Chapter 15 #2
“Are you sure, Dahlia?”
“Of course, I am. I am glad you were able to see the confectionery shop.” Dahlia led them to the waiting carriage. “Come, it is getting dark.”
On their way back, Dahlia asked Helena to tell her of other recent happenings among their acquaintances. Soon, they found themselves whispering as the stories turned into gossip.
Chastity, who usually pried when she thought Helena and her friends were gossiping, rolled her eyes at them and watched the passing winter scenery. It was not long before the friends observed that she had fallen asleep.
Helena, noticing that they had more freedom to talk, poked Dahlia.
“But tell me, Dahlia, how has it been?
“It?” Dahlia asked evasively.
“You know very well what I mean,” her friend said.
Sighing, she shifted in her seat.
“Well, it most certainly is not your ordinary marriage. What can I say? I knew what I was getting into. Expectations were set from the very beginning.”
Dahlia was aware that Helena studied her.
Her friend took her time in her reply, as if figuring out what to say. She spoke tentatively.
“I hope you don’t take this the wrong way, Dahlia, but you look happy.” Helena smiled at her.
“What are you saying, Helena? Was I that sad before?”
“Again, you know what I mean. Dahlia don’t try to get out of it.”
Dahliah sighed. She looked at her friend, all playfulness gone.
“In truth, I do not know what I am, Helena. I am…”
In love.
“…confused.”
“Confused about what?”
“I don’t know! About everything. About him.”
“Good heavens, Dahlia are you telling me that you are falling for the Duke?”
“Of course not! What are you saying, Helena!”
But she knew she couldn’t fool her friend. Indeed, Helena’s expression showed her unconvinced.
But it seemed that Helena would allow her some latitude, for she did not pursue the subject any longer.
“I have been writing again,” Dahlia blurted out, partly out of excitement, and partly to discourage Helene in case she thought to bring the subject up again.
Helena straightened from her seat and clasped her hands together.
“But that is good news indeed! I must say that it is very decent of the Duke to allow you to continue your writing. However did you manage to convince him?”
“Oh, no, no, we must keep it a secret!” Dahlia hissed. “Peter does not know. But Mary and Claire know; it was their idea. They convinced me to continue Penelope Lovelace’s stories.”
Before Helena could ask, Dahlia continued, “I shall not publish of course. I merely use the stories to illustrate life in London for debutantes. The dos and don’ts, what to join and what to avoid.
The things we learned the hard way. Who knows the life of a debutante better than me after all. And of course, young love, romance!”
Helena’s smile was huge.
“That is a wonderful idea, Dahlia! You will be instructing as well as entertaining your readers! Brilliant!”
Dahlia’s responding smile was just as wide as her friend’s.
“Have you completed much of it?”
Here, Dahlia’s face fell.
“What is it? What’s wrong?”
A long sigh escaped Dahlia.
“At the beginning, it was going wonderfully well. I used the twins as inspirations you see; I introduced them as new characters in the story. I had much to write when it was about them. But when it was time to write about the Duke of Snowdon, it became harder. Mary and Claire are expecting the next chapter soon, but I have nothing to show them. I tried writing but everything I wrote, I was not satisfied with.”
“Perhaps, it’s your new surroundings; maybe you are still adjusting to it. Afterall your books were set in London most of the time.”
“I don’t know. I don’t think it’s that.”
“What about if the Duke gets a new archnemesis?”
Dahlia almost laughed at this. She looked down at her hands, choosing her words to make Helena understand.
“I don’t think it’s the content of the story that bothers me so. It’s the way I have written it—or the way I have not written it. Oh, I cannot explain it!”
Not knowing what to say, Helena took her friend’s hand in hers.
“The narrator’s voice, her opinions about the Duke, her remarks about him, they no longer feel true; her voice—or what it was before, is no longer my voice. Even the Duke himself is not the same character as he was before, and I cannot quite grasp what he is becoming.”
“Dahlia, fictional charactercharacters cannot change—well, not on their own at least.”
“No, they cannot.”
“Then, perhaps you’ve changed.”
Yes, perhaps I have. And I’m not sure how that makes me feel.
“Me, change?”
“Yes, for one, I see how you and His Grace no longer seem to hate each other.”
“We have declared a truce; that is all.”
“A truce that seems to be working very well. I saw a sparkle in you that was not there before.”
“A sparkle, really?” Dahlia rolled her eyes.
“I do not jest.”
“It was probably because I was so happy to see you.”
“His Grace looked very well too.”
“He has always looked very well.”
“No, no there is a difference somehow.” Helena narrowed her eyes. “I have been observing the two of you.”
“Really, Helena you—”
“You have become friends.”
“Yes,” Dahlia said the word slowly.
Images of Peter and herself talking quietly in the firelight, of them playing the pianoforte together, of them walking in the snow path, played before her eyes.
I’m glad that you are here now.
So am I.