Sleeping Beauty
Judith Ivory
Sleeping Beauty
Contents
The Happy Kingdom
James Stoker, or rather—he liked to remind himself—Sir James Stoker these days,…
I’m so happy to hear you are settled in at…
The party to which James had invited Mrs. Wild was, in…
Coco Wild had arrived at Buckingham Palace that evening with Jay Levanthal,…
The dentist had her address. James had only to produce…
I wish you could see the bouquet of flowers I…
Curses and Spinning Wheels
Coco did not expect to see James Stoker again, least of…
Tolly’s was a hole-in-the-wall basement establishment down a set of…
“We were deep in the jungle, on a native footpath,”…
Coco and James ran the last thirty yards in a…
A week later, James stood in the center of his…
James returned to his lab to wrestle the African crates.
As James came through Arnold Tuttleworth’s wide entrance room, he…
As Coco recovered, she became aware of James, lying beside…
Ironically, the next day, as Coco was waiting for her…
At the end of May, almost a month later, James…
The next morning—almost noon, actually, since everyone had slept in…
“How are we going to manage this?” Coco asked, as…
“W-why are you here?” Coco managed to say, as Phillip…
The white, steep-roofed cottage had two gray stone chimneys, one…
James did not bother trying to get any university records.
A week later, Coco lay back in a barber chair,…
The Thorny Forest on Fire
Well, she was certainly jolly. Hardly the Coco James had…
Indeed, a further scandal ensued, with the London Times somehow…
The Happy Kingdom
It must be remembered that Sleeping Beauty was a hundred years older than the prince. She was from another era entirely
.
From the Preface to
The Sleeping Beauty
DuJauc translation of Perrault’s
La Belle au bois dormant
Pease Press, London, 1877
London
J
ames Stoker, or rather—he liked to remind himself
—Sir
James Stoker these days, dashed between horses and carriages, finally leaping a puddle to get himself across a busy London street. The street, Blenchy Road, actually, was a minor, quasi-residential thoroughfare just north of Mayfair. Scarcely had he stepped up onto the curb, however, than a passing coach wheeled through the puddle he had vaulted. The backs of his legs were sprayed with a small rooster tail of water, the bottom of his greatcoat and trousers instantly wet. James stomped once or twice, then began to walk, bouncing even a little on the balls of his feet. It was a cool enough spring day that he could have been uncomfortable for his legs being doused. Yet it was impossible to dampen his spirits.
They were unusually high. Or perhaps not so unusual. In the thirty-six days he had been back in England he had virtually awakened every morning and gone to sleep every night in the same sweet
state of buoyant grace. Around the clock lately, he was so cheerful, he hardly knew what to do with himself.
He was slightly amused with his state of mind. A fairly sophisticated man, he found it all but in poor taste to go around with a stupid grin on his face. The truth was, though, that his life was going unreasonably well—and it had gone so beastly rotten for so bloody long that he knew to appreciate good fortune when he stumbled into a little.
He had stumbled into quite a bit, in fact. For one, he was alive, something he would have bet money a month ago would not be the case. He had new living arrangements that were some of the most comfortable he had ever known, in an architectural marvel built by an English king four hundred years ago and rooted in more tradition and pure, solemn Englishness than just about anywhere else on earth. And nothing could be too English for James, who had never thought to see his beloved homeland again. Moreover, he had arrived in his country a hero, Queen Victoria herself knighting him three days ago. He had gleefully signed his name this very morning, Sir James Stoker, KB. The Order of the Bath, no minor or courtesy knighthood. The Queen had been quite sincere in her appreciation.
Beyond this honor, he had stepped into a host of more minor—and more remunerative—ones. Within the last month, he had been appointed to a generously endowed stipend, honored with three different prizes, and been voted in as the Vice-Provost of his college at Cambridge, making him the youngest Vice-Provost at All Souls College in more than a hundred years (which also accounted
for his wonderful living arrangements). Best of all, James had been named chairman of the Council of the Senate’s Financial Board
and
made Deputy Vice-Chancellor, both positions that functioned hand in hand with the Vice-Chancellor himself, who ruled de facto over the entire university. Either appointment would have said that James’s star was rising; the two together made him dream of that star one day settling into the seat of the Vice-Chancellory itself.
For James was ambitious. He had left England for the sake of furthering himself. He had suffered for it, quite nearly died for it. And now, as seemed just, he was returned to find all his early aspirations met: a modest seat of power, undisputed renown, and, after all his stipends, salaries, prizes, fellowship dividends, and appointments were added up, enough money for pretty much anything he wanted, including a natty new wardrobe, a cook (he no longer had to suffer through his gyp’s midday meals, the only thing English he despised), three first-rate horses, and the sportiest little calèche he had ever laid eyes on, one with red-hubbed, brass-spoked wheels.
