Chapter Eight #2
Gwendolyn eyed the food in alarm. The nausea that had caused her trouble last night was worse in the mornings and the food she had previously devoured with pleasure made her feel unwell these days.
Slices of crispy bacon jostled with plump sausages on a blue and white platter.
Fried eggs nestled against mushrooms on a silver dish and fried potatoes filled another bowl.
Slices of hot buttered toast were arranged in a toast rack and bowls of deep purple blackberry jam were placed beside a basket of breakfast bread rolls, fresh out of the oven.
Lady Maynard picked up the elegant silver coffee pot and began pouring it into the cups in front of her. The intense bitter aroma of the coffee combined with the richness of fried egg and bacon caused Gwendolyn to gag.
She clutched her stomach and swallowed hard. Lady Maynard had been so kind it would be horrid if she repaid her by casting up her accounts all over the sitting room carpet. She covered her mouth and coughed, hoping that there wouldn’t be a repeat of last night’s dramatics.
Lady Maynard signaled for the housemaid to remove the coffee and asked for a peppermint tea to be made for Gwendolyn. Freya jumped up and rushed to Gwendolyn’s side. She looked at her mother. “Should we send for the doctor?”
Lady Maynard shook her head. “That won’t be necessary, Freya. Sit down and have your breakfast. Gwendolyn, would you be able to eat a piece of plain toast with a little smear of honey?”
Gwendolyn nodded miserably. “I think so.” Her face crumpled. “I’m so sorry, Lady Maynard. I don’t mean to be a nuisance, and I should never have compromised Freya by coming here. Maybe I should wait in the foyer.”
“Nonsense,” Lady Maynard retorted briskly. “You’re going to stay here and have a decent meal and then we are going to decide what is best to do for the two of you and the child, if I am not mistaken, that you are carrying,”
Gwendolyn nodded, her eyes fixed steadily on the half-eaten piece of toast on her plate. Freya gasped, dropping the slice of toast she was eating.
Mariana put her knife and fork down on her plate. “Oh, Lady Maynard, we are in such a fix and don’t know what to do.”
Freya found her voice. “My cousin had a baby a few months ago and babies are so adorable,” she said, her eyes shining. “They’re not as adorable as kittens, although they take longer to get bigger.”
Even Gwendolyn giggled at this unexpected ending. For the first time since arriving at the Maynards’ house, she dared to look up. Lady Maynard was looking at her with such compassion and understanding that she almost dissolved into tears.
Lady Maynard ate a forkful of egg and then said, “It is a bit of a pickle, I agree, but there is no situation that cannot be sorted out if we look at it calmly.”
Her matter-of-fact manner and amiable tone made Gwendolyn feel that her situation was nothing worse than having spilled a glass of wine at a dinner party. Lady Maynard had already sent a servant around to the Burroughs’s house, but she didn’t expect any help from that quarter.
Freya finished the egg and bacon on her plate and picked up her cup of tea.
The few minutes had given her thoughts a different direction.
“Will Gwen have to go away somewhere? I don’t suppose it will be possible to stay in London.
People were so mean earlier.” Another thought struck her as she took a sip of tea. “Will you be getting married?”
Gwendolyn bit her lip and slumped. Mariana answered for her. “I don’t think that’s an option and anyway, I think it’s dreadful that women are forced into marriage simply because they have made a mistake. Men get away with so much.”
Lady Maynard nodded. “I suppose the man would also be forced into marriage in such a situation, but it is true that women are too often left, to coin a phrase, left holding the baby. However, complaining about it does not help with the current situation.”
Mariana found her tongue unloosened by Lady Maynard’s straightforward approach to Gwendolyn’s dilemma.
“But what are we to do?” She repeated. “In those dreadful books our last governess insisted we read on Sunday afternoons, there were limited options for women who found themselves disgraced. Either they are forced to go into a workhouse or they end up working on the streets.”
Freya picked up and hugged the kitten that had ventured up to the table. “But there must be other options,” she declared. “Besides, what work would women do on the streets?” she wondered. “I’ve only ever seen boys and men sweeping crossings or looking after horses, never girls or women.”
Lady Maynard put her hand over Gwendolyn’s, and shook her head at Mariana and Freya.
“Curiosity killed the cat,” she quipped.
“I will discuss it with you another time. Right now, we are not going to send Gwendolyn and Mariana to a workhouse or let this infant end up in an orphanage. We will manage things better than that.” She stood up when she finished speaking, placing her linen serviette on the table.
“Perhaps you should show the girls to your boudoir while I write some letters.” Lady Maynard, unlike many of the ladies of the aristocracy, was active in advocating for reform in education for women and children and was known to be particularly outspoken about the harsh conditions in workhouses.
“I have many acquaintances, who held similar views to mine and some of them are in a suitable position to help you.”
Tears welled up in Gwendolyn’s eyes and her shoulders slumped but Mariana wouldn’t let her wallow for long.
