That Inevitable Victorian Thing Read online

  “Did Beth finally drive you away from dinner?” Anna Marcus said, looking up when her daughter came into the room.

  “There were onions involved, so I prefer to consider it a carefully staged retreat,” Helena said. “Also, the post arrived, and there was a note for you.”

  She handed over the letter that had come addressed to her mother, and then went to sit in her place by the window. She waited, pretending to watch for her father as she had done when she was young until her mother was absorbed in the note before she carefully removed the envelope from her pocket, and just as slowly turned it over to get a better look at the address.

  Oddly, it didn’t have a New London postmark. The letter Helena received came from Toronto, which made no sense at all, though it did explain why it had come by –bot. She knew no one in that city, save for a few of her father’s friends at the hospitals there, and none of them would have any reason to write to her in his place, whether it was her debut or not.

  Helena snuck a look at her mother and saw that Anna was still reading, so she carefully cracked the seal and removed the folded paper from within. It too was a simple white, but made of heavy cardstock that was just as rich as the envelope, and the lettering had not been done by any –bot or printer. The handwriting matched the envelope’s. Someone had taken great care, and not a small amount of time.

  Helena read the message through once, then again to make sure she had not lost her senses, and then—quite forgetting her reason for staying quiet—made a rather loud exclamation.

  “Helena?” said her mother.

  Helena sputtered for a moment, furious with herself for her inattention, and then pulled herself together.

  “It’s an invitation, Mama,” she said. She stared at the creamy paper like she expected it to disappear, like a –gram marked read.

  “It’s about time,” Anna said. “A tea or a ball?”

  Helena gave up hope of explaining adequately. She crossed the room and thrust the paper into her mother’s hands.

  Helena watched as the fine lines on her mother’s brow became more and more accentuated, her eyebrows lifting and lifting as she read.

  “Bright and beautiful,” she breathed.

  “However am I going to refuse it?” Helena asked. “They’ve given us an entire month’s notice, and I’ve no other commitments.”

  Neither Helena nor her mother noticed they were no longer alone in the parlour. Gabriel Marcus quietly watched his wife and daughter from the hall as he removed the raincoat he’d not managed to get on before being completely soaked in the sudden downpour. Working shifts at the hospital as he did, Gabriel never expected his family’s undivided attention the moment he entered the house, but seeing the pair of them completely engrossed in the post gave him an unexpected pang of nostalgia for the homecomings of his daughter’s younger days, when Helena would wait up past her bedtime and fool no one with her various subterfuges.

  “Refuse what, my darlings?”

  “Papa!” Helena went to him and kissed him. “Ugh, you’re all wet.”

  “It is raining,” he told her with a wink. He shared a fond look with his wife, who had almost recovered. “Don’t change the subject. What are we refusing?”

  “I don’t know that we should refuse it,” Anna mused.

  “Mother, I can’t debut in front of the Queen!” Helena protested. “And it’s not just the debut, it’s a whole season’s worth of events.”

  “Lord above, girl,” Gabriel said. “Let a man sit before you spring that sort of news on him.”

  Fred, the valet, had come in to collect Gabriel’s hat and coat, and made no attempt to conceal his smile.

  “Tea, sir?” he asked.

  “No, thank you, Fred,” Gabriel said. “I can wait for dinner.”

  Fred nodded and quit the room, doubtless to go immediately to the kitchen to tell Beth and Fanny everything he had just overheard. Gabriel turned back to his daughter, and found her with arguments at the ready

  “Father,” she said. “I don’t need to debut in Toronto. I’m more than content with the University Ball here, and I don’t even really need that!”

  “Helena, we are done having that argument,” Anna said.

  “Yes, Mama.” Helena was the very picture of an obedient daughter. “Father, we’ve no place to stay, and neither you nor Mother can be away from work to chaperone me, and I haven’t a sufficient wardrobe and”—she took a breath and summoned her courage—“I have already secured what I hope you think is a good match. What have I to gain in a dance hall full of strangers?”

