| |
Charlotte scurried into her family’s small, dimly lit townhome. Though she had perfected the art of walking as a small child and practiced it regularly with brisk afternoon strolls, her legs quivered. Her stomach toppled about, as if she were on a sinking ship.
I should tell them.
Charlotte had read penny novels. She knew how death worked. Usually the most angelic person in the family died. Though Charlotte would hardly term herself angelic, her family members did so with incorrigible frequency, imbuing her with lofty qualities, merely because she possessed an interest in books. If they knew she were ill, her family might bustle her off to Bath or Harrogate, abandoning Georgiana’s last season and any hope for securing their finances. When they weren’t thrusting her into water with other sick people, they might be huddling about her bed in a maudlin manner.
No.
Charlotte had no urge to tell them.
“Oh, Charlotte! Charlotte, dear!” Mama’s voice soared through the townhome. Its unfashionable age might have come with thick walls, but no amount of stone could obstruct her mother’s natural fortissimo.
“Yes?” Charlotte squeaked. Had her mother noticed her absence? Been pacing the house? Sent a search party for her?
“Did I show you the new ribbons I selected from the haberdasher?”
Relief cascaded through Charlotte, and she entered the drawing room. Books bulged from bookcases. The townhome was small, and Papa did not have a separate library. He sat in one corner, contentedly perusing his philosophy. Mama and Georgiana sat on the sofa.
Mama waved green ribbons in each hand. “I want to use one of the ribbons for my dress tonight, but I’m not sure which one.”
Charlotte had seen the ribbons before. Her mother had shown them to her. Both pomona and pistache were unlikely combinations with her mother’s capucine ball gown. Green and orange was a combination best appreciated in carrots.
“You don’t need any ribbons on your dress, my dear. You always look lovely.” Charlotte’s father kissed Mama on her cheek.
Mama giggled. “You silly man. Isn’t he silly, Charlotte?”
Charlotte nodded and forced herself to smile. Her face felt stiff, numb from the visit to the doctor.
I’m dying.
She’d repeated the sentence in her mind, as if it were some chant. But unlike a call to some religion, asking for better crops, there was no hope for salvation. There would never be. Her heart was failing, and by the end of the year, she would be gone.
It was enough to make her want to sprint toward her mother, despite the furniture, despite the fact that her stiff stays rendered sudden movements uncomfortable, and despite the fact that she hadn’t run to her mother’s arms in over a decade.
She resisted the temptation. How could she burden her parents with that dreadful prognosis? She hardly comprehended it herself.
“Your dear mother has received an invitation to go to a ball,” Papa said.
Oh.
“We’ve all received the invitation,” Mama corrected. “Imagine? Me going on my own? How scandalous.”
“You’ll always be my scandal.” Papa kissed Mama’s hand, and their eyes glimmered at each other.
Normally Charlotte might roll her eyes, but now her heart ached. No one would ever look at her with such love.
Love, like visiting the ocean, would be another thing she would never experience.
“You’re making Charlotte look ill,” Georgiana exclaimed, and her parents halted their expressions of affection.
“I’m quite fine,” Charlotte protested.
At least, it wasn’t her parents who caused her distress.
“Of course she is,” Mama said. “She’s going to a ball.”
Mama’s lips were fixed into a wide smile others might reserve for visiting a beloved, seldom-seen relative. Though they’d been in London for the entirety of the season, balls remained a special occasion. Despite Mama’s birth and the lofty positions of her relatives, much of the ton seemed suspicious of Charlotte and Georgiana.
Mama seemed so happy.
How could Charlotte confide in her?
I won’t.
Not now. Not when Mama seemed to think there was a possibility Georgiana or Charlotte would marry well.
I’ll have my normal day.
“Whose ball are we going to?” Charlotte asked.
“Lady Amberly’s!” Mama clapped her hands, and the ribbons on her lace cap swung, as if held by some exuberant Maypole dancer.
Georgiana blinked. “The Duchess of Alfriston?”
Mama shook her hand. “No, no. That would be quite impossible. The Duchess of Alfriston is no longer an Amberly. She is a Carmichael now. But Lady Amberly is her aunt, and her husband is a baronet,” Mama said.
“So not so impressive.”
“She has an unmarried son of eligible age,” Mama said.
