The Unsuitable

by Molly Pohlig

  The gaggle was back, inexplicably (Had they slept here? Would they be coming to the wedding or were they to work strictly behind the scenes?); Mrs. Pennington oversaw them, distracted, frequently rushing out to attend to something else, Lord knew what.

  The gaggle put Iseult into her clothes, careful of her coiffure but also not too careful, and now and then a pin hit the floor. She was not sure why she was being put into street clothes; at last, she gathered that her bridal attire was patiently waiting in the church vestry for her arrival and subsequent transformation. (Were the gaggle coming there? Were they to follow her about forever?)

  * * *

  i’ve warned you if you don’t speak to him you’ll rue the day

  but which day, mother? today? tomorrow? the day i was born and you died?

  i need you to—

  no time no time now no mother they’re taking me away before the ceremony oh god i promise only leave me alone with my thoughts for once oh please

  * * *

  The gaggle whisked her off, without much breakfast, into a waiting carriage; Mrs. Pennington was inside and Sarah following somewhere behind, and Iseult thought she’d better ask where Mr. Wince was but then she thought better not better not and the stones that bumped under the carriage made that biscuit threaten to come back up.

  The ride was longer not as long as it should have been and thoughts flitted by such as This is where my mother was married buried but what good was it to know that now and here and there between outside two thoughts she thought Jacob and she thought silver white whitesilver and then a rush of something wrong and pink that was a blur like the clock face and her stomach lurched and something swarmed hot and cruel in her chest and what to do there was nothing to do they were hurtling Mrs. Pennington laughing but why and she couldn’t grasp her own couldn’t stand in her own thoughts as usual she was swirling into Beatrice she must talk to her father no—

  They were at the church. Iseult was bustled in by the front walk, and she almost glimpsed Beatrice’s grave but not quite and then they were inside so it must not matter better not. There was a group of black-clad men waiting for a funeral? No, for her wedding! Or yes for her wedding. As they passed them Iseult tried to twist her neck to see whether Mr. Wince was among them but she Beatrice she said better not better not better

  What time was the wedding? What time was it? No one answered Iseult because she hadn’t asked. She was being put in her clothes dressed like a big dumb doll and she thought to say stop but why? No one was stopping.

  At last she was buttoned and laced and tied and the net on her head was replaced with a veil and Iseult wondered how she looked but the vicar was not a vain man and kept no mirror which Iseult thought a shame for such an occasion.

  Beatrice was beginning to rattle to clang about and Iseult felt herself sliding into her as if they were both just ooze and then Sarah smiled shyly and gave her a timid hug and left and then that was it.

  Iseult wiggled her body to shake herself free of Beatrice’s ooze and there she was in a wedding dress veil shoes in front of Mrs. Pennington who had tears that distorted those button eyes and Iseult looked about for that handkerchief brides are supposed to have but found none so she had nothing. Mrs. Pennington hugged her tight and said, “Darling girl, all will be well. Your father would like to speak with you for a moment before.”

  Iseult felt her two feet solid on the ground and her bones in her skin and her skin in her dress because that’s what Mrs. Pennington was. Clarity and solidity and sureness. And at the mention of Mr. Wince even Beatrice shut her mouth.

  Iseult smoothed down a wrinkle in her ivory skirt and nodded to Mrs. Pennington, who opened the door. Iseult kept her eyes on the ground and saw her father’s shoes walk into the room. They were even more superb than the shoes he wore for everyday. The shoes walked over until they were right under her downturned head, and Iseult couldn’t stop herself from leaning down further to see if she could see her reflection in their glossy surface.

  “Straighten up, for God’s sake,” Mr. Wince said, grasping her shoulders roughly and giving her a shake. Beatrice twisted inside Iseult’s neck. Mr. Wince put Iseult back at arm’s length and cast a critical eye over her. He sighed. “Well, I suppose it could be worse.”

