ToLoveaLady

by Cynthia Sterling

  “Please don’t go to any trouble.” She forced a weak smile. “Why don’t you sit down and we’ll talk.”

  Hattie perched on the edge of one of a pair of chairs that matched the sofa and twisted her hands in her lap. “The weather has been very pleasant of late, hasn’t it?”

  Cecily nodded. “Yes, it has.”

  “I imagine the weather is very different in England.”

  “Yes. This time of year it’s much cooler. And of course, there’s more rain.” She hadn’t ridden all this way to talk about the weather. How was she ever going to maneuver the conversation around to applying for a teaching position? “I passed the Academy on my way into town. It looks as if it’s almost ready to open.”

  “Yes, we hope to enroll students this spring.” She stared at the floor, avoiding Cecily’s gaze. “I imagine you will be gone by then, won’t you?”

  “Gone? Where would I go?”

  Hattie’s cheeks blushed the color of peonies. “I just thought. . . well, the paper said. . . I mean, won’t you be married in England?”

  Cecily suppressed a sigh. Like everyone else in town, Hattie must have read the newspaper article introducing Cecily as Charles’s fiancé. How foolish she’d been to ever mention it to Mr. Adkins. “I don’t know when, or where we’ll be married,” she said. She could have added she didn’t know if they’d marry, but she couldn’t bear to reveal that news to anyone just yet.

  Hattie cleared her throat. “I. . . I think I know why you’re here today.”

  “You do?” Cecily stared at her in astonishment.

  She nodded, gaze still fixed on the floor. “Before you say anything, I just want you to know how very sorry I am. You must have a terrible impression of me. If I’d known that Charles. . . I mean, Mr. Worthington. . . Lord Silsbee. . . what I’m trying to say is, if I’d known that he. . . that you. . . “

  “Oh, my dear.” Understanding washed over her, followed closely by a wave of sympathy. Hattie must think she’d come to confront her about her feelings for Charles. To think how the poor woman must have felt when she’d learned from a newspaper article that the man whose attentions she sought was already engaged.

  Cecily leaned forward and touched Hattie’s arm. “Please, don’t upset yourself like this. I promise, I have no ill will toward you at all. Charles should have told you he was engaged. I’m sorry if he led you to believe otherwise.”

  Hattie closed her eyes and swallowed hard. “He didn’t lead me to believe anything. I led myself! When I think how I behaved at supper the other night, and you sitting right there!”

  “It’s all right.” Cecily patted her arm. “I understand.” She did allow a sigh to escape her then. “I suppose every woman has made a fool of herself over a man at some time in her life.”

  “I’m glad you’re not angry with me.” Hattie regained some of her composure. “I do wish you both happiness.”

  “Thank you.” Anxious to avoid further discussion of her uncertain future with Charles, she launched into the speech she’d rehearsed on the way here. “The reason I wanted to see you is that I’d like to apply for a position teaching at the Academy.”

  Hattie’s eyes widened. “But surely a lady in your position doesn’t need to seek employment.”

  Not only did the Thorndale women not need to seek employment, Cecily was certain the very idea of someone of her social standing taking a job would be a scandal on the order of murder or divorce. “It isn’t usually done,” she said. “But I’ve discovered I really enjoy teaching and, well, I’d like to do something useful with my life instead of always sitting back and waiting for things to happen.”

  Hattie looked thoughtful. “What does Charles think about the idea?”

  “He doesn’t care what I do.” A pain shot through her at the words. Apparently, Charles really didn’t care, at least not enough. “I hoped you could tell me how to go about applying for a position.”

  “Since Charles is the board president, a recommendation from him should get you in.”

  Her spirits sank at the idea of asking Charles for anything. “I really want to do this on my own.”

  Hattie smiled. “I wasn’t aware that England was so advanced in their understanding of the ideal of women’s independence that American suffragettes have been battling for. I can see I was wrong.”

  For the first time today, Cecily felt a glimmer of hope. “Then you’ll help me?”

