The Darlington Ball

The Darlington ball was the event of the season. It was all Mama had talked about for weeks, the only topic that seemed to break down some of the distance between us and take the wary uncertainty out of her eyes. She positively glowed with pride as we set off in the carriage---me in the new dress that Mama said brought out the green flecks in my eyes and my stiff new slippers with just the slightest heel. I felt scared and stiff and strange, but I was determined to please Mama, to make such a success of the evening that I would erase the bitter regret always between us---the regret that six years ago I had turned my back on all of this, on Mama’s vision of balls and galas leading to suitors and courtships and, one day, marriage, perhaps even to a count or duke, and a grand estate, and children---all things Mama could speak of with pride to her society friends.

At seventeen, I had turned my back on Mama’s world and chosen instead the service of God and the companionship of sisters in an old gray monastery, a cloistered convent where I was locked away from the world, shrouded and secluded. Only eight weeks ago, after nearly six years of formation, on the very cusp of the moment when I would at last make my final vows, dedicating myself body and soul as the Bride of Christ for the rest of my life, the sisters had sent me away, voted me out. It was hard to know which hurt more: to feel rejected by Christ as an unworthy candidate for His service, an unworthy bride, or to feel rejected by the nuns, the community I had loved, the community I had hoped would want me as a member forever. Mostly, I hardly felt anything at all; my heart had gone all numb and dead with hopelessness.

It took effort, but I sat up straighter and tried to smile happily at Mama, to look eager with excitement and expectation, as the carriage drew up in front of the vast Darlington manor house, all twinkling with light. Ascending wide stone steps to the open double doors, we entered the grand ballroom. Inside, I was immediately dizzy with the crush of people---glittering couples whirling and twirling on the dance floor, knots of women chatting and whispering, men standing together with cigars and brandy. We joined a receiving line to greet the Darlingtons. Reginald Darlington bowed politely; his wife, Iris, embraced Mama eagerly and I saw Mama whisper something in her ear.

           “So this is Beatrice!” Iris exclaimed, embracing me. Even as she released me, I could feel her studying me from top to bottom, and I ducked my head to hide the flush of embarrassment in my face. “Beatrice, this is my daughter, Georgina.” Standing beside her mother in the receiving line, Georgina was tall, with cool blue eyes and long golden curls.

           “Georgina, Beatrice has been---away—“Iris stammered. “Take her and introduce her to some of the other young ladies and gentlemen.” I took one last look for Mama, who was already caught up in a constellation of women, all exclaiming and whispering, before teetering off after Georgina. Soon I found myself standing, holding a fragile glass of bright red punch, in a tight cluster of Georgina’s friends.

           “Georgina says you have been away---were you travelling abroad?” A girl with tight black curls asked. “I can’t wait for my first trip abroad; but Mama says I must wait, until at least one of my older sisters is married off. Was it wonderful?”

           “Well, I wasn’t exactly travelling---I was…”

“My aunt Harriet said that Mrs. Darlington told her that you were in some sort of religious sisterhood.” A girl with sharp features put in abruptly.

“A nun!” Black Curls exclaimed. “Were you a nun? Oh, my, I can’t even imagine it; was it dreadful being locked away, with no men, and no parties, and all those hours and hour of prayer?”

           “In the boarding school I went to, the nuns wore long black robes---and I think they used to cut off all their hair.” Another girl added. “Did you have to cut off all your hair?”  At that, I nearly reached up to touch the wig that was Mama’s solution to my closely cropped hair---a fine and expensive wig of luxuriant brown plaits piled high on top of my head and delicate curled tendrils framing my face---but, not wanting to give away my secret, I kept my hands still, gripping the punch glass. Standing there among those girls with all their questions, I could suddenly see in my mind the night when I had eagerly cut my long brown hair to prepare for the next day when I would receive the garments of a religious sister: the long brown habit and the veil that would be mark my consecration to God. Remembering that starry-eyed girl, so filled with hope for her future as a Bride of Christ, the stays of my dress threatened to cut off my breath, the wig weighed fifteen pounds on my head, and my eyes filled with tears.

           “Ex—excuse me.” I managed to sputter, and stumbled away, circling the edges of the room almost blindly until I found a spot in a corner, where I could lean against one of the ballroom’s vast pillars. I swallowed back salty tears and tasted them blending with my sips of the oversweet punch.

A large tapestry was hung in that corner---depicting a scene of medieval damsels and knights in a garden, all gold and green and crimson, and I studied it, wondering at the simple grace and confidence of the damsels receiving their knights’ undying affection and berating myself for not being able to approach the Darlington ball with the same serenity. When tears threatened again, I distracted myself by trying to guess what lay behind the door the tapestry was obviously supposed to hide---a heavy oaken door that stood ever so slightly ajar, although I had seen no one go out or come in. 

Eventually, I was calm enough to simply lean against the pillar, watching the people. A clutch of women stood near me, wearing rich dresses in fabrics I could not name; these women were Mama’s age and, in their luxurious bright dresses, their hair coiled high, carrying ornate fans with wonderfully soft velvet purses dangling from their wrists, they had all the elegance and confidence of the tapestry’s knights and ladies.

           “Poor little lamb. It must be so difficult for her.” I gasped, for I could hear what the women were saying. They did not realize, I thought, for they went right on talking.

           “I still say she doesn’t belong here. After being away for---what was it? five—no, six years? ---- she cannot know how to comport herself in proper society.” They were talking about me; I was horrified, but I could not move. Frozen in place, I listened.

           “I’m sure her mother is trying with her.”

