Running Wild

Chapter 6

“Maybe you will make your debuts without embarrassing our name after all.Now,we will move on to the polka.” I suck in the hushed air. The polka is how the horses must feel at  the Compton races but all set to music. “Now Amelia,you will partner...” I glance at jemima. A small smirk is slowly but surely sliding it’s way across her face.

Ah. War has been declared.

I am to partner Liz for Abigail’s claim of a sprained ankle has resurfaced. Pft! She cannot tell the difference between my feet and the floor in a waltz,let alone gallop through the polka.

I turn and face liz who has her lips slightly pursed at having to partner me. I frown. I’m not that bad at dancing,just not very good at letting my partner take the lead.

The gramophone sputters into life as we take our places to the splutters and coughs as it wheezes its way into the out of date tune. I bow,she curtseys,we step forward and begin.

It doesn’t take me long to realise Liz’s hand-foot coordination isn’t the best and my toes are already shrieking at the injustice of being treated like floor before the first sway. For such an elegant looking creature,she really has trouble dancing. Liz stumbles and I have to hoist her up as we spin and follow Lucy and Amelia round.Talking is forbidden as gentlemen find chatty women unattractive. She narrows her large blue eyes at me. I raise my eyebrows in apology. Maybe that pull was a little rough but she would’ve fallen otherwise. I lift my head and watch the others as we continue across the hall,my feet fidgeting through the steps.

Diana is partnered with Vera Middleton,who is very short and looks ridiculous next to Diana’s tall,slender,willowy frame. She moves with a supple grace reminiscent of some feline creature,sinuous legs carry her in lengthy strides Vera has to shuffle to match.

She seems almost...bored.

Indeed,her expression is expressionless,verging on irritation at the tedium of this frivolous dance. I roll my eyes over to Jemima and her partner who seem to be talking animatedly about some opera where so and so’s sister stood up to watch a gentlemen leave in the middle of a song. It sounds a desperate woman to do so,I can only assume this young gentleman is the latest heart throb. I can only hope he is not in London when I arrive,for their sakes. I’ll probably scare him off,if not with my looks then my charm. As mother constantly reminds me. My gaze drifts away to focus on the pair in front.

Lucy is not particularly nimble either and stumbles as Amelia yanks her forward.

I pity the gentlemen who partners her. He’ll be in for a shock.

Lucy struggles to regain her balance and trips on Amelia’s toes. I close my eyes as the chaos falls. Screams and shrill giggles drown out the crackly gramophone. I blink and take in the scene.

Lucy is lying spread eagled beneath Amelia’s rather large legs,Jemima and Mary Harkwrite have also lost control,both tried to steer and run aground in a mess of petticoats and flailing feet. A brief twist of satisfaction swells as I see Jemima writhing like some pathetic insect. The jolt is brief and disappears just as fast but a shadow remains,like a pencil on paper, not quite erased.

I sigh and offer my hand to the cadaverous Lucy trapped under a rather stout Amelia,now a stinging shade of scarlet at her humiliation. She takes it and hauls herself up,head bowed as the giggles are amplified at her colour. Miss Grey bustles over,irritation stamped over her face like a warning.

“who caused this?” She barks,fixing us all under her imperious,all seeing magnifying glass. The giggles fade into a stuffy silence that steps between us all in layers of shame and shock.

“...I-I-I did, M-miss Grey.” It is Lucy who stutters out the words. All the eyes flicker to her,pinning her against a wall of shame.

“I-It was an a-c-cident,Miss Grey. I-I tripped over my own f-feet.” A giggle is stifled by a hacking cough that snaps the silence stretched so tightly between us. The usual suspects have guilt tattooed across their foreheads. Miss Grey is examining Lucy for lies and truth,trying to see the lines between them. 

Lucy stands quiet. Defeated. And I am struck again by how unusually like a mouse she appears. Unseen. Unheard. Invisible.

“well...”Miss Grey admonishes as Lucy shrinks into insignificance. “Make sure it isn’t repeated. We shall move on to the waltz as this is obviously far to advanced.”She bustles off and girls gather with their partners,their whispers swarm around Lucy like wasps round honey,vultures round a carcass. They advance,closing her in a vicious circle,waiting to rake her over the coals for sending the back to the waltz,waiting to see who will take the first bite.

“Come on,we’ve already missed the first bar” I pull at Liz,away from the others,leaving Lucy to her fate. My voice sounds oddly quiet.

What’s wrong with you?

I breathe in and we begin. Again.

__________________________________

The sun has made one final request to be seen before it is swallowed by the horizon and it blazes through the clouds in a splendid sunset. Spears of gold stab at the spray,for April is blustery and it’s waves are restless. they smash themselves at the bottom of the cliffs,pounding away at the aged rock,their fury evident,unsuppressed. The wind conducts their concerto from on high,driving them to crash against the boulders again and again.

It winds it’s way through the heather and grass at the top of the cliff,whipping it back and forth in a rippling sea itself. it tugs it’s ever-present fingers through my hair,combing in it’s tapestry of tangles,weaving it in with the long grasses splayed about my head.

“That’s harsh.” Jacks voice,although quietly spoken,is heard over the wandering wind wrestling with his tone for domination over audibility.

“And the worst thing is,I could’ve helped her. I could’ve stepped in and defended her. But I didn’t.” I kick at the ground,piling on the blows as though it’s all it’s fault.

“Hold your horses,what did the ground do?” Jack asks. He tugs at my shoulder,turning me toward him before I can bury my face in the grass again.

“it tripped her up.” I answer.”If it hadn’t done that,she wouldn’t be sitting in her room,sobbing into the bible and I wouldn’t be feeling so Goddam Awful!” This last bit is hurled at the sky,slipping between the sun shafts as though trying to hide and apologise for the racket I’m making.

Even your own voice turned against you,I’d say thats a little more than certifiably deranged,wouldn’t you?

“SHUT UP!”

Swallow,grazing nearby,looks up at this,eyes raised,ears erect as if to say Calm it down a notch!

“Yeah,listen to the horse!” Jack jokes before catching my expression and placing a mask of concerned sympathy back on. I scowl. He removes it.

“but seriously. I understand your annoyed. But it’s the Miss’s nature to chide so much,I always get a tellin’ off if them horses ain’t right. And it’s in the floors nature to get in everyones way and miss Lucy’s to trip over it. Living things are like that.” I raise an eyebrow,my scowl defusing somewhat at his speech. There is truth under the Londoners dialect and the uneducated logic.

“I suppose so...” I grumble and sit up as Swallow journeys over to join us,a nicker rising along with the wind that screams in our ears in an accompanying fanfare to the suns descent. Jack nods and puts his arm around my shoulders in a hug. I sit,still and statue cold,not returning his affection. To do so...to do so would mean consequences. Like everything. Swallow nudges his shoulder and he turns to her as she flops down beside us,a supple,muscled beast as docile as a puppy.

We watch it go. Watch the spray flick up and down,shining brighter than diamonds in the bleeding light of the dying sun. Watch the waves fury recede till’ they are merely  lapping at the ankles of the earth,like eager hunting dogs that cluster round their masters ankles at the call of a whistle.

So easily tamed. Yet so changeable. And it makes me wonder. Can living things change?