The Unsuitable

by Molly Pohlig

  Jacob’s family was very well-off, so there would likely be a good many new servants to remember. The food would be different in this new house. She might not be so close to her mother’s grave, but distance would not stop her.

  The water clouded with grime. She did a cursory job on her limbs the closer they grew to her torso. Quick swipes of the soap under her arms sufficed. She worked the soap into a lather between her hands, and, holding her breath, plunged her hands into the water and between her legs. There was that flash of skin again in her head white silver silver white.

  Iseult rinsed the soap off, not doing a very good job. She got out and ran the towel briskly over her body, not doing a terribly good job of that either, and when she put on her robe it grew wet in patches.

  A slight rattle of the door handle was her signal to Mrs. Pennington, who she knew had her ear pressed to the wood. When Iseult opened the door, she found Mrs. Pennington waiting in the bedroom, rearranging herself. Even though they both knew perfectly well what was going on, it pleased them both to pretend that they were each of them ignorant of each other’s actions.

  Mrs. Pennington hustled Iseult into her underthings, covering up her shoulder, then recruited Sarah to help things go more quickly. The two women worked in near silence, Mrs. Pennington’s breath coming quick from exertion, and Sarah’s from nerves. Iseult was well aware that she made Sarah nervous, but she couldn’t help it. She tried as hard as she could to make her body pliable for Sarah, but when Iseult was an awkward jumble of angles and wings, Sarah was as bad if not worse.

  All the while that Mrs. Pennington tugged and tied and jerked and buttoned, she kept up a running lament under her breath at the state of Iseult’s physique, asking questions that wanted no answer. “Less than two months until her own wedding and the clothes are like to fall right off her. Am I supposed to force-feed her? She’s not a child, and I’m sure it’s no business of mine anyway. But won’t I be blamed? Oh, yes. Blamed by the father and the aunt and the little snip of a cousin and the dressmaker, oh the dressmaker. Are we to make a wedding dress for this bag of bones, or hope that we can fatten her up by then? Lord only knows.” Iseult silently thanked her for not mentioning the state of her neck, which was also not good. The dressmaker would surely have some choice words on the subject.

  Finally she was dressed, clothing pulled in a hundred different directions (and secured with pins to obscure the fact that it no longer fit). Sarah stood by, studying the rug, as Iseult’s hair received a very stern brushing and was swept back so severely that it made her skull look as if it were trying to get to the other side of her skin. But she was presentable. Unattractive, but presentable. And that was the best that could be hoped for today.

  * * *

  Venturing out into bright daylight was an assault on her eyes, but Iseult thought better of complaining. She struggled to keep up with Mrs. Pennington, whose legs moved along the sidewalk like tireless pistons.

  Mrs. Pennington’s mouth, always on the thin side, had a particularly tight set to it today, and as Iseult looked at her, trying to pretend that she was not looking at her, she saw with surprise how old the housekeeper looked. She had always been possessed of a double chin, but it had lost its cheerful buoyancy. Her neck sagged sadly into her collar. A plush brown mole just beneath her jawline, that Iseult had thought as a child looked very like a scrap of velveteen, now had a wiry gray hair protruding from it. Iseult felt a shock of guilt in her sternum.

  * * *

  it’s my fault. every life that brushes up against mine, i drag down into misery.

  nonsense iseult nonsense what sort of a life would she have had without you you are her livelihood and she cares for you in her way her way that is not what my way would have been but still she has done well by you i know you have brought her much joy

  as i have brought joy to father?

  you have you have he doesn’t show it but he will come around i know my own heart once you obey him and marry and are happily settled he will come around i am sure that he will

  why change things now? he hates me; i hate him. if we never see each other again in this life i’ll not complain.

  * * *

  “Ow!” A muscle in Iseult’s shoulder twisted viciously and she shouted, causing an elderly gentleman to drop his newspaper in alarm. Mrs. Pennington looked mortified; she rushed to pick up the paper and hand it back to him. The mortification was too much for her to even speak—a rare occasion—and she merely grabbed Iseult’s arm and propelled her onward.

