Carlotta made a face. “The trouble is that weboth really like Willum, but Glorieta, being two minutes elder, picked him and left me Tomas, whodefinitely suffers by comparison, and besides, attached is not a word I would have chosen. It makes me sound like part of the livestock.”
Which she was, of course, though everyone forbore saying so. All the students were like livestock, even Barbara, for twitch though she would, her father and the Tribunal would have the last word. Unless she eloped, of course. Eloping was scandalous, but it did happen and, knowing Barbara, she might well do it, no matter how uncovenantly it was.
Until that time came, however, they would continue as they had done since they were children: subduing predispositions toward unseemly behavior, dancing and exercising to acquire posture and grace, practicing manners and conversation, which, since women weren’t supposed to have opinions, was mostly how to get other people to talk about themselves while expressing admiration that sounded sincere. Lessons were interspersed with short trips to orchestral concerts or village festivals, to couturiers for new clothes in spring and fall, and by increasingly frequent visits from the scrutators and doctors.
Genevieve could never decide which visits were more embarrassing, the ones devoted to her soul or the ones devoted to her body. Though both the scrutator—a man, of course—and the off-worlder doctor—a woman, of course—tried to be gentle, all that intimate probing was humiliating. Still, one had to be both pure of soul and a certifiably fertile lactator if one was to make a good marriage. Only children born and nursed at home could inherit. With such a well-recognized goal, nothing could be left to chance.
“I think I’ll sneak out and get pregnant,” said Barbara, angrily. “That’ll prove I’m fertile all right.”
“That’ll prove you right back home.” Glorieta grinned. “Locked up in an attic by your papa.”
“Spending all your days eating moldy bread and brackish water,” said Carlotta reprovingly.
Though Barbara had Genevieve’s total sympathy, Genevieve stayed at the fringe of this badinage. Whenever other girls engaged in joking give and take, Genevieve felt herself backing away, pulling a kind of membrane around herself that separated herself from them. Though the other girls never seemed to notice, sometimes Genevieve felt the curtain between her and others was thick as a quilt. They were different somehow. Or she was. Not that she blamed them or herself for being different. Differences were part of existence. Everyone was different in some way, but Genevieve was different in several. She had had a mother who seemed quite unlike other people’s mothers. She had a nose which was certainly unlike other people’s noses. And, unlike her friends, who were actually quite involved with what they were doing and feeling, Genevieve experienced life as a kind of drama, a play, something staged and unreal, a continuing fantasy.
The usual daily play she called “Mrs. Blessingham’s School.” The school itself was the setting, and the teachers and other students were the cast. They all knew their lines without any discernable prompting, including silly and playful talk that Genevieve could never think up on her own. Though she was occasionally required to say a few words or perform a brief scene, she was always red with embarrassment, during and after. Even the assignment of a tiny part, a walk-on as it were, made her anxious that her performance would be stilted and unbelievable, or that she would do something that seemed perfectly all right at the moment, which would then turn out to be the wrong thing: like knowing something one wasn’t supposed to know, or solving a puzzle too quickly, or saying the absolutely wrong thing! Only as an onlooker did she feel truly easy.
In addition to the “Blessingham’s School” play, there were others she watched regularly: “The Ahmenaj Dynasty,” which was about Glorieta and Carlotta, the “Chronicles of Barbara,” which was naughty, and of course “Langmarsh House, or The Life of Dustin, Lord Marshal.” Occasionally episodes of the other plays were played concurrently with “Blessingham’s,” intermixing confusingly with one another and greatly adding to the cast of characters, the scenery, and the complexity of the plot.
Through it all, Genevieve remained determined not to have a noticeable role, not even when she herself was dragged onto the stage. “Mrs. Blessingham’s School” was a play written by others. “Lord Marshal” was no doubt written by himself. She had had no hand in either of them. Nothing she might do could influence the plots in the least. She refused to be responsible for them.