Not Quite a Lady (32 page)

He patted the boy on the shoulder. No one would ever know what it cost him to do that and nothing more. No one would ever know what it cost him to hold back, because Pip’s mother ought to be the first to hold him in her arms.

“Women don’t appreciate the finer points of fighting,” said Lord Lithby. “What happened, exactly?”

According to the outdoor servants, Daisy had found Charlotte’s father, and they were headed to the home farm.

“Of course he would come here,” she told Mr. Carsington as they made their way to the end of the yard where the pigs were kept. “This is where Papa always comes when he needs to—”

She broke off as they came round a building, and she spotted them: her father, leaning on the fence as he always did…and Pip, who, judging by his gestures, seemed to be reenacting his fight with Rob Jowett—and threatening to fall into the pigsty.

She’d fallen in more than once, she remembered.

Papa would shake his head, and say,
One of these days, you’ll learn, Charlotte. I hope.

“It appears that Pip has found your father, too,” said Mr. Carsington.

She would have run to them, but he held her back.

“You must collect yourself,” he said. “You can’t start blubbering. Pip becomes anxious when you cry.” He told her how Pip had come to him the other day, worried because “the younger lady” was weeping.

“Did he?” she said, her throat aching. “But he is a good boy. In spite of everything that’s happened to him. A good boy, and a gentleman.”

She peeped over his broad shoulder at Pip, who had turned his head and was watching them. Had he any idea? Had he sensed her in the same way she’d sensed him? Had her voice remained with him somehow, in his heart? Was it there, perhaps without his quite realizing: the broken little speech she’d whispered before she gave him away?

I love you. I’ll always love you. Please forgive me.

But how could he remember? He was merely regarding her with curiosity—though it was hard to tell at this distance, given the black eye.

Papa turned to look at her, too. He smiled as he always did.

The dog was her usual self, busy shaking a stick into submission.

Charlotte’s eyes filled.

“I knew this would happen,” Mr. Carsington said. “You’d better get it out of your system first.”

“His eye, his poor eye.”

“He’s proud of it,” Mr. Carsington told her. “He got it defending your honor.”

“Oh,” she said. “Good grief. Defending the mother who abandoned him. How am I to bear it?”

“You must stop thinking that way,” he said. “Society makes a grievous shame of such things for women. If you had been a man, you should have boasted of your by-blows. But a woman is supposed to be ashamed, to hate herself, and to hide. If she does not hide her so-called sin, she is made a leper.” He peered down at her. “There, that lecture was pompous enough to dry your eyes, I hope. Are you recovering your composure?”

“Yes,” she said. “But it is harder than one would expect.”

“I know this is an emotional time,” Mr. Carsington said. “But you must consider Pip’s feelings. You are about to upset his universe, and though it is a happy kind of upset, it is going to take some getting used to. He needs us both to be calm and steady for him. Take your example from your father. I am sure he wants to seize the boy and take him home, but he restrains himself.”

She looked at her father, who was smiling at Pip now, the reassuring smile she knew so well.

“He hasn’t told Pip,” she said. “He wouldn’t. He’d leave it to me.”

“I take back what I said before about your father,” Mr. Carsington said. “My father merely infuriates me. Yours should make me feel ashamed of myself all the time.”

“He doesn’t mean to,” she said. “There is no mathematical formula for being a parent. I suppose they are only doing the best they can.”

“We shall, too,” said Mr. Carsington, “and blunder horribly, as everyone else does, I daresay. Well, are you ready?”

She had calmed while they talked. He’d done it on purpose, she thought. He’d found a way to lead her through the emotional storm. “Yes, I’m ready, thanks to you.” She stood on tiptoe and daringly kissed his cheek. In front of everybody.

“Very well, then,” he said. “But remember: no waterworks. Later you can sob over him. For now, though, you need to be strong and calm, for his sake.”

“I will,” she said.

“I know you will.” He led her to the pair at the fence.

“I wonder if we might interrupt, Lord Lithby,” Mr. Carsington said. “The lady wishes to speak to Pip.”

The boy looked to Papa. He nodded, and Pip leapt down from the fence and came to her, his cap in his hand.

She hastily wiped her eyes with the back of her glove, gave a little sniff, straightened her posture, and smiled.

