by Martha Keyes
The door of Chesterley House was opened to them by a none-so-pleased butler. He seemed to share his mistress’s stern manner, and Solomon braced himself for the encounter with his aunt. Everyone was ushered inside but Mr. Coburn, who still lay in the carriage in his drug-induced sleep.
Despite the butler’s demeanor, the house had a distinctly different feel to it than the last time Solomon had visited—a contrast from the oppressive air of austerity Aunt Almira brought with her everywhere. Of course, his last visit had been several years ago, so it was entirely possible that it was his faulty memory—and the awe in which he stood of his aunt—that had made the house feel more stern than it truly had been.
“My aunt,” he said, addressing himself primarily to Miss Lanaway, “is a stickler for the observance of propriety. I hope you will forgive her if she comes across as somewhat”—he hesitated—“rigid in her approach to life.”
A door opened somewhere down the corridor, and in no time at all, Aunt Almira appeared, scurrying toward them.
Solomon’s jaw hung loose at the sight of her. She was not wearing a dressing gown as Solomon had worried she might be, but rather an emerald evening dress, highly embellished and much lower-cut than anything Solomon had ever seen her wear. Her hair was tied back, but bunches had come free of the coiffure, as if she had perhaps run a nervous and heedless hand through her hair a dozen times. She wore no gloves, and the pointer and middle finger or her right hand were smudged with ink.
“Solomon.” She came toward him with a grand smile and her arms out. “What a surprise! I hadn’t any notion you were returned from Jamaica. You have impeccable timing, for I just finished a scene, or else I should certainly not be able to come greet you. I give strict orders to the servants never to disturb me when I am writing, you know.”
Solomon submitted dazedly to his aunt’s wiry but hearty embrace. “Aunt Almira.” He was unable to resist a glance at Mercy. She was watching him and his aunt with her brows up and an intrigued gaze.
Aunt Almira released him and shook her head, clucking her tongue disapprovingly. “You mustn’t call me that, my dear. Surely your father informed you that I no longer go by such a name.”
Solomon shook his head, feeling as though he had imbibed some of Miss Lanaway’s laudanum unwittingly and was only now experiencing the effects of it.
“I have left Almira behind,” his aunt said. “She is a thing of the past. I am now known as Priscilla. Priscilla Pickering.”
A gasp sounded, and Solomon turned to find its source. Miss Pawnce stood in astonishment, the lower half of her face covered with her two hands, the upper half dominated by her round eyes and eyebrows which threatened to disappear into her hair.
Her hands slowly dropped to uncover her mouth. “You are Priscilla Pickering?”
Solomon looked a question at Mercy, whose eyes were narrowed as she regarded his aunt. Solomon had never in his life heard the name, and yet Miss Pawnce had reacted as though she had discovered herself to be in the presence of the Prince Regent.
Aunt Almira—or Aunt Priscilla, evidently—executed a deep bowing of the head. “I am known to you?” She didn’t look to be surprised by the knowledge—only flattered.
Viola stepped forward, shouldering her way gently through Mercy and Miss Lanaway. “Of course! I think I have read Aurelio and Cassimir three times already, and I have been going mad with impatience waiting to see what literary masterpiece will come next.” She took in a large breath and cast her eyes up to the ceiling, quoting, “Her laugh to his soul as sweet love’s embrace; the touch of her lips an angelic coup de grace.”
Utterly baffled, Solomon looked to his aunt, whose cheeks had grown rosy with the praise.
“I apologize.” Solomon pressing his fingers to his lips for a moment as he tried to decide what to say. “Am I to understand that you have become a novelist, Aunt Almi—Aunt Priscilla?” He pushed out the name with difficulty.
“Playwright.” Miss Pawnce and Aunt Priscilla said the word in unison, the former with a touch of censure, the latter with a touch of offense.
Solomon didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. His starched up aunt a playwright? The woman who had scolded him for whistling the last time she had seen him; the woman who had scorned the attentions of any gentleman known to frequent Gentleman Jackson’s; the woman who refused to hold any book but Holy Writ in her hands and whose standards were so impossibly high that she had been considered firmly on the shelf by the age of twenty-two because everyone despaired of her making a match?
