Without a Summer

by Mary Robinette Kowal

  “You cannot—” Melody set her fork down on her plate and bit her lower lip with distress. “Jane, are you going to work today?”

  “Yes, as soon as we finish breakfast.”

  “Oh.” The note of disappointment in her voice was not successfully masked, but Melody did not say anything else.

  Vincent reached past her for a slice of toast. “Are you expecting anyone in particular?”

  “I—well, yes.” Melody pushed her fork around with one finger. “It is just … I mean … I do know that you have to work. Only. Only, after the dance last night … you see?”

  Jane set her plate down on the table, trying to follow Melody’s broken explanation. “I am afraid I do not quite take your meaning.”

  “It is just…” Melody looked miserable. “I do understand that you have work to do.”

  Vincent cleared his throat. “It is often common for a young gentleman to call upon a lady with whom he danced on the morning following.”

  “Ah.” Jane studied her sister, who in turn studied her plate. Growing up, Jane had rarely danced. There had been frequent dances in their neighbourhood, but once she had realised that no one would ask her to stand up except by necessity, she had offered to play the pianoforte instead. It had given her some relief to make it a decision to not dance, rather than a consequence of being plain and awkward. By the time Melody was Out, Jane had become so fixed in her place that she had not noticed this social nicety at play.

  “I see.” Jane smoothed out her serviette and laid it in her lap. “And you cannot receive these gentlemen without a chaperon.”

  Melody nodded. “But I do not want to be a bother. They may leave their cards. And perhaps Sir Prescott will call with Mr. Colgrove. That would be all right, would it not? As they are cousins?”

  Jane looked across the table at Vincent, who met her gaze with a disappointment as clear as Melody’s. He bit his lower lip and idled with his knife. Inclining his head a little toward Melody, he nodded.

  Jane sighed. She wanted to go with him. Oh, how she wanted to go and work. Her fingers fairly itched with the urge to pull glamour from the ether. And yet … and yet, she and Vincent had invited Melody to London with a purpose.

  Though the matter was already decided between them, Jane asked aloud, for Melody’s benefit. “Do you need me today, Vincent?”

  “I can get on quite well alone.” He compressed his lips in his private smile. “And I promise to pause to eat.”

  “Thank heavens for that.”

  Vincent picked up his coffee cup and winked at her over the rim. “Melody, that is the real reason that your sister insists that I not work alone.”

  Melody raised her eyes from her plate, perceiving only the fact that Jane would stay. “Are you certain?”

  “Of course.” Jane was certain she would remain. She was less certain that she would enjoy it. Still, she had a fondness for her sister and enjoyed her company, so the day would have that, at the very least, to look forward to. If Mr. O’Brien should call, then Jane had good reason to stay and keep an eye on the gentleman. She could not forget quickly the familiarity that he and Melody had shown each other the previous night. With luck, Major Curry would call as well, and she could have the pleasure of his company. Melody wanted only a little encouragement to look upon him favourably.

  Nevertheless, when breakfast was over, Jane found that saying good-bye to Vincent at the front door was exceedingly difficult. This should be no different from any other time they had parted for an hour, two hours, or even a day, and yet, with their reconciliation so recent, Jane ached to go with him.

  “Do you have your nuncheon?”

  “I do.” He held up the basket.

  “And you will not stay too late?”

  “I will not.” Vincent kissed her cheek, then tilted his head to whisper in her ear. His breath was warm and it tickled. “You provide remarkable encouragement to hurry home.”

  “I can provide more encouragement, if you like.” Her hand found his waist and trailed down his thigh.

  Vincent laughed and squirmed out of reach. “I will see you this evening, Muse.”

  After he went out, Jane stood for a few moments in the foyer, apparently regarding the wood grain on the door with great fondness. Heaving a sigh to collect her thoughts, she removed herself to the drawing room to attend to Melody.

  Her sister had taken up a seat on the sofa facing the fire. She had added a blue shawl to accent her simple white muslin frock. “This is quite the treat.”

