Page 7 of The Mercy of Chance

The early autumn sun slanted through the windows of the small sitting room at Longbourn, casting golden patterns across the worn carpet. Kitty and Lydia had pushed aside the small table and chairs to create a makeshift dance floor in the limited space available. The carpet had been rolled away, leaving the scuffed floorboards free for their careful steps. They moved in careful patterns, counting steps under their breath.

“One-two-three, one-two-three,” Kitty murmured, her brow furrowed in concentration as she attempted to recall the order of steps of the allemande. “Was it right foot or left after the turn?”

“Left, surely,” Lydia replied, demonstrating with a graceful step that belied her usual occupation among the sheep pens. “Mrs Gardiner showed us last Christmas, do you not remember? She said the London version has an extra flourish at the corner.”

They had been practising intermittently for three days, ever since hearing of Mrs Goulding’s planned assembly from Charlotte Lucas. Between their regular duties—Kitty’s work in the kitchen gardens and Lydia’s with the livestock—they had seized every available moment to refresh the dancing skills that had grown sadly neglected with disuse.

“Do you think many gentlemen will attend?” Kitty asked, adjusting the worn ribbon she had pinned to her everyday dress to simulate evening attire. “Charlotte said her cousin from London was visiting—a lieutenant in the militia!”

“An officer!” Lydia’s eyes sparkled with remembered enthusiasm. “How long since we have seen a militia uniform in Meryton? Not since Colonel Forster’s regiment was quartered here.”

“Six years ago,” Kitty sighed, executing a turn with more precision than grace. “After Papa died.”

The brief shadow of memory passed quickly, overcome by the excitement of potential festivities. Neither sister had attended a quarterly assembly in nearly two years—and that had been at Lady Lucas’s annual summer gathering, where they had been seated with the dowagers and spinsters despite their youth.

“I shall wear my blue muslin,” Lydia declared, twirling to make the skirts of her work dress flare. “We can let out the seams a bit—I have grown since last summer.”

“And I shall borrow Jane’s cream ribbon for my hair,” Kitty added, already envisioning herself in her best gown, which had been lovingly preserved for the rare social occasions they were included in. “Do you suppose Mamma will allow us rouge? Just the tiniest bit?”

“Miss Lydia! Miss Kitty!” Hill’s voice interrupted their dancing as the housekeeper appeared in the doorway, basket of mending in hand. “Whatever are you about? Miss Mary has been looking for you these past twenty minutes. The quinces need sorting before they spoil.”

“Just a moment more, Hill,” Lydia pleaded, executing another turn. “We must perfect the steps before Mrs Goulding’s assembly on Friday. It would not do to appear deficient in our figures.”

Hill’s expression shifted, a look passing across her weathered features that caught Kitty’s attention. The housekeeper set down her basket slowly.

“Mrs Goulding’s assembly? Oh, my dears…”

Something in her look caused both girls to stop their practice, turning to face the faithful servant who had been with them since their births.

“What is it, Hill?” Kitty asked, apprehension creeping into her voice.

Hill smoothed her apron with work-worn hands. “I did not realise you had not heard. Miss Charlotte Lucas called again whilst you were in the fields with Mr Robinson.” She hesitated, reluctant to continue.

“Heard what?” Lydia demanded, stepping forward with a frown.

“The invitations were delivered yesterday. Miss Lucas mentioned it to Cook when she came for the preserves this morning.” Hill’s kind eyes held genuine sympathy. “I fear Mrs Goulding’s assembly is… that is to say, the invitations were quite selective this year.”

Kitty’s hand fluttered to her throat, the meaning instantly clear. “We were not invited.”

“No, Miss,” Hill confirmed gently. “Only Sir William’s family and the Longs, and of course Mr Phillips and his wife. But not…” she trailed off.

“Not the ‘unfortunate Bennet sisters,’” Lydia finished, her voice tight with a combination of hurt and anger. “Not the girls who smell of sheep and soil instead of rose water.”

