The Sisterhood

by Penelope Friday

  “Come upstairs to my room,” the stranger invited. “No, James, I do not need you to lead the way,” she added to the butler. “Just down this corridor.”

  She preceded Charity into a small sitting room, prettily decorated in light colours, with furniture picked out in wheat-brown. It was not big enough for more than two or three people, at most, but the aspect allowed the afternoon sun to flood into the room, and Charity involuntarily smiled at this simple, yet anything but plain, room.

  “You like it?” Miss Greenaway asked. “But I can tell from your face you do. Which, of course, gives me the highest opinion of your good taste, since the decoration is my own.” Her voice was light and almost teasing. But she sobered almost immediately as her gaze fixed on Charity. “Wouldn’t you like to wash your face and hands? I can call a maid to bring some water.”

  “That would be wonderful. Thank you.”

  Now she was inside the smart residence, Charity was more than ever aware of her dishabille. A face puffy and tear-streaked. Filthy, blood-stained hands. A ripped petticoat that would insist on showing beneath the hem of her wet and exceedingly dirty dress. Miss Greenaway opened a door that Charity had not noticed, on the side wall.

  “It leads to my bedroom,” she explained. “Convenient, is it not? But if you would like to come through, I will ask my maid to bring you clean water, and you can…” She hesitated, looking for the right word. “Rearrange yourself, shall we say?”

  “You are very kind.”

  Charity went through the door into Miss Greenaway’s elegant bedchamber. It was perhaps four times the size of Charity’s own, and once more Charity felt overawed. No wonder the coachman had seemed so disapproving: what had an oversized, grubby woman to do with this sort of beauty? The maid knocked timidly on the second door, which must have led straight out to the corridor.

  “Come in.”

  The maid, to her credit, did not even look, to Charity’s surprise, and her tone was as respectful as it might have been for Miss Greenaway herself.

  “Fresh water for you, ma’am. And please to be ringing the bell”—the maid indicated a little hand bell by the bedside—“if you need anything else.”

  Charity looked at the bell with some surprise. Surely its sound would not pierce to the servants’ quarters? Or would the maid be standing outside all the while, waiting to do her bidding? It felt like a different world. Charity had noticed immediately the difference between Mr Fotheringay’s lifestyle and their own, but this was another step up. She was so out of place here that it was hard to fathom it.

  “Thank you,” she said at last, realising that the maid was waiting to be dismissed. “It’s very kind of you.”

  The maid blushed, as if being thanked for her job was an embarrassment. “I can put a stitch in that petticoat, ma’am, if you wish?”

  “I’d be very grateful.”

  The maid produced a needle and thread unexpectedly from her pinafore pocket and knelt at Charity’s feet. It took not more than a few minutes for her to mend the rent, and Charity could see at once the improvement in her own attire that this attention had effected.

  “Thank you,” she said again.

  “Please ring if you want anything, ma’am,” the maid repeated. She dropped a curtsey and within a moment was gone, leaving Charity to do what she could with the rest of her dress to regain some level of decency.

  Ten minutes later, clean and somewhat more respectable, she slipped back through the door to where Miss Greenaway sat in the pretty sitting room drinking tea. Miss Greenaway looked up with a radiant smile as Charity entered, and Charity felt a curious sensation within her, as if something had happened to her stomach—or was it her heart?

  “I…” She stumbled over her words and began again. “I left the water next door. I wasn’t sure whether to call the maid back.” There were so many things she might have said, she thought the moment she had finished speaking. What had made her make such a foolish comment? “I’m afraid it’s rather dirty.”

  “It is dirty, but you are not,” Miss Greenaway replied lightly. “Which is an improvement all around, if you will forgive me saying so. Now, do you care to talk about it, or should we retain the great English tradition and discuss the weather? Awfully fine for the time of year, is it not?”

  “Yes.” Charity was not sure whether it was or not: compared to Warwickshire, the temperature had been warm for November, but perhaps it was always thus in London. “I’m very grateful,” she added.

