Chapter Eighteen
Hope sat at the table in the kitchen with a pot of paste and small brush, surrounded by uneven shards of china. It was fortunate that the pieces were large. There did not seem to be any missing. Her makeshift repair would do until the vase could be properly restored.
Of course, if what Gregory said was true, there would never be a time when that could be done. A single failed crop or bad storm could impoverish the tenants and take the estate down with them. Her cousin would have far worse things to worry about than a broken pot.
Still, she could not help trying. That was what the Strickland sisters did, after all. They made the best of what was given to them. They did not give up when things looked hopeless. They soldiered on without cutting corners or breaking rules.
According to Charity that made her tedious and impossible to live with. Was that how she had seemed to Gregory? Perhaps if she had been more reasonable from the beginning he’d have courted her as other gentlemen did, dancing at balls and flirting politely.
And she’d have ignored him. For all she knew, they could have met months ago, if she’d had eyes for anyone but the man coming from America. If she had been honest about the diamonds, with him, or with Charity, she’d have learned the truth earlier and made different choices. She’d made things worse by assuming she could handle everything alone.
Had things been different, she might have accepted his offer. She was sure that was what he had been attempting to do in the carriage. She loved him, of course. But love was not all that mattered.
When she had gone to his room, she’d assumed that the financial problems the family faced would be solved with the appearance of the Earl. The loss of the diamonds would be embarrassing, but not critical. Comstock might be placated and allowances would be restored.
But the family problems were even worse than she had imagined. She could not simply walk away and abandon Charity and Grandmama to poverty. Nor did it seem right to leave Miles Strickland. Whatever he had been expecting when he had crossed the ocean to take his rightful place, it could not have been what he had got. She could not love him, for Hope doubted it was possible to love two men at once. And try as she might, she loved Gregory just as much as she had, that night in the manor. But she owed Mr Strickland some part of her affection, if only because of their shared heritage.
Grandmama had hinted that their American cousin wished to make an offer. He needed someone who knew the details of the estate and understood how to be a countess. She would be that for him, if he needed her to. As long as she kept her heart to herself and did not wear the Comstock diamonds, everything would be fine. Not happy, of course. But she must not let personal happiness stand in the way of the natural order of things.
From the corridor to the muddy back garden came the sound of singing and the happy clopping of the Dowager’s pattens on the tile floor.
Hope set the brush aside and listened. She had not heard Grandmama singing since before Grandfather had died. As usual, the woman’s mirth was ill timed, but Hope would not begrudge her a moment of it.
The Dowager swept into the room and dropped on to the fireside bench to remove her wooden overshoes. ‘My dear Hope, why are you wasting time inside when the robins are singing in the trees and the air is as crisp as a summer apple?’ But all movement stopped when she saw the broken vase. ‘Good heavens. Whatever are you doing with that?’
‘Trying to repair it,’ Hope said. Just as she had been trying and failing to fix everything else about the family for the better part of the month. Even though no one had asked her to. Nor had they welcomed her help.
Nor was she appreciated today. ‘Do not be silly, Hope. We no longer have to bother with such things. It is Comstock’s vase, now. Let him be the one to mend it.’
‘It is not fair that he should be left to solve problems we created,’ Hope said, automatically. Did she always sound so tiresome?
‘Solving problems created by others is the stock and trade of the peerage,’ her grandmother replied. ‘If it is not the Crown, it is the tenants. If it is not the tenants, it is the family. It is always something, my dear.’ She thought for a moment. ‘The new Comstock will have to be rather like your Mr Drake.’
‘He is not my Mr Drake,’ Hope said hurriedly.
But the Dowager ignored her and continued. ‘But I suspect Mr Drake is better paid and sleeps more soundly at night. You chose well.’
‘I did not choose him,’ she said glumly. Not even when he had given her a second chance to do so.
‘Then you should be glad he chose you. If I had picked a different husband, I might have had a much easier life, but it would not have been as happy. I loved your grandfather quite fiercely and he loved me in return. The burden of being Comstock was easier because we shared it.’
‘I thought you were happy.’ Was nothing as she thought it had been?
Her grandmother touched the locket at her throat that held a tiny braid of her husband’s hair. ‘I was as happy as it was possible to be given the truth of our circumstances.’
‘Gregory... I mean, Mr Drake says that we are poor.’ She’d said it in a whisper, for it seemed as if, spoken aloud, it would suddenly become true.
