The Heiress

by Molly Greeley

  Papa was on his feet in an instant, calling for a maid, but I only stared. I had never seen my mother weep before, and it was several moments before the dreadful gulping sounds coming from Mamma’s throat and the tremors that wracked her body so violently made sense to me. The maid came in, and Papa, who had taken up the letter, said, “Lady Catherine has had a shock—fetch wine, quickly.” He stood by, the letter dangling from his fingertips, and watched his wife, who sat in her chair folded in half by her grief.

  I watched as Mamma drank the wine in three great swallows; as Papa spoke quietly to Mrs. Barrister, who came to the doorway to find out what the commotion was; as Mamma, always so solid, so immovable, stood too quickly and stumbled, nearly falling, and said, “I must leave for Pemberley immediately—Mr. Darcy will have need of my help.” They all left the drawing room, Mamma now calling instructions about what her maid should pack, even as her face fell into unfamiliar keening lines, Papa hurrying to his study to write a letter to my uncle Darcy.

  I realized that I had been quite forgotten. I put my head back down, looked up at the ceiling, and wished I could climb the walls like a spider so I could bask in the patches of sunlight that stretched at steep angles from the dark wood wainscoting up toward the chandelier.

  It was Nurse who came for me at last, who gathered me, crooning, as if I should be feeling very sad about something. I pulled away from her, impatient, and said, “Do I have a girl cousin? Or a boy? What is all the fuss about?”

  “Oh, Miss,” Nurse said. “You’ve a little girl cousin, who is well and strong, thanks be to God. But your aunt—your aunt is dead.”

  I just looked at her. “But,” I said; but could think of nothing more to add. My medicine cushioned me from what properly should have been a blow. I thought of Aunt Darcy, so round and smiling whenever she came to Rosings; and I thought of how my aunt had, without meaning to, made me feel so very small, in the worst possible way. She has no spirit at all. I frowned down at my hands, tracing the pointer finger of one over the sharp white knuckles of the other, and could not feel as sorry as I was sure I should.

  “The babe was stuck, that’s what I heard,” Nurse said in the murmur of someone speaking words they knew they oughtn’t. I pretended to still be sleeping, though I opened my eyes just a little, peering through the slits. Nurse’s head was bent conspiratorially toward one of the housemaids, who balanced a tray of tea things and shook her head, tutting.

  “And where’d you hear that?”

  Nurse shrugged. “I’ve got my ways. And after poor Lady Anne lost all those other little ones in between Master Fitzwilliam and this new babe . . . Ah, it’s a sad day.”

  The maid gave a shudder. “It’s a bloody business, isn’t it? Lady Anne seemed nice enough—gave us all little gifts when she visited at Christmas that time.”

  “She was a good one.” Nurse blew out a breath. “Different from her sister as rain and shine.”

  “Shush!” The maid swiveled her head to look at me; from years of eavesdropping on servants’ conversations, I knew better than to snap my eyes shut, as I instinctively wanted to do. Instead, I left them slitted, let my mouth hang a little loose and open. “Even she has ears.”

  “You don’t need to worry about that one. She can’t hear a thing once she’s had her drops, bless her.”

  The maid thrust the tray at Nurse. “Well, I won’t be the one losing my place for speaking ill of my mistress, thank you very much.” She turned in a graceful arc and left the nursery.

  Nurse chuckled a little as she set the tray on a table. She took a biscuit and bit into it, munching with great smacks of her lips.

  I let my eyes close again. A bloody business, I thought. Perhaps that explained why Mamma was adamant that I would be her only child; I would not want to repeat any experience that could be described so, either. And of course, she was fond of saying to anyone who would listen that Rosings Park could be inherited by a girl, so she had no need, as other ladies did, to worry about the sex of her offspring.

  I knew that a husband was required in order for a woman to become with child, and thought of my own someday-husband, his curly hair and serious face. Rosings Park might be inheritable by a girl, but Pemberley, which Fitzwilliam would inherit, was not. But, I thought hopefully, perhaps after what happened to his mother, my cousin would not make me bear any children at all.

