by Martha Keyes
Viola nodded her comprehension. “I understand that sometimes a writer’s mind becomes stopped up, and the waters of creation cease to flow temporarily.”
“Precisely. The waters of creation are stagnant. All night I attempted to stir them—to urge them to flow as they had been. But alas. It was to no avail.”
Viola took a sip of tea. “Even the greatest masters of language have such times, you know. You must simply find something to spark your genius again.” She reached for the butter and smiled at Miss Pickering. “I imagine it will come where you least expect it.”
Miss Pickering stared at Viola with a struck expression. “Yes, you are right. I must find a way for them to speak to me again.”
Viola nodded. “My aunt was called on more than once by a novelist in just such a situation.”
“Your aunt?” Miss Pickering’s curiosity and hope were obviously piqued. She sat down and reached absently for the butter, not moving her eyes from Viola, who seemed not to notice as the butter dish was taken from her hands.
“Yes. To read the cards for his characters,” Viola replied, as though it were the most natural thing in the world.
Miss Pickering leaned forward on the table, her plate of food entirely forgotten, rapture in her eyes. “Tarot cards?”
Viola nodded matter-of-factly.
Miss Pickering blinked once. Twice. She rose abruptly. “Inspired. Pure brilliance!” With not another word, she strode from the room, leaving her buttered toast on the plate.
Viola smiled benevolently as she watched Miss Pickering’s retreat.
“Your aunt reads tarot cards?” Deborah asked, captivated.
“She used to, isn’t that correct?” Mercy asked. Viola’s aunt had been obliged to cease all of her mystical pursuits when she had moved into the Pawnce home to act as a nursemaid and governess to Viola. Only the most dire necessity had allowed Viola’s father to accept such an arrangement—and only with strict stipulations regarding his sister’s conduct.
“Well, yes.” Viola wouldn’t meet Mercy’s eyes. “She did stop receiving payment from doing such things for a number of years. But once my father died and more money was needed to supplement what he left for me, she was obliged to take it back up again.” There was a pause, and Viola stirred her tea determinedly. “At times she stood in need of my assistance.”
Mercy took her lips between her teeth, not daring to ask what such assistance entailed. Whatever it was, she suspected that Viola had not been difficult to persuade.
“How fascinating!” Deborah said. “What kind of assistance did you provide? Do you read tarot cards as well?”
Viola shook her head rapidly. “Oh no, I haven’t had enough practice! Nor have I the gift of divination required for such a thing.”
“Which is it that is needed?” Solomon asked with an amused lilt to his voice. “Practice or the gift of divination?”
“Oh, both!” Viola looked at him with sincere eyes. “One may be born with an inclination or natural ability, but it must be honed and developed, like any other skill.”
Mercy shot Solomon a warning look, only somewhat weakened by the smile she was attempting to tame. She could hear how ridiculous Viola must sound to Solomon, and she wished she could explain to him how very good was her cousin’s heart.
Solomon’s mouth drew into a thin line, as though he was trying to keep himself from speaking.
“Is your aunt a witch, then?” Deborah asked.
“Good heavens, no!” Viola hurriedly put down her spoon. “My aunt uses her power only for good. You might refer to her as a cunning woman, though it is not the term she prefers.”
“And what term does she prefer?” Solomon asked.
If Mercy had been close enough, she would have kicked him under the table.
“A divine. For her powers come from God.” Viola pursed her lips. “Though of course Father refused to believe or acknowledge that. He believed quite the reverse.”
“It is a shame you hadn’t more practice,” Deborah said, disappointed, “for I should dearly love to have my future foretold!”
Viola gave a sympathetic smile. “Yes, I would have liked very much for my aunt to instruct me in the ways of tarot or cartomancy, but my father took violent exception to even the sight of such cards”—she sighed dramatically, evidence of just how persecuted she felt she and her aunt had been—“and so the majority of what I learned from my aunt was in the way of palmistry and the properties of various herbs.”
