Here We Come A’Wassailing pt 1
It’s time to check in with the Darcy children and see what they are up to for Christmas this year!
December 1828
“Why do I have to stay in the nursery?” Anne demanded, but what did one expect when a fourteen-year-old young lady was forced into the upstairs nursery like a child? She did not stomp her foot. It was unbecoming. Besides, the thick carpeting of Mama’s office would have muffled the sound.
Mama pinched the bridge of her nose and set the large basket that Mrs. Reynolds had loaded on the sturdy desk. Most women of Mama’s status used a dainty writing desk, but such a delicate piece of furniture was not up to Mama’s workload. “No one is forcing you into the nursery. That was made clear to you. You are the one who is refusing to visit the tenants with me. That will take most of the day and would certainly alleviate your boredom.”
“On that point we shall disagree. Wholeheartedly.” Anne harrumphed and perched on the edge of the desk. Mama did not like it when she did that. “What could be more boring than visiting people I do not know—”
“What do you mean you do not know them? Many of them have been on the estate since before you were born.”
“Just because I have seen them all my life does not mean I know them. I know of them. That is not the same time. Besides, it is hardly an actual visit. All they do is compliment you and Papa and Pemberley, tell me how grateful I should be to be of the Pemberley family, or complain about their many trials and tribulations hoping the great Dragon Sage will dispense some wisdom or solutions for them.” Anne rolled her eyes.
Mama drew in a deep breath and held it, probably counting to give the first words she wanted to say an opportunity to pass. It was a technique she had taught Anne years ago. “I understand these visits can be difficult. But it is important that we be deeply involved in the affairs of the estate, including the affairs of the tenants. When we become distant and ungrateful for their contribution to the territory, bad things happen.”
By bad things, she was referring to what happened before Bennet was born, when the Blue Order was in a dither about a great many things that should never have become a problem, but had.
Things that Mrs. Fieldings talked about during Anne’s classes using a hushed voice and somber tones, to offer excessive praise toward Vicontes Pemberley, her Keepers, Marchog Kellynch and his Keepers, and all the rest who restored the Order to right. A morality tale that it seemed no one could hear enough.
“Yes, Mama, I know. I know, I know. But that does not mean I am not tired of people thinking I need to hear it once again. Or that I know the things that you know and should be as useful and well loved by dragons as you are.” That last bit was not supposed to have slipped out. That was a thought meant for her private consumption only.
The quirk in Mama’s lip declared that she was not surprised to hear it. Somehow, that only made things worse. “I know it is a very trying season in a young Blue Order woman’s life—”
“How would you know? You never went to school. You were never facing coming out to the Order—”
“That is not—”
Anne expected her to say “not entirely true.”
But instead, Mama continued, “—for another year or two yet.”
“You never dealt with it. You said the Historian all but kept you sequestered at Longbourn. You never had young Keepers and Keepers-to-be watching you—”
The crease between Mama’s brows deepened. “Watching you? Where? When? Mrs. Fieldings insisted that there would be—”
Anne tried to wave off the attention. “When I walk into town, when I attend lessons with the local Magistrate—”
“You are not chaperoned?”
“Of course. I am watched every moment of my life! I not can eat, sleep, walk, or breathe without someone, warm- or cold-blooded watching to me and reporting to Mrs. Fieldings or to you! I am so tired of it I could scream. I just want to be a regular girl for once, even for a little while, so I know how it feels.” Anne crossed her arms over her chest and looked aside. “Even if I never really will be normal.”
Mama sighed with the half-sad, half biting-her-tongue sound that made it clear there was a very great deal she was not saying. Not that Anne was interested in any of it just now.
Mama sighed again and pressed her lips hard. Thinking. She was thinking. That was not always a good thing.
But sometimes it was.
Pray let it be a good thing this time. Just this once. It felt like such a long time since it had been a good thing.
“It seems like calling on tenants during the Christmastide season would be a very normal thing to do.”
