Chapter 26 #2
“I do not know what my silly grandson has done to make this situation the way it is,” she said, stepping forward. “But I shall inform him that if he does not see to it that you are smiling again, properly, within the month, there will be trouble from me.”
Genevieve nodded and tried to smile more naturally.
It did not work.
“A letter has arrived for you,” she said, handing it to her. “The staff mixed it in with mine. I will make sure it does not happen again.”
“Thank you,” Genevieve said as she took the letter.
Her eyes traced over the writing. It was Samuel’s.
He had become one of her closest correspondents since the early days of her marriage.
It was a friendship that had surprised both of them, she thought, growing up gradually from the tentative civility of new acquaintance into something she genuinely valued.
His letters were intelligent, warm, and often funny.
He had a gift for understanding what she needed to hear without her having to say it directly.
He kept her informed, he had told her once, because he believed she deserved to be informed, that she was not the sort of woman who was better served by ignorance, however comfortable ignorance might feel in the short term.
She had appreciated that. She appreciated his letters now. But even they could not reach the cold, still place inside her where she had been keeping everything since it had all begun.
She read it twice. The second time more slowly, pausing at the line near the end that had made her set the paper down for a moment and look at the window.
I will say plainly what I suspect you already know: you are not the problem here and never have been.
I am aware this is the sort of observation that is easier to receive than to act upon, and I do not offer it as instruction.
I offer it only because I think you deserve to hear it stated directly, by someone who has watched this situation from a position of some proximity and finds your composure in the face of it nothing short of remarkable.
She had read that line and had felt, briefly, the warmth of being seen clearly by someone who had no reason to flatter her.
It had not resolved anything. It had not touched the cold place.
But it had sat alongside her in a way that was different from nothing, and she was grateful for it in the undemonstrative way she was grateful for things that could not fix what was broken…
but refused to pretend it was not there.
She was still thinking about the letter over dinner when she had been moving food around her plate without much appetite. Dinner had been going for twenty minutes before Genevieve realized she had not said anything of import to her.
She had asked about the estate accounts, Thomas had mentioned them that morning and she had stored the fact away, deployed it now with the efficiency of someone reaching for a tool.
She had made an observation about the weather.
She had inquired after the Pembrokes' new foal, because she had heard the stable boy mention it to someone in the yard and it had seemed like the kind of thing one could ask about without risk.
Thomas had answered all of it. He was answering the foal now, something about the dam, something about whether the color would hold, and she was nodding with what she believed was appropriate interest, and across the table his grandmother was cutting her meat with the focused precision of a woman engaged in a private occupation.
“I see Samuel wrote to you… again,” Thomas said quietly at one moment.
“He is a good friend,” Genevieve replied, pushing potatoes around her plate.
“Yes… a good… male friend… whom you read the letters of in the sitting room, alone,” Thomas continued.
His grandmother sighed.
“Thomas, you are being ridiculous,” the older woman said. Thomas glanced between them and then sank into his chair slightly.
Genevieve looked at her.
Lady Harrington looked up. Their eyes met for a moment—just a moment—before the older women returned to her plate.
"I understand Mr. Hartley believes it will be a good year for the south pasture," Genevieve said. "Given the rainfall."
"Hartley is usually right about the south pasture," Thomas said.
"Yes."
The candles threw their light across the tablecloth. Someone's fork touched a plate. Outside, faintly, the wind blew, whistling past the window ledges.
Lady Harrington set down her knife.
"Do you know," she said, in the tone of someone making a casual observation, "I have been trying to remember what we argued about at dinner in February."
Thomas looked at her.
"I beg your pardon?"
"You and Genevieve. It was something to do with the library. Whether the Fielding ought to be moved to the upper shelf or whether that was absurd on principle." Lady Harrington picked up her wine glass. "You were both quite decided. I believe I was accused of having no opinion, which I resented."
A silence.
"I have an opinion about the library," Genevieve said carefully.
"Yes." The older woman looked at her. "I remember."
Thomas was looking at Genevieve now. She could feel it without turning to meet it, the quality of his attention, the stillness of it.
She reached for her wine.
"The Fielding should stay where it is," she said. "Moving it would be giving in."
"Giving in to what?" Thomas said.
"To the argument that height equals importance. Which is wrong."
"The books on the upper shelf are more valuable."
"Some of them. But value is not the only organizing principle, and if you arrange a library by value alone you end up with something that's impressive and completely useless to actually read in.
" She heard herself, the rhythm of it, the slight edge, and something loosened in her chest, briefly, uncomfortably. "Which rather defeats the purpose."
Thomas was quiet for a moment.
"The Fielding stays," he sighed.
"I know."
Across the table, Lady Harrington had resumed eating. Her expression was neutral. But the furrow between her brows was gone.
Genevieve set down her glass and said nothing else for a while. Neither did anyone else. But the silence was different now. Less a tense absence of sound. More just three people who had ended a conversation.
She looked down at her plate again.
She had no appetite.