Angel in Scarlet (10 page)

Chapter Four

Summer seemed endless, each day dragging on, empty of sensation or splendor or spectacle of any kind. It was unusually warm, and I was almost as indolent as Janine, seeing little of Eppie, reading without enthusiasm, filling each lengthy day as best I could and trying not to think of the loathsome Hugh Bradford who had slept with my stepsister. Solonge had probably instigated it, I knew, but somehow it still seemed like … like a betrayal of sorts. I hated him, I really did, and I never wanted to see him again. He was vile, almost as vile as his cousin. I could understand why Lady Meredith detested the sight of him and wouldn't allow him inside the Hall. Although, according to Eppie, the tenant farms were prospering mightily under his supervision, he still stayed in his old room over the stables. Serves the sod right, I told myself.

Autumn came and the leaves turned and the air grew crisp and the days were shorter but as empty as ever. I did quite a bit of sewing, refurbishing my stepsisters' winter wardrobes, even sewed some for Marie who be-grudgingly admitted that I was an absolute marvel with needle and thread. I had to alter several of my own things, too, for, wonder of wonders and at long last, I was gradually beginning to fill out in other places besides my bosom. My straight, bony frame was taking on flesh and the flesh was shaping itself into soft, pleasing curves. I was still too tall and far from voluptuous, but at least I no longer felt such a freak. Gazing out the window at the vividly hued leaves, my lap full of sewing, I wondered if I might finally be growing out of “that awkward age” Marie referred to so often. It was certainly high time, I thought wryly.

For Christmas my father gave me a complete set of the works of John Dryden, including those scandalous plays generally kept under lock and key. He said he assumed I knew all about those things anyway and Dryden was a masterful writer, even when pandering to the tastes of Restoration theatergoers. Solonge and Janine got splendid new cloaks, Marie a bottle of very expensive perfume from her native France. Hair newly dyed, face vividly painted as always, she sniffed disdainfully and said she'd have no reason to use it here in this dreary outpost. Father merely shrugged, admiring the ivory-handled magnifying glass I had bought for him and wrapped in red paper.

January was very cold, icicles hanging from the eaves, snow covering the ground, and I worried about Father. He seemed to be even thinner now and his cough was much worse. Once, in his study, I saw thin red flecks on his handkerchief after one of his coughing spells, and he hastened to tell me it was nothing, nothing at all. Doctor Crandall had given him a potent new medicine and it was working wonders, he'd be as fit as ever once this cold weather was over. I tried very hard to believe him, but the worry was always there in the back of my mind, niggling away, and I was always bringing a lap rug for his knees and making sure there were plenty of logs on the fire. Father shook his head at my concern and called me his silly pumpkin.

I turned sixteen in February and no one remembered my birthday except Solonge. She gave me a bolt of exquisite sky blue muslin sprigged with tiny violet flowers and tiny green leaves and told me it was time I made myself something really fetching. I was sad that day, not because Father didn't remember, he was much too busy with his history, but because I was growing older and life seemed to have no direction. Day followed day and nothing happened and I saw nothing ahead but more of the same.

I made the dress and it was fetching indeed, with short puffed sleeves worn off the shoulder, a modestly low neckline, formfitting bodice and full, flaring skirt that belled out over my petticoat. Modeling it in front of the mirror as the March winds roared outside, I was amazed at the transformation I saw in the glass. The tall, slender young lady with the rich, abundant chestnut hair and violet-gray eyes certainly wasn't beautiful, not even pretty with those high, sculpted cheekbones and that wide mouth, but she bore little resemblance to the skinny, gawky adolescent who was all elbows and legs. My breasts were full, yes, but they no longer seemed terribly out of proportion now that I had filled out elsewhere.

I tied the violet velvet sash around my waist and turned to make sure the ends trailed properly in back, looking over my shoulder into the mirror. Sunlight angling through the window gave my long, wavy hair a luxuriant sheen. I sighed and turned back around, examining the young lady anew. Not the lovely, demure young lady in cream-colored silk and plumed bonnet I had imagined when I was strolling across the fields almost a year ago, but not … not entirely plain either. I wished Hugh Bradford could see me now. Wouldn't be so quick to treat me like a child. I'd snub him royally, I would, and he would scowl and look at me with those dark brown eyes and they'd be filled with desire and … I made a face at my reflection.

