Victorian Chemistry

“Honestly, Elise, I could use some of your histrionics just now. You have become a remarkably dull creature these past six months,” remarked Lady Pembrokeshire, stroking the brown and white corgi puppy on her lap. “It’s your first Season, darling. You could make a bit of an effort, hmm?” Elise was concentrating on not throwing up, though vomiting would probably count as “histrionics.” The awful woman forced her into the back-facing seat of the carriage even though Elise had strongly hinted before they left the estate in Basingstoke six hours and one-horse-change ago that she was suffering from motion sickness. Surely, a natural, loving mother would have inquired after her health after she cast her accounts outside that public house in Virginia Water, but not Lady Pembrokeshire.  All the woman said was, “Really, dear, you could have held it in until we reached London.” Though she attempted to keep a blank expression on her face, Elise couldn’t keep the irritation out of her tone. It would serve the woman right if Elise threw up all over her pretty pink silk slippers. “Mama, I don’t understand why I have to have a Season when I’m already affianced to Mr. Richard Cavendish. Haven’t I already accomplished the sole purpose of having a Season before my coming-out?" “I do not like your waspish tone, daughter, and neither will your husband.” The marchioness sniffed delicately as she studied her youngest daughter. The little chit had become quite full of herself ever since the family secured her betrothal to Mr. Richard Cavendish.  But it was only after her older daughter Emily eloped with that ruffian in what the family was calling "the unfortunate accident that may have claimed our beautiful Emily's life," that she’d begun to notice the minutest things about Elise.  By some miracle, the girl’s stammer had disappeared, and she now spoke with conviction and a trace of obstinacy. Her posture had changed, as well. Elise had a tendency to skulk around like a wraith around the mansion.  She was taller than her sister, so in an effort to look more petite, Elise had developed a habit of stooping and scrunching up her shoulders. Hiding behind her nest of hair. It made her look slovenly and inelegant.  And if Lady Pembrokeshire didn’t know any better, she might suspect that Elise was turning into a bluestocking. Over the summer, Elise had spent a lot of time in the library, reading books that she hid from her mother. Lady Pembrokeshire was sure she was reading those salacious novels she’d warned her husband to dispose of, but once she caught Elise reading “Debrett’s Peerage” and another time, an instruction manual on “Manners and Comportment of a Young Lady.” Maybe, the marchioness thought, Elise was finally trying to improve herself.  Lady Elise swallowed the bile threatening to come up her esophagus and pressed her palm into her unsettled stomach, earning Mother's disapproving look. She really should have bribed someone at the pub to sneak her a piece of bread or something because that vegetable soup that she had for lunch just wasn't going to cut it. She needed something to absorb the acid in her stomach, but Mother had Elise on a restrictive diet that only allowed broths, sticks of raw vegetables, and unseasoned, boiled chicken. She had, after all, her presentation at court to worry about, and that her white presentation gown fit her perfectly. No, those were Mother's concerns. She was more excited about the people she might encounter during her stay here. It was an exciting time in history as far as her field of expertise was concerned. Helium was discovered in 1868 and Argon was just discovered last year.  She could meet Dmitri Mendeleev, the father of the Periodic Table of Elements; Marie Curie, Louis Pasteur, the Society of Chemists, Thomas Edison, Michael Faraday… they were all alive in this era. Just the thought of it sometimes made her dizzy. She would love to meet these people in person. At least Jayne Chow would. Lady Elise probably wouldn't  even know these people existed.  It was Jayne Chow who got a first in Chemistry at Jesus College in Cambridge. Jayne Chow who received her doctorate in Organic Chemistry at the age of 26 and promptly offered a spot as a researcher in the new Genome Project headed by Stanford University. Jayne Chow who liked dusty, old books and the smell of university libraries. Elise Russell was not Jayne Chow, but somehow Jayne Chow was Elise Russell, and she hadn't yet figured out how it happened. She went to bed six months ago as a twenty-six-year-old Chinese-British woman in the twenty-first century and woke up the next day as a blonde, green-eyed teenage white girl called Elise in 1894, just a few days after Christmas.  When Jayne Chow looked in the mirror these days, she only saw Elise Russel: button nose, cute rosebud mouth, and a heart-shaped face. She possessed a bone structure that indicated she would be a handsome woman someday. An almost perfect Victorian Barbie doll with one small flaw. A pink birthmark that spanned the length of her left cheekbone, just under her eye, like an angry s***h. It didn't bother her too much, since she still felt divorced from the gravity of her situation, despite the six months she'd had to acclimate to her new world. But she could tell it made most people uncomfortable. Some servants at Basingstoke could barely look her in the eye, and she'd overheard whispers from her mother's cronies that it was a good thing she was an heiress because she was certainly no beauty like her sister Emily. She'd wondered if this was some kind of "Quantum Leap" transmigration where she would have to fix something that went wrong in the past for Lady Elise, so she could "leap" back into Jayne Chow's body in 2021? If so, where was Al, her time-traveling consultant and holder of beeping gizmo? "What on earth is on your mind that it should bring about such a worrisome expression on your visage, Elise?" Lady Pembrokeshire demanded. Didn't the girl know that her cursed mark only got darker whenever she was anxious? And she was such an anxious little thing, hiding in Emily's shadow even though she was larger in frame than her older sister.  