  “Helena, think for just a moment,” Anna said, her tone sharp as she put aside her own letter and focused on her daughter. “Why do you think Lady Alexandra Highcastle has invited you to debut alongside her daughter?”

  “I have no earthly idea why Alexandra Highcastle even knows of my existence,” Helena said. As soon as the words had left her mouth, she recognized their folly.

  “You see, then,” Gabriel said gently.

  “I do, Papa,” Helena said. She turned to her mother. “Mama, I am sorry. I’m so accustomed to your being my mother and to the work you do that I forget how important your work is. Of course, Lady Highcastle would want to recognize you. I only wish she could do it directly.”

  Everyone in New London had long known what miracles Anna Marcus routinely worked, and therefore everyone mistook Dr. Marcus’s work for something commonplace and unremarkable. It was only when Helena travelled that she was forced to face her mother’s social power. Anna Marcus dealt with the private medical needs of the Empire’s most vulnerable citizens, and she and her staff did it so well that usually everyone forgot she did it at all. Most of the time, Helena was able to ignore her mother’s fame because her mother did exactly that.

  “I do God’s good work,” Anna said. “Believe me, sometimes I am as surprised as you are by the people who think I deserve renown for it.”

  Helena wanted to say that her mother did deserve it, and not through her daughter as proxy, but she held her tongue. She couldn’t fathom why Lady Highcastle wouldn’t just invite her mother to an event. Likely, she thought she was doing Helena a favour, and would never imagine Helena would resent it. It was, after all, for her mother’s sake.

  “I’m still not sure how we are expected to respond,” Helena said. “Do they think we will travel to Toronto for each event?”

  “I imagine they thought we would find you a place to stay and a chaperone,” Gabriel said dryly.

  He and Anna exchanged a look over their daughter’s head, discerning and deciding without words. It was a habit of theirs that Helena found most vexing.

  “She can stay at your Aunt Theresa’s,” Gabriel said, sensing his daughter’s exasperation. “Surely Theresa’s reputation is enough to serve as chaperone and sponsor. And imagine what she’ll be able to tell her quilting circle.”

  “We can hire a car as well,” Anna suggested. “That will spare the expense and inconvenience of taxis.”

  “Mother—” Helena started, but her parents continued as if she hadn’t spoken.

  “The dresses are a slightly larger problem, as you will need more of them now, but I am sure that once I tell my colleagues, all manner of garments will be made available,” Anna said thoughtfully. “Not to mention whatever Theresa is able to help you make over. And I have it on the best authority that with the Queen’s presence in Canada this year, traditional styles are considerably more in vogue than they have been the last few seasons. You won’t even be drastically unfashionable.”

  There was a rather loud and quickly muffled squeal from the direction of the kitchens. Gabriel smiled widely.

  “That’ll be Fanny,” he said, his voice warm, “learning she’s to dress you for the Queen.”

  “Of course you think it’s funny,” Helena said, too startled by the turn her evening had taken to
concede gracefully. Maybe Aunt Theresa would refuse. She was quite old, after all, and would probably not be interested in enduring an entire season surrounded by the finest young people Toronto had to offer for the Empire. She managed not to glare at her father, but only just. “You don’t have to wear a corset and curtsey to the Queen of the British Empire. It was bad enough that I had to do that here, and I would have been in a room full of people I already know and making my curtsey to a satellite feed. I’ll be a mess of nerves, and then no one will care about how much of God’s good work Mama does at the Findings Ward.”

  She knew she was being overly dramatic. Her mother’s reputation was based on science and years of long practice. Helena couldn’t ruin it if she tripped and fell in front of the entire Royal Family and the whole seat of Parliament. Not that that made her feel any better.

