Shy Rebecca recoiled at the thought of accosting a stranger. “Oh, goodness, Charity! Will she not be terribly busy with other people?”
“I’m not sure,” Charity said slowly. “I fear she may not be, which is why I would like to speak to her. You must have noticed that not all those present welcomed her.”
“No.” Rebecca looked concerned. “That surprised me. I thought—the meeting being what it was—that the lady would be an honoured guest. I don’t quite understand…”
“The difference between the theoretical and the actual,” Charity said absently, still looking about the room. “There’s Nan. She may be able to introduce me. Are you sure you will not come?”
“Quite sure, thank you,” Rebecca said firmly. “I will wait here for you.”
Charity nodded, and moved briskly across the room to speak to her friend. “Nan!”
Nan turned. “Charity. What did you think of the meeting?”
“I liked your second speaker greatly,” Charity said. “I was wondering whether I might be introduced. Do you know her?”
“Miss Leigh?” Nan smiled. “I certainly do. She is a friend of my parents. Or a friendly acquaintance, at any rate. Come with me.” She led Charity over to the other lady. “Miss Leigh, may I introduce my friend, Miss Charity Bellingham?”
“A pleasure to make your acquaintance,” Miss Leigh said.
Charity felt suddenly shy, unsure what to say.
“Thank you for your speech,” she said tentatively.
Logically, she knew that talking to Miss Leigh should be just like talking to anyone else, yet somehow the colour of Miss Leigh’s skin did matter, making Charity feel self-conscious in a way she would not have done if she had been talking to a white-skinned lady. She could see in Miss Leigh’s face that her new acquaintance was reading her thoughts accurately, which embarrassed her further. Nan had moved away, to speak to someone else, leaving Charity and Miss Leigh alone.
“It is good of you to speak to me,” Miss Leigh said.
Charity frowned. “No, that it is not,” she said, suddenly vehement. “Are we not both ladies, both people?”
Miss Leigh’s eyes twinkled. “Now, that,” she said, “is indeed the question. Many of the people in this room are not quite sure about the answer to that. Am I, indeed, a person such as yourself? Or does the colour of my skin bar me from being quite the same?”
“I feel as if I should apologise for them,” Charity admitted. “Yet I cannot help but be aware—forgive me—of…of…”
“The fact that I am Black?” Miss Leigh smiled. “I would not trust someone who claimed not to notice. But when ladies such as yourself make the effort to speak to me, perhaps to get to know me and realise that I am not so very different after all, why, sometimes I begin to have hopes for this world after all. It has been a pleasure speaking with you, Miss Bellingham. I hope we meet again.”
“I too,” said Charity. She curtsied and left.
“What was she like?” Rebecca asked, when Charity returned to her.
“She was very pleasant,” Charity said, thoughtfully. “I never thought before to be grateful for the colour of my skin.”
And as Rebecca and Charity waited for the carriage to take them home, they were both silent.
Charity wondered later what it had been that Rebecca had been about to say to her when Miss Leigh began speaking. She had not long to wait to find out. The two ladies had gathered in the drawing room the next day to perform their various pursuits in mutual silence. Charity knew she had been neglecting her piano of late and was determined to put in a good hour’s practice, whilst Rebecca was knitting something small and white and fluffy. Scales and exercises took half an hour, and then Charity turned to some pieces, revelling in the magic of Haydn and Beethoven before turning to lighter dance tunes—Scotch and Irish airs, a folk song or two. An hour and a half later, she finished the final piece with a flourish, then carefully lowered the lid on the piano.
“There. That will do for today.”
“I wish I could play like you,” Rebecca said, finishing her row of knitting and holding the piece up to the light to examine it.
“It’s just practice.” Charity was always embarrassed by compliments, no matter the giver.
She stood up and walked over to look out of the window over the busy street. London was always busy, always full of life. Some parts—such as the area where Isobelle lived—were quieter. But even there, it was only as if the city was holding its breath, ready to exhale with a long sigh of noise and action elsewhere.
