Princess of Glass - Jessica Day George [15]
“I’m sure that Dickon Thwaite will find you all the more lovely with a red face,” said Poppy mischievously.
“What was that?” Marianne looked at her, face even redder.
“Nothing.” Poppy turned back to her knitting.
“What is that?” Marianne leaned in closer.
“I was just joking,” Poppy began, then saw that Marianne was looking at the tube of blue wool dangling from her hands. “Oh, it’s a bed sock.”
“For whom? It’s enormous!”
Poppy held up the sock, which was almost as large and as long as a sweater sleeve. “It will shrink in the wash, and be just the right size for you,” she told Marianne. “Truly.”
“You’d best let Ellen wash it then, if you want it to shrink.” She rolled her eyes.
“She’s trying,” Poppy said.
“I don’t think she is,” Marianne argued. “She looked almost happy when she told me yesterday that my new shawl was ruined.”
Poppy sighed. “It’s true,” she said, rueful. She wanted to give the new maid the benefit of the doubt, but Mrs. Hanks had been correct: the girl seemed to be purposefully inept, and showed no interest whatsoever in learning how to perform her tasks correctly.
Clothing she took to mend or iron came back with larger tears and more creases. Every fire she laid smoked and sputtered, every tray she carried rattled until tea spilled or buns rolled off onto the floor. You could hear her coming by the clatter of dishes, and see where she was going by following the trail of broken china or crumpled stockings.
“I certainly hope she doesn’t lose her position here,” Poppy said, absently counting stitches. “I don’t know of anyone else who would hire her, and what other work could she find? If she tried the theater, she’d probably bring the whole set crashing down.”
Marianne snickered, which made Poppy feel a bit guilty. She hadn’t been joking, not really. Ellen was so hopeless at being a maid that Poppy had indeed turned her mind to other careers for the girl, and couldn’t think of a thing she was suited for.
Still snickering, Marianne got back up to practice her dancing again. She stood in the middle of the ballroom, looking stiff and awkward, and then leaped straight up. When she came down hard, she gave a little shriek. “My feet!”
Without thinking about it, Poppy tossed aside her knitting and went over to her. “You landed flat-footed,” she scolded. “And the way you’re standing is giving me a crick in the spine. Do it like this.”
Throwing back her head and shoulders, Poppy bent her knees just slightly, jumped up and clicked her heels, then landed lightly on the balls of her feet. She didn’t stagger, didn’t bruise anything, and her gown wafted around her in the exact way that it was supposed to.
“Très magnifique!” The Analousian dancing master had come back into the room with Lady Margaret. Both adults applauded Poppy roundly. “Très, très magnifique, mademoiselle!”
“Oh!” Poppy fiddled with her necklace. “I didn’t really think … I don’t really care for dancing.”
“But mademoiselle should care for dancing,” the man insisted. “Mademoiselle is very, very graceful. Put aside the knitted thing, mademoiselle, and dance!” He began to pound on the floor in time. “Dance, dance!”
“Here, I’ll be the gentleman,” Marianne said eagerly.
Before she could protest, Poppy found her hands seized and she blindly followed her friend through the intricate steps of a pavane. She did another entrechat, and nearly fell this time.
The pounding of the dancing master’s cane and Marianne’s hands grabbing at hers the moment she came down from the entrechat were making her think of the Midnight Balls of her childhood. She was wearing a blue dress, and when she caught glimpses of herself in the long mirrors on the wall of the ballroom, it reminded her of the midnight blue gown she had worn to the last Midnight Ball. She was half-expecting her brother-in-law Galen to burst into the room, so when the door opened and a tall young man came in, she stopped