This night promised one thing—public humiliation and personal despair. The last time she had seen this place and most of its people, she was the object of envy and adoration. She walked with confidence and prosperity. Every girl shared with her friends Esther's triumph and whispered excitedly to her friends, which allowed Esther the opportunity to relive the fact that all her dreams were coming true. Every girl had a compliment, every mother a jealous eye. Esther's name was on everyone's lips, she was invited to all the most important parties. Girls eyed everything from the pieces in her hair to the shoes on her feet and memorized the print of her gown. It seemed like every light sparkled with a reflection of her spirit, the jewelry flickered because Mr. Turner's eyes flickered, and the upbeat music was written from the whims of her emotions. The servants bowed to her with newfound respect instead of exasperation, and the most important people in the Assembly made sure to pay their respects to her and see to her every need. The whole world revolved around her, the whole world respected her, the whole world cared what she said and laughed at every joke.
How she had been blind. With a hurricane in her soul, the world still moved on without her. The lights flickered brightly. The people forgot her and spoke with reverence of others. They did not care, they did not comfort her. Every girl shared with her friends the scandal and the shame Esther experienced. The mean ones laughed at her and moved on to some new topic, some new pitiful creature, some other dog to kick. The nice ones felt pity for her and changed the subject. Mothers warned their daughters of what they were sure caused Esther to lose Turner—whatever the reason they had conjured up in their minds.
In the Spring, she had felt so much at home in a place so animated, like it was a very expression of her inward emotion—now she could not feel more out of place, like a ghost, a shell walking into a room bursting with life. Not a person acknowledged her. Not a seat was empty for her. She felt rejected even by the furniture. In a room filled with people, loneliness overwhelmed her.
Locked standing in the foyer of the Assembly Room, the crowds entered and flowed around her like she was a rock in the middle of a river. Esther tried to swallow, but her throat was so dry it burned. God, help. The first step was the hardest.
Her mind drifted back to Hazel's voice calling through the dining room and the smell of wood stain and faint perfume. Esther had hidden in Mama's wardrobe, being as quiet and still as possible, mesmerized by the dust motes float in the slither of sunlight that snuck through the cracked door. Here, she was dark, safe. She could be hidden away with her own thoughts, no one to bother her with lessons or talking at all, free to think and process. Burying herself in the familiar dresses of Mama's wardrobe, she closed her eyes and felt at peace. She almost forgot she was playing a game.
Suddenly, the door opened. Hazel, her curls bouncing, yelled triumphantly, "I found you!" With a tug, she grabbed Esther out of the wardrobe.
Trapped in her present spot offered only heaping self-guilt, so she put one foot in front of the other, wandering aimlessly into the sea of space and people. She looked around, but she could not find a more favorable sight ahead. Head down, trying to blend herself into an ever-moving canvas, Esther weaved, almost danced, between swirls of dresses, glasses being raised, snippets of conversation from every direction and class of people (They'll let just anyone in the Assembly Rooms nowadays, she thought.) Everyone who noticed her and thought to themselves, that pale, sick-looking thing, is that Esther Wickham? looked again and found her gone.
About her second time around the floor, she realized her method for not being noticed by anyone more likely resulted in her being noticed by everyone. Not even my escape mechanisms succeed.
Tired of actively avoiding the festivities, Esther tried staying in the corners of the room and the darker spots where the Assembly workers had not as many candles as they should to completely get rid of the darkness.
From a spot leaning against the deeply brown wooden wall, she thanked a servant and took a glass of wine, watching and listening to all around her: girls adorned with ribbons and men with metals, whispers of fortunes, flicks and swoops of fans, curtsies and curt replies….It was all such a bore. The constant dribble of noise nearly put her to sleep. Desperate girls and conceited men flung themselves at each other in order to feel accepted. Marriage and money: the ultimate accomplishment, the thing to save families from ruin. So many families, so many players. Esther felt lost in it all. She felt as if she was drowning within the game. No wonder her mother had thrown it all away to marry her father, although it had not exactly meant happiness for either of them.
