31. Prelude to a Ball
ANNABEL SAT AT THE SATINWOOD DESK THAT NIGHT BY THE LIGHT of a candle and wrote like a forest fire.
Her whole body curled intently over something new taking shape, dip-write-dip-write, unstoppable ink, words, pages.
She carried on even at breakfast the next day, setting her inkpot and pen alongside her knife and fork, bite-chew-dip-write, and wrote in her head when she walked in the garden or into the countryside, think-step-imagine-step, and so on, for days.
The well inside her was deep and untapped, but she’d found it now, unearthed some writer self as yet unknown to her, now her constant companion.
Her new friend seemed to know what her characters would say and do, think and feel.
It was like hitting bedrock and finding gold.
Meeting Jane had already become dreamlike in memory—a visitation of sorts—she didn’t even know what to call it, because words would never be enough.
Even speaking of it might dispel its power, and Annabel wanted to keep it as long as she could, a precious gift to tuck inside her heart, like a mantra that would be hers alone.
Write what you know. It had been there all along for her, even Stella had said it, but hearing it when she did, from whom she did, changed everything.
Jane’s words lingered at the edge of Annabel’s mind, clear as day.
If she chose to do it, she had a novel inside her that only she could write.
Annabel seized on it as the answer to her ambivalence.
She’d already taken the bold step of writing to Bickles to tell him there would be no new chapter forthcoming and, with her sincere apologies, offered to pay back what she’d earned.
This was something different. If she could get it out of her system—the novel inside her—it would be a bridge from her old world to this one, make space for her new role and life.
Only then could she inhabit her place as mistress of Ellesmere, be the wife Henry hoped for, and the one Regency society would expect.
If Elizabeth Bennet could do it, so could she.
With two weeks until the ball, Annabel wrote for most of each day and late into night, forehead resting on her left fist, cramps in her writing hand, spilling herself onto the page.
Now that they were engaged, she and Henry traded brief but affectionate letters, sometimes twice in one day.
He was in London to tend to his affairs and see his mother, still too infirm to travel, but assured her of his return well in advance of the ball.
He had found a new tailcoat for just the occasion, and was revisiting the steps of the Menuet de la Cour, which he and Annabel had agreed on for the traditional opening dance.
His mother, meanwhile, arranged to send Annabel a gift box from Paris, tied with a red silk ribbon, with a note offering her apologies for missing the grand event.
When Annabel unwrapped the layers of tissue paper with her fingertips, she and Mary gasped in unison.
With great care, she pulled the dress from the box and pressed it to her body.
The underdress was a lustrous white satin the color of moonlight; the overdress, gossamer tissue crepe, the palest gold, its short sleeves inset with puffs of satin edged in lace and fine ribbon.
Seed pearl beading traced the length of the dress all the way to the gathered train at the back, which flowed like a blanket of starlight from its Empire waist. It was the finest dress either had ever seen.
Not to be outdone, D’Evercy sent a small box the next day from Rundell, Bridge achievement, to an extent; but the first novel had been a high form of imitation, she knew now, where this one was all discovery.
Stephen Chao had been right. Imagination needed lived experience, like light needs trees, and air, lungs.
When she set the quill down, she saw herself reflected in a windowpane by the light of a nearly full moon outside, and her own flickering candle, burning warm and low.
Her face was a play of light and shadow—illuminated cheekbones against the shimmer of her darkened eyes.
She could see through her ethereal visage to the shapes of the garden outside, her reflection like a palimpsest of her old self under the new.
When her eyes refocused, Cassie was standing behind her in the doorway with her book, a snip of red ribbon to mark her place. Annabel turned.
“Can’t sleep?”
“Are you kidding?” said Cassie. “I only have two chapters to go. I just needed a change of scene.”
Annabel stood and opened the French doors to the night, cool and soft. They sat together on the stoop, with a view of the moonlit garden. Cassie crossed her arms to hold the book close.
“Listen, Annabel. I’m not going to the ball tomorrow.”
“What?”
“I think that’s the night I wash my hair.” Cassie winked. “Plus, my roots are growing out, and I don’t even remember what my natural hair color is, so Mary and I are gonna need to deal with that.”
Annabel laughed and leaned toward her sister, shoulders touching.
“You might meet someone, you know. A young man of large fortune?”