“I am sure it is not that, Miss,” Hill protested, without conviction. “More likely it is because your grandfather’s health does not permit attending, and Mrs Goulding thought—”

“She thought we would not notice being excluded,” Kitty interrupted, sinking onto a chair, the ribbons she had pinned to her dress suddenly seeming childish and pathetic. “That we are too busy with gardens and livestock to care for dancing.”

Lydia remained standing; her cheeks flushed with humiliation. At fifteen, she had spent more time in the past year discussing sheep breeding than sleeve fashions, but the eager light with which she had practised her dance steps revealed how deeply she still yearned for the normal pleasures of youth.

“We have been practising for nothing,” she said, her voice cracking mournfully. She yanked the faded ribbon from her hair with a jerky movement. “What fools we must seem.”

“Not fools at all,” came Elizabeth’s voice from the doorway. She had arrived unnoticed, Mary close behind her, both sisters pausing at the tableau before them. “What has happened?”

Hill explained quietly, whilst Kitty stared at her lap and Lydia paced the small room like a restless animal, pride and disappointment warring in her expression.

“I see,” Elizabeth said, exchanging a look with Mary that spoke volumes. “Hill, perhaps you might inform Cook that Miss Kitty will be delayed in sorting the quinces.”

When the housekeeper had departed, Elizabeth pulled a chair next to Kitty’s and sat down, taking her sister’s hand. “I am sorry you learnt of it this way.”

“Did you know of it?” Lydia demanded, turning to face her elder sisters. “Did you know we were excluded whilst we practised our steps like children playing make-believe?”

“We had word of it only this morning. You were out of doors, and we intended to tell you when we returned,” Mary said, her typically pragmatism softened by genuine compassion. “Charlotte mentioned it when she came. She seemed… ill at ease.”

“As well she might!” Lydia exclaimed, dashing angry tears from her eyes with the back of her hand. “We are still gentlemen’s daughters, are we not? Whatever our circumstances, we deserve the common courtesy of—”

“Of course you do,” Elizabeth interrupted gently. “The slight is not against your character or worth, but a reflection of society’s discomfort with our unusual situation.”

“Society!” Kitty’s quiet despair had begun transforming into indignation. “As if we chose to lose Papa, to have Grandfather fall ill. As if we would not trade all our knowledge of crop rotation for one more year of being normal girls with normal prospects!”

The raw honesty of her outburst silenced the room. Mary, who had prided herself on accepting their altered circumstances with philosophical detachment, looked stricken at her younger sister’s pain.

“What is happening here?” Mrs Bennet’s voice preceded her into the room, her quick eyes taking in the scene—Kitty’s tear-stained face, Lydia’s angry posture, and her elder daughters’ concerned expressions.

“Mrs Goulding’s party,” Elizabeth explained quietly. “The girls have just learnt we were not included in the invitations.”

Their mother’s face registered a complex series of emotions—indignation, hurt, and a deep maternal sorrow for her daughters’ pain. She moved to Kitty’s side, smoothing her hair with a gentle hand.

“My poor dears,” she murmured. “How unkind of Augusta Goulding. After I advised her on preserving those strawberries last month, too.” She straightened with sudden indignation. “And to think how I praised her unfortunate new turban at the milliner’s! An absolute monstrosity if ever I saw one, perched upon her head like some exotic creature had roosted there.”

This unexpected description startled a watery laugh from Kitty.

“Mamma!” Jane admonished, although her lips twitched.

“Well, ‘tis true,” Mrs Bennet insisted. “It had six plumes, Jane. Plumes! She looked like a naval officer who had fallen head-first into an aviary.”

Lydia, despite her anger, could not suppress a snort of laughter. “I thought it resembled a chicken after an unfortunate meeting with Grandfather’s hunting dog.”

“Lydia!” Mary’s scandalised tone was undermined by her poorly concealed smile.

