Savage Girl by Jean Zimmerman

Author:Jean Zimmerman [Zimmerman, Jean]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Penguin Group US
Published: 2014-03-18T16:00:00+00:00

16

I wanted Bronwyn to come into my world, the real world, the precisely cut diamond of Manhattan society, and I now believed she wanted it, too. We recognized a shared goal. The alchemy of that evening spent spying upon the Patriarchs’ Ball rendered our relationship much clearer.

Later that night, into the early morning, as if in reward for our newfound intimacy, we sat before a dying fire in Freddy’s library and Bronwyn told me her story.

Her words, while she traced her background from childhood to the present day, served to bind us as close together as any brother and sister ever could be. To say that the facts of her life newly altered my feelings for her would be misleading, since those feelings had been in constant transformation since the day I first set eyes on her in Dr. Scott’s barn.

We did not finish talking until the dawn came up, imbuing the leafless winter dogwoods in the park with a ghostly materialism. The recounting had a good effect. In the weeks that followed her confession, Bronwyn applied herself to her studies with such focus and enthusiasm that everyone remarked upon it, from Freddy to the tutors to the household staff.

Bronwyn was, in a word, tireless.

“You’ve worked a miracle, dear boy,” my father said, giving me all the credit.

Freddy and Anna Maria set the last day of February as the date for her debut, and all our efforts were geared toward that. Bronwyn had progressed to the degree that by New Year’s week we felt she was ready to take her first tentative step into society.

Dancing school.

Specifically, Madame Eugénie’s Académie de Danse, attendance at which was de rigueur in our circle—

• • •

Wait, wait, Bill Howe interrupts me again. You’re jumping ahead.

Yes?

Well, you can’t do that, he says.

Do what?

Tell it that way. Mention that the girl has told you her story and then slide over it as an inconsequential detail.

Bronwyn’s story is well known by now, isn’t it?

Howe splutters. But . . . but . . . but—there are so many different versions, from the newspapers, the authorities, even the clergy, it is imperative we hear the account she relayed to you. With utter completeness, if you will, Mr. Hugo, with utter completeness.

Might that not derail the momentum of the narrative, I say, by entering us into a previous chronological period? Doesn’t Aristotle preach a strict unity of time?

Bugger Aristotle, Howe says.

From what I’ve heard of the great man, I say, he might enjoy that.

Howe says, Go back, if you please. Leave nothing out. That evening after your visit to the Patriarchs’ Ball. What she told you.

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