A Lady in the Smoke

by Karen Odden

  With a jolt, I realized that now, given what Paul had told me, I might know more than Mr. Turleigh did about our railway shares. But I kept that to myself.

  “Aunt, do you have any idea what’s gone wrong?”

  She shook her head. “Not specifically. But I’m sure Mr. Turleigh will explain it all to James.”

  “I didn’t know anything until the night of the ball,” I said. “When did you learn of it?”

  Two furrows appeared between her dark brows. “The day after. A friend told me that she’d heard that some of your father’s investments were failing.”

  “Did your friend mention where she had heard the rumor? I would love to know how the gossip started in the first place.”

  She shrugged matter-of-factly and plucked at the fabric on the arm of the chair. “How do people in our circles find out anything? They talk. What matters now is how it changes things for you. And the unfortunate truth is that these rumors will cause your”—she hesitated—“your choices to diminish.”

  I gave a snort. “Yes. I’m a failing investment myself.”

  Her expression became annoyed. “Don’t be absurd.”

  “I’m not being absurd, Aunt,” I insisted softly. “I’m trying to be practical. Mama has already warned me that I may have missed my chance to become engaged. And she reminded me recently that I have a home at Kellham Park only so long as she lives, after which…” I let my whisper fade, and in the quiet, I could hear the ticking of the clock on the table. The sound felt uncomfortably apt.

  My aunt pursed her lips. “Well, you’ll always have a home with us. You know that.” She tucked the blanket more firmly over her lap. “But given the situation, wouldn’t it be sensible to engage yourself to someone you know—someone whose family you know—rather than waiting until you are left with little or no choice?”

  “But there’s no one who cares for me—or whom I care for in that way,” I protested. “And affection can’t be ordered, like a side of beef from the butcher. Surely you understand—you and Uncle John love each other.”

  A faint smile. “Yes, we do. But that grew over time, after we were married. Quite often, that’s the way it happens.”

  Her words led my thoughts straight back to my mother, my father, and my uncle’s letter.

  It occurred to me, suddenly, that my aunt was probably one of the few people in the world who knew the truth about my parents’ marriage; and she couldn’t have given me an easier opening. But I knew not to appear overly eager; I made my tone as offhand as I could manage: “Is that what people thought would happen with my parents?”

  In her eyes—blue, Fraser eyes—I saw surprise, followed by a kind of speculative wariness.

  Very quietly, I asked my next question: “Is it true that Mama was once engaged to Uncle Charles?”

  She blinked several times and her lips parted; for a moment her expression held dismay and something that looked almost like guilt. But then her usual cool mask returned. “Oh, Elizabeth.” She waved a hand dismissively. “That was over twenty years ago.”

  My heart jumped. Despite my uncle’s letter, I hadn’t expected her to confirm it.

  “So they were engaged,” I whispered.

  “No—not really.” But her eyes skidded away from mine.

  “So far as I understand it, one either is engaged or isn’t.”

  The fine lines around my aunt’s mouth grew deeper with annoyance. But I was determined to compel her to tell me what she knew. Somehow, the fact that I had gone my whole life without knowing this—and that I would have gone on not knowing, save for stumbling upon the letter—made me feel as if a rug had been pulled out from under my feet.

  I leaned forward, so I could keep my voice the softest whisper. “Please, Aunt, tell me what happened. Was there a quarrel? A misunderstanding?”

  “Oh, Elizabeth. Don’t make more of it than there was.” I sat back and waited expectantly, and she capitulated with a sigh. “When your mother and Charles first met, they were quite mad about each other, and it did seem for a while as if they were serious. There was even a rumor that they’d made some sort of private promise to each other. But after a few months, their feelings diminished.” She shrugged. “That first infatuation is powerful—especially because your mother had been very sheltered. But those initial avid feelings aren’t enough. Marriage must be a practical arrangement, too. You know how Charles turned out.”

  But he might have turned out better married to Mama.

  She shifted in her chair. “Your mother’s marriage to Samuel was best for everyone.”