Elizabeth leant against the doorframe, her eyes dancing with mischief. “Do you recall Lady Lucas’s face when she first beheld it? I thought her eyebrows might permanently merge with her hairline.”

“And now that very turban will be on display at the assembly whilst we sit at home,” Mrs Bennet said with an exaggerated sigh. “Perhaps it is a mercy we are spared such a sight. I fear a second viewing might strain my nerves beyond recovery.”

“It is not about turbans, Mamma,” Lydia said, her voice thick with unshed tears. “It is about us not being good enough anymore. Not being young ladies of quality, deserving of society.”

Mrs Bennet straightened, a flash of her old spirit animating her features. “Not good enough? My daughters? What nonsense.” She took Lydia’s hands in hers. “You are worth a dozen of her daughter Matilda Goulding, with her perpetually damp handkerchiefs and want of faculty to converse on any subject beyond ribbons. The girl asked me last week if sheep were born with their wool already separated into skeins.”

Elizabeth choked on a surprised laugh. “She did not!”

“On my honour,” Mrs Bennet insisted. “I told her quite seriously that yes, and the finest merinos arrive with the wool already dyed in pastel colours.”

“Mamma, no!” Jane exclaimed, although her eyes sparkled.

“No, no. although I was sorely tempted,” Mrs Bennet admitted with a sigh. “But no, I restrained myself, although heaven knows the girl would have believed it and repeated it at the next tea.”

Mary remarked, “She once asked me if Mozart was a type of French pastry.”

The room fell silent for a moment before erupting in laughter.

“Well,” Kitty said, dabbing at her eyes, although now with a trembling smile, “at least we have been spared an evening of Miss Matilda’s scintillating conversation,” Kitty said. Then her momentary mirth faded. “But she will dance. She gets to wear her best gown and stand up with partners and pretend, for one evening, that life is nothing but music and laughter.”

The simple longing in her voice caused Mrs Bennet’s eyes to fill with tears. She had once dreamt of nothing more ambitious for her daughters than precisely such simple pleasures.

“I know, my love,” she said, drawing her close. “And it is monstrously unfair that circumstances have denied you these natural joys.”

“Perhaps,” Mary ventured after a moment, “we might hold our own small dance here at Longbourn? Grandfather enjoys music in the evenings. We could invite Charlotte and Sir William—they would come, I’m certain.”

“And the Phillips,” Elizabeth added, warming to the idea. “Uncle Phillips mentioned last week how he misses hearing Mary play.”

“A dance? Here?” Lydia looked around the small sitting room dubiously. “With what partners?”

“Sir William and Uncle Phillips for a start,” Elizabeth said. “And perhaps John Robinson and his brother might be prevailed upon. They are respectable young men, if not gentlemen.”

“Tenant farmers,” Lydia scoffed, although with less vehemence than she might have managed a few minutes earlier.

“Who were pleased enough to learn sheep husbandry from you last spring,” Mary pointed out with uncharacteristic sharpness. “And who treat all of us with more genuine respect than half the so-called gentlemen in the county.”

“Well, I for one think it an excellent plan,” Mrs Bennet declared, seizing the moment of lighter spirits. “We shall have our own assembly. Grander than anything Augusta Goulding could manage with her terrible taste in turbans and her daughter who cannot tell sheep from skeins.”

“We could decorate the drawing room,” Kitty suggested, her natural enthusiasm beginning to resurface. “With flowers from the garden and candles.”

“And Cook makes those lemon cakes that Sir William so enjoys,” Jane added. “She would prepare a special supper for the occasion.”

“And I,” Mary said with surprising animation, “have been practising a new piece on the pianoforte. Most suitable for dancing.”

Lydia, still not entirely convinced, crossed her arms. “But Mrs Goulding will have proper musicians.”

“True,” Elizabeth acknowledged, “but she will also have Mr Goulding attempting his Scottish reel after too much wine. Remember last Christmas? He knocked over an entire tray of glasses and blamed it on Lady Lucas’s spaniel.”