“I know. And Henry made a point of telling me he looked forward to seeing me there. I get that it was no small thing, for him to say that. But I’m not ready to face all those other people.”
“That doesn’t sound like you.”
“I just don’t know who I am here yet. In this world.”
Annabel nodded but touched the back of her neck. Cassie knew her sister’s worrying tell. She set the book in her lap.
“Okay, does this sound like me? I have a bachelor’s degree in strategic marketing. So, I figure, what else is this, but strategic marketing? Of me.” She tapped the book’s cover. “And turns out these books are a how-to manual, and a how-not-to manual!”
Annabel let out an abbreviated laugh. “They are, it’s true.”
“And funny. She’s super funny!”
“She is.”
“No one told me it was okay to laugh.”
For Annabel, a frisson of knowing. “She’d be so glad you did.”
Cassie gazed out at the garden. “I actually can’t wait to read Emma.”
“You’ll have to wait a little. Hasn’t quite been published yet.” Annabel smiled softly. “But you’re going to love it, Cassie. It’s basically about you.”
Cassie nodded, thoughtful. “Okay, then. Something to look forward to.”
They sat quietly for a while, listening to the hum of crickets, the hoot of an owl, a gentle rustling of branches and leaves. Cassie took a cleansing breath in, breath out.
“You know, I was thinking how it’s a little weird no one ever kisses. In the novels. Like, zero PDA.”
“It isn’t done. Especially before marriage. And definitely not in public.”
“So . . . you’ve never kissed D’Evercy?”
Annabel hesitated, then shook her head.
“Whoa,” said Cassie. “That is so brave.”
“What’s brave about it?”
“I don’t know. Committing to marrying a guy you haven’t kissed, not even once. I mean, what if he’s a terrible kisser?”
Annabel nodded, fair question. “Not that I have a big kissing history. At all. But I think about it, all the time. How Henry makes me feel. All this pent-up desire I didn’t even know I had.
And it’s hard to explain, but I just have this unshakeable belief that when we do, finally, it’s going to be the most earth-shattering, life-altering kiss in the history of, well, me. ”
“Okay. Seriously. Wow.”
Annabel laughed. “Classic Annabel moment?”
“So classic.” Cassie put her hand over Annabel’s.
“But maybe lower your expectations just a smidge?” She looked out at the night, thoughtful.
“You know, maybe partly it’s that you’ve always seen yourself here, in this world, I mean, practically your whole life.
And it never crossed my mind, even once.
But if the desk doesn’t work anymore, if the portal’s really closed to us, and I have to make a life here—I have to do it my way. ”
Annabel nodded, battling her own guilt. She still hadn’t told them that the desk had failed because she’d failed, to want to go back.
They were stuck here against their will because of her, and she didn’t know how to change it, and didn’t want to.
What she would do is make sure, through Henry’s kindness and generosity, that neither of them would ever want for anything. He’d already told her as much.
“Besides,” said Cassie, “these women don’t know it yet, but they need me. Just think how lip gloss is gonna change lives.”
They giggled, trailing off into sighs.
“What about Billy? Do you think he’ll go? To the ball?”
“I doubt it. He’s really obsessing over his letter to Fanny. He’s read me like four drafts.”
“That’s so sweet.”
Cassie traced the gold lettering on the spine of the novel. “Actually, he does remind me of Edward Ferrars. You know, how he and everyone around him feel like he has nothing to offer, but he does have—”
“‘An open, affectionate heart’?”
Cassie nodded. “ ‘Know your own happiness.’ I like when Mrs. Dashwood tells him that.”
“I do too.”
Cassie put her hand on the book. “This one’s my favorite, so far. Maybe because it’s about two sisters who are so different—”
“But who learn from each other. And need each other.”
Cassie looked at her. “But for the ball, I guess, you’ll be on your own.”
“It’s okay.” Annabel took in a breath of night air and looked up at the moon.
“Full moon?” Cassie asked.
“Not till tomorrow. They planned . . . plan . . . the best balls for full moon nights. Otherwise, the road’s too dark to travel.”
Cassie squeezed Annabel’s hand. “Then I wish you the biggest supermoon ever.”
They were shoulder to shoulder, very close.
“I’m happy for you, A-bel. I really am.”
Annabel squeezed back. “I might be too nervous to sleep tonight.”
“Who wouldn’t have butterflies on the eve of the biggest ball of her life?”