by Lucy Langton
“It must have been a dream,” she said before dropping her head into her hands. She had never had a dream that seemed so real. It was like Lewis actually sent a letter to her, telling her that he was calling off the engagement.
Emily feared believing that it was a dream because it felt so real, and she didn’t want to disbelieve it and then find out that it actually happened once again. But she hadn’t torn or thrown away that letter, and its absence was the major evidence that her life wasn’t coming crashing down.
Emily got off the bed and approached the mirror. Her face was pink and flushed like she had been crying.
“I have been crying, but it could have been in my sleep,” she said.
She picked up the book she had dropped on the table, the book where she wrote her short stories. She flipped through it and found nothing. There was no letter in it. She looked outside the window, and the sun was still high up, the light wasn’t reduced. If she had slept after reading the letter, it had to have been for long and would have been evening now.
Emily bent down, resting her weight on the balls of her feet. She couldn’t stop her heart from beating fast or the gasps that her breath manifested as. The pain she had felt bubbled up and caused tears to slip down her cheeks once again. What sort of dream was capable of causing so much pain? But it was a dream because the letter was absent. Emily tried to gather herself together even as the relief caused her to whimper more. She went to her knees, resting on the soft muslin of her morning dress.
Mother will scream if she sees me kneeling on this dress.
She shook her head, trying to cast away the emotional waves that were breaking through her when she heard the door fly open. She turned back to see Jane.
“Emily, what is wrong?” Jane said in a very worried voice.
She hurried to her sister as the door closed behind her. Kneeling beside Emily, she pulled Emily by her hands and looked into her sister’s face.
“You have been crying,” Jane said in a very concerned voice.
Emily shook her head. Yes, she had been crying, but it was all a dream. It had to be.
“It was just a dream,” Emily replied.
“What was just a dream?” Jane said and drew her sister to her feet.
“You need to get yourself together and tell me what’s wrong, Emily,” Jane said in her most serious tone.
Emily was tempted to smile when she saw the frown her little sister was putting on her face. Jane was just 16, even younger than Dorothy, but many times Emily felt like Jane was the older sister, the way she reacted boldly and took charge. She also looked a lot like Emily, which Emily suspected was one of the reasons they were rather close.
“It’s nothing, Jane. I had a bad dream, a nightmare that Lewis –”
“That Lewis did what?” Jane asked, shaking her sister by her forearms.
Emily couldn’t speak. Her eyes glimpsed a cream coloured small piece of paper on the bed, and she couldn’t utter a word till she confirmed what it was, or more hopefully, what it wasn’t. Jane noticed the focus of her gaze and followed it to see the piece of paper. Emily tried to move, but her limbs failed her. Fear gripped her and disallowed her from going closer to that paper. She feared that the crippling nightmare would come to life, and she would discover that it wasn’t in the least a nightmare.
Jane did what she couldn’t and walked to the bed. She picked up the piece of paper and read through it. Her eyes scanned from the top of the page till the bottom before she took her eyes off and looked back at her sister.
“I knew it. I just knew it. Letters coming in at breakfast rarely bide good tidings,” she said.
Emily closed her eyes and crumpled in a heap. Lewis had left her. She was hurt, stabbed in the back, and even more so because of the obvious lack of regard he had for her. His tone was angry and chiding, speaking as if she had done wrong, and he had no choice but to do this.
The tears freed themselves of their feeble containment and flooded out of her eyes again. Emily made no attempt to hide them and sat down looking at her sister and wishing this day never even started. Jane folded the letter and placed it on the table in front of their mirror before walking to her elder sister. She bent down to Emily’s height and wrapped her arms around her, allowing her to cry all over her shoulders and wet her clothes. Jane said nothing for a long while, allowing Emily to cry as much as possible.
After what seemed like ages, she leaned back and looked into her sister’s eyes.
“You have to get yourself in one piece, Emily. We have to show this to the rest of our family. All is not lost. Dorothy will give a small remark that won’t do much for your morale. Father will be hurt as he seemed to favour Lord Baring, but he knows more than all of us that life isn’t predictable. He will advise you to pick yourself up and put your energies into something productive. Mother will probably worsen the matter by becoming hysterical and intolerably talkative. She won’t stop talking about it for the next few months and will more than once mention that you could have done something to prevent this. I’ll advise you to listen completely to Father, and if possible, disregard a lot that Mother will say,” Jane said.
Emily looked into her sister’s eyes and saw the strength that she didn’t have in there. It was there in heaps and loads, inexhaustibly present. Emily wished she was just as strong as her sister, that she could take things as pragmatically and act with pure rationality. But she wasn’t her sister and remembered the way Lewis had kissed her in his coach before he left for London.
