An Intimate Education: A Comedic Tale of Open Hearts and Narrow Minds

by Anna Willman

  Sarah thought it cramped and dismal, but acknowledged that it was better than she had hoped for. Thomas was indifferent to its lack of amenities, but pleased with its location on Upper Grosvenor Street. Jonathan Digby had lived on this street at one point in his career.

  Sarah and Thomas had just returned from viewing the house and were agreed that they were unlikely to find a more suitable residence for their purposes. Sarah was rather gloomily wandering from one room to the next, deciding which pieces of furniture she would be able to fit into the modest dwelling that was their destination and which pieces she might hand on to her children. Thomas trailed behind her. It was clear to her that the bulk of their furniture would end up at auction. It was not a cheerful moment for her, but neither was it altogether sad. She found within herself a small sense of excitement and paused to consider what might be the cause of that.

  “It’s a new beginning,” she said.

  “What is that?” Thomas asked.

  Slightly flustered, she turned away from him. She had not realized she’d spoken her thought aloud. “We shall have to get rid of most of this furniture.”

  “I suppose so. Oh, well yes, of course we will. I had not considered the matter before.”

  “No, I did not think you had. You will have to let me know which pieces you particularly wish to keep. You will have to sell most of your books as well, for we will have room for only two or maybe three bookcases in your new library.”

  This caused him to stop and think. “We could add a fourth in the parlor,” he said.

  “Perhaps, but I will want my secretary in there, for there is no room for it in my bedroom. I do not know if we can fit in a bookcase as well. It is a very small room.”

  They wandered together through their house that afternoon, picking through the tokens of a long life spent together, considering each piece, whether the memories attached were sufficient to justify the space it would take up in their new home. Here was the chair beneath which their eldest daughter had loved to hide when she was but a tiny girl, giggling with delight as they pretended not to see her little shoes poking out from underneath. This was the lamp that lit their bedroom when they were first wed. This carpet, a little shabby around the edges now, had been one of their first purchases together so many years before.

  It was a bittersweet afternoon, for as they let each piece go, they captured the memories and found themselves treasuring the life they had shared. What had started as a sad exercise in renunciation was somehow transformed into an affirmation of all that they had done and been together over the past twenty-two years.

  It occurred to Sarah that had Thomas not decided so rashly to renounce their wealth and position, this rediscovery of their life might never have happened. They might have simply continued to live in all these luxurious rooms, never quite noticing all the precious memories that inhabited them.

  She turned to Thomas with sudden tears in her eyes and told him what she was thinking. “For this I can truly thank you,” she said.

  Thomas nodded and took her in his arms. “We have had many good years, my dear,” he said. “And I hope we will have many more.”

  She spoke her earlier thought then. “We are embarking on a new life, Thomas. It is strange, but I am almost looking forward to it, as if to an adventure. Our new life will be very different from what we have known until now, but I am beginning to think it may be a good life, too.”

  When they finally went up to change for dinner, they were quite genuinely at peace with one another for the first time since he had returned home from calling upon Lord Carew.

  After dinner, they took their tea together on a faded sofa in a small side parlor they had not used for years – a room with a frayed carpet lit by a lamp that had shone on the earliest days of their marriage.

  “I have some news that I am sure must please you,” Thomas said.

  “Yes?”

  “Henderson tells me that it is customary to pay trustees an honorific in return for their services. The amount he recommends is quite astonishing.”

  “Really?” said Sarah, who had had a few quiet words in private with Henderson that morning before he went into Thomas’s office.

  “My first response was to refuse to accept payment for ourselves, but he assured me that it would be most irregular to pay some trustees and not others. And when I had given it some thought, it did seem to me that it was not altogether unlike taking a position as a secretary or in a shop, and so agreed to accept payment. I did suggest that as a woman, you would be quite satisfied with half the sum, but he felt it more proper for all to receive the full fee.”

  “I have always considered Henderson to be a man of good sense,” Sarah said.

  Thomas smiled and tightened his arm around her shoulder.

  “The result, my dear, is that we shall have enough money to command just a few elegancies. You shall have your abigail, and a landaulet and pair as well. Nothing fancy, of course, but you shall be spared the indignity of traveling by hackney.”

  “And you shall have a valet.”

  “No, my dear. Indeed, I shall have no need of one. But we shall have a young footman to run errands and shine my boots.”

  “Will not my fee be sufficient to pay for a valet?”

  “I have told you that we will not live on your money, my dear. Your honorific will be yours to save or spend as you wish. Indeed, you will be able to attend the opera as often as you like.”

  “I shall be much too busy seeking out charities for our foundation to indulge in such frivolities,” Sarah said, with a quiet smile.

  “Indeed you shall be busy, but I want you to have your pleasures as well.” Thomas insisted. “And…” His voice trailed off.

  “What, my darling?” Sarah asked.

  Thomas cleared his throat and then said quietly, “Nothing, really. It’s just that I expect my mother will be glad to have your company from time to time when she goes out in society.”

