Through a Glass Darkly: A Novel by Karleen Koen Page A

not.
       Clemmie. Her jailer and savior, for when her mother left on some errand, Barbara would cajole Clemmie into taking her along as she shopped. It was the only way she could leave the lodgings. She had been no farther than a few surrounding streets, though Clemmie had once taken her across the busy, wide thoroughfare of the Strand so that she might see the Thames River, where she could have stayed for hours watching the river craft: the slender, quick ferries, the barges painted all the colors of the rainbow, the sailing ships with their great, billowing white sails and their many little colored signal flags. But Clemmie was old and wished to rest her feet.
       "You cannot trust this river. Sometimes dead rats and babies float by," she told Barbara, her face as shapeless under its layers of fat as her body was. "It is the time of floods. Come away." And so back they had walked, Barbara soaking in everything she could: shops with brightly colored signs hanging above the doors, gloves, books, jewels, old clothing, soft, glowing fabrics, cheeses, fat, dressed geese displayed in the windows while the owners' wives followed her halfway down the street entreating her to come inside. Women, their rich, heavy skirts held up out of the street mud, walking on elaborate leather clogs to protect their cloth shoes. Gangs of apprentice boys, their hair cut short, running through the streets snatching at pretty girls' cloaks and old men's wigs. Street vendors, their wares strapped to them, calling out to the passing carriages and up to the closed windows and doors of the houses around them. "Pancakes! Piping hot!" Or, "Rare Holland socks, four pairs a shilling!" Or, "Knives and scissors to grind!" "Death to rats!" "Hot baked warden pears and pippins!" "Brooms! Buy my brooms!"
       The bells in the church of St. Paul's of Covent Garden began to ring. Barbara listened to their clear sound, pressing her cheek against the window. How long? How long must she wait?
       The window vibrated beneath her cheek. That was not church bells. That was a rapping at the front door. It was so unexpected that she sat up, startled, then thought of Roger and nearly tripped over her skirts rushing to the hall. Her mother stood framed in the parlor opening, staring at the door. If Barbara could have believed her mother capable of fear, she would have believed it at that moment. Clemmie was frozen in the hall, lumplike, staring at Diana. A long look passed between them. Rap! Rap! Rap! went the door again.
       "Meres," said Clemmie. "Meres would have warned us."
       After a moment, Diana nodded her head, and cautiously Clemmie opened the door, her mouth a fat O of surprise at who stood there. Barbara's aunt, Abigail, Lady Saylor, sailed in like a ship of state, flags flying in the size of her pearl earrings and brooch, the rich look of her brown striped gown, the soft fur lining her yellow cloak and muff, the gray lace on her widow's cap, topped by a stylish velvet hat. Abigail was in her late thirties, still attractive in a harsh, pug–nosed, fading blond manner. ("Women like Abigail," her grandmother had sniffed, "are pretty in a pert way when they are young, but as they age, they resemble nothing so much as the pigs in my pens!") It had been several years since Barbara had seen her aunt, but from her aunt's first words, she knew there had been no changes.
    "It took you long enough," Abigail said to Clemmie. "Did you think I was a bill collector?"
       She saw Barbara, smiled with her mouth but not with her eyes, offered her a powdered cheek to kiss and said, "My, you have grown. You are prettier than I expected. Go away to play, like a good girl. Diana, you are looking thin. And I must say it becomes you. You were getting as fat as a pig. Come, we must talk." Abigail never asked; she always commanded.
       Dismissed as if she were a small child, Barbara did as she was told. She sat back down in her chair by the window, but the fog was