Page 55 of Murder at Madame Chambon's
The three young women joined the slow and solemn procession that stopped as it reached horse-drawn hearse, and as Evelina bowed her head, she felt the gentle squeeze of her hand and glanced up with a shy smile at Lord Bellingham.
“Did you get my letters?”he asked her softly, the press of such a large crowd offering them the privacy they needed to speak without being overheard.
“No.”She shook her head.“I thought you’d forsaken me.”
“Never!”He was shocked as he reached for her hand once more.“I had important matters to attend to.”
“Clearly more important than me,” replied Evelina with a smile to ameliorate the implied censure.But her heart danced with happiness.Kitty had been right.Either her mama or Lady Perry had kept his letters from her.
“Important because they pertained to you and any … impediments there might be to a marriage between us.”William dipped his head, pretending to consult his Order of Service.His voice was low and impassioned.“There are difficulties, Evelina, that you are not aware of, and I wish I could whisk you away this moment.”
Yes,she knew.Her father was creating difficulties with regard to her dowry, but she wasn’t going to tell William she suspected that was because there was something about William of which her father likely disapproved.
“I am navigating my way through certain obstacles, some of which you know about, but some of which you are ignorant.I don’t want to alarm you, but if you do not see me for a few days, I want to spare you the soul-searching.My darling, none of this can’t be overcome—”
“Is my father refusing to release my dowry?”Fretfully, she gazed at him.“Is there some long-standing enmity between your family and mine that I don’t know about?William, for four days I’ve believed the worst—”
“That I don’t love you?Well, that would be the worst, but the fact is, I love you more than life itself.I don’t care what obstacles stand in the way of spending the rest of my life with you, Evelina.But it requires a certain delicacy.”
Evelina bowed her head.Did the man she loved harbor some dark secret that he was unwilling to reveal to her?
Well, whatever it was, it didn’t matter.As long as William loved her, Evelina could live with it.
“You have to go away again?”she asked.“To… to see my father?”
He nodded.
“Then let me come too.I haven’t seen my father since I was a baby,” she whispered.“He wrote to me in the early years when I was at school.I treasure those letters.But then he stopped, though his generosity never stopped.It made the other girls jealous.Oh, William, please don’t go away again.”
They’d now reached Highgate Cemetery, the procession following the hearse as it entered the imposing iron gates.
William smiled down at her.“It won’t be for more than a day.Two at the most.Bear up, my darling girl.Just a little more patience is all that’s needed.”He squeezed her hand again.“Trust me, Evelina.I will make everything all right.”
The mourners had gathered about the casket as it was carefully lowered into the ground with the help of a couple of gravediggers.Prayers were said, the final words of farewell spoken, and as the earth was shoveled onto the casket, Evelina raised her head to see William, but then the crowd surged forward and she was separated from him, and from the two girls.
Slightly panicked, she twisted her head, reassured when she identified Lady Victoria and Clara in the crowd.She began to push her way closer to them, head bowed, arriving beneath the elm tree at the place she’d last seen them.But they’d gone.And, with black bonnets, veils, and top hats everywhere, amidst a sea of mourning, she now could find neither the young ladies nor William.
The crowd began to disperse.Evelina remained where she was, searching her surroundings, listening to the neighs of the nearby horses waiting to bear the carriages back to town, shafts and leather creaking, and the cry of a flock of birds overhead, the soft murmurings of the remaining stragglers.
But she did not recognize a soul.
The last of the mourners were beginning to disperse now, leaving the freshly-dug grave in small groups.
Evelina hung back and watched the grave-diggers at their work, the thud of soil hitting the top of the casket sounding like a series of physical blows.Their faces were dirt-streaked and there was something crow-like about their stance as they set to their hard labor in their ragged clothes.
She didn’t want to stay here, near these men.They frightened her, and so did her aloneness.
But if she remained by the grave, she would be reclaimed.Lady Victoria and Clara would not forsake her.
William certainly wouldn’t.His doubts suggested by his words were troubling, yet his overriding sentiment—of loyalty—warmed her heart.
Patience, he had told her.Well, Evelina had patience in abundance.One didn’t survive fourteen years of schooling, most of it in a convent, if one couldn’t subsume one’s hopes and desires.
But when the mourners became mere specks in the distance, Evelina’s patience drained away, and a terrible fear gripped her.
Where were Clara and Lady Victoria?Had they somehow believed Evelina had made an arrangement to return home with someone else?
And how could William have left her like this only moments after declaring his undying devotion?