  She nodded. “I’ll do what I can. Since you have no experience, you’ll need to find some way to demonstrate your ability to teach.”

  “I taught Fifi and Estelle to read.”

  “The two, um, fallen women?” Hattie looked doubtful. “I’m not sure the board would approve.”

  “But learning to read will make it possible for them to do other work,” she said. “Isn’t that one of the goals of your proposed adult education program?”

  “Yes, but how could you demonstrate this to the board?”

  She furrowed her brow, thinking. She recalled Mr. Adkins’s suggestion. “What if they give a reading at the ribbon cutting ceremony? Something dignified, in keeping with the occasion.”

  Hattie nodded slowly. “That would be impressive. Yes, that might be just the thing.”

  “I’ll send for Fifi and Estelle and get started right away.” She rose and clasped both Hattie’s hands in hers. “Thank you for your help. You don’t know how much this means to me.”

  Hattie smiled. “I’m glad you came by today. I was worried I’d made an enemy. I’d much rather have you for a friend.”

  Friend. The word had a comforting sound. Though friends could never fill the hole Charles had left in her heart, the companionship of another caring woman was certainly a good start.

  * * *

  “Try it one more time, Fifi,” Cecily encouraged. “And read a bit more slowly, please.”

  Fifi squinted at the paper in her hand and began again. “The Tyger, by William Blake. Ty-ger! Ty-ger! Burning bright! In the forests! Of the night!” she exclaimed, arms extended as if to envelop the beast in a hug.

  A thrill raced through Cecily as she listened. Only a few weeks ago, Fifi could not even read her own name. Who would have thought opening the doors of knowledge for another person could be so exciting, so rewarding, so. . . fulfilling?

  “What immortal hand or eye! Could frame thy fearful sym-met-try!” Fifi pronounced the last syllable to rhyme with eye and looked up at Cecily in triumph.

  Cecily struggled to keep a blank expression on her face. “Perhaps a tad less dramatically,” she said.

  “Let me try.” Estelle moved into the center of the room, looked down at her book and began to read. “This one is called Elegy Written in a County Churchyard, by Thomas Gray.” She cleared her throat and continued in a monotone. “The curfew tolls the. . . the knell of parting day. The lowing herd wind slowly over the. . . the lay.”

  The entire audience will be nodding off , Cecily thought. She stood and walked to Estelle’s side. “That was good, but you want to convey more emotion.”

  “Like this.” Fifi threw up her arms again, and screwed her face into what perhaps was meant to pass for rapture, but looked more like pain. “Ty-ger! Ty-ger! Burning bright!”

  “Perhaps not that much,” Cecily said. She looked from one woman to the next. “I thought you two were used to performing in public.”

  “I am, but not this rot.” Estelle tossed the book onto the sofa.

  “Then what do you do?” Even as she asked the question, Cecily wondered if she really wanted to hear the answer. Performing in a house of prostitution might entail anything from the can-can to more vulgar acts.

  “I’ll show you what I do.” Hands on hips, Estelle struck a jaunty pose and began to sing: “An old man came home one night, as drunk as he could be, and saw a horse standing in the barn, where his own horse ought to be.”

  Estelle had a clear alto voice, and an expressive face that mimicked the emotion of the story. “Oh my wife, my darling wi
fe, now tell me how can this be? There’s somebody’s horse standing in the barn, where my own horse ought to be.

  “Oh my wife, my darling wife, now tell me how can this be? Somebody’s head’s in bed with you, where my own head ought to be.”

  She shook her head and frowned mockingly, sure to draw chuckles from her audience and sailed into the finale of the piece: “Oh you fool, you blind old food, oh can’t you plainly see? It’s nothing but a cabbage head, that my mother gave to me.

  “I’ve traveled up, I’ve traveled down, ten thousand miles or more, but hair growing on a cabbage head, I never saw before!”

  Cecily stared in amazement, then felt laughter tickle at her throat. Goodness, she ought to be scandalized, but really, it was quite amusing. A head of cabbage, indeed!