  Mamma returned from Derbyshire still in her mourning black, wearing a lock of Aunt Darcy’s hair set in a handsome brooch. My father had accompanied her, directing the coachman to set the horses to the quickest pace they could manage, but he returned to Kent only two weeks later. Mamma had remained at Pemberley estate for three months, leaving only when she was satisfied that her nephew and new baby niece were well provided for.

  “Mr. Darcy, of course, was perfectly useless; but men always are in the face of grief,” Mamma said over tea the afternoon of her return. “He was speechless with gratitude when I told him I intended to stay as long as necessary. Luckily for him, I know all the best people. The nurse he engaged was not the right sort of person at all; she ate far too much meat. I found a good girl to nurse my niece, and I spoke with each of my nephew’s masters to make sure they knew their business; I cannot expect Mr. Darcy to take much interest in such things just now, but there is nothing better for sorrow than hard work, and Fitzwilliam was very cast down indeed. His masters all seemed competent enough—he will be a credit to both Pemberley and Rosings Park someday.” She paused here to smile at me before continuing. “Little Georgiana favors the Darcy side, I think, though of course there is time for some Fitzwilliam features to come out. I will have to be diligent about her education; I fear Mr. Darcy will be too lenient with her. He already dotes on her more than is good for the child. And my sister was very musical; I have no doubt her daughter will have inherited her talent. Did you notice her fingers, Sir Lewis, when you were at Pemberley? They were just formed for playing.”

  Papa made a sound of agreement, or perhaps indigestion, and Mamma smiled again at me.

  “You have your aunt’s fingers, too, my dear. If only your health were stronger, I’ve no doubt your musical abilities would even surpass hers.”

  That night, Nurse brushed my hair with her usual efficiency. But as she divided it into three strands for plaiting, she paused, fingering the ends of one strand.

  “Your hair is rather marvelous,” she said. “So much healthier than the rest of you! It’s almost a shame you’ll have to pin it up when you’re older.”

  I did not much like to look at my own reflection—it always scowled back at me, all pinched and bony—but I did like the softness of my hair. But just now, my hair made me think of Mamma’s mourning brooch with its narrow little plait, and that made me feel a little sad, and then sorry that my sadness was not more terrible.

  Mamma allowed me to touch the brooch this evening; I traced around and around the edges of it, again and again, as if I could actually feel the bumps of the plaited hair through the glass under my fingertips. Then Mamma finally said, “That’s quite enough,” and moved away. I later heard her telling Nurse to give me a little more medicine than usual before bed, because “clearly, Anne is overwrought.”

  “My hair looks like Aunt Darcy’s,” I said now as Nurse tied off the ends with a ribbon.

  Nurse set her hands on my shoulders and made a mournful face. “So it does,” she said, then gave my shoulders a little pat and turned to pick up the bottle of medicine she had set down earlier. She poured my dose, then guided me into bed and blew out the candles, leaving the room in near-darkness. I mumbled something in response as Nurse wished me a happy sleep, waiting for my drops’ soporific effect.

  While I waited, I raised my hand, describing an oval in the air, fancying I could feel Aunt Darcy’s plait under my fingertips. Had Fitzwilliam been given a lock of his mother’s hair, as well? Had Uncle Darcy thought to keep some for the new baby?

  Poor motherless thing. She would never see her mother’s pretty hair
as it had looked when it was attached to her head.

  I let my hand drop. Perhaps my new cousin squalled the way Nurse said I used to, as if someone were trying to commit murder and it was up to me to sound the alarm. I smiled a little at the thought.

  But then a little noise, like the burbling of a dove, stopped the smile before it could fully form. I turned my head very, very slowly until my eyes met the too-wide eyes of the infant lying on the bed beside me.

  It took a moment, but I finally realized it was my cousin. Georgiana. Perhaps I myself had summoned her here, through my very thoughts. I reached out, but did not touch the babe, who was sticky with drying blood—It’s a bloody business. After a moment’s thought, I took up my own plait and trailed the tip of it across my cousin’s cheek, letting her feel the texture. Georgiana did not cry or even try to bat the hair away, and I felt a sudden, surprising annoyance. My cousin was not like me at all. She was quiet, well behaved, contented. Easy, as I had not been.

