Summerset Abbey (28 page)

Prudence stood in front of Lady Summerset. The girl was still wearing her fine walking suit from that afternoon. Her Buxton breeding and genteel upbringing showed in her perfect carriage and the fine set of her head. Pity, really.

“No,” she spat out. “I have been lied to, betrayed, and treated abysmally. Why on earth would I ever want to be a Buxton and align myself with your kind?”

“Prudence! Stop!” Victoria cried.

Lady Summerset nodded. This was exactly the type of response she expected. “I’m not an unfeeling woman. If you require some kind of money, we would be more than happy to . . .”

Prudence shook her head. Her set jaw and clenched fists showed just how difficult it was for the girl to keep herself under control. Lady Summerset respected that. She’d felt the same way on more than one occasion.

She tried again. “Tomorrow is Christmas, but I am sure if I called the inn . . .”

“That won’t be necessary,” Prudence said. “I have family in town.”

Lady Summerset inclined her head and Prudence left the room without a backward glance.

“Prudence!” Victoria cried out again. “Wait!”

Lady Summerset caught hold of Victoria’s arm before she could run after her friend. “Give her some time. Think of the shocks the girl has had today.”

“But she needs me!” Victoria said.

Lady Summerset sighed. How like the young to act like they could change everything. Victoria would be crushed by Prudence’s departure, but she would accept it. One of the advantages of youth was the ability to accept the unacceptable. She gathered the girl gently into her arms. How long had it been since she had held her own daughter like this? Before finishing school, surely. “Your friend needs to be alone now. Give her a day or so and then go to her. You will be more help to her once you both have calmed down. She’ll feel differently then, surely.”

Prudence wouldn’t and Lady Summerset knew it, but she let Victoria cry, brokenhearted, in her arms, wondering whether Hortense would ever be able to get the tearstains out of her lace.

EPILOGUE

T
he repetitive rattle of the train would have lulled Prudence to sleep if she had been able to sleep, but considering that she hadn’t slept for the past five nights, there was little chance she would do so now.

At least she wasn’t alone.

In hindsight, she was glad she’d asked Victoria to attend the wedding. If anyone was innocent in all this, it was Vic, who only wanted Prudence to move from her attic room to Vic’s room. Victoria, who had received all of her father’s sweet idealism, but little of his wisdom. Victoria, who thought that if only she could prove that Prudence was indeed a Buxton, her aunt and uncle would relent and accept Prudence as a member of the family.

And Victoria wondered why the other girls treated her like an imaginative child.

Of course, Victoria’s presence only served to remind Prudence of Rowena’s absence. But she didn’t want to think about Rowena right now. Maybe never, but definitely not right now.

Prudence wished to forget she was a Buxton, to forget that she had the same blood as the people who treated others as if they were only a means to an end. Who would pay servants to quiet the death of a child or the ruin of a young woman?

Unbidden, Rowena’s pretty features came to mind and Prudence’s heart squeezed painfully, as it always did when she thought of the young woman who had been like her sister. She wanted to forget she had the same blood as someone who would betray a loved one because telling the truth was too hard or inconvenient.

She thought of her mother and the pain in her heart increased. And she especially wanted to forget she had the same blood as a man who evidently would not take no for an answer when it came to young women.

Prudence had had much time to dig further for information about her family this past week while staying at the inn. Her cousin helped her uncover other rumors about the former earl, a man people hated so much that by the end of his life he daren’t set foot in town. No wonder the current Earl of Summerset spent so much money putting a wing on the new hospital and improving things for his tenants.

Compensation.

Restlessly, Prudence settled more comfortably in her seat. The man next to her stirred and she froze, not wanting to wake him. God knows he hadn’t gotten enough sleep either this past week. She smiled tenderly. A good man. He was a good man and even if she wasn’t sure about her feelings right now, she knew she would learn to love him.

He had been by her side the moment he’d heard of the ruckus and had refused to leave. He didn’t care about scandal or class or even what his family thought. Only her.

She stared at the bouquet she still carried. Yes, she’d been right to invite Vic. Somehow Victoria had known that Prudence wouldn’t think of flowers, or any of the other little touches that go along with marriages that had more than five days of planning. So Vic had gathered her favorites from the conservatory and made a bouquet for her.

“I know it’s heavy on
Gardenia jasminoides,
but the conservatory didn’t have much of a selection,” Victoria had said, her lower lip drooping.

It had been the only time all day Prudence had felt like breaking down. But in the end, she had remained dry-eyed throughout the little ceremony that was attended only by Victoria, Susie, Wesley and his parents, and Cook on Prudence’s side and his brother and sister-in-law and father on the groom’s side.