  Her father was laughing, a sound that usually made her feel warm and safe. Now, though, it was all too easy to imagine the sound multiplied a hundredfold and echoing through whatever ballroom the Highcastles’ party was hosted at as Helena fumbled her curtsey. She had seen videofiles of the Toronto debuts from previous years, and they were always much, much more formal than those held anywhere else in the country. Instead of a weekend, the Toronto Season extended for almost a month, depending on where Easter fell, as the young men and women of the city took advantage of the moment when they were both adult and child, able to exercise considerable freedoms and not yet burdened by much in the way of responsibility.

  It was intolerable, that she lose her quiet party and her simple dance with August to this. And yet Helena had no choice. She had not, as her mother was so fond of reminding her lately, made her debut yet, and thus she was still at her parents’ command. She did not appreciate the paradox.

  And she also had Fanny to think of. As far as professional accomplishments were concerned, managing a young lady’s Toronto debut with the Queen in attendance was no doubt more rewarding—not to mention better for her CV—than overseeing a quiet affair in a university town. Helena respected Fanny far too much to deny her this moment since it was in her power to give.

  “All right,” she said, sitting up straight. She heard Fred’s step in the hall and knew that he was coming to tell them that dinner was ready. She looked at both of her parents with what she hoped was determination. “I will do it.”

  “I know you will,” said her father, still smiling. “I’m rather looking forward to it.”

  Helena was about to ask what on Earth that meant, but Fred arrived and announced the meal. Gabriel extended his arm over-gallantly to his wife, and she took it as though she were a debut herself. Helena followed them from the room, and wondered, not for the last time, what in the world she had got herself into.

  LIZZIE

  You know I’m British right? As in, I live in England? Did you forget to change your settings?

  HENRY

  Did you?

  LIZZIE

  I’m travelling for a while, and I’m in Canada for the foreseeable future. I thought I would be neighbourly.

  HENRY

  Well then, what’s the problem?

  LIZZIE

  I’ll have to go home eventually, you know.

  HENRY

  We have such a good match. Maybe I could go with you.

  LIZZIE

  Maybe if your winters weren’t so terrible, I’d stay.

  CHAPTER

  2

  Margaret remained in her seat for almost an hour after the train made Union Station. This was by arrangement, having been printed on her ticket and announced several times over the intercom since the train had departed from Halifax. Queen Victoria-Elizabeth’s security detail had been adamant that upon arrival in Toronto, they would require at least an hour to get the Queen, the Prince Consort, and their assorted attendants off the train, through the station, and into their rooms at the Royal York across Front Street. As an apology, the Queen had sent the tea cart around on her own tab, and Margaret had been able, at least, to try one of the famed chocolates that were usually only given out in first class. Even with the snack, however, Margaret’s stomach was grumbling by the time she finally stood on the platform, looking about for one of the porter –bots to assist her with her luggage. She ignored her hunger, as she also ignored the security tails who almost certainly tracked her through the crowd.

  Everywhere she stepped, Margaret felt she was entering a larger world, one she’d been conditioned all her life to understand and admire in the abstract but that she now felt in her soul. Although predominantly white and Hong Kong Chinese, Toronto was home to almost every one of the Empire’s many ethnicities. She could see the obvious signs: brightly coloured hijabs dotted the crowd, and she could see at least three turbans in the mass of people ahead of her. Margaret’s political training had included lessons in how to determine ethnicity based on a person’s appearance, and therefore she could often guess a person’s heritage without asking. Not that she ever would ask, of course. It would be beyond rudeness to point it out unsolicited. One’s genes were one’s own business—and God’s—and it was not Margaret’s place to pass judgement. Rather the opposite: it was her job to enforce that no one did.

  The station was not at all like she had been led to expect, and after the rolling greens of Nova Scotia, the Gaspé, and Eastern Ontario, the view, not to mention the smell, was a little disheartening. Her father had spoken fondly of high vaulted ceilings that hinted at Canada’s English heritage, and stone panels carved with the names of all the places that trains from Union went. Instead, it was all dark cement and steel, ill lit by flickering orange lights that hung high above Margaret’s head.

