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“Lord Joseph Turner, the Duke of Sculthorpe, may I introduce my sisters Lady Bridget and Lady Sarah Beaumont.” Oliver, always the gentleman, did not leave Bridget out when introducing Sarah to a man who was obviously his friend. It only occurred to Bridget then that she had heard Oliver mention Lord Turner in passing, but she never paid any attention to that name. Now she wished she had.
“It is lovely to make your acquaintance, Ladies,” Joseph said as the music behind them died down for a moment. She could smell Joseph’s cologne get stronger which could only mean that he had gotten closer to her, then he became flustered again. “Oh, I’m dreadfully sorry, Lady Bridget… I keep forgetting…”
Bridget could tell exactly where Sarah was standing, which was to her right, so she turned in that direction. “What happened, Sarah?”
“The Duke kissed my hand while bowing and extended his hand to you, waiting to kiss yours. It took him a few moments to remember that you could not see him,” Sarah explained.
“I swear, I am usually not this inelegant, Ladies,” Joseph endeavored to explain. There it was, that awkwardness that made him sound so endearing and less of a pompous gentleman.
Bridget could not pass up the opportunity to tease him some more. “Not to worry, Your Grace. You must not think me so fragile to be offended by your disastrous manners,” she told him with a chuckle, and both Sarah and Oliver immediately joined in.
“I suppose I did have that coming,” Joseph replied, and from the way he pronounced certain letters, she could tell he was smiling.
“You did not see me coming, and you also did not see this coming,” she tsked. “What do you use your eyes for, I wonder, if not for seeing.”
“You never told me your sister had such a sharp wit, Oliver,” Joseph chuckled aloud this time. It was a sound Bridget repeated inside her mind over and over again without ever growing tired of it. “If you did, I would have come better prepared.”
“Believe me,” Oliver teased, “we’ve known her all our lives, and we still feel inadequate sometimes.”
“All right, that is enough fun at my expense now.” Bridget pretended to be annoyed, but in fact she was far from it.
Despite his initial comment during their first encounter, she found she liked Joseph’s company. This evening was turning out to be the exact opposite of a disaster. The ballroom was alive with music and chatter, and there she was, surrounded by loved ones who made this experience more comfortable. Finally, the mysterious stranger was also present and accounted for, and she blamed him for the flutter of butterflies running up and down her back.
“Our parents are here,” Oliver suddenly added, addressing Joseph. “They would be delighted to see you.”
“Lead the way,” Joseph replied.
As if on cue, Sarah’s fingers quickly curled around Bridget’s elbow, gently guiding her back towards the table where their family was seated. Bridget moved slowly but with proper poise and balance. She had practiced too long and too hard not to be able to move gracefully. Her feet pressed heavily against the ballroom floor when she suddenly looked down as if her eyes were once again bestowed with the gift of sight.
“How did they chalk the floor, Sarah?” she wondered.
She had never seen it done but had only heard of the wonderful chalk-figures that were alive for the evening, only to be danced away during the ball, never to be seen again. She knew that the real reason behind them was to hide an old, possibly worn-out floor which might stand in stark contrast to an elegantly decorated and illuminated ballroom. There was probably a grand chandelier hanging right above them all, maybe girandoles as well. On occasions such as this one, Bridget would give anything to be able to catch a glimpse of this marvelous splendor, but knowing that could never be so, she was content to imagine it through the words of her sister.
“There are a lot of floral designs,” Sarah started to describe what she was seeing, “and in the middle, there are mythological creatures as if they’re all frozen in time in the middle of some magical forest.”
“Oh, that sounds lovely,” Bridget gushed as she was led back to the table, feeling the slightly unpleasant nudge of several people as she passed by.
“Yes, I see a mermaid combing her long flowing hair. There are naked nymphs around her; their hair is hiding their nudity. There is a centaur hiding behind a tree, and something seems to be rising out of the lake by the mermaid’s side.”
Bridget wished that her own feet would have the privilege of erasing at least one of those characters, but she suspected that everyone present knew of her blindness, and she knew that no one would dare ask a blind lady to dance. She tried to remind herself why she was at the ball in the first place. It was not a selfish reason that brought her here. On the contrary, her sister needed her company, and Bridget would always be there for her little sister, no matter what.
Suddenly, she felt someone’s weight on her left foot. She gasped loudly when Sarah pulled her closer to her.
“Oh, I beg your pardon,” an unknown voice spoke.
“It is quite all right,” Bridget nodded then gestured at Sarah to keep walking back. She didn’t like to be surrounded by so many unknowns. It made her feel apprehensive, and she clutched at her sister for courage and protection.
Finally, they seemed to arrive at their destination, and Bridget could hear that Joseph had already started what appeared to be a pleasant conversation with both of her parents.
“… I told him that it could not be done in such a manner, but he would not have it.” Joseph’s voice dominated the conversation, and from a few mhms and ahas, Bridget was certain that both her parents were listening intently. “He ended up publishing the story, but it was a fiasco.”
“I do remember that publication,” Bridget’s mother, Lady Catherine Beaumont, the Marchioness of Fernside, acknowledged in her youthful sounding tone.
In Bridget’s mind, her mother’s voice hadn’t changed in the last ten years. Often, she would approach her mother and lovingly press the tips of her fingers on her mother’s face. Every time she did this, she noticed a few more lines, but the soft plumpness of her mother’s lips was still there, the long eyelashes, the thick eyebrows and the luscious hair. A few lines imposed upon her mother by time could never blemish the beauty Catherine Beaumont once possessed and continued to possess.
“In retaliation, he named the villain after you, did he not?” It was time for Nicholas Beaumont, the Marquess of Fernside, to make a comment.
“Yes,” Joseph confirmed. “That is what I get for trying to help.”
