“Honor, eh?” her father said, his voice barely above a whisper. He gazed past Charity and into the fire, his lips twisting and distorting with the force of his fury. “Well, may your sense of honor do you much good, for you shall have little else in the world.”
Charity stood upright, discarding her supplicant pose to step backward in shock.
“What can you mean?” she said. For the first time, the tremble infiltrated her voice, and she was powerless to stop it.
“I mean,” her father said, “that since you clearly have no filial piety, no sense of what is owed to your own father, then there is little reason for me to fulfill my duties by you. Pack your bags, madam. Gather your possessions, such as they are, for I want nothing more to do with you.”
For a moment Charity did not speak. The only sound was that of the birds singing, which floated through the open window like a cruel joke.
“You cannot mean what you say, Father,” she said, speaking slowly and carefully. “I believe that you express yourself in anger, and if you were in a more serene state, then you would not say these things to your only child. I know that you are a kind man, and a good one, and would have no wish to turn me out of your home if you were thinking clearly.”
“Do not presume to tell me what I can and cannot do, child!” her father thundered. He rose from his chair so sharply that Charity was forced to take a step back, almost tripping over the hem of her dress in her alarm. “Do you believe that you have authority over me, hmm? Has your pride been so inflated? Do you not understand that I am the master of this house, and may do as I wish?”
Charity did not speak for a few moments. She was trying to stay calm, trying to assess the situation as a rational creature might if they were not so affected by the tide of strong emotions as was rushing through her.
Surely her father could not mean what he said. Although he could be a cold and distant man, she knew in her heart that he was not a cruel one. What he said seemed so gratuitous, so intended to make his daughter suffer, that she found it difficult to believe that he could really mean it.
Moreover, it seemed unbelievable to her that he would really cast his daughter from the house, if only because to do so would be to bring shame upon not only Charity, but himself too. Would he really risk his position in the village, his whole life in the community, for the sake of a fit of anger?
But the fire in his eyes as he stood, glaring at his daughter, told her that he would do precisely that.
Charity looked into his eyes for a few seconds and saw only the rage there, rage and the force of rejection. Taking in a deep breath, she nodded her head slowly.
“I will not stay to cause you offense, sir,” she said quietly. Her heart was racing as fast as a galloping horse, but her movements were languid as she walked from the room. She could feel the fury of her father’s gaze burning behind her, and even when she closed the door, she could still feel its heat, as though she were standing too close to a fire.
* * *
She mounted the stairs very slowly, noting each familiar creak in the wood, and made her way to her little room.
She had never been obliged to pack her things before, for she had never been anywhere. However, she knew how it was done, of course.
She stood before her closet, almost laughing with a sort of charged hysteria. What ought she take? There was no use for party gowns and fine satin slippers if she was going to be cast out of society. There was no sense in taking more than she could carry, and perhaps she would need to carry it for a long time before she was to get to wherever she needed to go.
In the end, she only folded a few print dresses into a bag, along with her personal things: her comb, her mirror, a dressing gown. She packed her needlework — not the fancy embroidery that she occupied herself with when visitors were present to demonstrate her gentility — but the things that she might need if she were required to make her living by her needle.
She placed them all into a bag very neatly. Her possessions seemed to take up extraordinarily little space, and she was struck by how small she was in the world and how alone.
She was struck in the same moment with the startling realization that, despite the gravity of her situation, despite the sting of rejection from her father, she was unafraid.
She closed the little bag and picked it up from the bed. It was heavy, even though there was so little in it, and she knew that she would not be able to carry it far through the muddy lanes. Still, she could hardly travel any lighter.
She descended the creaking stairs again, her pace distorted by the weight of the heavy case. She paused for a few moments outside the door of her father’s study, considering whether she ought to go in. Why? To take her leave of him? To beg his pardon? To beseech him not to cast her out of the only world she had ever known?
No indeed. She would not beg.
It was not a question of pride but of what she felt to be right. If she were to go into her father’s study now and beg his forgiveness, behave as a repentant, then all there would be was confirming to her father that he could always achieve his aims by bullying those around him.
No. No more.
She picked up her case and left the house through the front door, closing it behind her with a gentle thud.
All the way down the garden path and into the lane she walked with such purpose that she scarcely noticed the heaviness of her case.
True, she was a creature entirely alone in the world. True, she knew not where she would lay her head that night, or where she might obtain her next meal.
But, for a few moments, all of those sensations were dwarfed by the overwhelming fact that she was free. At perfect liberty to do whatever she wished, for the first time in her life.
