Eleanor was in her room two days later when she heard a bawl downstairs. It was extraordinary. It was also her name.
“El-an-or!” Lady Anne was bawling like a cow who’d lost her calf. Hearing her, Eleanor knew immediately that Catherine had run off with David Arden. She was utterly shocked but not the least surprised. She also knew she’d better not let on she’d had even the faintest suspicion or Lady Anne would never forgive her. All this came to Eleanor in two turbulent seconds before she gathered herself and ran downstairs to find Lady Anne battling her wrap. Mrs. McBee was trying to remove it but Lady Anne was engaged in pugilism, trapped in the fabric and trying to fight free.
“El-an . . .” Then she saw her and went limp, so Mrs. McBee was able to remove the wrap.
“I presume you know all about this,” Lady Anne said.
Better not to speak. To raise her empty hands.
“That Catherine has run off with the artist to South Africa. I need to know where.”
South Africa? With a war on? Eleanor sat down abruptly on one of the chairs at the wall, feeling completely unmoored.
“The girl obviously had no idea,” said Sir Waldo, appearing behind his wife.
“Clearly,” her aunt said, coming in from the library.
“Shall I get the salts, madam?” asked Mrs. McBee.
“I don’t faint,” Eleanor said. “It’s just, Catherine wouldn’t leave me without saying goodbye.”
Then she realized that Catherine’s painting had been her goodbye and let out a horrified full-throated sob. She sounded like a goose honking, making such a vulgar noise that she ended by giggling hysterically.
“Leave you!” Lady Anne was huffing underneath. “I’m not sure the point is leaving you.”
The lady squinted at Mrs. McBee, and the housemaids gathering to dust the stairs, and the coachman meticulously examining the horses’ bridles outside the open door.
“Of course, this has to be hushed up so my husband can fix it.”
Sir Waldo groaned.
In the library, Mrs. Crosby offered whiskey even though it was eleven o’clock in the morning. They learned Catherine had left a letter on her pillow, having slipped off in the middle of the night. She said Mr. Arden had secured a position as an artist for a newspaper; she didn’t say which one. They were getting married and travelling to South Africa so he could return dispatches from the war. Her parents needn’t worry. She would stay well away from the fighting and paint portraits for a living. These things were done.
“And you had no idea, Eleanor,” Lady Anne said, her pupils like cactus spines. “Despite having spoken to her privately in the schoolroom the other day.”
Of course: the other Mowbray girls had been there. Alicia wouldn’t have noticed anything. As far as she was concerned, they were all having a ripping time and everyone was lovely. Harriet, at fourteen, was mainly interested in horses and had been intent on drawing horses, while the smallest, Cassandra, was a dreamy child of seven who would often while away their lessons singing to herself. Good-Bye, Dolly, I Must Leave You, with words she couldn’t possibly understand.
But Mary Ann Mowbray was a clever and observant child just turned eleven. She would have heard every word and repeated them all to her mother, intent on making sure she got things right. Mary Ann wasn’t the least malicious, just helpful and precise. She was the one who reminded Eleanor of herself.
“I did speak to her,” Eleanor said hesitantly, trying to make sure she repeated everything Mary Ann would have heard. “I’d mentioned something about needing more supplies to go to Gloucester. More boards, I believe. And she said something about the invitation not being firm, and I said it was, and she said that she had no intention of going. This wasn’t the first time she’d expressed some disinclination toward, frankly, Mr. Crawley, and I spoke with her about that.”
“Having felt no inclination toward Mr. Edward Denholm yourself,” Lady Anne said testily, “and advising her to stand firm in her opposition.”
Eleanor wondered if she would ever get past Edward Denholm.
“I told her not to be foolish,” she said. “I don’t know Mr. Crawley well, but he got over his accident in ways other young men wouldn’t. He’s determined, I’ve thought. It struck me that he was likely to support Kitty’s painting, and I’m not sure every young man would.”
“That’s a good point,” Sir Waldo said, trying to smooth things over. “She told you nothing about the artist?”
“You saw nothing?” Lady Anne asked.
Eleanor paused, a species of answer she knew she’d have to back away from.
“I thought she might have admired him. But it’s a fad among his pupils to admire Mr. Arden, and I would have said he had too great a concern for his wallet to leave with anyone. It makes no sense to me. If he’s got a new position as an illustrator, I don’t see why he’d burden himself with a wife.”
“I can only hope they will marry,” the baronet said. “And that his choice isn’t mercenary. Surely he knows Catherine hasn’t any money.”
“The demand hasn’t come in yet,” Lady Anne said, and stood. “It might be waiting when we get back. As we should. This is useless. Miss Eleanor is being far from candid.”
Eleanor felt wounded and must have looked it.
“She knows nothing, my dear,” said good Sir Waldo. Although she did, and didn’t, and Lady Anne was still glaring at her as they left.
“Well. Drama,” her aunt said afterwards, as they sat back down. “What weren’t you saying?”
When Eleanor bristled, Mrs. Crosby said, “There’s always something one holds back. I imagine you were trying to keep Lady Anne from blaming you. Catherine did, perhaps, confess a weakness for the artist, but you didn’t take her seriously.”
“It was a look. He looked at her warmly, and she quite properly turned away. Then she smiled like the Cheshire Cat. And Aunt,” Eleanor said, relieved to speak. “I’m worried. I think Catherine is far more talented than we’ve realized. And Mr. Arden’s feelings strike me as very mixed. He seems to me both proprietary and envious of her talent.”