“I’ll rush back, my love. As the hunger to taste your lips can drive a man mad,” he said.
His letter proved there was no hunger. Emily was sure he was already in contact with Miss Swinton at that time. He was nothing but pure treachery, and she had been unable to see through his charade.
“I was such a fool,” she said, and memories flooded her head.
I loved you, Lewis. Don’t I still?
Emily looked at her sister and put her hands around her neck, holding Jane’s head straight at hers.
“Do you know that I told him? I told him that I had too lowly a status to offer him anything. But I perceive that then all he cared about was having this beautiful chit. The most beautiful woman in the Amesbury family, as you all say, what’s her end now?” Emily cried.
Jane shook her head, and Emily saw her sister’s eyes glisten. It was only for a passing moment because she blinked, and the hurt Emily thought she had seen there was gone. Jane was once again the statue of strength. When she spoke, though, it was obvious that she was emotional now.
“You have to stop this, Emily. You are more than the fiancée of the Baron of Huntingdom, always were and always will be. You have a creative mind, astute eyes, and a way with words. You can use all these. I think there are still men who see life as more than the struggle to jump from common man to gentry or from gentry to peer. Your abilities will find you one of them, and you’ll find out you’ve done nothing but chase your dreams all the while.”
Emily wanted to believe her sister. She saw the reasoning in her words and knew what she needed to do. But now she couldn’t look beyond the pain and the band that was clamped around her heart, tightening with every moment that passed and affirming that she was about to be single by her 22nd year.
“You have to have gotten married by 22, Emily. I wouldn’t want my eldest daughter to be an ape leader in her father’s house,” her mother normally told her.
Well, Mother, I’m your worst nightmare because I’m unmarried and about to be 22.
“Stay here, Emily. I’ll inform the rest,” Jane said and led her elder sister to the bed.
Emily moved along with her sister till she got to the bed before falling and feeling herself sink into it.
“Try to sleep,” Jane said before the sound of the door signalled to Emily that her sister had left the room.
Emily wished to sleep too, to remain unconscious and incapable of feeling the pain of dejection. But she feared sleeping and falling into the regular s
weet dreams her mind crafted about Lewis.
Dreaming of life with him and waking up to life without him was as scary a possibility as she had ever faced. But Emily could do nothing but succumb when her mind melted into the periphery and her eyelids covered her like a thick blanket, locking out everything, light, life, pain, everything except Lewis.
*******
“You cannot live life like this, Emily. This I had been telling you even before your mother and sisters returned. They’ve returned now, and the very same thing they say,” Mr Amesbury said.
Emily looked at her father. He wasn’t happy, but he wasn’t angry. He was understanding and had made her see another side of him while her sisters were not around, his caring side.
She looked beside her father at her mother and her two sisters. Both Dorothy and Jane looked downcast to meet her in her room again, busy with her writing.
“She does nothing else but sleep and write,” Mr Amesbury said for added measure.
Emily remembered when he had told her exactly what Jane had said he would, which was that she should put her focus into writing. Now she was doing that, and they still weren’t satisfied.
“You need to start going out again,” Jane said.
Dorothy nodded, not one to waste words on an already stated opinion.
“In fact, Mrs Little is holding a small dinner in their house down the street tomorrow. She’s asked that we come, and you do know that she would love to see you,” Mrs Amesbury said.
Emily looked at her mother. Jane wasn’t saying anything in reference to Mrs Little’s prepared dinner, and Emily doubted that Mrs Little had asked about her. Mrs Little only liked Mrs Little and the children of the Little family. All the others, she cared nothing for.
“I do not think I can go, Mother,” she answered.
“Why? What anchors you to this house? Do not wallow in self-pity, Emily. It doesn’t become you,” her father said. His voice was harsh, and he was starting to get angry.
Emily shook her head. Self-pity was definitely not the reason why she was deciding to stay at home. She was writing a small children’s story and had used the week that her mother and sisters, especially her mother, were away to write properly. Father had been nothing but a good coach, telling her to go out and sometimes inviting her to breakfasts and balls with him. She preferred to write with that time so she always declined. She did go out on evening walks with him. Those were very refreshing, and she got to discuss matters of life with him. The letter from Lewis did help her discover her father. He told her much about himself, about Mr Brady Amesbury before he became husband and father.
Emily also didn’t want to go to balls because frankly, she was tired of them. The last season had been her most active and had left her exhausted and feeling empty. Going from party to party, dance to dance, and engaging in extended conversations that did nothing to exercise the mind left her feeling fagged out. Emily had thought Lewis would have finalised arrangements, and they would be married by now. Now he hadn’t done that, but she wasn’t mentally ready to go into parties and balls again.
