Chapter 14
Chapter Fourteen
My brows, already pitched in a sharp vee, tighten further as I glower at Mrs. Dowell, who appears to have little understanding what is happening.
My life is over.
That is what is happening.
For the rest of my days, I shall be entombed in a single room to survive on bread and water like an inmate in Newgate.
Snarling ferociously—but also quietly because my mother is just three feet away—I say, “You fiend! Now see what you made me do!”
And I grin.
Wide and cheerful and displaying all my teeth, the smile is a Vera Hyde-Clare special, specifically calculated to hide any and all emotion, and I loosen my fingers accordingly. I cannot appear untroubled if my hands are fisted to deal a blow to Mrs. Dowell’s smug face.
My color is also high, but there is nothing to be done about it.
And the beads of perspiration edging my hairline—I must ignore them as well, for nothing would horrify Mama more than my wiping away sweat with the back of my hand. (That is, irrespective of my being defiled and murdered in a seedy room in a ramshackle lane.)
Turning to my mother, I say with reassuring calm, “Everything is fine, Mama. Nothing bad is happening. Here, let us enjoy a quiet coze and leave Sebastian’s sisters to their private business. We do not wish to impose on them further.”
Do I actually think this ruse will work?
Not really.
It is a long shot and as such has little chance of prospering.
But Mama’s horror at intruding on someone else’s personal matter is acute, and as guests we are at risk of encroaching before we realize we are doing it.
She is also inclined to perceive her absence from a space as an act of kindness toward others.
Firmly, Mama says no.
Then she says it again.
A third time even.
“We shall not leave the Holcroft girls to their private business, as their private business seems to be intimately enmeshed with your private business, which makes it my private business,” she says starkly, her voice oddly devoid of emotion.
Contrary to my expectations, she is not holding on to the door frame for dear life.
Even so, she looks faint.
“Please, Mama, let us go sit in your bedchamber and have tea,” I say softly, drawing closer to lend her my arm. “A reviving cup of tea. Wouldn’t you like that?”
Twisting away from me, she says, “No, Flora Elizabeth Joanna Hyde-Clare. You cannot bamboozle me. I will have a full explanation, and I will have it right now.”
But she is worryingly pale despite the rigidity of her refusal, and Mrs. Dowell, taking note of it as well, gently suggests that Mama take a seat in her father’s study.
My mother agrees without issuing a single word of protest, which is the most troubling sign yet that she is not herself. Vera Hyde-Clare would never presume to make herself comfortable in her host’s private domain without his express invitation.
“I shall ring for that tea, shall I?” Sarah adds soothingly.
Mrs. Dowell gives her assent as she escorts Mama to the settee, then sits in the adjacent bergère. Eleanor walks around the desk to the quintet of chairs, stands awkwardly for a moment, then settles in the chauffeuse next to her sister.
It cannot be put off any longer.
I must sit!
Like Eleanor, I hover uneasily for several seconds before lowering onto the cushion next to my mother. I look at her in profile, her slightly off-center nose twitching like a bunny’s, and see something new and severe in the pinch of her lips.
She is angry with me.
I cannot recall the last time Mama was angry with me.
Impatient, yes, all the time, as well as annoyed, despairing, disgruntled, disappointed—oh so much disappointment—but anger is rare.
The room is silent as we wait for Sarah to return, and I take the opportunity to organize my thoughts.
There is no avoiding the terrifying lethality of the tale, for making Sebastian’s sisters comprehend how close he came to dying at the hands of dear, sweet Uncle Dudley had been the crux of our discussion.
But I can protect Bea from my mother’s condemnation.
Mama would be beside herself if she discovered that Mr. Davies was a fiction or that I had exposed myself to mortal peril in the hope of expunging my guilt over mistreating my cousin for years.
Sarah enters the room, followed by a footman bearing a tray laden with refreshments, including biscuits. He places the salver on the table next to Mrs. Dowell, who pours the bohea quickly and efficiently, and leaves the room.
His exit is my cue to begin.
Swallowing a lemon biscuit, which tastes like dust, I turn slightly to face my mother and say in a slightly teasing tone, “Let me start with the worst of it, Mama. Mr. Holcroft’s sisters found me here searching through their father’s private documents.”
I receive no answering smile.