  “You think that’s funny, listen to this.” Fifi gave her audience a saucy wink and launched into her own performance. “I would not marry a man that was tall, for he’d go bumping against the wall. I’ll not marry at all, at all, I’ll not marry at all.

  “I’ll take my stool and sit in the shade. I’m determined to live an old maid. I’ll not marry at all, at all. I’ll not marry at all.”

  Cecily’s amusement was tinged with sadness this time. Was this her own lot in life, ‘determined to live an old maid’?

  “I would not marry a man that preaches, for he’d have holes in the knees of his britches.” Fifi raised her skirt above her knees and shook her finger at her audience. “I’ll not marry at all, at all. I’ll not marry at all.

  “I would not marry a man that was small, for he’d be the same as no man at all. I’ll not marry at all, at all. I’ll not marry at all.” She finished with another wink, and an elaborate curtsey.

  Still fighting laughter, Cecily nodded. “You both obviously have a lot of talent. We simply need to find something more, um, suitable for a family audience.” She picked up the book again. “Besides, the intent is to demonstrate your new talent for reading, not necessarily your other, um, abilities.”

  Estelle’s face clouded. “That’s the whole problem. It don’t matter what we do, all those people will be standing there, looking down their noses on us.”

  “That’s right.” Fifi put her arm around Estelle. “They think what we do — taking money for sex – is so terrible, but I’ll bet every one of them has done things that were just as bad, only they do them in secret, so other people don’t have to know.” She raised her head. “At least me and Estelle are honest about what we do.”

  Had she and Charles been honest with one another? Cecily wondered. She had tried to be, but now she wondered if the passion of the moment had overwhelmed all other considerations, at least for Charles.

  “You can’t do anything about what people think,” she said. “But there’s no reason to do anything to add to their misguided judgment of you.”

  Fifi looked mournful. “I don’t think reading this poetry is going to improve their opinions of us. Even I think we sound ridiculous.”

  “Maybe poetry isn’t the thing for you two,” Cecily said thoughtfully. “Maybe we should try reading from a play. That would draw on your natural dramatic abilities.”

  The sound of the front door opening distracted her. Familiar steps echoed on the oak floors of the front hall, followed by Gordon’s muffled greeting as he took Charles’s coat and hat.

  “I know what that sound means.” Estelle rolled her eyes at Fifi. She collected her book from the sofa. “The lesson’s over for today.”

  “Oh no,” Cecily protested. “We can continue if you like.”

  “Now that your amore is here, your mind will not be on your work.” Fifi winked. “Especially after last night.”

  Cecily’s face burned as she busied herself straightening a stack of books. She hoped the others didn’t notice the way her hands shook, or realize how quickly her happiness of the night before had evaporated.

  “If I was engaged to a man like that, I’d be in a rush for him to get home every evening, too.” Estelle moved past her, toward the door.

  “Enjoy your time alone with your fiancé.” Fifi fluttered her fingers in a wave as she and Estelle left the room.

  As the women’s footsteps faded, she heard Charles’s heavier tread in the hallway. She held her breath, hoping he would pass her by. She had not seen him since breakfast that morning, when she’d refused his proposal. The pain of that moment was still fresh. How could she bear to face him again so soon?

  A moment later, he appeared in the doorway. “Am I interrupting something?” he asked.

  “Of course not.” Suddenly too weak to stand, she sank onto the sofa and tried to look indifferent. But even then, she could not keep from watching him out of the corner of her eye. Her first thought was that he looked tired. Was she the cause of such weariness?

  He sat in the chair across from her, poised on the edge of the seat as if ready to flee at any moment. And yet his gaze lingered on her, intent and searching. “I looked for you this morning, but Alice told me you’d ridden into town.”

  “Yes. I went to visit Hattie Simms.” She started to tell him why she had called on Hattie, but held her tongue. Most likely, he wouldn’t approve of her desire to teach, or understand what it meant to her.

  “I wanted to ask. . . that is, I was hoping you would attend the Texans’ Independence Day Celebration with me.”

