Chapter Nineteen
“Forgive me. So sorry I’m late.” I’d been delayed by the fulfillment of Edwin’s promise. He’d franked over a signed letter to his banker releasing the sum of two thousand pounds to me. I’d nearly burned the letter before I recalled what dire straits we were in. If this meeting with Old Lady Gladstone didn’t progress as planned…
I froze on the threshold of her informal dining room. The room, as big as my sitting room at home, smelled of pea soup and fresh-baked bread. A mahogany table bigger than my bed devoured most of the space in the room. A long mantle was laden with covered dishes. Dressed in the Gladstone livery, Harry guarded the food with a defensive stance as though trying to make himself unseen.
The frigid, tense atmosphere leeched all warmth out of the stuffy air. As I stood, petrified, in the doorway, Edwin shoved to his feet. He balled his napkin and hurled it onto the gleaming table.
“This is not debatable. Good day, Aunt Louise.”
Without another word, he stormed toward me. I staggered to the side. His arm brushed roughly against me as he passed. The heat of his body seared me. Too quickly, it was gone.
He didn’t even look at me.
I groped for a chair at the table and rested my trembling legs. My heart pounded three times too fast. It felt as though my chest would crack open with the force.
No tears threatened. I felt numb. Empty. When we’d fought before, he’d always sought to reconcile. When I’d heard the knock at my door today, I’d half-hoped it was him, arrived to confess what a pigheaded fool he was. That he cared for me, after all. Perhaps even that he loved me.
It was potently clear there was no love lost between us.
Old Lady Gladstone thrust away her half-eaten bowl of soup. Yellowish liquid sloshed over the lip of the bowl and splashed onto the table. No one made a move to clean it, not even Harry.
“I hope you’re happy.” The countess’s jowls quivered as she turned her chin away from me. “You got what you wanted all along. Your marriage is called off.”
I rubbed my dry eyes. I leaned against the back of the chair so tightly, the carved whorls in the wood dug into my spine. “You knew the engagement was a farce?”
“I’m not blind,” she snapped.
Tears pricked the back of my eyes. I blinked rapidly, hoping to stem them. “If you knew, why did you insist on the engagement?” My voice warbled. “My life would have been so much better if you’d left us alone.”
My voice broke. Tears flooded my cheeks. I hid my face in my hands.
“Oh, Mary.”
The chair screeched over the floor as Old Lady Gladstone turned it around the corner of the table to rest beside me. She clasped her arms around my shoulders and turned my face into her bosom. She reeked of patchouli and orange blossom. I wept, wetting the scratchy lace of her bodice.
“It’ll be all right.” She rocked me back and forth, cooing.
I sniffled but didn’t say a word. I snuggled into her embrace. Had she ever hugged me like this? Not since Mama had died. Old Lady Gladstone had always been an austere woman, making demands on my time and decorum. I’d accepted her help out of necessity, thinking it a favor to my mother.
Not until this moment did I realize how well and truly the countess loved me as her own.
“I can make him come up to snuff,” she said, her voice steely.
I shook my head, as much as her tight hold on me allowed. “I don’t want to get married. He hates me. He won’t speak to me.” A fresh wave of tears leaked from my eyes. “I want my friend back.”
“Hush, darling.” Old Lady Gladstone rocked me, her voice thick with emotion.
When my tears dried again, she murmured, “Life is full of disappointments, but you’ll overcome each and every one.”
She cupped my uninjured cheek, raising my gaze to hers. Unshed tears clung to her eyelashes. Cool air gushed over the side of my head warmed by her body.
“You’re strong. You’ve always been strong.”
My chin wobbled. I swallowed heavily, tasting salty tears. I forced myself to nod. Maybe I’d overcome this heartrending pain, but I’d rather not have to. I missed Edwin. He always proved the voice of reason when emotion threatened to lead me by the nose.
This time, he was the cause of that emotion. I lost so many friends these past few weeks, but he was the hardest. For a time, nestled in his arms, I’d almost fancied myself in…
I shook the thought away.
Old Lady Gladstone held out her hand to Harry, taking the handkerchief he offered. He stepped back against the wall and stared at the dishes on the mantle, turning his back on us. The countess wiped my cheeks with the handkerchief. I took it from her to blow my nose.
