I am next in age after Mary, and then Lydia is two years after me, the youngest of us all. Lydia was always the most spirited and vivacious of us. Which left me the only one of us without any distinguishing characteristic. I couldn't be the prettiest or the wittiest or the cleverest or even the most bouncing and lively. Which makes me . . . what? The boring sister? The one without any special talents--except possibly the ability to make terrible choices with her life?
This is turning into a very whining and self-pitying post--and another of my recent discoveries is that there is no fun whatsoever in feeling sorry for yourself when all you keep coming back to is that everything from start to finish has been entirely your own fault.
Besides, what I really meant to do when I started out writing was to set down how Mary and I came to be the only two out of the five of us who are unmarried, still.
Jane and Elizabeth married extremely well. Much to my mother's delight. Jane is married to Mr. Charles Bingley. Who is not only handsome and rich, but also agreeable and kind--and madly in love with Jane, even though they have been married now for nearly three years and have one daughter, Amelia, and another baby expected quite soon.
Lizzy married Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy. Who is even richer than Charles. And who always struck me as very proud and disagreeable. But Lizzy seems to actually love him. And he loves her, too. I have stayed with them at Pemberley, Mr. Darcy's estate, and I've seen the way he looks at Lizzy. Mr. Darcy--he may be my brother-in-law, but I still cannot bring myself to call him Fitzwilliam--may be stiff and proud, but he would walk to the ends of the Earth just to see Lizzy smile.
And Lydia--
Lydia was always the closest to me, all the time we were growing up. I suppose mostly because she was the nearest to me in age. Lizzy and Jane were always perfectly nice to me. But I was so much younger that I was always a baby to them, and they had their own secrets and games that I was never a part of.
No one could possibly make a special confidante of Mary. Which left me and Lydia to play together when we were small and then be confidantes when we grew up.
Even though Lydia was the younger, she was always the leader. I wanted to be just like her. Fearless and bold, with scads of admirers to flirt with.
That Kitty Bennet seems so distant from me now. Thinking about myself then is like looking through the telescope the wrong way round. But it's quite true. Even when Lydia created a scandal by running away with George Wickham, I admired her. At least she had done something, instead of simply sitting on the sidelines of all the assemblies and balls like the rest of us, waiting for some gentleman to overlook our lack of fortune and save us from becoming old maids.
It is only in the last year that I have seen exactly where all Lydia's vivaciousness has got her: married to a man who is a lout and a drunkard--and a coward, as well. They have to live in France, because Wickham deserted from the army at the Battle of Waterloo, and now can't come home. The only time Lydia writes to any of us is to ask for money and to complain that French society is so very dull and stultifying compared to home. Which really means that she and Wickham haven't enough funds for her to cut any kind of a figure in the social scene.
At any rate, that is how Mary and I came to be the last sisters left at home. Our mother has more or less given up on seeing Mary wedded. But even after everything that has happened in the last twelvemonth, Mother has made it her especial mission to see me betrothed. To whom, she is not particular; her criteria for potential sons-in-law seem to be first a sizeable income, and second a beating heart.
That is why I was so happy to accept our aunt Gardiner's invitation for me and Mary to spend the winter in London. Lizzy invited me, too. But I can not possibly face her again. And Aunt Gardiner is such a calm, restful person to be around. She never fusses or worries. Besides, though she is very kind, she is too busy with the children to be overly occupied with Mary or me.
And beyond the one time Mary informed me that it was better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all--and I emptied the entire contents of a teapot over her for it--Mary leaves me alone.
In my defence, at least the tea was (mostly) gone cold.
Wednesday 3 January 1815
Today marks the first day of putting my plan into effect: I dragged Mary out to the shops to buy her some new clothes. I was expecting it to be a battle royale, preferable only when compared to a visit to the dentist. But it actually went much better than I would have thought.
And it got me out of the house when Mrs. Ayres made her weekly effort to see me.