A middle-aged man in a dark coat looking rather full of himself bragged to a younger man, puffing his chest out to overshadow him. "…plantation in India producing forty…"
The daughter of the miller and the son of a farmer who lived down the lane from the Wickham house escaped through a door leading elsewhere in the building. No one but Esther seemed to notice. She looked around; said miller was dancing with, and giving a longing expression to, the banker's wife, Mrs. Adams. Mrs. Adams smiled at him deviously.
A high-pitched voice with the weakness of age: "…a violently green frock becomes any woman in the summer," an older woman in black matter-of-factly told a girl of twenty whose eyes were fixed on a pack of Navy officers. Esther followed the young woman's gaze. And such a pack of Navy officers.
"I shall never understand the ladies' preference today for wide skirts and sleeves. One can hardly dance. What say you, niece?" The old woman managed to break the concentration of Esther, but her intended recipient remained steadfast on the officers. The old woman was displeased to receive a disinterested hmm in return for the comment that she clearly intended to amaze the young woman.
A fast, excited young voice, full of inexperience: "Mr. Hughes, an estimated fifteen thousand a year and an estate in the north…"
"My steward suggested building a new fence along the creek south of the property, but the expense was so egregious I told the man he was at liberty to choose another farmhand to hire or the south fence. He dropped the matter straight away, I assure you…" A man smiled at another, and turned his attention to a devastatingly beautiful girl who wore a lavender dress. "My, my." Obviously he was unfamiliar with Ms. Sparr. She was betrothed to the heir to the Warton money. Esther never could remember his name; she only remembered his disgusting set of wooden teeth.
A middle-aged woman sat in the chair a little ways from Esther, drinking at least her third glass of wine and paying far too much attention to the glass itself. Is that…goodness, Mrs. Abbott…it is indeed.
Esther decided she had lurked in this particular corner and began moving to her left.
Two younger girls brushed past her, one chasing the other: "—my fan. You give it back now!"
Friends of her mother's, Mrs. Anderson and the Colonel's wife, a vain woman who Esther knew had come from a dirt-poor family in Wales, walked toward her, circling the room to see and be seen. "…Sarah cannot perform her duties, she must be let go, I told him, and you know, he is altogether too agreeable to—Good evening, Miss Esther—too agreeable to send the girl on the streets. My, if that Wickham girl does not smile, she will never get another beau, despite her handsome face…"
"That one," said Mr. Williams playfully to a man slightly younger, pointing to a girl in pink dancing, "All you have to do is get her alone and swear you love her and you will marry her as soon as your rich uncle in India sends you money…"
"…was against it from the start, and he makes my skin crawl, mama!" pouted a girl in a bright pink dress.
"More wine, miss?" –applause as the melody ended. The band began a slower, more romantic tune. Esther took a glass, placing her old glass on the tray.
"As soon as my father approves, Tom, we can be married."
"…my darling…"
"Begin as many wars with the French as necessary," said Mr. Hawkinson, a red-faced middle-aged man from the North visiting his cousins to escape taxation or imprisonment, to a crowd waiting to see what idiotic thing he would accomplish next. "As long as the wine supply never ceases—oh, how'd y' do, miss?" The crowd laughed a little too hard and made the general comments in agreement. He bowed his hat at Esther and looked at her greedily. Esther could not suppress a slight recoil away from him. He moved on, unaware.
Turning to one side, she saw Mrs. Simmons, the wife of the town's attorney, just sitting down in a chair near her. She must have just arrived and volleyed her one daughter, a plain girl of seventeen, to a suitable dance partner. Her mother maintained a loose friendship with the family, although how it exactly started, she was not sure. This was just the opportunity Esther was looking for to disappear into the background of the festivities. Chairs haphazardly littered all sides of the room for tired ladies and those older who came for conversation and spectacle rather than dancing.
The wind changed and warm breezes forced her to abandon what was becoming a conspicuous spot. She sought refuge near the other side of the room. She sashayed her way through more her side of the room. A young man or two looked in her direction and bowed at her. She kept walking, more frightened than she felt she should be.