“My goodness, that is a prodigy of a black eye,” she said.

“I got in a fight, your ladyship,” Pip said.

“Did you, indeed? Mr. Carsington tells me you were defending your mother’s honor.”

“Lord Lithby said it wasn’t wrong,” Pip said. “He said women don’t understand, but it was the right thing to do.”

“I understand,” she said. “I’m very, very proud of you.” She crouched down to bring herself eye to eye with him. She put her hands on his shoulders and smiled, and she thought perhaps there wasn’t a large enough smile in the world for what she felt. She thought her heart would burst with happiness.

She said, “I’m your mother.”

Chapter 16

Lithby Hall library, that evening

Darius knew better than to suggest taking Pip home with him. Charlotte’s son would stay at Lithby Hall, the boy’s mother and grandparents said, until after the wedding.

They had wanted to discuss the wedding after dinner, but Darius had already made up his mind what must be done.

What must be done was not agreeable. Given a choice, he’d rather spend a week talking about nothing but curtains. But it was necessary, for his wife-to-be, and for Pip.

“We must marry in the local church, and all of my family must be here,” he told them. “That includes Grandmother. We must show a united front.”

“Good heavens, not your grandmother,” Charlotte cried. “I should never ask that of you.”

“It’s the only way to assure that you won’t be treated unkindly,” Darius said. “A great many people will not wish to offend Lord and Lady Lithby or lose the chance of enjoying their famous hospitality. A great many will not wish to offend my parents, either. Still, my grandmother represents the one certain way to strike terror into the hearts of the hypocrites and moral zealots. Our united front will be most effective if she’s at the head of it.”

“If you think snubs will hurt my feelings, you ought to think again,” Charlotte said. “I have my family. That’s all that matters. Losing my place in Society is no great loss. The Beau Monde can be suffocating at times. While I might miss some aspects of it, I can live well enough without it.”

“So can I,” he said. “Easily. Happily. I should not miss Mrs. Badgely’s company a jot. But that is not the point. The point is, you should be treated no differently for having had a child out of wedlock than a man would be.”

“That is a radical view, Mr. Carsington,” said Lord Lithby. “I am not at all sure I would wish to encourage women to behave, generally, as men do. We should revert to barbarism, I fear. It is the women who keep us civilized.”

“Then let us think of my grandmother as a civilizing influence,” Darius said. “And let us try not to let the thought give us nightmares.”

Though he doubted Pip would have nightmares, Darius went upstairs to say good night before returning to Beechwood.

Pip was in bed but broad awake, looking at a book, when Darius entered.

In the candlelight, with that spectacular black eye, he looked like a little hobgoblin.

A very serious little hobgoblin. He set the book to one side and regarded Darius gravely. “Have they stopped crying yet?” he asked.

“Yes,” Darius said. “They are arguing about the wedding breakfast.”

“Then am I to come live at Beechwood, sir? After the wedding?”

“Yes. Don’t you like it here?”

Pip gazed about him. “It’s very…large. There are a great many servants. Nobody screams.” He considered. “I like it, but it’s strange.”

“This has been a very strange day for you,” Darius said.

The boy nodded.

“It’s not every day one discovers a brand-new mother and a set of grandparents. You bore the upheaval well, I thought.”

“I thought she—my mother—was funning me at first,” Pip said. He frowned. “Maybe I shouldn’t have laughed.”

He’d not only laughed but said to his mother, “Go on, pull the other one, your ladyship.”

“She didn’t mind,” Darius said.

“No, she didn’t.” A pause. “She’s very beautiful.”

“She is, indeed.”

“I thought, if she wants to be my mother, I’m not arguing with her.”

“She really is, you know.”

“I expect she is, but I was used to the idea of her being dead,” said Pip. “It’s a bit of a shock. I knew my mother was a lady but she was supposed to be dead and if she wasn’t, I never expected her to be so beautiful and grand. Did you ever see so many ribbons on a hat? What good is a little hat like that with all those ribbons?”

Darius remembered the frivolous hat Lady Charlotte had been not wearing at their first encounter. He smiled. “It’s for decoration,” he said.