Andrew stirred again and hesitantly Prudence reached out and patted his shoulder. His eyes flickered open and smiled at her before closing again. The night he had come to her she had told him almost everything, including her parentage. She didn’t tell him about the job Lord Sebastian offered her because in her mind and heart that was no longer an option. Her cheeks heated as she remembered her cowardice. She hadn’t even faced Sebastian with her decision not to take the job, but instead sent him a little note, thanking him for his kindness. She said nothing in her note about Andrew.

She may not have known exactly where she belonged, but she knew where she didn’t belong and that was with the Buxtons, the Billingslys, the Kittredges, or any of the other families of the upper social class. No. That life would not be her life. She wanted nothing to do with them. Any of them.

Instead, she would move to Devon and after hard work and sacrifice, she would be the wife of a farmer veterinarian and it would be a good and happy life, one worthy of the man who had raised her. And if she missed the family and home she grew up with?

Prudence took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Well, then she would just have to make her own family. Her own home. That was all.

AUTHOR’S NOTE

Every writer of historical fiction comes up against the question of how far to bend history to accommodate plot and how far to bend plot to accommodate history. For this project, I had an amazing historical researcher and fact checker, Evangeline Holland (
www.edwardianpromenade.com
), who was quick to let me know when I had strayed too far. Then I had to make the decision of plot versus history. Most of the time, history won out. I dearly wanted to keep the details of the book as close to La Belle Époque as possible, but there were times when the story itself came first. For instance, the funeral customs set in the first and second chapters of the book more closely resemble modern American customs than they do Edwardian customs, but here story trumped history. (You can read more about the funeral customs of the Victorians and Edwardians at Evangeline’s great site.)

Besides Edwardian Promenade, I had many wonderful historical resources, both primary and secondary, to help me on my way. But I apologize in advance for any historical inaccuracies contained within the book and claim each mistake as my own and not the responsibility of my incredible fact-checker or resources.

NONFICTION RESOURCES

The Perfect Summer: England 1911, Just Before the Storm
by Juliet Nicolson

Manners and Rules of Good Society: An Etiquette Classic
by Anonymous

Victorian and Edwardian Fashions
from
“La Mode Illustrée”

The Opulent Eye
by Nicholas Cooper

Below Stairs
by Margaret Powell

The World of Downton Abbey
by Jessica Fellowes

Victorian and Edwardian Fashion: A Photographic Survey
by Alison Gernsheim

FICTION RESOURCES

A Room with a View
by E. M. Forster

Howards End
by E. M. Forster

The Edwardians
by Vita Sackville West

The House at Riverton
by Kate Morton

Continue reading for an exclusive excerpt from

Summerset Abbey:
A Bloom in Winter

Book Two in the
Summerset Abbey Series

T. J. Brown

March 2013 from Gallery Books

T
he next time Victoria opened her eyes, the light was on. She blinked a couple of times and was startled when a woman with a thick East End accent said, “You’re awake now, so don’t you be playing possum, and don’t start your screaming or else the doctor will be sending you to the asylum, and trust me, darling, you would rather be here.”

Victoria froze. The scent of bleach and urine still assaulted her nose. The one small window above her head let in no light and she could see bars at the top. Her heart pounded a little faster. “Tell me where I am!”

“You can say please, you know. Just because I’m a nurse and you’re a suffragette doesn’t mean you needn’t use your manners.”

Victoria tried to move and realized that not only was her arm chained, but her leg was as well.

The woman laughed. “You’ll not be kicking me again.”

“I’m sorry,” Victoria said earnestly. “Please. Where am I?”

The woman came closer. She wore a blue and white striped shirt, a long skirt of cheap wincey, and a crisp white apron that covered her head to toe. A white linen cap covered her hair. She smelled strongly of lye soap, but it was infinitely better than the urine stench. Her eyes were a bright, saucy blue. “That’s more like it. You’re in Holloway prison.”

Victoria whimpered, her heartbeat accelerating and her chest tightening. She closed her eyes and counted, taking little breaths until the vise on her chest eased. Once she could breathe easily again, she asked, “Why am I here?”

“You don’t know?” The nurse sounded surprised. “That’s a new one. Most of you suffragettes are proud of your exploits! Don’t you remember?”

Victoria thought hard. She remembered being at the National Gallery with Mary and then Mary had . . . memories came flooding back and Victoria groaned.

“I see you’re remembering.”

She struggled to sit again and then gave up, settling back against the mattress. The pillow under her neck scratched, and she prayed it was the cheap linen rather than bugs. “Prison is different than I thought it would be.”

The woman snorted. “This isn’t prison, this is the clinic. You were almost dead when they brought you in. You have a breathing disorder?”

Victoria nodded. “Yes, I’m . . .” Victoria choked a bit on the word but used it anyway. It’s what she was, no matter how much she denied it. “I’m an asthmatic.”

The woman nodded and made a note on a chart. “That’s what the doctor thought. And don’t worry. You’ll be seeing the inside of a prison cell soon enough, though you suffragettes usually rate one to yourselves. Just don’t try to starve yourself. We
will
force-feed you, and it’s the most God-awful thing I’ve ever seen or done.” Her face wrinkled into a stern look as she took Victoria’s pulse.

