Chapter 22 One Tangle, Then Another
One Tangle, Then Another
AUNT ROSE ENTERED the room, and Mr Alwyn stood to his feet.
Belinda focused again on her embroidery, her eyes still damp from his story. How thoughtless I was in demanding it of him.
She marveled that he had been willing to entrust her with each heartrending detail, and found she loved him even more for what they had revealed.
“Your husband only fell asleep a few moments ago, Mrs Caspar,” Mr Alwyn was saying.
He began to give an account of all that George had accomplished, and Lindy finished the last stitch of a pansy’s petal.
Having left her sewing scissors in the parlour, she lifted the sampler to her mouth to sever the excess thread with her teeth.
As Mr Alwyn’s back was to her, she thought he would not see this inelegant trick that had earned her much teasing over the years from her family.
In the next moment, she wished she had taken their chiding more to heart, as she felt the silken strand catch between her incisors.
She tugged at it, but the traitorous thread was stuck tight.
A little cry of distress escaped her, and she shot up from her chair.
Every eye in the room, even those of her reawakened uncle, settled on her, sharp with inquiry.
Facing the wall, she stifled a whimper brewing in her throat, and held the hoop up that it would not dangle from her mouth.
Suddenly, there was a gentle hand on the back of her arm.
“May I help you?”
Wishing she could fall right through the floor, Belinda turned and allowed Mr Alwyn to reposition her and angle her head towards the open window. He peered into her gaping mouth, and she felt like a trout on a hook. Yet his face bore no trace of amusement as he worked at the tangle in her teeth.
However, he was the only courteous person within the room. Lindy heard her aunt’s tinkle of laughter, unsuccessfully squelched, followed by a familiar though rare-as-of-late sound – Uncle George’s great guffaw. Even Lee’s upper lip was quivering.
“There we are.”
The weight of the tambour lifted, but Mr Alwyn did not release her chin as he was now studying the inside of her mouth.
“There does not appear to be any damage to the teeth or gumline,” he murmured. His thumb lingered on her lip, pressing it gently, then slipped off to rest on her chin.
Daring somehow to look up at him, Belinda watched his gaze drift up from her mouth to her eyes, and she saw his penetrating stare soften.
Mumbling the most chagrined thank you of her life, she turned away. Then, glaring briefly at her embroidered work, she flung it out of the open window.
This brought outright laughter from around the room, even from Mr Alwyn, who was still so near her that she could have counted the bristles on his chin had she been willing to look back at him.
“I never want to see that again,” she said.
“Thank you for that bit of levity, Lindy.” Rose pressed her hand to her chest, still smiling.
“It was my pleasure, I’m sure.” She flashed her relatives a faux-withering look as another giggle escaped Rose, and George wheezed, happily so.
“By the look of the clock, I see I’m due at the operating theatre in half an hour,” Mr Alwyn graciously refocused everyone’s attention. “So I will bid you all farewell until tomorrow.”
Lindy murmured her goodbye, choosing to stay behind while Aunt Rose saw him out. As she plumped a pillow and placed it under her uncle’s head, George reached up with his left hand to pat her cheek. He had always been kind but this show of affection rather surprised her.
“Such a good girl…you are.”
“Good at making a fool of myself,” she replied, still feeling the drag of the thread on her lip. “I’ve never been more embarrassed in all of my life.”
He dismissed her shame with a little wave, his lopsided smile looking especially sly. “I think that fellow is…quite taken with you.”
Belinda’s heart thumped, but she shook her head. “You mistake his purpose. He comes here to see you.”
“Don’t play coy, poppet…I’m not blind…to these matters.”
Oh uncle, if you knew how hard I must work to quieten my heart, you would not stir it up with this!
George’s face creased with concern. “I see I have…disturbed you. If you dislike him…there will be others…and if none of them please you…you may remain with your mother…and me always, dear Nelly.”
Her cousin’s name crashed in Belinda’s ears like a crack of thunder.
He doesn’t even know to whom he is speaking! And here I stand, regarding figments as facts!
“Nelly? Have I…upset you?”
George’s wondering eyes were still upon her. His hair was mussed, his face loose in its strange, new asymmetry. She’d never seen him appear so vulnerable.
Poor uncle. Belinda forced a smile.
“No. No, not at all,” she said patting his hand. “Why don’t you rest now?”
Ease spread across his face, and he let his eyes drift shut.
I won’t worry Aunt Rose with this, as she was pleased to tell me earlier that she’d had a ‘real conversation’ with him, Belinda thought, going towards the door.
