by Gay, Gloria
“When am I to meet Lydia?” asked Simon. His aunt noticed the tenseness in his voice. She could tell it upset him to speak of Jalenta and Dwain.
“The meeting is set for tomorrow, my dear.
“Julia has arranged for us to arrive before the woman brings Lydia to the Sandvel’s home. We will be tucked into another room until Jalenta leaves.
“Is that not wonderful? Are you happy with your aunty?”
Simon stared at her and shook his head in wonder, still hardly able to believe his good fortune.
To see Lydia again!
“It is at that meeting that I will tell her I am your aunt, Simon, and that you are anxious to see her again.
“Will that be as you wish it to be?
“Say something,” his aunt added playfully. “Cat got your tongue?”
“It’s just—after all these years…it seems almost impossible. Of course, your plan is excellent, Aunt. I am so grateful to you, for all your help.”
“I want to continue to help you in this, Simon,” said his aunt. “How would you like me to proceed?”
“You must let Lydia know that I would like to see her again as soon as you deem it proper,” he replied.
“Finally, we will have Lydia with us, where she should have been all these years,” said his aunt, smiling broadly.
“I’m certain Jalenta is already plotting to do everything possible so that Lydia will not accept a marriage proposal during the Season, because that would take her away from them and they would cease to have their golden goose.”
“Here, read her letter,” his aunt said, handing him a missive.
Simon scanned the letter, his jaw setting dangerously as he reached the end of it.
“I agree with you entirely, Aunt,” he said, tossing the letter onto the table as if it were contaminated.
“Hopefully,” said his aunt, “Jalenta will tire of chasing around with us. The season requires a lot of energy. As you know, there are often several events in one day.”
“Don’t hold your breath on that,” Simon said grimly. “The woman is as strong as an ox.
“From what I saw at the station she has abused Lydia through the years. She pinched Lydia’s hand right in front of me, merely because Lydia had spoken to me.
He shook his head. “I’m certain Jalenta will want Lydia to have as little contact as possible with her Season’s sponsors, lest Lydia begin to disclose the criminal treatment she has received from her and her brother.
“You may be certain she will not leave Lydia alone with Lady Sandvel for even one minute.”
“Relax, my dear,” said his aunt, “the Conty woman cannot be in all places all the time. There will be many opportunities when she must retire to the ladies’ withdrawal room for a space of time and it is on just such occasions that we will be able to speak freely with Lydia.
“Do not underestimate the power of a group of ladies’ determinations.”
“We shall find out from Lydia exactly what treatment she has received at Jalenta’s hands, Simon. You can be assured of that.”
Back in his study, Simon scrapped his plans for a morning ride in Hyde Park and instead decided to spend some quiet time in his study, thinking about what his aunt had disclosed.
He stood at the tall window of his study and looked down.
He wondered if Lydia was looking at the fair blue sky of Spring and wondering at her meeting with him after all that time.
He was to see Lydia again after eight years.
The thought gave him indescribable joy as his eyes filled with tears.
Lydia had invaded his dreams more times than he could remember, even in dark lonely nights in the Peninsula when he didn’t know if he was going to be alive the next day.
He always felt he had to get back.
To find Lydia and save her from her captors.
He had failed and yet, his heart was filled with joy that Lydia had survived her awful conditions and they were to meet again.
Chapter 13
“Miss Millston,” Benicia, the upstairs maid whispered, “Miss Jalenta requires your presence in the back parlor.”
Lydia had been lost in pleasant thoughts as she glanced out her bedroom window. She replied to Benny without turning toward her. “Thank you, Benny. Tell my aunt I’ll join her shortly.”
“No, Miss Lydia,” said Benny, a fearful look in her eyes, her hand pulling at Lydia’s sleeve. “She wants you there now. Urgent!”
“Oh? all right.”
Benny looked scared. Something important was up. Lydia put the ribbon to hold the place in the book she was reading, stood up and followed the maid downstairs to the back parlor.
Lydia’s few attempts at escaping from Jalenta and Dwain had left her with more scars and bruises to add to her usual fare.
Her last attempt three months before had garnered a whipping late at night.
Dwain had held her two hands before her in a lock while Jalenta slashed at her back with a cloth-covered length of rope; the cloth was there to avoid leaving whip marks.
“So you are to have a season,” said Jalenta, as Lydia stood before her, “and a more undeserving creature for such a treat I will never come across. “I never had a London season, but you will.
“The unfairness of it is just too much to bear,” Jalenta added with a short breathless laugh that was followed by lengthy coughing.
Her words produced a shiver of awareness in Lydia.
A Season?
What was Jalenta talking about? Did the woman mean that she, Lydia, was to have a Season? How on earth could that be possible?
Where did this hope come from? How was it that her captors had allowed it? Surely such exposure would put them in danger of discovery of the treatment Lydia had endured at their hands.
All these questions tumbling in her mind would go unanswered if she even dared to voice them.
