Play No Evil （Free Indirect Discourse）
“Elizabeth Bennet, what in the world happened to your head!”
The young lady in question wished she could have kept the more heavily bruised side of her face away from her companion for at least a few minutes, but it was obviously a fool’s errand when she had no reasonable way to determine if there even was a good side.
She was only happy that according to her excellent surgeon, the stitches should be mostly invisible.
The man was correct. In fact, for a footman, he was genius.
The stitches fooled Anne de Bourgh for almost the ten seconds it took her to walk two paces closer.
When Anne obtained a clear view of the cut accompanying the bruises, she flew into a passion that could almost have passed for one of her mother’s.
“Elizabeth Rose Bennet! Answer me this instant! You will explain to me exactly when this happened, and precisely why you did not send someone to fetch me at once, and then you may elect to continue with why you allowed me to go to sleep unaware of what happened under my own roof. Were you not attended last night?”
Elizabeth knew this confrontation had been coming, but that did not make it any more pleasant.
However, she knew she must stand her ground.
Even if she had acted ridiculous the previous evening, it was essential to her overall happiness and self-respect that she defend her right to her own stupidity.
“Anne! Please! You may not blame the servants for any of this. It was all my own doing. I went to great effort to be alone and enjoy the silence of my own thoughts for the first time since the crow’s nest. It was my right to do so, and you may not blame anybody but me for my own doings.
It may have turned out badly, but it was my choice. ”
Still halfway between incensed and alarmed, Anne asked, “And what lofty thoughts were you thinking that resulted in such damage to your person?”
Not one to be intimidated, Elizabeth replied with heat.
“They were not quite so lofty, and in fact they were somewhat silly, but they were my thoughts and I am entitled to them.”
“And how did these grandiose thoughts manifest themselves?”
“I had difficulty getting them out of my head, so I tried beating them out using the pianoforte.”
Naturally, that tirade left the two ladies breathing hard and staring at each other—well, one staring and the other pointing in more or less the correct direction—with matching frown and resolute expressions.
Anne could no longer maintain her displeasure and let out a good-natured laugh, which immediately broke the tension.
She never managed to keep any kind of temper with her companion, and if Elizabeth could joke about the injuries, they could not be too terrible.
Anne knew Elizabeth was blind, stubborn, and independent—not necessarily in that order—so this was not her first serious injury.
In fact, Anne was amazed it was the first one on her watch.
“I concede defeat, Elizabeth. Not only am I not going to worry about your head, but I will specifically instruct the household to ignore it. In fact, you got what you deserve, and my feelings are now as light as a feather, as I am happy you got your comeuppance. I intend to spend the next week at least thoroughly enjoying your misery and poking fun at your bullheadedness at every single opportunity!”
Elizabeth joined her in laughter, quite satisfied that an entirely pointless quarrel was not to intrude on their relationship. In truth, it was not the first time she had been injured in Anne’s company. It was just the worst example.
“Whilst the manner of my lessons was not entirely to my liking, I did learn something.”
“Pray enlighten me!”
“That is the worst tuned pianoforte in the county, and possibly the country.”
Anne answered with a good-natured giggle. “That is because you are playing it wrong. You are supposed to use your fingers! Not your head!”
“I did!”
That brought Anne up short, as the import of the words sank in.
“You played.”
“Yes! I played… extremely ill indeed, but I played.”
Elizabeth looked like a naughty schoolgirl staring at her shoes, or someone just plain embarrassed by a revelation; though Anne could not for the life of her fathom why Elizabeth needed to be embarrassed.
“And?”
“It was awful! It was wonderful! It was nothing! It was everything! It was easy! It was hard! It was a start.”
Anne forgot the wound on her friend’s head, then immediately, ran over and hugged her. “So, you have decided to reclaim one of your senses.”
“I have.”
Anne squeezed Elizabeth’s hand in a signal they had unconsciously adopted over the year to show happiness, since Elizabeth could not see a smile on her face, but then decided it was too subtle and grabbed her friend in an impromptu embrace—yet another mannerism her mother would either loathe or celebrate depending on her mood.
“I presume we need to get it tuned?”
“Please! I sound worse than my six-year-old niece after a half-hour of instruction, but at least I played. I need an excuse-free household if I am to reclaim something and perhaps even improve. We shall have music again… eventually.”
Anne smiled and ran out of the breakfast room to find a servant to attend to the pianoforte.
Elizabeth had played on a stool that would have been inadequate for an elf, so she decided to get a new stool while she was at it, or possibly just a new pianoforte.
And of course, a master must be engaged immediately…
well, perhaps after giving Elizabeth a chance to establish herself…
well, nonsense… a master immediately. Elizabeth Bennet would play again!
Anne would happily submit herself to the auditory torture the next month or two was likely to bring.
Who knew, perhaps she might subject herself to some instruction as well.
It would be wonderful to have music in the house again.
~~~
After all the excitement of the examination of head wounds, the ladies’ little row over said head wounds, and the start of the project to tune the pianoforte, they went to breakfast somewhat delayed.
As was their custom, Anne prepared Lizzy’s plate.
The servants would have been quite happy to do so, but Anne preferred to take care of it herself for her own reasons.
Before leaving England, they had worked out several strategies to address Elizabeth’s blindness without acknowledging it constantly, even to themselves.
Anne had a set of plates custom-made which had small indentations on the bottom of the rim, splitting the plate into thirds.
Anne always put Elizabeth’s food in an exact spot in the middle of each third, and then oriented the plate in a particular way so Elizabeth could know where everything was.
Lizzy could simply run her finger along the base of the plate to find one of the corners, and then locate the targeted item using her fork.
It was surprisingly effective for such a simple system.
They had even experimented with having a silversmith make a plate with three separate compartments, but Elizabeth baulked at the aesthetics of the arrangement.
Just because she could not see how the table was set did not mean she did not know what it would look like.
In practical terms, the invented plate was perfect, but the new system worked just about as well without the ugliness.
Elizabeth, like many others in her situation, became a creature of habit.
If she had eggs, they were always hard to avoid any kind of mess.
If she had sausage or bacon, it was always cut small enough to eat neatly.
She and Anne kept a relatively constant schedule so their fare on any Monday was likely to be the same thing they ate the previous Monday.
All of this just made the ordinary business of life proceed with less ambiguity, and less need for Anne to describe the fare.
Anne would not have minded more variety in the least, but they both found this solution more comfortable, and Anne was a creature of habit herself anyway.
Elizabeth’s drink was always placed in an exact spot and prepared an exact way.
When Elizabeth sat to eat, she could be confident she could reach her drink easily by laying her right elbow exactly on the table’s edge, with her plate as a guide; the cup would be in just the right spot with the handle exactly where her finger needed it.
Naturally, it was prepared just to her liking, and had the exact amount of liquid she was accustomed to.
Anne marvelled at the system they had put together; it was so good they could probably entertain guests, and it would be half the night before they realised anything was amiss.
She had to laugh that every dish was placed in a precise location for every meal of every day at Rosings, but Elizabeth was the only person she knew who actually had a practical reason for such exactitude.
The precision of Rosings was either vanity, or part of Lady Catherine’s strategy to employ a half-dozen more servants at Rosings than were really needed.
Anne had always suspected the former, but recent letters had led her to believe her mother may have hidden depths, and the latter might actually be the case, though her mother would never admit it.
Perhaps she was being kind-hearted in her own way.
It was not her way to give charity beyond what others in her station gave, but having extra footmen or maids was good management, was it not?