  They came to a stretch of empty street outside the dressmaker’s shop and stopped. Mrs. Pennington was breathing through her nostrils, a sure sign that she was attempting, and failing, to control her temper. Iseult, looking down at the woman who had been saddled with raising her, wished that she could tell her the truth. My mother pinched me. She talks more than ever now. And I am starting to feel her all the time, physically inside me, pinching and grasping and poking and squeezing. And I am afraid. I am no longer sure whether she is trying to stay in or to get out. Sometimes I am sure I can feel her teeth just under my skin. They are hungry.

  “I know you are unhappy.” Mrs. Pennington had pitched her voice low in order not to give away her emotions. “I understand. I’ve seen the young man. I’d be unhappy too, betrothed to a young man of that color. And I won’t throw it in your face by telling you that you’ve brought it upon yourself by misbehaving in front of every young man your father ever brought home.” (Which is exactly what she was doing by saying it, but Iseult forgave her.) “But we women must do what we are told and no mistaking. You have no choice, Iseult. From here on out. But it will be so much easier on everyone if you go along with it, if you stop making these scenes. You know how to act like a lady. Please do what you’re told, do the things that you should, or you’ll…”

  A slight commotion coming from the corner announced the arrival of Iseult’s aunt and cousin, waving and carrying on.

  Mrs. Pennington regained Iseult’s arm and whispered into her ear as she steered them both in the direction of the cacophony. “… or you’ll end up in the madhouse.”

  “Good afternoon, my dears, isn’t this the most wonderfully exciting day? And Iseult, you are as radiant as a bride-to-be should be.” If there was one thing that could be said for Aunt Catherine, it was that once she committed, her enthusiasm was flawless. She pressed a joyous kiss to Iseult’s wasted cheek, and while not ignoring the obvious, pretended that no one knew the reason: “Oh, my sweet, you are simply wasting away to nothing! Nerves and excitement, nerves and excitement. Why, don’t you remember that before Elspeth’s wedding, the dress had to be taken in at the last minute because the poor child was simply too lovesick for even a bite of food?”

  Iseult plastered a rictus of agreement on her face, noting both Mrs. Pennington’s relief that Aunt Catherine was participating wholeheartedly in the deception that everything was fine, and the semi-horrified look in Elspeth’s eyes. “Yes that’s right,” Iseult said in a voice she hoped wasn’t too mechanical, “I’ve just been overly excited and it has been difficult to remember to … to … it’s been difficult to eat.”

  All three women smiled in relief as Iseult finished her sentence. Seeing things through to their conclusion wasn’t one of her strengths, after all. As the four made their way into the dressmaker’s, Catherine and Elspeth twittering like birds, Mrs. Pennington squeezed Iseult’s arm. The right arm, of course. And Iseult tried not to think that Mrs. Pennington had been as good as a mother to her, because she didn’t want to be pinched again. There was no pinch, but she could feel a space open up in her shoulder. Not a large space, but then again, a chasm often begins as a fissure.

  15.

  Iseult never enjoyed the dressmaker, but this visit was ghastly. She sat in stiff silence while Aunt Catherine and Elspeth discussed the changes in bridal fashion since Elspeth’s wedding four long years previous. How many ruffles, how much lace, how many buttons, how much must you adhere to fashion mores an
d how much could you bend to personal taste? I have no personal taste, Iseult thought. Or was that Beatrice thinking? Iseult wasn’t sure. She tried to look into her mind, to draw a dividing line, thinking, you stay on your side, i’ll stay on mine. things are difficult enough right now without me being confused. She concentrated, trying to hear an answer, but the of course, dear, of course she received sounded watery and thin.

  A seemingly infinite number of fabric swatches were held up to her face, and there was much worried chatter over her pallor, and would it necessarily be improved in time for the ceremony? Aunt Catherine assured the company that her own cook would prepare as many rich and restorative recipes as were required to put the requisite roses into Iseult’s cheeks. Iseult imagined frayed and biscuit-colored roses. She tried to muster up an opinion, but there was so little difference from one color to another. She made weak excuses for her poor eyes, and left the choosing to Elspeth, who everyone said had a most discerning eye. Elspeth demanded that she be left alone with the swatches: she required concentration and peace. As the rest of the women retreated to the fitting area, Iseult remembered a childhood afternoon when Elspeth had banished her from her room while she took over the the costuming of their dolls, shouting, “I’ll not have my doll looking ridiculous just because yours does. I’ll fix everything, you go away and let me do what needs doing!”