Whatever information Jalenta allowed her would not come in answer to any of Lydia’s questions.
Questions would assure her that she did not learn anything more, so she kept quiet.
“Answer me, girl!” Jalenta screamed. “Do you think you deserve a season when I had none?”
“No,” Lydia quickly replied.
“Just be certain that you know your place.”
“Sir Harold Sandvel and Lady Sandvel have backed me into a corner,” Jalenta added, waving her long bony hand toward paperwork on the table that appeared to be an important document, for it contained a crown seal.
As she spoke, Jalenta sputtered in indignation. “If it weren’t for this court order, I would ignore Sir Harold’s letter.
She sent daggers with her eyes at the paperwork on the table as she spoke, “otherwise you can be sure you wouldn’t be getting any season!
“A season! You! She repeated, an amazed look in her odd eyes. She shook her head as if she could still not believe it.
“But those two will not get the free access to you they think they will have, Lydia. All meetings with them will be with me, as your chaperone in attendance, as will all social affairs.
“Understood?”
“Yes, Aunt,” Lydia replied, for Jalenta waited for her reply.
“If they ask you about this without me present that is what you will insist on. Do. You. Un.der.stand?”
“Yes.” Lydia was jumping with joy in her mind but her beautiful face was placid, even somber. Any sign on her face that plans for a season for her made her happy would infuriate Jalenta further.
Even by the confused way in which Jalenta was speaking to her, Lydia surmised that her uncle, Sir Howard, had secured an order from the court whereby Jalenta was to surrender Lydia to her aunt and uncle for the social season.
The social season lasted twelve weeks. Twelve weeks with her Aunt and Uncle Sandvel—happiness at last!
“We’re having a meeting this morning to meet with Sir Harold and Lady Sandvel—those two meddlers who have repeatedly tried to become your guardians,” Jalenta was saying.
She cackled loudly at her past triumph. “They have never succeeded, as you well know.”
“Until now!”
Jalenta almost screamed the words. “The lies they must have told the court in order to obtain this unfair order that gives them the right to sponsor you for the entire social season, I know not. But they will not succeed, Lydia. I will make certain of it!”
“They have also obtained the right to purchase your wardrobe for the season and without any consultation to me, when it is I who am your lawful guardian!”
She shook her head and glared at Lydia, as if Lydia was responsible for the court order.
Lydia forced a blank gaze on her face. She must not let on how giddily happy the news had made her.
“And I want no opinions or suggestions from you when we are in a shop. Understood Lydia?”
“Yes, Aunt.”
“It will be enough that I will probably have to argue with that woman over your wardrobe. I do not want to argue with you in front of her, as well.
“You are to agree to anything I suggest.
“If you should embarrass me in a shop with your interference you know what the punishment will be once you are back here. Do you not?”
“Yes.” Lydia knew that punishment very well.
Chapter 14
Back in her room and as she sat on the narrow cot that was her bed, Lydia thought about what had transpired with Jalenta.
Her mind went back to him and to that wonderful afternoon when a ray of sunlight had appeared briefly in her somber life.
She had wanted to ask his last name when he handed her the flowers and they spoke briefly, but Jalenta and Dwain returned too soon and whisked her away, almost at a run.
It was by a miracle she had been able to hide the violet and rose posy, stuffing it quickly inside her faded grey cape, the rough woolen one that scratched.
Yet she had touched his hand and the memory would always be new.
She had looked deep into his eyes as he, too, had looked at hers.
She wondered if he would attend the Season. And if he did, would he still remember her?
That was highly doubtful, she thought with a long sigh. Boys of that age, about seventeen or eighteen, do not dwell too long on things. After all, almost a decade had passed.
If she ran into him and he didn’t recall her it would be natural. She must be prepared for it so that she would not suffer the immense disappointment she knew she would feel, after dreaming about him all these years.
The only joy in Lydia’s life, apart from the memory of Simon, was the large collection of books that had come with her inheritance.
The library was where she spent whatever free time she was allowed after she finished her numerous chores.
She had read more than half the books, some twice over. There were probably four thousand books in the dark-paneled room that Jalenta seldom visited.
When she discovered the library, Lydia lived in panic that the books would be sold. She read late at night when she was certain Jalenta and Dwain had retired. She would dig out the book she was presently reading and that she had hidden in the back part of her wardrobe.
She discovered that the books were very valuable when she was awarded a house in Surrey in the last will and testament of a cousin of her father.
Edgar Pentimer, her aunt’s solicitor, had informed her in the presence of Jalenta.
Jalenta had leased the house in London and moved the family to Surrey to oversee the repairs the house needed before it could be leased.
A new teacher was hired in Surrey to continue Lydia in her studies. Pentimer had pressed on Jalenta that Lydia’s education was one of the main orders in the will.
Jalenta had to notify Lydia’s trustee so that he would take care of the transfer of their belongings and the leasing of the London house. The London house was to be leased furnished, as the house in Surrey was entirely furnished.
