Victorian Dance Macabre
Daphne was trying her best, she really was, the handbooks had all told her how to dress and talk but not what to feel. It was beginning to irk her somewhat and she knew that as a lady, she should not Be Irked. What would grandmother say? She probably wouldn’t have said anything, Daphne frowned behind her black veil, she would have harrumphed and given her granddaughter such a withering look that flowers around her would have died on the spot.
But grandmother had gone to Sleep in Jesus, just like her father and mother, brothers and very shortly after her marriage, her Dear Husband. Daphne had been left with a substantial sum of money, the family being prosperous but thrifty. More than one young gentleman had seen rather obsequious in their overtures of consolation. No matter, Convention would save her from those embarrassments for a full year, more if she really stretched the grieving young bride role. Queen Victoria was still in the black after two years!
She frowned again, confident that the dark black veil would shield her from prying eyes. If they noticed a downward turn in her mouth, she was sure people would interpret it as a stalwart effort to not cry. What would she do? She barely knew Edward before their marriage. She had barely known any of her family, either, for that matter. She had spent her childhood and adolescence in the hands of a series of capable governesses or Young Ladies Academies, learning how to become a Wife and Mother. Although, that seemed to consist of proper tea etiquette and the importance fashion in the right sorts of company. She was unsure how that facilitated congress with a husband or the raising of children. Although, to her experience that would involve the recommendations of family friends of good places of schooling, more than anything.
Daphne sighed, in what she hoped was an appropriate grieving manner, as they all stood to sing a solemn hymn for her dear, departed Edward. They had shared one chaste kiss at the wedding before he got in a drunken fight and got himself shot. Oh Edward, she thought, you silly git. Of course, none of the family had seen the wedding, all having died in a tragic coach accident on the way to the races. She decided to go through with the wedding as it would have been a scandal otherwise. That and what else was she supposed to do? Edward would have taken over all the books and companies so she could have…She didn’t know what she’d do.
She followed the coffin out of the church to the graveyard and stood among other dark clothed peripheral people to listen to the minister administer Edward’s last rights. When it was all over, she shook hands and accepted feelings of consolation. It was now the post-funeral tea and dinner with the closest members of the family remaining. Edward’s family were a bit put off that she’d be retaining the entire family inheritance and nothing going to them. Eventually, everyone went home, Daphne pleaded that she’d like to rest and pray.
Once everyone was gone, she sent all the servants home and she ripped off the layers of black and crepe that had encased her during the day and lay on the bed in her shift. It was supposed to have been the wedding bed, where she figured Edward would have deflowered her in the most unromantic way imaginable. Books Improper for Ladies of her Stature had somehow found their ways into her hands at some point in her life. She had immediately dismissed any chance of the romance and love encased within their paper backs to have a chance of happening to her. For one, her marriage was entirely arranged and happily announced on her 19th birthday. Happily for her family, anyway. She wasn’t entirely sure what she was supposed to feel then either. She smiled and made do like she had been taught.
She was drifting lazily off into sleep, still wondering what she was going to do next when the heavy ponderous doorbell rang.
“Bugger,” she said to herself and giggled that she had said such a word. She hoped they’d go away, whoever they were, but the doorbell rang again. She found her mourning dressing gown, fresh from the seamstress and put it on. The doorbell rang two more times before she managed to unlatch the heavy locks.
“Yes?” She said in her most mournful voice, she had spent a good few hours in front of the mirror, practicing her voices and expressions for these occasions.
“Daphne Williams, maiden name Steward?” Said a woman’s voice from behind a dark veil.
“I am sorry, I have had a very long day, I am not in a state for visitors, especially those I do not know,” Daphne said pitifully. “If you come…”
“This is it girls!” Said the voice and suddenly Daphne was bowled over by a flood of women in mourning dress invading her entryway.
Daphne didn’t know what to do. All the training and lectures from her elderly female relatives had not prepared her for an invading army of women in mourning dress, past the appropriate time for visiting.
“Um,” She said dumbly as the women began to discard the accoutrements of mourning to display daring, brightly coloured dresses underneath.
“Daphne Steward, we here by solemnly swear you into the Victorian Dance Macabre Society,” said the woman who had first addressed her. Now revealed to be a pale, dark haired woman, with eyes and a smile that her mother would have called ‘feisty’ in a disapproving manner. “You see, darling, we know your story, it’s in all the papers of course,” she rolled her eyes in a most Unladylike fashion that Daphne adored. “It’s the same with all of us.” She waved her hand in the direction of all the women, now all laughing and talking brightly with each other.
“You’re widows?” Daphne asked incredulously. The secret meeting of recently unattached women was definitely a chapter that had been missing from her Handbook on Mourning.
