“Civil! High praise from Miss Darcy.” Caroline laughed, and Mrs. Hurst, who had entered with a plate of seed cake, laughed with her. Mrs. Long smiled uncertainly, unsure whether the joke included her. Lady Lucas looked at Georgiana with the assessing eyes of a mother recalculating prospects.
And Georgiana’s stomach tightened. She recognized this. Not the specific conversation—she had never been recommended to John Lucas before—but the shape of it. The asking after a young man’s age. The listing of his qualities, and the positioning of Georgiana beside those qualities as though she were a painting being hung on the wall opposite a coordinating landscape.
Elizabeth would have deflected with a quip about the relative merits of civility versus charm and turned the conversation toward something that did not make Georgiana feel like goods displayedon a counter.
But Elizabeth was at Longbourn, and Bingley had said she was well, another vague and inconsequential word.
“I am sure Mr. Lucas would be flattered to know he made an impression,” Caroline continued, turning back to Lady Lucas. “Georgiana is soparticularabout her partners. She will not dance with just anyone, will you, my dear?”
“I danced with seven gentlemen,” Georgiana said pleasantly. “I do not recall being particular about any of them.”
A silence rippled. Mrs. Long’s teacup halted halfway to her lips, and Lady Lucas’s brightness dimmed by half a shade. Caroline’s smile held, but her eyes sharpened.
“Seven! Well, that is the enthusiasm of youth.” Caroline recovered with a light touch on Georgiana’s arm. “We must forgive her, Lady Lucas. She is so new to society that she has not yet learned to discriminate.”
Mrs. Hurst distributed cake. The conversation shifted, as Caroline redirected it, toward the assembly in general and the neighborhood’s delights and the weather, which was growing heavy with the promise of November rain.
“Charles was in such fine form at the assembly,” Mrs. Hurst said, cutting her cake into precise quarters. “Though I am afraid he did tread upon your foot during the second figure, Georgiana. He has always been hopeless with the chassé.”
“He did not tread on my foot.”
“Oh, I was certain he did. I saw you wince.”
“I winced because the candles were dripping wax near the edge of the dance floor, and I stepped aside.”
Georgiana did not know where the words came from. They arrived from a place that sounded like Elizabeth’s voice sayingyou are allowed to take up space, and the taking-up felt dangerous and necessary.
Lady Lucas and Mrs. Long laughed, although Georgiana wasn’t sure if they were laughing at her or her words about the drippingwax. She bit into a seed cake, hoping for a change in the conversation.
But Mrs. Hurst was determined to criticize poor Mr. Bingley. “Dear Charles is many things, but a dancer is not among his talents. I told him the quadrille was ambitious, but Charles will insist on enthusiasm over ability. It is his most endearing and most exhausting quality.”
“Dear Georgie, was he tiring?” Caroline sent me a look of false sympathy. “I do worry about your hems being trodden. Such exquisite embroidery ruined.”
“He did not step on my hems,” I defended, because it was cruel to make a sport out of Bingley when he was not present to speak for himself. “Mr. Bingley was a very good partner. I did not notice any deficiency.”
“How loyal!” Caroline beamed. “Charles will be so pleased. He was terribly nervous about partnering with a Darcy, you know. He told me afterward that he had never been so anxious in his life, and that dancing with Miss Darcy was like dancing with—what was the word he used, Louisa?”
“Royalty,” Mrs. Hurst supplied.
“Royalty. He has always admired you enormously, Georgiana. Ever since Ramsgate.”
The word landed like a hammer on a Ming vase. Their guests, Lady Lucas and Mrs. Long, did not react, although Georgiana detected their noses wrinkling with interest, much like a hound on the scent of a skunk—a man who smiled too much but not with his eyes, a hastily packed trunk, and a companion who was paid to look the other way. But worse was the brother’s face at the doorway—not anger but the face of fear that broke her heart.
“I beg your pardon?” she managed. “I was not aware?—”
“Oh, come now, certainly you remember the promenades and the seaside tea houses,” Mrs. Hurst persisted.
“I don’t recall Mr. Bingley.”
“Naturally, dancing with seven gentlemen could betaxing on the memory.” Mrs. Hurst chuckled. “Oh, I see we need more seed cake. Let me fetch it from the kitchen.”
Georgiana wondered why she did not ring for Mrs. Nicholls, but Caroline’s hand rested on Georgiana’s knee, a touch that was possessive and calculated to appear maternal. “It is of no consequence. Charles would quite forgive your memory lapse. Now, shall we have some music? Your brother is ever so proud of your accomplishments, especially the Haydn you’ve been working on.”
She glanced at Lady Lucas and Mrs. Long, who both assented with enthusiasm.
“I would be happy to play, but I do prefer a country air.” She rose and headed for the pianoforte.
“The Haydn would be more suitable for company, my dear. Or perhaps the Clementi or Mozart, don’t you agree, Lady Lucas?”
