The room was rotating a little before me, but only by an inch or so. It halted when I watched it too closely, like the music box I’d had when I was a child. The dancer always did one final pirouette if you looked away from her, and the last doleful note never sang out in tempo.
I couldn’t eat much. My corset was laced too tight. But I’d had enough food to bring me back to myself if I remembered to stop reaching, reaching for another sip and another.
The party was diving into dessert, and Dr. Crosby and I were laughing at how the new Mrs. Thompson’s head was obscured by a decorative pineapple, when there was a tap on my shoulder.
I turned. Edmund. He was pale, almost gray.
“Wherever have you been? Are you ill?” I asked, trying to stand, although the space was tight and my gown was cumbersome.
“You needn’t worry yourself, Lydia.” His fingers rested on my bare upper arm as he forced me into my seat and a faint, incongruous thrill rippled through me, exacerbated by drink. “I came for the doctor. I’ll send William Allison and the carriage back for you and the girls. Enjoy the party.”
Dr. Crosby nodded and dabbed his mouth with his napkin, preparing to leave.
“But how can I enjoy myself if you’re ill?” I asked.
“I’m sure you’ll find a way,” Edmund said, withdrawing his hand and then turning to my companion.
They exchanged a few hushed, indistinguishable words and then left me—stranded, unable to converse with those on my right whom I had ignored for so long.
And what was there to look forward to? Only dancing, or rather, standing at the edge of the room, watching Bessy and Will Milner stumbling into each other, while Lydia sulked at my side. Whereas, with Dr. Crosby, we could have spoken further of “Mr. Brontë.”
* * *
FOR ONCE, WE’D ALL retired to the anteroom together after dinner. It was warmest in here. Besides, the rest of the Hall felt curiously empty since many of the servants had departed for the holidays. The Brontës were in Haworth, the Sewells Durham, and even Marshall had abandoned me for two days to visit her sister in Aldborough.
“I’ve eaten so much I could burst,” said Ned, lying in front of the hearth like a pig volunteering to be roasted.
“That’s hardly something to be proud of, Ned,” said Lydia, with a sniff, from the window seat.
“It don’t matter for boys!” cried Ned, rolling onto his rounded stomach and propping his chin on his hands. “Only girls like Bessy need to eat less.”
Bessy, cross-legged in front of Mary, who was braiding her hair, stuck out her tongue at her brother but didn’t otherwise retaliate. The children were always on their best behavior when Edmund was there. And so he never understood the trouble I had with them.
“ ‘Doesn’t’ matter. Not ‘don’t,’ ” I said, mildly, pulling the curtain across the window unblocked by Lydia. Better to do it myself than wait for Ellis, who’d been fulfilling all the female servants’ duties with a sour face and varying levels of incompetence.
“Could you read to us, Papa?” ventured Mary, nearly dropping Bessy’s hair mid–intricate knot as she twisted toward Edmund’s chair.
I wasn’t even sure he was awake. Our Yuletide festivities, tame though they’d been, had been enough to exhaust him. He was sitting in one of the shell-back chairs, with his eyes closed, moving now and then to change the crossing of his ankles.
“Hmm?” he grunted by way of reply. “I’m tired, Bessy dear.”
“I’m Mary,” said Mary, pivoting again.
“Ouch,” called Bessy. “You’re pulling my hair.”
“Lydia, will you play something?” Edmund said, through a yawn.
“I won’t,” said Lydia, staring out at the black.
“No, not you.” He waved his hand. “Your mama.”
I did as he asked, nearly falling over the chess table in my haste to reach the pianoforte. My fingers sought out the ivories even as I slipped onto the stool in front of it.
Edmund hadn’t asked me to play in so long, although there’d been a time when he’d delighted in hearing me. The Robinsons weren’t in general a musical race, but Edmund had appreciated my talents and turned the pages for me at countless gatherings, before and after our betrothal. It was too bad that the children had inherited his ear. Lydia was a fair player at best. And Bessy and Mary had no conception of rhythm.
I tinkered until I found the chords of a carol—one of Wesley’s, I think—but I’d had more than enough Christmas for one year and soon strayed into singing popular ballads, enjoying how the room fell quiet, even if the audience wasn’t as admiring as in my youth.
My heart ached for Kathleen Mavourneen as I sang the good-byes of her departing lover and for the girl in “The Old Arm-Chair,” although I’d never understood how she could give up her man to another without so much as a word of protest.
With Branwell away for a few weeks, all of it—our whispered conversations, the lock of hair he had stolen from me, the way my stomach dropped at the sound of his name—seemed very foolish. He was young, yes; attractive and attentive, certainly. But he was a boy compared to my husband, and sometimes I couldn’t tell where my interest in him ended and my fascination with his family—with Charlotte—began.
Besides, it was a woman’s nature to be constant. Maybe there was still a way to bring Edmund back to me. Maybe he was watching, each note adding a drop to the shallow cup of affection my husband could offer me, and convincing him that, twenty years and five children later, I was still his Lydia.
I started to play snatches of a tune from memory before realizing it was a duet. The soprano line sounded lonely without the accompanying bass but I persisted, imagining Edmund’s voice mingling with mine.
“The last link is broken that bound me to thee, and the words thou hast spoken have rendered me free,” I sang.
Bessy and Ned struck up a whispered argument.
I increased my volume, drowning them out. I closed my eyes and lost myself in the music and in the unfairness of it all. How was it that love—not a girlish love, but a love that was true and deep—could be one-sided?
“I have not loved lightly, I’ll think on thee yet, I’ll pray for thee nightly till life’s sun is set—”
“Lydia—” Edmund said, cutting across my reverie.
“The heart thou hast broken once doted on—”
“Lydia.”
My hands clunked down on the keys. “Yes?”
He was still lounging back, not looking at me. “A little quieter,” he said, patting the air with his hand.
A shock of tears overwhelmed me, raining down in torrents. I rested my elbows on the piano with a clash and leaned my head against the cool, hard wood.
“Lydia!” and “Mama!” cried Edmund and Mary at once.
“Oh, please,” said Lydia. Her skirts swished as she, presumably, quit the room.
“Ned, Bessy, Mary—follow your sister. To bed,” said Edmund, his voice matter-of-fact. His chair made a creak as he stood. “Run along with you.”
The door closed behind them.
I wanted him to wrap me in his arms, but of course he kept his distance. He’d never reward me for such a display.