Lydia had heard Jalenta as she admonished the men who were packing the books to do the packing with care and took turns with Lydia and one of the maids so that someone was always with the two men while they packed the crates with the books.
Lydia had sighed in relief when she heard Jalenta telling Dwain that the books must be kept clean and dusted. The books would never be sold, she said, for they increased in value as the years went by.
Lydia also heard her say to Dwain that she could not understand why people would want to read books such as the life of that strumpet, Helen of Troy.
The house Lydia had inherited from a cousin of her father’s was furnished except for the library. The book collection fitted nicely in the empty shelves when they moved temporarily to the larger and more modern house in Surrey. But although newer, the house was in disrepair and needed the repairs done before it could be leased. The inheritance had included an amount of monies that was to be used exclusively for that purpose.
Jalenta glanced now and then at the book covers when encountering Lydia as Lydia dusted the books, but she never opened any of the books.
The only good thing Jalenta had done for Lydia was to have a lock installed in Lydia’s bedroom door after the incident with Dwain, and in the presence of Dwain, had advised her to lock her room at night. Jalenta had done the same thing to the bedroom Lydia was assigned in the house in Surrey.
Lydia came back from her musings and listened in the upstairs hallway for any sound from below and when she was certain no one was coming up the stairs she locked her room carefully, making sure the key made no sound as she turned it and then went to her wardrobe.
From the back of the wardrobe she brought out a small box. She took off the lid and within was the little posy with its rosebuds and violets that had faded in time.
She took it out of the box with the utmost care and put it to her face even though she knew that for years the faint scent of violets and roses had become only an imagined one.
Her mind went back to him as it had done countless times and to that scene at the station. Tears slid down her cheeks as an awful thought stole into her mind, that if she ran into him, he might not recognize her.
Eight years was a long time. Could he have married by now?
How had his life evolved during the years since she had first seen him?
He was about seventeen or eighteen then. At that age he would have gone to one of the preparatory schools such as Eton that the gentry and aristocracy sent their sons to and after that, University. Had he gone to war? Whenever she had procured a newspaper tossed into the ashcan by Jalenta, she had scanned the section of war news, hoping by chance to see him mentioned, for he was never mentioned in the gossip columns.
What mountain of experiences separated her from him and how was she to overcome it if they ever ran again into each other?
Chapter 15
Her thoughts went to their long-ago meeting.
As soon as the house had settled, Lydia had taken out a piece of paper and made a drawing of him, while his features were still fresh in her mind.
The likeness of him was the next best thing to seeing him in person, so much it resembled him.
She had a talent for drawing which she kept from Jalenta and Dwain, knowing it would only invite derision.
Her talent had served her well at the time, in recalling his features to such a degree that when she finished the drawing she sighed deeply.
She had placed the drawing in the secret place deep inside her wardrobe where she also hid the drawings of her parents and her Aunt and Uncle Sandvel.
His likeness was so good that it brought him back to her instantly and she sighed in remembrance of the few minutes she had shared with him.
In the years that had followed her parents’ deaths, she had not felt any warmth from anyone.
Even the servants knew better than to display any interest in her, for they would be dismissed without a character.
For many years she lived in a vacuum, as alone as if she were a prisoner in a cell. Any time that she had inte
nded escape she had been punished dearly for it, but it was the isolation from people that she felt more deeply than the scars from the punishments.
Not allowed even the most superficial contact with any person was the worst thing in her life. She often went to bed with her own tears putting her to sleep.
Any maid that made conversation with Lydia was promptly dismissed the minute Jalenta noticed it.
So when Simon had reached out to her and given her the posy, it was as if he had handed a glass of cool fresh water to a girl dying of thirst.
Eighteen years plus eight. Was twenty-six or seven too young for him to be already wed? She hoped so.
The thought that he might be married sent a sick wave through her stomach.
Then she chided herself. What chance did she have of ever seeing him again? The only chance would be if he attended the social season this year when she was to attend it.
But not all the families made the trek to London for the season. Only those who had sons and daughters of marriageable age and were anxious to have them wed went to the expense a Season in London required.
And if by some miracle he attended and she did see him, would he have forgotten the incident at the station?
After all, they had spoken only for a few minutes before Jalenta had rushed back to her.
His question to her about her full name had gone unanswered, for Jalenta had arrived in that very instant and pulled Lydia away, yelling at him.
But she had touched his hand.
The moment when their eyes had locked for a few seconds meant a lot to Lydia and she had hung onto it for years.
But she had to admit that he had probably forgotten her, as if it had never happened.
She chased away such thoughts. If it happened it happened. But meanwhile she could dream that it would be otherwise. She should not torture herself with imagined rejection.
She was to go to balls and recitals and the other things that a season entailed. She must look forward to meeting him in his world, the world of her parents that had been denied to her when she lost them. But she should be prepared for two possible horrible occurrences: