Chapter 18 #2
Not a bad thought. Alice brushed a hand down Gabriella’s braid and searched for a way to embark on the next part of the discussion.
Gabriella, have you ever wondered about your mother?
Gabriella, have you thought it odd that we have the exact same color of hair?
Gabriella, could you find it in your heart not to detest a mother who gave you away?
How on earth did one cross this bridge?
Cam somehow extricated himself from his team members, who were herded by Mrs. Dumfries to the wooden table. He approached the swing, a cup of cider in each hand.
“Is there room here for one more?”
“On the other side of Miss Alice,” Gabriella said, sitting up. “Did you bring cider?”
Cam passed her a cup and sat. “I did. Miss Alice and I will share. Now, what have you two been whispering about while I received the most expert coaching on my cricket form?”
He gave Alice the second cup and toed the swing a little higher.
Alice sipped and passed the cup back to him. How to be honest and apologetic without putting the weight of any expectations on the child? She had never truly thought this through because that would have been hoping for the impossible in a very painful level of detail.
“We weren’t whispering,” Gabriella said, taking a drink. “I love cider. Our cider is the best because it comes from our trees. I had a question for Miss Alice.”
“Ask me anything, Gabriella. Today is not a day to stand on ceremony.”
“Why do we have the same color hair? Nobody else has hair like ours. Lady Josephine said it was unfortunate hair, but hair is just hair, and I like our hair. Do you think your hair is unfortunate?”
This child. This wonderful, magnificent, unspeakably dear child…
“That is an interesting question,” Alice said, “and as it happens, I love that we have the same color hair, and there’s a reason why we do. A reason you should know.”
Cam settled an arm around Alice’s shoulders, and Alice prepared to be very brave and very honest.
An odd realization emerged from the welter of emotions swirling inside Cam.
Between the pride he took in Alice, Gabriella, the children, and even the horse, beside the rage he harbored for Lady Josephine, the relief, the gratitude, and the joy for how the day had unfolded, was the knowledge that he need not negotiate anything.
Sitting on that swing with two ladies for whom he already cared a great deal, he need not strike a clever bargain.
He wasn’t obligated to be a wily bargaining opponent.
He had no cause to worry that the whole discussion would result in hurt feelings, sore tempers, and unworkable agreements.
All Alice and Gabriella needed from him—and they did need it—was his presence and his care for them. He was not called upon to do anything. He contributed simply by being with them on whatever terms they required.
Very… strange to have nothing to prove or win. Very… different, and important.
“The baron doesn’t have hair like us,” Gabriella said. “His is darker.”
“I like my hair,” Cam said. “Many fellows go bald, and I hope to never be among them.” Though it would not matter to Alice if he were. The day was full of revelations.
“Why is my hair the same as yours, Miss Alice? I told Mary it was because you are my mama, but Mary said it might be a co-indigent and not mean anything. Jeanine said we could be sisters or cousins, but Jeanine will say anything just to talk.”
“That we have the same hair is not a coincidence,” Alice said, enunciating carefully. “May I tell you a story, Gabriella?”
“Will the story explain our same hair?”
A tenacious child. That quality would serve her well in life.
“It will,” Alice replied.
“Is there a moral, like with Aesop?”
“Yes,” Cam said. “The moral is, children who keep asking questions never get to hear the story, and I’m sure it’s quite an adventure.”
Alice sent him a do hush look. Engaged couples exchanged such glances. Cam returned fire with his best I adore you expression.
“Once upon a time,” Alice said, “there was a lonely young lady. She lived with her grandpapa, who was honestly a bit of a grouch.”
“Like Mary or Archibald?”
“Yes, like that. A good fellow, but testy and always busy. He had no time for his granddaughter, though in truth, he simply did not know what to do with her. He’d only raised a son, and there was no grandmama to smooth things over.”
Alice apparently found telling this story easier for having rehearsed it with Cam.
“I’m not lonely,” Gabriella said firmly. “I have my friends.”
“Good,” Alice said. “Friends are a very great blessing in life. Anyhow, this young lady met a young man. He was charming and sweet, and she was much taken with him.”
“Was he a knight?”
“He was the son of a marquess, and he became a soldier, so yes. He was a variety of knight.”
“Did they kiss?”
“I’m afraid they did. The young lady was smitten, and she thought the young man was too. Maybe she was just glad to have a friend, but when the young man had to go away to join the fighting, he said he would come back. He promised he would write and promised they would be together again soon.”
