Chapter 3 #2
“Well, why not!” Miss Vaughn declared, but there was a hint of defiance in her tone which did not go unnoticed. “There are intelligent women up and down the country, Sir Moses, and are we to be restricted in our academic efforts merely due to a coincidence of birth?”
“‘Tis sadly the approach of our universities,” Moses managed.
A natural philosopher? This woman before him was surely more suited as a model for the greatest painters in the land, such was her beauty.
“I do not think that they have admitted a woman…
well, in all their times. ‘Tis more the stage for baronets and lords, like myself.”
Miss Vaughn scowled, and he almost laughed at how well the vision of annoyance became her.
“It is a dreadful scandal, that is what it is. Why educate our young ladies, I ask you, if we as a society are just to forbid them from venturing further? To offer them a sweet taste of education, a glimpse at the knowledge that lies just beyond our reach, if we are to curtail them just as their minds begin to blossom?”
“And yet you must admit that few women are educated in such a manner,” countered Moses, almost despite himself. Was this really happening? Was he having a debate with an Aphrodite who had stumbled into his home, dripping wet, about the merits of an English education.
Shifting in her chair, Miss Vaughn nodded sagely.
“I was fortunate indeed. I was educated as befits a man, as the school motto goes, and it was there that I met one of my closest friends, Miss Rebecca Callaghan. She shares with me the love of knowledge that has been, for so long, barred to the fairer sex.”
Moses did not reply but watched the countenance of Miss Vaughn. Well, her argument was sound. Had he ever seen evidence that a woman could not be as smart as a man?
“You have certainly proved an intelligence beyond most of the woman that I have met,” Moses said gruffly, trying to ignore the stirring in his stomach as he spoke, “and some of the men, too.”
Miss Vaughn laughed, and it caused a lurch in his chest that was not unpleasant.
“I would never believe that the superiority was on purely one side at all – but I do think that the balance of academic power has rested with men for too long. How are we to prove ourselves, I ask you, if never given the chance?”
Moses nodded slowly. “You are quite right, of course, Miss Vaughn. I have always believed that a girl, if taught properly, could be the match of her brother.”
Something changed in the way that she was sitting – did she lean forward? Did she tilt her head towards him?
“Exactly,” she said quietly. “Have you children, Sir Moses?”
She could not know; she could never know the pain that the question inflicted on him. Moses physically started, and then turned his face away to the empty grate, trying to quell the rush of emotions that rose, unbidden, in his heart.
When he had collected himself, his eyes glanced over to Miss Vaughn once again. Her cheeks had coloured, and her eyes had fallen to consider her fingers.
“One of my greatest faults, I have always been told, is my desire to question,” she spoke quietly.
“To always be asking, always wondering. I think it will make me a truly inquisitive natural philosopher, but I often forget how intrusive that is for those who I have just met. I … I apologise for my rudeness.”
This speech was so different from anything that Moses could have imagined would come from Miss Vaughn’s lips that his jaw dropped. A natural philosopher? Inquisitive? Apologise?
The sense of awkwardness between them was growing slightly now, and Moses gritted his teeth. He had been raised in some of the best society, and he well knew now what was expected of him: a returned apology.
His gaze flickered over Miss Vaughn; the way the single candle in the room still seemed to dance over her, glistening over her golden hair, which was still damp in places.
“And I too owe you an apology,” he said gruffly, without much heart.
“I wish you would not,” returned Miss Vaughn sharply. “There is nothing more irritating to me than a false apology, and so I hope you will not insult my intelligence by trotting one out just because manners demand it.”
Moses’s jaw, so recently dropped, fell again. “I beg your pardon?”
In the seconds of silence between them, Moses heard the rain lashing on the windows, but felt something like warmth growing between them.
It was impossible not to respect Chloe – Miss Vaughn, and with every word he found himself, against his better judgement, against his inclination, against his very nature … trusting her.
“‘Tis evident to me,” continued Miss Vaughn, but with a smile that was kind, “that society’s description of you was quite correct.”