“I rather expect there will be more than one unmarried man of eligible age in attendance,” Papa said dryly.
Mama clapped her hands again. “Oh, indeed! But think, one of our daughters could become the wife of a baronet, could become the mother of a baronet.”
“The grandmother of a baronet?” Papa suggested, and Mama’s eyelashes fluttered.
Papa set down his Hegel. “Your mother went to school with Lady Amberly.”
“Truly?” Georgiana asked.
“Indeed,” Mama said. “So you’ll be sure to get an introduction. I believe a duke will be there as well, but I didn’t go to school with him.”
“That would have been quite scandalous,” Papa said. “Imagine her wearing one of those top hats and sneaking into Eton?”
Charlotte crossed her legs. She’d once dreamed of doing just such a thing, and her skin warmed at the memory of the girlish daydream.
“Charlotte, you must wear pink,” Mama said. “Pink is the very best color for you.”
“I’ll resemble a giant flower,” Charlotte said.
Mama scrutinized her, and the ribbons on her cap halted their ceaseless movement. “That is exactly the point, my dear.”
“Men are not known for delighting in flowers,” Charlotte said.
Her sister Georgiana adored flowers and gardens, but conversations on the merits of wisteria and willow trees seemed unlikely to draw most men from their discussions on army maneuvers. Men weren’t known to go about plucking wildflowers, and they didn’t spend all afternoon creating their likenesses in needlepoint.
“Such naivety, my dear,” Mama said. “Everyone adores flowers, even though not all of them might admit it. Besides, your skin is so fair, but when you wear pink, your cheeks and lips manage to look becoming. For a woman who is as intelligent as you are, you do not know very much.”
“It doesn’t matter what I wear,” Charlotte said finally. “It’s my first season.”
“And Georgiana’s third,” Mama said quietly.
Charlotte turned her head toward her mother.
Mama wasn’t in the habit of expressing anything but the most jubilant enthusiasm about the virtues of her children, but she must be cognizant of the gossips. Charlotte had not paid much attention to their chit-chat. She was the second daughter of a vicar. Her mother had married inappropriately, and her relatives on her mother’s side were determined Charlotte not make a similar mistake.
“Still.” Mama beamed. “Perhaps you will meet a duke.”
Charlotte stiffened, remembering the duke she’d met that morning.
“That would be unlikely,” Charlotte said. “Statistically improbable.”
“I imagine you’re correct, dear. Though he’s tall, blond and handsome.” Mama’s eyes gleamed. “And his accent has a Scottish burr.”
Is it...him?
She frowned. She’d never expected to see the duke again. The man knew far too much about her. If only he hadn’t wrangled that information from Dr. Hutton’s apprentice.
Not that it would matter if they attended the same ball. He was certain to be beset by matchmaking mamas and desperate debutantes. Even Mama would admit dukes were rather too grand for someone like Georgiana or her to consider, especially ones in possession of all their teeth.
Charlotte rose. “I’ll work on Papa’s books.”
“Numbers aren’t feminine, my dear,” Mama said.
“I wasn’t aware soldiers carried abacuses to war,” Georgiana said.
Mama adjusted her hair in the mirror. “You haven’t been to war, my dear.”
Charlotte turned away. She couldn’t compete with her mother and sister. They sparred all day. Their dialogue was quick and witty. Even though her sister would make exasperated noises around her mother, their similarities were evident.
“Ah, let her do them,” Papa said, smoothing a cream colored pages of his tome. “Saves me the trouble.”
“Thank you, Papa,” Charlotte said.
She needed something with which to distract her mind. Charlotte was good at numbers. Numbers made sense. One could add and subtract them. Multiply and divide them. And they always acted predictably.
People were much less predictable. Mother frequently wailed about something, and though Father tended more toward quiet, with the exception of those days in which he was preaching at his pulpit, she was not truly similar to him. Philosophy books held no interest to her—not like numbers.
People seemed to expect her to say the right words to them. They would ask questions and then not like her answers. People were confusing.
Charlotte had learned early on that not saying what was on her mind was almost certainly the appropriate thing to do. She was reserved.
Numbers, with their propensity for behaving in an orderly fashion, while often arranging themselves into new combinations, were beautiful.