Chapter Three

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“Pet,” said their father.

“Yes dear?” answered their mother while staring into the vanity mirror and adjusting her tiara.

“I can't help thinking we've done wrong by the daughters three.”

“Whatever could you mean, done wrong?”

They were dressing for dinner, which the Pemberton-Pemberton’s insisted be formal. Their father worked a finger into his ill-fitting borrowed collar and mumbled, “Damned snow.” He continued, “Well the Duchess, do we know her?”

“She's only a Lady, Lady Euella Horsley, but she does rate a column and a half in Debretts.”

“Yes, well…ink, ink on paper but what if she's a monster in real life? A real-life monster, what of that?”

“Oh darling, we’d have heard something in the village. There are no Bluebeards in our neck of the woods, just tweeds and tea types. I'm told she is very nice, puts on fetes for the locals, does good deeds, that kind of thing. I’ve even heard it said that she enjoys cricket, and it was very nice of her to call us about the daughters’ weekend plans.”

“Harrumph,” said their father, worriedly dropping himself into a chair.

Their mother pursed her now-lovely shade of crimson lips and said, “Dear, let's make the best of it.” She brushed her hands with a sense of accomplishment. “My face is done.”

Their father cocked his bushy eyebrows and thought, I really do love her, but said, “What do you think dinner’ll be? Nothing too bloody I hope.”

Their mother wagged her fan at him and said, “Oh my love, you worry far too much,” then switched off the lamp. 

“Now girls,” said Lady Horsley, pushing back a strand of gray hair and turning to the huge wooden trunk she was rummaging through. “There must be something here. If you are to be our nymphs, our forest pixies, you must look the part. We are having baked jam roll for dinner and you can't expect this lot to suspend their disbelief so easily after baked jam roll.” She smiled. The girls sat on the bed, enveloped in the lovely smothering warmth of the house and its contents; it felt like being in the middle of a warm, overstuffed cabinet of curiosities.

“Ah,” Lady H shouted, “this is exactly what I was looking for.” She held three crinoline dresses, dripping glistening silver and blue gossamer. “You shall be pixies with a vengeance!”

The girls looked at each other. Sarah said, “I'm not sure if we are the pixie type,” hesitantly.

“Nonsense,” said Lady H, stretching up with a crackle. “I thought ‘pixie material’ from the moment I saw you. Besides, we need three pixies, it’s in the play and I certainly cannot be a pixie. Why my bottom shook its last pixie dance years ago. So I’m afraid it’s typecasting my dears — three sisters, three pixies. I am sorry. Next year, I promise we'll do Beckett but for now it’s fairy queens and pixies. Entre nous, by the time we get to this point in the evening our guests (bless them) will be quite soused and it will all seem Waiting for bloody Godot to them anyways.” She held the dresses towards the girls. “Try them on. If we need to make adjustments we best get to it now.”

Mr. Rutherford sat alone in the enormous study enjoying a wonderful silence the weekend had not yet afforded him. He had not turned on the light and was holding a drained martini glass, wondering whether he should have another while already knowing the answer. The snow was still falling. How long will it keep up? he thought. How long could they hold out? Robert lay behind his head, a furry extension of the marvelously ornate and comfortable chair. He was snoring slightly, his ears twitching and paws opening and closing. Although the fire had been laid out for the morning, Mr. R had lit it and it was beginning to take. Such a drafty old house, he thought, certainly full of ghosts. The room shifted orange and yellow, the windows dark rectangles of blue. The mantle clock struck the half.

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