  Miss Greenaway lifted an eyebrow. “For the fine weather?” She took pity on Charity’s discomfiture. “You are welcome. I have always wished to rescue a damsel in distress, and I took the first chance I was given. Now, sit down and have a cup of tea with me, and tell me, don’t I know you? I’m sure you look familiar. We must have met. At Almack’s, perhaps?”

  Charity sat down nervously on the edge of the chair, worried that she would dirty the furniture. For all her efforts, nothing could make her look anything better than a little dishevelled, even with the beautiful stitches the maid had put into her torn petticoat. She doubted she would ever wear the dress again, both because of its damaged state and also for the memories it would always conjure. Mr Fotheringay’s hands grasping at her. His brandy-fuelled breath against her skin.

  “I’ve never been to Almack’s,” she said honestly. “I’m afraid I’m not quite important enough. But I’ve seen you at other places.” She remembered that first occasion, when Miss Greenaway had been a vision in pale blue silk—when Miss Musgrove had fooled her into believing that she had met someone who sympathised with her. “Lady Axondale’s ball, near the beginning of the Season. And a few months ago, the picnic.” She forced a smile. “The weather has, after all, been fine.”

  “I thought I would pour it myself,” Miss Greenaway said, referring to the tea. She matched the action to the words and filled a tea cup. “I hope you don’t mind.”

  “Not at all.” Suddenly Charity was overcome with the fact that she was face to face with the lady she had been admiring from afar. Comprehending the state she must have looked fifteen minutes earlier, she found herself almost tongue-tied. “Thank you,” she added, as Miss Greenaway passed the beverage to her.

  “My pleasure. Now, tell me.” Miss Greenaway leaned forward in her seat. “Am I truly not allowed to ask questions? Must you remain veiled in mystery?”

  Charity, who had just lifted the cup to her mouth, choked at this open approach and spilled tea down her already stained dress. “Oh, I’m sorry!” she exclaimed, trying to wipe with her sleeve the droplets that had fallen on the chair.

  “I’m the one who should apologise. Forgive me.” Miss Greenaway’s eyes twinkled merrily. “I am terribly spoilt, you know. Always used to getting my way. It makes me prone to ask the questions I shouldn’t. Is this to be the one occasion I must learn my place?”

  Charity looked at her, trying to imagine Miss Greenaway caught in the sort of situation that had happened to Charity. She would have found some way, some polite and amusing way, out of the scenario. She would not have needed to make threats, and then to run away.

  “It’s difficult to explain,” she said. “I—I…” She trailed off.

  “Shall I tell you a little about me, whilst you drink your tea?” her new friend asked. “I would not like you to think that the confidences are all to be on one side. After all, I am convinced—are not you?—that we are destined to be great friends.”

  “I’m not sure I’m a suitable friend for someone like you.” Charity took a sip of her tea, and then another, noticing all at once how thirsty she was.

  Miss Greenaway laughed. “And I’m not sure that I am for you! So we share that, do we not? But now, about me…” She sat back and turned her reticule over and over in her hands. “What should I say? You know, after all, where I live. And I live with my dearest esteemed Mama, Lady Greenaway. Alas,” she added, pouting, “the title is not heritable. I am a plain ‘miss’.”

  “I do not think you are
plain,” Charity said, blushing a little, “even if you are a ‘miss’.”

  “You are well on your way to spoiling me, just like everyone else,” Miss Greenaway rebuked, clearly amused. “Mama is, unfortunately, a sad invalid. I am usually chaperoned to events by other people. Lady Carolina Farrell, for example. I expect you know her?”

  “By reputation.” Charity nodded. “She is a distinguished lady.”

  “Oh, that too,” agreed Miss Greenaway. “My father, God rest him, died four years ago. Mother hardly survived the shock, but I pulled her round. I told her I needed her far too much to allow her to leave me orphaned and alone. It did the trick.”

  “My father died a couple of years ago too,” Charity said. “Though I do not think my mother missed him so much as the house we lived in.” She put her hand to her mouth. “I should not have said that.”

  “There is no room for ‘should nots’ between us, Miss Bellingham. So, you live with your mother, like I?”