  “I should spend more time with you.” Jane sat on the sofa next to Melody.

  Her sister laid a hand on her arm. “No, Jane. You and Vincent are here for work, and I do understand that, truly. But it is still a pleasure to have you home.”

  “I confess, I have forgotten how to have a day of leisure.” The parlour was in good order, though she could begin working on that glamural she had considered adding there … if not for the fact that she was supposed to be paying attention to Melody. “What does one do when at home?”

  “I read a little, although it tires me sometimes. I have been practising the pianoforte a good deal, but I sometimes feel that I make no progress and the glamour line in the music remains beyond me.” Melody listed activities on her fingers. “I am too dreadful at needlework to have any liking for it, but making a fringe can be diverting. Oh! And trimming bonnets.”

  Jane well knew that she used to pass her days with such activities, and not so long ago. When she and Vincent had stayed with her parents during her recovery, she had spent entire days simply watching the light change on the lawn. To be so idle now made her very skin itch. “I have lost much of the habit of this.”

  “La! It fills the time, but does little for the mind, I will grant that.” Melody reached into her work-basket and pulled out a ball of string and a crochet hook. “If you fetch your watercolours, we can converse as our hands work. You are not happy if you are not busy.”

  Laughing, Jane rose to fetch her paints. “You know me too well.”

  With the aid of a footman, it did not take her long to move her watercolour supplies from the studio and set up a tolerable situation at a table by the drawing room window.

  Setting her paints in order, Jane asked, “Shall I paint you? It has been too long since I last took your portrait.”

  Melody bent her head to her fringe. “If you like, although I have not changed so much, I think.”

  “No … but we do not have a painting of you here.” Pausing, Jane saw an opening for discussing the regard she had witnessed at Almack’s. “Or perhaps you have an admirer who would appreciate a mark of favour.”

  As she expected, Melody flushed becomingly. “No one to whom it would be appropriate to give such a gift.”

  With relief, Jane picked up her pencil and opened to a fresh page in her drawing book. She had been afraid that Melody might have come to an understanding with Mr. O’Brien during the hours that they had been together. That things had not progressed beyond that meant she still had some time to caution Melody before her preference was set. “I confess that I was not certain after I saw you waltzing with Mr. O’Brien last night.”

  “Oh, do not tell Mama about that. She would die of mortification.” Melody wrinkled her nose in amusement. “Can you imagine? La! Such a fuss over so simple a dance.”

  “An intimate dance, you mean.”

  “I suppose. Though, having tried it, I think there are few men with whom I would be willing to dance a waltz.”

  “Oh?”

  Melody adjusted the fringe on her lap and worked the crochet hook in and out of the thread for a few moments. The fire crackled in the hearth and the clock ticked upon the mantelpiece. Jane added the sound of her pencil sketching the line of Melody’s cheek as she waited for her sister to answer.

  Sighing, Melody shifted on the sofa to gaze into the fire. “It is not the position of the dance that makes it intimate, though I own that it is shockingly close. It is that one does not trad
e partners. The opportunity for conversation. You see?”

  “I do.” Jane saw all too well how much in danger her sister was of losing her heart. She was already repeating Mr. O’Brien’s conversation as if it were her own. “What did you speak of?”

  “He is excessively clever. We talk about music and what we are reading. Sometimes of politics. Alastar has the most astonishing ideas and, oh, Jane. He listens to me.” Melody seemed unaware that she had used Mr. O’Brien’s given name.

  “He flatters you by requesting your input?”

  “Very much so. Or, no—no, I do not think it is flattery, because that implies that it is insincere. He … I think, at least … he is genuinely interested in my thoughts.” She smiled in apparent remembrance. “Sometimes we talk about you.”

  All of Jane’s senses now became alert, and any thought of drawing or painting vanished. “How so?”

  “Well … he wonders at your marriage. And to be frank, Jane, I cannot blame him. You are the oddest couple that ever walked the earth.” Melody shook her head, curls swaying against her cheek. “Do not deny it. You know you are.”

