Chapter 6 #2
No one could know of her secret arrangement with étienne, least of all her parents, who would surely throw a fit if they knew Verbena had agreed to a match without their input.
Mr. and Mrs. Montrose would almost certainly find some fault in her choice of husband.
Best to wait until the last possible moment to tell them of the engagement.
Her pronouncement seemed to mollify her mother only a little. “For your sake, you’d better,” she said. Her eyes flicked over Verbena’s person. “And for the love of all that’s holy, do something about your dresses. I’ve never seen such a shabby girl.”
With that, she swept back down the hall, turning into the study and slamming the door closed.
Verbena sighed. The study was directly opposite the sitting room.
Her mother clearly wanted to eavesdrop on Flora’s visit.
An annoyance, but hardly surprising. Under this roof, Verbena was under constant scrutiny.
Oh, she could not wait to live with étienne, who would not care about the company she kept!
And who would, hopefully, have nice things to say about her dresses.
Verbena plucked at the trim on her cuff, recently replaced by her own hand with expert care. Shabby, indeed.
She returned to the sitting room to find Flora on her feet with her bonnet and gloves clasped in her hands. The apology for her absence died on Verbena’s lips. Had her new friend overheard the argument? Was she preparing to leave already?
Verbena was overcome by embarrassment, an emotion that she normally took pains to avoid.
Yet Flora spoke before she could beg her to stay. “The day is so fine, don’t you think?” she said, eyes tracing Verbena’s face with liquid concern. “May I propose an afternoon stroll?”
There was nothing Verbena wanted more than to be out of that wretched house. She let out a grateful breath. “Give me but a moment, and I will be ready to leave directly.”
Bonnet. Gloves. Parasol. Reticule. Sturdier shoes. A quick check of her hair—it looked fine, despite her mother’s feelings on the subject—and Verbena was out the door, her arm looped through Flora’s.
They walked down the bustling Mayfair streets, chatting idly about bits of gossip they’d picked up, Verbena in the world of the ton and Flora in artistic circles.
Though their territories only overlapped a little, and shared few characters, for Verbena it was a fascinating look behind a curtain she hadn’t known existed.
The things people got up to that she’d never heard about, simply because they hadn’t been born into a barony!
She had previously only considered the practice of collecting secrets and rumors to be a practical one, but listening to Flora’s story of how an unnamed poet was attempting to juggle three mistresses and a forgery ring besides delighted her to no end.
It was amazing, the joy one could get from hearing the exploits of complete strangers.
Perhaps, Verbena thought, that was what drew so many young women of her set to novels.
When that avenue of conversation was finished, they pointed out to each other amusing tableaus as they passed by.
Two horse-cart drivers engaged in a spirited discussion of who had been at fault in a collision; small boys, barely in breeches, chasing each other along the pavement with sticks; a rangy dog with doleful eyes watching a lady walk by with a steaming meat pie in her hands.
Verbena giggled at this last one, especially when Flora said, “He reminds me of myself when dinner is very late.”
It was approaching scandalous for a lady to admit, even in intimate company, that she hungered.
Verbena’s mother had once sent her to bed without supper for daring to inquire when the meal would be served.
Girls, she’d said, should take pains to never appear ravenous.
Verbena had learned from a young age, then, to hide her desires like carbuncles in a velvet-lined box, secreted away from sight.
They were so hidden, in fact, that she herself often lost track of them, and could not say what they were.
Yet instead of relating all this to Flora, she only said, “You are so very amusing.”
“Good. I like to see you amused,” Flora replied. Her arm tightened companionably around Verbena’s. “I hate to think that you aren’t, sometimes.” Her voice dropped to a softer register.
Verbena took stock of their surroundings.
They had wandered around a corner and into a quieter lane with fewer fellow pedestrians and no carriages to speak of.
The calm made Verbena slightly less anxious about sharing the facts of her home life.
One never knew who might overhear a conversation in passing, after all.
“It shouldn’t surprise you to learn my mother has always been a forceful woman,” Verbena said, picking her words carefully. She did not bother apologizing for the change in topic, as Flora certainly understood how the two connected. “I am sorry if you overheard her unpleasant reminders to me.”
“I tried not to,” Flora confessed, “but the sound carried. Oh—how can you stand it? She spoke as if you were nothing. Does she not know you?”
Verbena gave Flora a thin smile. “Do you?”
“Enough that I can say you do not deserve to be spoken to like that,” Flora said. She returned Verbena’s smile, though hers faded after they’d walked a few more yards. “I couldn’t bear it if you thought, even for a moment, that what your mother said about you was in any way true.”