Heat – from embarrassment or anger, he could not tell which – rose in Moses’s face. “Description?”
Miss Vaughn laid her plate down on the floor, empty save for a few crumbs. “Miser.”
Moses’s eyebrows rose, and he repeated, “Miser.”
At least she had the good grace to look a little embarrassed at the word. “‘Tis not my own description, you understand – just that which others use.”
He could not help but look at her when they were conversing, and he was glad of it, for he was not sure whether he would be strong enough to look away, even if they were silent.
“Miser,” he repeated quietly. “Well, ‘tis true I suppose, though no man on God’s green earth ever had such cause as I.”
Miss Vaughn was silent, but the openness and the kindness in her face made him relax in his armchair, and his mouth opened to share his story with the first person outside of his immediate acquaintance.
“Like all good tales,” Moses said gruffly, “it started with a woman. I met her at Ascot, believe it or not – eyes across a crowded room, would you credit it? I … I loved her very much. She was everything to me for over a year, and I proposed marriage early on in that year. We planned for the wedding, and we planned our futures together and … and we were happy.”
If Miss Vaughn had noted the crack in his voice, she did not indicate so, and Moses took her silence for assent to continue. Even if she had asked him to stop, he was not sure if he was able to: like bleeding poison from his blood, now the process had started, he was loath to finish.
“We planned for the future, we considered our hopes and dreams, and at the centre of them all: a family. Children, Miss Vaughn, are not just the desire of the female sex. I longed for children, and we talked about how many we would have, how we would raise them – here, together, with no wet nurses or farming out to villagers. We would love them more than ourselves, more than each other, I do believe, because in every turn of their head and smile on their face I would see my Charlotte in them, and she would see me.”
Moses swallowed. His throat was dry now and it was starting to scratch, but he would not stop.
“Her brother was a doctor, in Ely. A month before our wedding date, she travelled to visit him there and spend some time with the last remaining family member she had, before she joined my own. What she did not know, and he would have told her had he known of her intended visit, was that … that ague had broken out just days before.”
There was a gasp, and Moses was startled to see Miss Vaughn’s mouth open, but he stopped her from speaking with a raise of his hand.
“She was a caring soul, my Charlotte,” he said quietly. “I did not know how much until I received her brother’s letter. Determined as she was to help, she had accompanied him – against his wishes – to care for a patient of his, and Fate had her way. Within days, my darling had succumbed.”
Moses’ gaze had drifted to the fire, unlit, but now it moved back to Miss Vaughn and saw the concern in her eyes, and something a little deeper which he could not name.
He sighed. “I think I can honestly say, Miss Vaughn, that in many ways I too died that day. My heart certainly broke, and it has never been mended. That was just over a year ago, and in that time I have wished for nothing but to be left alone. Alone with my bitterness.”
Chloe stared at him in astonishment. It had simply not occurred to her that there was such deep passion within such a dark and depressive frame. Sir Moses Wandorne gave the impression of deep emotion, certainly, but emotions such as gloom, and sadness, and misery.
The idea of Sir Moses being violently and passionately in love was something that didn’t quite match the figure hunched in the armchair before her.
To hear him speak of children; of the children that he had longed for, a dream that she herself shared but had never revealed to anyone… it was intoxicating.
“I will admit,” she murmured, “that the idea of losing someone close to me … someone that I loved so deeply would be utterly devastating to me.”
What she did not say, and wild horses would not have been capable of dragging it from her, was that now that she looked at him, she could see the echoes of the man that Sir Moses had once been in the features before her.
Those dark eyes. That long, tangled hair that would be so refined if kempt.
His broad frame. The presence that he created, even when bad tempered.
“You are a brave man,” she said with a small smile. “I have no idea how you manage to … to continue. To cope with it all.”
He laughed, and it was bitter and dark. “I do not think that I do. Emotions, romantic entanglements, the ability to love … I do not think that I will ever venture too close to any of them again. What good can they do me?”
Chloe hesitated. This particular opinion of hers had been frowned upon by her acquaintance, but somehow, here in this dark room, with this dark soul, it did not sound so strange.