“Do you believe in such things, Miss Lanaway?” Solomon asked.
Deborah tilted her head to the side. “I believe so. Certainly I believe there are powers beyond those that we can see. My friend Maude had her cards read before going to London for her first Season, and every single one of the predictions came true.”
“You have me curious.” Solomon set his wrists on the edge of the table. “What sort of predictions were they, if you don’t mind my asking?”
“Well, for one, she was given a voucher to Almack’s—”
“Hardly irregular enough to be wondered at,” Solomon interjected, clearly underwhelmed.
“—and she was married before the Season was over.”
“Even less astonishing, I’m afraid.”
Deborah raised her brows. “Perhaps not for just any young girl. But Maude had spots.”
It was obvious that Deborah viewed this bit of information as overwhelming evidence that the card reader had been inspired in her predictions.
“No one anticipated either of these things,” Deborah said. “That is, no one except the woman who foretold them, of course.” She looked at Solomon. “I take it that you do not believe?”
“Not even a little, I’m afraid.”
Mercy glanced at Viola to see how she would respond to such a flat rejection of the things she held to be hallowed. She was smiling benevolently upon Solomon, though.
“‘There are more things in heaven and earth,’ Mr. Kennett, ‘Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.’”
His brow went up skeptically. “Hamlet?”
Viola nodded. “Not everyone is attuned to the supernatural. But, just as one is acted upon by gravity without even being conscious of or believing in the force, we are all affected by magic.”
There seemed to be no possible response to such an assertion, and Mercy carefully guided the conversation down safer avenues. The task of keeping peace amongst the company seemed to become more and more difficult with every passing hour.
Chapter Twelve
Solomon finished scribbling off another letter to Mr. Lanaway, feeling the bothersome pricking of his conscience as he signed and sealed it. Aunt Priscilla had been holed up with a tarot card reader for more than two hours now, and while Solomon found it all utterly ridiculous, he couldn’t help being impressed by his aunt’s resourcefulness in finding a card reader so quickly.
Aunt Priscilla was proving to be every bit the absent hostess she had assured him she would be when they had first arrived. She had clearly found her passion, and she wasn’t letting the odd group of visitors pull her away from it.
He was baffled by the change in her—and even more so to know that it was of longstanding! She had put on a very convincing façade all those years—but he also envied her in some small way. She was pursuing her dreams vigorously and unapologetically, while Solomon felt less and less certain of what his own future would hold. Or what he even wanted.
For now, though, he needed to focus on the situation at hand. He suspected that Mr. Lanaway would be little comforted to know that his daughter was able to glide in and out of Mr. Coburn’s room at her leisure.
Gone, too, was any prospect of the party starting on their way home today. Mr. Coburn was under strict orders to rest until he could be seen to on the morrow.
Solomon had his doubts about the sinister warnings the doctor had issued in the case that his orders were disobeyed, but he didn’t dare broach the subject, knowing as he did that Mercy was still attempting to pe
rsuade Deborah to a different course of action. Mr. Coburn’s injury and the doctor’s orders provided a good enough excuse to prolong their stay. Solomon only hoped that Mercy was making headway with her intractable cousin.
He pulled the bell by the door of the library, handing the note to the servant who arrived and directing that it to be taken to Westwood Hall post-haste.
He hesitated in the doorway for a moment. With his aunt’s absenteeism, he had a niggling suspicion that the responsibility of hosting and ensuring the comfort of his guests fell to him. Of course, Mr. Coburn couldn’t venture from his bed, but perhaps the others would wish to take air or walk to the nearest village.
The thought of spending more time with Mercy made his heart trip momentarily, and he put a hand to his cravat, adjusting it slightly. It was no wonder that the prospect appealed to him—not when the alternatives were the superstitious, poetry-obsessed Miss Pawnce or the impossible and short-tempered Miss Lanaway.