“Might I have a word with you, Aunt?” Solomon left off her name purposely, still struggling against the entirely ridiculous situation he found himself in.
She nodded, her eyes still lingering on Miss Pawnce. She and Solomon moved away from the others for privacy.
“Aunt,” he said, “I fear it will be a great inconvenience to you, and for that I am terribly sorry, but I am afraid we are at a standstill without your assistance. We are in need of a place to stay for the night. We have an injured gentleman in the carriage and will need to send for a doctor first thing in the morning. Might we stay here? I hoped you might be willing to lend propriety to the situation, which I am more than happy to explain to you, as I am sure you must be finding it rather odd, to say the least.”
She waved away his words. “Of course you may stay, though I must tell you that I haven’t the time to play chaperone.” She leaned in toward him and said in a lowered voice, “Nor the interest, if I am being quite frank.” She patted his arm lightly, and he wondered vaguely if the ink from her fingers had transferred to his coat. “Take it from me, my dear. Life is not nearly long enough for wasting time upon such niceties—I of all people would know.” She gave an enigmatic smile. “I shan’t be a terribly attentive hostess, in any event, for I am very taken up with writing, as I am sure you can imagine. The public demands a sequel.”
He looked at her wonderingly. “Pardon me, Aunt, but I confess myself perplexed.”
She raised her brows. “By what precisely?”
He motioned with his hand to her. “By you. You are...different.” What an understatement.
She smiled widely, a spectacle as extraordinary to Solomon as her manner of dress. “I had an epiphany, my dear. Indeed, I am convinced everyone should have an epiphany—preferably earlier in life than I did, of course.”
He stared at her, nonplussed.
“When you reach my age, my dear, you will begin to regret spending so much of your time and energy on things that don’t matter—in trying to shape yourself to the expectations of others. For years, I wrote in secret, trying to hide away what I and Society had deemed unacceptable. But no more. I shall leave my mark on this world.” She took in a large breath and smiled serenely. “I intend to live what life remains in me to the fullest extent possible.”
Solomon nodded vacantly, still trying to wrap his mind around what he was hearing.
“In any case”—she gestured at the dim corridor—“the house is yours to do as you please. I will allow you to instruct Mrs. Davies on sleeping arrangements, for you know Chesterley well enough to do without my help.” She pinched his cheek and made her way back down the corridor, slipping through the library door and leaving Solomon perplexed in the extreme.
He turned back to the three ladies, clearing his throat and wondering what in the world to say.
Perhaps more to the point, what would Mr. Lanaway say if he knew that Priscilla Pickering, romantic playwright, was the woman lending credibility to his daughter’s reputation?
It was a terribly awkward situation, and yet, at this time of night, there was nothing for it but to stay at Chesterley and make the best of it. He only hoped that the reputation Mr. Lanaway knew was his aunt’s prior reputation.
In any case, the most urgent need was to convince Miss Lanaway to return home rather than continuing upon the course she had chosen—and to hope to high heaven that her father would accept the turn of events.
Chapter Eleven<
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Mercy watched Solomon giving directions to the butler and housekeeper with a sympathetic grimace. From the way his eyes traveled down the corridor to the door his aunt has disappeared through, it was obvious that Solomon was bemused by her behavior and words.
Viola seemed to know more of his aunt than he did, in fact. She certainly was not the woman Mercy had envisioned. That Viola knew of her was little indication of her popularity since she knew any number of obscure authors.
Once Mr. Coburn had been brought into the house and assisted upstairs by Solomon, the housekeeper, Mrs. Davies, asked Deborah to follow her up the staircase to show her to her bedchamber.
Viola was looking curiously at a small, leather book on the nearby side table as Solomon returned from directing the servants where to put Mr. Coburn, and Mercy approached him.
He looked as though he was about to apologize, but she rushed to speak.