  She struggled with her larger case, the smaller one already hoisted onto her back, and she lamented that her mother’s cautionary words that her “adventure” would prove more than she could cope with. She had been hoping to at least make it off the train platform before she had to resort to any of her emergency protocols.

  She squared her shoulders, letting the weight of the smaller case pull her posture straight, and took a deep breath. She had crossed the Atlantic by aeroflight, and the eastern part of Canada on high-speed train. She could handle Toronto without causing an international incident for long enough to meet her escort.

  She listened for a whirring noise that would signal a nearby –bot. She supposed that most of them had been commandeered by the Queen and her staff. Royalty didn’t exactly travel light, after all. She managed to snare one at last, its gently pulsing red light turning to a soft, constant glow as it registered her request for service.

  Her case taken care of, Margaret followed her fellow passengers down the arched staircase that took them below the platforms. As she’d hoped, no one gave her a second glance. The combination of Toronto’s cultural demographics and the Empire’s proud—and fiercely defended—tradition that all levels of society respected the privacy of an individual’s genetic background blended her right in. Underground, she could hear the rumbling of the Subway, a familiar-enough sound to a Londoner. The other travellers were loud, and clearly happy to be in the station despite its dank appearance. Many of them carried flags, one the red-and-white Maple Leaf and the other Margaret’s own Union Jack. Those passengers had got to see the Queen during their trip, and were being peppered with questions by those who had not been so fortunate.

  Margaret passed closed-up storefronts and empty shoeshine chairs. Usually they would have been open, ready to catch the first of the commuters switching from the Subway to the Becktrains to get out of the city and into the suburbs, but today they were shut down for security purposes, and so the station was unusually quiet, though the noise did increase as she walked towards what the signs assured her would, eventually, be an exit. At last, Margaret reached a long ramp and could see daylight streaming in from somewhere ahead of her.

  Here was the architecture her father spoke so fondly of. No one
could possibly have mistaken it for old—there were too many perfect corners on the masonry, for one thing—but it did feel a little bit like home, and Margaret thought, upon seeing it, that her adventure might not be so unworkable after all.

  “Margaret!” A clear voice rang through the crowd ahead of her, and even though she had been mostly prepared for it, Margaret still took a moment to steel herself for what was coming. “Miss Sandwich, we’re over here!”

  Margaret pushed her way through the crowd towards the voice. It got a bit easier once the people around her realized for whom she was headed. Unlike Margaret’s image, Elizabeth Highcastle’s—particularly her bright blonde hair and dazzling smile—was well-known, even in England, but it was her father, Fleet Admiral of the Royal Canadian Navy, who commanded the most attention. He was out of uniform, but there was no mistaking his military bearing, and there were few people in the entire British Empire who did not know his face.

  That the whole scheme hung on Elizabeth in such a way made Margaret uncomfortable. While she had no doubts about the Admiral’s ability to keep a secret, Elizabeth had a reputation for giddiness that couldn’t be discounted. Though far from unintelligent, the Canadian girl was given to excitement and the trappings of celebrity in a way that Margaret was not—both by temperament and training. And this was why, though the girls had met in London several times at the behest of their fathers, there was no profound friendship between them—a situation that was an even greater pity in light of how few opportunities Margaret had for intimate friendship. Staying with Highcastles had been the one point on which her father had refused to negotiate, and so Margaret resolved to make the best of it, even if it seemed likely that Elizabeth would give away the game.

  “There are so many people!” Elizabeth exclaimed, taking Margaret’s hand as the –bot hovered next to them with the bag. “I suppose they were all here hoping to see the Queen. We had to get special clearance to park outside, and then the RCMP shut everything down while she came through. We didn’t see so much as her hat feathers. I imagine everyone is quite disappointed!”