  Iseult could feel Mrs. Pennington’s anger radiating from where she stood by the door, but she knew she wouldn’t say a word. Beatrice pulled at something inside and Iseult knew that this was the moment in which she would either have to do something, or resolve to do nothing. And neither option was very attractive. But if she said nothing, Beatrice would likely rage through the ceremony, and perhaps it was easier to do her best, or at least pretend it was her best.

  “Father … I’m sorry.” The words tasted bad as they came out of her mouth, but at least they were out.

  Mr. Wince had a variety of laughs, and at this moment he laughed one of the most unpleasant ones: a vicious, mocking snicker. “And what, exactly, are you sorry for, Iseult? Forgive me, but I can think of more than a few things that I am due apologies for.”

  Beatrice was still and Iseult knew that her mother wanted her to be still as well, but if she hadn’t balled her hands into fists she would have screamed. She willed herself to breathe normally, and to continue. “For disobeying you.”

  Mr. Wince switched over to the laugh that was more of a shout, a bark. He walked in a circle, clapping with slow delight, and Iseult hated him. He pretended to wipe a tear from his eye and delicately touched the edge of his nasty little mustache. “For any particular disobedience, my dear, or is this a blanket apology that is meant to make up for every insult of the last twenty-eight years?”

  “For…” Iseult swallowed whatever pride she might have had, hoping that her next words, at last, would suffice. For Beatrice, for Mr. Wince, for someone to acknowledge her effort. “For misbehaving so. For whatever it is that I did that made you disown me.”

  He wasn’t laughing anymore. Iseult’s eyes darted up to meet his. Neither of them knew it, but their eyes looked very similar at that moment: very large, the whites threaded with angry red webs.

  “The narcissism,” he said, shaking his head in amazement. “You still think that it has to do with you. That I care about what you do and who you are. That you can hurt me.”

  Whatever she had swallowed stuck in her throat, and Iseult found herself, as always, on the back foot, laughably unprepared for a conversation she found herself in the middle of. She wobbled backward and bumped into the vicar’s desk, but at least it was a solid thing to hold onto. Mrs. Pennington was in the corner, not looking as if she was going to get involved. Iseult could think of only one other thing to apologize for, and as she had no other options, she plunged in.

  “I am sorry that I killed her!” Iseult shouted, for the only way she could get it out of herself was to say it at an impossible volume. In the ensuing silence in the vestry, the organist could be heard beginning to play. Mr. Wince’s eyes were wide, wide. He shook his head quickly, shaking something off. He walked up close to her, astonished. Iseult stood her ground, although with the desk behind her, she was trapped anyway.

  “Why, you little idiot,” he said softly. Iseult could feel his hot breath on her face, but she willed herself not to flinch. There was a hint of brandy about him, but that could have been left over from the night before. “You still don’t know. You really still don’t know.”

  At this, Mrs. Pennington rushed over and grabbed Mr. Wince’s arm. Iseult felt a pang of fear. “Please don’t, she doesn’t need to know, surely there’s no point!”

  He shook her off, eyes still trained on Iseult, and Mrs. Pennington stumbled backward. Iseult tried to reach for her but Mr. Wince blocked the way deftly. Mrs. Pennington started to cry quietly, head held in her little plump hands. Iseult looked at Mr. Wince, defiantly, or with what she hoped was defiance. Really, she was scared. But the only way to the other side of this would be going through. So she did. “What is it that I don’t know?

 
* * *

  iseult stop stop don’t listen to him he’s a liar a madman he’s not going to tell you the truth

  * * *

  Beatrice’s shriek was so loud that Iseult cringed and closed her eyes for a moment. Mr. Wince pinched her arm, hard, twisting the skin at the last moment. Iseult, Mrs. Pennington, and Beatrice all made sounds of protest. Mr. Wince grabbed Iseult by the shoulders and shook her, trying to force her to look him in the eye. “All these years,” he sneered, “filled with self-pity because you thought you killed her. Ha! That would at least have made you interesting, to have real guilt on your conscience. And all these years of being told by my sister that the truth would destroy you. What do I care if it destroyed you? It destroyed me. Why should you escape the truth when I can’t?”

