However, only one week of that frosty winter was truly unbearable for everyone situated near or on the Berkeley lands, and that was the week in March when Rosalie was ill. It was merely a bad cold and a touch of fever, and yet Rosalie's illness threw the entire schedule and organization of Berkeley Hall into disarray. The worst problem was Rand; when visiting his sniffling, feverish, red-nosed wife, he was tender and gentle, but when she was napping or out of hearing distance, he was so moody and irritable that no one dared approach him. Mira observed this with well-concealed sympathy and humor, knowing from past experience that Rand could not bear it when anything threatened Rosalie's health or happiness.
"You must get well very, very soon, Rosalie," she said late one afternoon, bringing a cup of hot liquid to the Berkeleys' bedchamber. Rosalie made a face as she stretched out a hand and received the cup."What is in here? More of your ghastly herbs?"
"Tea and honey."
"Oh, praise heaven…" Rosalie took a deep swallow of the sweet tea and sighed in pleasure. "Now, tell me why I must be up and about so soon. I've rather enjoyed the past day or two of leisure."
"Your husband is becoming unmanageable."
"Really? I thought he'd been extraordinarily sweet."
"To you," Mira said, and chuckled. "Don't pretend ignorance—you know how he's been to everyone else. The walls aren't that thick."
"My poor Randall," Rosalie said softly, giggling and sneezing. "He grumbles a little, but he really' doesn't mean to make everyone—"
"Don't make excuses for him. Just get rid of your cold as soon as possible… He's terrifying the lot of us."
"Poor Mira." Rosalie looked at her speculatively, frowning. "You look a little thinner, and I don't like that at all. You have spent all of your time taking care of others, and that was not my purpose in bringing you here. You need to rest much more… and have you been eating?"
"The Season is still a month or two away—don't, worry, I'll be in presentable condition by then."
"Don't joke about it. In another month we will start to pay calls and undergo the social rounds in earnest, and I don't want you to be tired or overextended. You look as though you've been pining for someone."
"Pining," Mira scoffed, soothing her hands over her bangs in a nervous gesture. "Over whom? Edgar Onslow?"
"I wish you were. Because that would be a problem easily solved."
"I'm not pining for anyone," Mira said gruffly.
"Something is bothering you."
"The same thing is bothering me—the same thingThat has bothered me for weeks." Mira sat on the foot the bed and rubbed the side of her face against the dvet hangings absently, letting a gold-fringed tassel trail over the bridge of her nose. "The Season's going to begin soon, and finally I've come to the realization that I've run out of parts to play," she said softly, closing her eyes and sighing. "I've never played any one of them especially well… I've become more and more of an impostor, until I no longer feel comfortable doing anything. None of it feels right any longer. Where and how am I going to belong anywhere—?"
"But you belong somewhere already," Rosalie said anxiously. "You belong here."
"I am welcomed here. But this is your home and your family."
"You will have a home and family of your own someday," Rosalie insisted. "Then you won't have cause to worry about where you belong."
Mira smiled wistfully, opening her eyes and regarding Rosalie quizzically. "Do you really think marriage is the answer?" she asked. "I don't. It will merely be a new role for me to work on, and I'm terrified that I'm going to fail at it… but there's nothing else I can do." Marriage was simply a ceremony… and although it was intended to join two people in an everlasting bond, she knew that no ritual, pronouncement, or ceremony on earth could dispel the sense of apartness she felt. Marriage would not change her, nor would it change the inner certainty that she would not fit into any one kind of life.
"I don't understand your fixation with roles and parts," Rosalie said, bewildered. "You're not playing a part, you're living your own life."
"I've lived several lives so far, when all I wanted was just one." She rubbed her forehead tiredly. "Oh, how old, how shopworn I am going to feel next to those girls of seventeen and eighteen. They know nothing of the world, but still they know what their placesare in it. They already know who they are and exactly what they are supposed to do. They're so wonderfully conventional… I envy them."