“Those of Mallafret will have snug dwelling houses to come home to, thanks to your efforts, milady,” Sir Minshall reminded her, seeing how downcast the injuries had made her who had been so cheerful through all our adversities.
“I’ll have to see what I can do,” she said, shaking her head and caressing the crystals.
All too soon, my own crystal would be placed on its chain about my neck, but the prospects of having a horse for my twin diminished from unlikely to impossible. We saw horses from far to the south being driven along the main road to Princestown, resupply for the cavalry.
“There’s not one of them,” Tray said, his scathing tone hiding disappointment, “worth bothering with. They all have four legs, a head and tail and that’s the best that can be said.”
Mother and I exchanged glances, and she sighed.
“Then it’s as well we have no silver or gold to beg for one,” Mother replied with a sly glance at him.
“A waste even if we had any!” Tray replied contemptuously. “They’re not worth even stealing.”
Taking a deep breath, he turned away from us and went off to help Siggie weed the vegetables.
Mother and I exchanged glances: hers nearly as doting as mine since we knew how keenly he was trying to hide an almost palpable frustration.
“I really will have to see what can be done.”
“Mother,” I said from all the wisdom of my nearly sixteen years, “sometimes even you can’t provide the impossible. Besides which, he has set his heart on a Cirgassian, like our Courier . . . only not wind-broken.”
With the slightest of smiles on her face and her long, slender, workworn fingers sliding up and down the dangling crystals, she replied, “It is true that the impossible takes longer, but the improbable is a force to be reckoned with.”
* * * *
The summer brought so little rain that those reservoirs which Mother had had us construct to drain or retain the excess winter water proved to be the salvation of what crops we had been able to nurture. As fortunate was the fact that Prince Sundimin, with our father now one of his most valued generals, was pursuing the war well into Effestrian lands. Our village was asked to send reinforcements of any male who had reached the age of sixteen and those over forty who were still able in body. This reduced our work force further and worried my mother more. For, inexorably, our sixteenth birthday neared and she feared that Tracell would have to answer the next draft. However much we had both longed to be sixteen and considered adult, that status had lost much of its long-desired charm.
Although it was the custom in our land that if a male child becomes adult at sixteen, it was also true that a girl of that age may put up her hair and go to balls and other social occasions. I, who had once dreamed all sorts of enchantments to occur during my first ball, drearily realized that no such festivity was likely. Imagine then my astonishment when Mother, all smiles and gladness, informed us that of course Mallafret Hall would celebrate our birthday with the traditional ball.
“And what, dear Mother, shall we have to wear to a ball?” I asked rather tartly, since Tracell and I were then most practicably attired in the sturdy knee breeches that even women were wearing as more durable apparel for hoeing fields and rebuilding cottages. Even the thought of a ball, however, was able to reawaken yearnings, which I had so firmly excluded from consideration.
“Why, my dears,” and Mother’s smile was so mischievous that I found myself smiling back, “we will have our choice of what we want to wear to a ball. A costume ball. You can’t have forgotten all the lovely gowns, long coats, embroidered vests, and fine silken breeches which we so admired last winter after the village burned? Who will care if we dress in old-fashioned finery? But dress we will. And Livvy says there will be enough eggs and flour and sweetening to provide a proper birthday cake and other confections to make the occasion all that it should be. Your father put down wines at your births and these need only to be brought up from the cellar.”
“But — but —” Even Tracell was now so accustomed to mundane substitutes that the thought of such extravagance startled him. Or maybe it was the thought of his long-desired and unattainable birthday horse!
“We may be short of many things, my dear Tray, but there are certain times when ceremony must be celebrated. And you both,” she encircled our waists with her arms, “deserve whatever we can contrive. And I know exactly what I can do.”
“Well, I can’t say that you don’t contrive minor miracles regularly, Mother,” Tray said, admiringly. “But must I wear knee breeches?”
“Indeed you must, my love,” she said, undeterred by his protest, “for you’ve as fine a leg as your father.”
