Page 53 of The Proposition
If she confessed. If she admitted how deeply she felt…
But no.
Time seemed strange while she stayed at the Bagshots’ and tried to sew and read and busy herself while her stomach tied itself in ever tighter knots. Word from the modiste came that the lace she had chosen could not be gotten in the quantity they needed in time, and so they would send over new samples for her to see. Her gown. The wedding. Time. It kept going apparently; things moved unfairly forward. She saw the family for meals, and sometimes sat with Tansy in the drawing room and listened to her recall all the latest gossip from Lady Veitch’s circle, and she remained strangelyabove it, floating, separated from the experiences by a fascination with how the time passed. She was waiting, she knew, waiting either for the right words to come and then be sent, or for Mr. Ferrand to surrender in this silent war. Neither thing happened, and she could not help but fixate.
Now and then Turner Boyle made an appearance, all smiles and courteous bows, just back from the club, or from a lecture hall debate, melding seamlessly into whatever occupied William and Tansy. And Clemency would watch for some sign of all the deception, forcing herself not to bring up Mrs. Chilvers and Denning Ede, though she yearned to do so. What was he doing? What was his game? In his mind, he must be thinking that he had won. Sometimes she did detect a crack in his smiles, just the smallest hint of something else, always as he was entering the room, the mask slipping for just a chilling instant. Whenever it happened, she was flooded with disgust, a tremble running through her as she remembered how he had humiliated her and made her feel stupid and small for loving him ardently.
On the night of her humiliation, she had promised him to be a steadier sort of woman, and so she endured and played the part, but always took note of those gaps in his armor. Those flashes of the man underneath frightened her, reminding her that he too was scheming and plotting, and the stranger beneath the smile became like a player waiting to take his mark. As Boyle entered the room, he was still not quite onstage, and then he became someone else and the grin spread wide and everyone who saw it was in his thrall, while Clemency noted only the masquerade of it all. After allshewas playing a part too.
At last, Clemency knew she would not write Audric,she would not call for a détente. She had let Boyle control her life for too long, and she would not allow Audric to do so simply because he was less odious. The revelation ought to have ended her nausea and preoccupation, but it did not. Still, with that settled, she considered writing Nora yet again, but she had already sent her a truly deranged number of letters, and it was her turn to stop and wait, impossible as it might seem.
Her brief foray into patience paid off when, not an hour later, while her mind wandered and she stared idly into a cooling cup of tea, Tansy’s maid arrived to deliver a letter on a little porcelain dish.
Clemency recognized the hand at once.
At last! At last. Word from dearest Nora at last. She still possessed the letter Mrs. Chilvers had written for her sister, for the widow had insisted it be delivered by Clemency in person. She devoured Honora’s latest letter, of course, her spirits and hopes lifting as she reached the treasure at the end of the rainbow of a message: Nora was coming to London. Clemency clung to the letter as if it were the only star left in a darkened sky.
Nora would already be on the road to her, with perhaps only a day or two until her arrival, the brief but agonizing wait made easier by the knowledge that her sister would be with them soon, and—out for the evening with Tansy, William, and Turner Boyle at Lady Veitch’s salon—Clemency kept the letter folded up in her small velvet bag, for just the nearness of it brought her immeasurable strength.I can get through this; she is coming. She will be here soon. Nora will be here soon; I can get through this.Clemency dreaded the conversation they might have about Mrs. Chilvers, but alsoHonora knew the widow better. Perhaps she might impart some much-needed advice.
The assembly at Almack’s loomed, and with no word from Audric, Clemency had to wonder if their whole plan was off and she was fawning over the dreadfulLordBoyle for nothing. She hesitantly kept faith and reminded herself that they had more than enough evidence to prove Boyle was a grasping, lying criminal, and Nora would soothe her, no matter what her advice. Her older sister always did.
The drizzle and rain persisted, a perfect mirror for Clemency’s mood as one day oozed into the next, a gray, dismal blur. She hardly heard the others in the grand salon around her as they giggled and gossiped over cards. Lady Veitch’s daughters proved surprisingly shrewd at whist and had already taken turns beating William until he was forced to retreat with Boyle to the sherry tray near a white ornamental bookcase at the back of the cavernous, soaring room.
