts, Miss Doyle.”

  “What did he mean by that?” Felicity asks as we stroll in the park a clever distance behind our families. It’s a beautiful day. Several children run after a wooden hoop they’ve set to rolling. Bright spring flowers waggle their petal finery at us.

  “If you must know, I was soliciting Simon’s help with his mother and Lady Markham. It doesn’t help our cause to have you taunt him so.”

  Felicity looks as if I’ve said she should dine on maggots and chutney. “Court the Middletons’ favor? I shan’t. She’s hateful, and he’s a rake you’ve done well to be rid of.”

  “You want your inheritance, don’t you? Your freedom?”

  “My mother is the one who begs favor. I shan’t bow to anyone but the Queen,” Felicity says, twirling her parasol. She glares in Lady Denby’s direction. “Really, Gemma, can’t we cast a spell so that she wakes with a full mustache?”

  “No. We can’t.”

  “You don’t still care for Simon. Tell me you don’t.”

  “I don’t,” I say.

  “You do still care! Oh, Gemma.” Felicity shakes her head.

  “What’s done is done. I made my choice.”

  “You could have him back if you wished it.”

  I glance at Simon. He and Lucy make their rounds, smiling at all they greet. They seem content. Untroubled.

  “I don’t know what I wish,” I say.

  “Do you know what I wish?” Felicity asks, stopping to pick a daisy.

  “What?”

  “I wish Pip could be here.” She plucks the daisy’s petals one by one. “We were to see Paris in the summer. She would have loved it so.”

  “I’m sorry,” I say.

  Her face darkens. “Some things can’t be changed about us, then, no matter how much we wish it.”

  I don’t know what she means, but Fee doesn’t give me time to ponder it. She pulls the last petal from the daisy with a cryptic smile.

  “He loves me,” she says.

  A shadow falls over Felicity and me. Her father, Admiral Worthington, stands on the path, blocking the sun. He’s a handsome man with a genial manner. If I didn’t know better, I’d be as charmed by him as everyone else is. He holds the hand of his ward, Polly, who is only seven.

  “Felicity, will you look after our Polly for a spell? Her governess is undone by the heat and your mother is occupied at present.”

  “Yes, of course, Papa,” Felicity says.

  “That’s my good girl. Careful of the sun,” the admiral warns, and, dutifully, we raise our parasols.

  “Come on, then,” Felicity says to the child once her father is gone.

  Polly walks two paces behind us, dragging her doll in the dirt. It was a Christmas gift, and already, it is bedraggled.

  “What is your doll’s name?” I ask, pretending for a moment that I am not completely useless with small children.

  “She hasn’t got one,” Polly answers sullenly.

  “No name?” I say. “Why not?”

  Polly pulls the doll roughly over a rock. “Because she’s a wicked girl.”

  “She doesn’t seem so bad. What makes her wicked?”

  “She tells lies about Uncle.”

  Felicity pales. She crouches low, covering the two of them with her umbrella. “Did you remember to do what I told you, Polly? To lock your door at night to keep the monsters out?”

  “Yes. But the monsters still come in.” Polly throws the doll to the ground and kicks it. “It’s because she’s so wicked.”

  Felicity lifts the doll and smooths the dirt from its face. “I had a doll like this once. And they said she was wicked, too. But she wasn’t. She was a good and true doll. And so is yours, Polly.”

  The little girl’s lips tremble. “But she lies.”

  “The world is a lie,” Felicity whispers. “Not you and me.”

  She hands the child the doll, and Polly cradles it to her chest.

  “Someday, I shall be a rich woman, Polly. I’ll live in Paris without Papa and Mama, and you could come to live with me. Would you like that?”

  The child nods and takes Felicity’s hand, and they head up the path together, greeting people with defiant faces and fresh wounds.

  * * *

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  * * *

  THE HIPPOCRATES SOCIETY IS HOUSED IN A CHARMING IF slightly worn building in Chelsea. The butler takes our coats and ushers us through a wide parlor—where several gentlemen sit smoking cigars, playing chess, and arguing politics—and into the largest library I have ever seen. An assortment of mismatched chairs fill out the corners. Several are grouped about the roaring fire as if there has just been a rousing debate there. The rugs are Persian and so old that they’ve worn through in spots. Every single bookcase is stuffed and seems it can hold no more. Medical texts; scientific studies; Greek, Latin, and classic volumes line the shelves. I should like to sit and read for weeks.

  Dr. Hamilton greets us. He is a man of seventy with white hair gone to mere threads on top. “Ah, you’re here. Good, good. Our man has prepared a marvelous feast. Let’s not keep him waiting.”

  There are twelve of us at the table, a lively mix of doctors, writers, philosophers, and their wives. The conversation is spirited and fascinating. A bespectacled gentleman at the other end of the table argues vehemently with Dr. Hamilton.