  “How can you say that? Her marriage to Father wasn’t happy. I don’t know how they were before I was born. But I never saw him be affectionate to her, or ask her what she thought, or how she felt—”

  My aunt’s expression instantly shuttered. “This is not an appropriate topic of conversation.”

  “But it’s the truth,” I insisted.

  “Be that as it may, he was my brother and your father.” Her chin came up and her eyes sparked, much as my father’s used to when he was angry. “There is no point in digging up the past or speaking ill of the dead. It’s unkind and disrespectful—and it accomplishes nothing. It’s certainly not going to help your mother get well.” She stood up abruptly, the blanket falling to the floor. “I’m very tired. If you’re staying, I’m going to bed. Check on your mother every half hour or so, and wake Jane when you get sleepy.” She looked down at me, her expression disapproving. “If you’re so full of ideas about marriage, maybe you should spend some time considering what you hope to accomplish with your own.”

  Then she went to the door, closing it with exaggerated care.

  And I sat back in my chair to think.

  So Charles’s claim that he and my mother had been engaged was in all likelihood true. But based on what his letter said, my aunt was mistaken. His feelings hadn’t simply faded away after a few months; there’d been a misunderstanding. I’d always been told my uncle was a bitter person. My mother certainly was.

  Was this what had made them so?

  I picked up the blanket from the floor, wrapped it around myself, and went to stand by my mother’s bed.

  To my relief, her face was no longer that grim mask it had been yesterday. But she looked frail. And vulnerable. And alone.

  And suddenly, I felt pity for her, startling and stinging as a crop on bare skin.

  Chapter 17

  I slept late the next morning and then lay in bed for a good while, thinking, and wondering if there was any argument I might make to convince my aunt to tell me what else she knew. But she could be stubborn, and I had a feeling she was already regretting having told me anything at all.

  And then it came to me that I was being quite stupid. My aunt wasn’t the only person I could ask. Sally had been my mother’s maid since before they’d come to Kellham Park.

  I leapt out of bed and put my hand on the bell to ring for her. And then, just as quickly, I drew my hand back. I knew Sally loved me, and she would tell the truth if she could. But would my asking make her terribly uncomfortable? I tried to imagine her feelings, but without knowing what she might have to tell me, it was impossible for me to guess. I could only hope that she wouldn’t mind.

  I rang, and Sally was knocking at my door within minutes, bidding me a cheerful good morning. But when I didn’t get up from the settee to get dressed as usual, she looked at me curiously. “Are you all right, m’lady?”

  “I’m fine. But I have something I want to talk to you about.” I patted the cushion beside me. She looked puzzled, but she sat down obligingly, her hands clasped in her lap.

  I took a deep breath and plunged in. “It’s about Mama. About something that happened when she was young, before you both came to Kellham Park.”

  Sally’s smile faded, and she gave a faint, cautious nod. “Yes, m’lady.”

  “Were she and Uncle Charles once engaged?” And when she didn’t immediately reply, I continued, “Aunt Catherine explaine
d that they’d formed a brief attachment, and their feelings simply faded after a few months. But…is that what really happened? Because she sounded peculiar when she told me, and she wouldn’t say a word about how Mama came to marry Father instead.”

  Sally rose slowly and went to the window. Rain had been falling since I’d woken, a pelting, relentless rain that drew a gray veil over the world outside. I watched her in profile as her fingertips ran absently along the lower sill of the window. “I alwus knew this day would come,” she said softly. “And many’s the time I’ve thought how I’d answer you, so’s you’d know the truth, fair to all sides.”

  I felt my heart trip.

  “ ’Tisn’t a pretty story,” she continued. “But if you want to hear it, I want to be the one to tell you.”

  “I do,” I said earnestly. “Very much. And I know you’ll be fair.”

  “All right, then.” She turned toward me, but remained by the window, as if she wished to have the story come from a distance, to make it easier for me to hear. “Your mother was a sweet and silly thing at seventeen,” she began, “a mite spoilt and thoughtless, like all children, I s’pose—and she’d been brought up very quietly, so she was nigh wild with excitement for the London Season.”

