The Perfect Waltz (29 page)

A voice from the door interrupted her. “Hardship and abuse? My sister knows all about it! Our grandfather used to beat her mercilessly. He did his best to crush her spirit.” Faith came forward and grabbed her sister’s hand and held it up. “You may have noticed—”

“No, Faith,” Hope tried to pull her hand away. “This is not about me.”

“Yes, it is. It’s why you did what you did today.” Faith turned to the others and explained, “My sister and I are mirror twins: where I have a mole on my left shoulder, hers is on the right shoulder. Where I am right-handed, she is left-handed.”

Lady Elinore sniffed. “So?”

“My grandfather believed Hope to be evil, because she used her left hand by preference. He claimed her left hand was a tool of the Devil. And so she spent most of her childhood with that hand tied behind her. Not gently.” Faith grabbed Hope’s hand.

Hope tried to pull away. It was a part of her life she wanted to forget, but Faith held tight. She brandished Hope’s left wrist. “Tied with ropes by my grandfather so tightly that they rubbed her flesh raw. From the time she was a little girl, newly orphaned at the age of seven, until the day we escaped, two years ago. So do not
dare
say she knows nothing of hardship!”

There was a long, embarrassed silence. Hope uncomfortably pulled her hand away. She said quietly, “I am sorry, Lady Elinore, if what I did distressed you.”

Lady Elinore said in a stiff voice, “I am sorry for what you endured as a child. Nevertheless, your actions were ill thought out and reckless and have severely undermined the entire basis of this institution and all our good work with these girls.”

Hope raised her brows. “How so? A few bits to furbish up their clothes? A doll for the little ones?”

Lady Elinore snorted in a genteel fashion. “There is nothing Rational in a few bits of material with a face painted or embroidered on!”

Hope interrupted. “It is not about Rationality but about heart. It is about a child, who has no one in all the world, finding comfort in the lonely darkness of the night by hugging a doll.”

“It is just a bit of rag! They can as well hug the blanket they sleep in.”

Hope stared at her incredulously. “You’ve never had a doll, have you, Lady Elinore?”

Lady Elinore looked uneasy. “Of course not! Sentimental nonsense! Playing with dolls is nothing but a foolish waste of time.”

Hope shook her head. “A doll is so much more than a bit of material and a few buttons. A doll becomes a person, a friend, a sister, a confidante. A doll is something of your own—completely private and solely yours, someone to love and hug and tell your dreams and fears to.”

Lady Elinore looked skeptical. “What’s the point?”

“Comfort. Love. Reassurance,” said Hope softly. “Have you never lain in your bed, awake in the middle of the night, perhaps with the rain falling and the wind whistling? Feeling lost and unloved and alone . . .”

Lady Elinore looked so uncomfortable Hope said quickly, “I don’t mean you, specifically. We all have moments like that, children, too. The middle of the night can be the loneliest time. I remember a time when I was a child when I thought that life could get no more miserable, that not a soul in the world loved us or cared about us . . .”

There was a hushed silence in the room, as everyone there remembered . . .

Giles Bemerton, sent off to school at the age of seven, small, alone, and vulnerable, tortured by the older boys . . .

Lady Elinore, who felt closest to her mother at the British Museum . . .

Sebastian Reyne, a young boy shouldering a man’s task, trying so desperately to keep a family together, failing, and losing everything in the process . . .

For several moments, nobody spoke. Lady Elinore took a small starched square of white linen from her reticule and blew into it. “Very well,” she said. “I accept your argument in favor of the dolls. But as for what you did to their clothing! You have no idea of the dangerous tendencies you have stirred up!”

At her words, much of Hope’s sympathy for Lady Elinore began to dissolve. Her temper rose. “Dangerous tendencies? I had not realized a few trimmings and some buttons could have such a dramatic effect.”

Lady Elinore’s chin took on a stubborn jut. She threw up her hands. “The effect was obvious! Did you not
see
?”

Hope gave Lady Elinore a narrow look. “I saw a group of happy young girls who look a vast deal prettier than they did yesterday. What did you see?”