  “I tell you, Alfred, socialism is the way of the future! Imagine it! Economic and social equality among men. No more classes, perhaps the end to poverty. Complete social harmony. Utopia is at hand, ge
ntlemen, and its name is socialism.”

  “Ah, Wells, best stick to writing fantastical novels, old boy. I did rather enjoy that time-travel story. Bit dotty at the end with the Eloi, though.”

  A man with ruddy cheeks and a broad belly speaks up. “Wells, perhaps you’ve confused us with the Fabian Society.”

  Everyone has a good chuckle at this. Some raise their glasses. “Hear, hear!” they say.

  The man in the spectacles excuses himself. “I am only sorry that I must take my leave and cannot stay to argue the point with you. But I shall take up the cause when next we meet.”

  “Who was that gentleman?” I try to ask quietly.

  “Mr. Herbert George Wells,” the ruddy-cheeked man answers. “You may know him as H. G. Wells, the novelist. Good man. Solid mind. Wrong on socialism, though. Life without a queen? Without landowners but ‘cooperative societies’? Anarchy, I say. Sheer madness. Ah, here is dessert.”

  A silent butler places a great crème soufflé before the man and he plunges his spoon into it with relish.

  We discuss science and religion, books and medicine, the social season as well as politics. But it is Father who truly commands the table with his wit and tales of India.

  “And then there is the story of the tiger, but I fear I have already held your attention far too long,” Father says, that merry twinkle back in his eyes.

  The guests will have their curiosity satisfied. “A tiger!” they cry. “Why, you must tell it.”

  Delighted, Father leans forward. His voice grows hushed. “We had taken a house in Lucknow for a month, hoping to escape the heat in Bombay.”

  “Lucknow!” a woolly-haired gentleman exclaims. “I do hope you didn’t meet up with any mutinous Indian sepoys!”

  The assembled break into arguments about the famous Indian uprising decades before.

  “To think those savages murdered innocent British citizens, and after all we’d done for them!” One of the wives clucks.

  “The fault was ours, dear lady. How could they ask Hindu and Moslem soldiers to bite cartridges greased with pig and cow fat when such a thing is abhorrent to their religious beliefs?” Dr. Hamilton argues.

  “Come now, old chap, surely you’re not justifying slaughter?” the woolly-haired man protests.

  “Certainly not,” Dr. Hamilton says. “But if we are to remain a great empire, we must have a greater understanding of the hearts and minds of others.”

  “I should like to hear Mr. Doyle’s tale about the tiger,” a woman in a tiara says, reminding us.

  The guests are agreed, and Father continues his story. “Our Gemma was no more than six. She loved to play in the garden that bordered the trees whilst our housekeeper, Sarita, hung the wash and kept watch. That spring, the news spread from village to village: a Bengal tiger had been seen walking the villages, bold as you please. The daring fellow had destroyed a market in Delhi and scared the life out of a regiment there. There was a reward of one hundred pounds sterling offered for its capture. We never dreamed the tiger would reach us.”

  Every head is inclined toward Father and he basks in his audience’s attention. “One day, as Sarita tended to the wash, Gemma played in the garden. She was a knight, you see, with a sword fashioned out of wood. Most formidable, she was, though I didn’t quite know how formidable. As I sat in my study, I heard screaming from outside. I ran to see what the commotion was about. Sarita called to me, wide-eyed with fear, ‘Oh, Mr. Doyle, look—over there!’ The tiger had entered the garden and was making his way toward where our Gemma frolicked with her wooden sword. Beside me, our house servant, Raj, drew his blade so stealthily it seemed to simply appear in his hand by magic. But Sarita stayed his hand. ‘If you run for him with your knife, you will provoke the tiger,’ she advised. ‘We must wait.’”

  A hush has fallen over the table. The guests are enthralled with Father’s story, and Father is delighted to have an audience. Playing the charming raconteur is what he does best.

  “I must tell you that it was the longest moment of my life. No one dared move. No one dared draw a breath. And all the while, Gemma played on, taking no notice until the great cat was upon her. She stood and faced him. They stared at one another as if each wondered what to make of the other, as if they sensed a kindred spirit. At last, Gemma placed her sword upon the ground. ‘Dear tiger,’ she said. ‘You may pass if you are peaceful.’ The tiger looked at the sword and back at Gemma, and without a sound, it passed on, disappearing into the jungle.”

  The guests chuckle in relief. They congratulate my father on his tale told. I’m so very proud of him at this moment.

  “And what of your wife, Mr. Doyle? Surely she heard the screaming?” one of the ladies asks.

  My father’s face falls a bit. “Fortunately, my dear wife was tending to the hospital’s charity ward as she so often did.”