Hands raised in passionate rebellion, Tray took a deep breath.
“Not another word,” my mother said, putting her fingers on his mouth. “You’ll be surprised at how courtly you will appear. Every girl in the county will be eager to dance with you.”
“No powder in my hair . . .” Tray said, waggling a finger under her nose.
“With such lovely titian locks as you have, of course not,” Mother said, pretending outrage at the mere suggestion.
“And how are you going to get everyone else to dress up that way?” Tray demanded. I knew he did not wish to dress in uncommon fashion.
“We have not been the only family in the county to have seen what our ancestors put up in their attics,” was Mother’s blithe reply. “I think the pale green for you, Tracell, so I will allow some of the others to be loaned where they will fit.”
By the time he had been forced to try on the pale green, with its heavy embroidery of silver and froth of lace (bleached to its original white and mildly starched), he spent quite a while observing himself in Mother’s triple mirror. Shoes, with buckles and green heels, had also been found and fitted well enough.
“So gallant, milord,” Mother said, and we both sank into court curtsies that sent him into guffaws since we were still in our everyday breeches. (They were just a little ludicrous since they were much too long for us and reached our ankles.)
But the prospect had put him in a very good mood. Which, I think, was what Mother had in mind.
* * * *
The entire village joined to help Mallafret Hall produce an evening that would be memorable. If the journals of our ancestors — which took up several shelves in the library — annotated in precise detail the lavish decorations and extravagant excesses of previous sixteenth birthdays, Mother decreed yet another sensible innovation. This Ball would start early enough in the evening so that the summer length of daylight would not require the use of the thousands of expensive and totally unobtainable tapers to fill the chandeliers and light the proceedings. Indeed, the dancing would be on the greensward below the terrace on the South Face of Mallafret Hall. The lawn, or so Andras and Achill vehemently declared, had been rolled and rolled and all but manicured with embroidery scissors to a level that would be as smooth a surface for dancing as any parquet floor. Garlands of honeysuckle from the hedgerows, gathered by the villagers, draped across the terrace balustrade and wherever such floral decorations were needed. Everyone seemed determined to make this a truly momentous occasion. We were not even daunted by the sultry weather that augured of possible thundershowers. Indeed, from time to time, I could have sworn I heard distant thunder in the east. If that were the case, since our weather went from west to east, our evening would not be spoiled.
Barbecue pits were dug for the several oxen (who might be tough to eat due to their extreme age, but they wouldn’t have survived another winter anyway). Many braces of pheasant, grouse, chicken, pigeon, dove, and goose were turning on spits. Carp, tench, and the other fish that had been taken by diligent anglers from local streams were ready to be grilled. The odors of roasting meats and game encouraged us to work the harder to make all ready for the party.
“We all deserve it,” Diana said, and Desma, much as I had been the silent second to my brother’s remarks, nodded emphatically.
> “Now you must sit still,” Catron told them, for we had dressed them first since our toilettes would take longer. As a special concession to keep them occupied, they were allowed to watch us dress, Catron giggling nearly as much as I, as we struggled into the corselettes and hoops and petticoats required to underpin our lovely gowns. And then they took turns pulling the corset strings in so tight I was afraid I’d never be able to dance, much less eat of our birthday feast.
Mother had designated the pale yellow gown which had been so admired the previous winter for Catron, since it suited not only her fourteen years but her dark hair and fair skin. As Catron was taller than whomever the dress had been created for, it reached the middle of her lower limbs, the perfect length for her. Since I was now a few hours short of being officially sixteen, I was allowed to wear a much more elaborate and delectable confection of white gauze over silver silk. Throwing a muslin cape over Catron’s shoulders, Mother first braided my sister’s dark locks tightly to a point just below the nape of her neck. Then she allowed the lovely natural curls to fall to Catron’s waist: still a young style, but with just enough fashion to please my sister.
