by Molly Pohlig
* * *
oh darling you are going to feel much much better very soon everything will fall into place and we will all be a family again
* * *
This was too much to take, for a variety of reasons. A source of frustration in arguing with Beatrice was that one couldn’t turn to face her, only turn inward psychologically. But Iseult was angry now, so she acted impulsively: before she could think of a reason to stop herself, she took hold of the left side of her neck and gave the skin a vicious twist through the collar of her dress.
It was a mistake.
Something like pain, fierce as lightning, shot from the base of Iseult’s spine and up and out and through the hand that twisted the skin. Beatrice repeated what she had said, and although Iseult tried to search her voice for a hint of iciness or irony or … something, she heard only the same good cheer, amplified.
* * *
oh darling you are going to feel much much better very soon everything will fall into place and we will all be a family again
* * *
And then she said it again. And again. And again. Iseult dropped her hand into her lap as Beatrice sang on and on.
26.
Days passed in a frantic blur, and Iseult would have been affronted to be moved about like a piece of furniture had she not been entirely, ceaselessly distracted by Beatrice, who droned on, repeating the same sentence with no sign of even the slightest pause. Not for the first time in her life, Iseult gnashed her teeth at a mother who never went away, who was never tired, who could outlast her in any argument, no matter how fevered the pitch.
It was the day before the day before her wedding. No one seemed to need anything from Iseult other than that she stay out of the way. Mrs. Pennington said that her dress, Lord willing, would arrive in the morning, which hopefully would be enough time, and that all she needed from Iseult was for her to stay calm and out of mischief. At least Mrs. Pennington was speaking to her. Sarah was her usual timid self, scampering out of Iseult’s way whenever she saw her. Iseult passed Mr. Wince in the hall several times, but he pretended not to see her at all. Whenever this occurred, Beatrice grew louder, which made Iseult’s head ache so badly that she had to lie down three times before tea. A few times, all too briefly, she drifted into uncomfortable slumber, but Beatrice found her even there, waking her. Instead she wandered about the house, wondering whether she needed to memorize it, and whether, after the wedding, she would simply never see it again.
She wanted to be alone in her room, in Beatrice’s chair, because she thought that was the best place to talk to her. She would periodically hover in the doorway, but every surface was still thick with clothing to be packed, and the air was thick with tension as Mrs. Pennington hurled orders at Sarah and a maid borrowed from Aunt Catherine for the occasion. Mrs. Pennington had already tried several times to settle Iseult down to a task, but to no avail. First she was charged with looking through her jewelry box to see if her tastes had outgrown anything, but Mrs. Pennington had always chosen her jewels, and if it had been up to Iseult she would have just thrown out the lot, or whatever one did with jewels one did not care for. The suggestion that Iseult should choose some of the Winces’ everyday china was met with blank stares. China, silver, jewels: none of these things held allure for Iseult, none of them would feel like a tangible reminder of anything other than her father’s desire that their life look as it should from the outside, no matter the wreck they knew it was.
Finally, since Iseult was haunting the corners of her room, running her hands over the walls and edges, Mrs. Pennington placed her bodily in Beatrice’s chair with a very large cup of tea at her side and a ladies’ magazine in her lap, with instructions that she find a (simple) hairstyle that might be appropriate for the day after tomorrow.
* * *
And all the while, oh darling you are going to feel much much better very soon everything will fall into place and we will all be a family again
* * *
“Shall I have flowers?” Iseult said, loudly, to be heard over Mrs. Pennington berating Sarah for the way she had placed a skirt in a trunk. Mrs. Pennington sighed in exasperation.
“Of course you will, dear; what kind of a wedding would it be without flowers? I’ve got someone seeing to it. Now hush like a good girl and let me think.”
Iseult held the cup of tea in both hands like a bowl, letting the steam dampen her chin, and tried to tuck her feet up under her in the chair without spilling. It was very comfortable to be remonstrated with by Mrs. Pennington as usual, as if nothing about the day or the situation was out of the ordinary. Her thoughts drifted to Jacob again, and the fish swam lazily around her stomach, quieter but still noticeably present.
There was a sharp pinch in Iseult’s spine, and she sloshed tea into her lap as Beatrice finally dropped her repetition.
* * *
she would leave you in a heartbeat if it suited her like a baby in a basket and she your whore of a mother you can rely on no one but me me me and your father she is not a part of the family
rely on him? when he’s getting rid of me as quickly as possible? he is the one leaving me on the doorstep like a bastard child, not her. she is going with me wherever i go.
and am i not doing the same and yet you show no gratitude for my sacrifices
* * *
Iseult suppressed a snort and felt the unpleasant sensation of a small amount of tea going up her nose. She was able to place the teacup on the table before the coughing fit made her spill all of it. No one in the room took any notice.
* * *
you didn’t sacrifice, you escaped! you escaped and you left me here to fend for myself!
* * *
Even as this thought fled from the part of Iseult that was Iseult to the part of Iseult that was Beatrice, Iseult didn’t try to stop it, although she knew that Beatrice would pull no punches. She shrank into herself slightly, and wished she were a tortoise, so there was somewhere to hide. She was prepared for a hurricane. But she didn’t get one.
