Chapter 18 A Visit From Mr Thwaite #2
“No! To turn up at Edlesborough and say, ‘Good morning, I am your daughter whom you sent into exile at the age of three’? Indeed, I could not do it. How he would sneer at me, at what I have become, because of him.”
“What have you become?” he said gently.
“A pathetic spinster, brother. Unwed and unwanted at the age of forty-one. He would laugh at me and the servants would pity me. I could not bear it.”
“No one would know you there. In fact, we could have some fun with this. You could go there with me under a false name… I know, you could be my rich bride, being taken on a wedding tour to visit our various relations. That would annoy him so much, to think me rich after all his efforts, would it not? And he would vent his spleen against me, and not you.”
“I have no clothes for a bride,” she said. “A rich bride would have a vast new wardrobe to show off.”
“Oh. Trust a woman to think of that.”
“Trust a man to forget about it. Besides, I am far too old a bride for you. No, Simon, no subterfuge. If we are going to do this, let us at least be honest — which is more than he has ever been.”
“Very well, but I hate to appear before him so… so shabby. You could borrow some clothes from the duchess, for she is much of a size with you. I have no wish to appear in front of our father like a whiny schoolboy, complaining of ill-treatment. Much better to take a position of strength. We expect nothing from him, after all, but at all costs let us not show him how low he has brought us.”
The duchess, who never refused an opportunity to improve a woman’s wardrobe, responded to the idea with enthusiasm.
Since she did not hesitate to broadcast the story of Mr Thwaite’s visit and the Earl of Edlesborough’s perfidy throughout the house, Simon found himself unexpectedly drawn back into the duke’s favour.
“I always knew Edlesborough was a snake, but this is beyond anything,” he said, having summoned Simon to his study to commiserate with him.
“It is bad enough to cut off a son, but such things do happen. Who knows what goes on in families and what differences there might be, and what cause a man might have to cut out the dead wood of the family? Not that I say that description applied to you, Payne, I dare say, for you seem a respectable enough man in most respects.”
“Thank you, your grace,” Simon murmured, amused.
“Apart from the business of little Miss Sophia, of course,” the duke went on, the eyebrows lowering ominously.
“Still, you have had your hair combed over that already, so I say nothing more about it. But this! To deny a man the right to follow his chosen profession — that is not the act of a gentleman. I cannot abide such scurvy dealings. I am minded to build your orangery, and that fancy bridge too, just to spite the man, and I should tell everyone about it, too. My support still carries some weight in society, I believe.”
Simon laughed out loud at that. “Your grace is very kind to suggest it, but I would not have you commission a design of mine for such a flimsy reason as that. If you choose it, make it be because you like it better than any alternative. I do not wish to make my name because my father treated me badly.”
“Ah, you have your pride,” the duke said.
“I cannot quarrel with that. Very well, whenever Richard has finished his own designs, I shall choose the one I like best… or I might leave Rowena to choose, since it is in her honour. Do you wish to borrow one of my carriages for your journey, Payne? The ducal arms on the door will give Edlesborough pause, eh? He will know that you have at least one influential friend in the world, for I am not quite nobody, I believe.”
The secretary and comptroller laughed dutifully at this witticism, and agreed to offer whatever assistance was in their power.
Simon’s crime of aspiring to Sophie’s hand was, if not quite forgotten, at least set aside in the interests of putting Lord Edlesborough’s nose out of joint.
So while Juliet was rigged out in the duchess’s unwanted finery, attempts were made to bring Simon up to the mark, too.
Sadly, only Mr Godley was of a size to donate clothes to him, and the chaplain’s attire was even shabbier than Simon’s.
In the end he had to make do with supplies of linen, silk stockings and soft leather gloves from Richard.
Three days later, in the duke’s own carriage, piled high with luggage, and accompanied by a valet and maid, two footmen standing behind and two grooms as outriders, Simon and Juliet set off for Warwickshire to confront their father.
***
Sophia was delighted to have Simon restored to favour, so that they could meet openly again.
They were both too discreet to make any show of affection in public, but there was a pleasure in being in the same room each evening.
She dressed with more than usual care, and although she never dared to sit beside him, there were shared glances sometimes and one evening she sat opposite him at the vingt-et-un table.
It was a pity his change in circumstances meant that he would soon be leaving Staineybank, but he would return very soon, as he made sure to tell everyone.
They still met in the chapel gallery, and there was one part of their private discussions which she felt compelled to convey to her sisters.
“Do you think we look alike, sisters?” she said as they sat in the morning room one day.
“Not in the least,” Charlotte said robustly.
“We are quite different,” Augusta said.
“We never dress alike,” Maria added.
“No, but we do wear each other’s gowns and jewellery,” Sophia said, “and we have the same style and colour of hair. To anyone who does not know us well, it might be confusing.”
“I do think there might be something in what you say,” said the duchess, looking up from the fichu she was hemming.
“Just at first, I did have trouble telling you apart, but I soon got into the way of it. Charlotte is most likely to be with Cousin Hester, wearing an apron. Maria is usually the one with a book in her hand, and Augusta is often to be found wearing a riding habit. As for Sophia, if I cannot find the latest journals, I know where to look. But the gentlemen, who see you less often, do have difficulty, I believe. James Hammond said once that he simply calls each of you ‘Miss Merrington’.”
“Do you think perhaps that Lord Daniel had trouble, too?” Sophia said. “He got to know me at Marshfields, where I was the only Miss Merrington, but then when he came here—”
“Oh! That is entirely possible,” the duchess said. “You do like to go round together, the four of you, too, which compounds the problem. I wonder if that was why he left so suddenly.”
“But we are not truly alike,” Maria said robustly, “and a man who had formed an attachment would not be confused, surely? He would know his love in any company.”
This was a daunting point, and the ladies fell silent.
It was as well for Sophia that she had Simon’s affection to cheer her spirits for otherwise she would have been in a pitiable state at this point.
The very thought that Lord Daniel had, perhaps, abandoned his courtship because he could not recognise her was lowering in the extreme.
But Simon knew her, he ‘knew his love in any company’, and she needed no other.
Lord Daniel’s defection had no power to hurt her, for her heart was whole and in the gentle hands of another.