Read Sedition for Free Online

There were bones inside her clothes, and little else. When the girls were together, she always chose to be near Harriet because Harriet’s stance on everything, from allocating singing parts to cutting fingernails, was reassuringly practical. Harriet, who was sometimes impatient with Georgiana’s inability to decide even the best way out of a door, nevertheless always made room for her, for which Georgiana was grateful.
    Everina called for more tea. “Bring cake too, Sam,” she said to the mulatto waiting-boy. “The vanilla one with the cherries.” The boy vanished and came back laden.
    “Look,” Harriet said. She twitched up her skirt and nudged Georgiana. She had been waiting for the right moment to show off a pair of new shoes. To Harriet’s disappointment, Georgiana appeared not to hear. Georgiana saw only the cake and heard only the imploring of her stomach. She could attend to nothing else. Food was the enemy. She must not give in. No cake. No cake. She could not remember why she had given up eating or when. She knew only that she must not start again because if she did, she would solidify into a person and she had no idea what kind of person she could possibly be. She waved away the plate Sam offered and he took it to Alathea, who plucked out a cherry, held it between two fingers, and licked it.
    When Alathea’s tongue was out, it mesmerized. In terms of years, it was still a novice. In terms of imagination and experiment, it was quite advanced. Before the age of thirteen she had worked out that the tongue, the physical tongue, that is, not the wordy tongue, was a woman’s unsuspected weapon, attracting and repelling, drawing in and excluding, and all without even touching an opponent—Alathea classified most people as opponents. Servants like Sam were dull experimental subjects, though. Not like the hangman, the thought of whom made her smile. Her living flesh must have contrasted warmly with the dead.
    Harriet could wait no longer. She took off a shoe and thrust it into Georgiana’s hand. “See, Georgiana! Straight from the foot of a noble Frenchie. Aren’t they fancy.”
    Georgiana forced her attention onto the shoe. A small garden scene had been painted on the heel. “How do you know they came from someone noble?”
    “It was picked up at the guillotine, silly. There’s lots of shoes like this to be had from France right now. Father gets them, though he tells Mother they were made in London. You know how she is about foreign things.”
    “Can you walk in them?”
    “Why on earth would I want to do that?” Harriet slipped the shoe back on. “They’re for parties.”
    “Let me see.” Marianne peered over. “Is that blood on the toe?”
    Harriet whipped the shoe back off. “Oh,” she said, nonplussed.
    They all inspected the stain.
    “Blood, for certain,” said Everina.
    “It’ll wash out,” said Harriet uncertainly.
    Alathea reached for the shoe and sniffed it. “A young girl’s blood,” she said. The girls shivered. True or fabricated or somewhere in between, Alathea’s tales added spice to otherwise dull days. She never spoke about herself. They were never invited to her house. All they knew for certain was that under that dark halo of hair, Alathea could seem saintly and demonic at the same time.
    “Take the tea away, Sam,” Harriet ordered the boy. “Go on! Quick!” She never worried about assuming command, even in somebody else’s house.
    The boy collected the tray and slunk out, casting a last glance at Alathea. She blinked at him. For a second he was in heaven.
    “Now, Alathea,” Harriet said. “Go on. Tell us about the girl.”
    Alathea picked up a dropped crumb. Catching Georgiana’s eye, she crushed it between her teeth. “A girl like you, Georgiana. I expect she was stripped to her petticoat before she faced the guillotine.”
    “Honestly, Alathea,” said Harriet, uncomfortably. “Do you have to?”
    “She’d have been wearing her best petticoat,”