A House of Daughters - Chapter 6

A Pride and Prejudice Variation

Now that I’m working on A Council of Darcys, I’ll be moving a bit slower on A House of Daughters, though I’m still actively working on it. Somehow, I always end up juggling multiple ideas at once!

Also, a quick reminder: Letter to Georgiana is available for preorder on Amazon and will be released on June 5th. Be sure to check it out, and if you’re curious, there’s a sneak peek of the first chapter available here.

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Chapter 6: P.S. Something True

My dearest Lydia,

I wish you could see the street outside Aunt Gardiner’s window. There are so many people, and nearly all of them look as though they are going somewhere important. Everything feels important here. Even the chimneys look like they have appointments.

We went to the dressmaker’s yesterday. I tried on a lilac spencer with pearl buttons all down the back, it was heavenly. But Aunt said it was “a bit too fashionable,” which I think means too much for walking down Gracechurch Street. She chose a soft green one instead, very proper.

I also tried oysters! I did not care for them, but I swallowed two without flinching, which I believe counts as an accomplishment. Uncle Gardiner said I had done the family proud. I think he was being funny, but I shall claim it anyway.

The children are sweet, though Ned pinches and Emma refuses to eat toast that is not cut in triangles. I rather admire her commitment.

Aunt says we may visit Hatchard’s later in the week. It is a bookshop. I pretended to be very excited, and I think she believed me.

There is a tea party tomorrow with a Mrs. Finch and some other ladies I have never met. I am practicing things to say. I suppose “I adore lilac” might not be conversation enough, but we shall see.

Do write soon and tell me all the news from Meryton. Have you seen Denny? Do people ask about me?

Your affectionate sister,

Kitty

(Catherine, I suppose)

P.S. I have not done anything terribly foolish—yet! But the week is young.

Kitty folded the letter carefully, pressing the crease with her thumb before reaching for the sealing wax. She had kept it cheerful on purpose. Lydia liked cheerful. Lydia needed it, really.

And yet, as the wax cooled and hardened, Kitty found herself wishing she had said just a little more, something real. The lilac spencer was lovely, and the oysters were horrid, but none of it quite explained the odd way London made her feel. Like people saw right through her smile and waited for her to say something worth listening to.

✦ ✦ ✦

The tea party was held in a trim townhouse just off Bedford Square, where the ladies were genteel, quiet, and very practiced at making one feel slightly out of place without ever seeming impolite.

Kitty had worn her soft blue gown, the one with the slightly puffed sleeves Aunt Gardiner had said were “just fine, but best not to draw attention.”

There were six ladies in the drawing room when they arrived. Aunt Gardiner introduced her, and Kitty curtsied just as she had practiced, smiling brightly.

“Meryton, was it?” said a silver-haired woman with a faintly amused look, as though trying to recall something quaint. “Such an unusual name for a town.”

Kitty laughed too quickly. “Yes, Meryton. We mostly gossip, walk to town, and wait for assemblies where there are never quite enough men.”

There was a brief silence—pleasant on the surface, but just long enough to feel out of place. One of the younger ladies exchanged a glance with her neighbor. Another reached for her teacup with a slightly too-careful grace.

Aunt Gardiner smiled. “It is a lively neighborhood in its way. But Catherine has already begun to appreciate how differently things move in town.”

Kitty sat, blushing slightly, and took the first cup offered her. She sipped too quickly and scalded her tongue, and then—of all the foolish things—spilled a drop onto her skirt.

“Oh” she cried, louder than intended. “Well, there goes the tea.”

There was a polite ripple of chuckles, but one woman tsked softly and offered her a linen handkerchief.

“It is quite alright,” Kitty murmured, her cheeks burning. She dabbed at the spot and stared fiercely at her lap. Why had she said that about Meryton? Why had she laughed?

The conversation resumed without her. For the next ten minutes, Kitty sat quietly, her hands folded tight in her lap, unsure of what to say, or whether saying anything at all would make it worse.

Eventually, the visit drew to its polite, inevitable close. Kitty curtsied on trembling knees, murmured her thanks, and followed Aunt Gardiner out with as much composure as she could manage.

As the carriage pulled away from the curb, Kitty clutched her reticule a little too tightly and exhaled as though she had been holding her breath since the second cup was poured. Aunt Gardiner waited until they had turned onto the main road before speaking.

“You carried yourself well, Catherine,” she said gently. “And you will do better still when you stop trying to explain yourself so quickly.”

