Chapter 31
When Charlotte explained to Gwendolyn that she would have to leave the following morning, her aunt was kindness personified. It was clear that Charlotte was greatly upset, and Gwendolyn did not press her for any of the details, likely thinking that it had much to do with the Duke of Sandford.
Well, in the end, Charlotte supposed that it did. But that was not the thing which upset her so greatly and she knew it. She had to speak to her father, she had to know if it was all true.
“I really am very sorry to be leaving you so soon, Aunt Gwendolyn.” Charlotte had said while she tried not to dissolve into tears once again.
“I can see that something has upset you and as much as I would like to try to solve it, my dear, I can also see that your mind is made up. Sometimes when one is in the grip of a great upset, only the closest of family will do and I understand entirely why you would want to be at home with your father.”
Charlotte had smiled warmly and promised to return to her aunt at some point in the future. And as far as her father was concerned, for all her haste to return home, to have it out with him, she was truly afraid to set eyes on him for fear of discovering that she no longer loved the only parent she had ever truly known.
The carriage ride back had begun in silence and Charlotte could see that Ruth’s eyes were as puffy as her own for lack of sleep and a torrent of tears that had been shed.
“Ruth are you managing alright?” Charlotte said, and Ruth shifted in her seat to turn to look at her.
“Yes, I am managing Miss.” Ruth said quietly. “And I really am very sorry.”
“You have nothing to be sorry about. In all of this, you have been done the greatest wrong. When I think of how you have looked after me, helping me into gowns, seeing that my hair is immaculate before I go out to enjoy myself, I can hardly think straight.”
“But can you not see that I have always enjoyed that, Miss?” Ruth said, and Charlotte could hear the emotion. “That is when we have been closest, is it not? That is when we have laughed and talked and shared our little secrets. I would not have missed any of it for the world.”
“We should have been able to do that as sisters, not as mistress and maid.” Charlotte said and finally her tears fell again. “Can you forgive me?” She said miserably.
“Goodness me, and I have sat in silence all this time for fear that you could not forgive me.” Ruth said and laughed.
It was not as fulsome as her laugh ordinarily was, but it was enough to return Charlotte to her old self just a little; it was enough to give her a few moments respite from her shock and numbness.
“But what for?”
“For encouraging the Duke to speak to you.”
“I must admit that I am so lostat the moment, I hardly know if, given the choice, I would have gladly lived without the knowledge. But then I think of you, my dear, and I cannot bear it. However much this has hurt me, discovering that you are my sister is the brightest of corners.” Both women were dabbing furiously at their faces with crisp white handkerchiefs and sniffing non-stop.
“There is a part of me that thinks that I have always known it, Miss.” Ruth said shyly.
“Perhaps there is a part of me that has always known it too. After all, I have never been in want of a sister since you arrived at Thurlow Manor.” Charlotte reached out and took Ruth’s hand, squeezing it hard. “And perhaps now that we are coming to terms with it between ourselves, you might finally call me Charlotte and notMiss.”
“Goodness, that shall seem very strange indeed, Miss. Charlotte.”
“But a very pleasant sort of strange, my dear.”
“What are going to say to your father?” Ruth said, bringing Charlotte back to the reality of her sudden flight back to the east.
“In all truth, I have no idea.”
“Perhaps that is the best way, in the end. If you have not planned what to say, then at least you can speak from the heart.”
“Although I fear that my heart might speak angrily.”
“In the circumstances, I am sure that your father will understand.”
“Our father, Ruth.”
“Yes.” Ruth said and nodded and Charlotte realized just how much that young woman had to come to terms with.
If she herself had to navigate the choppy seas of her father’s infidelity, Ruth had to question her own origins. Charlotte knew, of course, that Ruth was not particularly close to the Clarkin family, but what a great upheaval to discover at the age of one-and-twenty that you are not who you thought you were.
In the end, Charlotte hardly knew which thing she was the angriest about.
“Well now, this a surprise.” Lucas Cunningham said as he wandered out through the front door of Thurlow Manor and helped Charlotte and Ruth down from the carriage. “Please tell me you have not fallen out with dear Gwendolyn.”
“No, Papa. No, I have not fallen out with Gwendolyn. She is a very fine woman and I would never imagine a reason for falling out with her. But then I suppose we never truly know people, do we?” Charlotte ended her sentence somewhat aggressively.
“Well, I think you should leave the unpacking for now,” Lucas said with some concern when it looked as if his daughter might unstrap and carry her trunk herself. “Ruth, perhaps you would have a word with the driver and ask him to take all the luggage inside?” He said, and Ruth nodded.
Charlotte knew that she would not be able to hold onto her discovery for very much longer and, fearing that she might let it all out there in front of the Manor house itself, she began to make her way inside to the drawing room in the hope that her father would follow her.
He did, of course, realizing immediately that there was something wrong with her.
Following her into the drawing room, Lord Cunningham closed the door behind them. He stood and watched as Charlotte took off her bonnet and undid her cloak, laying both of them carelessly on an armchair before sitting down squarely on top of them.
“Charlotte?”
“Did my mother know?” Charlotte turned to look her father squarely in the eyes.
“I beg your pardon?” Lord Cunningham said and walked further into the room to take the armchair opposite the one in which his daughter sat.
“Did my mother know?” She said again and stared at him levelly, witnessing the very moment in which he realized the meaning behind her words.