  Beatrice was in free fall inside her, and Iseult felt strong enough to stand taller in her father’s grip. She looked him in the eye. And waited, at the edge of a cliff.

  “You didn’t kill her. She killed herself. And she tried to kill you.”

  He said it so calmly, in such a banal monotone, that Iseult wasn’t sure whether he’d actually said anything at all, and it was only in the ensuing silence that the words began to turn over in her mind.

  “Such a perplexed look on that pointy little face.” Mr. Wince laughed. “I have to say, I didn’t think you were dim enough to swallow that story we fed you about the midwife, but your aunt Catherine and Mrs. Pennington were right. You are dim enough.”

  Iseult knew she wasn’t fully grasping the situation, but she was getting there, and she knew that she could not be looking at Mrs. Pennington when the realization finally hit. Much as she hated to, much as she hated him, she continued to stare into her father’s eyes. “Then tell me the truth.”

  More silence. Mrs. Pennington had even stopped crying. Beatrice was stiller than still. Even Mr. Wince barely breathed. “Tell me the truth!” Iseult screamed, hands in tight, humiliated fists.

  He put his face right up in front of hers. She could see every pore in his nose and the bloodshot whites of his eyes, red veins like nameless rivers on a map, but the rest of his face was a blur. The smell of the brandy was now so strong that it made her eyes smart, but she would sooner have died than cry in front of him now, so she merely blinked furiously.

  He straightened up, straightened his jacket. There might have been a smile playing beneath his mustache, but she couldn’t be sure. “From the start, she could hardly stand the sight of you. Oh no, your birth was not the extraordinary tragedy you have been led to believe; on the contrary, it was quite normal. But from the moment she laid eyes on you in your swaddling clothes, your mother had a distinct aversion to you. Would turn up her nose when you were brought into the room, as if she’d smelled something unpleasant. No one spoke of it, but everyone noticed. ‘Give it time,’ the doctor said, your aunt said, ‘she had such a shock with her father, it’s no wonder she’s out of sorts. She’ll come round,’ they said. But she never did.”

  Iseult had to will her hands not to fidget. A morsel from her breakfast that had been stuck between her teeth suddenly dislodged itself and she chewed on it like a hungry rabbit. She wondered if he’d always planned to do this, moments before her wedding. How ridiculous, she suddenly thought. Here she was in her wedding dress, being told that the one thing she had believed her whole life was a lie. And still, Beatrice was motionless, silent. Not absent, but hunched, wary, ready to pounce. Or to flee.

  “For months she didn’t leave the house, wouldn’t look at you, wouldn’t hold you; she shut herself up in her room, in her chair, just as you do.” Mr. Wince gestured toward Iseult. He patted at his vest pockets for his pocket watch but put it back immediately after taking it out, without checking the time. He sighed, resigned. “She wouldn’t talk to me, but then she hadn’t talked to me all that much since her father died. It wasn’t that I cared much how she felt about you, but she should have at least tried to keep up appearances. And she didn’t. One night I confronted her about it, told her she should try to take a bit of interest in you. ‘There’s a good girl,’ I said. I thought she took it to heart, really listened to me. She looked as if she was listening.”

  Mr. Wince stopped his circling momentarily, stroking his mustache thoughtfully. He turned to face Iseult again. “The next morning she was her old cheerful self again, the way she’d been before her father died. Kissed me at breakfast, fussed over you in the nursery, gave Mrs. Pennington here the morning off because she wanted to see to you.”

  Iseult had forgotten Mrs. Pennington was even there, still standing in the corner, a dumb statue. Mr. Wince went on. “I left you with your mother, pleased that I no longer had to worry. I left for work. I had come down the front stairs and was turning into the street when I heard a sound from the roof.”

  He had, surely he had planned this all along, for twenty-eight years, this one moment of revenge. But was his vengeance against her? Or was it against Beatrice? Had everything been Beatrice’s fault, all along?

  He studied Iseult for a long time. “I looked up and there she was. There you both were. She was standing on the edge of the roof, with you dressed and rosy in her arms. She looked down at me. She smiled. And she jumped.”