* * * *
My dark red hair was piled and pinned atop my head, save for the three long ringlets which, with her curling iron, Mother created to fall from the back knot of my hair across my shoulder to hang nearly to the decolletage of the low cut gown.
Then she placed on both our heads, as if tiaras of priceless gems, headbands of honeysuckle and daisies, Catron and I exclaimed and twirled and whirled in front of the mirror while our younger sisters were struck dumb at the change in us.
“These should be roses or something more exotic,” Mother said apologetically as she arranged garlands. “Now, for just one more detail,” she said and left the room.
We were both fidgeting at what seemed a very long delay — we were so eager to show everyone else how fine we looked — when she returned with two flat black velvet cases: one round, one long.
“Pearls are suitable for you, Catron,” she said and opened the first of the cases to remove the strand of pink-toned pearls that fit around Catron’s lovely neck as if they had been strung for her alone. “Now, you may take your sisters downstairs and you are all,” and Mother held up a stern finger, “to sit quietly in the hall where you may move only to welcome early-come guests should some arrive before Tracell, Tirza and I descend.”
An ecstatic Catron let go of her pearls to take her sisters’ hands and leave the room.
Then, with an air of ceremony, Mother turned to me, the long case in her hand.
“You are not precisely sixteen, dearest Tirza, but you have acted with such wisdom in the last trying years that I feel I am conforming to tradition in letting you choose your crystal today, on the eve of your sixteenth birthday.”
I almost burst into tears. “But what shall we do about Tray and his horse, mother?”
Tears were in her eyes as she embraced me.
“You make my heart leap with pride, my darling. Not that I haven’t cudgeled my brains in an effort to make his birthday wish come true, but . . .” and she gave a little sigh, half-sob, half a catch of her breath. Brisk again, she opened the case to show me the four crystals nestled there, each on fine linked chains similar to those she wore: one crystal for each of her daughters. “I will tell you — when we have more time — how to understand the use of these crystals. You will find that their main purpose is an aid to help you focus your mind on what needs to be done. I believe yours will help you refine instincts that I have already seen you exhibit.”
I didn’t really absorb her words, for the sight of beautiful jewels awed me. I fancied I heard gentle music, the kind heard when delicate crystal is lightly pinged by a finger. No two of the crystals in that box were alike. One, two finger-joints long, was the palest of blues, its facets cut cleanly and ending in a point. Another, slightly shorter, blushed the pink of the most delicate rose. The third was the dainty yellow-green of the peridot.
“That’s Catron’s,” I blurted out.
Mother chuckled. “You may well be right, my love.”
It was the fourth, the clear one, not white but seeming to hold all the rainbow colors when the sun coming through the window touched it briefly. It was the one to which my hand instinctively went. I saw out of the corner of my eye that Mother nodded once, as if she had known this would be my choice.
“This was the one you reached for when you were barely three months old and my mother and grandmother brought crystals to see which would suit you best.”
“That long ago?”
“As the world turns, it is not that long ago, love.”
She put it around my neck and embraced me with a kiss on each cheek and one on my lips. As soon as the crystal settled against the skin of my chest, I could feel the warmth of it.
“Oh!” I was surprised.
“Oh?” Mother echoed, her eyebrows rising in query.
“It’s warm. I thought a crystal would be cool.”
My mother gave me a long and searching look. “That depends on the crystal, but obviously your choice is well made and the crystal is content to be worn by you.” We were both startled by the sound of thunder. “It seems the heavens agree with me. When we have more time, I will explain some of the properties of these particular crystals and how the women of our line have learned to depend on them.”
“Do they,” and I pointed to the three she wore — this time looped onto a black velvet band at her throat so that each, the tender-blue, then the white and the deep green — dangled separately, “tell you what to do all the time, Mother?”
She laughed. “Not in so many words, love, but they do help focus the mind when sensible thought is required. Generally they take some heat from our bodies. If it should ever get very hot or very cold, come to me instantly. Now,” and she turned brisk, “you must help me dress, for if I do not mistake the sounds, some of our guests are arriving.”