“Girls garbed with the purpose of attracting male attention! Girls on the verge of corruption!”

“Rubbish!”

“You may scoff, but even Mr. Bemerton noticed it.”

Giles held up his hands defensively. “Leave me out of this.”

“But you did!” Lady Elinore insisted. “You saw how they went in looking like . . . like—what was it you said?”

“Like quiet little mice,” he offered.

“Yes, and they came out looking like birds of paradise.”

“No!” Giles stood up. “You said that, Elinore. Not I.”

She looked shocked at his contradicting her. “But it was true!”

“It was
not
true! How can you say such a thing?” Hope began. “They are merely—”

Lady Elinore turned on her. “What you don’t realize is that many of these girls were rescued from a life of depravity! From houses of ill fame!”

At this, Sebastian intervened. “Lady Elinore, I do not think it is proper for us to sully Miss Merridew’s ears with tales of depravity—”

“Sully my ears!” exclaimed Hope in sudden fury. “What complete and utter nonsense! If some of these poor children have managed to survive the depravity inflicted on them by others, then I can certainly endure hearing about it!”

Sebastian looked at her in shock.

Hope stormed on, “And if they have suffered from the evil in the world, they are victims, yes?”

“Y-yes,” Lady Elinore agreed.

“Then why do you treat them as if they are naturally wicked?”

“What do you mean? I don’t. They must be reformed, of course and their tendencies to immorality eradicated—”

“Reformed?”
Hope exploded. “
Tendencies to immorality?
I have heard this kind of rubbish all my life from my grandfather—only he says all females are born sinful! Those girls are but
children
who had
no choice
in what they did! If you are robbed, do you need reforming?”

Lady Elinore looked confused.

Hope didn’t wait for a response. “No, of course not. And these children were robbed of their childhood and their innocence. They understand fear and hate and evil and hardship. What they need to learn about is love and hope and pride and how to be happy in life.” Her voice softened. “Their clothes don’t make them potential birds of paradise—they are just young girls feeling natural excitement over a few pretty things. Don’t you remember what it’s like to get a pretty new dress—” She broke off, looking at Lady Elinore’s gray, shapeless gown. “No, I suppose not.”

Lady Elinore’s mouth quivered.

Hope came forward and took her hand. Her voice softened. “Please don’t be upset. I know you mean well. But you are following your mother’s precepts so blindly. And they are so harsh and joyless.”

“My mother was a great woman.” Lady Elinore said shakily.

“But why would she wish females to take no joy in wearing pretty things? Why deny a lonely child the comfort of a doll?”

“A great many people admired my mother’s ideas.”

“Perhaps,” said Hope gently, “but she does not seem to have been very happy. And has her Rational approach brought you such happiness?”

Lady Elinore’s face quivered. “One’s duty is more important than one’s personal happiness.” It had all the ear-marks of a quote from her mother.

Hope squeezed her hands. “Perhaps, but if duty and joy can be combined, why deny personal happiness when it is possible?”

Lady Elinore’s brow furrowed. She made no response.

There was a long silence in the room. Finally, Lady Elinore said in a shaken voice, “I see. Thank you for explaining your point of view. I . . . I shall leave now.” She stood and looked around helplessly, a little blindly.

Sebastian and Giles were both standing.

“Bas?” Giles queried.

Sebastian didn’t move. He was staring fixedly at Hope, then as his friend jogged him with his elbow, he started and said in a vague manner, “Yes, yes, to be sure.”

Giles opened the door. “Lady Elinore.”

“Th-thank you, Mr. Bemerton.” Quietly, with great dignity, Lady Elinore took her leave. Sebastian and the others followed her into the hall in silence.

A footman was sent to summon a hackney cab, and the moment it arrived, Mr. Bemerton helped Lady Elinore into it. He glanced at Sebastian, who was lost in thought, his expression blank. Giles rolled his eyes, leaped nimbly into the hackney cab, and gave the order for the jarvey to get the cab moving.

As the carriage moved off, Giles said quietly, “Do you need a handkerchief, Elinore?”

But Lady Elinore didn’t respond. She was staring vacantly ahead, a deep pucker between her brows.

