Dancing with Mr. Darcy by Sarah Waters

Author:Sarah Waters [Waters, Sarah]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 978-0-06-203030-6
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2010-05-02T16:00:00+00:00

Herein lay the third and major reason for my alienation from the world – my impending A level results. The unfairness, the iniquity, the sheer bad luck of the ‘trick question’ had haunted me throughout the summer. The results were due out on 12 August. My father, always positive, loyal and encouraging, kept saying something about the Glorious Twelfth, but I felt the reverse would be true. My apprehension concerned ‘the Watershed’.

I had been studying for English, History and Art A level. I was expected to do best in History and I had worked very hard for all of them, but History had taken a significant amount of revision. Each night I would open the curtains just at the angle to ensure the rising sun would hit my face and wake me early to resume revision. At night, as they went to bed, my parents would come and beg me to stop. But I was driven.

The library curtains wafted in the warm, gentle breeze. They were closed to keep the candidates cool. Linen with a modern pattern – mid-brown with abstract gold, turquoise and pink shapes – variations on a distorted square motif. I studied the paper: ‘A watershed in English history—’. Panic paralysed my mind and my pen. What was a ‘watershed’? I schooled myself to breathe. How could I answer the question, air my knowledge, if I didn’t have a clue what a ‘watershed’ was? My eyes rotated with fear. I cast about, surreptitiously surveyed my calm companions. I was undone.

The post-examination post-mortem did little to allay my fears, or improve my vocabulary.

‘Well, I would have thought it was obvious,’ said Mr Robertson, my tutor, quite dismissively.

At home there was discussion. My mother felt that it was a place on a river for keeping boats safe.

‘That’s a boathouse, my dear.’ My father thought it was tough to use such a term. He believed it was connected to rivers dividing, but could not be certain, for wasn’t that a confluence?

My brother said that it would be acceptable if I had treated it as a turning point. My red Chambers said, unhelpfully, that it was the line separating two river basins, and, more helpfully, a crucial point or dividing line between two phases. Something in my mind prevented me from revisiting the content of my response. Only disappointment and bafflement remained. I tasted the sour anticipation of failure.

That night there was no opening of the curtains just enough to enable an early start to revision. I felt deflated and dismal. It must have been an hour later I heard my brother’s tread on the stairs. There was a soft tap on my door. His head was silhouetted by the landing light. In his mock formal tones he said: ‘A boathouse in English history – discuss.’

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