“This is not an adventure, Miss Alice. This story needs a dragon.”
The child was brilliant. Cam gave the swing a gentle push.
“The young man went away. He did not come back. He did not even write. In fact, he went off to fight Old Boney and died defending his country.”
“Boney was a dragon, but Wellington beat him to smithereens. Sometimes we play Waterloo, and the French army has to speak in French.” Gabriella passed Alice her cider, popped off the swing, and brandished an imaginary sword.
“‘Chiens anglais, préparez-vous à mourir!’ English dogs, prepare to die! We vous because that’s easier. ”
She hopped back onto the swing, wiggled close to Alice, and reappropriated her cider. “Do we get to the dragon part soon?”
“I like some dragons,” Cam said. “They breathe fire and guard their treasures, and some of them can fly.”
Both of Cam’s swing companions gave him the do hush look.
“The young lady,” Alice resumed, “found she was to have a child. She had not married the young man, and when she tried to inform him of the situation by letter, she received no reply, even though he had yet to die in battle. Society prefers that young ladies have husbands before any babies come along.”
“Mary is a bastard.” Gabriella offered that comment in the same tone she might have observed that autumn would soon arrive. “Polly is, too, and Jeanine is a just-plain orphan. Lizzy’s papa got transported, and her mama died, so we aren’t sure about her. She might be half an orphan.”
Cam gave Alice’s shoulder a gentle squeeze.
“Right,” Alice said. “Well, the young lady’s baby was both illegitimate—that’s when your parents aren’t married—and an orphan of sorts, like Lizzy, because the young lady could not bring the baby home to live with her grandpapa.”
“Was the grandpapa mean? Is he the dragon?”
“The grandpapa is, at heart, very kind. He’s simply gruff. The young lady let herself be convinced that nobody would like her or help her if she tried to raise the baby herself.”
“I would like her. Mrs. Dumfries raises us, and the baron helps her with his money, and you come and help us with our verses and read us stories.”
“You are smarter than the young lady. She let her baby be raised by strangers—kind strangers—but the strangers died, and so the baby, who grew to be a very fine little girl, was placed in a rural orphanage. She had friends, but she didn’t know that her own mother still cared very much for her.”
Gabriella took a drink of her cider. “Why didn’t her mother tell her that? Friends are friends, but a mama is your mama, just for you.”
“The young lady, who is the mama in our story, became afraid. She was afraid the person saying nobody would help her was right. The same person said the mama and daughter would starve in the street if they tried to make a life together. That the grandpapa would be so ashamed he’d die of mortification.
All kinds of terrible, awful, dire things would happen if the mama tried to raise her daughter, and the mama knew that some of those things could truly happen. ”
“Mary had a sister,” Gabriella said. “She died in the poorhouse. Lots of people die in the poorhouse, but Mrs. Dumfries says we are not to dwell on that, and we must remember the baron in our prayers. Does this story have a happy ending, and when do we get to the part about the hair?”
“This story has a happy ending. Somebody was lying to the mama, Gabriella. The somebody who never ceased nattering about doom and despair, who always seemed to be bringing up all the terrible things that can happen to children when their mamas are poor.”
“That’s the dragon,” Gabriella said, grinning. “That’s the serpent in the garden. Mrs. Dumfries talks a lot about the serpent in the garden. Maybe serpents are dragons that got their legs cut off, and that’s why they are so awful.”
“They can’t breathe fire either,” Cam said.
“And they don’t have wings,” Gabriella added. “What happened to the dragon?”
“The dragon said over and over again to the mama: ‘Nobody will help you. Nobody will care if you and your daughter suffer or die. If you love your daughter, you will never tell her that she has a mother, because she will hate you for not taking care of her. Society will hate you if you even try. You will both be miserable.’”
Cam felt an urge to leave the swing, haul Lady Josephine out of her coach, and plant the old besom a facer.
Gabriella sat up. “That’s awful. That is mean. I’d be their friend. Mary and Jeanine and Lizzy and Penelope would too. Mrs. Dumfries says, ‘Judge not,’ and that’s from the Bible.”
“Matthew, chapter seven, verses one through three,” Cam murmured.
“Well, the dragon was wrong, and you are right,” Alice said. “The mama and daughter have friends. Very, very good friends who love them and care about them and who say it truly doesn’t matter very much if the mama and papa ever married.”