Kitty nodded, her gaze fixed on the window. She was beginning to understand that London expected different things.

✦ ✦ ✦

The next morning, Kitty was grateful for a reprieve from drawing rooms and grown-up conversation. She volunteered—rather too quickly—to help with the children, and Aunt Gardiner, with a knowing smile, passed her the nursery reins for the morning.

Emma was sprawled across the window bench with her copybook and a slightly chewed pencil, forming the same three letters again and again in a slanting line.

“E for Emma,” she announced. “M for muffin. And A for—”

“A for acrobat?” Kitty suggested. “You do climb furniture rather well.”

Emma scowled. “No. A is for absolutely not doing any more of this.”

Kitty bit back a smile. “That is not a very tidy A.”

Emma jabbed her pencil into the page and let out a frustrated sigh. “Why does it matter if my letters are crooked? I know what I mean.”

Kitty crossed the room and sat beside her. “Do you?”

Emma nodded solemnly. “Always.”

Kitty reached over and straightened the paper. “Then writing helps other people understand you, too,” she said. “You have to give them a chance to read what you mean.”

Emma stared at her copybook. “Even if they do not ask?”

“Especially then,” Kitty said. “It is a kind thing, to be clear.”

The words lingered as she spoke them. Perhaps that was true of more than ink and letters. Perhaps she had spent too long trying to sound clever or charming, anything but clear.

Emma added another crooked A to her row, frowning in concentration. Kitty watched her, quiet for a moment, then gave a small nod.

“That one is better,” she said. “It does not have to be perfect.”

Meanwhile, Ned had arranged his toy soldiers across the nursery rug in a formation that would have alarmed Wellington himself. A regiment of wooden men stood stiffly at attention, facing a fortress made of stacked books and a biscuit tin.

“I need reinforcements,” he declared, crawling under a side table in search of a missing cavalryman. “The left flank is made entirely of invalids!”

“That is what happens when you march them off the windowsill,” Kitty said. “And your general is developing a rather dramatic lean. I suspect morale is low.”

“He was wounded in the Pillow Rebellion.”

“Ah,” Kitty said solemnly. “A brutal campaign.”

Ned popped up and shoved a handful of mismatched soldiers into her lap. “You can be the backup.”

“Ah, the biscuit tin brigade. A fearsome lot,” Kitty said. “Where shall I lead them?”

“To their doom!” Ned cried, launching a cushion across the floor.

Kitty barely managed to shield her troops. “That was unprovoked. My regiment is neutral.”

“Not anymore,” Ned declared, already loading another pillow. “They looked suspicious.”

At that moment, Emma looked up from her copybook, frowning. “You cannot be neutral and, on the rug,” she said. “That is where the war is.”

Kitty laughed. “Is it?”

“Yes,” Emma said. “Everyone knows neutral regiments stay on chairs. Or by the window.”

“She is right,” Ned agreed. “You are clearly involved.”

Emma closed her book with great purpose and slid off the bench. “I will be in charge of the wounded.”

“Excellent,” Kitty said. “We are going to need someone sensible.”

Emma immediately set about creating a hospital behind the ottoman.

Kitty grinned, ducked behind the armchair, and returned fire with a cushion of her own.

“Mutiny,” Ned shouted, delighted.

They battled until the soldiers were buried, the cushions scattered, and Emma’s hospital was overwhelmed by casualties. Ned collapsed in a fit of giggles, breathless and victorious.

Kitty flopped beside him on the rug, her hair half-unpinned and her cheeks pink with laughter.

“I surrender,” she said. “But only because your general is obviously deranged.”

By the time Aunt Gardiner peeked in, Emma was tending to her field hospital with strict efficiency, and Ned had declared Kitty a war hero for her valor under cushion fire.

“You have a way with them,” her aunt remarked later, as they folded laundry together.

Kitty looked up. “I do not know about that.”

“I do,” said Aunt Gardiner. “They listen to you. That is no small thing.”

Kitty smiled, surprised by the warmth that bloomed in her chest. She had always thought of herself as someone who was talked over, not someone others listened to. Not until now.

✦ ✦ ✦

Two days after the tea party, Aunt Gardiner took Kitty to Hatchard’s.

It was, to Kitty’s disappointment, not quite as grand as she had imagined. There were no marble staircases, no poets sipping coffee and reciting verse. Instead, it smelled of ink and paste, and the walls were lined with very serious-looking volumes in browns and greys. There were people, of course, but they spoke in hushed tones, as though the books might take offense.