  “Not the oddest, I think.”

  “No? Who else—name even one couple—who devotes their days to work as the two of you do? Most wives would be at home keeping house and tending to their childr—” Melody broke off, lowering her fringe with alarm. “Oh, Jane. I did not mean…”

  “I know you meant nothing by it. Fret not.” Jane had learned to keep a placid expression at references to her miscarriage. She thought that someday she and Vincent might have children, but it was difficult to imagine doing so now. It was hard enough to manage the needs of Melody against that of their work, and her sister was a grown woman. How much more difficult would an infant be? “I am not certain that I am equal to hearing about Mr. O’Brien’s thoughts of us, but will trust that you do not drift toward any indiscretion.”

  “Of course not. I am first and foremost your sister. I would never see any harm come to you, not even by chance.” Melody blushed again. “I know that I have been sometimes thoughtless, but hope I have learned to value you since.”

  Here, Jane saw the opening she needed to speak directly about the subject of Mr. O’Brien. “Then let me say that I also do not want to see any harm come to you. I am … I am too aware that past events were due at least in part to my unwillingness to speak frankly with you. May I address you now? Openly, about something that concerns me?”

  Melody laid her fringe aside and turned to face Jane, with a stirring of alarm on her face. “Please.”

  “Mr. O’Brien … I am nervous about his advances toward you.”

  “Oh, but—”

  “Hear me out, please.” Jane took a moment to smooth her dress and compose her thoughts. “It is not that I think that any particular impropriety has yet been observed, but the whole of his manner promises something that he cannot provide. In short—though I am rambling a bit—you must see that his heritage makes him unable to address you.”

  “I—Why?”

  Jane paused with her mouth open. With a sinking heart, she realized that her sister, living in a country town as she did, would not have recognised his name as an indication of his ancestry. “Ah … I made the same mistake when I met the family. They are Irish and Catholic.”

  Melody looked down, her cheeks flaming. “I know.”

  “You know? And yet you continue to encourage his behaviour?”

  “I do not understand why those two facts change the man. He is all that is courteous, and everything one could desire: easy manners, open and pleasing. A firm figure. Amiable character. If you could hear him talk about the plight of the coldmongers, you would not think so harshly. He is everything generous. Not at all the villain that the Irish are made out to be.”

  Jane wet her lips, determined to try again, although she had some uneasiness about her own purpose. She must proceed, though, when she considered what her parents would say about Melody’s preference. “Even if I grant that, the greater trouble still remains. As a Catholic, he cannot marry you.”

  “He…? He cannot?”

  “Depend upon it. Their Pope will not allow them to marry anyone but another Catholic. They think stooping to marry an Anglican would consign them to hell. Consider that even the Prince Regent could not marry the Catholic woman he was in love with.” Jane leaned forward to beseech her sister. “I do not want to see your heart broken again. I fear the advantage Mr. O’Brien takes with you by attempting to engage your affections when he cannot offer his own freely.”

  “I—I had not thought of it in that light. Do you—do you really think he trifles with me?”

  “If I did not, then I would keep silent. But he cannot marry you.” Jane bit her lip, sorry to see her sister look so downcast. It was good that she had not waited longer to speak—in fact, it would have been better if she had spoken sooner. “When your callers come today, please, I beg of you, look at them not in light of who has the most pleasing manners, but who will give you a good life. Who can offer you a measure of happiness.”

  Melody nodded, staring again into the fire. “That is the other thing that Mr. O’Brien and I discussed about you. It is so rare to find any marriage founded on love.”

  “Vincent and I started with only mutual admiration.” Jane laughed, trying to lighten the mood. “And, as you have noted, by disliking each other thoroughly.”

  “Well then.” Melody wiped a hand under her eyes. “I shall look for a man who is disagreeable and silent.”

  The footman walked in bearing a card on a silver tray. Melody took it and gave a bitter laugh, leaving Jane no doubt as to whose card it was. “Would you tell him that I am not at home?”

