Chapter 19
Sylvia, Duchess of Westleigh, loved to intervene.
Dare she say, she loved to manage life as if it was a theatrical production. She often thought that she should have been a director rather than an actress. But generally speaking, women were not allowed such endeavors. And so, once she had left the theatre, she had taken to directing the lives of those around her.
However, she was generally careful, for she understood that mismanagement could cause severe consequences in the lives of her children, her friends, her extended family, and those that she had left behind in the theatre district of London. But the people that she was most wary of and most careful of intervening with were truly unhappy people, because so often people had learned their unhappiness so intensely that they had no desire, in all actuality, to give it up.
Oh, they thought they did.
They might even say they wished to be happy, but they had committed to their unhappiness with such zeal that there was no way out.
After all, people also loved to be right. And if they became happy, they would prove that they had been mistaken in their unhappiness.
Yet in this particular case, with the Countess of Drexel, she felt compelled. It wasn’t a feeling that she generally submitted to, but she wanted things to change, and not just for Crispin, who she thought was marvelous and on the brink of discovering himself. She longed for it for his mother too, a woman she’d felt particular sympathy for as an artist, though she doubted the countess would call herself such.
Sylvia was worried for the lot of them. Crispin would soon stand before the chasm of choosing life, love, joy, and happiness or fear and everything he’d always known. Would he stumble and choose fear, which was what had clearly driven him most of his life? It was a great gamble that she’d taken, wagering that Crispin would choose rightly and sending him off with her daughter. In the worst-case scenario, Crispin would continue on as he was, and at least Hermia would be free to live an independent life.
But Sylvia had hopes.
Oh, she had hopes for that boy. And now she’d decided that she had hopes for his mother as well.
Sylvia lifted the door knocker on the Drexel establishment in London and banged it heavily. Her red-gloved hand was a nice contrast with the shining knocker. She stood back and waited, which was not something she was accustomed to doing. Duchesses, after all, did not wait for anyone or anything. But this, she felt, would be worth it.
The door swung open, and she was met with the gaping face of a butler.
His pomaded hair was pressed back firmly from his face. The wrinkled lines of his visage smoothed as his jaw dropped. She was in the newssheets all the time. Almost everyone knew her on sight. She was accustomed to being watched wherever she went. And so she was not surprised that Drexel’s servant knew her.
“Your Grace,” he managed, suppressing whatever excitement he felt, as a good butler did. “Please do come in. Have you come to see…?”
“I have come to see the dowager countess,” she explained, giving the man a winning smile. “Can you please let her know that I am here?”
“Of course, of course.” The butler smoothed his cravat. “Let me take you to her straight away. I cannot imagine that she would not be in to you.”
Sylvia followed him as he took her down the hall with its beautiful paintings and ornaments. It was a good house. The Dowager Countess of Drexel clearly had good taste. Most of it had been brought over from France and Italy.
It wasn’t exactly what she’d been expecting.
Part of her had feared it would be a boring English establishment. Instead, it was rather whimsical. And those words that the countess had spoken about her time in Paris, well, they only embedded themselves further into the duchess’s mind, given this house.
The butler swung open a gilded door and announced her.
Sylvia wondered how the dowager countess would take that, having not been informed earlier that she was about to be invaded. But Sylvia was used to the fray and being unwelcome at first.
She bustled in through the doorway and immediately gave the slightest of curtsies, wanting to make the dowager countess feel not superior, but perhaps as if she had a high hand.
The dowager countess sat before the fire, a letter desk on her lap. She blinked. “Your Grace,” she said.
“Countess,” she replied. “I appreciate you receiving me so quickly.”
“Well, it doesn’t seem as if I have much choice,” the dowager drawled. “Clearly, my own butler is overwhelmed by your presence.”
“Yes, he’s a very good fellow.”
The butler coughed and backed out quickly.
The dowager countess put her box of letters aside and placed her hands in her lap. Her gown was rather dowdy, her mobcap atop her powdered hair starched. And yet, despite the lines around the dowager countess’s mouth and eyes, lines that had happened due to bitterness and loss, she was an attractive woman.
“Do sit down,” the dowager countess instructed. “I assume you have come for a specific reason.”
“Oh, I have,” Sylvia assured, taking the offered seat.
“Is something wrong with my son and your daughter? Are they not enjoying their time together as newlyweds?”
“Oh, I do believe that they are,” she replied as she adjusted the luxurious folds of her green silk skirts. “They departed in a merry manner, and I am sure that they are getting to know each other intimately now.”
“Good. Hopefully a grandchild shall arise from all this.”
“That would be wonderful. I do adore children, don’t you?”
The dowager countess was still for a moment, and then Sylvia wished she could kick herself.