She imagined how it would be if she attended. She would be one of the oldest spinsters, and what vile the gossiping mouths of the ton could spout once they set their eyes upon prey. She had no eagerness to be the next hot topic and preferred to remain in the safety of her home where no one knew to speak about her or even if they did, the words on the wagging tongues could not reach her.
Even if I did not equip myself with all of these reasons, Mrs Little has little love for anyone but her children, her mouth would start the gossiping that wouldn’t end till the close of the season, if I attend her dinner.
“Father, I wallow not in self-pity, but the life of attending ball after ball is extremely tiring.”
“So you have decided to stop attending them,” her mother said, interrupting her before she could finish speaking. “How do you hope to find a husband if you only sit at home?”
Emily closed her eyes. Her mother’s words stung and did nothing to help her emotional state. Yes, she was aware of her advanced years and the stark absence of a masculine mate, but to be reminded of it, and in the most brazen of ways was like a knife driven into her wound. She faced down and only opened her eyes when she was facing the ground. She was just two weeks away from that hurtful morning. She wasn’t entirely over the pain and was keeping a strong face for herself and because her family wanted it.
Does Mother not know that it still hurts? Why does she speak in this manner?
“Woman, you do need to bridle your tongue sometimes,” Emily heard her father say.
She raised her head and saw her mother staring at her father in wonder. The woman knew not the gravity of her words.
Mother’s weakness is her tongue. It can be very loose and used at the wrong times.
Jane started to walk towards Emily and soon got to her. She sat down on the bed beside Emily and held her hand.
“What words have I spoken that has attracted such censure?” Mrs Amesbury said.
No words at all.
Mr Amesbury didn’t answer, instead choosing to walk out of the room. His wife followed him, repeating the question she had just asked. Emily looked at the receding figure of her mother and smiled. Truthfully, many times the woman spoke as her result of the immediate emotional responses of the heart. She made to do no harm. But Emily had learnt one thing from her episode with Lewis. She realised it was the same thing that she should have learnt from her mother a long while ago. The heart does much harm in its thoughtlessness and lack of rationality in choosing what it wants.
Never act with only the direction of your heart.
Dorothy walked up to them and took up the seat between them.
“Mrs Little would never ask for your presence. She gives little regard to anyone,” Jane said.
Dorothy chuckled, and Emily smiled. They all knew their mother was being a bit creative there in her bid to get her eldest daughter out of the house.
“How far gone are you with the story?” Dorothy asked.
Despite her regular reticence, Dorothy was the most eager reader of her sister’s stories and always showed interest in reading the latest one. Emily though doubted that she would like this one much – it was for children and had characters like witches, goblins, and fairies.
“I’m done with the one I was writing before you left. This is the second part. It’s for children much younger than you, though,” Emily said.
“Spoken as the adult you are,” Jane said.
“I’m older than both of you,” Emily retorted, surprised that her sister was tacitly classifying her as a child.
“You remain a child, Miss Emily Amesbury,” Jane argued.
Emily looked at Dorothy, seeking sisterly support. All she got was a nod of the head and a small smile. Realising that was all she would get from Dorothy, she turned back to face Jane.
“I’m five years older than you, Jane,” Emily said.
“I have not argued against my current state of childhood. What I have stated is that you have not yet departed that state either,” Jane said.
Emily decided not to chase the topic. She hardly won arguments with Jane.
They were quiet for a while and said nothing to each other.
“The Brooks are hosting a ball at their house in a week. They have, of course, invited us, all of us. And you have no good excuse to use this time,” Jane said.
Emily smiled. No excuse could possibly suffice to miss an event the Brooks were hosting. They were long-term friends of the family, Mr Brook being Mr Amesbury’s partner when they were soldiers.
“Mother says they even sent an invitation to Aunt Jacobina,” Jane continued.
“Really?” Emily asked, turning sideways to look into her sister’s face.
“Yes,” Dorothy answered for Jane.
“Are they coming? Our aunt and her husband,” Emily asked.
She loved their aunt very dearly. The woman was their father’s youngest sister and
the closest to their family before she got married off about six years ago and had to move to London to be with her husband. Her husband was a Baron and she a Countess, therefore. But that was so easy to forget because whenever she was ending her letters, she always addressed it with, “Your dear aunt, Jacobina.” Never with Countess or any title of that sort. Emily missed her and wished she was here now.
“We do not know yet. Her husband is a busy man and will be receiving hundreds of invitations as we are approaching the height of the season. I think it will only be customary that his wife accompanies him in the few he responds to,” Jane said.
“She’s probably not coming,” Dorothy said.
The comment made Emily laugh as it narrated the difference between her two sisters. Dorothy said in four words what her younger sister had been making to say in so many sentences.
