Chapter Three #2
She helped Caroline to her feet and began unfastening the row of buttons at her back. Caroline stood quietly beneath her hands, but now that she was home and no longer required to smile or converse politely, the misery she had held at bay throughout the evening began to press in upon her.
"I thought it would become easier," she said. "When Papa said I must come to London, I believed that perhaps the distance would dull everything. I thought I might learn to endure it, even if I could not become what he wanted. But every gentleman who speaks to me only makes it worse."
Martha's hands paused at the final fastening, and Caroline turned to face her.
"There is someone else," she said. "Someone in Scarborough."
Martha looked at her in surprise, but Caroline went on before she could ask anything.
Now that she had begun, the words came more easily than she had expected.
She told her about the morning on the beach, about Thomas finding her in tears and sitting beside her until she could breathe again.
She told her of his father's workshop, of Dr Lawson and Edinburgh, and of the months in which they had met whenever they could without anyone knowing.
"I begged Papa before we left not to make me come here," she said at last. "I told him about Thomas and asked only to remain in Scarborough until he had completed his training, but Papa would not hear of it.
He forbade me from seeing him again and said there was to be no correspondence between us.
He believes London will make me forget."
Martha had listened without interruption, though her expression had softened as Caroline spoke.
"Thomas never cared whether I had twenty thousand pounds," Caroline continued. "He knew almost nothing of my family when we met. I was crying in an old gown with my hair falling down, and all he thought was that I might need help."
The memory was so clear that for a moment she could smell the salt upon the air and feel the rough warmth of his hand around hers.
She had been away from Scarborough for little more than a month, yet the beach already seemed part of another existence, one in which she had been free to walk beyond the town and find him waiting upon the shore.
"I do not even know whether he remembers me as I remember him," she whispered.
Martha made no reply to Caroline's confession. Instead, her expression changed so abruptly that Caroline straightened, a new fear cutting through her misery.
"You will not tell Papa, will you?" she asked. "I know I ought to have told you before, but he has already forbidden me from seeing Thomas again. If he learns that I have spoken of him here..."
"No, miss," Martha said quickly. "It is not that."
Before Caroline could ask anything more, Martha turned and hurried from the room.
Caroline heard her quick footsteps cross the adjoining bedchamber, followed by the opening of a trunk and the rustle of paper.
A moment later, she returned carrying three tiny parcels wrapped in brown paper, each one no larger than the centre of her palm.
"I may be quite mistaken," Martha said slowly.
"In truth, I could make neither head nor tail of it until this moment. "
Caroline recognised Martha's name upon the brown paper, written in an unfamiliar hand.
"These have arrived one at a time since we came to London," Martha said, placing them upon the dressing table.
"The first came perhaps a week after us, and the others at the same interval.
There was no letter inside and no name upon any of them. Only this."
She opened the nearest parcel and tipped a small piece of green sea glass into her hand. The other two contained pieces of cloudy white and pale blue, each worn smooth by the water.
"I could not think who might be sending them or why," Martha continued.
"I am quite certain I have no secret admirers, and even if I did, an old piece of glass would be a very peculiar token of affection.
I thought at first that someone had made a mistake with the direction, but they kept arriving with my name on them. "
Caroline reached for the green piece, though her fingers had begun to tremble before she touched it.
Martha watched her face. "After what you have just told me, I think they may be from your Thomas."
Caroline closed her hand around the glass. It was cool against her palm and perfectly smooth, so like the piece Thomas had given her upon the beach that for a moment the room seemed to fall away around her. "He remembered," she said, scarcely above a whisper.
Martha looked at the three small pieces lying upon the dressing table, and when she spoke, her voice was gentle. "It would seem that he has."
Caroline lifted her eyes to hers, smiling through the tears which had gathered there, but Martha did not smile in return.
"You must take care, miss," she said. "I do not say that he is unworthy of you, for I know nothing of him beyond what you have told me, and what you have told me speaks well of him.
But your father is not wrong in everything.
You have opportunities here that most young women could never hope for.
A fine home and the chance to make a very good marriage.
Most importantly, a secure marriage. This young man may love you dearly, but love alone will not make his path an easy one, nor yours if you choose to follow it. "
Caroline looked down at the glass in her hand. "You think I should forget him too."
"No." Martha's answer came at once. "I think you should understand what you are promising before you give up everything else for it. You are still full young and the world is a harder and crueller place than you know."
The words ought to have dampened the sudden hope rising within her, but they did not.
Martha had not seen Thomas upon the beach with the wind lifting his dark hair and the love glowing in his amber eyes, or known the quiet certainty with which he spoke of their future.
She had not felt his hands close around hers when he promised that he would return for her.
The three pieces of sea glass lay between them, worthless to anyone who did not know their meaning.
Caroline understood at once why Thomas had sent them to Martha rather than to her.
Her father had forbidden letters, and anything addressed to Caroline would have been intercepted before it reached her.
These little fragments carried no declaration that could be discovered or returned.
They spoke to her more tenderly than any written page.
Each one had been lifted from the shore by his hand, wrapped with care and sent across the miles to tell her that he remembered.
The thought steadied her. Thomas had not forgotten what they had promised, and she would not allow London to make her forget either.
While he was working towards the life they hoped to share, she had permitted herself to be carried from one engagement to another and displayed before gentlemen who saw only her father's fortune.
Her gaze returned to the mirror. The green silk had been chosen because it suited her colouring so well, while the jewels at her throat announced precisely how much Mr Bingley could afford to spend upon his younger daughter.
Everything about her had been carefully arranged to attract admiration, and the result had been a succession of men like Mr Penrose.
"What would Papa do if none of them wished to marry me?" she asked.
Martha frowned. "None of whom?"
"The gentlemen he considers suitable. Papa may insist that I attend every ball in London, but he cannot force any of them to make me an offer."