“About Ruth?” He said with a suddenly exhausted sigh. “No, she never knew. I went to very great lengths to ensure that she was not confronted with the awful truth.”
“Who was Ruth’s mother?” Charlotte said and realized that her anger had dissipated the very moment that her father had volunteered the truth.
For some reason, she had expected him to lie to her and yet she realized that he never truly had before. Yes, he had held the most damaging of all secrets close to his chest, but he had always answered his only daughter honestly in all other things.
“I daresay you will not remember the woman, Charlotte, she was your nurse. She spent a good deal of time caring for you when your mother could not, and as time went on, she took a good deal of care of me too.”
“And mother never knew?”
“You must not think that this was something I undertook lightly. And in truth, such intimacy between myself and your nurse happened only once. But then once is enough, is it not? Once is surely once too often when you have given your vow to another.”
“But you cared for her?”
“Yes, I cared for her great deal. In truth, she was a friend to me, despite the difference in our station. I do not wish to excuse my actions in any way and I hope you will believe me when I tell you that I am not. But I was extraordinarily lonely as a young man, your mother had been ill for more of our marriage than she was well.”
“But that was not her fault.”
“No, it was not her fault. It was nobody’s fault, Charlotte.” The old Baronsaid and his pale blue eyes shone with tears. “It was not your mother’s fault, it was not my fault, it was not Violet’s fault.”
“Her name is Violet?”
“Yes, and I would beg you not to think ill of her, for she was the kindest of women. The blame was mine, every bit of it, and I would not seek to blame anybody else.”
“But where did she go? Surely you did not dismiss her when you discovered she was with child, especially since you say that you did not blame her for what happened between you.”
“I did not dismiss her and would never have done so. She went away for a while, obviously, when her belly began to swell, and it would become clear to all that she was with child. But I did not intend to abandon her, and Violet knew that. I had every intention of taking my responsibilities, whatever it was that Violet chose to do in the end, I had promised to support her.”
“And so, she decided to give her child away?”
“Unfortunately, Violet did not have a say in the matter, Charlotte. You see, that poor young woman died giving birth to Ruth and so, in the end, I could not fulfill my obligation to her. But I could fulfill my obligation to my daughter.”
“You gave her away?”
“For her sake as well as your mother’s. There was no way I could see of keeping the child in the house without alerting your mother to the very great wrong I had done her. In the end, all I could do was have her raised by another family and then, the very moment she was old enough to come here and work, I went back for her.”
“But Papa, my own sister has been my maid all these years.”
“And that was the very best that I could do for her at the time. You know well that the offspring of such clandestine affairs are treated with far more scorn than the perpetrators. Ruth would have been vilified as illegitimate and despised when, in truth, I should have been the one to suffer.”
“Yes, that is very true.” Charlotte said and sighed.
It was the way of England and she knew it. Even though her father’s mistake had been very grave, he had truly done as much as he could do for his secret daughter without giving her away to everybody.
“Does she know?” He said and suddenly looked as if he would truly shed the tears which continued to shine in his eyes.
“She does,” Charlotte said and was suddenly keen to ease his worries. “But she is not at all angry with you, Papa, you must not worry about that. She cares for you the same way she always has. She is a very fine young woman.”
“Yes, she is. And I cannot tell you the pain it has caused me at times to look upon my own daughter and know that she is just a servant in my house.”
As Lord Cunningham bent his head to hide his tears, Charlotte realized just how much he must have suffered over so many years. Her father was not like other men; he did not have the capacity to father children and ignore them as so many in his position did. Charlotte knew that he undoubtedly loved Ruth every bit as much as he loved her, and she was relieved to know it.
“I wish you had told me, Papa,” Charlotte said tearfully, knowing that, in the end, that was all she had left with which to reproach him. “I wish I had not heard it from another.”
“And who was it? I cannot think that dear Gwendolyn knew if your mother did not.”
“It was James Harrington.”
“The Duke’s son?”
“No, he is the Duke now.”
“And that is why he disappeared so suddenly all those years ago?”
“It was not James who sought the information but rather his father. He had held it over James these last three years that he would, if James continued to associate with me, tell all of society the truth of Ruth’s origins. And so, James kept it to himself and did, in the end, just as his father had wanted him to do.”
“And is he married now?”
“No, he is not.”
“Then he defied his father in the end, did he not? By not marrying at all?” Lucas looked up and smiled, his eyes red and his expression resigned.
“I suppose so.”
“Well, I am sure that he had his reasons for telling you in the end. When a young man does something to protect another, even when it causes pain to himself, he is not to be dismissed lightly.”
He looked right into Charlotte’s eyes and she could hardly believe that, even in such a moment, her father’s first thought was her own future happiness.
“Well, I am too tired to think of it at the moment. I shall come back to that another day.” She rose to her feet and felt suddenly exhausted. “Papa, forgive me but I must lay down for a while.”
“Of course.” Lord Cunningham rose to his feet also but stood tentatively as if he did not know whether or not his own daughter would welcome his embrace anymore.
Charlotte, almost broken by his uncertainty, covered the short distance and threw her arms around his neck.
“Can you forgive me?” He whispered, his voice ragged.
“Of course, I can.” Charlotte said, surprised to discover that it was, in the end, what she truly wanted to do.
“Then I have another daughter’s forgiveness I must beg, have I not?” He said as he released her.
“Yes, but I do not think that she will deny you either.” Charlotte said and kissed his cheek before turning to leave the room.