The Flight of Gemma Hardy_ A Novel - Margot Livesey [2]
“Anyway I won’t lend you the dress,” Louise added. “You’d just spill something on it.”
If she had sounded angry I would have argued, but like her mother, she spoke as if I were barely worth the air that carried her words. Without further ado the two of them turned to talking about where they would ride that day. Abandoning my toast, I marched out of the room.
Mrs. Marsden, the housekeeper, was the only member of the household whose behaviour towards me had not changed after my uncle’s death. She continued to treat me with the same briskness she had always shown. She had arrived in the village the year after I did and rented the cottage on the far side of the paddock. Then my aunt had an operation—she can’t have any more babies, Louise announced cheerfully—and during her convalescence Mrs. Marsden had become a fixture at Yew House. She had grown up in the Orkneys and could, sometimes, be lured into telling stories about the Second World War, or seals and mermaids. Helping her, I told myself, was infinitely preferable to being a pariah at the party.
But as I watched Louise and Veronica trying on dresses, ironing, and doing their hair, I had felt increasingly left out. Although Mrs. Marsden’s own wardrobe consisted of drab skirts and twinsets, she was regarded as an excellent judge of fashion, and the two girls ran in and out of the kitchen, asking, Which necklace? The blue shoes or the black? When I momentarily forgot myself and seconded her in urging the blue, Louise did not even glance in my direction, and I saw her nudge Veronica when she thanked me. Suddenly I was no good even for praise. By the time they came in to display themselves one final time, I was peeling chestnuts for the stuffing and determined not to utter another word, but that didn’t stop me from staring.
In the last year Louise, as visitors often remarked, had blossomed. She carried her new breasts around like a pair of deities seeking rightful homage. Privately I called them Lares and Penates, after the Roman household gods. Veronica was, like me, still flat as a board, but her lips were full and her hair was thick and wavy. In their finery, with their glittering necklaces and handbags, the two sisters could have been on their way to the Lord Mayor’s Ball. That Louise could scarcely walk in her high heels, that Veronica had applied so much of her mother’s rouge that she seemed to have a fever, only heightened the transformation.
“You both look very nice,” pronounced Mrs. Marsden. “The green is most becoming, Louise. Veronica, your hair is lovely.”
I was reaching for another chestnut as my aunt sailed in, wearing blue velvet, her golden hair piled high. “My gorgeous girls,” she said, putting an arm around each. She was still praising them when Will appeared. At once she released her daughters. “My dashing young man.”
None of them seemed to notice that my uncle was missing. The previous year, when I wasn’t passing oranges and playing games, I had watched him as he danced. Later, from memory, I had drawn a picture of him, looking like a Highland chieftain in his kilt and sporran; it had stood on his bookshelf until my aunt threw it on the fire. Now he was gone, and all they could think about was their fancy clothes. In my fury the knife slipped from the chestnut into my finger. My gasp drew a flurry of attention.
“Hold your hand above your head,” ordered Mrs. Marsden.
“Move the chestnuts,” said my aunt.
“Bloody idiot,” said Will, snickering at the double meaning.
His sisters made noises of disgust until my aunt hushed them. “Let the dogs out last thing,” she told me. “And be sure to leave the porch light on.”
Heels clicking, skirts swishing, they disappeared down the corridor. Mrs. Marsden bandaged my finger and said she would finish the chestnuts. She must have felt