Chapter Two #3
“I missed the fun, it seems, but I shall learn as we go,” Lady Susan said with droll confidence. Her niece briefly described the rules, and Miss Smith entreated Miss Morland to expand on the elements she and her siblings had added to the game.
“Well, if the same card is played twice – two queens, for instance – then one must hasten to slap their hand atop the cards, and you add them to your own. And do the same when there is a sandwich; if there is only one card between two of the same played atop the pile. Also, sevens.”
Miss Woodhouse sniffed. “I think we had all better agree to remove any rings we are wearing,” she drawled.
They ladies contented themselves in this fashion for more than an hour, with Elizabeth, Miss Smith, and Lady Susan all claiming victories in increasingly animated rounds of the game.
They were several times obliged to recollect themselves and mitigate their wicked glee as they played their cards in rapid succession and indecorously slapped at one another, laughing and teasing.
By the end of it, the young ladies were merrily using one another’s Christian names and carrying on like old friends.
After this, the two older women took up some embroidery while their younger companions discussed books and music, and shared amusing stories of their homes. Cathy was the second of ten children, and described a home that made Elizabeth consider Longbourn to be calm by comparison.
“There were five of us at Longbourn growing up; four since my elder sister married last December. We are all of quite varied dispositions, though my two youngest sisters can at times have the same effect on a room as if they were ten people.”
“You make me quite envious,” Emma cried. “I was only fifteen when my only sister Isabella married and moved to London. I had my governess, Miss Taylor, whom I adore, but she was wed a year ago. But happily that is when I met my dear Harriet.”
“I think it was good fortune for us both,” Harriet said with a meek but affectionate smile. “Mrs. Weston lives very close, but I was happy to gain such a lovely friend.”
Emma and Harriet regaled them with tales of Highbury in Surrey, the latter a serene balm to the lively and sometimes cutting wit of her friend.
Emma mimicked an especially comical old widow who resided in the area, though she was a kindly old woman whom Emma owned she held a high regard for.
“All of my neighbors, save the Eltons, have been terribly kind since my father died in April.”
She looked away, distraught and wringing her hands, and Harriet wrapped an arm about her shoulders in a pose of comfort. “He was a vastly kind and generous man.”
Lady Susan tutted across the room and shook her head. “My poor sister ought to have survived him by many years.”
“We are both orphans,” Emma sighed, clasping Harriet’s hand as she hung her head mournfully. Lady Allen appeared greatly afflicted by the sight, and dabbed at her eyes.
“You are welcome to visit Longbourn and savor all the spectacles of motherhood Mamma presents; if you enjoy the experience, you are welcome to carry her off,” Elizabeth said, before launching into tales of her mother’s most notably mortifying antics.
Emma Woodhouse was amiable enough, but Elizabeth detected perhaps a trace of snobbery in the questions that followed about her mother’s origins amongst the wealthy merchant class, and Elizabeth was only provoked to further shock her new friend by describing her most embarrassing relation of all.
“Despite the patronage of the right honorable Lady Catherine de Bourgh, and the shelves in his closet, I am sure it shall be infinitely preferable to end an old maid,” she concluded amidst their shared giggles.
“But surely you will not! Sir Edward will do something for you,” Lady Allen gently suggested.
“And if you have no inclination to marry, you might do as I do, and plague your sister and all her children. I am teaching Isabella’s eldest to play her instrument very ill,” Emma laughed.
“Surely you do not wish to remain unmarried, too,” Cathy gasped, her eyes wide with horror at Emma’s declaration.
“My brother-in-law would never force me to wed, and I have no need to. I have, at times, felt myself an interloper now that Papa is gone, and Isabella’s family is at Hartfield.
I am a guest in my own home, but I should probably feel the same if I ever wed.
At least I have Harriet! What husband would allow me to pack her up and bring her with me?
” Emma blushed and shook her head with a wicked laugh.
“At least my brother lets me have my own way, which is more than any other man is likely to. But like Elizabeth, I have known the mortification of refusing an odious clergyman!”
Harriet blushed. “Emma once imagined that I desired Mr. Elton’s addresses, though I am glad I did not, else I should have been very sad that he had paid his addresses to my dearest friend instead.”
“You have instead had to persistently repel a gross farmer,” Emma huffed.
She proceeded to amuse them with an account of how the brother of some of Harriet’s friends had been pushed Harriet at the opening of their acquaintance, and another friend, Mr. Knightley, had encouraged the young man not to take no for an answer.
“I nearly fell out with Mr. Knightley over it,” Emma said with a roll of her eyes. “And then those awful Martin girls said such horrid things of you to Mrs. Goddard, though that was for the best, since it meant that you came to stay with me at Hartfield.”
“I could never part with Emma, as I must have done if I had accepted Mr. Martin, and there was little attraction between us beyond a shared appreciation of novels,” Harriet said, smiling warmly at Emma.
“Oh! I am as fond of novels as I am sure I should be to receive a proposal. I am the only one of us who has never been proposed to,” Cathy fretted.
A great deal of raillery about her evident partiality for Mr. Tilney followed, but soon gave way to astonishment at the sudden turning of the weather outside. The sunlight had ebbed away in the parlor, and dark clouds had gathered as the sun began to sink beyond the distant hills.
“I am astonished that Mr. Tilney has not yet dispatched with his odious father,” Lady Susan huffed as she began to light a few more candles in the darkening room.
“I hope dinner shall not be delayed. The refreshments have been grand, but I desire another opportunity to take the measure of the gentlemen.”
Emma screwed up her face. “Whatever for?”
“Perhaps we might read something to pass the time,” Cathy suggested.
“Love poems, perhaps?” Harriet winked at Cathy before resting her head on Emma’s shoulder as they two leaned back against the sofa, seeming to savor the sudden pelting of rain against the window panes.
Lady Susan moved to peruse the bookshelf in the corner, but when she reached out to retrieve a book, the bookcase swiveled about to reveal a narrow stone passageway. “Interesting,” she purred.
She stepped into the dark opening, and then took another tentative step. She looked back over her shoulder and laughed. “Shall I see where it leads?”
“Yes!” Cathy cried out, hastening that way. But Lady Susan took a few more steps, her hands grazing the stone walls on both sides as she disappeared into the shadows. One of the stones creaked as it shifted beneath her touch, and then the bookcase swiveled back into place as it had been before.
The ladies all let out a collective gasp, tensing in their seats. Cathy approached the shelf and tugged at several of the books, but could not seem to select the one that had caused the passageway to open. “Oh dear! What shall I do?”
“Keep trying,” Emma urged her, joining Cathy in frantically grabbing at the books. After a few minutes, they managed to open the passageway again, but when they called out for Lady Susan, they received no answer.
“Surely she has gone through; I daresay the passage connects to another bed chamber, perhaps for use by some lovers of old,” Cathy said fancifully.
“Ought I to go and look for her?” Emma opened the door and peered out into the corridor, as if hoping her aunt would return, and spare her having to enter the old passage.
Instead, the sound of gunshots rang out.