A poor relation and a chit of a girl,

what else did you need to know

beyond your place in the scheme

of things, or the cold accountancy

of love versus indigence?  

 

The day you arrived your cousin

Edmund taught you the meaning

of kindness when, for a moment,

you felt like an equal

or something more than nothing.

 

These days, dressed decently,

you read to your aunt from favoured

texts. You are not quite a servant,

but less than a daughter,

and keep your head down.

 

In the County’s brightest rooms

those who are ‘out’ are stepping

neatly to breathless rhythms

of Mutual Love, The Happy Captive,

or All The Pleasures of Town.

 

How did you guess – a girl

unfinished and lacking prospects –

that a darker burden sustained

the well tempered harmonies

of that costly music?

 

Unable to dream of how

girls elsewhere – mulattos, quadroons –

might repay kindnesses, knowing

their place, heads down,

and doing what they’re told.