Page 52 of The Scarred Duchess
“Mama says she looks like a beast. Some hideous creature from the moors,” Miss Harrington said, giggling.
“I would think some relative with an estate in Scotland or Ireland would welcome her as a ward. Think of her sisters. How shall they ever marry well?” replied Miss Long.
Mrs Taylor cleared her throat. “Miss Long, Miss Harrington, come here and let me show you the latest fabrics from town.” She held her arms in the direction opposite of Jane and Elizabeth. As Mrs Taylor diverted the two gossips, she nodded towards the door. Jane and Elizabeth quietly escaped.
Elizabeth grasped Jane’s trembling hand. “They lie. They have always been jealous of you.”
“I thought they were our friends!” Jane whispered.How could they speak of me so viciously?
“You have always seen the good when presented with unkindness.”
Jane remained silent throughout their walk home.
In the small parlour, Elizabeth and Mary practised quiet duets. Several notes in, Elizabeth looked upwards and huffed. “It is not right,” she said as she unconsciously ran her fingers over the instrument keys; scales and arpeggios whispered into the air.
“What is not right?”
“How others speak of Jane. I do not understand why she silently endures others when they are so wretched.”
“Jesus said to love your enemies and to forgive those who have done wrong.”
Elizabeth rolled her eyes. “That is easy for Jesus to say, but it makes little sense when people are cruel.”
“It is not about what makes sense,” Mary said. “It is about following the Almighty’s plan.”
“Jane follows the Lord’s teachings more than anyone we know!” Elizabeth said, her voice rising. “Tell me why should she suffer them?”
Mary stilled her sister’s hands. “Because Jesus said to be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ. God forgave you...”
“It is easy totalkof forgiveness,” countered Elizabeth, who then told her of the morning excursion to Mrs Taylor’s shop.
Mary’s disbelief turned to anger. “How could they?” she gasped.
Together they peered into the parlour across the hall, where Mama sat whispering to Jane, who wore a pale-yellow toque and veil that covered her face as she embroidered.
“You see, forgiveness is easy to talk of, but far harder to grant. Would you not agree?”
That evening, Mary did not volunteer to lead the dinner blessing. Or the next.
A few days later, Mary entered her father’s book-room, a thick tome pressed to her breast. She had thought upon the manner with which both her elder sisters viewed theneighbourhood’s reactions to Jane’s injuries. None of her religious texts had answers; rather, the tomes were insulting.
“Papa, I need to speak to you.”
Her father walked around his desk, gestured to the opposite chair, and sat. Mary joined him. She looked down at the book clasped in her hands, then handed it to him. “I would like to read more of the world, where men do not view women as useless objects.”
His eyebrows rose. “May I enquire why?”
She explained the unfairness of Miss Harrington’s and Miss Long’s glee regarding Jane’s accident.
“Jane strives to find the good in others, even when none exists. Elizabeth is angry on Jane’s behalf, but holds her tongue for some reason.”
“And you, Mary?”
“I am tired of hypocrisy.”
“As well as of Fordyce?” He pointed at the years-old scorch mark on the book’s cover.
She was aghast. “Heavens no! I would never disrespect any piece of literature in such a manner, no matter how world-weary I might feel.”