A young man with spectacles and perfectly brushed hair approached. “May I assist you in finding a title?” he asked Aunt Gardiner.

Kitty took the question as a general invitation.

“Oh! I’m looking for something… with romance, but not the tragic kind. Perhaps like The Children of the Abbey, but shorter. I don’t mind a little crying, but not the kind that makes your nose red.”

The assistant blinked. Aunt Gardiner turned ever so slightly in Kitty’s direction.

“Something with… important lessons,” she added, trying to remember one of Mary’s phrases. “But also a duel. Or a misunderstanding. Or ideally both.”

The assistant blinked, lips twitching toward a smile he did not allow. “Perhaps The Absentee, by Miss Edgeworth. It’s a new release, quite well-regarded. It has moral clarity and a… well-managed misunderstanding.”

Kitty brightened, though she had never heard of it. “Oh! That sounds very proper.”

“Indeed,” he said. “It is.”

She nodded as if that settled something, and glanced toward a nearby table to escape his gaze.

Aunt Gardiner selected a copy of A Topographical Description of Cumberland, Westmoreland, Lancashire and a Part of the West Riding of Yorkshire by Mr. John Housman, and a slim volume of travel poetry. Then, with barely a glance, she added The Absentee to the stack as well.

“Perhaps Lizzy might enjoy it, too,” she said mildly.

Kitty did not quite know whether that meant she was meant to read it or pass it along. But she nodded all the same.

“I suppose I was hoping for something a bit more like the lending library in Meryton,” Kitty said, as they stepped back into the street. “With less judgment.”

“There was no judgment,” said Aunt Gardiner. “Just a man trying to sell a book without losing his patience.”

“That is very fair,” Kitty said, her voice light. “I am not sure I answered his question at all.”

Aunt Gardiner offered a small smile. “You answered quite thoroughly. Perhaps too thoroughly.”

Kitty winced. “I always say too much. I do not mean to.”

“That is because you are trying so hard to be interesting,” Aunt Gardiner said, as though it were a perfectly normal affliction. “It is a habit most of us outgrow. Eventually.”

Kitty gave a small, startled laugh. Then she walked a little straighter beside her.

✦ ✦ ✦

That night, the house was quiet in that particular way it only is when the children are not only asleep, but truly settled.

Aunt Gardiner was writing letters at her desk. Uncle Gardiner sat near the fire with a book open but forgotten in his lap.

Kitty curled into the armchair by the window with the copy of The Absentee beside her, untouched. She had tried the first few pages, but the sentences felt far away, like people talking in another room.

Outside, a lamplighter moved down the street, the world beyond the glass looked orderly. Kitty did not feel orderly.

She was not sure what she had expected from London—something grander, maybe. Or kinder. Or easier.

She traced the book’s spine with one finger.

“Do you think I am ridiculous?” she asked suddenly, not looking up.

Aunt Gardiner paused, pen still in hand.

“No,” she said after a moment. “I think you are trying too hard.”

Kitty looked over. Her aunt was watching her, calm and open.

“Sometimes I do not know what I am doing,” Kitty admitted. “I say things that sound better in my head. Or I say too much. Or not enough.”

“That is not ridiculous,” said Mrs. Gardiner. “That is just being young.”

Kitty gave a small, uneven breath, somewhere between a sigh and a laugh.

“I want to be taken seriously,” she said at last.

Her aunt nodded. “Then start by taking yourself seriously.”

Kitty sat with that for a moment.

“Do you think it is too late to write Lydia again?”

“It is never too late to say something true.”

Later, in her room, Kitty opened her original letter. It was all still there, the lilac spencer, the oysters, the toast-cutting saga. She did not cross anything out. Lydia would like it, and some of it was even real.

But at the bottom, in her smallest hand, she added:

P.S.
I made a joke at tea that no one laughed at. And then I spilled my cup.

I felt very silly. But I think maybe that is alright.

I want to try and be better.

I do not know how yet. But I have started listening to Aunt Gardiner.

Write and tell me something honest.

Just you and me.

She signed it again, simply:

—Kitty

Then she sealed the letter. This time, she kept it honest on purpose.

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Author’s Note:
The nursery scene leans into the absurd and a bit of silliness, intentionally so. I remember my own childhood games with toy soldiers being full of nonsense. I just hope I didn’t take it too far! Let me know what you think in the comments.

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