“She’s certainly old enough,” said Aunt Vidala. “We have taught her all we can. If they stay in school too long, they become disruptive.”
“She’s truly a woman?” said Aunt Gabbana, eyeing me shrewdly.
“Of course,” said Paula.
“None of that’s padding?” said Aunt Gabbana, nodding towards my chest.
“Certainly not!” said Paula.
“You’d be amazed at what some families try. She has nice wide hips, none of these narrow pelvises. Let me see your teeth, Agnes.”
How was I supposed to do that? Open my mouth wide, as at the dentist? Paula saw I was confused. “Smile,” she said. “For once.” I drew back my lips in a grimace.
“Perfect teeth,” said Aunt Gabbana. “Very healthy. Well then, we will start looking.”
“Only among the Commander families,” said Paula. “Nothing lower.”
“That is understood,” said Aunt Gabbana. She was making some notations on a clipboard. I watched in awe as she moved her fingers, which held a pencil. What potent symbols was she inscribing?
“She’s a little young,” said Commander Kyle, whom I no longer thought of as my father. “Possibly.” I was grateful to him for the first time in a long while.
“Thirteen is not too young. It all depends,” said Aunt Gabbana. “It does wonders for them if we can find the proper match. They settle right down.” She stood. “Don’t worry, Agnes,” she said to me. “You’ll have a choice among at least three candidates. They will consider it an honour,” she said to Commander Kyle.
“Let us know if there’s anything else you need,” said Paula graciously. “And sooner is better.”
“Understood,” said Aunt Gabbana. “There will be the usual donation to Ardua Hall, once there are satisfactory results?”
“Of course,” said Paula. “We’ll pray for your success. May the Lord open.”
“Under His Eye,” said Aunt Gabbana. The two Aunts left, exchanging smiles and nods with my non-parents.
“You may go, Agnes,” said Paula. “We’ll keep you informed as matters develop. Entering into the blessed state of married womanhood must be done with every precaution, and your father and I will take those precautions for you. You are a very privileged girl. I hope you appreciate that.” She gave me a malicious little smirk: she knew she was talking froth. In reality I was an inconvenient lump that had to be disposed of in a socially acceptable manner.
I went back up to my room. I should have seen this coming: such things had happened to girls who’d not been much older than me. A girl would be present at school and then one day not present: the Aunts didn’t like a lot of fuss and sentiment, with tearful goodbyes. Then there would be rumours of an engagement, then of a wedding. We were never allowed to go to these weddings even if the girl had been our close friend. When you were being readied for marriage, you disappeared from your former life. The next time you were seen, you’d be wearing the dignified blue dress of a Wife, and unmarried girls would have to let you go first through doorways.
This was now going to be my reality. I was to be ejected from my own house—from Tabitha’s house, from the house of Zilla and Vera and Rosa—because Paula had had enough of me.
* * *
—
“You won’t go to school today,” said Paula one morning, and that was that. Then nothing much happened for a week except some moping and fretting on my part, though since I pursued these activities alone in my room they had no influence.
I was supposed to be finishing a hateful petit-point project, to keep my mind occupied—the design was a bowl of fruit suitable for being made into a footstool, intended for my future husband, whoever he might be. In one corner of the footstool square I embroidered a small skull: it represented the skull of my stepmother, Paula, but if anyone asked me about it I planned to say that it was a memento mori, a reminder of the fact that we must all die someday.
This could hardly be objected to, as it was a pious motif: there were skulls like that on the gravestones of the old churchyard near our school. We were not supposed to go in there except to attend funerals: the names of the dead were on the stones, and that might lead to reading, and then to depravity. Reading was not for girls: only men were strong enough to deal with the force of it; and the Aunts, of course, because they weren’t like us.
I had begun to wonder how a woman changed into an Aunt. Aunt Estée had said once that you needed to have a calling that told you God wanted you to help all women and not just a single family; but how did the Aunts get that calling? How had they received their strength? Did they have special brains, neither female nor male? Were they even women at all underneath their uniforms? Could they possibly be men in disguise? Even to suspect such a thing was unthinkable, but what a scandal if so! I wondered what the Aunts would look like if you made them wear pink.
* * *
—
On the third day of my idleness, Paula had the Marthas bring several cardboard boxes to my room. It was time to put away childish things, she said. My belongings could go into storage as very soon I would not be living here anymore. Then, once I was ordering my new household, I could decide which of these belongings should be donated to the poor. A less privileged girl from an Econofamily would take great joy in my old dollhouse, for instance; although it was not top quality and was in a shoddy state, some paint here and there would do wonders.
The dollhouse had stood near my window for many years. The happy hours I’d spent with Tabitha were still contained within it. There was the Wife doll, sitting at the dining table; there were the little girls, behaving themselves; there were the Marthas in the kitchen, making bread; there was the Commander, safely locked into his study. After Paula had left, I plucked the Wife doll out of her chair and threw her across the room.
26