Whether the glass eye is more beautiful than the original is debatable. Certainly my father hopes, thinks, intends that it should be.
• • •
I don’t like my father sometimes. This is one of those times.
• • •
Not that I like my mother much either, at this moment:
• • •
It is the next morning, or maybe the next—they’re all the same, now that my father has ceased to come home, now that Thomas Argument has ceased to visit. This is a new morning ritual, only somewhat different from the old. My mother clings to the bedpost, Mary tugs at the corset laces—
Pull, you little fool!
But I am pulling, madam—
Then pull harder!
But I can’t pull no harder—if madam will pardon me sayin’—
Tighter, Mary! Tighter! It must be tight as you can make it! Or I’ll find a stronger girl!
Yes, madam! I’ll do my best, madam!
Mary needs her job, so what choice does she have? She laces the corset as tightly as she can, so tightly that my mother cannot breathe, so tightly that she will have welts from the whalebone stays, a bruise on her stomach from the busk. Her white and pink and gold body won’t be beautiful now—but then, nobody’s looking, except Mary; even the mirror’s gone back into the closet. And while Mary might run from my mother’s room crossing herself—grumbling Evil things in this house, evil things—she needs her job, so she won’t tell anyone, not even her sister.
Not this. Because it is too real.
Tighter, Mary!
But I don’t want to hurt madam—
That’s all right, Mary. You let me worry about that.
Yes, madam.
• • •
It is the first blow in the battle between my mother and me.
Tighter, Mary! Tighter!
• • •
She is trying to crush me—to squeeze me out. We are already enemies, she and I. In fact we have been enemies for some time already. Even before she knew of me my mother knew of me: the secret she holds close beneath her rib, that she would not look at until forced to do so by Mary’s indicting words—It’s not my fault, is it, that madam’s got so fat?
She had to look at me then. That’s when I became real—summoned into existence by a girl-of-all-work, confirmed in existence by Dr. George Hawson Holtby, Surgeon, of Skinner Street. From whose office Thomas Argument saw Clotilde departing, in tears.
• • •
At least he acknowledged her. Nodded. Smiled pleasantly. But the minute he saw her, he knew what it meant. A shrewd man, Thomas Argument. A man of the world.
He won’t be back. There will be no further gifts from him. No music boxes or toys, no mirrors, no dresses, no corsets, no stockings.
He won’t respond, even, when my mother writes him a letter, and sends Mary off, at great risk, to deliver it in Church Street. He will simply nod again, and smile, and say, Thank Mrs. Dell’oro for her courtesy, sending Mary away empty-handed.
I don’t know what my mother put in that letter. Mary didn’t even dare to read it. Some things a servant doesn’t want to know.
She can’t help knowing, of course, because she sees it, Thomas Argument’s cold, cruel, thin-lipped smile when he says, Thank Mrs. Dell’oro for her courtesy. As if he has just received, by special messenger, an order for an expensive custom delivery of glass.