  “She must have been a pious and kind soul,” the woman says sympathetically.

  “Indeed. Not a bad word could be said about Mrs. Doyle. Every heart softened at her name. Every home welcomed her with open arms. Her reputation was above reproach.”

  “How lucky you are to have had such a mother,” a lady to my right says.

  “Yes,” I say, forcing a smile. “Very lucky.”

  “She was tending to the sick,” my father tells them. “Cholera had broken out, you see. ‘Mr. Doyle,’ she said, ‘I cannot sit idly by while they suffer. I must go to them.’ Every day she went, her prayer book in hand. She read to them, mopped their feverish brows, until she took ill herself.”

  It has the air of one of his well-told tales, but though those may be embellished, none of this is true. My mother was many things: strong yet vain, loving at times and ruthless at others. But she was not this confection—a self-sacrificing saint who looked after her family and the sick without question or complaint. I look at Father to see if anything betrays him, but no, he believes it, every word. He has made himself believe it.

  “What a kind and noble soul,” the woman in the tiara says, patting Grandmama’s hand. “The very picture of a lady.”

  “Not a harsh word could be said about my mother,” Tom says, neatly echoing Father.

  Forget your pain. It was what I said when I took Father’s hand in the drawing room yesterday, what I repeated again tonight. But I didn’t mean this. I must be more careful. Yet what bothers me isn’t the power of the magic or how, to a person, they’ve all accepted it as truth. No, what unsettles me most is how much I want to believe it too.

  The carriages are brought round, signaling the end of our evening. We congregate outside the club. Father, Tom, and Dr. Hamilton are deep in conversation. Grandmama has taken a tour of the club with some of the wives and hasn’t returned yet. I’ve wandered down to see the garden when I’m pulled into the shadows.

  “Luv’ly evenin’, innit?”

  The thug’s hat is low on his forehead, but I know that voice as well as the angry red scar marring the side of his face. Mr. Fowlson, the Rakshana’s loyal guard dog.

  “Don’t scream,” he advises, taking my arm. “I just want a word on behalf of my employers.”

  “What do you want?”

  “Awww, coy is it?” His smile turns to a hard scowl. “The magic. We know you’ve bound it to yourself. We want it.”

  “I gave it to the Order. They’re in possession of it now.”

  “Now, now, you tellin’ fibs again?” His breath smells of ale and cod.

  “How do you know I’m not telling you the truth?”

  “I know more than you fink, luv,” he whispers.

  The steel of his blade gleams in the chilly night. I look over at Father talking happily with Dr. Hamilton. He is very like the father I’ve missed. I would do nothing to upset that fragile peace.

  “What do you want from me?”

  “I’ve told you. We want the magic.”

  “And I’ve told you. I don’t have it.”

  Fowlson rubs the flat of the blade along my arm, sending a dange
rous tickle through my skin.

  “’Ave it your way. You’re not the only one wot can play games.” He glances toward my father and Tom. “Good to see your father out and about. And your brother. I hear ’e wants to make a name for himself in the worst way. Old Tom. Good old Tom.” Fowlson flicks a button from my glove with the point of his knife. “Maybe I should ’ave a lil chat wif ’im about wot his sister gets up to when ’e’s not payin’ attention. A word in his ear, and ’e could have you thrown in Bedlam.”

  “He wouldn’t do that.”

  “Sure of it, are you?” Fowlson flicks another button from my glove. It skitters along the cobblestones. “Oi’ve seen girls ’oo won’t buckle down given the old pick-and-mallet to the brain to cure their ills. ’Ow would you like spendin’ your days in a room there, looking out at the world through a lil window?”

  The magic flares inside me, and I use all my strength to keep it down. Fowlson mustn’t know I have it. It isn’t safe.

  “Give the magic to me. I’ll see it’s taken care of proper.”

  “You’d use it for yourself, you mean.”

  “’Ow’s our friend Kartik?”

  “You should know more than I, for I’ve not seen him at all,” I lie. “He proved as disreputable as the rest of you.”

  “Good ol’Kartik. When you see ’im next—if you should see ’im—tell ’im old Fowlson was askin’ after ’im.”

  Kartik said the Rakshana assumed he was dead, but if Fowlson believes he is alive, then Kartik is in danger.

  Suddenly, Fowlson sheaths his knife. “Looks like your carriage ’as arrived, miss. I’ll be seein’ you round. You can count on it.”

  He gives me a little shove from the shadows. Oblivious to what has just taken place, Tom motions to me. “Come along, Gemma.”

  The footman secures the steps.

  “Yes, I’m coming,” I answer. When I turn back, Fowlson has gone, disappeared into the night, as if he’d never been beside me at all.