Indeed, the rumbling thunder to the east had caused many of our invited guests to hurry, lest they in their finery be caught in a sudden shower. Mind you, the manner of transport which brought many of them started the party in high good humor. So few horses remained in the county that other animals had been substituted. Several carts were drawn by not so willing pairs of goats. One elegant barouche was stately drawn by two sets of yoked oxen, while four mismatched mules pulled a landau. More than one conveyance used donkeys, hee-hawing up the drive as if commenting on their new occupation so that all would notice their promotion. Several farmers actually pushed their elegantly dressed wives in barrows so their dainty fabrics would not be soiled by road dust. Those from the village were perhaps grateful that they did not have far to walk. I did see some reach the gates and pause to dust their feet before putting on their dancing slippers.
Of course, Mother had been very generous with the contents of our attic. We did recognize some of the fine gowns and male attire. And if the fashions were of different centuries, we were all most elegantly costumed. Tracell had never looked so handsome, nor so like Father, as he did in the pale green wide-skirted long jacket, with the beautifully embroidered paler green waistcoat and white silk knee breeches. I felt that Keffine was as handsome in the blue, and his father, Lord Hyland, posed as a remarkable figure in his purple. Lady Hyland was certainly flattered by the lavender silk with its gauzy over-skirt trimmed with silver lace. There had not been enough of the old-fashioned apparel to fit or costume everyone of rank in the county from our stores, but following our example, many appeared in what they had been able to discover. The gentlemen attired themselves, if informally, in fine cambric white full sleeved shirts, worn with elegant lacy froths at the throat, long vests, and tight court pants. Women appeared in every sort of bodices, full skirts, and embroidered or lacy aprons every bit as elegant as their menfolk. As well we were out of doors, for many had preserved their garments from the moth by camphor, which airing had not completely removed and which the heat of the aftern
oon made more redolent.
Old liveries had been unearthed and freshened so that those who served the gathering did so as stylishly as those they waited upon. I don’t know who found the outfits for the village musicians, but they were certainly clad for a grand occasion and seemed indefatigable in their energetic playing of old galliards, gavottes, reels, set dances and minuets. Their tankards were rarely left unreplenished. Perhaps the food did not rival the victuals or fancies that had been served at other such Balls, but there was sufficient for all to partake until the roasts were finished. Portions of the fish and fowl were passed around, with napkins, and with fine wine or beer or cider to wash these tidbits down, so the dancing took on an exuberance that equaled the occasion.
By tradition, the birthday child or children danced first. It should have been my father who bowed to ask for my hand, but Tracell did the honors for me. And to accept his hand I had to release my beautiful, exciting crystal for the first time since Mother had put it on my neck. Maybe, just maybe, my fervent prayers for him would be answered, though I had not been able to focus my mind on any manner in which I could spring a horse out of nowhere for Tray. Then Tray, again assuming my father’s traditional role, swirled Mother, ravishing in the deep red that was so close a match to her glorious hair, onto the floor while the spectators cheered.
Keffine was next to ask my hand for a dance, and I only too delighted to accede as Tray partnered an ecstatic Catron. As my white and silver skirts whirled against Keffine’s blue coat, I felt we made as handsome a couple as Mother and Tray. Keffine had to relinquish my hand to his father who, while no longer as agile as his son, had obviously instructed Keffine in all manner of dances. Protocol now properly observed, others took the floor.
During the short intervals, we were aware of more thunder, but no one was going to permit mere weather to interrupt this party. Who knew when the young men asking to dance with me or Catron (since Mother permitted her to stand up for the reels and sets) or those of the other pretty girls of our neighborhood would spend their next days? So many were now eligible to answer any new muster that the prince might call. I won’t say that the atmosphere had even a touch of frenzy or premonition, though my crystal continued to feel comfortably warm against my skin, but this evening was for our enjoyment. And we were all determined to forget such things as the war and the sparse harvest that must see us through another long winter with so many other items in scarce supply.
If Wishes Were Horses Page 4