Tired of always having to think through everything so thoroughly, she went downstairs to the parlour. Seated at the escritoire, Rose looked up from what she was writing.
“Something came for you, Lindy. It’s on the table there.”
Lifting a small envelope, Belinda settled onto the window-seat, and read:
My dear Miss Everson —
Please forgive my forwardness at sending this note, but I am eager to know if you have spoken to your aunt about attending the Adelphi with us on Friday.
Mamma has heard this particular burletta is rollicking fun!
Oh, please do say you’ll come, Miss Everson!
Mrs Caspar is invited as well if she is wanting to join in.
Your troublesome friend,
Dora Hartley
“From the Hartleys, I presume?” Rose asked.
“Yes. I meant to tell you they’ve invited me to the theatre,” Belinda replied just as Minnie came in through the doorway.
With a faint clearing of her throat, the maid announced, “Anne and Clarice Chaffee have come to call, ma’am.”
A faint thud sounded. Turning, Lindy saw that Aunt Rose’s eyes were wide, and the pen she had been holding lay at her feet on the carpet.
“Anne and Clarice are here? How did they find us?”
Bewildered at her aunt’s response, Belinda rummaged through her mind, trying to place the names.
‘Chaffee’? Did we meet them at the rout party?
Then, she remembered writing the name Imogene Chaffee on an envelope just days earlier.
The thin, hard line of Rose’s mouth loosened a little to tell the maid, “Well, I suppose you ought to show them in.”
As Lindy held her breath, wondering what sort of she-devils were about to invade the parlour, a pair of quite average looking misses appeared. They lingered in the doorway, brazenly surveying the room.
With all trace of her upset set aside, Aunt Rose rose to her feet.
“Anne, Clarice! It has been so long – come in, do. Let me look at you! So lovely, as to be expected.” She made no move to embrace either of them.
“Tea please, Minnie. Thank you. Girls, come – sit! And meet my niece – my other niece – Belinda Everson. Belinda, these are the daughters of George’s sister, Anne and Clarice Chaffee. ”
With a proud tilt of her head, Clarice acknowledged Lindy as she sat down.
Anne, however, only studied her while perching herself on the edge of the settee.
Clutched in her hand was a reticule which she positioned precisely as if to draw attention to its intricate beadwork.
Though settled now, neither sister was finished appraising the parlour, their heads turning this way and that, as if none of the room’s details would dare to escape their notice.
With a sweeping glance, Lindy made some assessments of her own. Anne was thin with honey-gold hair. Clearly, she was the elder sister, probably nearly the age of thirty, and Belinda wondered if the look of effrontery on her face was a permanent fixture.
Clarice looked to be no older than Belinda herself. Truly blonde, her person and expression were softer in appearance than her sister’s, though her eyebrows remained upraised as if she was rather surprised at everything around her. She might have been pretty if her smile did not appear so brittle.
“So this is where you keep yourself while you are in town,” she said, her eyes still roaming. “We always wondered, didn’t we, Anne?”
“It serves our purposes nicely,” Rose responded, ignoring the weighty look the sisters exchanged.
When they were children, Nell had told Lindy that she disliked her other cousins.
Thinking it improper to ask why, Belinda had not done so.
Now, just two minutes with the Chaffees was proving to be explanation enough.
She hoped that once the tea arrived, the sisters would drink it quickly, and be on their way.
“Is that a Broadwood Square?” Clarice asked, craning her neck towards the pianoforte.
Awaiting no answer, she went to play a few bars of a country reel upon it, expertly so.
Belinda feared it might awaken her uncle upstairs, but it was a mercifully brief show of skill as Clarice soon returned to her seat.
“And what brings you girls here this morning?” Rose asked, holding her placid demeanour. Belinda noticed that the pen she had dropped still lay on the floor at her feet.
‘How did they find us?’ she asked. When will my aunt learn that I must have been the one to point their way to Hertford Street?
“We knew we had to come at once when we heard of Uncle George’s illness,” Anne began, her voice void of any inflection. “How are you bearing up, aunt?”
Hearing a stranger call this beloved woman ‘aunt’ – and saying it with a touch of disdain – set Lindy further on edge.
“As well as one might expect,” Rose replied.
Hearing a quaver in her voice, Belinda reached to hold her hand.
Anne’s eyes settled coldly on the gesture as she asked, “And how fares my dear uncle?”
Rose’s fingers tensed within Belinda’s grasp as she replied, “He is recovering – remarkably quickly.”