I will have to see her eventually, I know. But so far I haven't managed to force myself to be at home when Mrs. Ayres calls at the house. There are penances and then there are penances. And I still feel as though I would rather hurl myself under the wheels of a runaway carriage than see her-- because even I can't seriously contemplate a bare-faced lie to a woman whose son has just died at Waterloo.
If I see Mrs. Ayres, I will have to tell her the truth about me and John. The truth he apparently never told anyone, even his own mother.
It is honestly not for myself that I would mind. I would tell Mrs. Ayres the truth about John's and my engagement--and expose myself for a brainless, heartless flirt. If it weren't for the fact that I'm afraid it would tarnish her memories of John, to know he was once in love with me. And she and John surely deserve better.
So I took Mary shopping instead.
Mary has plenty of money--she has spent practically nothing of the allowance our father gave us, or the Christmas gifts from Lizzy and Jane. Until today, all she had bought were a few books. So I was able to bring her to the shop in Conduit Street of Madame LeFarge, the very fashionable modiste who makes all of my sister Jane's dresses.
Mary balked a bit at the prices--well, at the whole process, really. But I asked her did she want to spend the rest of her time in London a confirmed wallflower, or did she wish to occasionally have a dance? And she actually submitted to Madame LeFarge's measuring and clucking and draping her with various silks and gauzes and muslins.
Madame LeFarge was at least very enthusiastic. I think she saw Mary as a unique professional challenge. If she could manage to make Mary beautiful, she could succeed with anyone.
Though Mary is not so ill-favoured, really. Especially not now that her skin has cleared and her figure is no longer all awkward angles. She might even be pretty if she learned to arrange her hair properly, instead of simply scraping it straight back from her face. And if she left off wearing her spectacles.
She doesn't even actually need the spectacles--they are only plain glass, set in silver frames that she bought because she thinks they make her look more intelligent.
At any rate, if left to herself, Mary would have chosen the plainest, dullest materials Madame LeFarge had. But Madame and I joined forces and overruled her, and in the end actually persuaded her into some pretty things. A rose satin that is to be made up with an overdress of cream-coloured spider-gauze and trimmed with pearl rosettes. And an evening gown of pale blue crepe, ruffled at the sleeves and hem, that Madame LeFarge promised me faithfully she would have ready for the dinner party my aunt Gardiner is giving in two days' time.
That gives me two days to coach Mary in proper etiquette and persuade her not on any account to bring up the subjects of gout, brown bread, or raw carrots to any of the young men she meets.
I will write down in this journal whether I am successful or no. And whether Mary and I both survive my efforts.
Though I have some hopes. After we had finished at Madame LeFarge's, I made Mary come with me to Gunter's to eat ice cream. And she only mentioned once that the pastries and ices were shockingly over-priced and not at all healthful, and that she was afraid some of the other customers--she was staring at a pair of very elegantly dressed women with obviously rouged cheeks and varnished fingernails who were eating ices at the table next to ours--might possibly be less than respectable.
Thursday 4 January 1816
As i
t happens, I only need a single word to sum up the dinner party tonight: disastrous.
The evening began well enough. Madame LeFarge did manage to finish the blue crepe gown for Mary. It was delivered this afternoon. And it is lovely--Madame added rows of pointed lace to the sleeves and collar line, and caught up the overskirt with rosettes of deeper blue satin.
I forced Mary into it. And managed to persuade her to stop tugging at the neckline. Which was really not so very low-cut. Though certainly more revealing than the high-necked dresses Mary usually wears.
And then I sat Mary down in the chair in front of my dressing table--our room has two, one for each of us--and made her allow me to arrange her hair.
Mary's hair is quite pretty, really: glossy dark brown, with a natural curl. It's just that she invariably wears it dragged straight back from her face and pinned in a knot at the nape of her neck that makes her look more like a prim, priggish governess than any actual governess possibly could.
