“I am not doing anything.”
“Precisely!”
“Why are you angry at me?”
“Because you’re behaving like an idiot!”
Arabella felt as if she were struck across the face. Sweet, quiet Bridget seemed overtaken by anger, shaking, with eyes flaming.
“You don’t understand how-” Arabella started.
“Because you have the only privilege of being a woman hurt,” Bridget commented.
Arabella watched her sister as if she didn’t recognize her.
“You are the only woman in the world who has loved and has lost,” Bridget continued.
“I didn’t say that, I just don’t know-”
“I do! You are choosing to stay miserable!”
“How can I not be miserable?”
“By simply deciding not to!”
Bridget sighed, exhausted by the sheer effort of expressing such emotion that she was not accustomed to. She moved to Arabella and sat down on the sofa beside her, quieter now, looking down at her twined hands.
“You were still young, you don’t remember obviously,” Bridget started. “It was the year I debuted. I saw him for the first time at the Stanton ball.”
Arabella felt the weight of her words. Bridget was about to share something profound with her, and Arabella stayed still for this sacred moment.
“I remember dancing with him. It felt truly magical. When he called the next day, I just couldn’t believe it. He was just… fitted to my soul. We went for promenades, and we danced at balls. I knew in my heart that he would soon propose to me.”
Arabella’s jaw dropped. She faintly remembered a period when her sister was courted, but she didn’t know that she was so close to getting married.
“What happened?” Arabella asked very carefully.
Bridget’s jaw tightened, and she was fighting off tears.
“He was not of our station,” she finally said. “His family wouldn’t see him marry someone of so little means and influence. He was forced to marry someone else.”
Arabella’s hands flew to her mouth, but she was not fast enough to suppress the gasp leaving her lips. All these years, Bridget had been silent and quiet and melancholic. It was not just her inclination. Her sister had been aching, heartbroken.
“I still think of him,” Bridget said. “When he came to announce his engagement to me, he looked at me expectantly. But I was a coward. I never told him exactly how I felt about him. What would have happened if I had fought?”
Arabella looked away. The emotion, the heartbreak, was too much for her to bear.
“Instead, I simply wished him a happy life and stood by as I watched him marry another,” Bridget said directly at Arabella this time. “And now I spend my days constantly thinking ‘what if’.”
Bridget didn’t have to spell it out loud, but Arabella could hear the warning in her voice. She was doing the exact same thing. She was stuck.
“Loving someone,” Bridget took Arabella’s hands, “is not the tragedy. Even now, after all these years, I do not regret lovingthat man. But refusing to move forward? That is the real tragedy.”
Arabella felt tears run down her cheeks. Bridget smiled a teary smile and wiped them.
“It took for me to see you in the same situation to realize that I have allowed myself half-living for that long,” Bridget said softly. “And I say enough.”
Arabella let her head fall on Bridget’s shoulder. For so long, she was the one supporting her sister, and now Bridget was returning the favor.
