Someone to Hold

Ah, but it had not felt as sordid as that at the time. And at the time—or, at least, between times—they had talked and laughed and even been silly and had behaved like the best of friends.

Oh, she knew nothing! He did not come.

She was busy during those days. She taught on Monday and Tuesday. The main focus of attention was the knitted blanket, which had fired the children’s imaginations. Some of the girls wanted to learn to crochet so that they could help weave the squares together eventually and make a pretty border about the finished product. A few wanted to learn to embroider so that they could implement the idea one of the boys had to stitch the name of each knitter across the relevant square. A few of the boys dashed away to measure the babies’ cots and work out the size of each square and how many they would need to knit in order to make a blanket of the right size. Another of the boys made a design for the blanket, using the four colors of wool they were working with. During their knitting sessions the children took turns reading stories to the others.

Camille played with Sarah as often as she was able and gave some attention to Winifred, having realized that that was what the girl craved. She walked to the Royal York Hotel on Monday afternoon, having received a note from Aunt Louise to inform her that her grandmother and Aunt Matilda had arrived. She went to a reception her maternal grandmother gave Tuesday evening and surprised herself by almost enjoying it. It felt treacherously like old times to mingle and make polite conversation with Grandmama’s carefully selected guests.

Her mother took her aside late in the evening, and they sat together on a love seat while her mother told her she was going to return to Hinsford.

“To live?” Camille frowned.

“Yes,” her mother said. “Anastasia has begged me to do so, and in that clever, tactful way she has, she has made it appear that I will be doing her a favor by going. She will never live there herself now that she is married to Avery, yet she hates to see it empty and to know how its emptiness affects the morale of the people who work there and the social spirit of the neighborhood. Our neighbors and friends have spoken kindly of us to her, and . . . Well, Camille, she has willed Hinsford Manor to Harry after her time and has pointed out that if I go there to live, I will be keeping it lived in for my own family. I told her I would think about it, but really it has not taken a great deal of thought. I am going home.”

Camille felt a bit like weeping, but she found herself reverting to the old Camille, stiff and reserved and showing nothing of her feelings.

“Abigail is coming with me,” her mother continued. “She needs me and she needs her home. We will go there and . . . see what happens. Nothing will be the same, of course, and it may not be easy to be living the old life, when the old life cannot be fully recaptured. We will be Miss Kingsley and Miss Abigail Westcott instead of the Countess of Riverdale and Lady Abigail. But . . . Well . . .” She shrugged and smiled ruefully. “Will you come too, Camille? Or do you prefer your life here?”

Home. Camille felt suddenly awash in nostalgia. And temptation. But, as her mother had just said, there was no real going back.

“I do not know, Mama,” she said. “I will have to think about it.”

And she dropped, like a rock in a pond, into the murky depths of depression. She was living in a dreary little room in a building where she did not belong. She was teaching from instinct alone with very little idea of what she was doing or plan for how she would proceed in the weeks and months—and years?—ahead. She was in love with a man whose absence in the last couple of days suggested that she meant nothing to him apart from a casual lover, and a man who would almost inevitably move on to a new life of his own now that he was wealthy. She adored a baby who was not her own. She had cut herself off quite deliberately from everyone who would love her if she gave them the chance because she did not know who she was and did not want to be smothered by a protective love that would prevent her from finding out. The future yawned ahead with frightening emptiness and uncertainty. And she hated herself. She hated the fact that she could no longer hold herself together as she had done all her life, not realizing that what she held together was an empty core of nothing. She hated her own self-pity. She hated the fact that she was abjectly in love with a man who had made love to her three separate times just two days ago and had made no attempt to see her since. She hated . . .

“I will have to think about it,” she said again when she realized her mother’s eyes were fixed upon her. “But I am glad you and Abby are going home, Mama. And I am glad for Harry. Do you hate her?”

“Anastasia?” Her mother shook her head slowly. “No, I do not, Camille. She is your sister, and as I told her this morning, your father left behind something of far greater value than a large fortune. He sired four fine children.”

“Four.” Camille drew a slow breath. “How can you be so forgiving?”

“Because the alternative will only harm me,” her mother told her.

Cousin Althea and Mrs. Dance came to join them at that moment and they said no more on the subject.

On Wednesday morning, Camille joined her family for breakfast at the hotel. They did not linger over the meal, as several of their number were to make an excursion to Bathampton a few miles away, where they would enjoy a late luncheon before returning. Camille stayed to wave the three carriages on their way and then turned to Anastasia, who was standing out on the pavement too, listening to something Avery was saying to her.