  “N-no.” Miss Greenaway was treading on dangerous ground here, did she but know it. “I live with my sister and her husband. My mother, too, is…” But Charity stopped. She could not truthfully claim that her mother was an invalid, however much Mother herself would have insisted it. “She is in Bath, taking the waters,” she said at last.

  Miss Greenaway sipped the last of her tea, and looked at Charity thoughtfully. “And you get on with your sister? I never had a sister. Nor a brother, even.” She shook her head sadly. “I expect that is why I am so terribly spoilt, you know.”

  “Rebecca is lovely.” Charity thought of her gentle older sister. “I don’t think anyone could dislike her.”

  “Nor her husband?” Miss Greenaway asked. It was a sharp, incisive question, albeit hidden by the lady’s confiding demeanour.

  “I…” Charity felt as if someone had unexpectedly lodged a large stone in her gullet. “I…” She looked around the room for anything that might help her. If she had only been the sort of lady who fainted, she thought, this would have been the perfect moment for such an escape. “It was very good of him to allow me to live with him,” she said.

  “Perhaps.” Miss Greenaway changed the subject. “Have you finished your tea? Can I offer you some more? Though,” she added, “it will be terribly cold and strong by this time.”

  “I am fine, thank you.”

  “It is he who is causing you distress, is it not?” she said conversationally. “The husband.”

  “Yes,” admitted Charity guiltily. “He…said things.” She could bring herself to be no more specific.

  “Indeed? Well, that is very bad.” Miss Greenaway was keeping her tone very light—to reassure her, Charity thought. “Just words?” she added. Was Miss Greenaway a mind reader? Charity thought in panic. How could she tell? Was there something about Charity that made everything clear? “Forgive me,” Miss Greenaway said. “It is none of my business. How came you to be outside?”

  “I ran away.”

  “What do you do next, if that is not too impertinent of me?”

  “I must go back,” Charity whispered, the fact suddenly registering.

  Nothing had been solved. Nothing had changed, she recognised, everything flooding back to her. Meeting Miss Greenaway, chatting with her—for a moment or two she had half-forgotten the situation she found herself in. But now, facing it again, she felt a large lump in her throat. For a second or two she thought she might cry, humiliating herself further. Before the tears could fall, however, Miss Greenaway spoke again.

  “You must,” she said slowly. “But not for long. Surely you could write to your mother? If she knew how much distress you are in, she would help, would she not?”

  Charity felt her cheeks warm. How could she explain the cool relationship between herself and Mrs Bellingham to this beautiful lady with a mother she clearly adored, a mother who loved her back with equal fondness?

  “I think…that is, I mean…She has a busy life of her own.” The stumbling response made Miss Greenaway look at her sharply, and she blushed more deeply still.

  “Perhaps she does, but in circumstances like these…?” Miss Greenaway let the question hang, delicately, in the air. When Charity did not respond, she went on. “Even the coldest parent would warm to her daughter’s deep unhappiness. If you explained the circumstances, she could do nothing else but help.”

  Charity was silent for a moment longer. Perhaps Miss Greenaway spoke correctly. Charity had never needed her mother—not in any practical fashion. This was different. This was an emergency. Perhaps even Mrs Bellingham might be roused to some display of maternity in Charity’s hour of need.

  “I don’t know,” she said waveringly.

  Miss Greenaway smiled. “But I do. Believe me, no one could turn you down in this state, least of all a mother. Forgive me my outspokenness, but I think usually you are extremely self-possessed. Have you ever truly asked your mother for help?”

  Charity could not deny that to some extent she too had been responsible for the coldness between herself and her mother. If Mrs Bellingham had not tried hard to be a loving mother, neither had Charity, certainly in recent years, made any attempts to be a docile and loving daughter. It had been Rebecca who filled that role, and Mrs Bellingham had been considerably kinder to her older daughter.

  “Perhaps you are right.” For the first time since her escape, she suddenly felt a load lifted, as if a stone which had lodged in her gullet had been dislodged. “Yes. I should write.”