  I withdrew my plait quickly enough that the babe tossed her head a little, as if in protestation; but still she made no sound beyond a quiet squeak, and I turned over onto my side so my back was to my cousin, waiting, waiting.

  At last my limbs grew heavy. The room undulated gently around me, and I forgot my tiny cousin entirely as I fell asleep, rocked like a babe myself in its cradle.

  Chapter Five

  In January of my twelfth year, I first saw the sea. The journey from Kent to Brighton took several days, most of which I spent dozing against my nurse’s arm in the carriage, or curled under heaped coverlets on lumpy inn beds. Mamma was thin-lipped with anger for the entirety of the trip; it was Papa who said, Dr. Grant’s advice notwithstanding, they would be fools if they did not at least try to help me by any means possible. My sickliness had not seemed to worry him overmuch at first—he was, for most of my life until now, entirely satisfied with little glimpses of me throughout the day, and reports from my nurse that I was well. But my health had, it seemed, now begun to weigh upon him. Mamma might be fully committed to following Dr. Grant’s advice, but Dr. Grant was, in the end, nothing but a country physician, and the London doctors that Papa recently consulted were all eloquent in their praise of the restorative powers of sea bathing.

  The sky was low and heavy as the underside of a mountain, and the sea, at first glimpse, seemed all whitecaps. The thought of going into the water was terrible; I was certain I would be swept under, or snatched away by great tentacled creatures. The wind coming off the water was cold enough to freeze the tears on my cheeks. I threw myself backward, tried to scramble back up the steps of the bathing machine to get away from the churning waves, but the ladies who were paid to help holiday-goers safely into the water were undaunted by my cries and thrashing. I found myself down the steps and in the water without quite knowing how it happened; my bathing costume inflated around me, swallowing me up like one of the sea monsters I dreaded meeting. I could hardly breathe, the cold was so profound, the pain of it not really so much pain as a terrible wrongness. With what little breath I had, I screamed, high and shrill like a fox’s cry, until one of the dippers clamped a hand over my nose and mouth, cutting off sound and breath entirely.

  “Hush, child,” the woman said. “You’ll put everyone off their cures.” Her fingers pressed into the bones of my jaw; she only released her hold when I began to flail for air. The waves crashed against our backs, one after another, rhythmic and surging, and now I clung to the woman with her rough calloused fingers and sturdy arms who had nearly smothered me only moments before, raising my chin to keep it above the water, seeking my mother’s form on the beach. Finally I found her, wrapped in her warm cloak against the wind, one hand shading her eyes as she looked out over the water.

  When at last the dipper concluded that I had been in the sea long enough for my healing to commence, she bundled me up the steps of the bathing machine and dried me briskly with a cloth. Nurse was inside, ready with my clothes; she exclaimed over the iciness of my fingers and toes, frowning when I shivered so violently that it was difficult to do up the fastenings of my gown. Then she helped me out of the bathing machine and out onto the stretch of wide, damp sand, where we found Mamma waiting.

  “There is some color in her cheeks, at least,” Mamma said, looking down at my huddled form. “I suppose that will please Sir Lewis.” Then she took off her own cloak, sweeping it over my shoulders, warm and thick against the sea wind. Nurse scrambled to pick up the hem so it would not drag through the sand.

  When we returned to the house we had taken for our stay in Brighton, I was put to bed, kept warm under layers of shawls and blankets, the fire in my room built up until I became too hot, throwing off my covers. Before leaving earlier in the day to meet some acquaintances in town, Papa told Nurse not to give me my usual doses. If I had any improvement, they must be able to tell whether the sea was truly the reason.

  And so, once I warmed up, I was bored. Waiting for sleep, I listened to the house settle and creak, and to the wind outside; but without my drops, I was fidgety. I went to the window, the panes frosted along their edges, but my room overlooked the small back garden, which was winter-gray and dead. From somewhere down the row of terraced houses, I could just hear the voices of other children at play.

