Page 11

“Well, now let us be quite comfortable and snug, and talk and laugh all the way home.”

—Pride and Prejudice

KITTY FELT THE air in the room, warm and close, rush inside her to fill her lungs. Her head lightened, like it might float away on the tide of celebration surrounding her. Some of the performers, loud and joyful, hurried through the room calling for each other’s attention and shouting compliments.

She tightened her grip on Augustus’s hand. She didn’t want to lose him here.

A woman wearing stage makeup and a dressing gown shouted his name, waving her arms from across the room. Kitty saw she was standing on a chair so she could see them when they entered. Augustus led Kitty toward the woman.

“Gus, you came!” She leaped from the chair she’d been standing on and landed gracefully beside Augustus.

For a single breath, Kitty thought, Gus . She’d consider that later.

Kitty recognized the woman as a dancer from the opera, one of an ensemble who made several appearances throughout the show.

“Kitty, may I present my cousin, Melina. Lina, this is my . . . friend Miss Bennet.”

Had the cousin heard the pause before the word “friend”? Something else for Kitty to consider at a later time.

Lina pumped Kitty’s hand. “Delighted. How did you enjoy the show?”

“I cried.”

As soon as the words left her mouth, Kitty wished she could pull them back. She sounded silly and thoughtless and unsophisticated.

Instead of laughing at her or glaring at her country-town reaction, Lina wrapped her arms around Kitty.

“I cry every time the goddess rises to the heavens. Glorious, isn’t it?”

So the silent and mysterious woman in the opera was a goddess. Knowing this story detail, Kitty thought she’d like a quiet hour to reconsider the performance. But this was not the time.

“And your costumes. I adored the ones that looked like pink feathers.”

Lina nodded. “Those are my favorite also. Do you want to see them?”

Kitty nodded, and Lina took Kitty’s free hand. They snaked their way through the crowd to a door at one side of the room, Kitty’s hands clutched in each of theirs.

Once through the door, the sound of the crowded room muffled. Lina didn’t let go of Kitty’s hand, and neither did Augustus. The three of them passed more actors and some set pieces as they moved deeper into the building.

A few turns in narrow hallways later, Lina opened another door.

The entire room was lined with costumes.

Lina released Kitty’s hand, and a moment later, Augustus did as well.

At the loss of their hands, her skin felt a draft.

She wished Augustus would reach for her again, but she was happy to feel his hand against her back as they approached the costumes.

Kitty was surprised to see some garish colors and clumsily stitched hems.

Lina pulled one of the feathered dresses out and held it in front of herself. “It’s not much on its own, and I hear it’s more impressive from the audience seats. Don’t let this peek behind the curtain ruin the magic for you.”

Kitty shook her head. “I don’t know what you mean.”

Lina pulled a dress from a hook on the wall.

“When you see this from far away, it’s flawless and bright and clean.

But up close, the imperfections become obvious—the tears and the stains and the smell.

It still makes a good show when I put it on.

But when the performance is over, I’m so glad to shed the costume and just be myself. ”

Kitty heard the words, and somehow, she felt them.

Lina went from costume to costume over the course of the opera.

She changed her clothing, but more than that, the dresses she put on changed her .

From the distance of the spectator seats, Kitty saw someone different with each outfit.

It was quite a lot like Kitty’s own experiment with trying on her sisters’ personalities.

She hid any flaws from view, insofar as she considered them. She showed the sides that were most obvious. She changed how she appeared to her audience.

But the fear still lingered: what if, underneath the dressing, she was nothing at all?

The thought was less terrifying than it had been before. She was no longer so sure it was true.

Kitty considered the moments when she’d dropped any pretense with Augustus. The times she allowed herself to relax, the unscripted responses to his statements or questions, the easy laugh that flowed from her, unforced.

Maybe she was someone after all.

And if it was so easy to underestimate and misjudge herself, she might have done the same to others. More than possible that she’d been wrong about Augustus.

Kitty wished to leave the theater, to take a long walk through the city and consider these thoughts that now filled her mind.

However, she had agreed to spend the evening here in the company of these people who were both so different from her and so like herself.

She reviewed the ideas and set them aside, turning to Lina with a smile.

“Which of the dances was most difficult for you to learn?”

With a laugh, Lina spoke of perfecting leaps and turns so each dancer on the stage appeared to be one moving part, of creating motion to suggest breezes through trees and currents in a river.

Kitty laughed and sighed and wondered at all the right moments without any work at all, and their conversation continued freely and easily.

Throughout their discussion, Kitty felt the warmth of Augustus beside her, his arm touching hers in the crowded space. He stayed mostly quiet, only interrupting once to assure Kitty that little Lina was as grand a dancer when she was a child as anyone he’d ever known.

Both women looked at him—Kitty in surprise, and Lina in delight.

His cousin laughed. “That would be a lovely compliment if it were true.”

Augustus laughed softly. “Of course it’s true. You’ve always shown great talent. And besides, how many dancers do you think I’ve known?”

Lina nudged her cousin with an elbow. “Rumors around town say you know women of all kinds.” Her laugh dried up before she finished her sentence.

Her hands covered her mouth, and she stared from Kitty to Augustus and back.

“Oh, I’m terribly sorry. I didn’t mean to suggest .

. . that is, I wouldn’t have said . . . Gus, Kitty, I apologize. ”

A flurry of thoughts swirled in Kitty’s mind.

Rumor and gossip and propriety and scandal.

Before anyone else managed to say another word, Kitty settled her hands gently on Lina’s shoulders.

Smiling, she said, “I think we all know your cousin’s reputation is brought about by nothing more than his eagerness to say a few scandalous words in the right company.

He’s done precious little to prove he’s the reprobate he’d like to convince the mothers of the city he is. ”

Both women glanced at Augustus, and Kitty saw his eyes widen. A look of confusion crossed his face before he chuckled quietly.

She went on. “And although I’ve not behaved faultlessly, I daresay you weren’t trying to suggest anything damaging about me either. May I speak for us both when I say you’re forgiven.”

Lina flung her arms around Kitty and laughed. “Congratulations. You passed a test none of us knew you were taking. You might be exactly the right woman for our Gus.”

Kitty expected Augustus to deny his cousin’s claim, but he remained quiet, that smile still on his handsome face.

Lina drew Kitty around the costume room, pulling dresses from hooks and showing her how they were refitted and repaired. They said hello to several of Lina’s friends, both men and women, who asked how Kitty and Augustus had enjoyed the performance.

Kitty spoke honestly and positively but refrained from giving in to any temptation to speak as she thought her sisters might. She felt her experiment might have run its course.

After chatting with actors and singers and dancers for quite some time, the three found themselves once again near the door of the backstage area. Lina kissed them each on the cheek and said good night.

Kitty turned to Augustus. “Thank you for bringing me here. I adored meeting your cousin. I only wish I could have spoken to the goddess from the opera.”

Augustus raised his magnificent eyebrows. “You did speak with her. She was the one who told you of her strict diet of warm tea and lemons before a performance.”

Kitty shook her head. “The funny one who made us laugh as she spoke between bites of cake? That can’t be right.”

Augustus smiled. “I’m quite certain that was the one.”

“But she didn’t look or sound anything like she did on stage.”

He nodded. “That was simply a performance. The woman beneath the act is a different person, and a much more interesting one.”

Kitty felt a warm sensation surrounding her heart. She wondered if Augustus understood what his words meant to her.

She decided she would let him know.

Tomorrow.