  “Her first one?”

  She nodded. “When she came out, she had the prettiest dresses from Mr. Worth’s shop in Paris, stitched up with seed pearls and jew’ls. Laws, she had a yellow diamond from India this big”—she curled her thumb and forefinger together in a loop the size of a shilling—“for a brooch. Her mama was determined Miss Meg—that’s what we called her then—Miss Meg would be as fine as anybody.”

  Meg, not Margaret. That’s what Uncle Charles had called her too.

  “With all that money,” Sally continued, “and her pretty face, it didn’t matter that she didn’t have a title. She had men fluttering around her like moths to a flame. She loved all the attention, and it could’ve turned her head something awful. But when she met your uncle Charles that was the end of it. He was high-spirited and handsome—and he was as wild for her as she was for him. They’d look at each other like they were the sun and moon, those two did, and he’d tease her till they’d both be laughing like fools.”

  She looked wistful at the memory.

  I, on the other hand, felt incredulous.

  My mother, laughing like a fool? I could count on two hands the number of times I’d seen her laughing at all.

  She saw the expression on my face and shook her head. “Oh, I know it don’t seem possible—but, mind you, this was over twenty years ago. They were both so young.” She said it almost apologetically. “Sometimes they’d quarrel, of course. But they were happy together, and they were privately engaged by that winter.”

  “Privately?” I echoed.

  “Yes. Her mama didn’t want it announced ’til right before the next Season, so ’twould cause a pleasing fuss in London.”

  I took a deep breath. “So, what happened?”

  “That February, young Mister Henry—your mama’s brother—died of smallpox. He was only ten years old.” Her voice grew gentle. “It was a turrible time. There’s nothing so sad as a child dying, m’lady.”

  “No,” I murmured. “Of course not.” With a stab of pain, I thought of the second Henry, my own brother. My mother had lost him, too.

  “Being in mourning that summer, Miss Meg stayed home from the Season.” Sally’s expression became disapproving. “And that gave your grandmother the chance she needed.”

  “The chance for what?”

  “M’lady, I don’t relish speaking ill of the dead….”

  “Of course not,” I assured her. “But what did Grandmother do?”

  Her eyes were dark with sorrow. “She broke Mr. Charles and Miss Meg apart. Not sudden, like she was cracking a plate, mind you. More like you rip a seam, a few stitches at a time.”

  “But why? What did she have against Mama? Was it that she had no title?”

  “Oh, no, m’lady, not at all!” She shook her head vehemently. “The only thing she held against Miss Meg was that she fell in love with the wrong son.”

  I stared, utterly at a loss. Had Grandmother simply favored my father over my uncle?

  Or was it because my father was the elder son?

  An uneasy feeling began to edge into my consciousness.

  Sally sighed and came to sit beside me. “Your grandfather had run the estate all but int’ the ground. He didn’t invest in the nice steady five-percents like most folks. Instead, he throwed his money at things like circuses in India and diamond mines in Africa.” Her hand fluttered in the air. “Everybody knew he’d buy into just about any crazy scheme if’n someone caught him while he was in his cups at a party. He managed to lose ’most everything ’cept his title, before he died. So Lady Fraser found a way to fix it.”

  “You mean Mama,” I said hollowly. “She wanted Mama’s money to refurbish Kellham Park.”

  “Indeed, m’lady. But having the money go to a second son wasn’t going to help anything. It had to go to your father.”

  “Of course it did. But—”

  She hurried on. “Lady Fraser was ailing—the doctors said it might be a cancer—so one day she called your father into her room and told him he had to court Miss Meg because she wouldn’t have any peace on her deathbed ’til she knew Kellham Park was headed back to sure footing. She said it would be best for the estate, best for everyone if Miss Meg married your father.”

  Best for everyone.

  Her words were an eerie echo of my aunt’s. “And Father agreed to this?”

  “He didn’t much like it,” she allowed, “but Lady Fraser was dying—or leastwise, that’s how she made it seem—”

  “You mean she wasn’t really dying?” I asked, aghast.

