Page 17 of Miss Debenham's Secret
No, far better to do as Debenham suggested and write a lie to her, a quick cut that might sting for a while but would heal relatively quickly and allow her to get on with her own life.She’d meet someone else.How could any man not want her?
He tried not to let that hurt him, but it did.The pain was so great that he swayed and only just caught his balance.The swirling water looked inviting but he wasn’t a coward.He would not end it here, not when he had come through so much.
His mouth tight, Alistair made his way back to shore.
***
A week later Clarissa hurried home from school, hoping as she did every day there would be some news.A letter.And this time there was.The letter was waiting for her and Clarissa clutched it to her breast and hurried upstairs to read it.
She felt anxious.Annie had said something strange to her when she came for her lessons and she couldn’t shift it from her mind.Annie claimed she had been walking by the Cobb a week past and had seen Alistair standing on the far end of the wall, staring out to sea.“Only it couldn’t have been him, because this man was injured.He’d lost a leg and was on crutches.I would have gone to speak to him, but he was too far away and I was late.”
Clarissa agreed that it could not be him, and yet the words played with her mind, niggled at her fears.
With shaking hands she now tore the letter open and her eyes feasted on his familiar writing.
But as she read on the words seemed to blur and she blinked and read them again.‘Will be marrying very soon ...know as my friend you will be very happy for me ...will always treasure our time together ...’
He was marrying someone else.He wasn’t coming back to her.
After she’d sobbed into her pillow she wiped her eyes and tried to pull herself together.He’d never said he would marry her, it was true.He had never promised her anything, and yet she had believed ...hoped ...and now there was nothing.
At the end of the letter he’d wished her well and hoped she would soon find someone to give her as much happiness as he had found himself.
Clarissa shook her head.She would never marry.Alistair had been the man she loved, the only man, and there would never be anyone else.Teaching was her love now and she would make it the most important thing in her life.The only thing in her life.
Downstairs she set to work on supper, her eyes swollen and red, her face chalk white.Her father didn’t seem to notice anything wrong, and she was glad not to answer any questions.
Clarissa vowed to herself she would never speak of Alistair again.
Chapter fourteen
CHAPTERFOURTEEN
20 YEARS LATER
“The Wentworth girl’s father will be here soon.”
Clarissa looked up at her senior assistant with a smile.Annie hadn’t changed that much over the years—a little plumper perhaps, but she had five children now, and was very happily married.
“I know.I’m ready for him.”
Annie pursed her lips.“Those girls are in the sitting room.They’re rather loud and I’ve told them to hush once.Should I tell them to go and do their dancing practise?”
‘Those girls’ were a group of five students who had become very close since they started at the Finishing School.Clarissa liked to see girls getting on together and she shook her head at Annie.
“Leave them for now.If they get too rowdy I’ll have a word with them.”
“Very well, Miss Debenham,” said Annie in her primmest voice and returned to her desk.
Annie was a treasure and Clarissa didn’t know what she would have done without her all these years.They’d first met that day at the inn, and then Annie had begun taking lessons, making astounding progress really, showing a talent for learning that Clarissa felt privileged to foster.Once Clarissa had moved to her own small school, Annie had been her first employee, and then the school had grown and she’d moved again, and finally she’d purchased the large house in Hampshire that became Miss Debenham’s Finishing School for Young Ladies.
Her school had built a fine reputation and she catered to the elite families in the country.Lately she had been thinking there never seemed to be enough hours in the day to do all that needed to be done.The school had grown far bigger than she’d ever imagined.She loved her work though; even after all the years—perhaps because she’d put so much of her time, so much of herself, into her schools.
And her students.
They had the daughter of a duke coming next term, and no doubt if she was happy then others would follow, but Clarissa wasn’t fussed by the quality.She liked to teach all girls and it didn’t matter whose daughters they were, not really.
There was a personal pride in seeing a girl arrive without the necessary skills to go through her life and then to see her leave with them tucked away inside her head.Clarissa didn’t just teach her girls the fundamentals of stitching and dancing and running a house; she taught them to hold their own in a world where women were becoming increasingly independent.Or at least, she hoped so.