“Indeed,” the woman flashed a big smile, “isn’t it wonderful!”
Melanie, as was her name, then called out to the ‘girls’ to raid the larder and to retire to the sitting room and for the band to get settled.
“The band?” Daphne seemed only capable of coming out with short staccato questions, enraptured and slightly terrified of the events going around her.
“Oh my dear Daphne,” Melanie said, “you are one of the lucky few! We women, shorn now of family and responsibility are free to do what we will!” Daphne interpreted this as staying up late and defying every convention she had been instilled with since birth. A grin spread across her face.
“The band?”
The night passed in a flurry of activity. The Girls were proficient in sound proofing and making sure no light escaped from the windows. The funeral nosh was brought out, along with the considerable remnants of her father’s liquor cabinet, which Daphne now had the privy of sampling.
“Melanie!” She staggered into the arms of the woman she had adopted as her new sister. “I feel sort of funny!”
“That is because you are drunken, my dear, down the reformers!” Melanie cried. Which quickly prompted a song from the Girls:
“Down with the Reformers
Who forsake our drink
And those prohibitionists!
Pour it down the sink!
We’ve a far better use
for its no vice or sin
Send us all the drink!
We’ll fit it all in!”
By now all the girls were getting rather tipsy, dancing a reel in the middle of the living room as the band began to lose its expert timing. Daphne collapsed indelicately on a chair and nodded her head drunkenly to the tune. There was a small, yet feeble voice, in the back of her head reeling off condemnations and accusations against her behaviour but Daphne didn’t really care. This was in no handbook! There was nothing against midnight parties with widows, maybe this is what she was supposed to feel.
The up tempo music slowed and then turned into something very sombre. Melanie stood up in the circle of girls and pulled Daphne into the centre of the circle with her.
“Now, my dearest Daphne,” Melanie said solemnly. Daphne swallowed hard, maybe it had all been a trick! Maybe society was going to find out and she’d be shunned forever. She’d have to move to America, she knew it. “You have passed the test of the Victorian Dance Macabre Society,” Melanie began, “but abandoning all the rules and regulations regarding your person, behaviour and status.” Daphne shivered. She never knew disobedience was so much fun. “Dance with me now, dance on the graves of things past, dance the Dance Macabre and join our ranks.” Melanie held out her arms and Daphne readily grasped them. They slowly danced a funeral dirge as all the girls stood in a circle and sang.
“Dance the Dance Macabre
Round the circle, round
Dance the Dance Macabre
To us, now honour bound
The circle binds you fast
To sing, dance and laugh
To always wear colour
Underneath the black
Dance the Dance Macabre
Sisters bound together now
Dance the Dance Macabre
Your new freedom found”
By the end of the song Daphne was quite dizzy and getting quite tired as the clock struck four. The girls put her to bed and said they’d clean up, proper. Daphne heard some clinking and giggling and then soon passed out.
The morning light filtered through the window and the birds began to sing.
“Graaaaargggg,”Daphne pulled the covers over her head. He brain was pounding against her skull and her mouth felt like she had eaten an entire cape made of crepe. She tried to remember what had happened to make her feel this way. She flipped drearily through the memories of the funeral service and coffee afterwards and then….no…she thought. It had to be a dream.
She peaked out of her covers, a glass of water was beside her bed stand and she downed it quickly. She listened for any sounds coming from the house, but only the chirping of birds echoed in her ears. She tentatively got out of bed, her head still pounding and gingerly crept downstairs, waiting from some phantom of her dream to jump out at her. The house was still, there was nothing indicating a wild party had occurred the previous night. She sighed sadly. It had been a fantastic dream.
Just then a small envelope was pushed through the letterbox. She stared at it a moment, not entirely trusting of the post. She finally gave in and picked up the envelop; it had the letters V.D.M.S embossed in golden seal. A shiver ran through her and she quickly ripped the envelope over.
“Dear Mrs Williams,
Please forgive my impertinence, but as a woman who has suffered a loss as deep as yours, I felt a natural womanly compulsion to contact you. I have formed a small support group for Ladies in a similar predicament and would like to extend you a courteous invitation to meet with us so as to fortify ourselves while in the depths of grief.
I know this must be a difficult time for you and we extend our deepest condolences for your loss.
Yours in the deepest affection, Melanie Anderson.”
Daphne grinned and then jumped and whooped out loud. Directions and a time were set at the bottom of the note. She went to the kitchen and drank several more glasses of water before heading to her closet.
“Now,” she said to herself, eying up the brightly coloured gowns she had bought for her post-marriage festivities, what to wear.”
She was beginning to get an inkling of what to feel.
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A silly little story. I think you can tell that I’ve been reading way too much Victorian history.