  “Of course.” She hadn’t thought about not going with him. To do anything else would create an awkward situation for both of them. “I want us to still be friends,” she said earnestly.

  He looked away. “Of course.”

  It seemed that all conversation would die then, the thin connection they had reestablished now severed. Just when she was ready to despair and leave the room, he took a deep breath and said, “I was surprised to see Fifi and Estelle here. I thought they would be busy preparing for their grand opening tonight.”

  “I asked them to come.” She smoothed her skirts over her knees. “They’re preparing readings for the Independence Day celebration.”

  He leaned forward, obviously alarmed. “Fifi and Estelle are going to give readings at the Independence Day celebration? Does anyone else know about this?”

  “Of course. Hattie Simms invited them. She wants to demonstrate what adult education can do for people.”

  Shaking his head, he sat leaned back in the chair. “I can’t quite get over your teaching those two to read.”

  She curled her hands into fists. “Do you object?”

  “No. No.” If anything, he looked. . . amused? “It’s just not the sort of thing I would have expected you to do.”

  Raising her head, she met his gaze, offering a silent challenge that was met with a spark of interest. “Since coming here, I find myself doing all sorts of unexpected things.”

  His eyes swept over her, darkening with passion. When he spoke, his voice was husky. “That’s true, isn’t it?”

  As if he’d struck a match to dry tender, the passion within her flared. She gripped the arms of her chair to keep from hurtling into his arms. No good would come of a repetition of last night. All the passion in the world was worthless to her if it did not grow from love. “You’re different, too, since coming here,” she said, her gaze downcast.

  She thought at first this comment had silenced him, but after a moment, he said. “Why do you think that is? Is it because we’re so far from our accustomed climate? Is there something in the air here?”

  “I think. . . “ She wet her dry lips and tried to find words for her jumbled thoughts. “I think this freedom Americans prize so highly infects us with the desire to test our boundaries. It makes us see possibilities outside the molds we’ve been forced into all our lives.”

  She risked a glance at him then and found him staring at her, his hands tightened on the arms, white-knuckled. “You may be right.”

  For a moment, she felt the reserve that had grown between them dissolving, the wall between them breeched by the silent acknowledgment that, of al
l the people in this house, in this town, even in this state, they shared a common background, and a common understanding of what it meant to be hemmed in by privilege.

  She leaned toward him, longing to be closer still. “Charles, don’t you miss England?” she asked.

  He looked at her for a long time, until she felt she would melt in the heat of his gaze. “I miss some things about England,” he said finally. “I miss how green it is. I miss decent tea and smooth Scotch and the thrill of riding to hounds.” He closed his eyes and shook his head. “But I do not miss what I would have become if I had stayed there. What I would surely become if I went back.” He opened his eyes again, and now they darkened with anger. “I thought when you first came here, you meant to trap me into going back. I thought my father had sent you.”

  She shook her head, stunned. “No. I came of my own accord, and never to trap you.” The accusation stung.

  “I know that now. What I don’t know is what you expect of me.” He shook his head. “You’re not the same girl I left behind.”

  “That girl never existed! She was just a pantomime doll, a stuffed image of what everyone thought I should be.” She stood and looked down at him. “Oh, Charles, all I want is for you to love me. Not that fantasy, but the real me.”

  “You make it sound like a game, a riddle I have to figure out.” He thrust himself up from the chair, so close her skirts brushed his legs. His breath was ragged, his voice gruff. “I don’t have the time or patience for games, Cecily. If that’s what you expect of me, then maybe we are better off apart.”

  Before she could utter a sound, he strode from the room with such fury that the curtains fluttered in his wake. She put a hand to her chest, as if she could somehow still her pounding heart, and listened to the echo of his steps on the stairs. Grief warred with hope in her breast: Charles had declared there could be no future for them, but all the while he had looked at her as if he could never bear to be parted from her. How could she believe the lies of his lips when his eyes telegraphed a truth that set her heart singing?