“Perhaps I wish I had the patience to practice, then,” Rebecca said. Changing the subject, she added, “Do you see Miss Greenaway today?”
Charity started, wondering whether Rebecca had been reading her mind in order to mention Isobelle right now. Then common sense kicked in, and she realised that she almost always was thinking about Isobelle.
“Yes. We’re going to the concert at St Bartholemew’s Church Hall.” St Bartholemew’s was a medium-sized church, not anything large and important, but it happened to be the nearest church to Lady Caroline’s home. She had thus taken it under her wing as a “project”, persuading far more talented musicians to play there than might otherwise have been the case. Charity smiled at her sister. “Isobelle asked if you would like to come, but I thought you probably would not.”
“I do like music,” Rebecca defended herself, “but I always feel a little out of place at concerts. Everyone says such clever things, and I don’t know what they mean.”
Charity laughed. “Nor do half of them, in my experience. Thankfully, Isobelle isn’t like that. She knows what she’s talking about.”
“You like her a lot,” Rebecca said again.
Charity swung round to look at her sister, a funny feeling in her throat. She had been wanting to speak to Rebecca about Isobelle for some time now, yet fearing to do so. How would Rebecca take the news that Charity wanted to impart? But Rebecca’s words seemed almost set up to encourage Charity to speak. Taking a deep breath, she did so.
“You said that before. But it’s worse than that, Becca. I’m in love with her.”
She waited on tenterhooks for her sister to reply. Was she to be condemned, rejected? Charity could not believe that Rebecca would forbid her the house, but might not Charity’s confession drive a wedge between the two sisters that time could not heal? And yet…was it not true that living with this secret between them formed a wedge of its own, even if Rebecca was unaware of it?
A little crease appeared between Rebecca’s eyes, and she ceased her sewing. “But she’s a lady,” she said, looking up at Charity.
“I’d noticed,” Charity said dryly.
“Does she know how you feel?”
“I hope so! I should perhaps have said that we’re in love.”
“But two ladies. It’s unnatural.”
“And being sold into marriage with a drunken sot more than twice your age isn’t?” Charity snapped, her nerves getting the better of her. She had always a tendency to hit out when upset, and when Isobelle was so precious to her, it was hard to hear their love described as ‘unnatural’.
Rebecca winced, looking back down at her embroidery as if it were the most interesting thing she had ever seen. But Charity knew there were tears in her eyes. Impulsively, she ran over to her sister and sank onto her knees on the floor beside her. “I’m sorry. That was unkind.” She reached up to wipe away Rebecca’s tears with her thumbs.
Rebecca rubbed her eyes a little and sniffed, trying to compose herself. Then, bravely, she tried again. “But can it really be true? You…and Miss Greenaway? It does seem—” She caught herself up short and reached out to take Charity’s hands in her own. “I don’t mean to hurt you, Charity.”
“Whereas I aimed to hurt,” Charity said ruefully. “I’m sorry, Becca.” She hesitated and then braved going on, turning away from her sister, fearing what Rebecca’s response might be. “If you have to know, Isobelle saved my life.” She gave a little laugh. “T
hat sounds melodramatic, doesn’t it? But that’s what it felt like.”
She had not heard her sister get up, but felt Rebecca’s light touch on her arm. “Forgive me. I did not mean to be unkind,” Rebecca repeated. “But…she saved your life?”
Charity turned to face her sister. “You never asked me why I wrote to Mother, why I wanted to move to Bath.” She had been shocked at the time by Rebecca’s lack of response to that explosive letter. It made no sense, even now.
Rebecca brushed the front of her dress with her fingers, as if trying to remove invisible specks of dust. “No,” she said, her eyes meeting Charity’s. “I never did.” Her hand had stopped, resting gently on her stomach. It was a gesture Charity had seen before, in other ladies, but never in her sister.
“Becca!” Rebecca’s gaze dipped for a second before she glanced back at Charity. “You are, aren’t you?” Charity said slowly. “Expecting.”
