The Butterfly Cabinet Read Free Page B

never once did he venture near a flame again. But with Charlotte nothing was ever simple. She repeated the same offense time and again, and nothing I did appeared to have any impact. She was not unintelligent—precisely the opposite in fact—but she would not see the consequences of her actions, she would not be turned. She was entirely stubborn, would not bend her will to anyone, and in the matter of her toileting, I was utterly defeated. I have found myself, since she began to walk and talk, remembering moments I had forgotten from my own childhood with my sister, Julia—the sudden hatreds, the mind games, the jealousies. There have been times when I have feltCharlotte to be my senior. She had something over me the way Julia always had.
    There was nothing straightforward, direct with Charlotte. If she wanted more bread she would ask if everyone else had had enough; if she wanted to feed Caesar she would ask if he was likely to be hungry; if she wanted to draw with Julia she would ask if she was busy. Every question was leading somewhere, nothing to the point. She seemed to want to consider any given matter from every angle available, to examine the reverberations on the entire household. She knew what she wanted but she would not ask for it outright. No one else seemed troubled by this, indeed Julia found it charming, but her circumnavigation drove me to distraction. I often felt with Charlotte that an interpreter was needed: someone who could sift through the emotional entanglement of her language, translate to me a clear intention. Julia, on the other hand, appeared to understand her perfectly.
    Charlotte loved Julia, and Julia loved her, and why would they not? Julia does not discipline the children, never speaks a cross word. She is in the privileged position of the indulgent aunt who can spoil them at will and then leave them since they are not her responsibility. It is not to her they come with stomach cramps in the night for having overindulged in ice cream, it is not at her they snap in the mornings for having been put to bed too late. Julia is softhearted. She would not outwardly cross me, not anymore, not since we exchanged words on the matter. She feels her position in my household keenly. But if she could find a way to soften a punishment, without appearing to go against me, she would do it. She has grown predictable, can be depended upon to bring bread and water to the children when I have said they are to have no supper, to slip in and read to them when they have been put to bed early for some misdemeanor. I have never acknowledged this subtle interference and she has never referred to it. And this, our unvoiced agreement, worked well enough for a time. Ifeigned ignorance of her temperance, never sanctioned it, and her discretion was complete; she did nothing outwardly to flout my authority. That I came to rely on it was my mistake.
    My see-through sister, Julia, pale faced, light haired, fine, nothing dark, nothing hidden, nothing deep. It was always made clear to us that she was the one to be educated; I was to be married. Neither of us questioned our father’s will. She went to Girton, not long after it opened, where she read the classics and came back full of talk about the equality of the sexes, and how there was no reason on God’s earth (she did not use the phrase in front of Father) why she should not be awarded a degree the same as her male counterparts. She was going to be an artist, had had two of her paintings accepted by the Royal Academy. I wanted to view them but was told they were “accepted but not hung,” which meant they were in line for a place. I never heard of them being exhibited, as I am sure I would have done, had they been.
    Julia’s offer to stay at Oranmore and take care of the baby when it comes has shocked me. I had not thought she was interested in growing up. She has been the petted child for so long I had believed her incapable of taking responsibility for herself. Her