JANE AUSTEN

 
 
 
 
 
“IF ONLY SHE WOULD REALIZE THERE IS SCIENTIFIC REASONING behind my mother’s theories of clothing!” Lady Elinore was rapidly recovering from her distress and had begun to work herself into a self-righteous temper. “Wearing such bright colors brings out the excessive passions in men. We have a duty to protect our girls from that!”

Giles stared at her. “You can’t possibly believe such nonsense!”

The cab drew up in front of Lady Elinore’s house. “It’s not nonsense! It’s quite true. My mother conducted investigations into the matter. Masculine passions are stimulated by colors.”

He stepped from the carriage and turned to help her down the steps. “And that is why you wear those dreadful gray rags?”

She gave him a haughty look but accepted his hand. “My clothes are not rags. They are made of the finest materials: silk, velvet, merino.”

“All of them gray and all cut to have about as much shape as a merino sheep.”

She flounced up the steps to her house, opened the front door with a key, then turned and said indignantly, “My clothes are warm and effective, and they answer the Rational purpose for clothing.”

He followed her inside with a narrow, sleepy-lidded look. “Which is to disguise any female shape you have and avoid inflaming masculine passions.”

She sniffed, not liking to confirm such a bald statement, and tried to struggle out of her coat. He stepped forward and smoothly drew it from her shoulders. He held it up. “Where does it go?”

“Here. I’ll take it.” She opened a door and hung the coat on a hook. She stepped back out of the closet looking self-conscious. She smoothed down her gray dress.

Giles looked at the shapeless garment, the hair scraped back and hidden under an ugly gray cap, and then he looked at the woman beneath. “You have no idea, do you?”

She raised her brows and gave him a look of disdain. “About what?”

“About this.” He flung open the closet door, pushed her into it, and followed her in, closing the door behind him. Darkness wrapped around them.

She hit out at him with her fists. “How dare you!”

He caught her hands in his and held them. It was pitch black. “You’re not afraid of the dark, are you?”

“Of course not!”

His voice sounded deeper than usual as he said, “I’m not going to hurt you. You know that, Elinore.” He waited.

“I-I never gave you leave to use my first name!”

“You know I’m a rake, Elinore. Rakes don’t wait for leave. We take”—he stepped closer, until his body lightly touched hers—“liberties.”

She gave a little gasp and tried to step back, but the cupboard was small. She pressed back among the coats. “Wh-what do you think you are doing?”

Her hands were trembling in his. He soothed them with his thumb, stroking gently and rhythmically. She tried to pull her hands free, in vain.

“It is an experiment in color.”

“What?”

“I’m testing your mother’s theory. About color. Seeing if my unruly masculine passions can be quelled by a lack of color. Having been exposed to all those female bodies outside, clad in a positive riot of colors, I am in need of a calming experience. Which is why I sought you out.” His thumbs never ceased their caress of her soft skin.

She said not a word. After a moment he added, “It might take a few minutes to achieve the calm I need, but you shall not begrudge that, I know. In the name of . . . science.”

Silence. He could hear her breathing and the flutter of the pulse under his fingers quickened.

“So, what shall we talk about while the experiment runs its course? Oh, I know—you are aware, I suppose that my friend Sebastian Reyne is courting you?”

She hesitated. “Yes.”

“Are you aware that he doesn’t love you?”

There was an interminable wait before she said, “Yes. I don’t mind.”

His grip tightened. He wanted to shake her but forced himself to say mildly, “You should. Every woman deserves to be loved.” He waited a moment, but she didn’t respond, so he asked, “Do you love him?”

“No.” She added in a small, desperate voice, “Love is not Rational.”

“No, thank God, it isn’t!” He waited, but she said nothing. “So . . . you don’t mind that Sebastian’s only reasons for marrying you would be what he conceives of as his duty to his sisters?”

“Duty is a solid foundation for most endeavors. I admire his devotion to duty. It is a Rational quality.”

“Is it now? And I bet you are just stuffed full of Rational qualities, aren’t you?”

“I try to be.”

“I bet you’ve never had an undutiful moment in your life, have you?”