  When Nurse came in to check on me, I was in the thick of a very exciting game about pirates. Though stories of high adventure were usually deemed too stimulating for me, I had watched many times as Edward, John, and Fitzwilliam played at pirates, so I knew how the game was meant to go. My bed was my ship—its tall, curtained canopy made for excellent sails—and I was a navy captain. It was night, the ship surrounded by a pirate fleet, but my crew was fighting bravely. I crouched in the center of the bed, dress and petticoat rucked up around my knees to give my legs room to splay. Amidst the chaos of battle, I could hear someone approaching—a pirate was sneaking up on me, cutlass raised. I stayed very still so he would not realize I heard him coming, and then, just as the creak of the deck under his boots gave him away, I sprang.

  There was a cry and a great clatter. I was jolted from the high seas and back into my bedchamber; flat on my back at the edge of the bed, I looked up and saw not billowing sails but a stiff yellow canopy. Then Nurse slipped an arm under my shoulders, helping me to sit.

  “Miss!” Nurse said. “What were you doing?”

  Nurse sounded angry. I frowned up at her, at the deep line between Nurse’s pale eyebrows and the turned-down corners of her wide lips, and jerked myself away from Nurse’s hands.

  “I do not need help,” I said, and tried to smooth my dress down over my legs. “I was only playing.”

  Nurse looked at me quite blankly for a moment, then turned her attention to something easier to comprehend, tutting under her breath. “Look at this mess,” she said, sweeping one hand out in a gesture that encompassed the dropped tray, biscuits tumbled everywhere, teapot smashed and leaking. She stooped to pick up the shattered bits of china, blotting with the edge of her apron at the carpet, where a pale brown stain had begun to spread. Then she looked up at me again. “You’re feeling well, then, Miss?”

  I swung my legs, heels thunking against the side of the bed. “Wonderfully well.”

  Nurse piled the last of the soggy biscuits and broken crockery on the tray then sat back on her haunches, staring at me with her mouth a little open. “Playing,” she said at last and, gathering up the tray, left the room.

  My game had rather been ruined by the interruption, so I returned to the window, pressing my ear to one icy pane to try to hear what the children down the row were shouting about. When the door opened again a few minutes later, it was Mamma who entered first, Nurse scuttling behind her.

  “It’s marvelous, Your Ladyship,” Nurse was saying. “Just see—”

  I turned my head so I was looking over my shoulder at them. Mamma had very dark brows, and she raised one now at the sight of me leaning against the window. “I see nothing to make a fuss about,” she said.
r />   Nurse bunched the fabric of her apron in her two fists. “She was at play, Your Ladyship, she was just there”—pointing to the bed—“acting boisterous as any normal child.”

  “Boisterous? I hope not. I abhor children who cannot sit still. It portends a lifetime of poor self-control.” Mamma’s gown went swoosh-swoosh against the floor as she walked farther into the room. “How are you feeling, Anne?”

  I stepped away from the window entirely, folding my hands in front of me. I wished Nurse had not mentioned my game; Mamma thought games of imagination undignified. “I am feeling very well, Mamma.”

  My mother frowned down at me, looking into my eyes, as if for some sign of a great change.

  “She is not a normal child,” Mamma said, with a suddenness that made both Nurse and me jump a little where we stood. “She is Anne de Bourgh. You oughtn’t allow such sudden excess, Nurse, for all that Anne seems to be so much better than usual. Let us see over time whether the sea truly has cured her.”

  I ate heartily that night, to Nurse’s delight, soup and chicken and potatoes and two kinds of salad. After, my father came to visit me upstairs before I went to bed. He peered into my face just as Mamma had, searching for some secret that I was not sure actually existed there, then kissed my forehead with his dry lips and said, “You shall enjoy the sea again tomorrow, dear girl, and every day until we return home.”

  I began to cry, thinking of the bitter waves and the dipper’s unforgiving hands, and Papa looked alarmed and stepped away from me. “Tell her, Nurse,” he said as he sidled out the door, and waved a hand in my direction. “Tell her it is for the best.”