The Purpose of Miss Shepley

Chapter Two (part II)

I danced two songs with Doctor Brown, and then fulfilled my obligation to Mr. Wentworth -- who had, at the least, an excellent claim to being the best dancer in all the Northerns. My grandfather found me afterward and insisted I pay more attention to my cousin and Earnest Grimmond, the new Lord Oakhurst. My cousin did me the tremendous kindness of being nowhere to be found, and so I passed the next hour playing cards with Earnest and his sister Temperance.

The Grimmonds and I were old friends, if not close friends. They had come nearly every year for my birthday and stayed with us a week or so afterward. We'd had some fine times together over the years -- Earnest had an exquisite sense for mischief -- but their father had died at Midwinter and their spirits were a bit low off and on. Still, they tried to be cheerful, and I tried to be cheerful for them.

Temperance dominated my attention. She was nearly sixteen herself and she was bubbling over with ideas for her own debut. She asked about every little detail of my gown, slippers, hair, jewels, flowers, garlands, musicians, punch, tarts, and little sandwiches... And meanwhile Earnest was trampling me at cards.

"There are so many beautiful things, I simply can't decide..." she said, with a shake of her sandy curls. "Truly, how does one choose between roses and peonies?"

Earnest leaned down, grinning roguishly, and poached one of my Knaves.

"Well, we don't grow peonies..." I shrugged. Really, there had been no choice at all.

"Grow?" Temperance laughed, tapping my arm with her fan. "Oh, you Shepleys... You're such farmers!"

For a moment, I was tempted to be offended by this, but then I remembered the dirt under my fingernails, merely hidden by my gloves.

Suddenly, Temperance gripped my knee under the table and let out a quiet, high-pitched, squeal. I followed her eyes to a young man approaching us -- Captain Acton's son. He was a decent enough fellow, if a bit pliant.

He bowed to us quickly, asking if I cared to dance. Temperance frantically shook my leg all the while. I begged his pardon, saying he'd find Temperance a far better dancer than I, and almost before the suggestion was out of my mouth, the two were hand in hand, making their way toward the musicians.

Earnest watched them a moment, then he leaned toward me, his green eyes twinkling. "Temperance is sick with envy, you know," he confided. "Even the fainting... She thought it was romantic."

I rolled my eyes. "Ach, not hardly."

"She's desperate to be out. She's talked about nothing but sky blue velvet ribbon for weeks..." Earnest scooped up all the cards, repeating, "Sky blue velvet ribbon... Sky blue velvet ribbon... I tell you, it's insufferable. Even Mother is losing patience with it."

I chuckled. "Oh, come now, it's Temperance. You can't tell me you expected any different."

"Expecting torment does not make it any more tolerable."

"That's a fair point," I conceded.

Earnest sighed suddenly and made an ambivalent gesture with his hands. "Of course, she's just keeping busy, you know.... She took it the hardest... Losing Father."

I murmured, "Oh, I didn't know."

"It breaks my heart to watch her. She gets melancholy, and then she just smiles and talks about her sky blue velvet ribbon and little tarts... As if nothing else matters."

He shuffled the cards, but he did not deal them.

"But do you know what truly breaks my heart...?" he asked, shuffling the cards again. "Truly?"

I shook my head.

"The little ones. They won't even remember him... It'll be like they never knew him at all."

Earnest suddenly pulled a wry face. "But I suppose I don't have to tell you about that," he said, blushing from his chin all the way up to his sandy hair. "I wasn't thinking. I beg pardon."

"Oh..." I shook my head, but I didn't know how to explain to him that he had truly given no offense. I was told my mother had smiled down upon me once and then slipped quietly from the world -- even in death she was more beautiful than I could ever hope to be. My father had died not long afterward. I had never known either of them, and so I had never felt the loss of them. I felt no grief, nor longing, nor anything besides the awkwardness of feeling nothing. I didn't consider myself especially pitiable for this.

I was inclined to keep my counsel, but then I suddenly imagined my life without Bram or Miss Goodwin, and the mere thought caused me such pangs... "You're grieving more than I ever have, I'm sure," I said.

Earnest shook his head, saying, "No..." as if this was strictly impossible.

I shrugged. "It's a sad story," I insisted, "but little more to me. I feel as much grief for my parents as I do for the king."

Earnest laughed at this, throwing his head back a moment before he remembered himself. He clapped a hand over his mouth, hunching over and glancing round sheepishly.

At length, Earnest reined in his amusement and kept it at a mere smirk. "Your point is well made," he said. He held my gaze a moment, an equal measure of mirth and sorrow in his eyes. "And may you never know how wrong it is."

"Wrong?" I laughed and frowned at the same time. "What do you mean? Wrong..."

"Tut tut, Miss Shepley... You can't expect me to tell you, now. I have just most sincerely wished you remain in ignorance."

He grinned at me and stood, offering me his arm. "The music's starting again. Come, dance with me."

.:.

My grandfather took the last dance, as was our tradition.

He bowed and clasped my hands, smiling at me with proud eyes. "Well, Miss Shepley," he rumbled, "how does it feel to be a grown woman?"

I thought on this question most seriously for a moment, and then I shrugged. "About the same as it did yesterday."

My grandfather chuckled. "Not many things will make you feel changed overnight," he told me. "Marriage, a child... Death. Mostly life just seems to move along round you, and then one day you look back and you see you've moved along, too, only you didn't notice it."

He sighed then. "It's hard to believe it's been sixteen years, already... It seems just yesterday I was dancing with your poor mother."

Sighing over my poor mother was rather a tradition, as well. In fact, I was ten or eleven before I realized my birthday and the anniversary of her death were, in actuality, two separate things.

"I wish you had known her," my grandfather said, and not for the first time. "She was a gem, my Pearl, in every way... A gem."

I smiled, but I felt nothing -- nothing except the awkwardness of feeling nothing.

I thought on this, darkly, while my grandfather led me through the last steps of the dance.

It was not quite true to say I felt nothing... Indeed, in a very guilty way, I felt rather relieved my mother was dead -- or at least, I was grateful that I'd never had to live with her. It was bad enough being appraised all the time, always judged in comparison to the memory of Ewert's prize jewel. If I had been measured, day after day, against my mother in the living, ivory flesh... If I had watched the disappointment growing in her sapphire eyes as she realized her charms had not bred true... Why, then I might be pitiable, indeed.