She got chilly calm; she got Beatrice warmed over. Which was more frightening than the hurricane, because it meant that she was losing her ability to predict Beatrice’s behavior.
* * *
you’ve no idea my girl what i have what i gave what i could have had had had i not decided to stay here with you as i did as i always knew i would before you were born i knew i would go to extraordinary lengths cross chasms leap gorges for you and for your father i could be happy now i could be at peace but all i wanted was you and your father and me all three together and by god i won’t give up now just because you have
* * *
Iseult sat motionless in her mother’s chair, thinking of Beatrice’s wedding portrait and of how a person who looked so bland and malleable could be so steely. Had she really ever expected that when she married she would leave Beatrice behind? She thought maybe she had, in some far corner of her mind that she’d believed Beatrice couldn’t reach. But that was ridiculous, of course: Beatrice was everywhere that Iseult was, and also in places that Iseult wasn’t. That was the part that didn’t seem fair. Beatrice had somewhere to retreat, to be alone. Iseult had nowhere to hide.
Time was doing strange things and her head was empty, drafty, even though she could still feel Beatrice stalking around like a predatory animal, circling, observing. Mrs. Pennington and Sarah drifted from the room in service to other tasks. Finally Iseult managed to creep slowly over to her bed. It was still half buried under clothing, so she curled herself into a corner as if into a nest, and pulled part of a skirt over her head to muffle what she could still hear of Mrs. Pennington fussing with the help. She laid her head down on the pillow, feeling leaden. She wanted very much to go to sleep. And stay asleep. If they couldn’t wake her up, they couldn’t marry her off.
She had always loved sleeping and couldn’t understand people who didn’t. It was all of the best things about being dead, but without its permanence. She especially loved the moments immedia
tely before sleep, when she was still vaguely aware of her situation in the world but didn’t care about it. And there was always the possibility, minimal though it might be, that when she woke up, her world would have changed for the better. Waking up was almost always the worst part of Iseult’s day, and since she was prone to napping, she usually had at least two worst parts in every day. Waking was like swimming up out of a bog. And worse, swimming up out of a bog to find your mother waiting to talk to you. Wherever she was when she wasn’t with Iseult, it was clear that Beatrice lacked other conversational partners.
Iseult fell into a convoluted, uneasy sleep, with dreams full of Beatrice, and awoke sweaty and perturbed. Beatrice shouldn’t be allowed to invade her dreams as well as all of her waking life. Iseult thought about telling her so, but she was babbling excitedly about the wedding and showed no signs of stopping.
A sound made Iseult realize she was not alone in the room. With a start, she sat up—too quickly: black spiders, dark moss crept in around the edges of her vision and retreated. Mrs. Pennington was sitting in Beatrice’s chair, dabbing at her eyes with the corner of her apron, just as, Iseult thought, a housekeeper in a sentimental novel would do. Iseult didn’t know what time it was, but she hoped that Mrs. Pennington wasn’t crying because they were late for dinner. The clothes that had surrounded her on the bed were all gone, so packing must have continued while she slept. Iseult’s mouth was sticky and sour with sleep and she had to cough before she could speak, which roused Mrs. Pennington from whatever gloomy reverie she was lost in. She looked as startled and uncomfortable as Iseult felt.
“Oh, my dear, I must have fallen asleep as well. Hurry and let’s get you ready for dinner,” Mrs. Pennington said, plastering a cheerful and not at all believable smile across her blotchy face and running over to retrieve a brush.
“Are we late?” Iseult asked in a thick, clotted voice, pushing the last stray spider legs from her eyes, unsure whether she was merely seeing her eyelashes.
“We have ten minutes to get you ready for dinner,” Mrs. Pennington said, tidying Iseult’s hair.
Iseult breathed a sigh of relief. She hadn’t seen Mr. Wince since the drunken dinner debacle, and didn’t want to be wrong-footed immediately by appearing late. Would Jacob insist on strict punctuality? She thought not. The fish in her stomach swished its tail and a measure of displaced bile rose up into her throat.
Ten minutes later, Iseult was in the empty dining room. Her heart skittered when she heard the click-clack of shoes coming down the hallway, but she knew at once that they were not her father’s: they were not loud enough. Mr. Wince thought the mark of both a good floor and a good shoe was the noise they made upon coming into contact with each other.
A discreet cough came from over Iseult’s shoulder. She turned to find her father’s lawyer, a rangy elderly man whose name she could never remember, grinning away at her and holding a large sheaf of papers.
“Miss Wince,” he said through his droopy yellow-white mustache, “I have been instructed to inform you that you will be deprived of the pleasure of your father’s company at dinner this evening. I hope you will be able to make do with my company instead, poor substitute though it may be.”
He was very kind, but seemed terribly dim for a lawyer, Iseult thought. He put the papers down next to her on the table and laboriously folded his long limbs into Mr. Wince’s seat, bones creaking audibly as he did. Iseult knew from experience that his hearing was not exemplary and that trying to ask questions was more trouble than it was worth.