  Sarah leaned her cheek against his shoulder and wept with relief. And Thomas held her in his arms, his lips pressed against her shining curls.

  chapter twenty-four: I n Which Young Love Thwarts Convention

  Edmund escorted a tearful Miss Manning to her parents’ home in Sussex. It was a tedious journey of several hours’ duration. No young gentleman would find a ride in a closed carriage with a female watering pot several years his senior a comfortable experience. Although Edmund was in complete with agreement with his father that Cousin Emily must not spend another night in their London home, he had nevertheless known this lady since childhood as his mother’s affectionate and calm companion, and could not endure her melancholy company on such a long journey without feeling some degree of sympathy for her plight. He offered what comfort he could, but soon found that each gesture of kindness merely elicited another stream of tears, and so after a time he desisted.

  Indeed his thoughts were more profitably and pleasurably expended upon his own affairs, for he did not plan to return to London immediately, but instead would travel eastward to the county of Kent, where his beloved Elizabeth was waiting for him. He had a particular reason to be glad that his father had given him use of the family traveling carriage for this journey.

  The Westlake family’s country residence was too far distant for him to reach that same day, but he refused all offers of hospitality made by Miss Manning’s parents and found a comfortable berth instead at a small country inn some little distance on the road to Kent. A good night’s sleep and he was on the road again at daybreak so that he arrived at the Westlake estate by mid-afternoon.

  The weather was brisk. The sun shining. And Elizabeth, once she saw him, glowing.

  Mrs. Westlake welcomed him to their home with all the graciousness of an affectionate mama-in-law to be, inviting him into the front parlor and calling for refreshment after his long journey. The conversation that ensued was conventional, ranging from the weather and the health of their respective families to the latest news of the royal duke
s’ matrimonial adventures. Edmund admired the Georgian architecture of the house and the grand vista across the lawns. Elizabeth remarked upon the disgraceful state of the roads. Mrs. Westgate poured the tea, and noticing that the young couple had poor appetites, called the maid to take it away again.

  At last the doting mother saw fit to take herself off on an urgent errand, leaving the two young people alone. The door closed behind her and they stood as one and faced one another, each a little breathless, each completely certain of the other.

  “It is all nonsense, my darling,” Edmund said, taking her in his arms. “When you wrote that there were impediments to our marriage, I determined to come here directly.”

  Elizabeth kissed him, but then stepped back, taking his hands in hers. “You had better hear what I have to say, first.” Her eyes glittered as they always did when he was present, but he could see that she was troubled, too.

  “There is nothing you can say that will deter me from my purpose,” he said with a firmness intended to reassure her. “Look, Elizabeth. See what I have brought.”

  He pulled a paper from his pocket and showed it to her. “It is a special license. We can be married at once. Once the deed is done, your mother will relent and accept our marriage.”

  She looked at him, astonished. “It is not my mother who will object, Edmund, but your parents. You must listen to what I have to say. I cannot agree to marry you if you do not first hear me out.”

  “My parents? But they can have no objection at all, I assure you.”

  “I think they may. My mother brought me here to the country to avoid exposure of a scandal from her past. Something that Lady Guinevere said to her gave her a terrible fright.”

  “Lady Guinevere? But my godmama adores you.”

  “So I have always thought. But that may not spare us if I come to you with scandal attached to me. You must listen to me, my dear.”

  “Every family has its scandals, Elizabeth. My father thought your mother had learned something discreditable about him or my mother, and that that is what put her off.”

  “Nonsense! Your father is the most perfect gentleman imaginable, and Lady Legerwood is a paragon of virtue.”

  Edmund nodded. “So I have always thought. Yet, when you wrote me that first hasty note and mentioned impediments, my father confessed to me that they are not such pattern cards as they present to the world. He did not disclose what secrets may darken their history, but he was convinced that your mother must have discovered them.”

  “Their pecadillos could not match what my mother has told me,” Elizabeth said.

  “Let us agree, my darling, that nothing our parents may have done will deter us. We can take our special license to the village this very afternoon, and, the parish priest will make us man and wife. I have my father’s carriage and his blessing. We can marry at once and go anywhere that you choose.”

  ‘I will gladly do so, but really, Edmund, I must first tell you my mother’s story.”

  “After we are married, you may tell me whatever you like. But as I do not have the facts of my parents’ misdeeds to tell you, I will not listen to yours. We must marry in blind faith, trusting to nothing but our own steadfast affections. What difference can it make to us, after all, what deeds others may have done?”

  When Elizabeth smiled it seemed to Edmund that the sun shone more brightly outside and even the room where they stood facing one another took on a warm glow that had nothing to do with the embers in the fireplace.

  “You are right!” Elizabeth said. “It truly matters not at all to me what your mother or father might have done. All that I care about is you.”

  There followed a period when words were not only unnecessary, but would have constituted a serious impediment to the interesting exchange of kisses both tender and passionate between the young lovers, as each strove to return that which was offered in equal measure.