I wasn't likely to see Hugh Bradford again, and if I did he'd be rude and sullen and I'd probably give him the finger or slap his face again or do something equally outrageous. He was a lout, a bumpkin, rough and uncouth and a complete sod. I wasn't interested in men, but if I ever
was
the man would be genteel and polite and charming. Certainly wouldn't be a surly country ruffian who spent his days inspecting farm equipment and making certain the manure was properly spread. I took off the dress and hung it carefully in the wardrobe. It was a lovely dress, the finest I'd ever had, but where was I going to wear it? Downstairs to dinner? To the village on my errands? When I entertained one of the countless beaux who swarmed around vying for my favor? I slipped on my old blue cotton frock and went downstairs to peel the potatoes for dinner. Marie would have one of her snits if I didn't have them ready in time.

The winds continued to roar throughout most of March, making Marie testy and making me restless. When finally they died down it was almost April and the skies were a pure, pale white with only a touch of blue and the sun was a pale white disc. The trees were bare, the earth brown, but all the snow was gone and a faint green haze was beginning to appear. Spring would be here in no time, the flowers abloom again. A decade seemed to have passed since that spring day last year when I had picked the daisies and sprained my ankle and slapped Hugh Bradford across the face. That might almost have happened another lifetime ago, I thought as I came back from the village with the groceries Marie had sent me to buy.

Marie wasn't in the kitchen. She was in the parlor with my stepsisters, and all three of them fell silent when I entered. Janine was on the sofa as usual, but she wasn't stretched out. She was sitting up, and her large blue eyes weren't as placid as usual. They looked worried. Marie was sitting by the window in the familiar garnet silk dress and black apron she always wore when she was working, her thin, sharp-featured face painted as usual, orange-blonde hair stacked atop her head with ringlets spilling over her brow. Her eyes were glittering brightly, full of angry determination. Solonge stood by the window, breathtakingly gorgeous in a lime green frock. Her red-gold hair glistened like pale fire in the sunlight streaming through the window behind her. She looked defiant, I thought, looked impatient, too, all that vivacity and temperament held carefully in check. I had obviously stumbled in on one of the fierce arguments Marie periodically had with her daughters.

“I put the groceries in the kitchen,” I said.

“Go to your room, Angela!” Marie ordered.

“Let her stay,” Solonge said. “She'll have to find out sooner or later.”

“This isn't—”

“Angie's no longer a child, and she happens to be a member of the family, though you're so busy clucking over us you seem to forget it most of the time. Sit down, Angie,” Solonge told me. “We're in the middle of an earthshaking crisis.”

“Crisis?”

“Janine's pregnant,” she said dryly.

I stared at her, stunned, certain I must have misunderstood her. Janine pregnant? I could hardly believe it. Solonge, now, that wouldn't have surprised me, although she always bragged about being so careful, but Janine was so indolent she could scarcely stir herself enough to go out with any of the youths who came calling. I couldn't imagine her having enough energy to perform the gyrations necessary for pregnancy to occur.

“Janine?” I said. “Pregnant?”

“Unquestionably.”

“How did it happen?”

“Between naps,” Solonge said bitterly.

Janine sighed wearily and leaned back against the pillow, idly rearranging the folds of her pink and blue striped frock. Silvery blonde hair atumble, cheeks a delicate pink, she looked at her sister with resentful blue eyes and said there was no need to be
bitchy
about it, accidents happened all the time, and then she swung her legs up and stretched out full length on the sofa, making herself comfortable.

“I don't know what all this fuss is about,” she added. “Teddy wants to marry me.”

Marie drew in a sharp breath, her long jet earrings swaying as she jerked her head around to glare at her oldest daughter.