James had landed in heaven. Or on earth with his soul bartered to his eyeteeth; he wasn’t sure.
In any event,
carpe diem
didn’t even begin to express his attitude. He spent his new wealth enthusiastically (and socked a little away). He imbibed his fame, blushing, basking in it. He lived off jubilation till, most days, he felt all but drunk from it.
Presently, James hummed lightly to himself as he scanned house numbers along Blenchy Road, look
ing for the address he’d been given. He stopped at the sign that read, “Mr. John Limpet, dental expert, gentleman’s barber, and notary.” Limpet’s shingle hung from beneath the overhang of a simple two-story house. Here was the place. James went up the steps of what looked to be a two-story home in good care, freshly painted, clean windowpanes, flower boxes full of red geraniums beneath the windows. The door handle was bright, tended brass, as was the knocker with which he rapped.
A squat, squarish woman admitted him, conducting him to a “waiting area” with apologies. The good Mr. Limpet was with another client (victim, James thought, for he could hear the faint grind of a dental engine); the dentist’s schedule was running late.
James found himself in a small anteroom, a former sun parlor, perhaps. He shrugged out of his coat—the room was warmed by afternoon sun, not stuffy, but clear and comfortable. He took a seat on the window bench. It was a congenial room with chairs along its circumference. One wall was covered with miniatures. There must have been fifty of them placed in a pleasing disorder, all of flowers. From a distance they didn’t look too bad, possibly the result of talent.
It was then, as he came to the end of the wall display, that James saw he was not alone. He nodded to a woman sitting across from him in the far corner. She let out a soft hiccupping sob.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
She nodded, then waved a wrinkled handkerchief, shaking her head. It was nothing. Pay no mind.
He tried politely to ignore her, since that seemed
to be what she wanted, examining the wall of miniatures again, then a vase of carnations set into a bookcase. But the woman’s sniffles made him turn back. She was overwrought. He realized she was holding the side of her jaw.
“Your tooth?” he asked conversationally.
She nodded, then wiped at her nose.
“It hurts?”
Again she nodded.
“Well, you’ve come to the right place,” he said. The remark was intended as comfort.
Which it wasn’t, apparently. She shook her head again and began to weep silently. Her shoulders shook from her trying to keep herself quiet. There seemed nothing else for it. James got up, went over to sit down beside her.
“Here.” He offered his own dry handkerchief. Hers was soggy. “Which tooth is it?” As if the information would mean anything to him.
She gingerly rubbed two fingers over her left jaw, a far back tooth.
“Oh, wait—” He suddenly realized. He reached into his coat and drew out a snuff box he had been carrying with him for a few months now. He opened the silver lid to show what had nothing whatsoever to do with snuff. “Cloves,” he said. “I hit my tooth a few months ago, chipped and loosened it. It gave me fits, and I was far, far from anyone I would have trusted to help. Some people I was with, though, showed me a trick. I’ve lived off it: pack two or three cloves around your tooth. The pain will subside.”
She looked at him skeptically. She had dark eyes, thick, thick lashes, a pretty face, pretty even when
slightly puffy from crying. After a moment, she rather delicately reached out and plucked two cloves from his little storehouse. She put them in her mouth, then bent her head, hiding behind his handkerchief as she presumably arranged them with her tongue. She smiled up over of the handkerchief. From behind it, she murmured, “Thank you.” A slightly foreign sound, he thought.
In fact, she didn’t look English. Or not typically English, at least. She was too fashionable. He judged her to be from the continent, one of those cosmopolitan women who had the money, time, and taste to put herself together with great care and to fabulous effect. Her hair was dark, in the present light almost black. It was swept up under a small fur hat. Her dress was made of dark green velvet, with dark, glossy brown fur at the collar and cuffs. In her lap lay suede gloves to match. Her clothes fit her as if they had been sewn onto her, not tightly, just perfectly conforming: round where her arms were round, curving exactly with her shoulders, her bosom, narrowing rib by rib to her waist, spreading across her lap.
She took a deep breath, then let it out as she took the handkerchief away from her face. She was
very
pretty, he realized. Slender and shapely. With the sweetest, gentlest visage. Delicate features. Almost fragile. The small bones of her face made her eyes look enormous. These eyes, also dark, met his. She murmured, “It burns a little.” Her English was so good it was hard to determine her exact origin; she was definitely foreign. He settled on French, though there was the off chance she was Italian.
“Clove oil,” he explained. “It numbs. You’ll be much better in a moment.”
She looked down. Her dark lashes rimmed her eyes like kohl, large Cleopatra eyes that remained sheepishly downcast. “I wasn’t really crying over the pain, though.” She made a weak smile up at him. “The tooth is bad. Mr. Limpet has just told me that it has to come out.”