Chapter One #2
“Family takes care of family,” Lady Ashwood had declared, in those early weeks when Cecilia’s future hung in the air like smoke. “We cannot possibly turn her out. What would people say?”
What people would say, Cecilia soon understood, mattered enormously to Lady Ashwood. Appearance was everything—the appearance of generosity, of family feeling, of benevolence. The reality beneath it was of considerably less importance.
And thus, Cecilia had stayed. She moved from her childhood chamber to a small room on the upper floor, once occupied by a particularly senior housemaid.
She packed away her pretty dresses—they were too fine for her new station, too conspicuous, too sharp a reminder of what she had been—and adopted the plain greys and browns of a woman meant to be useful rather than noticed.
She had learned, in those five years, to want nothing.
Wanting was dangerous. Wanting led to hope; hope to disappointment; and disappointment was a luxury she could not afford.
She had a roof above her head, food enough, a place to exist that was not the street or the uncertain charity of distant relations who had never met her. This was enough. It must be enough.
Some things are stronger for having to fight for their place in the world.
Cecilia turned from the window and set about arranging the morning room for the Hendersons’ visit.
***
The letter from Lady Marchmont, when Cecilia finally read it, proved rather more interesting than the usual social correspondence.
She sat in her uncle’s study—a room she used more than he did, though she was always careful never to sit in his chair or leave any trace of her presence—and smoothed the heavy paper with its elaborate crest. Lady Marchmont was a distant connection of Lady Ashwood’s, a wealthy widow whose estate in Kent was rumoured to be magnificent, and whose social influence was rumoured to be greater still.
My dear Lady Ashwood, the letter began, in a hand that suggested dictation rather than any personal acquaintance with a pen, I write to extend an invitation that I hope you will find agreeable...
The invitation was to a house-party: a fortnight at Fairholme Park, beginning in two weeks’ time. Hunting, dinners, evening amusements—and, mentioned with elaborate casualness, a Harvest Ball to conclude the festivities.
You may be interested to know, the letter continued, that among my guests will be several families of particular distinction.
The Duke of Ashworth has consented to attend, as has his mother, the Dowager Duchess.
I mention this only in passing, of course, as I know the younger Miss Ashwood is not yet out, but the elder Miss Ashwood has been presented, if I recall correctly, and might find the company. .. stimulating.
Cecilia read this passage twice. The Duke of Ashworth.
She knew the name—everyone knew the name—but she could not immediately place the particulars.
A young duke, she thought. Unmarried. Wealthy beyond imagination.
Exactly the sort of prize that families like the Ashwoods spent their daughters’ entire lives preparing them to secure.
She could picture Lady Ashwood’s response with perfect clarity: the flutter of excitement concealed beneath a facade of dignified composure; the swift calculation of which gowns Georgiana would require, which jewels might be borrowed or purchased, which accomplishments must be displayed and which discreetly obscured.
And, of course, the complete absence of any mention of Cecilia at all.
Cecilia set down the letter and allowed herself—just for a heartbeat—to imagine what it might be like to attend such a party.
To wear a beautiful gown, to dance beneath chandeliers, to speak with people who might see her as something other than useful.
To be, for a few fleeting hours, the girl she had been before everything changed.
The fantasy lasted precisely three seconds. Then she folded the letter, placed it upon her uncle’s desk where he would find it, and returned to her actual life.
There were flowers to arrange, tea services to polish, and drafts to investigate.
Wanting was dangerous.
***
Lady Ashwood’s reaction to the letter exceeded even Cecilia’s expectations.
“The Duke of Ashworth!” she exclaimed at dinner that evening, her earlier fatigue apparently forgotten. “My dear, do you comprehend what this signifies? The Duke of Ashworth will be present—at the very same gathering as our Georgiana!”
“I understood you the first three times, my dear,” Horace replied mildly.
“But you do not seem to grasp the importance. He is unmarried, you know. Thirty years old, and not a whisper of an engagement. They say he is particular—that he has refused dozens of perfectly suitable matches—but surely, when he sees Georgiana—”
“Mama,” Georgiana interposed, in a tone that suggested she was not entirely averse to such speculation, though she wished to appear so for modesty’s sake, “we do not know that the Duke will notice me at all.”
“Nonsense. You are beautiful, accomplished, and from an excellent family. Why should he not notice?”
“Because there will be dozens of other young ladies present, I imagine—each of them beautiful and accomplished as well.”
“Not equally. I am certain not equally.” Lady Ashwood turned to Cecilia, who had been quietly attending to her soup, hoping to remain invisible. “Cecilia, what do you know of the Duke of Ashworth?”
The question caught her off guard. She was seldom consulted on matters of social consequence; her opinions were rarely deemed relevant to decisions in which she played no part.
“Very little, I am afraid,” she said. “He inherited young, I believe—his father died some years past. Beyond that, I know only what everyone knows: that he is wealthy, titled, and has not yet chosen a bride.”
“Well, that much is in Lady Marchmont’s letter.
” Lady Ashwood frowned, as though Cecilia had failed some private examination.
“I had hoped you might recall something more specific. You used to read the society papers quite diligently, before—” She stopped, the sentence dissolving into awkward silence.
Before I became invisible, Cecilia finished silently. Before I ceased to matter enough to justify the price of a subscription.
“I am sorry to disappoint, Aunt.”
“No matter. The important thing is the opportunity. Georgiana, we must consider your wardrobe. The blue silk, of course, and the new sprigged muslin—though I wonder whether it will be warm enough for Kent in October. Perhaps we ought to have something made. A new ball gown, certainly. Something memorable.”
“What about me?” Dorothea asked, in the small, careful voice of a younger sister well acquainted with her place in the hierarchy of attention.
“You are too young for balls, dear. But you may come to observe—and perhaps join us in some of the daytime entertainments. It will be excellent practice for your own debut next year.”
“And Cecilia?”
The question came from Dorothea, and it fell into the conversation like a stone into still water. Cecilia looked up to find her younger cousin watching her with an expression that might have been concern—or merely curiosity.
Lady Ashwood’s expression flickered—surprise, perhaps, that Cecilia’s existence should be acknowledged at all—before settling into carefully composed indifference.
“Cecilia will remain here, of course. Someone must manage the household in our absence. The servants cannot be trusted to govern themselves for a full fortnight.”
“But surely—” Dorothea began.
“That is quite enough, Dorothea. Cecilia understands her responsibilities. Do you not, Cecilia?”
Cecilia set down her spoon with deliberate precision. “Of course, Aunt. I am happy to be of service.”
It was the expected reply. The proper reply. The reply that preserved the peace, ensured her place, and demanded nothing so perilous as desire.
Yet somewhere—deep within the part of herself she had believed long since buried—something stirred. A flicker of…what? Not hope. She was far too sensible for hope. But something. A small, treacherous whisper that sounded very like: Why not me?
She silenced it at once.
There was no point in asking why not. The answer was self-evident.
She possessed nothing—no fortune, no position, no family of consequence.
She was a poor relation, dependent upon a charity that was not charity at all, but an arrangement of mutual convenience.
The Ashwoods kept her because she was useful; she remained because she had nowhere else to go.
This was her life. This would always be her life.
She finished her soup in silence and requested leave to withdraw.
***
That night, alone in her small room on the upper floor, Cecilia permitted herself a luxury she usually avoided: memory.
She opened the wooden box that held her mother’s pearls—the only jewellery she had been allowed to keep, too modest to tempt anyone’s greed—and let them spill across her palm. They were beautiful in their simplicity, warm against her skin, each pearl perfectly matched to the next.
Her mother had worn those pearls on her wedding day.
Cecilia had seen the portrait—still hanging in the drawing room—of Eleanor Ashwood in white silk, pearls at her throat and joy in her eyes.
The portrait had not been removed when the house changed hands; Cecilia supposed it had never occurred to anyone to object.
And so her mother remained, preserved in oil and happiness, gazing serenely down upon a household that had forgotten her daughter existed.
“I wish you had seen me at my first dance, Mama,” Cecilia whispered into the quiet. “You would have worn these pearls. You would have stood beside Father and smiled, and afterwards you would have told me you were proud and that someday, I would make some fortunate man an excellent wife.”
Someday had become a word Cecilia no longer permitted herself.
She clasped the pearls about her own neck—only for a moment, only to feel their weight—and studied her reflection in the small mirror by candlelight.
The face that looked back was pleasant enough, she supposed.
Not beautiful like Georgiana—whose golden curls and blue eyes might have been designed by an artist commissioned to depict English girlhood at its most charming—but not plain either.
Simply…ordinary. Unremarkable. The sort of face that slipped from memory the instant one looked away.
You are two-and-twenty, she told her reflection. In a few years, you will be firmly on the shelf—if you are not there already. What then? Will you still be arranging flowers and polishing tea services at forty? At fifty? Will you die in this little room, useful to the very end?
The questions had no answers. Or rather, they had answers that Cecilia preferred not to contemplate.
She removed the pearls, returned them to their box, and prepared for bed.
Tomorrow, there would be more tasks. More errands. More opportunities to prove her usefulness and bury her hopes. The machinery of survival would grind on—and she would grind with it, for the alternative was unthinkable.
But that night—for the first time in years—Cecilia Ashwood dreamed of dancing.