No doubt, the dowager countess had once been very fond of children. But Sylvia knew that the eldest boy had died. The dowager reached up and absentmindedly touched something at her throat. There was a chain and a locket, which was nestled in the midst of the fichu there.
Almost certainly a miniature of her lost son.
“Do forgive me,” Sylvia said. “I did not mean to…”
“No, no,” the dowager cut in with a wave of her hand. “Of course I enjoy children. They are very important. They carry on our lines.”
“And they teach us how to live, don’t they?” the duchess said.
The dowager countess blinked. “I beg your pardon?”
Sylvia knew she was on dangerous ground. Luckily, she rather liked it. “Well, children know how to live, don’t they? They’re ever present in the moment, finding joy in all things around them.”
The dowager countess stared. “I don’t find that. It’s important that we shape them to understand the way of the world, not the other way around.”
Sylvia folded her gloved hands and wondered what tactic she should try next. But she wasn’t quite finished with this one yet, and so she continued, “I suppose I understand that you want to prepare your children for the difficulties of the world. I want to fortify mine as well, of course. But my whole desire has been to create a beautiful world within them so that when they face the cruelties of life, they have resources to pull from. That way they can face hardship with hope, rather than only having an empty, dark well within to turn to.”
The dowager countess stared at her as if she was mad.
And perhaps, to many, she seemed so. “I wish to speak with you about something delicate.”
“Do you?” The dowager arched her delicate brow. “Is there another scandal?”
Sylvia laughed. “Oh, there will always be another scandal with us Briarwoods,” she said. “We adore them. They are our stock-in-trade.”
“Yes,” the dowager countess said with a curl of her lip. “I understand.”
An idea struck Sylvia and she ventured, “But you must have been very aware of scandal, living at the French court for years, as you did.”
The countess frowned and then she smiled. “I suppose you are right.”
“Did you not see such things happening all the time and all about you?” Sylvia said, enjoying the transformation of the woman’s face as she recalled her time in France. “Versailles was a legendary place for shocking events. I should dearly have loved to have seen it all.”
The dowager countess smiled even deeper. “Well, you are not mistaken. The French are, well…”
“The French?” offered Sylvia. “Perhaps the British should be a little bit more like the French.
The dowager’s eyes widened. “That is nigh blasphemy.”
Sylvia grinned. She enjoyed a bit of lighthearted blasphemy as long as no one was harmed. “Perhaps, but you enjoyed it, did you not?”
The dowager inclined her head. “I don’t understand what you’re here for.”
“Your singing,” Sylvia said abruptly.
“Yes?” the countess said warily as the French clock atop the mantel chimed.
“It gave you such joy. And it gave us such joy too,” Sylvia enthused, longing to see the woman across from her come to life again. “You should do it more often.”
The dowager’s eyes narrowed. “You’ve come here to tell me that I should sing more often?”
“No, I’ve come here to tell you that I’d like to be your friend.”
The dowager countess stiffened. “I have enough friends.”
“Do you?” Sylvia asked softly. “Truly? Or they are simply people that you must endure to keep your place in society?”
“Isn’t that the way of things?” the countess demanded.
“Well, it can be,” allowed Sylvia. “Or you could throw all that off. You don’t have to do what you’ve always done, you know.”
The dowager countess’s mouth pressed into a thin line. “When I married the man I loved… He had certain conditions. I loved him so dearly, so deeply. We hadn’t known each other long, but he made me feel that I could be so important if I but listened to him. My husband made it very clear that I should never perform—”
“My dear, your husband is no longer here,” Sylvia dared to interrupt. “You can do whatever you please.”
The dowager countess stared at her for a long moment, her body brittle. “I have a sacred duty—”
“And you’ve done it,” Sylvia pointed out. “You’ve raised a son to become an earl. He’s a good man. He’s married. What must you do now? Do you simply wish to spin out the rest of your days with no joy or passion?”
The dowager countess gasped. “That is a shocking thing to say.”
“It is true,” she replied with perhaps a touch more firmness than she’d intended.
“What are you suggesting?”
“I am suggesting that you free yourself of the past and rules which make you miserable, not just for the sake of yourself, but for your children too.”
The dowager shot to her feet, her stiff skirts whooshing. “You should go now.”
“Should I?” Sylvia offered a smile and stood. “I apologize. I knew it was a risk to come, but I saw you happy for a moment when you were singing. And I should like to see that again and a great deal more.” She started for the door but paused and glanced over her shoulder. “I think, if you would let that part of you out, your life would be transformed and the world would be very lucky indeed. I do hope you’ll consider it.”
The dowager gaped at her, and a strange sheen glistened in her eyes.
Sylvia slipped out the door. She had no idea if her words would take root, but she dearly hoped they would.