Following his conversation with Lady Lithby, an alarmed Colonel Morrell rode posthaste to Altrincham, to the Tylers’ cottage. Mr. Tyler was not yet back from work, a daughter reported. Mrs. Tyler was in Manchester.

“The boy,” said the colonel. “Where is he?”

“Everyone asks about Pip,” the girl said. “I don’t know where he’s got to. He went to work with Pa like he always does.”

Colonel Morrell rode back the way he’d come. He met Tyler, heading home on the Lithby Road, and asked about Pip.

“Like I told Mr. Carsington, the last I knew, Pip was taking the dog back to Lithby Hall,” said Tyler. “He was to come straight back. I had some errands for him to do, for my missus. But he never come back. I reckon he run away, sir.”

The colonel did not draw a sigh of relief until he’d traveled another quarter mile down the road.

Kenning had done his work, then. Pip was on his way to Ireland.

Colonel Morrell had saved Lady Charlotte from herself.

To a point and for a time, at any rate.

One must simply hope that, given time to calm down and think, she would see the folly of her decision…about the boy, if not about Carsington.

The colonel’s relief lasted until late in the evening, when Kenning came home.

“I’m sorry, sir,” he said. “I had it all arranged with Mrs. Tyler. She made up errands for the boy, like I told her to. It was for after he’d delivered the dog, like you told me we should do, so as not to cause a stir at the Hall until we was well out of the way. But he never came out where he was supposed to. I been back and forth, between Beechwood and Altrincham. I looked everywhere. Then I heard he was still on Lord Lithby’s property. I don’t know whether the boy got the wind up or what it was, sir, but there he was, the one place I couldn’t get at him, and he never came out. Shall I try again tomorrow, sir?”

“No,” said Colonel Morrell. “It’s too late.”

After Mr. Carsington had gone, Charlotte went up to her son’s room. She’d already kissed him good night, but she couldn’t stay away.

Though his candle had been put out, the moonlight streaming through the window showed her his face, the great black eye stark against his pale skin.

She bent over him, and lightly stroked his forehead. A tear trickled down her cheek. She couldn’t help it. She’d ten years of tears to spend, and it seemed she wasn’t quite done yet. The tear fell upon his cheek, and his hand came up to brush at it. He came awake, blinking.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I didn’t mean to wake you up.”

“It’s all right,” he said. “Don’t cry.”

“I’m not usually a watering pot,” she said. “You needn’t worry that I’ll be blubbering over you all the time.”

“Mr. Carsington said you were emotional,” he said.

“Yes,” she said. “Yes, I am.”

The boy rose up on his elbows. “You don’t scream,” he said. “That’s good in a mother.”

“You’ve overcome your skepticism, then,” she said. “I am your mother, after all.”

He nodded. “I’m sorry I laughed. I hope I didn’t hurt your feelings.”

“My feelings,” she said. “Oh, Pip.”

“Don’t cry,” he said.

“I’ll try not to,” she said. “I’m just so glad I found you. And so sorry I ever let you go.”

He stared at her for the longest time. Then, “Why?” he said. “Why didn’t you keep me? Was it because of my eyes?”

Why. The question she’d dreaded. Hearing the question hurt even more than she’d expected, more than the hurt of telling her father the truth.

She wasn’t sure how to answer, but she must try.

“Girls aren’t supposed to have babies when they’re not married,” she said. “I was afraid of all the trouble. People would be disappointed in me and hurt and—”

“Crying,” he said. “There would be a lot of crying, I expect.”

“Yes,” she said. “It wasn’t a good reason, Pip, I know. I was sorry afterward, but I was sick for a long time.”

“But you didn’t die,” he said. “I’m glad you didn’t die.”

She wouldn’t cry again, but she would brush his hair back from his face. Mothers were permitted to do that. “No, I didn’t die,” she said. “And by the time I was well, and wishing I hadn’t let you go, you belonged to Mr. and Mrs. Ogden. Even if I dared, it would have been unkind to take you away from them. You were their child, and they loved you. I did believe you’d be better off with them. I wish I’d done it all differently, love. I wish I’d been braver, but I wasn’t.”

He considered. “I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t know about these things. I don’t remember when I was a baby. I hardly remember my father and mother—the other father and mother. I remember Mr. Welton. That was good.”

“The workhouse wasn’t good,” she said.