He scaled the stairs at a brisk pace, hoping he would perhaps happen upon Mercy or Miss Pawnce in the corridor. The door to Miss Lanaway’s room stood slightly ajar, and Solomon stopped short of it as he heard the voices within.
“—cannot think that I am truly here to ruin what you have with Mr. Coburn, Deborah.” It was Mercy’s voice.
“Then why? You say that you think my father may come around to the match after all. Then why should we be made to wait? Why should my father’s hardheadedness determine when we are able to marry?”
Solomon smiled wryly. To hear Miss Lanaway criticize her father for stubbornness was rich indeed. He took a step forward, intending to leave them to their conversation, only to stop again at Mercy’s words.
“Because,” Mercy said, “having his blessing now is likely the difference between embarking on a marriage of penury versus one of stability and independence.”
Solomon’s jaw clenched. He turned on his heel and flew back down the stairs, any thought of taking air with the ladies abandoned.
He strode into the entry hall and pushed open the door to go outside. His fists clenched and unclenched as he walked to the nearest tree, leaning his hand against it and staring down at the ground, willing his breathing to calm and his blood to slow.
He knew what he was feeling. It was anger, of course. But he had become far too familiar with the emotion coursing through him to pretend he didn’t know what lay beneath it.
Hurt.
Cold, piercing hurt, as if a healing wound had just been opened yet again, now reaching deeper than ever before.
Somewhere within him—perhaps in his pride—he had wondered whether Mercy had come to regret her decision. Had she daydreamed, as he had so very many times, of what life might have been like if she had chosen differently?
Seeing him now, returned to England with the fortune he had vowed he would make, was there not a part of her that longed to recapture what they had once had?
He hit his fist against the tree, and the leaves above rustled.
No, she did not regret her decision. She was encouraging Deborah to make the same one, in fact—to let fortune rather than love determine her future.
And even if she did look on Solomon now with any rekindled emotion at all, it would be for his fortune and nothing else.
For nothing else had changed. Much as he wished it had, much as he had tried to give place in his heart for someone new, when he looked into his heart with honesty, he found Mercy there still—persistently hidden wherever he least expected to find her, slipping into his thoughts unwelcome, mocking the pathetic naiveté which kept him attached to her.
And was she not right? He presented a pitiful picture. What other possible reason could his heart have for setting itself upon someone who valued him so little? She had abandoned him at the first sign of trouble and doubted every one of his promises to set things to right.
Could his heart not see that all her good qualities meant nothing if her affections were so changeable and so dependent upon circumstance?
Solomon turned his head to the house, with its warm, golden stone and the vines which had begun to creep up the façade. What madness had led him to offer such a refuge to this strange band of people? It was yet more evidence of the hold Mercy had on him, for he’d had the choice to leave her to travel back to Westwood, and Miss Lanaway and Mr. Coburn to elope in peace.
But he had seen the way Mercy smarted at her cousin’s words, had thought on his own brusque and hasty words to her just before that, and he had not been able to leave her.
His decision to return to England was looking more and more foolish. All he had accomplished was to underscore just how little control he had over his heart.
The large, wooden front door opened, and Mercy emerged, her eyes scanning the scene and landing upon Solomon, whose jaw tensed as she came toward him.
He turned his head away, trying to steel himself against the woman approaching, whisps of her hair streaming across her face in the breeze.
“I think I have made a little progress with Deborah.” The energy and brightness in Mercy’s voice were at odds with the way Solomon’s own heart weighed heavily inside him, and she brushed back the loose strands of her hair. “I hope, at least, that she has come to see—”
She stopped a few feet shy of Solomon, and her expression morphed into one of concern. “What is it?”
“What?” he said. Clearly he was not as adept at schooling his expression as he had thought, but her mention of progress with Miss Lanaway did nothing to improve his mood. He knew how the progress had been made.
“Something is amiss,” she said. “You are angry.”
