Page 36 of Sense and Suitability
At the question, Mrs. Dean fully dissolved into tears. “I’m sorry. I... I just can’t... it’s too much.” She dabbed her eyes again. “What would her father say?”
Good heavens.“Mrs. Dean, what is it?”
“It’s... it’s Anna,” she managed through sobs, clutching her handkerchief as though it were a lifeline. “She’s ruined.”
“Ruined?” Emme repeated, keeping her emotions measured. Mrs. Dean’s penchant for melodrama often inflated small concerns into calamities. “Surely it cannot be as bad as that.”
“Oh, it is!” The woman sobbed with such force, she shook the table. “It’s dreadful—unspeakable! I don’t think it could have been worse if she’d been attacked by a highwayman, Miss Lockhart.”
Emme was trying very hard to understand, but Mrs. Dean gave little to work with. “But Anna wasn’t attacked by a highwayman, I’m assuming?”
The woman looked up from her handkerchief, blinking. “Of course not. She’s rarely ever alone outside of this farm.”
Emme drew a steadying breath. “Then what is it?”
Mrs. Dean lowered her handkerchief. “Anna is... is...” Her voice shook, and Emme tried to brace herself for whatever revelation may emerge. “With child.”
For the first time since Mrs. Dean’s husband’s unexpected deathat the wrong side of a horse, Emme’s stomach lurched for the woman. Anna? With child?
And unmarried?
“It’s more than I can bear. My darling girl!” Mrs. Dean lowered the handkerchief and took a sip of her tea, which appeared to calm her significantly, because words began pouring out of her. “I thought I’d sent her to visit her sister three months ago, but no! She had been sneaking off to meet Mr. Chapman in secret, and the two of them eloped to Scotland!” She gasped for air, her hand fluttering dramatically to her chest. “Scotland, Miss Lockhart. A godless place where even children may marry!”
The word stopped Emme’s cup to her lips.
Eloped? Scotland?
Oh, how she wanted to visit the wild place of jagged craigs and windswept hills. Perhaps she didn’t research travel as much as her sister, but her creative mind craved a little of the broader picture of the world in which she lived. “So... sheismarried?”
“Three months ago!” Mrs. Dean nodded with fervor. “And to think she returned here, acting as though nothing had happened. And now they have nowhere to go! His father, a tenant farmer, has disowned him, and her dowry—meager as it is—cannot secure them a living.” She continued, as if fueled by her own devastation, while also placing a massive amount of pastries on her plate. “Can you imagine? Living here as if nothing had happened, but sneaking off to be with herhusbandat night?” The bite of scone failed to stop Mrs. Dean from continuing the conversation. “I can’t allow them to stay here. Her father never would have approved of such a situation.”
The scene slowly cleared in Emme’s head. “But Mrs. Dean, theyaremarried. Anna is not ruined. Surely the situation carries with it a shadow, but it is not an irredeemable one. Something can be done to help them. Your grandchild should not suffer for their parents’ haste.”
“Grandchild?” The woman dropped her scone on the plate, eyes growing wider by the second. “My first grandchild.” A light dawned in her eyes. “Yes, you are right. Something must be done.” She paused, her eyes narrowing in thought. “And after all, theyaremarried, aren’t they? It’s not so scandalous as it seems.”
Emme opened her mouth to offer further perspective, but a flicker of movement outside the window snagged her attention. A girl on horseback—wild dark curls tumbling about her face and a vivid red dress billowing in the breeze—halted her towering black horse beside the barn. There was something distinctly furtive in the way she scanned her surroundings.
In fact, the girl had brought the horse around the side of the barn away from the stables and facing the vast empty countryside.
With an agile dismount that nearly ended in disaster—owing to the sheer height of the horse—the girl steadied herself. Thankfully, being the eldest child of the family allowed Emme to refrain from reacting straightaway to the sight. She’d learned the value of controlling her facial expressions, regardless of what antics her little brother might do to nearly kill himself or garner attention.
Pressing her back against the barn wall, the girl sidled along its length toward the open doorway, casting a glance about before slipping into the shadows.
“But they can’t live here, can they?” Mrs. Dean continued, oblivious to Emme’s distraction. “Mr. Chapman would never choose to settle under this roof, and my late husband wouldn’t have approved. Yet perhaps we might find them a suitable place elsewhere?”
Emme wrenched her attention back to Mrs. Dean. “Um... perhaps as a tenant farmer? Then they could remain close to you.”
“Oh, I don’t believe Mr. Chapman’s father would agree to that. Working the same land, especially with the father casting out his own son, poor boy.” She took a sip of tea, no doubt to wash down her second biscuit. “But we must think of something, mustn’t we?”
Mrs. Dean began weaving a narrative, transforming the troublesome elopement into a love story destined to produce the perfect grandchild. Meanwhile, Emme kept her focus on the barn.
The girl reemerged, moving carefully—cumbersomely—and carrying a sack slung over her shoulder. It wriggled.
What on earth?
Emme gave Mrs. Dean a nod so the dear woman could keep solving her own emotional dilemma, while keeping the situation outside in her periphery.
Was the girl a servant? Emme narrowed her eyes. Showing up on such an excellent beast and wearing a dress that, though worn, was of higher caliber, likely negated that idea. Emme’s breath caught. A well-dressed thief?