“In about fourteen weeks, I think.”
“And Fotheringay. Does he know?”
“Of course.” Rebecca smiled ruefully. “‘For better, for worse’. He is my husband.”
“And will be the father of your child,” Charity said softly.
“That too. So no, Charity I did not ask. Perhaps I was cowardly, but I did not wish to know the answer.”
“You knew about this even then?”
“Yes. Not for sure, but I knew.”
Rebecca turned away, bending to pull the cushion covers straight on the seat where she had earlier been sitting, and then to smooth a humped corner of the Oriental rug.
“Should you do that in your state of health?”
“Darling, I’m expecting a child, not dying!” Rebecca retorted. “At least, I hope.”
Charity said nothing. It had been only six weeks since shockwaves had gone round the polite world after the unexpected death of Lady McFadden. It had been the lady’s third baby, and—as far as anyone knew—she had had no problems with her earlier lying-ins. Nor had she been particularly old, still in her early twenties. Of course, it was not unusual for women to die in childbirth, but nonetheless the news had caught the ton by surprise.
“I’ll be fine,” Rebecca asserted, and Charity mentally shook herself. It was Rebecca who was pregnant, and yet Charity’s sister was still trying to reassure her.
“Of course you will!”
Rebecca laughed suddenly. “Goodness, we seem to have strayed far from the original subject. ‘Grasshopper minds’, father would have called us.”
Charity had never experienced her father calling her anything but her given name. There had been, too, something in the way that he pronounced it that had always make the original meaning of the word spring to mind. She tried to compose her face into an appropriate expression, but Rebecca must have seen the struggle, for her laughter faded. Serious now, she said: “Anyway, Charity, if you are happy, then I am happy.” She paused for a second before continuing. “I think perhaps you have not had all that much happiness in your life, dear.”
“And you?” Charity asked.
Rebecca gave a little sigh. “I am content.”
“Really?”
“Really.” She smoothed her hand across her belly once more. “The little one will be here soon enough. I have always wanted children, you know. Perhaps this is not…what I dreamed of. But not many people get that. Really and honestly, I am content.”
“And I am happier than I ever thought I could be.” Despite her worries about her sister, Charity could not keep the joy from her voice. Isobelle. Isobelle. Even thinking her name filled Charity with happiness.
“Then I am glad.”
Charity remembered this conversation that night, as she was lying in bed. Her thoughts, as always, had started with Isobelle, but she had quickly passed on to thinking about Rebecca and what her sister had said. Rebecca had known, then—or guessed—what had caused Charity such distress. Known something of what her husband had done. Charity remembered the time when Rebecca had been unwell. Her whispered admission that she did not want to get better, and the implication that some of her womanly duties were unwelcome—or worse. Charity thought of the way that, after their mother’s letter, Rebecca had made more excuses to spend time with her sister: Charity had thought that she was just trying to make Charity feel wanted, but perhaps it had been more about protecting Charity. Fotheringay could hardly accost his wife’s sister in front of his wife.
Should Rebecca have spoken? It was pointless to wonder how things might have changed. But Rebecca, so retiring, so quiet, so newly pregnant… It would have been impossible for her to speak out. Instead, her sister had given wordless support: delicate, tactful and kind. All the things her sister was, Charity thought ruefully, and she was not. Perhaps she should even be grateful to Fotheringay, improbable though that might seem. For it was due to him, to his attack, that she had met Isobelle.
Chapter Twenty
“God be damned!” Fotheringay had slit open a letter as they sat at the breakfast table six weeks later and was looking at it with an expression of deep disgust.
“Thomas!” Rebecca exclaimed, genuinely shocked.
Charity continued eating placidly. Since “The Day”, she and Fotheringay had preserved a hostile truce, neither of them acknowledging the other’s existence save when absolutely necessary.
“This damned—dashed letter. It’s from Monroe. Trouble on the plantation, he says. I pay him for there not to be trouble. And I pay him enough lucre as it is. Trouble indeed!”