He let out a little scoff without meaning to. The concern seemed so empty. It was obvious that it only went so far—in the end, all other considerations were outweighed by the one she most cared about: fortune.
“Is it Deborah? Or has Viola been lecturing you with poetry? Or perhaps threatening to read your palm?”
He could hear the smile in her voice, and indeed, there was a small one tugging up at the corner of her lips as she looked at him, evidently hoping to cajole him into a better mood.
He said nothing, not trusting himself, as he could feel his heart beating in his ears.
Mercy’s smile faded again, and she scanned his eyes. “You wish to be left alone.”
He cleared his throat. “Yes, thank you.”
She inclined her head and paused, as if she was reluctant to leave him. “I am sorry that we have become such an inconvenience and a burden. I hope Mr. Coburn will be well enough to travel tomorrow and, if I have another few minutes with Deborah, that she too will be prepared to return to Westwood.” She gave him one last thoughtful look, as if she was reluctant to leave him, before turning toward the house.
Solomon’s teeth clamped together, but the words came out despite that. “Yes, all it requires is a bit more convincing that your cousin’s affection should take second place to her fortune, doesn’t it? And who better to make that argument than you?”
Mercy stopped in her tracks, her back to him.
He felt his breath coming quickly and wondered whether he would regret saying the words. But for now, it felt like a burden off his chest.
When she turned, the hurt in her eyes almost took his breath away.
But he couldn’t stop himself. “Is that not the argument you have used to convince your cousin against the elopement?”
Mercy’s throat bobbed.
“Am I mistaken?” Solomon asked. “Am I wrong that it is the threat of Miss Lanaway being deprived of her fortune that has brought you all this way?”
“Yes,” she said, the first hint of indignation apparent in the force of the word. “You are mistaken.”
He said nothing, only waiting—skeptically—to be corrected.
“If you must know,” Mercy said, dashing impatiently at a tear, “Deborah’s relationship with her father is extremely precarious at the moment. That is the greater concern I have—that it will be harmed past fixing. T
hrough miscommunication on both sides and Deborah’s willful disobedience, they have come to a place where Uncle Richard will not hesitate to cut her off. You have no doubt gathered that she is ill-equipped to live a life of poverty.”
Solomon found himself at a momentary loss for what to respond. “And yet you choose to hold Miss Lanaway’s fortune over her head to persuade her rather than warning her of the risk to her relationship with her father.” He hated how feeble he sounded, but he couldn’t resist pressing the issue further.
Mercy’s eyebrows came together. “That is because Deborah is too stubborn to relent to such an argument. She cannot see her father and his actions for what they truly are, so tainted is her view of him. She believes he means to deprive her of happiness out of mere spite, and an elopement would only confirm that when he inevitably withholds her dowry. In reality, he longs to mend their relationship. They care for each other more than they let on. I am trying to salvage things however I can.”
They stood looking at one another, her cheeks red with emotion, his jaw tight and mulish.
Mercy managed to make her motives sound pure, but the reality still stood between them, stark and immovable: she had thrown away everything they shared when Solomon’s family lost their fortune and their land. Her honorable intentions on behalf of the Lanaways didn’t erase that.
Mercy shut her eyes and turned back toward the house, leaving Solomon to shift his weight uncomfortably, wavering between a desire to run after her and a wish to vocalize his frustration and anger to the skies above.
By that evening, Mr. Coburn was pleading with Mercy and the others to allow him to, at the very least, join them in the drawing room after dinner.
“For I feel strong as an ox, I assure you,” he had said. “And with my arm in this sling, it is well-protected.”
Mercy had agreed to his request, though she felt strange that Mr. Coburn was pleading his case to her, as though she were the authority amongst the group and had any kind of control over his decisions.
Solomon, on the other hand, talked hardly at all at the dinner table. There was an extra measure of reserve in his manner, but Mercy couldn’t tell if it was the result of lingering anger or simple somberness—the former seemed more likely.