The Palace of Curiosities. Rosie Garland

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СКАЧАТЬ I gasped.

      Lace tears easily, she said, digging in her ears with a long fingernail. And you can never get the stains out of organdie. I’d rather have a sturdy pair of boots and a five-pound note tucked inside them.

      ‘You don’t have a breath of romance in the whole of you,’ I sulked.

      Good thing too, she said, drily.

      ‘Won’t you be happy for me?’

      There was no answer.

      ‘Glad to see the dirty back of you!’ I shouted into the emptiness. I would not let her spoil my day.

      Mama begged and borrowed plates and saucers from every room in the house, so that my wedding feast was served on a higgledy-piggledy mismatch of crockery and all of it chipped and cracked. I barely noticed. I believe Mama could have poured tea from a leather bucket and I would not have cared.

      All morning she was a fury of bread-buttering, slicing it so thin you could have hung it at the window and seen through to the houses opposite. There were three vast pots of tea, a whole cup of sugar. She kept muttering ‘Friday for losses’ until I had to tell her to keep her empty-headed superstitions to herself. I was gaining a husband.

      I stood at the window, pulling on my gloves only to draw them off when my paws grew too hot, which was very quickly. I kissed the soft lilac leather, for surely he had touched it when he picked them out for my trousseau. There was no extravagant gauzy bridal gown, but he had bought me a pleasing and practical costume: a going-away dress in dark lavender, a pretty hat and new boots made for me alone. It was very kind of him.

      I paced up and down so that I would not sit creases into my new skirt, screwing my head first to one side and then the other so that I could keep my eye on the street. It had to be the most long-drawn-out morning in the history of the world. Surely the moments had never ticked by so slowly.

      ‘Mama, I think the priest is late.’

      ‘Eve, sit down. You are making me dizzy with all this to-ing and fro-ing.’

      ‘I cannot be still.’

      ‘It is unladylike to bustle about, and in such a nice dress. You will become overheated.’

      She could not bring herself to say the word ‘sweaty’, but it was true: my fur was clinging to the inside of my blouse.

      ‘Mama, do not fuss.’

      ‘Do you want to faint away? That’d be a fine business, if the priest asks you to say “I do” and I have to fan you awake with a hymn sheet.’

      At last the wedding party arrived, to a fanfare of much rapping at the outer door. I fought to stand still while Mama went to greet them. Mr Arroner was first through the door, greeting my mother with loud declarations of apology for his lateness. He burst into our room and bowed deeply, heaping me with tender compliments and presenting me with a small posy of violets to match the dress. He was followed by a priest and two plainly dressed strangers who stared at me and my not-quite-yet husband back and forth until I thought their heads might grind their necks down to their shoulders.

      There was no Order of Service, no hymn sheet, no hymns of any kind; only the briefest of prayers and I do not remember a word of them. The only words worth treasuring were the ones which dropped from his lips when he said he would have me as his wife.

      ‘Do you take this woman?’ said the minister, too hastily for my liking.

      ‘Indeed I do.’

      They were the sweetest sounds I had ever heard, so delightful I half expected doves to fly out of his hat. He could have stood before me in sack-cloth for that vow clothed him more royally than any king. Then the minister blinked at me.

      ‘Do you take this man?’ he said, unable to keep a curl of distaste from his lips.

      ‘I do,’ I said, boldly.

      Holy eyes flickered between my husband and myself.

      ‘Yes, she can speak for herself,’ said my new man, and I squeezed his arm for the champion he was.

      I went to throw my arms around his neck, but his eyebrows climbed so far up his forehead I thought they might drop off. Mama also shot me a look, and I tempered my behaviour. We would be alone soon enough: I could wait for marital embraces a little while longer. I dropped my head and made a courageous attempt to behave decorously, as befitting a bride. I clenched and unclenched my fingers around the spray of flowers so often that I quite strangled them.

      My mother did not cry. We signed our names and my man gave a coin to the witnesses: they were quick to leave and I did not see them again. It was not a grand ceremony, but it was good enough. I had the greatest prize, a husband who had already taken up a shield in my defence against the world. I loosened the word ‘girl’ from my shoulders and dropped it at the side of the front door.

      Mr Arroner took me then into my new home, our new home: a palace with high ceilings and five steps leading up from the pavement to the door and a pink-and-white maid who bobbed her head and called me ‘mum’.

      ‘You will want to prepare for bed, Mrs Arroner,’ he said as soon as we were through the door. ‘As shall I. I shall be in my dressing-room.’

      ‘Yes, Mr Arroner,’ I said, delighting in the words.

      He was mine. I followed him up the stairs; he showed me into the bedroom and left me there. My head swam with the notion that he had an entire room in which to dress and undress, for it was thrilling enough that there was a room set aside for sleeping. Of course, not only for sleeping: there were the other things husbands did with wives in their bedrooms.

      I flushed beneath my fur and began to undo the buttons at my cuffs, but discovered those running down the back of my blouse were out of reach. Mama had fastened me into my clothes that morning, which seemed a very long while ago. I was not sure what to do next. I looked around the room: a small fireplace, a jug and basin on the chest of drawers, the window shutters closed tight, a cheval-glass leaning into the corner.

      He did not return. I did not know what mysteries husbands engaged in to prepare themselves for their wedding nights, and the room into which he had retired was very quiet. I thought of how he had looked earlier that day, not yet my husband, and I not yet his wife: his polished hat, new stiff collar, bright waistcoat and gloves so fresh they were not yet rubbed from holding the head of his cane. I had tried diligently to be as nervous as a virgin should be, but I could not stop my eyes from wandering over his body, even when Mama pinched me.

      Still he did not come. There was no clock ticking, but it was my opinion that enough time had passed for him to remove his clothing. Perhaps he was smoking a cigar; perhaps he thought me so timid that he wished to give me time to compose myself. But I was not composed: I was sitting with my cuffs open and no other preparations made. I tried once more to reach the buttons laddering down my back but failed. It was easier at home: my clothes were simpler and I had Mama to help me. I slapped away the ungrateful thought. I was wearing the beautiful clothes he had picked out with his own hand. They were just troublesome to get out of.

      Then it came to me: perhaps he did not want me undressed at all. He wanted to do it himself. I was deeply stimulated at the thought of him standing behind me, unlooping each pearl button from the nape of my neck down to the dip where spine flares to СКАЧАТЬ