“This is different,” Eleanor said.
For the first few days, Eleanor sat with Mathinna at the table in the schoolroom, mapping steps on a chalkboard, with Xs for each participant and arrows designating where they should go. Then the two of them began practicing together in the yard behind the henhouse. Eleanor was too self-absorbed, not to mention intellectually incurious, to be a particularly inspiring schoolteacher. She plodded from subject to subject as if checking items off a list. But these same traits, as it turned out, made her an excellent dance instructor. Color rose to her cheeks and her eyes sparkled as her every step was admired and emulated. She looked so pretty as she turned! And as soon as she tired of one dance, she could move to another. She was playful and persistent, happy to spend hours demonstrating the moves. Out in the courtyard one sunny afternoon, Eleanor conscripted a stable boy, two convict maids, two idling buggy drivers, and the butcher to practice with them. Upon learning that the head butler, Mr. Grimm, had taken up the fiddle, she persuaded him to saw a jaunty tune. The air was mild and the atmosphere convivial, and it was thrilling to touch another person’s hand in public without fear of rebuke. To Mathinna, the dances, with their choreographed footwork, were as logical as mathematics: the careful fitting together of a sequence; a series of movements that, done in the correct order, produced the intended result. Once she mastered them, it was as if her body moved on its own. Soon enough she was helping Eleanor corral the other dancers into their proper places. She loved the pace of the songs that drove them forward: one–two–three–four, one–two–three . . . stepstep-stepstep, stepstepstep . . . “She will be ready in time, won’t she?” Lady Franklin asked Eleanor a week before the party. “She will. She’s learning.” “Her dancing must be a triumph, Eleanor. Otherwise, what’s the point of including her?” The big event was four days away, then three, then two. Mathinna watched as a crew of workers erected a large sailcloth tent in the side garden and laid the wooden dance floor. As soon as the tent was up, half a dozen convict maids were enlisted to decorate it, overseen by Lady Franklin, who did not so much as lift a teacup but could spy a misplaced chair or wobbly table leg at five hundred paces. The music played in Mathinna’s head on a continuous loop. In bed at night she moved her toes—one–two–three–four, one–two–three—and tapped her fingers to the rhythm. She danced instead of walked, held her head a little higher and fluttered her arms in the air as she went about her day. The household staff was friendlier to her than they’d ever been. They smiled when they saw her coming down the corridor, complimented her footwork, quizzed her about the differences between a waltz and quadrille. Only Mrs. Crain, passing through the courtyard as Mathinna practiced her steps, offered a critique. “Remember that these are formal English dances, Mathinna,” she said with a frown. “You must control your native flourishes.” The scarlet dress still fit Mathinna around the waist, but it was too short, and the sleeves were tight. She stood on a stool in the center of the room while Hazel sat on the floor, pinning the skirt around her. “Bloody dark in here,” she muttered. “I can barely see what I’m doing.” Mathinna looked down at the part of Hazel’s russet hair, the smattering of freckles on her forearms. A round metal pendant around her neck glinted in the weak amber light. “What’s that?” she asked, pointing. “What?” Hazel touched her throat. “Oh. I forget I have it on. Turn around, I need to pin the back. It belonged to a friend.” Looking over her shoulder at her, Mathinna said, “Why doesn’t your friend wear it?” Hazel was silent for a moment. Then she said, “She’s dead. This is all I’ve left of her. Well, except . . .” “Except what?” “Oh . . . this and that. A handkerchief.” Pushing Mathinna gently off the stool, Hazel said, “We’re done. Let’s get it off ye and I’ll hem it before I leave.” As Hazel stood behind her, undoing the buttons, Mathinna said, “I used to wear a necklace that my mother made out of green shells, but Lady Jane took it.” “Ach. I’m sorry. Shall I steal it back for ye?” Mathinna shook her head. “You’ll end up in solitary like Sarah Stoup, and I’ll never see you again either.”