Tonight I gathered her hair into a lose knot on top of her head. And then took my sewing scissors and--ignoring Mary's squeaks of protest--ruthlessly snipped and clipped so that a few loose, curling tendrils framed her face.
The difference in her appearance was amazing. I took out a pot of rouge--I have it, still, though I've not opened it in months--and added just a light tough of colour to Mary's lips and cheeks. And she looked lovely, she really did.
I turned her to look in the mirror, and she caught her breath, her eyes going wide. And then she reached for her spectacles, which she had left on the the edge of my night table.
"Don't even think it!" I slapped her hand away. "Do you want to undo all my efforts?"
"But--" Mary cast a longing look at the glasses.
I cut her off. "I don't care how much more intelligent you think they make you look, you are not wearing them tonight."
Mary looked up at me--then down at the floor. "It's not that. It's just . . . I started wearing them when my face had so very many blemishes," she muttered. "They seemed--it felt as though I could hide behind them, a little. And now I feel . . . naked, without them."
I was taken aback. Because as a rule, Mary never admits to uncertainty or self-consciousness--or to anything, really, but absolute certainty of her own wisdom and opinions.
But then she added, "And they do make me look more intelligent."
Which sounded much more like the sister Mary I know.
"Gentlemen don't want a woman who looks intelligent, they want a girl who looks like a charming and agreeable companion," I said.
Another flicker of uncertainty crossed Mary's face. "I . . . is that not like lying, then? Pretending to something I am not, just for the sake of attracting what must surely be fickle male attention, if it is based on such untruths? As the poet Mr. Cowper says--"
I sighed. Because I haven't really anything to say to that. It is certainly not as though my own record in that regard has been so outstanding.
But I still interrupted before Mary could start unleashing quotations from poetry. "Let's just start with getting some agreeable gentleman to ask you to dance," I said. "We can worry later about your baring your souls to one another, all right?"
I looked at the clock, then. And realised that I had barely a quarter of an hour until Aunt Gardiner's guests were due to arrive. Which meant that I had approximately ten minutes to dress myself.
I rummaged in the wardrobe and yanked on the first dress that I found--my ivory silk with silver embroidered acorns. And then I sat down at the dressing table to fix my own hair.
I had been playing knights and dragons all afternoon with Thomas and Jack--they are Aunt and Uncle Gardiner's two boys--followed by doll's tea-party with Anna and Charlotte, who are Thomas and Jack's older sisters. And I had spent a good deal of the time holding baby Susanna on my shoulder, as well. So that when I looked in the mirror, I discovered that I still had a smear of green paint on my neck from the dragon's costume--the headdress the boys and I made together hadn't quite dried when I put it on. And that at some point during the tea party, baby Susanna had managed to deposit a sticky smear of what looked like grape jelly in my hair.
There wasn't time for me to do more than hastily scrub the green paint off, though, with the cold wash water in the basin. I pulled my hair back into a tight knot that rivalled the severity of Mary's usual hairstyles, and then covered the jelly with a silver lace bandeau.
After all, it was not as though it mattered especially what I looked like. And I am sure Mary could quote me some verse of the Bible or something has something or other to say about the dangers of vanity over one's looks.
"All right," I said to Mary. "Let us go down. And for heaven sakes, don't forget what I told you. Do not quote poetry, do not criticise any of the gentlemen's apparent vices. And above all, smile from time to time."
Mary looked as though she were preparing to argue--probably thinking up some other quotation about gout and the evils of drink. But I never gave her the chance, only took her by the arm and marched her downstairs, to where the guests Aunt Gardiner had invited were beginning to arrive.
The dinner itself was also perfectly fine. I was seated next to a Mr. Frank Bertram, who talked mostly about--
Actually, I have no idea what he talked about. Horses, possibly? Or boating? My entire attention was occupied with trying to overhear what Mary was saying to her dinner companion. And wishing that I were seated near enough to her to stamp on her foot if she broke any of my rules and started lecturing or sermonising.
