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Seventeen year old Mircalla Karnstein knows she's being watched. Being scrutinised in public is nothing out of the ordinary, living in elite society's glass jar as she does, but this feeling is different. She is being sized up by some unknown stranger, whose gaze is steady and unsettling. Something tells her this stranger has more in mind for her than an unwanted union with someone's pox-ridden son.
She remains perfectly still in her seat, forcing herself to look at her hands neatly clasped in her lap, the picture of ladylike demureness. Her eyes itch to stare at the stranger. When she allows herself to look up, Mama is staring at her from her seat at the very front of the parlour, and even though there are twenty rows of seats for the recital between them, Mircalla feels her disapproval. The low murmurs of the crowd quiet, a hundred of Vienna's elite crammed into Madame Kramer's largest and most well-appointed room, hiding their gossip behind fans and gloved hands. A smattering of polite clapping ensues, and she can't blame the people their indifference, the room is far too hot. A door near the front opens to reveal her brother, who bows for the assembled audience and strides over to the harpsichord. Mircalla tries very hard not to laugh. August is only twice the height of the harpsichord stool, and settles onto it uneasily, his tiny fingers coming up to rest on the keys in the way their mother insists upon.
His little forehead creases as he begins to play, brow furrowing in the way which means he's concentrating hard. She knows mother has impressed upon him the importance of this recital and it’s enough pressure for any eight year old, especially for one as restless as August. Her mother's worries appear unfounded, the prince isn’t truly listening, he is far too busy whispering something into his pretty companion's ear while she blushes. August moves into the allegro with ease, not skipping ahead too fast which is something she often hears mama shout from her place at her writing desk while August practices. Mircalla is no proficient at the harpsichord, she is far too impatient for such a task, and all of August's playing sounds effortless, but it is never enough for her mama.
She wishes for nothing more than to be back in her father's' study, seated in the chair that stands behind the door so that only papa can see she's there. She had liked August's playing then, as the plink plinks filtered through the door. The next pieces take an interminable amount of time.
"Next, if your royal highness and honoured guests would humour me, I will be playing a piece of my own devising." August announces this grandly in his child's voice. The assembled guests laugh good-naturedly at the little boy's grand manner. The only one not laughing is her mother, who is sitting stiff as a board with that blank stare Mircalla knows signals trouble. This is what her mother fears most, embarrassment. This is why she has five children, but is sitting alone in the front row while Mircalla sits twenty rows back with her three little sisters and brother. It is also why August is touring here in Vienna while papa remains at home, where her father’s uncommon shyness cannot make a fool out of her socialite mother. The season is a place to show off and be impressed, and to Mircalla’s mother, who grew up amongst these people and their glittering parties, her father is less than impressive.
Her jaw sets in a hard line, this type of thinking always rouses anger in Mircalla, pinpricks of frustration that go against everything she's been taught. She is not sat with mother because she is not impressive either, the only things she excels in are reading and drawing, minor accomplishments for the eldest daughter of a count, and she much prefers to spend her time hovering over her father’s accounts than in the morning room receiving guests with her mother. She suffers the same uneasiness as her father and the only thing that stops her mother from rebuking her in public is that her guarded nature and large eyes often come across as modest to the society mothers with whom her mother socialises.
In private, in the library with elder brother Ernst and her father, she is free to speak her mind. She thinks poisonous thoughts, oftentimes, about her mother's gaggle of insipid friends and their concerns- who is having an affair with whom, the scandal of the latest dances. She knows all the while these women are no angels, because she is silent and watchful and court is full of hearsay. If only her mother was privy to her mind’s wanderings, she doubt she’d ever be brought to court again.
August though, August with his mother’s brunette hair and rosy cheeks never disappoints mama. The panic his announcement had caused her has faded into barely concealed delight as he plays his composition, and will surely be all mama can talk about over the coming weeks. Her little brother seems completely unaware of the world around him, so absorbed is he in his playing. Mircalla wonders how long that will last. When he is her age, will music seem like a passion or a plague for him? It is these kinds of maudlin thoughts she never airs, preferring to keep them locked away, although sometimes her papa can pull them out of her with a wry chuckle. ‘How unforgiving of you, Mircalla’ he says, but you can tell he is thinking the same.
She can feel the stranger’s gaze lingering again. As subtly as she can, she tilts her head downwards, and look to the side. Mircalla finally sees her, sitting but a few metres away, in a dress that is designed to garner all the but best attention. Her hair is in the latest style but her eyes, her eyes are darker than her own, seemingly black and intense when she accidentally meets her stare. Her lips curl knowingly and she inclines her head toward Mircalla. She whips round at that, keeping her eyes dead ahead, pretending to concentrate on her brother and his music.
“What was that Calla?” Asks Ernst from beside her.
She mouths the word nothing but her brother doesn’t bite. “I thought I felt a chill is all.” It’s a lie, it’s sweltering in here.