  “And meantime, I believe I could help, just a little,” Miss Greenaway said tentatively, as if trying not to over step Charity’s boundaries.

  Charity looked up at her acquaintance in surprise at this comment. “You?” she asked, startled. She bit her lip, suddenly realising how impolite she had been. “I mean…I…”

  Miss Greenaway laughed. “It is not so strange. From what I have heard from you, it seems as if you are in some trouble at home. I do not ask for details. You really should be praising my restraint! But I believe that you are not…” She cut off suddenly, and Charity stared. “You will permit me to be blunt?”

  “Of course,” Charity said, honestly bewildered.

  “I think that thus far, the circles you have socialised within have been, forgive me, perhaps not of the top echelon. You are clearly a lady, but…not Almack’s, you said.” A smile danced at the corner of Miss Greenaway’s mouth, and Charity almost caught her breath at how beautiful her new acquaintance was. “I, on the other hand, am quite well known. My mother and I are both rich and well connected,” she said simply.

  “Indeed.” Charity was unsure where this conversation was leading, but she was willing to follow in Miss Greenaway’s footsteps, wherever it was she led.

  “If it were known that you were…a friend of mine, you too would be very well connected.”

  For a moment, Charity wondered wildly whether Miss Greenaway was offering to speak to the patronesses of Almack’s, to get her an entrance ticket. But how could that possibly help with Charity’s situation?

  “If you would allow me to convey you back to your house, I think you might find that your reputation within that building would improve,” Miss Greenaway said delicately. “Persons unknown and unmentioned might be less inclined to distress a lady with such important friends, shall we say?” She laughed gaily. “Ridiculous, of course, that such things matter so much, but there is no denying that matter they do. Do you see my point?”

  “Ye-es,” Charity said slowly.

  She thought of Fotheringay, who was undoubtedly rich, and equally undoubtedly less than a perfect gentleman. It had been his money, not his connections, which had convinced Mrs Bellingham that he was a good match for her older daughter. Nevertheless, he certainly would like to move in more exalted circles, and would not wish his name to be attached to any scandal. If Charity were seen with Miss Greenaway, it might hold Fotheringay at bay until her mother could rescue her.

  “Do you like the plan?” Miss Greenaway asked.

&
nbsp; “Yes.” Charity looked at her protector. “I do not know why you should go to such trouble for me, but I am more grateful than I can possibly say.”

  “Fiddlesticks!” Miss Greenaway shook her head, smiling. “Why should I not?”

  Charity could think of a dozen reasons, but she had no wish to share them with Miss Greenaway.

  “I am exceedingly grateful,” she repeated.

  “Excellent.” Miss Greenaway stood. “Let us make arrangements to take you home,” she said, holding out her hand to Charity so that Charity had to stand in order to take it. “You must, of course, also visit me tomorrow to tell me how well our plan unfolded. I should be available for a morning visit, and I hold you entirely responsible for ensuring that you come. Do we have an agreement?”

  “We do indeed.”

  “Then let me go and speak to Victor. Wait here. I will not be long.”

  Charity watched as Miss Greenaway left the room with her brisk, almost dance-like motion. Part of her found it hard to believe what was happening: the day seemed like a dream. At first, it had been a nightmare, but then she had magically been rescued, and not by a knight in shining armour, but by a lady, beautiful, rich and generous. Could this really be true?

  She stared around the room, trying to remember every detail of it. Although Miss Greenaway had given an invitation—or possibly an order!—to Charity to come round the next day, Charity could hardly accept that she would ever see this beautiful room again, ever speak with her heroine. Her eyes took in the light green carpet; the way the sun shone through windows so polished that they seemed barely to exist; the furniture’s understated elegance. It was luxury, but luxury which felt no need to shout about its province. Mr Fotheringay’s house had expensive furniture too, but it was chosen to demonstrate it. It seemed boastful and brash compared to Miss Greenaway’s delicate room.

  Miss Greenaway came back.

  “That is settled. Victor will bring the coach round. I realised that I did not know where you live. Is it far from here?”