Mrs. Crosby considered this before saying, “Sir Waldo is right. There’s not much chance of a marriage. Mr. Arden is of an age to have a Mrs. Arden hidden away somewhere in Wales, probably with several Ardettes. It’s possible he decided to do a flit, and thought he might as well take Catherine with him.”
Eleanor couldn’t begin to imagine.
“I may be wrong,” Mrs. Crosby said. “But in any case, Catherine has followed him into some degree of danger. I imagine they’ve gone to the Cape Colony. It’s largely peaceful there, but if this ends unhappily, and it could, Lady Anne will certainly blame you. She has to blame someone besides herself.” Her aunt looked rueful. “So much for Gloucester. Lady Anne hadn’t quite secured our invitation, and now she won’t.”
“Surely the Mowbrays won’t go, either.”
“Mr. Crawley was planning to invite a large party. By the time it convenes, she’ll have a better idea where Catherine has gone and be glad of an opportunity to paper it all over.”
“I can’t imagine Murdo Crawley will want them to come.”
Mrs. Crosby seemed to calculate the chances, nodding her head back and forth—he’ll say, then Lady Anne will say—before speaking in an American accent.
“Bet you a dollar,” she said.
The telegram arrived a week later.
“You promised you wouldn’t be angry. Mrs. David Arden.”
Eleanor’s eyes filled with tears. So Catherine was married, and presumably on her way to South Africa. Eleanor read the news standing at the front door of Goodwood House, having heard the messenger’s bicycle skid up the drive. She’d run downstairs to meet him, snatching the envelope and tearing it open. A shilling in her pocket—an absurd tip. The boy lifted his bike around quickly and raced off before she could change her mind.
I’ll bet you a dollar, her aunt had said. Now Eleanor would be out both a dollar and a shilling. Lady Anne would be furious, and this would put paid to any remaining chance of visiting Gloucester (not that Eleanor wanted to) while the Mowbrays would go there themselves to paper it over. Knocking on Mrs. Crosby’s bedroom door, she found her aunt bent over the household accounts with Mrs. McBee. Eleanor handed over the telegram, describing her last meeting with Catherine.
“I suppose I’ll have to show it to Lady Anne.”
“This is Middleford,” her aunt replied, laying down her pen. “She already knows you’ve got it, and quite possibly what it says. Of course we’ll have to take it over. People are very fond of hearing what they already know.”
Mrs. McBee murmured gently, “Two daughters married. One husband the grandson of a duke, the other of a miner. Both in their own ways quite notable men.”
Her aunt had always trusted Mrs. McBee utterly, but it occurred to Eleanor now that they were friends, both intelligent and watchful women. How absurd—how snobbish—that it had taken her this long to notice.
“But will he make Catherine happy?” Eleanor asked.
“I think you’ve probably described their marriage,” her aunt said. “Two artists, one of them competitive. But, my dear, to look on their inevitable problems as exceptional is to believe in such a thing as the perfect marriage. I speak as someone who was happily married to your uncle for longer than I care to admit, at least among people who can add. Of course they’re going to have problems. Everyone has problems. But I’ve no doubt they’re happy right this minute, and good for them.”
Her aunt seemed ready to say something more, but shook her head.
“Lady Anne,” Mrs. McBee said, sounding as if her voice had been caught in a downdraft. “Will not be pleased.”
They arrived at Mowbray Close to find that the Mowbrays had received a telegram of their own. Like Eleanor’s, it had arrived from Liverpool, presumably sent from the docks five minutes before Catherine sailed for South Africa. Raging around her sitting room, Lady Anne insisted that Eleanor must have known. Why would Catherine have made Eleanor promise not to be angry if she hadn’t been planning to elope? And if she’d been making plans, Eleanor knew.
“Last spring,” Eleanor began. Lady Anne growled an objection, as if spring couldn’t be trusted, either. (And this being Yorkshire, it couldn’t.)
“Last spring,” she insisted, “when the Denholms arrived, I thought at first that Catherine liked Captain Denholm. Then I thought she liked his brother. But I couldn’t tell, and I realized the extent to which Catherine guards her feelings. I hadn’t known that before. She’s always been my very dearest friend, and she always will be, but I’m not sure I realized before that there’s a very private side to her nature.”
“Hmmm.” Lady Anne’s squint was at its most narrow. Then she collapsed into a chair.
“At least he married her,” she said quietly. “At least we have that.”
“A moment to mourn,” Mrs. Crosby said gently, touching her shoulder. “Then we make the best of it.”
Lady Anne shook her off irritably. “Don’t you ever stop?”
“One can’t,” her aunt said simply.
But Lady Anne didn’t like hearing that. She lumbered to her feet, turning in an odd splay-foot circle until she spotted Eleanor and fixed her with a wounded glare.
“She’s ruined herself and you could have stopped it.”
Lady Anne lurched out, calling for her maid, leaving Eleanor feeling gutted.
A small voice said, “I’m sorry.”
Alicia rose from a chair by the window. Amazing how such a pretty girl could be in the room without anyone having noticed.
“It’s not your fault, Nellie,” she said. “I’m sure you miss her awfully. We all do already.”
Eleanor surprised herself by letting out a sob. Alicia embraced her, and as Eleanor lay her head on Alicia’s shoulder, she found it astonishing that a seventeen-year-old girl could be so maternal—that her embrace could feel so warm and accepting. Eleanor sensed her lost mother’s presence, and felt what she couldn’t really have felt as a child, not when her mother had died when she was only a few months old. Her mother was safety. She’d felt safe. And seventeen-year-old Alicia made her feel safe, too. How odd.