  There was an unpleasant sensation of déjà vu, as Iseult could recall her doll being returned to her with many more frills and furbelows than before, which she did not consider very attractive, but which pleased Elspeth enormously. “Promise you’ll keep her like this forever?” As with so many things that Elspeth lisped so attractively, it might have been presented like a question, but there was a look in her eye that said the matter was not up for discussion. And indeed, Iseult’s doll wore her flounces steadfastly and without complaint, until the ribbons grew bedraggled and Iseult was too old for dolls. The doll was still in the attic somewhere, laden with dust.

  The next phase promised to be especially grim, as there began to be talk of necklines. It was not as though Aunt Catherine was completely unaware of Iseult’s disfigured neck and shoulder, but Mrs. Pennington had masterfully concealed the fact that Iseult had been continuing and worsening the disfigurement for years. Mr. Wince himself naturally never mentioned it. Anyway, Aunt Catherine had a horror of blood, and the mere mention could send her into a swoon. The plan for so many years had been to keep Iseult as unobtrusive as possible, and given that she never attended anything so gay as a party or a ball, fashion had hardly been an issue.

  “I’m sure that you know there are some … reasons that we cannot display too much décolletage,” Aunt Catherine said to the dressmaker, with a prim set to her lips and a prim nod toward Iseult’s flat chest. The dressmaker, who had seen the self-inflicted damage to Iseult’s skin, smiled graciously and nodded, already anticipating how she would tease this story out in gossipy tidbits to her husband over dinner.

  “Of course,” the dressmaker said, moving Iseult to the small dais at the center of the room. “I should think it all the more striking if we were to go against the current distasteful trend of exposure”—sharp moralistic nods from Aunt Catherine and Mrs. Pennington—“and create for Miss Wince a much more tasteful, demure gown than so many young ladies are choosing at the moment. Perhaps even a high neck…? To set her apart?”

  Aunt Catherine chewed on the inside of her lip, a nervous habit. “We don’t want her looking like a nun, do we? I agree that those thin little shoulders should be covered, but as long as certain … areas are not on display”—here she gestured toward the flat bosom and, belatedly, the natal wound—“there is no reason why that lovely swanlike neck should not be the centerpiece.”

  The dressmaker rubbed at her right eyebrow with the back of her hand, which was her nervous habit. She had last seen Iseult’s swanlike neck not three months earlier, and she wasn’t sure how to say that an open, oozing wound was a sure way to ruin a bridal gown. She hustled over to her lace cabinet, looking for something with such a heavy pattern that it would obscure any scars beneath. “Now, mind you, I am just ensuring that, should this poor appetite continue, we won’t have anyone the wiser that she’s on the frail side. I think we can highlight this lovely neck with some beautiful lace.”

  Iseult and the dressmaker were aware of Mrs. Pennington letting out a breath, but Aunt Catherine was not the sort to notice such things. She looked up at Iseult, perturbed, although if she had been asked, she would not have been able to put into words the reason why. She didn’t exactly like Iseult. Did anyone? She’d been a prickly baby, and a prickly child, and she had grown into a prickly woman. Her own Elspeth had always been a warmly affectionate child, smothering everyone and everything with kisses. Iseult had always remained distant and watchful.

  It wasn’t that Aunt Catherine thought Iseult was exceptionally intelligent. Did anyone? But there was an air about her that suggested something, a feeling that the child knew things that she should not know. Oh nothing wicked or salacious, just something … beyond. Along with her generally bad behavior, she often said things that chilled your blood; she always had, even as a small child. It was unsettling. She made comments about (and to) her mother Beatrice, whom of course she had never known, in a discomfitingly knowing manner, as if Beatrice were right there next to her.

