Midnight in Everwood(5)
Marietta inclined her head. ‘I am obliged to fulfil my familial expectations.’ The words lodged themselves inside her heart like barbs. She schooled her face not to reveal her inner turmoil.
Victoria pursed her lips. ‘Why can you not perform both? I’m a society woman and I’m not about to let a few old-fashioned-minded relics dictate what I can and cannot do with my life.’
Harriet scoffed. ‘But your mother is a militant suffragette and most decidedly not a baroness.’
Victoria sent a scathing look in her direction and Marietta concealed a smile. She could never quite discern whether the two women were the most intimate of friends or the shrewdest of rivals, camouflaged as confidantes.
Though it disquieted her to admit it to herself, she carried a deep and unrelenting envy of them both. Victoria possessed an impeccable turnout as if she’d been born with her hips positioned at right-angles, and Harriet’s leaps and jumps seemed to rewrite the laws of gravity. The three of them had commenced their dancing careers at a tender age and had since witnessed each other’s victories and disappointments alike. Marietta could still recall the tartness of the lemon soufflé she’d eaten that day as the taste had lingered during that pivotal first step into the world of ballet.
She’d stood beside Harriet and Victoria, three young girls in pristine white dresses, filled with childish dreams and fancies, as Madame Belinskaya had prodded their legs with her cane, terrifying each of them before proclaiming, ‘Khorosho – good.’ Classes had begun that same day. Victoria and Harriet were already steadfast friends, having been raised as cousins, leaving Marietta on the periphery. An awkward child, at first she had preferred the relative solitude. Lately she was beginning to wonder if she should have ingratiated herself with them more. Her entire life was sliding towards an inevitable future, unless she chose to derail it, and she found herself short of allies.
Now, Harriet’s deep-set eyes bored into Marietta’s. ‘Chasing after your dreams is a peculiar kind of suffering; it is not for the weak-hearted or cowardly-minded. It requires deep strength and endless determination.’
Marietta took a sharp inhale. ‘I am perfectly aware of what it would take, thank you.’ Determination raged through her like a fire, licking her nerves, her sinews. A plan was beginning to fashion itself in her mind; a way in which she could foresee snapping out of the mind-forg’d manacles.
‘Feet in fifth, we shall begin with pliés,’ Madame Belinskaya called out with the trademark thud of her cane, the floor at the front of the class pockmarked from her passionate outbursts. A simple melody was coaxed out of the weary piano by the equally weary Vassily, their resident pianist, who was as grey as Madame Belinskaya was illustrious. In a rustle of silks, the ballet dancers fell in line. Marietta held her chin high. Though it seemed easier to acquiesce to her parents’ wishes, she knew if she did so, it would haunt her for the rest of her days. And Marietta Stelle was neither weak-hearted nor cowardly.
When Marietta returned from rehearsal, she was greeted by the tittle-tattle emanating from her mother’s private drawing room during afternoon tea with her closest circle of confidantes and fellow traders in gossip.
‘Young, too, to possess a full head of silver hair, though I do suppose it lends him a certain gravitas,’ Adelaide, Geoffrey’s mother, had mused as Marietta had wandered past the door.
‘I’ve heard the poor soul is recently widowed,’ Vivian, Ida’s cousin, said with an affected sigh.
‘Well, I heard that he has never married but has returned to England to secure an advantageous match. Apparently the doctor possesses a grand fortune.’
‘No doubt he shall be seeking a wife to manage both the town house and his debut into society,’ Ida said with a careful air of insouciance that caused Marietta to pause in the carpeted hallway. ‘I have already extended the invitation for him to dine with us.’
Marietta frowned at the nearby Tiffany Favrile lamp, brought over on the steamer after a visit to New York.
‘You must tell all. It has been quite some years since Edgar passed; perhaps Drosselmeier would consider me,’ Vivian said between clinks of the bone china teacups. ‘I hear he’s rather handsome.’
Adelaide let out a peal of laughter. ‘Oh, Vivian, you do tickle me sometimes.’
‘Yes, quite,’ Ida agreed. ‘My cousin is most humorous.’
Marietta’s smile was a secret shared with the William Morris honeysuckle wallpaper alone. She turned back downstairs to the ballroom, leaving her mother to the seething thoughts that had undercut her tone.
She could practically taste the curiosity rippling through her mother, deep and insatiable. She sympathised with the man, for Nottingham was rife with rumours of him and it seemed every direction she turned she found herself confronted with talk of him. And, although Marietta would not admit it to anyone, she was becoming intrigued by this mysterious new arrival.
Chapter Four
It wasn’t until two days later that the Stelle family made the acquaintance of high society’s latest obsession: Dr Drosselmeier.
When Marietta returned home from rehearsals that evening, she entered her bedroom to discover a new dress hung on her triptych screen, pre-selected by her mother to wear for dinner, signalling that they were to entertain company. It was blush rose chiffon, pinned in at the waist by means of a diamond brooch, and long-sleeved, with delicate ruffles frothing down the bodice. Marietta let the pearl-speckled lace sleeves trail through her fingers. They were as translucent and delicate as if they had been crafted from moonbeams. Ballet was poetry in motion and Marietta lived to lose herself in dance, but returning home to find this was a jarring reminder of the life she was expected to lead.