“Oh dear,” said his wife, a comment so mild that Fotheringay smacked the letter down in indignation.
“Oh dear? It’s more than that. Do you think your precious mother would have been so keen for me to wed you if my plantation hadn’t been doing so well?”
Charity lifted her eyes to give him a steely glare, but for her sister’s sake kept her silence. Rebecca, too, was quiet. Fotheringay gave a grunt and forked the last piece of ham into his mouth, masticating thoroughly before swallowing it. Less brusquely, he said, “You don’t want the carriage today, do you? With the curricle with the wheelsmith, I’ll have to take it to see Sanders, m’financial advisor, you know.”
“I was thinking of—”
Fotheringay cut her off. “Well, don’t.” He stood up. “I’ll be gone, don’t know when I’ll return. You can have a quiet day. It will do you good.”
“Yes Thomas.”
Charity knew, and she knew that Rebecca knew, that this apparent concern for his wife’s well-being was merely a sop thrown to back up his argument. As he left the room, Charity said in an undertone, “Or you could just leave and not return. That would do her good.”
Rebecca smiled across the table at her sister. “He’ll hear you one day,” she said chidingly, but she did not either look or sound cross.
“If it were not for you, I would hope he did!”
“I know. And I am grateful. I must live with him, and I would prefer to do so as peacefully as I can. As peaceful as life can be, in the circumstances.”
“Should I have tried harder to dissuade you from marrying him?”
Rebecca sighed. “No. I would not have had the courage, and would have felt worse about it. Besides”—she stroked her protruding belly, and Charity wondered how she could possibly not have realised earlier that her sister was pregnant—“I believe I was made for marriage and children. Few people, I think, get precisely what we want. We are all required to make do.”
“That’s very philosophical. A lot easier to say than to feel, I imagine.”
“Oh, for a certainty! Do you think I do not resent my fate sometimes? But what good would it do to fixate on that? Fotheringay is my husband, and I must make the best of him. But I confess,” Rebecca added ruefully, “that I prefer it when he is absent!”
“Then here is to his absence!” Charity said, raising a tea cup in mock salute.
When Fotheringay returned, late that afternoon, his mood was worse. The two ladies looked at each other and asked no que
stions. Over the evening meal, Fotheringay brought the subject up himself.
“Sanders hasn’t been happy with Monroe for a while. Won’t go into the details—don’t want to confuse your pretty head with things, m’darling—but long story short, looks like I’m going to have to take a trip out there to the plantation and see what’s going on.”
“A trip?” Rebecca faltered. “Isn’t it a very long way?”
“The Indies, yes. No help for it, though, it seems. Of course, I’m not going till I’ve seen my son born. First things first, and all that.”
Charity felt herself bristling at that “my son”. Presumably if there was a way of telling that the baby would be a girl, he’d be straight off before the birth. Or maybe not, she reconsidered. After all, that would leave them still in need, as gentlemen seemed to think it, of a son. A remedy for which could not be implemented until after the first child was born.
“I see. H-how long would you be away for?”
Fotheringay shrugged. “A year. Perhaps more.”
“A year?”
Charity looked over at her sister, having heard clearly the panic in her voice. She might not enjoy Fotheringay’s presence, but the thought of having him on the far side of the world was a frightening one. Rebecca had always had someone to lean on: first her mother, now Fotheringay. Charity had no doubt that her sister could cope without them, but it was understandable that she should be concerned, especially as she was shortly to become a mother as well.
“Can’t just nip over there on a day trip, Rebecca,” Fotheringay said sternly. “It’s a damnable business all round.”
“I know. It’s just…a year? It seems such a long time.”
Longer than Rebecca and Fotheringay had been married, Charity realised. No wonder that it had shaken her sister. For herself, it seemed marvellous—far too good to be true. Could they really get rid of Fotheringay for an entire year? Fotheringay and Rebecca were still talking, discussing the proposed venture in detail. Charity rose.
“Would you mind if I left the table, Rebecca?” she asked, following her usual pattern of ignoring Fotheringay entirely.
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