“You were not sick in April,” she says instead, returning the teacup to the table without taking a sip.
“You were only pretending you had a stomach ailment so you could leave the house. I see that clearly now. Ordinarily, you are a terrible patient. You complain about being bored and beg your brother to play cards. But we did not hear a peep from you all day. I thought it was a sign of your growing maturity. But you were just playing me for a fool and your father as well.”
Mama is not just angry.
She is bitter.
I do not know what to do with a bitter mother.
Cajoling her out of her temper seems unlikely to prosper.
Instead, I validate her conclusion. “You are correct.
I was not ill. Through a series of unexpected events, I stumbled across a gross injustice in the Chancery courts and knew it was my duty as a citizen of this great country to put a stop to it.
Mr. Holcroft, who you know has earned a reputation for upholding the tenets of honor and integrity even if it comes at great personal expense, aided me in exposing the corruption.
He was well suited to lend his assistance because he had a connection high up in the courts system who should have helped us resolve the issue.
Instead, he tried to harm us, as it was he who was in charge of the—“
“He tried to kill you,” Mama says matter-of-factly. “Not harm, kill.”
Oh, I see, so the queen of the circuitous description suddenly has no patience for euphemism.
That is a totally fair reversal.
I have no reason to quibble.
Nodding, I confirm this fact as well, then immediately return to my description of Grimston’s iniquity, as I can see no reason to dwell on the details of the murder plot.
“In a seedy building,” my mother says, interrupting again. “He tried to kill, not harm you in a seedy building.”
“Correct,” I say. “As master of the rolls, he was able to manipulate—”
“In a wretched little room,” Mama adds dispassionately.
“That is how you described it to Mr. Holcroft’s sisters: a wretched little room with stained walls and rotted floorboards?
Am I recalling accurately the room where your body was to have been defiled and discovered? Wretched, little, stained, rotted?”
How do I answer?
I do not know how to answer.
Yes, Mama, your memory is precise.
All those adjectives apply!
But I do not think she is actually seeking verification from me.
I think she is grappling for some way to comprehend how I could come so close to death without her having the slightest notion.
Nothing in her world had altered even as her world teetered on the brink of annihilation.
I mean, what is even the point of motherhood if it does not give you a preternatural insight into your child’s welfare?
But maybe I am wrong.
Maybe she just wants to make sure she can describe the horrifying events with complete accuracy to my father. The poor dear has always been a bit of a stickler.
“Did he really do all of that?”
It is Eleanor, to my right.
With effort, I tear my eyes from my mother’s profile and turn toward the youngest Holcroft daughter.
Tears, fat and glistening, trickle down her cheeks, and she makes no effort to brush them away.
“Did Uncle Dudley really do all that to Seb?” she asks, her tone a heartbreaking mixture of sorrow and disbelief.
“Yes, he did,” I say gently.
But it is an effort.
Inside, I am roiling with anger, for it is decidedly unfair that I have to be the bearer of this horrible news. Having endured the worst of Grimston’s villainy, I should be excused from relaying the extent of it to the people who love him.
I am a crusader dedicated to the heroic pursuit of justice.
But this feels vaguely too heroic.
Eleanor sobs, lowering her head so that the tears drop into her lap, and Sarah reaches across the table to grasp her sister’s hand.
“I am sorry,” Mrs. Dowell says.
It sounds as though she is expressing sympathy for the ordeal I endured at the hands of her godfather, but the apology is for treating me with suspicion and disdain.
Then she promises to make amends with her brother as well, for she has spent the past few days murmuring nasty little comments about my family and me, criticizing everything from our clothes to our conversation.
“We are not usually vile creatures to guests in our home, but we thought you were part of the plot to destroy our beloved uncle,” she says, the flush rising in her cheeks.
Good, I think.
She should be embarrassed.
And yet even that narrow vein of satisfaction is undermined by the image of her and her sisters dissecting my wardrobe, cackling over the quality of my dresses—all competently made but neither outstanding nor original.
I have begged Mama for a gown by Madame Bélanger to no avail.
It does not even have to be red!
Ah, but that rather misses the point, does it not?
It is not the comments that matter but the commenters. As long as the Holcroft sisters were bent on snideness, they would have found faults to critique.
Perhaps I am lucky that my clothes provide an easy target.