The countess cleared her throat. “One thing I’ve learned is that despite the disappointments, life makes up for them with so many joys. I may not have given birth to any children of my own, but I have had the joys brought by so many children of my heart. You included, Mary. I hate to see you in pain.”
I blinked my aching eyes, ridding them of beckoning tears. My throat was sore. I swallowed twice before I managed to say, “Like you said, I’m strong. I’ll get through this.” With or without Edwin.
With or without anyone.
I only wished it didn’t hurt so much.
“Mary, I’m worried about you. It isn’t like you to spend so much of your time indoors.”
I pulled my knees closer to my chest, staring at the book without comprehension of the words on the page. I didn’t have the energy to read. In fact, I scarcely had the energy to sleep at all. All I wanted to do was go back to bed.
But Papa wouldn’t have it. He’d delayed his departure to work again today. A worried frown crinkling his forehead, he rearranged the teapot and teacup he’d left on the table next to me. The china clinked.
“The day is dismal, Papa.” Even from my cozy nest in the sitting room, the rain pelting the house seemed to seep into my bones. I turned the page of my book, still unseeing.
He perched at my feet on the settee and squeezed my knee. “That’s never stopped you before.”
I shrugged. “I don’t have anything to do.”
That was a lie. There were always women or servants who needed my help. Not to mention, with the money Edwin had sent me, I had an animal shelter to open. The idea no longer held its appeal. Every time I thought about going out and taking steps to progress that goal, exhaustion washed over me. Tomorrow. I’d start tomorrow when the weather cleared.
Or perhaps in the spring.
Papa sighed. He tightened his hand on my knee before he released me and stood. “Very well. Can I bring you home something from the market?”
I shook my head and mustered a smile. It felt thin and flimsy. “No, thank you. I have everything I need.”
He bent to kiss the top of my head. “Very well. Let’s have supper tonight when I get home, shall we?”
I nodded even though I hoped to be asleep by then. I spent so few evenings with Papa, and now my ill spirits were keeping him from his work. Guilt gnawed at me as he left the house, expertly navigating his way past Puck. The moment the door shut, Puck barked with abandon. I sank further into the stuffed upholstery of the settee, shutting my eyes.
The door opened again. “Mary?”
I straightened. “Did you forget something, Papa?”
Puck whined and scratched at the door.
“Settle down, boy.” Papa raised his voice. “I’m only here a moment to see your friends into the house.”
“My friends?” I swiveled, planting my feet on the floor. “I’m not feeling quite the thing…”
Puck’s happy bark drowned out my protest, followed by a startled laugh.
“Oh, my. You are a tall one, aren’t you?”
Curious, Diamond stretched and jumped off the armchair, meandering in feline fashion to the doorway to greet the guests. The moment he smelled her, Puck bayed and tore off after the cat.
“Oh. And enthusiastic, too.”
My stomach sank as I recognized those voices. Winifred and Annabel, respectively. Why were Edwin’s friends visiting me? I glanced around, half-hoping for an excuse to leave, but I had nowhere to run. A moment later, their forms filled the open doorway. Winifred untied the bonnet from her head—the same I’d helped her decorate—and shook out the wet fabric.
Reluctantly, I set down the book and stood. “Would you like some tea? It’s…” My instinct to adhere to manners faded, and I frowned at the teapot. “Cold.” I raised my gaze to the two women. “Why are you here?”
Despite my rudeness, Annabel entered the room. She removed her bonnet and chose the armchair Diamond had recently occupied. She perched on the edge, her eyes crinkling at the corners with sympathy as she faced me. “We heard you and Sutton called off the wedding.”
The confirmation of my broken engagement, spoken aloud, made my stomach shrivel to the size of a pebble. I swallowed against a boulder-size lump in my throat. “That doesn’t explain why you’re here visiting me. You should be with him. You’re his friends, aren’t you?”
“We are,” Annabel confirmed.
Uninvited, Winifred dropped down onto the settee and urged me to sit next to her. “We’re your friends, too.”
“I don’t see why we cannot be both,” her sister-in-law added.
Why were they truly here? Their husbands had been the ones to prompt Edwin to enter his mad solution with me.