  As such interludes go, this one lasted as long as it could without going beyond the bounds of what could be permitted before their visit to the parson. When it was necessary to separate, no matter how reluctantly, the two young people spent a few moments adjusting their apparel and tucking loose locks of hair back into place, glancing at one another a little shyly as they did so. When they were satisfied that they had done all that they could to achieve at least the appearance of propriety, Elizabeth sat in a straight-backed chair, folded her hands primly in her lap, and asked her betrothed if he was quite certain that they had chosen the right course.

  “Because Edmund, if your parents should object, or be upset because they cannot be with us for the wedding… I know you are close to them and I would not wish you to break faith with them.”

  Edmund laughed. “It was my father who told me how to obtain the special license and volunteered his carriage. We did not tell my mother because she has been ill, and father did not wish to worry her, but she will be glad because she knows that you make me happy.”

  Elizabeth let out a merry little chortle that belied the correctness of her posture and said, “Nor will my mother object, for it was with the object of saving our wedding that she spirited me from London when it seemed to her that her history was in danger of being exposed.”

  “That fact alone persuades me that we must not delay,” Edmund said. “If there is any danger at all of some scandal coming to light, we must be married immediately. We can say that we wished to be united before my parents went abroad and that we will have a more formal celebration when they return. And once we are married, the matrimonial state will keep us safe from any serious consequences of scandal. If there is any gossip, we will ride it out easily, for such things tend to die out rather quickly. Old tales from previous generations cannot compete very long with the latest on-dits and crim. cons., you know.”

  “We can be married tonight right here in this parlor,” Elizabeth said. “We will send for the vicar. He will come for dinner and afterwards marry us, and Mother shall be our witness.” And she gave him a very sedate kiss and went to tell her mother their news, pausing at the doorway only long enough to tell him that they could discuss travel plans in the morning and that he had best find a way to entertain himself for the rest of the afternoon, for both she and her mother had a great deal to see to during the next few hours.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE: In Which the Ladies of the Ton Have Their Say

  The ladies arrived by twos and threes. Occasionally, a sturdy matron appeared on her own, but most found courage in numbers. Not all of them had succumbed to the rake’s notorious charm, but all of them had been dazzled by Lancelot at some time in their lives. And as the word got out that Marianne Digby and Lady Guinevere Stanton were intent upon putting an end to Lord Carew’s latest outrage, curiosity joined with desperation to bring the more courageous ladies of the ton to Marianne Digby’s parlor.

  Sarah got wind of the gentle insurrection one day when visiting her mama-in-law. She had just settled down for a comfortable coze when Marianne’s footman ushered in first three elderly ladies and then two of a somewhat younger generation, followed by Lady Guinevere and Lady Legerwood, and then another woman of an uncertain age.

  “Sarah, my dear, you are welcome to stay and join us of course,” Marianne said in a quiet aside with a twinkle in her eye that Sarah had not seen there for many days. “However, I must ask for your discretion, as I am convinced that dear Thomas would not quite approve of what is taking place here, and I would not wish to add to his discomfort just now.”

  Sarah, bemused, nodded and waited to see what these determined ladies were about. It was obvious that this was not their first gathering, and also that some of the ladies were here for the first time. So many women arrived that the footmen were kept busy bringing in more chairs. When it became clear that the parlor itself was too small to accommodate the gathering, they removed themselves and all their chairs to a larger drawing room down the hall where, in short order, several large tea trays were brought in and cups distributed.

  Sarah, gl
ancing around the room, could not remember ever attending a tea party quite like this one. To be sure, the ladies were all dressed most elegantly, and sat in small circles of hushed conversation, but the tone of those quiet talks was one of suppressed excitement such as one might imagine soldiers would experience the night before a great battle. The air crackled with expectations.

  Lady Guinevere, who was seated next to Sarah, reached out and patted her hand and smiled reassuringly.

  When some ten minutes had passed without any new arrivals, Sarah’s mama-in-law put a halt to the chatter by the simple expedient of standing up and clapping her hands. A nod from Marianne sent the footmen and maids scurrying from the room. The ladies sat in silence until the door was closed.

  Then Guinevere spoke for the benefit of the newcomers. “We have formed the custom of taking a little time at the beginning of our conversation to hear from anyone who wishes to speak on the subject of our concern – that is to say, anything at all on the topic of Lord Carew. It can be a memory, an observation, or an idea about how we might proceed. We are all agreed that what is revealed here is not to be regarded as fodder for common gossip, but will be heard with the greatest discretion and kept private to this occasion. Our purpose here is to glean a better understanding of Lord Carew from our various experiences so that we can find a solution to our common dilemma.”

  There was a murmur of agreement followed by a somewhat uneasy silence. At first Sarah thought that no one would respond to Lady Guinevere’s invitation, but then the oldest lady present spoke out.

  She was a redoubtable presence in the room, an aged Dowager who had outlived all her progeny. She was a tiny figure of a woman, with wispy hair tucked under a cap and a face adorned with wrinkles. Her back was sharply bent over and she propped herself up on a cane held directly in front of her. Her eyes, however, betrayed a mind still sharp, and though her voice cracked a little as she spoke, her words rang clear.