“We could call the coach and go home?” Ernst says this like it a particularly pleasing prospect, but mama would never forgive her.
“Can we?” Enid asks from beside Ernst.
“It’ll be over soon Enid,” Marie chides before Mircalla can answer. Marie gives her older sister a scathing look before turning to her programme.
The stranger is still staring.
Mircalla plays with the buttonhole of her glove until the performance is finished. Many of the assembled noblemen and women glide out in search of refreshments, making comments about how talented her brother is and how precious, while some remain behind to congratulate her mother. Mircalla and her siblings are caught in between. Enid falls asleep against Marie’s side and Enrst is swept off by naval academy friends. Suddenly, Mircalla decides she’s had enough. She tells Marie to sit and wait for mother to be finished and walks down the central aisle quickly, making a beeline for the balcony she had seen when she first entered. Anything to get out of this perpetual heat.
She’s only a metre from the door when the stranger appears in front of her. “Hello, Mircalla.” The woman says her name oddly, like she’s testing it on her tongue.
She murmurs a greeting and gives something like a curtsey. Thank goodness her mama isn’t here to see this.
“You look well.” says the lady, but it’s clear she doesn’t mean anything by it. It’s a mere formality.
“Have we been introduced?”
The stranger smiles the knowing smile again, and stares into Mircalla’s face with a strange fondness. “I am an old friend of your mother's, though I am not surprised you do not remember me, as you were as high as August when you saw me last.”
There is something decidedly false in her laughing tone as she says this, and Mircalla pauses to consider it without thinking. The woman’s lips turn up higher and her eyes seem to flash. “Come walk with me dear, we will find a corner away from this heat.”
“I would be honoured, but...”
“My dear, I simply won’t take no for an answer,” says the woman without fanfare, taking Mircalla’s arm and making her way to the door. A manservant trails behind, but she waves him away with a pointed glance towards Mircalla’s mother, who was still waylaid with hordes of admirers.
The balcony is occupied by a young couple, he leaning forward with her back to the rail, winding the ringlet at her neck round his finger. Mircalla watches, she doesn’t attend as many of these events as she does and not see such things but the girl is so coquettishly pretty and her eyelashes make a beautiful picture against her cheek. The elegantly dressed stranger gives them one look and they immediately turn to flee, but not before the boy makes a low bow tripping over his words and his feet in his hurry to get away.
“Who are you?” Mircalla asks when they are finally alone.
“You surprise me Mircalla, I would have thought you’d worked it out, a clever girl like you.”
No-one has precisely called her clever before, meddlesome perhaps, impertinent, but not clever. Even Ernst, who father teaches in his study while she reads, only tolerates her intellectual pursuits, for all he hears of lady scholars elsewhere allowed to do a lot more than read dusty naval histories.
“I should return to my mama,” There’s something intriguing about this woman, she looks at Mircalla with narrowed eyes, but not with censure like mama but with something akin to amusement.
“I shall let you go if you wish, darling girl, but don’t pretend you don’t notice things...you’re...unlike the girls in there. You should turn every head in the room, Mircalla, not keeping yourself hidden- your mother may be content with those gossiping peahens, but something tells me you’ll tire of their inane prattle quickly, if you haven’t already. You’ll simply come to see that there is more to...being than that.”
She doesn’t know who this woman is, but she is foolish to think you can be won with compliments. Mircalla has been watching long enough to see the shallowness of pretty words.
“I should return to my mother and siblings,” Mircalla says again, backing towards the double doors leading back to the party.
“As you desire, but if you do ever,” the woman pauses for a moment, “get bored, you should seek me out...”
“That seems unlikely, since you have neglected to tell me your name.” There, she thought something and then said it and she takes pride in not wincing at her harsh tone. It’s a rush, and she knows it’s vindictive but Mircalla doesn’t care. She feels floaty...free.
The stranger laughs- and Mircalla knows she is the butt of the joke. “You’ll know…”
Mircalla is already one foot through the doorway when she turns to ask the woman what she meant. There’s nobody there .
***
Years later, that day in the parlour will feel like a dream. You’ve let your sharp tongue fly at one or two select people in the intervening time, but you hide it under layers of practiced deference. Your father is in a coffin and Ernst no longer allows you in Papa’s...no his study. Your routine is dull and repetitive. The endless rounds of visits with women who only have an interest in the new hat they’ve designed, who refuse to speak the minds you know they have (for your have beguiled their true feelings out of them in the delicious privacy of bedrooms and ball cloakrooms) in favour of tittering over the men playing at soldiers outside. You think what would have happened if you’d joined that woman, until one day, at a ball, you don’t. When you come around momentarily, head reeling from the pain, it is her face you see, smiling down at you in your vision that warps and twists.
“I did tell you we would see each other again, didn’t I?”
She pulls you into a sitting position and guides your mouth to her chest . Her breath is warm in your ear when she says “and I, my glittering girl, always keep my promises.”