Perhaps, but they hadn’t forced me to warm to him again. If I’d known it would hurt this much to open myself the way we had when we were younger, I might have tried harder to keep myself at a distance. The women’s presence only served to remind me what I’d lost—Edwin. For the second time in my life.
Perhaps if I reached out…
He hadn’t seemed amenable to a reconciliation last time. Would it be years before he thawed toward me, if ever?
I met Winifred’s bright, open gaze. “You aren’t my friend.”
She flinched.
I bit the inside of my cheek at the wash of guilt and turned away, to Annabel’s impassive expression. “You don’t even know me.”
“Of course we do—”
“No.” I glanced down at my hands, balled in my skirt. “I’ve been playing a part this entire time. Edwin wanted your good opinion, so I’ve pretended to be something I’m not.” I stood, still not meeting their gazes. “I’d like you to leave.”
Both women got to their feet, but neither of them moved toward the door.
“We know,” Annabel said, her voice calm. Matter-of-fact.
“You…” I frowned, staring at her. “You know?”
Winifred giggled. “Mary, you decorated my bonnet like this.” She waved the gaudy, beribboned thing.
“And you don’t know the first thing about watercolor,” Annabel answered with a smirk.
I gaped. “Then why did you make me suffer through another painting session?”
She shrugged. “If that was how you wanted to be with us, that was how we would accept you. Sutton sees something in you, and it didn’t take us long to realize what that was.”
He doesn’t. My throat worked, but I couldn’t speak the words. Apparently he, if not I, had done a spectacular job of fooling his friends.
“You climbed a tree to save that kitten,” Winifred added. “Without a thought to how it would look.”
I winced. “Edwin wasn’t happy I did that.”
“Perhaps not, but we were. Until then, we were afraid you were conventional. Boring.”
I glanced from one to the other. “You were impressed that I was unconventional? But you—”
Annabel laughed, shaking her head. “It seems you spent so much time trying to be something that you aren’t that you neglected to pay attention. We aren’t the least bit conventional, ourselves.”
“I’m an apiarist.”
“A what?”
“I keep bees,” she explained. “They’re difficult to count, you understand, but I believe I have close to five thousand now.” She beamed as she provided that fact.
What would she need with five thousand bees?
Annabel looked amused at the look on my face. “And the only reason I like to paint is to give my drawings a bit of color when I’m sketching through an idea. I’m an architect. In fact, I drew up the plans for the extension onto the greenhouse.”
She always chose a building to draw when they were out together. How had I missed that? I’d been too self-absorbed, it seemed, whereas they had been nothing but welcoming.
Annabel held out a hand, as though they were men meeting on business. “Perhaps it’s time for us to meet the real you, so we discover who our friend truly is when she isn’t hiding behind what she thinks she should be.”
I clasped her hand. “Perhaps it is time. I fight for women’s rights to be architects and…” I tried to keep the perplexed look off my face as I turned to Winifred. “Keep bees. I’m going to be opening an animal shelter soon, so I can help more animals like Puck and that lost kitten of yours, as well as provide women in need with some employment.”
Annabel smiled. “In that, perhaps I can help. Have you chosen a building for your shelter?”
“I haven’t…” Since Edwin and I had called off the wedding, I’d had plenty of time in the intervening week. I hadn’t had the energy, but at the moment, I didn’t feel so alone. With Annabel and Winifred’s sunny disposition, my life didn’t feel so empty, even if they couldn’t quite fill the spot Edwin had left.
Perhaps Hariti had been right all along. I did make friends wherever I went.
Edwin…the word friend didn’t quite seem to describe all he’d been to me. All I wished he still was.
“Well, perhaps that’s something I can help with. I can draw up some plans.”
Winifred added, “And I—”
I held up my hands. “I don’t want any bees.”
“Are you certain?” She giggled. “I was going to suggest we tour a few streets to see where best to put the shelter. I assume you have a budget?”
“I do.” I pursed my lips. “Wait here a moment. I’ll fetch some paper so I can work out how much I’ll be able to spend on this. And I’ll have Albert put on a fresh pot of tea for us while I’m at it.”
If Edwin wouldn’t be around to help move my plans forward, at least I wasn’t completely alone.