Anne huffed as she suppressed the growl deep in her chest. There were some disadvantages to too much draconic company. One picked up their expressions and used them at inappropriate times—like when dealing with other warm-bloods.“If Pemberley was a normal estate, it might be. But you cannot possibly name a single thing about Pemberley that is normal.”
While it was true, there were things about Pemberley that were similar to the estates which her friends at school enjoyed. Pemberley had a manor house, fields and farms, sheep, tenants, horses and barns, carriages, game to hunt, streams to fish—things that might seem normal. But when one considered the rest of what Pemberley encompassed … Nothing was normal at all.
“I grant you, in many ways the Keep is extraordinary—”
“Pray, Mama, do not diminish what Pemberley is by trying to tell me it is in any way normal, or that I should be grateful and accept things as they are. I want to do the things my friends do, have a moment to be just plain Anne, not a Darcy, not connected to the Order, or dragons, or anything else out of the ordinary.”
Mama got that determined-to-be-understanding look on her face. The one she often used with disgruntled minor dragons. “What would that look like?”
Well, that was a very good question. An uncomfortably good question. “I do not quite know. Maybe just some normal Christmastide celebrations.” Anne shrugged. She should have come into this conversation better prepared.
“Your cousins will be here soon. Guests are normal. We have dinners and parties and even a ball planned—”
There’s an idea! “Wassailing! I want to go wassailing.”
“Wassailing? Where would you have heard of such a thing?” Mama hated the idea.
“My friend at school, Agnes. Her family in Somerset has orchards and she told me about how they wassail the orchards every year. That is a nice, normal thing to do, is it not?”
“I think the tradition is rather more disorderly than would be appropriate for you children…”
“You see, you will not let me do anything normal.” Anne tossed her head.
“It is not the sort of atmosphere appropriate for my—”
“Exactly. We are not normal. I just want to be normal. For at least a little while.”
Mama’s spine straightened, and her shoulders pulled back. Lovely, she was playing dominance games. “Wassailing involves a rowdy crowd and a significant amount of drunkenness. That could be dangerous to you. It is only normal for a mother to want to protect her children from harm.”
Anne matched her posture. “What if it was only us who went? Then you would know there would be no rowdiness or drunkenness or danger. We could go to our own orchard and the fields, maybe the barns. Just us and on our own lands. It would be almost normal. Please, Mama!”
“All right, under those conditions you may go.” Mama pressed her temples. “But I will add one of my own. You must permit Ring to help you plan and carry out your wassailing. He is arguably the most easy-going dragon on the estate and has the respect of all. He can indulge with you all the while making certain that there is no unintentional offense to any of Pemberley’s denizens.”
“But Mama! What is normal about a dragon pub keeper?”
Mama raised an open hand. “That is my condition. If you want to go wassailing, Ring must assist you.”
By assist, she meant supervise.
“I will not be moved.” Stubborn as a dragon, Mama could be.
“Fine then. I will talk with him immediately.”
“Perhaps give me an hour first, I would like to warn him first. Lest his enthusiasm be overwhelming.”
What did she mean by that? It was hard to know if she meant that literally or not. When she was mistress of her own estate, Anne would always make sure that she was clear and easy to understand.
Mama smiled a tight, thin smile, nodded, and hurried out the door. No doubt, to The Puck’s Hoard to talk to Ring about what they would and would not be allowed to do. Anne glanced at the mantel clock. In exactly one hour, she would go there herself and speak with the knucker of Ring Pond herself.
Watch for part 2 next week! While you wait, check these out!
Explore more festive foods, forgotten customs, and holiday entertainments.
Or follow your curiosity into…
Games and Frivolities
Discover how our ancestors made merry during the holidays.
Want to spend a little longer in Christmas past?
Discover the real traditions of the Regency holiday season in A Jane Austen Christmas, or join Elizabeth and Darcy for a festive visit to Pemberley in The Darcys’ First Christmas. After all, reading about a Regency Christmas is delightful. Spending one with the Darcys might be even better.
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