  Fourteen

  Family Matters

  When Jane next accompanied Vincent to Stratton House, Mr. O’Brien came out of the library to receive them, all smiles. He looked past them to the entry and his smile dimmed. “Is Miss Ellsworth not with you today?”

  “No, I am afraid that she decided to stay home.” Melody had shown admirable wisdom in removing herself from Mr. O’Brien’s influence.

  “She has not suffered from one of her headaches, I hope?” He walked with them toward the ballroom. Vincent strode ahead, leaving Jane to manage the task of disappointing the young man.

  “No, she was quite well when we left.” Jane kept her tone light. “I think she only wanted a change.”

  “Ah…” He studied the floor as they walked. “Ah. Well. Thank you. I am glad that she is in good health.” After a few more pleasantries, Mr. O’Brien excused himself and left her at the door to the ballroom.

  Jane’s conscience gave a pang then, because she thought that she had, perhaps, misjudged him. His disappointment seemed genuine, but there was nothing to be done for it. Separating the two now, before more damage was done to either heart, was necessary, though not without pain.

  Melody had seemed cheerful enough at breakfast, talking about the variety of projects she would undertake that day, but in more than one quiet moment, Jane had found her staring into the middle distance with a melancholy look upon her face. Jane pushed the door to the ballroom open, thinking about her sister and the want of occupation she would face at home alone.

  “Vincent, I hate to ask but … do you think I might leave off work from eleven to three today?”

  He frowned as he removed his coat. “You do not need to ask my permission, Muse.”

  “No. I just wanted to be assured that you could do without me.” She glanced back at the door to make certain it was shut. “I thought that if I could accompany Melody on her morning calls it might divert her tolerably.”

  “I can hardly vouchsafe your time.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “Do you think … we could have a dinner party?”

  Jane stood on her toes to kiss Vincent on the cheek. “I know how little you enjoy such things. Thank you. I will invite Major Curry so you may discuss glamour to your heart’s content.” With the inclusion of Mr. Colgrove and some of
his set, Melody would have ample opportunity to see that she had other admirers. Jane had no doubt of her sister’s ability to attach a gentleman. She only hoped that one of them could attract Melody’s equal interest.

  * * *

  When Jane arrived at home early and suggested to Melody that they make morning calls together, her sister dropped her book so quickly that Jane might have thought she had not been reading at all. In very little time, Jane changed from her simple work dress to a sprigged muslin day dress with French knots in slate grey and coffee. Melody wore her celestial-blue pelisse, which did such lovely things for her eyes.

  They set out, stopping first at Sir Prescott’s to pay a call. Jane was embarrassed to recollect that the only time she had called on them was for Mr. Colgrove’s birthday party. She was a terrible relation, truly. Her mother would be appalled at her want of consideration, but the work had seemed so pressing.

  She resolved to do better as she and Melody were shown into the front parlour.

  Without the crush of people, the room’s pleasant prospect was more apparent. It had a tall ceiling and ample modern furniture grouped around the room in picturesque arrangements.

  In the chairs closest to the fire sat their cousins, facing Miss Godwin and an older woman, also from the East Indies. Seeing her deep brown complexion, Jane discovered that Miss Godwin was not so dark as she had first thought. Her complexion had been moderated by the English blood running through her veins.

  Sir Prescott rose to receive them with delight, then drew up another set of chairs so they could join the group at the fire. “You already know Miss Godwin, I believe. Allow me to introduce you to her mother, Mrs. Godwin.”

  “How do you do, madam.” Jane dropped a curtsy before taking her seat. While she had known that one of Miss Godwin’s parents must be Indian, it still surprised her somehow and she endeavoured not to be so rude as to let that surprise show. Unbidden, Lord Verbury’s words floated though Jane’s head. It is not as though she is Irish. She felt abruptly ashamed.

  “So charming. Mr. Colgrove has spoken highly of your family. I am pleased to have the opportunity to meet you.” Mrs. Godwin’s voice danced, rising and falling with a modulation that flattered the ear.