Sara Waters - Dancing with Mr Darcy - Stories Inspired by Jane Austen

‘What am I going to do?’ the piteous figure whispered for perhaps the fourteenth time that morning, crashing her forehead down into her palms. Cloistered away here for two days, Ellie was running out of tactics with which to distract her from The Disaster. They had been over and over the positives: Marianne hadn’t sent the invites out, she hadn’t been humiliated at the altar, it was better than a divorce in three years time, Uncle John hadn’t been asked to give her away yet. Lawrence’s backtrack decision that he ‘wasn’t ready’ had not come as a huge surprise to anyone except Marianne but that was probably not a helpful observation at this point.

It could not be said that Ellie shared her sister’s distress at the prospect of no longer embracing Lawrence into their family. A charming yet flirtatious actor he owned an air of expectancy that Ellie found exhausting. One was expected to be eternally grateful for the sprinkling of stardust Lawrence might occasionally cast in your direction. Marianne had found this self-importance enigmatic and alluring but to be fair, Ellie reasoned, there was something of their father in his charisma that would appeal to her sister. Lawrence lacked a sense of the world having any meaning other than how it did or did not serve him. But so, in a way, did Marianne. The main problem, Ellie was sure, and the reason the relationship was doomed from the start was encapsulated by something her father had once said. It was the reason he gave for marrying their mother, a schoolteacher with no theatrical ambition.

‘Actors shouldn’t go out with actors,’ he’d decreed, ‘It doesn’t work. You can’t have two centres of the universe.’ Unfortunately Marianne disregarded this part of her father’s legacy, being naturally drawn to the drama that only intense personalities can invoke.

Over yesterday’s mugs of tea Ellie had tentatively tried to suggest to the blue-gowned form that perhaps what she needed was the opposite to a ‘Lawrence’. Someone she wouldn’t have to compete with, who was attentive and happy to rest in her shadow. Someone firm but not a threat. And not an actor. Someone, it occurred to Ellie in a moment of clarity that she did not mention out-loud, like a male version of herself.

It proved too early to introduce the concept of moving on. Marianne had listened and nodded sagely but on opening her mouth to speak she had managed only a wail and the same four words to which she had gained a firm attachment, “But I love him”.

Rocking her sister gently, Ellie was pondering whether it would be insensitive to ask if she could open a window when Marianne raised her head and asked her a question she could not answer.

‘I am twenty-eight years old,’ she announced solemnly, ‘and I was thinking… if I were to meet myself when I was eighteen, say, in the street or in a café, what would she think of me?’

Ellie blinked but said nothing, unsure whether Marianne was about to enlighten her or if this was a participatory exercise. It was sometimes difficult to tell whether Marianne was genuinely interacting or on the verge of a great soliloquy. She was staring straight ahead, leading Ellie to believe that it was indeed a rhetorical question when suddenly she turned, grasping Ellie’s hands and glaring with a crazed urgency into her eyes.

‘What would she think of me?’ she repeated and then, more alarmingly, ‘and what would yours think of you?’ It was not so much the question itself that concerned Ellie as the tone of disgust with which it was delivered.

‘What do you mean?’ Ellie asked, frowning slightly.

‘Oh, don’t be like that, El,’ Marianne’s eyes began to twinkle, ‘Don’t go all wounded soldier. I’m just saying. You are fine. You are always fine. Good, sensible Elinor with your sensible, proper job and your lovely, cosy boyfriend. And your Borough Market coffee.’

There was a pause. Marianne had a unique way of making a compliment sound like an insult.

‘And?’

‘And… look at what you were like when you were eighteen!’ Ellie shrugged, blankly.

‘Oh come on,’ persisted her persecutor, ‘you were anti-establishment, anti-men, a commitment-phobe…you were terrified of everything!’

Ellie looked away. It was generally easier to go along with assumptions Marianne made about her life than to contradict her with the truth. Whatever part of her soul her sister was attempting to dissect, the event would pass quicker if she didn’t engage.

‘And now, silly, you’re the happiest, most secure person I know. It’s… well, it’s wonderful.’ Tears welled in Marianne’s eyes and she squeezed Ellie’s hand, willing her to agree.

‘Why do you have to do that?’ Ellie was uncharacteristically abrupt.

‘What?’

‘Make my life sound…. somehow lesser because I don’t indulge in Histrionics.’

Marianne widened her eyes.

‘What do you mean? I was – I was saying—’

‘I know what you were saying, Marianne. You were saying that my life is boring and aren’t I lucky to have escaped the trauma of passion and all the things that you and Dad and actors and artistic people feel? Well, just because I’m a scientist it doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate poetry. And it doesn’t mean I don’t have feelings and it doesn’t mean my relationship is… boring or perfect. We have arguments, we have. I—’

She stopped, her face hot, her throat closing up. She sensed tears coming and felt stupid. Hysteria was her sister’s domain. ‘Marianne needs a lot of looking after,’ their mother had said one Christmas day. They had been waiting for half an hour for Marianne to appear for Christmas dinner but the roars of anguish coming from her bedroom told of new dramas with the boyfriend of the time. Their father had gone up to try to talk her down but had got caught up in it and not reappeared. Everyone indulged Marianne.

‘Wellie, don’t be cross with me,’ Marianne was sobbing, ‘I only meant I wish I had what you had. I wish I did—’

Ellie berated herself. In her sister’s present state it was appropriate that everyone else appeared to be living a life she no longer had access to. Now was clearly not the time for Ellie to disclose that her own relationship was in trouble.

‘Oh god,’ Marianne let out a wail, ‘What if there’s someone else? I can’t bear it, Ellie. I can’t. What am I going to do?’

Silently Ellie re-cradled her sister and gave over her décolletage to soaking up the tears.

At half past three Marianne was on the phone to their mother, repeating every thought and feeling as if the past twenty-four hours of Ellie’s counsel had never happened. Ellie wrote her a note.

‘Going Waitrose for supplies. HAVE A SHOWER!!! Leaving at six. See you in 20 mins.’

She had lied to Marianne that she was meeting Richard later. Devotion to a lover was the only excuse Marianne would accept unquestioningly in order for her to leave. Richard was territory with whom she could not compete. In reality Richard would work late and when he eventually made it home, Ellie would have to feign sleep. The argument they had had the week before had opened up a chasm small enough to gloss over but too big to revisit and this was what was called ‘getting on with life’.

Stepping into the crisp sunshine of Marylebone High Street, Shakespeare’s words returned to unbalance her.

A lover’s eyes will gaze an eagle blind;

Ellie stood staring into the road. That a lover should be so enthralled by the subject of its affection that it could gaze for eternity into their eyes. It had hit her as some sort of blinding confirmation of her fears. Had she and Richard ever gazed like that? It was there, still there, it had to be. She called him.