Oh, how she missed her old home on Church Street!
She used to love the afternoons in the kitchen when the continuously cross neighbourhood butcher, Mister Windham, would stop by to chat with Mister Ed. He’d reluctantly sit down only to end up staying for more than an hour, telling them the latest news from the city, or regaling them with funny anecdotes about his customers, all the while finding fault with everything and everyone on his route. By the time he left, they’d all be just a bit livelier than they had been before his visit.
In those days, while her mother customarily rested upstairs with a headache, Elizabeth, when home, had spent her time downstairs, in the kitchen, where the heart of the house was beating. The place where Jane and Mrs. Barlow and other neighbour women talked in hushed tones about births and deaths, betrayals, debt, violent husbands, abandoned wives, and sick children.
And then, in the evenings, she and Ma would sit by the fire with the Barlows and someone would read from the papers, or one of Thomas’s letters…
A knock on the door of their box saved her from further musing on her loneliness. A woman who Elizabeth guessed to be Aunt Isolde’s peer came in with the airs of someone being coerced to descend below her station in life.
“Good evening, Lady Isolde,” the newcomer said as her aunt shot up to her feet, Elizabeth instinctively mirroring the movement.
“Lady Arabella,” her aunt sounded breathless as she curtsied. “Good evening.”
“If you would be so good as to join me in my box for Acts III and IV? Mother would like a word with your charge.”
“You mean? The m-” Isolde spluttered, which Elizabeth would have enjoyed very much had it not been for the sinking feeling in her stomach that alerted her to some kind of peril.
“Yes, Mother sent me to fetch you at once, so if you would please join me?” The unknown lady was getting impatient, so Isolde complied at once, leaving Elizabeth alone and confused, still on her feet.
She didn’t even have time to process that her aunt hadn’t introduced her to the other woman before the door opened, and a tiny, white-haired woman entered the box.
“Good evening,” Elizabeth made a low curtsy and received a haughty nod for her trouble.
“Good evening, Miss Hawkins,” the woman said in a raspy voice. “You may call me Lady Georgiana.”
As this Lady Georgiana approached the seat behind her, Elizabeth noticed that her dress, while clearly expensive andwell-made, reflected a style no longeren vogue.However, the woman’s jewels more than made up for it. Especially striking were the sapphires of her earrings.
Gifted by a man, to go with her eyes,Elizabeth thought and was struck by the romantic silliness of the idea. The eyes in question seemed to be sizing her up shrewdly.
Luckily, Elizabeth’s courses were almost at their end, so she didn’t have to worry about staining her dress accidentally as she sat down again.
“I’ve been told you’re Duke Hawkins’s illegitimate sister,” the old woman said, her whole posture rigid, as if she half expected Lizzie to slap her for the words.
Elizabeth could see it cost Lady Georgiana a lot of effort to overpower her innate good manners, so she decided to nod. ShewasNicholas’s baseborn sister, and it was a relief to hear someone acknowledge it directly.
“It is rarely conveyed to me in those words, but yes, I am.”
Lady Georgiana relaxed slightly, although Elizabeth was certain that her back remained straight even in her sleep.
“You have your father's eyes,” the older woman said, “but none of his presence.”
Elizabeth didn’t know what to say, so she said nothing.
“How do you like the Opera? I’ve always been partial to Figaro myself.”
“I find myself very moved by the plight of the poor servant girl.”
“You are aware that this is anopera buffa, no?”
“I’m sorry to say that I’m not familiar with the term,” Elizabeth admitted bravely.
This woman wasn’t Lady Burnham, but she didn’t seem the jeering kind.
“Ah,” Lady Georgiana pursed her lips in distaste but patiently explained, “it means comic opera. It’s meant to be amusing.”
“Ah,” it was Elizabeth’s turn to feel distaste.
She’d heard too many stories of young women tormented by the unwelcome advances of their employers to consider it a source of amusement.