“He would!” she snapped. “It would be a coup for him, winning the hand of one of my daughters. A bookseller! A pitiful clerk in a bookstore! Yes, indeed, that would be just
dandy
. The two of you could move into his elegant rooms over the store and live luxuriously on his generous salary. What does he make? Ten pounds a year? Fifteen?”

“Teddy?” I said. “Teddy Pendergast?”

“The same,” Solonge told me.

“He isn't a clerk,” I said. “He's the manager. He's very nice, always smiles at me when I come in.”

“He smiled at me, too,” Janine said. “He has a very nice smile and the warmest brown eyes.”

“What in the world were
you
doing in Blackwood's?” I asked.

“Browsing,” Solonge said.

“It was starting to rain and I just stepped inside to stay dry and there was no one else in the shop but Teddy and he was very polite, very attentive. I love that thick bronze hair of his. I love his soft, caressing voice, too. He asked if I'd like some tea and I said yes and we had the tea and ate cakes I'd just purchased—those tiny iced cakes I'm so fond of. That's why I had walked all the way to the village in the first place, to buy the cakes. Teddy is thirty-two,” she added. “I think that's a lovely age for a man.”

“He's a vile seducer!” Marie exclaimed.

“Hardly,
Maman
,” Janine informed her. “I asked
him
to take me upstairs to his rooms. He was very nervous, almost forgot to put the ‘Closed' sign on the door. I had to remind him.”

“I can't believe it!”

“You could if you met him. He's much nicer than any of the boys you're always encouraging me to go out with, the ones with wealthy fathers and money to spend.”

“You slept with him! And you kept going
back.
”

“Not that often,” Janine replied. “It's a long walk to the village.”

“And now the whole village knows one of my daughters—”

“I only went at night,
Maman
, after the shop was closed, and I used the back door, the one that opens onto the alley. I always wore my long cloak, too, with the hood pulled up. I'm not a
complete
ninny.”

“How could this have happened?” Marie wailed. “All my work, all my plans, and then you—” She shook her head, eyes pained. “I just can't believe it.”

“Teddy's not an aristocrat, you see,” Solonge explained to me. “He's not Oxford educated, doesn't have a title, doesn't have a private income or a father who owns a great deal of property. Hence, he's not good enough for a great-great-granddaughter of the Marquis de Valois.”

“I've had enough of your sarcasm, Solonge!”

“It's true, isn't it,
Maman
dear? If Teddy were
some
body, if Teddy had money, you'd have
shoved
her into his bed.”

“I want my daughters to take their proper station in life.”

“When are you going to give up that fantasy?” Solonge asked. Her hazel eyes flashed, and her voice was sharp. “Janine and I are never going to marry into society,
Maman
. We're
not
aristocracy. I doubt seriously we're even legitimate. If there
was
a de Valois in your life I feel sure he kept you stashed away in an apartment on the back streets of Paris. You should thank your lucky stars you found a perfectly respectable English schoolmaster to take us in and give us his name.”

“You—you have no idea what you're saying. You—you—how could you speak to me this way? I've struggled and struggled, I've worked my fingers to the bone, trying to bring you both up properly, trying to instill in you an awareness of who you
are
, and—”

“We
know
who we are,
Maman.
”

Marie said nothing for a long while. Her face had gone white, making the paint and the dyed hair seem all the more garish. Her thin lips quivered at the corners, and her eyes were filled with bitterness and something very like defeat. I knew that Solonge had struck a raw nerve, knew what she had said cut very deep and was undoubtedly true. I felt a curious sympathy for this harsh, unhappy woman who had clung to a fantasy for years because the reality was too painful to bear. Her long fingers clutched and unclutched her black apron, wrinkling the cloth, and then, after several long moments, she stood up, her back stiff. The defeat was gone now, a hard, determined expression on her face.

“I won't have it,” she said. “I won't have a daughter of mine marrying a clerk. I won't have either of you wasting away like I have. You're going to have things. You're going to have everything I never had.”

Janine and Solonge exchanged glances. Janine's limpid blue eyes were full of indecision. She sat up and brushed a silvery-blonde wave from her temple. I could see that the idea of marrying Teddy suited her nicely. I also knew she hadn't the ability to stand up to her mother.