Or instead, to do whatever she wished that was within her means, and her means were nonexistent.
Her strange sense of elation came to an abrupt end when her foot struck a puddle in the lane, and mud splashed over her dress and onto her bag.
All at once her peculiar sense of freedom shattered, and she was left only with fear and disorientation. Where could she possibly go? What ought she do?
For a wild moment, the idea crossed her mind of going to Lawley Hall. She knew that it was a mad idea, that it would wreck her reputation forever if she was to be seen going there alone, with a case of her things in her hand.
But then again, perhaps her reputation was already quite wrecked. Perhaps the wisest thing she could do would be to go to Mr. Harding and throw herself upon his mercy, to take whatever he might offer her.
She already knew that he had asked her to meet him alone in the grove. Who knew how far his willingness to breach propriety went? Who knew what he might do with a woman who was without friends and under his power?
She thought of Mary Warwick and poor little drowned Freddie.
No. She would not do that.
Not because she feared the censure, not because she cared what anyone might say about her. But because she knew that it was beneath her dignity — beneath her morals as well as her aspirations — to go to any man on bended knee and offer to be his mistress. It mattered not how desperate she was, nor how much her heart longed for Mr. Harding’s comfort.
What was more, once these thoughts had crossed her mind and she had dismissed them, she knew precisely where she was going to go.
She could not go to Esther. If her father had cast her out, then she could not place her friend in an impossible position by asking her to take her in. It would be to drag Esther down with her, and she had no intention of doing that.
Involuntarily, a smile crossed her lips. She wondered whether Mr. Edwards had gone to speak to Esther yet.
The thought that her friend’s happiness and position in life was so close to being secured made the burden of her own situation feel far lighter, and she handled her heavy bag with a little more ease.
She set off to the only place where she could go, just as the rain started to fall and churn up all the mud in the lane.
* * *
Mrs. Warwick was standing in her garden when Charity arrived. It seemed that she had not noticed the rain, or at least, that the downpour did not even slightly concern her. She was standing there with a faraway expression in her eyes as though she were sensing something in her bones, as if she were one with the drops falling from the sky and stirring the roots of her precious herbs and flowers.
When she saw Charity, her face went white, as though she had suddenly seen some spirit.
“Mrs. Warwick,” Charity said, in some distress at the sight of the old woman’s countenance, “Mrs. Warwick, are you quite well?”
Mrs. Warwick seemed almost to awaken from her trance, shaking her head as if to discard the last scraps of a dream from her waking eyes. All at once she looked as though the rain had struck her very bones, and she began to shiver.
“Apologies, my dear,” she said. “Do come in. Come in. We will have something warm to drink. Come in.”
Her eyes swept over the bag in Charity’s hand, but her face did not change at all.
“Come in,” she said one final time. Charity followed her into the house, and the door was shut against the violence of the weather.
“Mrs. Warwick, are you ill?” she asked, once they were both inside. “You seemed very distressed a moment ago. I hope that you are not unwell.”
“I am well,” Mrs. Warwick said, managing a small, wrinkled smile as she set about placing the large iron kettle upon the range. “Have no fear for me, child. I am quite well. It is only that when I saw your face, I was convinced, just for a moment, that it was my own Mary come home.”
Charity’s heart ached for the old woman as a tear slid down her face.
“It was the expression in your eyes,” Mrs. Warwick continued, still busying herself with the making of the tea. “I saw that look on my own Mary’s face, you see, all those years ago when she came home to me from the big house. It’s the look of a woman who has decided to make her own way in life. I know it very well.”
Charity did not speak but merely nodded. She was struck by the perception of what Mrs. Warwick said, and a mixture of shock and wry humor that, when all was said and done, there was very little to separate her — or any other woman for that matter — from the situation that poor Mary had found herself in.
She accepted the tea that Mrs. Warwick offered her. It was very hot and tasted of herbs and the honey that Mrs. Warwick harvested from her own bees. It was perhaps the most wonderful thing she had ever tasted.
“Get off your wet things,” Mrs. Warwick said abruptly. “We can dry them in front of the fire. If you’re to stay here then, you’re to be useful, and you cannot be useful if you catch cold.”
Charity was taken aback for a moment, automatically obeying Mrs. Warwick’s command and beginning to strip off her wet stockings.
“How did you know that I needed to stay here?” she asked.
“Same look in your eyes as I saw in Mary’s,” Mrs. Warwick said simply. “When a woman decides that she will make her own way in the world there are not a great many places that she can go. But one of them is here, my child. You can stay here for as long as you should need.”