“Now then,” he said, laying a large, liver-spotted hand on the pile of papers and smiling vaguely at Sarah, who was nervously serving salad, “your father has a number of papers that require your delicate signature.”
Iseult opened her mouth to ask the question that he had anticipated. “Now, now, there is no reason for you to trouble your pretty head about the contents; these are merely some silly papers that transfer some silly things back and forth so you won’t have to worry about a thing.” He winked, or rather, Iseult thought that he did. He did suffer from a slight tremor, and the same leaf of lettuce kept hopping from his fork before he could bring it to meet his sagging mustache. “Young miss, would you please fetch us pen and ink? I neglected to bring them myself.”
A look of panic rose in Sarah’s eyes, so Iseult tried to smile encouragingly, saying, “Ask Mrs. Pennington, she’ll find them for you.” Sarah fled the room gratefully. The lawyer finally got a forkful of salad to his mouth and looked about triumphantly, perhaps expecting applause for his endeavors. Iseult wondered whether her father was lurking about in the shadows, enjoying himself watching her discomfort.
“Excited about the wedding, then?” He said it so loudly that Iseult jumped in her seat. Again, she opened her mouth to speak, and again, there was no need. “Nonsense, of course you would be, wouldn’t you. My daughters were all in a fuss for months before they married. I’ve five of them. No, four. Five? Five daughters.”
Iseult ate her salad, unsure whether the lawyer’s vision was as bad as his hearing, and whether she needed to pretend interest in the conversation. She would be just as happy not to. Sarah scurried back in with a pen and inkwell, placing them gingerly at Iseult’s side and then departing as she had come in: as quickly as possible.
“Many thanks, young lady,” the lawyer exclaimed, bits of salad flying from his lips to the table. He patted the stack of papers again, leaving a smear of tomato, which did make Iseult smile genuinely because it would very much displease her father. “Now, Miss Wince. My eyesight is not what it once was, so you leaf through those papers and sign anywhere that you see a blank line; that should do us quite nicely. I do apologize for the, er, informality of this meeting, but your father had some urgent business to attend to and I thought, well, why not combine my business with the pleasure of dining with you?”
Iseult stared at the lawyer, which, given his poor eyesight, she felt she could do quite safely. He was really very kind, even though he had no special reason to be. He could certainly have left the papers for her to sign alone. Or did her father not want her to be at liberty to peruse these papers? No. If he truly was trying to hide something, he wouldn’t have left her alone with only a near-blind chaperone to oversee her work. These must be very dull papers indeed. Sarah entered and left the room several times while Iseult contemplated the tomato smear.
The lawyer began talking about his family, his four, no five daughters, and three, no, two? Two sons? Beatrice decided she’d done enough listening.
* * *
be a good girl now good girl and give your father what he’s asked for you want to be a good girl these last days sweet girl so you can still see your father and we three can be happy together again as we should have been all this time
mother i daresay that less than two days is not enough time to undo twenty-eight years of damage. we have never all been happy together, so we cannot be thought to achieve happiness again. i do wish you could realize that he hates me. it is not the most pleasant truth, but once one accepts it, it isn’t so bad. i don’t even mind, i don’t see why it should upset you so much. he’s never hated you, after all, only me.
but you are a part of me and i am a part of you so if he hates you he hates me too but he doesn’t hate you i know i know i know that he can’t see you rightly you must put it right if it’s the last thing you do you were the last thing i gave him so you will put this right you will you will
* * *
“… changed the will, but that’s of no consequence to you now. I was once called—”
“Pardon me.” The lawyer’s words abruptly cut through Beatrice’s pleading. Iseult looked at the meat and potatoes that she had been neglecting to eat, and asked him to repeat himself, please.
“We decided, he and I,” said the lawyer, mopping his mustache with a napkin already heavy with gravy, “that since you are to marry into such a well-off family, there was really no need for him to settle any inheritance on you. Wh
y not sink it into the business? we said. Well, he said, and I suppose … well, I suppose I agreed.”
He had a cloudy, far-off look in his eyes that would have made him look very wise but for the gravy all over his mustache. “Yes, I do suppose that I agreed with him.”
“He has disinherited me?” Iseult said in as steady a voice as she could manage. The lawyer had gone back to munching on a piece of bread and did not respond. Again, more loudly, she asked, “He has disinherited me?” The lawyer looked up and smiled, tipping the top of his ear toward her with buttery fingers, as if that was where the deficiency lay. And Iseult shouted, no longer making it a question: “He has disinherited me!”
The lawyer had clearly understood her this time, and looked pleasantly befuddled: not at the content of what she was saying, but at the anger that apparently accompanied it. He made a motion as if to pat her hand instead of the papers this time, but he was put off either by the distance or by the fact that Iseult had whipped her hand off the table. “My dear,” he said calmly, “it is purely a matter of business. It would be foolishness to settle more money on you when he shall see no return on it, as he will with the steelworks.”