“Which was not even in the room,” Kitty added, beginning to giggle.

“The poor animal was banished to the stable nonetheless,” Mrs Bennet recalled, “whilst Mr Goulding proceeded to demonstrate what he called a ‘Highland Sword Dance’ using two kitchen knives and nearly impaling young Mr King.”

The image was too much for Lydia, who finally surrendered to full-throated laughter. “Very well. Our own dance it shall be.” she said at last, wiping her eyes “And I imagine it will be a much merrier affair without Mr Goulding threatening the company with carving implements.”

Mrs Bennet nodded slowly, her expression thoughtful. “It would be a small gathering, to be sure. But perhaps… yes, I believe we might manage something pleasant.” She squeezed Kitty’s hand. “Not enough to replace a real assembly, my dears, but a reminder that we need not depend on the likes of Augusta Goulding for our happiness.”

Lydia swiped at her eyes again, visibly struggling between disappointment and the tentative appeal of this alternative. “I suppose my blue muslin would look just as well in our drawing room as in the assembly rooms,” she said finally.

“Better,” Elizabeth assured her. “For here you are valued for who you are, not just as one among the countless young ladies seeking a partner.”

“Ah my dear girls,” Mrs Bennet added with a small sigh, “I sometimes wish you had the opportunity to be both—accomplished women of substance and young ladies with all the normal prospects and pleasures of your sex and station.” She rose from Kitty’s chair, her practical nature reasserting itself. “But wishes butter no parsnips, as Cook would say. We shall plan our small gathering for Friday evening, a week hence. The night before Mrs Goulding’s assembly. And I shall personally ensure that Charlotte brings her father and brother.”

As their mother left to consult with Hill about refreshments, Lydia turned to Elizabeth with naked vulnerability in her expression. “Do you think we shall ever attend a real assembly? Or are we to be forever the odd spinster sisters of Longbourn, known only for our agricultural knowledge and turned hems?”

Elizabeth’s heart ached at the question—the same one she had asked herself many times, although she had grown more reconciled to the answer with each passing year.

“I do not know,” she admitted honestly. “But I do know that you and Kitty deserve every happiness, whether it comes in the form of a country dance or in the satisfaction of seeing Longbourn prosper under your care.”

“I would prefer both,” Kitty said quietly, dabbing at her eyes with her handkerchief. “Is that so terribly greedy of me?”

“Not greedy at all,” Mary assured her, with a tenderness that included them all. “I may find more satisfaction in my books and agricultural journals than in society, but even I miss the music and movement of a dance.” She hesitated, then added, “And the sense of being like other young women, just for an evening.”

The admission from their most stoic sister seemed to ease something in both younger girls. They were not alone in their longing, nor wrong to feel it alongside their dedication to Longbourn.

“Well then,” Lydia said, squaring her shoulders with determined brightness, “if we are to have our own dance, we had best perfect our steps. Mary, will you play for us? Something lively, to chase away Mrs Goulding’s slight.”

As Mary moved to the pianoforte and the first notes filled the room, Elizabeth watched her younger sisters resume their practise with bittersweet pride. Their resilience continually amazed her—these girls who had been forced to grow up too quickly, to exchange balls for balance sheets, yet who still found moments to remember they were young women with young women’s hearts.

They would feel the sting of exclusion again, Elizabeth knew. Society had little place for females who stepped outside their prescribed roles, however necessary that step might be. But within the walls of Longbourn, they would create their own small world where accomplishment and joy could coexist, where the satisfaction of meaningful work might compensate, if never completely replace, the simple pleasures their circumstances had denied them.

As she left her sisters to their practise, Elizabeth made a mental to bring out the beeswax candles, to render their small gathering as festive as possible. Mrs Goulding’s slight would not be forgotten, but perhaps it might be transformed from a source of pain to a catalyst for creating their own definition of happiness at Longbourn.