“Come on. I am reading such a wonderful book I’m sure you will enjoy.
” The left Lady Maynard seated at her mahogany escritoire inlaid with satinwood banding along drawers.
Her fine goose quill flowed over the heavy cream sheet of paper in front of her.
Freya led the cousins upstairs to her dainty boudoir. She plopped down on a comfortable blue brocade sofa and invited the others to join her. Soon they were ensconced together, two kittens curled up with them, listening to Freya read a thrilling passage from The Mysteries of Udolpho.
Gwendolyn relaxed for the first time since she had fainted at her mother’s soirée.
Freya dropped her voice as she read, “I looked around the room; the moonbeam struggled through the deep gloom, and mingled with the pale light of a lamp that was burning dimly in a distant apartment. The rich hangings, the carved ceiling, and the splendid furniture, all in a style so long disused, impressed me with a mournful reverence. The castle seemed to breathe an air of melancholy and decay, as if the very walls had absorbed the sighs and sorrows of ages past.” She closed the book.
“Oh, don’t stop now!” Mariana urged. “It’s thrilling.”
But Gwendolyn sighed as if in echo to the last line.
“Books make all kinds of things sound thrilling, but real life is very different. It isn’t much fun to-to…
” She gulped, finding it impossible to complete the sentence.
Mariana and Freya put their arms around her and more tears welled up and wet her cheeks.
Gwendolyn had never cried so much in her life and after a few minutes, she scrubbed her eyes in a way that would have elicited horrified cries from her mother and sat up.
“I never thought crying would make me feel better.” She took a deep breath.
She twisted her mouth and looked at Mariana.
“I haven’t said much about what happened and how I ended up in such an awkward predicament, but you deserve to know some of the story and how foolish I’ve been. ”
With a deep breath, she plunged into her story, leaving out only the details that were too painful to share. She fell silent and the others hugged her.
They were still sitting like this, close together on the sofa, when Lady Maynard knocked on the door and entered the room a few minutes later. She smiled at them.
“Well, we just have to wait for my letters to be answered. In the meantime, let’s play a game of Consequences.”
They were soon laughing at the odd story they produced about a lady called Miss Petunia Proudflesh who was being courted by her neighbor, Sir Pompaston Puddlewick, through a series of hilarious encounters in the village of Pomplethorpe.
*
Roland Montgomery stared at the drawn curtains of Burroughs House. No servants swept the front steps and no smoke emerged from the chimneys. The family must have fled town during the night.
He cursed under his breath. He wasn’t sure why he cared or what had brought him here, except that thoughts of Gwendolyn’s stricken face had haunted him for the last two days, and he wanted to know that once the first shock of her parents had worn off, they were treating her with some sympathy.
When Major Enderby, his face pale and drawn, had stepped between Gwendolyn and the vicious onlookers, Montgomery had swung on his heel and left the house as quickly as possible, driven by an unfamiliar fury at the major and Gwendolyn.
He despised the kind of reckless, selfish, careless behavior that hurt others.
Like Grace Blythe who had called off her wedding with Enderby, and Robert Walker who had bought a commission in the militia because his plans for marrying Gwendolyn had also come to an end.
He had been about to turn the corner at the end of the street when Sir Percy’s laconic drawl stopped him. “Well, that was an interesting turn of events. I wonder if it was all an elaborate ploy to force your cousin to stop dithering about marrying her.”
Montgomery stopped. “Walker? Surely you mean the illustrious major?”
“Ah, most people would think that after his little display. No, he’s dealing with his own demons.
I don’t know how he will extricate himself from that little mess but it’s your cousin and heir who is the man of the hour.
” Sir Percy sauntered off, leaving Roland pondering.
By the time he arrived home, his thoughts were more ordered and when he reviewed what he knew, he was certain that Percy was right.
Which was why he now found himself outside the Burroughs’s London house.
As he stalked down the steps, a maid sauntered out of the basement door, an empty basket on her arm. “Oh, sir, you won’t find no one here, sir. Lord and Lady Burroughs left yesterday.”
“Thank you,” he said, doffing his hat slightly. He took two steps and then turned around. “Did Miss Burroughs go with them?”
The maid’s eyes widened conspiratorially and her voice dropped with the delight of being able to share gossip she had been warned not to mention. “Oh, no, sir. She and Miss Mariana were sent out of the house in disgrace. None of us saw them after the big row and nobody knows where they’ve gone.”
Roland gave a quick nod and walked off. He felt vaguely responsible for his cousin’s actions, although there was no logical reason for his feelings.
He wasn’t sure where someone in Gwendolyn’s situation would go and he was leaving for his own estates that afternoon.
They had been neglected for long enough.
He would have to leave Gwendolyn Burroughs to her own devices.
He settled his hat firmly on his head and walked home, sure he would never see Gwendolyn Burroughs again.
The sense of loss he felt could not be easily shrugged off.