           “Trying! Poor Agnes, she hardly knows what to think.” Mama! I listened, wondering what Mama could have said about me. “To lose her only daughter just when the time has nearly come to see her married off, and then to receive the same daughter back again, years later, so completely changed and utterly lost.”

           “Agnes wondered if there might be an older gentleman for Beatrice. Someone older might be more patient and understanding---and perhaps glad to have care and companionship in his later years.”

           “Well frankly, I just don’t know what man would want the girl. How can she ever expect to catch up with all the years she has lost in a nunnery!” These last words were said with such contempt that they struck me like a blow. My punch glass fell from my hands and shattered on the floor as tears streamed down my face; I could take no more, and I turned and ran in the only direction I could think to go, yanking open the door half-hidden by the tapestry and dashing through it, away from the ball, away from the prying of the girls and the judgments of the women.

           The door opened onto a small landing and a long narrow flight of gray stone stairs. At the bottom of the stairs, I stood in a dim corridor, lit only with a few sconces along the walls. I hesitated---these were probably the servants’ quarters, I should probably go back upstairs---but everything within me rebelled at returning to the ball, and I ventured down the winding corridor. Around the first bend, I discovered a door standing open and without thinking, still swiping at stray tears, I went through. Three shallow steps led down from the doorway into a small room with a slanted ceiling and a flagstone floor. There was a scattering of low stone benches, a few more sconces mounted on the walls, and in the center of the room, a small marble altar, holding a crucifix. A single candle burned before the crucifix, and to one side lay a bouquet of red roses.

I was immediately drawn toward the crucifix, finding that I suddenly had much to say to Christ. The evening had shaken all my feelings free and, for the first time in weeks, my heart was alive with emotion. Only belatedly, as I approached the altar, did I notice a man lying on the stone floor, prostrate before the altar, half-hidden in the shadows. Horrified to have intruded, I turned to leave. But my slippers were loud on the stone floor, and the shadowy figure half-rose, and shouted, without turning.

           “I told you to leave me be!”

           “For-forgive me, sir. I did not mean to intrude.”  

           “Who are you?” The man rose to his feet and turned to face me, peering intently at me in the flickering light. I half-raised my head to study him in turn: he had dark hair, a sharp nose, and eyes of the deepest blue I had ever seen, and he wore the same formal evening attire of all the men I had seen upstairs.

           “I—I am Beatrice and I am meant to be at the ball, but I could not take it anymore, so I ran away and came down here.” I blurted out. His eyes were quizzical. I took a deep breath and spoke in what I hoped was a more dignified and ladylike manner. “I’m truly very sorry, sir. I’ll take my leave and go back to the party.”

           “No, you needn’t go just yet. Tell me, what made you run away from my brother’s ball?”

           “Your brother?”

      “Yes, I am Reginald’s younger brother, Ned. I have been—away….” Unexpectedly I nearly laughed. “Whatever is so amusing?”

           “Well, Sir Ned, I have been---away, too.” I replied, in a nearly exact imitation of Iris’s earlier stammered command to Georgina. “I was, um,” my hands trembled and my breath caught at the idea of volunteering this information for the first time. “I was a nun.” Quickly I checked his eyes; they had, thankfully, lost none of their kindness.

           “A nun. I see. Iris’s aunt was a nun; did you know that? I believe she taught school somewhere…perhaps teaching was not to your liking?”

           “Oh no, Sir Ned, I was not a teacher. I was in a cloister, where we were completely given over to prayer. But,” I could feel tears gathering again. “the—the sisters decided that I was not right,” I gathered in another shaky breath. “not right for the life, so they, um, they let me go.” By now we had seated ourselves on one of the stone benches before the altar.

           “You may stop calling me Sir;” he said. “I am not a sir, only a Darlington. Mr. Darlington, perhaps, to others, but you may simply call me Ned. I was—away---because my wife, my wife Angela, died last year and I—I went all over the mainland--- trying to outrun the pain of losing her, I suppose.  And Iris---I came back, just last week, and Iris wanted me to attend this ball, perhaps meet some women, begin to think of courting again.”

           “I’m very sorry…about your wife.” I said softly, staring into my lap.

           “Thank you. This little chapel, which my father had built when this was still his home---it was one of Angela’s favorite spots in the house, any time we visited here. She would always bring roses; she always wanted the Lord to have a gift of roses.” There was a moment’s silence, and in the silence, I could suddenly feel him next to me, the warmth and solidity of another human being, a human heart with all its feelings, there beside me. When he spoke again, his voice was gentle. “And I am very sorry for you, Beatrice, for all this hurt and sadness that I see in your eyes.”

           “Thank you, Ned.” Ned---I had called him Ned: it was like leaping over a wall. “I feel better now. I just couldn’t go on listening to them talk about me and speculate about my future, now that I am not a nun anymore.”

           “Well, that makes two of us. Iris’s friends have been buzzing around here all week, whispering about which women I should meet, which women I might dance with.”

           “Do you—do you dance, Ned?” I asked, almost bravely.

           “Yes, not as well as my Angela did, but I can make it through a waltz alright. Do you dance?”

           “Not really, there was not much chance for dancing in the convent!” I replied, and suddenly we both laughed, even though was nothing so terribly funny. Sitting there, in front of the altar, we laughed until tears ran down our faces. Abruptly, Ned clapped his hands together and stood.

           “Perhaps we should go back to the ball and try a waltz or two. Would you like that?”

           “Actually, yes, I think I would.” There was still much to face---Mama, and all those people staring and talking, and all the feelings that were now open and surging in my heart, and Christ and all the things I needed to say to Him---but I took a deep breath and rose. Ned reached out his hand, and I took it, and we went back to the ball together.