“Why wouldn’t I eat?” Victoria asked. She’d heard of suffragettes going on hunger strikes, but she thought trying to kill oneself was a poor way to give to the cause.

“Why would any of them stop eating?” the nurse asked reasonably. “But I’m sure a young woman such as yourself, who has struggled for her very life’s breath, would look at death a great deal differently than most idealists. You’re very lucky to be alive, Miss. I thought you were a goner. You were as blue as my shirt. Now, do you need to use the privy?” Victoria nodded and the woman indicated a bucket in the corner.

Victoria blanched.

“I know it’s not fancy, but then, I suspect the wardens don’t feel the need to roll out the fancy for those that break the law. Now, if you promise not to throw another fit, I’ll let you loose long enough to do your business. Give me a single moment’s worry and I’ll call in Ed and you’ll have to do whatever you need to do in front of him.”

Horrified, Victoria promised. After the nurse had gotten her back into the bed, she told Victoria to try to sleep. “I won’t cuff you, if you promise me no more trouble. If you do, it’s my arse on the line and I’ll have to truss you up like a Christmas goose.” The woman rattled the cuffs for emphasis.

The blood drained out of Victoria’s face. “I promise,” she whispered. “Thank you.”

The nurse got Victoria into bed and settled the covers over her. Victoria’s bones ached, and even the roughness of the gray woolen blankets and the hard mattress felt wonderful. When the woman moved to leave, Victoria caught her arm. “Wait,” she pleaded. It seemed as if this woman was the only person between Victoria and unknown terrors. “When will I see a judge? When can I see my family?”

The woman shook her head and flicked a switch off. The only light now came from the open door, and long shadows spilled over Victoria’s bed “I don’t know. It’s hard to tell.”

“What’s your name?” Victoria pleaded. Anything to keep the door from shutting.

“Eleanor. I’ll check on you before my shift is up. Now try to get some sleep.”

The light slivered and then was gone. The darkness, once the door had closed, was absolute, and Victoria trembled. She’d never liked being alone at night, and for years she had slept with Prudence to keep the nightmares away.

There was no one to keep the nightmares away now. Of course, how could anything her mind conjured be worse than her current reality?

Tears rose and fell down her cheeks in the darkness. How did she get here? Why, oh why, hadn’t she just ignored Mary’s note? The woman was mad, crazy. Victoria wondered where she was and then realized that Mary was no doubt locked in a cell in this very prison.

She wiped the tears with her hands. Her uncle would get her out if he could. He was an important man and a rich one to boot. Surely he could do something.

With a sinking heart, she remembered some of the newspaper articles she’d read over the preceding months. Public opinion might be mixed on the suffragettes, but the justice system was not. Most judges had no sympathy whatsoever, and they had been known to throw a suffragette in jail and toss the key at the same time. And if they really thought she had plotted to destroy the painting . . . Victoria shuddered.

Something dropped outside the door and she stilled. She could hear muffled voices for a bit as the nurses and orderlies worked their way from room to room, checking on patients, and she listened intently. At least she knew there were people out there and she wasn’t all alone. But the noises grew fainter and fainter and soon there was only the sound of her own ragged breathing. Then a soft moaning began and her heart leapt jaggedly in her chest. She screwed her eyes up tight against the darkness and began to recite:

’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:

All mimsy were the borogoves,

And the mome raths outgrabe. . . .

“Beware the Jabberwock, my son!

The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!

Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun

The frumious Bandersnatch!”

Victoria paused with a shudder. No. Lewis Carroll’s “Jabberwocky” was much too frightening for this situation. Her father used to run his fingers through his hair and recite it while making the most horrible faces.
Father!
She swallowed and began again. This time choosing Rudyard Kipling’s, “The Bee Boy’s Song.”

BEES! BEES! Hark to your bees!

“Hide from your neigbours as much as you please,

But all that has happened, to us you must tell,

Or else we will give you no honey to sell!”

She started softly and then got louder and louder as the words chased the last of the shadows from her mind.

A maiden in her glory,

Upon her wedding-day,

Must tell her Bees the story,

Or else they’ll fly away.

Fly away—die away—

Dwindle down and leave you

But if you don’t deceive your Bees,

Your Bees will not deceive you.

Her heart beat and her breathing had both returned to normal, and she settled further down under the blankets, racking her brains for the vast reserves of Kipling poetry she had stored there. She wouldn’t think about being alone in a dark place. Alone in a notorious prison where they sent murderers and robbers. Where women lived out their entire lives, forgotten by the world. Victoria whimpered and sank down further under the blankets.

Desperately she moved from poetry to stories: “
This is the story of the great war that Rikki-tikki-tavi fought single-handed, through the bath-rooms of the big bungalow in Segowlee cantonment . . .”