  Mr. Wince came up close and leaned in, his mouth to her ear, his mustache tickling her cheek. “That’s how your collarbone was broken: when you both landed on the pavement.”

  Iseult felt hollow, a husk of something. Beatrice crouched in a corner, afraid. Mrs. Pennington started to whimper. “Oh, don’t you start,” Mr. Wince said. “It wasn’t your fault. She would have found a way to do it even if you’d still been there.”

  Mr. Wince cleared his throat. “Well. I’ll give you a few minutes to collect yourself.” And he let himself out of the room as if … as if all he was doing was leaving a room. As if nothing had happened.

  Iseult found that, after all, she was still breathing, still standing. She unclenched her fists, saw the angry red half-moons running along her palms. She took a deep breath and then another, and saw that at least her body was still functioning correctly.

  “Oh, Mrs. Pennington, if you weren’t going with me I know I should die,” she said, and she knew she had never said a truer thing.

  Mrs. Pennington looked at the floor. And Iseult realized that she had been lied to all along in every way.

  “You’re not coming.” Iseult didn’t think she had said it, but the words came from her mouth. “He won’t let you.”

  Mrs. Pennington was weeping now and shaking her head and her shoulders, wringing her hands, and Iseult knew she had nothing left. She didn’t ask why, for all of that was quite clear. She rose up, her spine straight, even though she could feel Iseult no Beatrice Beatrice hammering clamoring and Iseult knew, for once, what was supposed to come next.

  “Would you please, would you wait outside for a moment?” Mrs. Pennington shook more and cried harder; Iseult would have liked to comfort her, but what good would that do now?

  Mrs. Pennington left the room and closed the door, and Iseult waited a moment before quietly turning the key in the lock. She looked around the room as Beatrice began to bray.

  * * *

  why have you locked us in wicked child

  i’m not a child and i haven’t locked us in i’ve locked him out so they can’t stop me

  stop you from what what horrible thing are you planning i am sorry iseult i am sorry but i don’t deserve whatever you are planning to do you must just act as if nothing has happened we must go on and get you married there is no other way now there is no other way

  there is one other way

  * * *

  Iseult pulled open desk drawer after desk drawer until she found what she sought. She said a tiny prayer of thanks that the vicar was a well-organized man, a tiny prayer of thanks that she had been handed the chain of events she needed to escape at last. She said no prayer for Mrs. Pennington, who had a real family she could love; no prayer for Sarah, who was too stupid to know her own unhappine
ss; no prayer for Jacob, who had survived his silver humiliation thus far with wisdom and good cheer and would surely weather this as well; and certainly no prayer for her father, who deserved what his vengeance brought him. No prayer for Beatrice. No prayer for Iseult.

  * * *

  stop iseult and think i’m sorry i pushed you i’ll be kinder we’ll behave together we’ll figure out a way to speak to him to fix things later just think what you’re doing this solves nothing listen to me you had better listen i am sorry but you cried so as a baby you cried and cried and i never asked for a baby i never asked to marry i didn’t want any of it but no one asked me there was no other way out i thought to save us both please iseult listen please please—

  * * *

  Iseult said a tiny prayer that the seamstress wouldn’t find out about the dress, and she wrapped her fingers around the knife she had found and then said the last and tiniest prayer: that the vicar would not be blamed for keeping so sharp a knife (for bread and cheese? for envelopes?) and then she held it as high as she could reach, for bravery, and then she plunged the knife into the scarred place where her neck and her shoulder met.

  It was hot and cold silver whitesilver and Beatrice jerked like a fish on a hook that believes it still has a chance. Iseult pulled the knife back out with effort and knew that she wouldn’t be forgiven after all, because the blood was flooding the ivory lace, which she had in truth been fond of despite the circumstances. The knife skittered from her hand and clattered to the floor and now the skirt had a splotchy trail of red.

  * * *

  there is still time to stop this call someone edward this mustn’t can’t we’ve time darling i’m sorry you’ll see you don’t have to marry we’ll figure out a way i can make it up to you somehow to us please