  Aunt Catherine had not been fond of Beatrice, truth be told. Altogether too wispy and insubstantial, both in person and in personality. She was lovely to look at, no one could deny that, but she was always nursing some ailment or another. Her lungs were weak and she couldn’t walk any great distance. Mr. Wince had been quite a walking-holiday fanatic in his school days, and didn’t she put a stop to that. She was always chilled, and kept her gloves on from September to May. Once, after Beatrice gave in to repeated exhortations to remove them on an uncharacteristically fine spring morning, Catherine had been horrified to see that those slender fingers were tinged with blue. She did not mention the gloves after that.

  There had been a few family discussions wherein they had attempted to dissuade Mr. Wince from his choice of bride, but there was no talking to him. He was headstrong for the sake of being headstrong. He was spiteful, as Catherine often remarked to her husband.

  Catherine firmly believed that if a colleague (friend was too strong a word) of Mr. Wince’s hadn’t been so lovestruck over Beatrice, the marriage would never have come about. Mr. Wince had, since childhood, turned peevish when watching anyone get what they wanted, and would feel compelled to go after it himself. It wasn’t that Mr. Wince wanted the same thing, and that was precisely the trouble. Mr. Wince resented feeling all that keenly about anything, and it irritated him when other people did. He often said that his goal in such matters was to prove that whether or not people got what they wanted made no difference in the grand scheme of things. But in truth Mr. Wince just liked winning, even if the other person felt their life was destroyed in his pursuit of it.

  Of course, as regarded Beatrice, there was the allure of her father’s steelworks as well as that of besting someone in the game of love. Surely he regretted winning this particular game almost immediately. If ever a man was temperamentally designed for lifelong bachelorhood, it was Edward Wince. He was perfectly competent at play-acting love when he could drop it after an evening’s conversation and retreat into his solitude at home. But when love moved in after the wedding, Mr. Wince was annoyed by Beatrice’s constant presence. She made no real demands on his time, but there was always some petty issue that needed discussion: the menu for a dinner party or new curtains for the drawing room or the price of a new spring gown. It was beyond him why she was interested in his input. He certainly wasn’t interested in giving it.

  But catastrophe soon visited the newlyweds. Not only was it unexpected, it was horrific, and it was made even more so by the fact the entire family witnessed it, at a lovely ceremony recognizing Beatrice’s father’s contributions to the community as a leading local businessm
an.

  Mr. Wilkinson had hired a young man to photograph the occasion for posterity, and it was this unprecedented excitement that brought about poor Mr. Wilkinson’s untimely demise. He was a stickler for safety; he was famous for it. But if Mr. Wilkinson had one character trait that exceeded even his scrupulous carefulness … the man was impossibly vain.

  It wasn’t an unwarranted vanity. He was strikingly handsome, even in his later years, with lustrous black hair that had only begun to thread with silver, a mustache waxed into symmetrical perfection, dark, attentive eyes, and a figure that still had the power to turn a much younger lady’s eye. (Of course he was faithful to his wife, no question. But a man can enjoy attention, can’t he?) He was routinely heard to boast that he could still wear his wedding suit. And him married thirty years or more. (He was coy about his age.) A pretty wife on his arm whose face also belied her (never mentioned) age, delicate daughter Beatrice, and feckless son Henry completed the family portrait. Henry was a bit of a wastrel, but what handsome son wasn’t? Especially when spoiled so by a doting mother and older sister. There was plenty of time for Henry, there were plenty of schools he hadn’t yet been kicked out of, plenty of positions he could still be apprenticed to (his father had washed his hands of that nonsense when the far superior Mr. Wince entered their lives), plenty of young women of means who could be fooled by his looks and charm long enough to embark upon an unwise marriage. Henry wasn’t bad; he was just used to having his own way.

  But enough of Henry. The ceremony had gone off without a hitch, and only the family remained. Photographs had been taken of all of them, including Mr. Wince as the heir apparent. (Even though he hated this sort of thing, he gritted his teeth rather than suffer Beatrice’s pouting for the next month.) The young newspaperman fancied himself a real artist, daring, avant-garde. He had the stiff family portrait in his pocket. For the solo image of Mr. Wilkinson, he had something bolder in mind.