Verbena looked over at Flora and was met by the most lovely, widened look in those dark eyes. It had been some time since she’d been the object of real concern.
“I know my mother is a fool,” Verbena said. “I arrived at the conclusion years ago. My only alternative was to agree with her assessment of me, and if I cannot rely on myself, then I am lost. Do you see now why I was so anxious to correct any misapprehensions that might arise from your poetry?”
“Yes, it’s perfectly clear.” Flora looked down at the pavement as it passed beneath their feet.
“You must marry, if only to leave that awful place.” She sounded troubled.
Verbena thought it likely that her new friend did not approve of her fictional courtship with étienne, but was too polite to say so.
“It is my only recourse,” Verbena said evenly, “unless I want to remain trapped with my parents, watching them sell all that we own. Can you picture me as a spinster, sitting on a crate in an empty sitting room? Believe me, I am willing to do anything to avoid that. Judge me if you must, but it’s the truth. ”
Flora stopped walking abruptly, bringing them both to a halt on the pavement. Verbena noted that all was quiet around them, no others about in the small side street. Flora’s arm unwound from hers, but only so that she could take Verbena’s hands.
“I want you to know,” she said, “that to be buffeted as you have been, and to still stand tall as you do—I would never judge you for any of it. I think you are the strongest soul I’ve ever encountered.
Before meeting you, I had heard rumors of your wit and grace, but they do not do you justice. You are unparalleled, Verbena.”
“Me!” Verbena laughed. “Who is speaking? Surely not the wildly popular poetess with a room of her own.”
Flora took on a pink hue. “It isn’t that impressive.”
“Where is it?” Verbena asked, suddenly curious beyond politeness. “Perhaps I might visit you.”
“Oh, no, you mustn’t. It’s in Maiden Lane,” Flora said with a chagrined wince.
“Maiden Lane!” Verbena rifled through her memories. “Was there not a ghastly murder in a paintbrush factory there a few years ago?” She recalled the papers making much of the affair, which involved a decapitated body hidden among some barrels. Lurid details like that always stuck out to Verbena.
“It kept the prices down,” Flora said with a shrug. “But how do you know about that?”
Verbena’s lifelong fascination with the morbid was not, of course, the most ladylike trait she might have cultivated. She hesitated to tell the truth of it to such a new friend, and one she so desperately did not want to frighten away.
“I must have overheard the servants gossiping. But why should it make any difference to me that you live in Maiden Lane?” she said cheerfully. “I’m sure my mother would be happy to hear that someone had taken me off her hands, one way or another. A murder would be just as judicious as a marriage.”
“Please do not make a joke of that,” Flora said.
Verbena rolled her eyes. “After all these years, the murderer is surely long gone. Where is the harm in joking?”
“Not about that, about your mother.” She tightened her hold on Verbena’s hands. “You deserve only the best. If happiness could be found hoarded somewhere, I would steal as much as I could carry and lay it at your feet.”
Verbena blinked, dazed. “That is…very poetic of you.”
Flora smiled and ducked her head. “Sorry.”
“No, no. I—” Loved it. Verbena loved it with her whole being. She could picture so clearly Flora hauling a bucket—for was happiness not liquid?—and sloshing it heavily across her slippers, where it would soak like honey into the hem of her silk pelisse. She utterly loved that.
How strange. How wonderfully odd.
This had to be the mythical kinship that reportedly existed between women.
Having been on guard for backstabbing from her feminine contemporaries her entire adult life, Verbena had doubted the veracity of such friendships.
It was disconcerting yet exhilarating to be proven wrong by Flora Witcombe, who spoke so kindly and without an ounce of insincerity.
Verbena released an exhale. “I find it a very pleasing notion,” she said. Her voice was quiet in the small street: “A very pleasing notion, indeed.”
Flora smiled, then tipped her head back to regard the sky. “It will be evening shortly,” she said. “We should get you home.”
“And yourself as well,” Verbena noted. A lone woman, even a self-sufficient poetess, could not safely wander the streets after nightfall.
“You first,” Flora said. “Yours is closer. Then I will take a hackney back to Covent Garden.” She took Verbena’s arm once more and led her back up the street.
Verbena allowed herself to lay her head on her friend’s shoulder as they walked. Flora smelled of ink and rosewater, a heady combination. She wished someone could bottle it.
“Thank you for this,” Verbena said. “I needed to be free for a moment.”
“Yes,” said Flora. She patted Verbena’s hand where it lay in the crook of her elbow. “At least for a moment.”