Arabella and Adeline in their turbans and gaudy purple gowns fell to playing against each other, since nobody else in the room was their equal, not even Tansy. Well, Clemency assumed Boyle could play quite well, for what was a scheming man without a mind and eye for cards? He avoided them, however, choosing to linger hawkishly by the bookcases, idling there with a predatory energy that reminded her of Mr. Ferrand, which made her extremely cross, and so she did not look at Turner if it could be helped.
“Mrs. Fry!” Lady Veitch screamed from her customary sofa, looking regal and underplucked, with a profusion of ostrich feathers arcing up over her turban. “Entertain us at once, the quiet exacerbates the chill!”
Tansy leapt up from her place beside Clemency and wentto the pianoforte, with all the grace and dignity of a doe-eyed, scolded puppy. Her playing and singing began, and Clemency had to admit that it did somewhat improve the atmosphere.
“Now we may speak, Miss Fry, because all this evening I have detected in you what I call lover’s melancholia.”
She arched a thin silvery brow and leaned toward Clemency, heaving her significant bosoms in her direction, sending out a cascade of rose water and orange blossom fragrance.
Clemency winced inside, and remembered Honora’s fortifying letter, reaching to place her hand over the bag containing it, clutching it like a talisman against whatever was to come. It had felt like everything was crumbling until she received that letter—now she would not be alone, left to unravel the sad mess she had made of things in London. She knew it wasn’t entirely her fault; Audric had been out of line in the garden, and his demeanor frightened her. He had deserved her silence, but then, when the silence went on and on, and he did not write or call or make himself known to her at all, she realized her error.
That great and terrible silence was satisfying only until the sting of their argument wore off, and then she felt adrift, relying only on her copy of Miss Taylor’sOn Marriagefor wisdom and strength.
Her existence had become a series of interwoven sighs and would remain that way until Nora arrived, and the assembly was had, and she could return to Round Orchard a solitary but ultimatelyfreewoman. That freedom, for some reason, didn’t seem as attractive as it should. Annoying. But that would change, she assured herself, when all this business was over and it would just be her and Nora again,happily unmarried and unbothered sisters. A perfectly contented pair.
“Lover’s melancholia?” Clemency forced herself to ask.
“Mother invents all manner of silly things,” said Adeline with a titter.
“Your opinion was not requested, young lady, attend to your hand. From where I sit, you are losing!” Lady Veitch sniffed and fanned herself and turned her withering gaze once more on Clemency. “It comes upon us all, my dear, no need to fret. A bride before matrimony is necessarily consumed with the future, and that is never healthy for a woman. Our minds were meant for singular tasks, and to be split so is quite disorienting.”
Clemency wanted to tell her that she was, at that moment, split in about sixteen different directions. Instead, she smiled mildly and said, “And did you yourself suffer from this before your wedding?”
“Naturally! Naturally. Sir John was the best of men and so very sought-after, but even so, I had my doubts. A young woman yearns for freedom until she knows the gratification of submission.” She gazed around, waiting for a response, but received only Clemency’s bemused smirk and her own daughters’ giggles.
“Yet you yourself did not remarry, Your Ladyship,” Clemency pointed out cheerfully. It was a blessing Tansy could not hear her veering dangerously into cheek. “So I wonder: How gratifying can that submission be after all?”
If nothing else, needling this rich old cream puff made her feel somewhat alive again.Small miracles.
Lady Veitch narrowed her eyes. “This is the result of yourunfortunate reliance on novels, which contain all forms of frippery and fantasy. It degrades one’s sense of reality. Ah well, marital bliss awaits you soon, my dear, and all such nonsense is quashed beneath the yoke of a wife’s duties.”
“And how attractive that sounds,” Clemency murmured, standing. “Bliss, indeed! I can scarce contain my excitement. Oh, look! The rain has eased, I think I shall take advantage of your lovely balcony again, madam.”
Perhaps I will hurl myself off it for a real thrill and a merciful end to this conversation.