“Thank you,” Charity replied. Her gratitude was expressed only in those brief syllables, but she said it with such warmth that Mrs. Warwick could not have failed to understand the depth of her sincerity.
“Of course, child,” Mrs. Warwick said, busying herself once again with taking Charity’s wet things and hanging them before the fire.
That night, Charity went to sleep in Mary Warwick’s old bed.
Chapter 31
Adam knew that he could not long abide the company of Sir Toby Mornington, and was doing his best to avoid any obligation to interact with the young man.
That should not have been difficult. After all, Sir Toby made no effort to conceal the fact that he had come to Lawley Hall because he hoped that his uncle might make him his heir. However, it seemed that his triumph could not be complete unless he had forced Adam to witness every cruel, foolish moment of it.
“I am so glad to see that you have returned from your travels, cousin,” he kept saying. “When do you think that you shall go back? There is some living to be had in those parts, I believe, as a tutor of the English language. Yes, I believe that a respectable sum of some hundred pounds a year is common enough for a good tutor. You may not get that much at first, of course, but with time I am sure that you will be able to earn such a sum. It is enough to rent a room, I should warrant. I have no doubts that you will be quite comfortable, particularly if you choose a pleasant climate in which to pursue your profession.”
“I should be quite happy to live in such a fashion,” Adam responded readily. He could see that Sir Toby was wrong-footed by this declaration, and relished the sight immensely.
“I am delighted to hear it,” Sir Toby sneered. “You were always quite the scholar. Indeed, I confess that I have always thought that your talents would be quite wasted as a Duke. I believe that you have a gift for instruction of others on scholastic matters, and it would be a great pity indeed to see that gift squandered.”
“Indeed,” Adam replied. He knew that his cousin was doing everything in his power to awaken Adam’s anger, and he was determined to play no part in it. “I believe that one should use whatever natural gifts are available to one.”
What he did not say aloud, but what filled his heart, was that a single rented room in a foreign city truly did not sound so dreadful, so long as he could be with the one whose company he craved above all other things.
For a second or two a pleasant daydream emerged of what it might be like to walk through the streets of Paris or Rome, hand in hand with Miss Miller, enjoying her observations on every little thing and offering a few of his own in response, allowing the sun to warm them through, allowing themselves to forget all of the cares that lay behind them in a little village in England.
He was snapped out of the daydream, however, when his cousin made a little sneering noise as if to rouse him.
“Well, Adam, you look mightily pleased by the notion,” Sir Toby said, his lip curling. “It seems that the situation may resolve itself in a way that suits every party capitally. Apart from the dead lady and her child, of course.”
At this Adam actually took a step toward his cousin, his arm filling with heat at the desire to strike the man down, to give him what he deserved for the cruel and flippant thing he had just said.
But he managed to control himself. Instead he drew in a shallow breath and said in a restrained voice.
“I do not believe that you meant for your words to seem like a jest, cousin, for I am quite certain that you do not hold the lives of Miss Warwick and her son lightly merely because they were poor and obscure. That would be beneath you, and therefore I will not believe it of you.”
Sir Toby colored the way that he always did when he had drunk too much, and said between lips that barely parted from their frozen smirk, “Naturally, cousin. You do me great credit in reading my motives with such honesty.”
“Of course, cousin,” Adam said coolly. “I have many faults, but I hope that I will not echo my father’s mistake of believing the worst of my own flesh and blood. And, if I may take the liberty of making myself plain, he has indeed made a mistake. I believe the matter shall be set right before very long.”
“That would be the most desirable outcome, of course.”
* * *
They rode to the village together. Adam had not wanted to go with Sir Toby in the least, but Sir Toby had invented some errand that required him to go into the village, and he asked Adam to show him the way.
Adam was far too courteous to refuse a direct request from anyone, but he hated the idea of being seen with his cousin, hated the thought that others might believe him to be on good terms with such a man — or, worse yet, to have conceded his own place as his father’s heir to Sir Toby and to be content with the exchange.
He cursed the presence of Sir
Toby. There was a mystery to resolve — the mystery of the little scrap of black cloth that had been found in little Freddie’s clenched fist. Yet instead of being able to pursue the matter, Adam was finding himself forced to entertain a man whom he wholly despised.
They rode primarily in silence. Sir Toby occasionally made disparaging remarks about this or that, remarking on how the countryside in this part of the world was far inferior to that in the vicinity of his own home.
“But I am sure that I shall learn to like it well enough when I am better acquainted with it,” he added hastily, his voice dripping with cruel implication.
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