Elise touched her birthmark, but not in a self-conscious way. But Mother was staring at it as though it had sprouted hairs in the last couple of minutes. She supposed she should be more worried since she'd be wearing this face for the foreseeable future. She had to remind herself that she's an eighteen-year-old girl in an image-conscious society now and not a researcher with no one to deal with all day but lab mice and other socially-awkward scientists who'd rather spend all day under fume hoods than try to conduct a conversation.  London society would care if Lady Elise had a birthmark the shape of New Zealand on her left cheek. The last thing she wanted was for the poor thing to be ostracized and live a life of solitude. It was her life now, too, after all. She still couldn't get her mind wrapped around it. She'd been living in 1890s England since last Christmas and every day, she still prayed to anyone who would listen that when she opened her eyes, she would be back in her flat in Cambridgeshire that she shared with her best mate Nicole.  She missed the modern conveniences that she took for granted: toilet paper, tampons, pop tarts, knickers, trainers, going to work in a tracksuit, her espresso machine, and her mobile phone. Even her occasional friends with benefits, Liam, a surgical intern who wanted to "take things to the next level." There were mornings when she woke up mourning them, then her governess Mrs. Norville would barge into her suite, with her personal maid Agatha, carrying a tray of cut fruit, an egg, and her cup of chocolate. Thus begins a day of lessons in elocution, home management, ballroom dancing, and French. In the afternoon, Mother expected Elise to spend time practicing the piano and the violin, which Elise hated because she was told by the Maestro that she had no music in her soul and had the fingers of an oaf. One afternoon, while Elise was dutifully practicing in the music room just as she did every day for two hours as she was bidden, the Maestro walked in with Mother and dropped his book of music sheets.  Elise had to set down her violin and dash to her mother's side, to see if she could help. The short, skinny Italian man with the thin mustache looked at her with wide-eyed horror. "That piece you were playing on the violin… did you compose that yourself? I never taught you that." A footman came along to help pull up the Maestro and set him down on a chair. Abby, one of the downstairs maids, gave him a glass of water, which he guzzled down. "Unbelievable!" the little man had exclaimed. "I had never heard such verve, such liveliness, such genius!" Lady Pembrokeshire had regarded the man with suspicion. "You were telling me just now that it would be easier to teach a chimpanzee to play the piano or the violin over Lady Elise." "Last week, this was true!" the man cried. "Lady Elise, you've been playing a trick on your poor Maestro. You could play like a virtuosa all this time. Who composed that piece you were just performing? It wasn't Bach, to be sure." Elise had answered without thinking. "No, I prefer the violin concertos of Béla Bártok…" She stopped.  "Béla Bártok?" the Maestro had repeated. "I've never heard of such a person. But my dear--" Elise had stopped talking about Bártok because he was a turn-of-the-century composer from Hungary. What if he hadn't composed the piece yet? She didn't want anyone stealing it from him. Better stick to the classics. "Never mind, Maestro. I was reading about the formation of the constitutional monarchy between Hungary and Austria yesterday and I probably just got--" "You were what?" Mother gave her a very cross look, and Elise realized she said the wrong thing again. She told Elise that men don't like women who read too many books because they didn't like to feel stupid compared to their wives. "I barely glanced at it, Mother. I was looking for a book on sewing." Elise had dropped her gaze to the ground in a show of modesty. "And the piano?" the maestro had prompted eagerly. "Can you play that as well?" Elise said that she could and proceeded to the piano, followed closely by Maestro and Mother. She set herself up on the bench and tried to remember the piece she played at that recital where Dad got drunk and picked a fight with a large Irish bloke. Ah. She put her fingers on the keys. The Maestro put his hand on her shoulder. "You do not need a music sheet?" Elise had never learned how to read sheet music. What she did have was the ability to play a musical piece on the piano or the violin after only hearing it a few times. She could also remember how to play any piece once she'd already learned it. When it came to music, she had near perfect recall. She mentally browsed through the repertoire of pieces she'd learned how to play from YouTube while sitting in her flat during the pandemic quarantine that lasted eighteen months and decided on Chopin Polonaise Op. 53, A flat. Elise shook her hands loose, joined them together and stretched them out along with her arms palms-out in front of her, and took a deep breath. All right, here we go… By the time she had finished with the fifteen-minute piece--she suspected it was longer, but the video showed only fifteen minutes--a fine sheen of sweat decorated her forehead and arms. Mother and Maestro had stared at her with horrified fascination. "Well, I informed Lady Carlisle you will be performing at her musicale next weekend after your presentation at court," Mother was saying when Elise opened her eyes from her cat nap. "I will need you to practice three hours a day in the morning until then. You are a musical genius compared to the Iverson girls. Besides, it will give the ton something else to remember you by." Elise touched her birthmark again, gritted her teeth, and suffered in silence.