  Her eyebrows lifted. “Well, I can’t say for sartin! But folks said she’d moan like she was dyin’ often enough—and soon as Lord Kellham started courting Miss Meg, she started to recover.” Her tone told me clearly what she thought of the coincidence.

  “But, Sally, one cannot simply force someone to transfer affections from one man to another! How was Mama persuaded to give up Uncle Charles? Was—was there some rumor or scandal? Was it his gambling?”

  “Oh, he didn’t gamble any more than most gentlemen,” she said, bristling a bit. “Fact is, from what I heard, he tended to sit at the lucky end o’ the table, and it kept him in pocket change. But no, your grandmother was careful. Like I said, just a few stitches at a time. First, she sent Mr. Kellham off to Belgium with a family friend, on some shipping concern. Being a second son meant he needed to find summat to do for an income, so he went. Then once he was gone, she started in earnest. She kept Miss Meg’s letters from getting to Mr. Kellham, and kept his from getting to her—”

  “How?”

  “The servants here would’a done anything for her, and so far as keeping the letters from Miss Meg, she probably paid some’un.” She pursed her lips. “Miss Meg fretted, but letters go missing from abroad, o’ course, and Mr. Kellham warn’t much of a writer. But what broke Miss Meg’s heart—and finally made her give him up—was when your grandmother hinted, and then flat out told Miss Meg that Mr. Kellham was engaged to a lady he’d met in Brussels.”

  I stared. “Was he?”

  “ ’Course not!” she scoffed. “But with Lady Fraser bein’ on her supposed deathbed and all, and no letters from Mr. Kellham to say otherwise, Miss Meg didn’t even suspect ’twas a lie.”

  I could picture it clearly: Mama, still young and hopeful, sitting beside Grandmother’s bed, hearing that she’d been forgotten and that Charles had fallen in love with someone else. I felt tears pricking at the edges of my eyes.

  Sally’s voice softened. “I remember the day she come home and told me what Lady Fraser said. Poor thing couldn’t even cry, she was so tore up about it. ’Course it warn’t my place to counterdict—but I’d seen Mr. Kellham with her, and I had my suspicions something warn’t quite right.�
� Her blue eyes were pained. “Sometimes I still wonder what might’ve happened if’n I’d said so.”

  “It’s not your fault, Sally,” I said. “There’s no way you could have suspected what Grandmother was doing. I don’t think any of us wants to believe such things of people we know.”

  “I s’pose not,” she said with an unhappy sigh. “At any rate, Miss Meg stayed at home for what would’a been her second Season, with nothing to do all day but brood. No parties or riding or masquerades, and no one at all for company, being that her mother had taken to her bed, she was so distraught over little Henry’s death.”

  I could guess what Sally was leading up to. “And that’s when my father appeared.”

  Sally gave a brief nod. “He started out slow at first, just a ride, or a walk, your mother being in mourning and all. But he kept on, all that summer, and then, one night around Michaelmas, he took her to a fancy masked ball—and she came home with a smile on her face like I hadn’t seen since she was with your uncle.”

  “So she learned to care for him.”

  “Aye, she did. She warn’t quite so wild for him as she’d been for Mr. Kellham, mind—she was older and had already got her heart broke once. But she was the sort what wanted to be in love, I’d say, and your father knew how to please when he chose. So they got engaged, and married ’most right away.”

  I felt a stab of pity for my uncle Charles, off god knows where and not suspecting anything of what his mother and brother were doing behind his back. “But what about Uncle Charles? What did he say when he heard?”

  “Oh.” It was a long, drawn-out syllable. “I don’t know if’n he said anything at all about it, leastwise not then. But next I heard, he’d run off even farther, to China or thereabouts. He stayed away from the wedding, o’ course.” She sat quietly for a moment. “Afterward, we came straight here. There warn’t a honeymoon.”

  “Do you—do you think Father loved her at all?” I asked hesitantly.

  She considered for a moment. “I think he liked her well enough. Leastwise as much as plenty of folks like each other when they get married.”