Her grandmother laughed. ‘Poor as church mice, my dear. Albeit, mice that live in a cathedral and not some small country parish. The Comstock earldom has not had two coins to scratch together since your grandfather was a lad. It is why there was no settlement to provide for us, once he died. There was nothing left to give us.’
‘Why did you not tell us?’ Hope said, shaking her head.
‘What could you have done, other than to marry well and escape? Faith has done so already. Soon, you will be gone as well. If I’d told either of you, you’d have thought it necessary to stay together for the good of the family.’
‘And for Charity,’ Hope reminded her.
‘As she has been telling you for years, Charity can manage for herself,’ the Dowager replied. ‘It is time you listened to her. But you and Faith needed a push to leave the nest and I provided it.’
‘You sold these things for us,’ Hope said, touching the broken pot in front of her.
‘I could not send you to Almack’s in a borrowed gown,’ the old woman said in a reasonable tone. ‘I took the least of what we had to shops where no one would ever see it again. It was just barely enough to launch you all and keep meat on the table.’
Hope reached out and took her hand. ‘We never knew.’ Or perhaps she did know. She just hadn’t understood.
Her grandmother’s answering smile said that she had understood for both of them. ‘Do not worry about the past. The new Earl has come now and I shall finally be free.’
‘Free?’ Hope whispered, confused.
‘Free of the houses, the debts and the worry. Of trying to make something out of nothing, all the while pretending that we were happy for the honour. And free of the guilt over those ridiculous diamonds.’
‘You should not have let me badger you over them. Why could you not tell me the truth of that, at least?’
‘Tell you the biggest secret of the Comstocks?’ She shook her head and laid a finger on her lips. ‘Only the Earl and Countess know the truth and they pass it to the next generation. Of course, that means that each Countess must wear a paste tiara with a smile on her face and pretend that nothing is the matter. I wore select pieces on special occasions in the darkest of venues. But each time I did I was in agony that someone would guess the truth.’
‘How will we ever tell Miles Strickland?’ she asked.
‘We do not have to. I already did. I blurted it out the minute we were alone together.’ The Dowager fanned herself with a hand and sighed as a woman did when removing stays that had been laced tight for hours. ‘He was very nice about it, all things considered. He arranged for a settlement for me and promised me the use of the dower house, if it can be repaired sufficiently to be habitable.’
‘That was very kind of him,’ Hope said.
‘Too kind, I think.’ She smiled sadly. ‘He underestimates how much money will be needed to fix the place. It will be far less expensive if I take his allowance and live abroad.’ If the old woman had been happy before, now she was overjoyed. ‘I shall go to Paris, perhaps. Or Rome. For the first time in years, I shall see something other than a London Season. And no one shall require me to keep up appearances.’
Hope winced and looked down at her stinging hand. She still held a piece of the vase and a drop of blood was forming on the pad of her finger where she’d gripped it along the sharp edge.
Her grandmother reached out and took it from her, offering a handkerchief in its stead. ‘You girls will do as you want, for you were never ones to listen. But you will be better off if you do not try to fix things that cannot be mended. Let it all go and you will be happier for it.’ She held the piece of vase out over the tiles and released it.
Hope gasped again, as the perfectly mendable scrap shattered to slivers so small there would be no hope of putting them together again.
The Dowager wiped her hands together as if satisfied with a job well done. ‘Sometimes it is not the clean break that saves us. Life is messy, Hope. Embrace it.’
‘But what about Charity?’ she said again.
The Dowager gave another shake of her head. ‘I have never met a girl so capable of fending for herself.’
Everything had been done. There were no secrets to hide from or reveal to Comstock. Grandmama did not need her help. In fact, she was so eager to leave her grown granddaughters to their own devices that she could not contain her excitement. And when it came to being ruled over and lectured by an older sister, Charity had made her opinion quite clear.
Hope was not wanted. She was not needed.
Not in this family, at least. There was still someone who had loved her, had needed her and still might have her if she could unbend enough to ask for his forgiveness. But to go to him, she would have to let go of the past.
Without another word, Hope grabbed a piece of the vase, closed her eyes, dashed it to the ground and listened to it shatter. Then, she fumbled on the table, found another piece and sent it after the first, savouring that crash as well. This time, she opened her eyes, reached out her arm and swept the remaining pieces to the floor. Perhaps she was still not brave enough to look at the disaster at her feet. But the sound echoed in her heart, like the clank of falling shackles.
Her grandmother was right. Freedom was sweet.