“It is very kind of your aunt to welcome us into her home”—she twisted her smiling mouth to the side— “not that she seemed to have much of a choice. It was either accept the intruders or appear heartless for turning us away at such an unholy hour of night.”
Solomon chuckled. “The old Aunt Almira wouldn’t have hesitated to do the latter if she felt that it was the only way to maintain propriety and safeguard her reputation.”
“But she is Aunt Almira no more,” Mercy said with a slight twinkle in her eye.
Solomon blinked wide eyes and shook his head slowly. “I haven’t any idea who the woman is. She ascribes the change to an epiphany of some sort, though apparently she has been a clandestine authoress—”
“Playwright,” Mercy said with a twinkle.
He smiled in response. “Forgive me. A clandestine playwright for years.” He blinked with wide eyes. “If I were at all inclined to superstition, I should believe her body to be possessed by another spirit.”
Mercy glanced at Viola, who had picked up the book from the table and was reading it. “Do not let Viola hear you express such heresy,” she said in a conspiratorial whisper.
Solomon glanced at Viola, then back to Mercy, a question in his eyes. “She would disapprove of me mentioning such a possibility?”
Mercy shook her head. “She would disapprove of your dismissive attitude toward it, rather. Viola is quite superstitious.”
He chuckled. “Why am I not surprised?”
“If you knew her better, you would be even less so.” Mercy watched with a small smile as Viola rapidly mouthed what she was reading, her eyes greedily taking in the words on the page. “She grew up with an exacting vicar for a father, no mother, and an insatiable appetite for the novels her father forbade her. The role of nursemaid and governess was taken on by her aunt, who was a known practicer of folk magic.” She looked back at Solomon. “Viola is the most dear and loyal of girls but, as you have seen, she is very eager for life to match the idyllic vision in her head, even if she must force it to do so.”
Solomon’s mouth turned up in a half-smile. “Aren’t we all?” he said softly.
Mercy glanced at him. Yes. Certainly she had her own vision of an ideal life—an ideal she stood next to, close enough to touch physically, but perhaps never further from her emotionally.
The doctor, a middle-aged man whose spectacles balanced halfway down his nose and whose gray hair was combed from the level of one temple all the way to the opposite one, arrived at Chesterley House first thing in the morning.
After seeing to Mr. Coburn, he exited the sickroom and announced in grave accents to his grand audience, comprising Mercy and Deborah, that Mr. Coburn had suffered a break to his forearm and a slight concussion to the head and could on no account hazard a carriage ride until it was clear that there was no threat of fever.
Deborah’s crestfallen look was almost comical. “But…but…” she said helplessly, “we must continue on! We are still days away from the border.”
Mercy looked at Mr. Coburn. “I think it would be very unwise to attempt anyth—”
Deborah whipped around, her eyes flashing. “Exulting in the doctor’s opinion, are you? I might have expected it, for it means a delay in our elopement, and you have been set against us from the beginning.”
Mercy exhaled, trying to remind herself that, to Deborah, this was a matter of life and death; a future of joy or suffering.
Deborah seemed to have an idealized vision of what life with Mr. Coburn would be like after their elopement. But she was used to comfort and luxury—she was accustomed to wanting for nothing. With Mr. Coburn, the novelty of their star-crossed love would soon wear off, and she would find herself unhappy and unsatisfied—perhaps even resenting her husband for her change in circumstances.
Mercy took a deep breath to keep from wringing her cousin’s obtuse and ungrateful neck. “You know that is not true, Deborah. I have nothing to say against you and Mr. Coburn marrying. It is only that I—”
“Then why have you tried to convince me again and again not to see him?” Deborah folded her arms challengingly.
“Deb, it is not your seeing Mr. Coburn that I have disagreed with. It was that you were doing it secretly—in direct opposition to your father.”
Mr. Coburn interjected. “Deb, surely you must see that Miss Marcotte is only trying to help us. I cannot like the damage to your reputation that eloping would cause.” He looked to Mercy with gratitude. “I am very grateful to her and Mr. Kennett for doing everything in their power to make up for the lapse in judgment I showed in agreeing to this plan.”
