Chapter Eleven #3
But once Father has excused them from dinner, Mother grabs Rosalie before she can get even halfway up the stairs.
“You cannot tell her.” Her grip on Rosalie’s wrist is firm, anchoring her there on the stairs. “Mrs. Pine can never know.
No one can ever know.”
“What could possibly be so secret twenty-five years later?” Rosalie implores, tugging at her mother’s grip. But Mother won’t let go.
“It would damage our family. Invite questions into our reputation we do not need. Possibly even ruin your chances with Mr. Dean,”
Mother says, her voice quiet but sharp.
The hair on the back of Rosalie’s neck stands up. “Mother, did he—did that man hurt you?” Rosalie whispers.
“No,” Mother says, her eyes widening. Her grip on Rosalie’s wrist slackens. “No. No. It’s not that.”
“But it’s still damaging to the family,” Rosalie confirms.
“Yes. Promise me you won’t tell Miss Pine.”
Even with the threat of familial ruin, this is still so wrong.
“If we don’t tell Mrs. Pine, she’ll keep pushing Miss Pine on Mr. Dean, trying to get back at you,” Rosalie tries.
“She won’t win. Mr. Dean will be yours, we’ll get Miss Pine married off, not to your brother, and we’ll be done with this.”
Her mother’s face is set, her shoulders high, eyes a little wild. She’s held this secret for longer than Rosalie’s whole life—lived
with having ruined (having to ruin?) her best friend.
“Don’t you want to tell her?” Rosalie can’t help but ask. “Don’t you want to apologize? Make it right?”
Mother sighs, sliding her hand down to take Rosalie’s. “Is there anything you wouldn’t do for Miss Raught or Miss Linet?”
Rosalie hesitates, just for a second. “If it would save them from pain—from harm—wouldn’t you do everything in your power,
whatever the cost, to protect them?”
“Not if it would cause them more pain in the meantime,” Rosalie replies instantly.
But there’s a squeak of doubt there at the back of her head. Even if it made them hate her—even if they never spoke to her again—if it was for the right reason, wouldn’t she? She’d protect them no matter what the cost to her. Even if it left her alone.
Mother’s never had any other friends.
“Of course you would,” Mother says, digging the knife further into Rosalie’s already twisting stomach. “You make choices for
their well-being all the time. Guiding them to the right men, making sure they make the right connections. It’s what we do.”
Rosalie’s breath catches. “It’s not the same,” she says, and even to her own ears her words are thin.
“Sometimes being right and being nice are mutually exclusive,” Mother says, squeezing Rosalie’s hand again. “And sometimes
causing harm for the right reasons is the kindest thing you can do.”
Rosalie doesn’t want to believe that.
“Now, the kindest thing to do for Miss Pine is to ensure Mr. Sholle makes her a proposal by season’s end. This . . . plot
you have with Christopher may encourage Mr. Sholle to man up and stake a claim, so I’ll allow it,” Mother says.
Rosalie tries to let hope drown out the horror of Mother’s ethos on the world. An ethos Rosalie has followed unquestioningly
since her infancy.
“A few outings,” Mother clarifies. “Don’t let the girl fall in love with him.”
Rosalie snorts, quite out of her control.
“Your brother is charming,” Mother says, chiding. “Stranger things have happened.”
If only Mother knew the strange things Rosalie and Christopher are planning.
“I’ll get invitations sent for an outing,” Rosalie agrees, trying to push the words out around her discomfort.
Mother’s gaze turns hard again. “Promise me.”
In the face of her stern, unyielding expression, Rosalie can do nothing more than nod, even as anxiety crushes her chest.
“I won’t tell her.”
“Good. Now, get some sleep. All that worrying will give you wrinkles.”
She lets go of Rosalie’s hand and heads back downstairs, leaving Rosalie there alone, staring after her, wondering what in
her past—what kinds of dark family secrets—could have caused her mother to have become this Machiavellian.
She climbs the stairs slowly, walking mechanically back to her room to fall onto her bed. She stares up at the ceiling, a
hand to her tight chest. Is she truly capable of the same ruthlessness as her mother? As her father?
She’s always been imperious and bossy and commanding. She knows what’s best for her friends, and she sees that it happens.
It’s always been for their own good, for the right reasons . . . hasn’t it?
Rosalie rolls onto her side and looks across the room to where Aunt Genevieve’s painting hangs over her small settee, she
and Miss Pine staring at each other captured there in oil paint.
She’s been acting under the assumption that what she wants for Miss Pine—with Miss Pine—is what Miss Pine ought to want as
well. Rosalie closes her eyes, dropping her head to rest against her arm. She pulls her legs fully onto the bed, curling into
herself.
She can’t do to Miss Pine what Mother did to Mrs. Pine. She can’t choose the future that’s best for her. Even if it’s choosing
a future that allows them to kiss in dark corners and steal away on hikes to lie down in the tall grass and—
Rosalie opens her eyes and stares at their pose in the painting. Miss Pine has to want to choose it herself. They have to make a choice, whatever choice, together. Rosalie can only hope that what Miss Pine truly wants might align with what she wants. That Miss Pine might want her in return.