She seemed to do all right, though. She was seated next to Rhys Callahan, who is a clerk in Uncle Gardiner's employ. He is somewhere about twenty three or four, and on the compact side--only a head or so taller than I am-- but square built and sturdy-looking. His colouring is Welsh--black hair and dark eyes--and though he is not strictly speaking handsome, he is a pleasant young man.
Well, to be strictly accurate, I suppose I should say that he appears to be a pleasant young man. He is so excessively shy that I have never actually managed to get him to say a word to me, though he is often at the house to discuss business with my uncle, and frequently stays to dine.
He appeared all through dinner to be listening to whatever Mary was saying. And his eyes did not even appear to have glazed over with boredom, nor did I see him yawn. Though perhaps he was only grateful to have been blessed with a dinner companion who did not require him to talk.
After dinner ended, and the gentlemen had joined us in the drawing room, Aunt Gardiner proposed that we have some dancing. I could see Mary poised to offer to play. But I stepped in before she could get the words out, and volunteered to accompany the dancing myself. I don't play nearly so well as Mary. Not even so well as Lizzy, really. But I can manage a few reels and a "Sir Roger de Coverley".
The only drawback to that arrangement was that, though I had prevented Mary from playing, I could not both accompany the dancing and find a way to force Mary to actually dance. Or rather, force one of the gentlemen to ask her; she stood at the side of the space Aunt Gardiner had cleared for dancing. Moving her shoulders awkwardly in time to the music and looking hopeful. But not one of the young men there approached her.
Then at last Rhys Callahan came to stand beside her. But not to ask her to dance. They only resumed their dinnertime conversation.
I could only hear part of what they said, but they seemed to be discussing the new gas lights that are being put up around London. It sounded stultifyingly boring to me. But I actually heard Mr. Callahan utter a sentence or two, so he can not have been entirely uninterested. And--perhaps it was the new dress and hairstyle--but Mary looked quite bright and interested, too. She even smiled.
Then Aunt Gardiner approached the pair of them--and I actually had some hopes, because she was intent on seeing Mary and Mr. Callahan dance.
The other drawback of my sitting at the piano was that I was still not immune from invitations to dance myself. At least five of the gentlemen present approached my bench and e
ither offered to turn pages for me or said how hard it was that I could not dance, and surely my Aunt or my sister could take a turn?
I kept having to break off playing to decline. I really am not especially skilled at the instrument, and attempting to talk and play at the same time usually leads to disaster.
At any rate it was during one of these lulls--I was refusing Mr. Bertram, my companion from dinner--that Aunt Gardiner approached Mary and Mr. Callahan. So I was able to hear the whole of the exchange.
Aunt Gardiner said, "Come, Rhys--Mary. I must have you dance. The two of you are the only couple here who have yet to take a turn on the floor."
Rhys Callahan's face flushed beet-red to the roots of his hair, and he started to shake his head and stammer some sort of refusal. Something about Mr. Gardiner requiring that he look over some accounts before tomorrow.
Mary, watching him and listening, looked mortified. Because after all, it is not especially pleasant to have the young man whom you have been speaking with for the past half hour look as though he would much prefer to run a mile in tight shoes than ask you to dance.
Aunt Gardiner saw Mary's face, too. She is very perceptive, as well as kind. She turned to Mr. Callahan and said, "Nonsense, Rhys. You work far too hard, as my husband is well aware. He would not wish for you to cut short your enjoyment of the evening for a mere accounts book. I am sure whatever business it is can very well wait."
There was no way Mr. Callahan could refuse without crossing the line into outright rudeness. Still blushing furiously, he offered Mary his hand and bowed. And Mary took it and moved with him onto the dance floor.
That was when disaster struck. I could kick myself for not thinking of it. But in all my coaching Mary these last two days in how to attract a gentleman's invitation to dance, it never occurred to me to question whether she can actually dance.
Pemberley to Waterloo: Georgiana Darcy's Diary, Volume 2 Page 22