Deborah, who had been staring at Mercy, whipped her head around at his words, a look of angry betrayal in her eyes. “She has persuaded even you?”
Mr. Coburn shook his head, alarmed. “No, Deb—”
But Deborah turned on her heel, eyes filling with tears, and left the room.
Mercy shut her eyes and lowered her head. It was painfully apparent that the tense situation was taking its toll on Deborah. Deborah was certainly stubborn and impulsive, but she was not unkind, nor generally so quick to anger as she seemed now to be.
How could Mercy persuade her that she was on her side if she was determined to believe the worst?
“I am sorry, Miss Marcotte,” Mr. Coburn said. “You certainly don’t deserve to be on the receiving end of Deb’s anger. She is under much stress, you know, and I think she is terrified that her father will appear at any moment and put an end to everything between us.” He shook his head. “Neither of us should ever recover.”
“I know Deborah does not mean all that she says,” Mercy said, “and I hope you understand that I did not come in place of my uncle to dissuade you from your attachment.”
He shook his head rapidly. “Not at all. In fact, I am very grateful indeed that you and Mr. Kennett pursued us, for I simply could not continue on a course so opposed to the ideals and beliefs I hold dear, particularly when they would have such a damaging effect upon the woman I love more than anything in this world.”
Mercy stared at him, her eyes narrowing. “Was it you who wrote the note?”
“Please do not tell Deborah.”
Mercy’s brows came together. The thought of deceiving Deborah didn’t sit well with her at all.
“She would not understand!” Mr. Coburn’s eyes pleaded with her. “She would think it meant I do not love her or wish to marry her, and nothing could be further from the truth!”
He was right, of course. Deborah had already bridled at Mr. Coburn’s words about the elopement being unwise. For her to discover that it was he who was responsible for bringing both Mercy and Solomon upon them would hurt her—perhaps irreparably.
“Please,” he said. “I cannot lose her. I will tell her, but I must first ensure that she knows how well I love her and that I mean to marry her, no matter how long it takes.”
Mercy was caught between two unsavory options, but she nodded. “Very well.”
Mr. Coburn took his breakfast in bed, having assured the doctor that he would stay there until the man’s re
turn the following day. The others breakfasted together, though their hostess was absent for almost the entirety of the meal. When she did emerge, she wore the same dress from the night before, and her hair was in the same disarray as it had been upon meeting her.
Mercy doubted whether the woman had slept in her bed. Miss Pickering—for Viola had taken the part of Solomon’s aunt in insisting that she be referred to by that name—had hollows under her eyes and an erratic element to her movements, as though she wasn’t entirely in control of herself.
“Aunt Priscilla,” Solomon’s eyes found Mercy’s briefly. She knew it cost him to humor the woman in a thing he found so ridiculous. “Good morning to you.”
Her brows drew together as she took a plate from the sideboard and thrust a piece of toast haphazardly upon it. “Good morning?” She shook her head. “Hardly.”
Solomon looked as baffled as Mercy felt. “Is something amiss?”
“Everything is amiss,” Miss Pickering said in a nasal voice. “I am at an utter standstill.” She let out a small huff and muttered, “Everyone refuses to cooperate with me.”
Mercy shifted in her seat. Was her frustration directed at her guests?
“I am sorry, Aunt.” Solomon’s wary eyes lingered on Mercy. “We have certainly inconvenienced you to no small degree.”
Miss Pickering waved a dismissive hand. “No, no. It is not you I speak of. It is Quintessa. And Leonidas. And all their fairies and nymphs besides.”
Mercy knew a desire to laugh, but she recognized it for what it was: uncomfortable concern for the woman. Miss Pickering sounded as though she had perhaps lost her mind.
“Are these…characters?” Viola said in an awed voice.
“Yes,” Miss Pickering said. Her tone became more severe as she followed the response with, “And very disobliging ones, at that.”