Chapter 8 #4
Years ago, they had embroidered together beside sunny windows, laughed over novels, and exchanged confidences suitable to two young women with every expectation that life would unfold kindly before them. Now, Cassandra looked at her as though Eleanor had caused her husband’s illness.
Eleanor could not blame her for that.
Cassandra had watched Gabriel gather himself years before, after Eleanor disappeared without explanation. She had witnessed the hurt that he felt while Eleanor had not, and some wounds did not belong only to those who suffered them.
Fortunately, Sophie possessed neither awareness nor interest in the tensions that were present. She simply declared that the dining room was enormous before asking for the names of each person in the portraits.
“What is his name?” she asked, pointing at a particularly stern one.
“Sir Reginald Hartley,” Gabriel replied.
“He looks cross.”
The dowager covered an unexpected smile with her napkin. “He often was.”
“I think he should have smiled more.”
“So did his wife,” William said.
Sophie accepted this and then jumped down from her chair the moment dinner ended, with Eleanor’s permission, before wandering carefully around the drawing room.
Her questions came one after another, answered patiently by William and, before long, by the dowager as well.
“Oh,” Sophie declared, pointing toward a handsome gentleman in military uniform. “He has Gabriel’s eyes.”
The dowager looked up at the portrait.
“My father,” she said.
“I like him. He looks kind.”
The older woman regarded the child for a thoughtful moment.
“He was. He was the greatest man I have ever known.”
Eleanor watched from across the room and wished that she could feel the ease that everyone else did.
William laughed more easily than he had throughout dinner.
The dowager answered Sophie’s endless questions with patience, even allowing herself the occasional smile when the child’s observations proved unexpectedly perceptive.
Where Eleanor had found only careful civility, Sophie had been welcomed entirely. She was grateful for that, for she did not want her daughter to suffer because of what she had done, but she still wished that she could receive such treatment all the same.
She knew, in part, that she would need to facilitate that herself by starting conversations, but when she tried her throat dried and the words did not come.
Gabriel crossed the room carrying two small vases. He paused beside Mrs. Dobson, speaking quietly enough that Eleanor heard only fragments.
“…Miss Sophie’s room…”
“…fresh this morning…”
Mrs. Dobson nodded. “The pink ones?”
“If there are enough.”
“There are.”
He thanked her before turning away, only to find Eleanor watching him. She glanced toward the flowers.
“Are they for Sophie’s room?”
He looked almost embarrassed to have been noticed.
“Mrs. Dobson mentioned there was space on the window seat, and Miss Sophie seemed rather disappointed to leave them behind in her great aunt’s garden.”
“They are her favorite.”
“I know. She told me about them at length.”
He appeared about to say something further, then seemed to think better of it. Before Eleanor could thank him properly, someone called his name from the far end of the room, and he excused himself.
***
Later that evening, after dinner and after Sophie had been persuaded upstairs with the promise of bedtime stories, Eleanor stepped quietly into the corridor intending to follow. She slowed as voices drifted from the morning room beyond the half-open door.
“He managed more broth today.”
It was Cassandra.
“A little,” Gabriel replied. “More than yesterday.”
“If he continues like this, Dr. Ellsworth may finally allow him downstairs more often.”
“I hope so.”
There was a pause, followed by the unmistakable sound of quiet laughter.
“Do you remember,” Cassandra said, “when he convinced your mother he was perfectly well enough to ride, only to fall asleep halfway through luncheon afterward?”
Gabriel laughed softly.
“I had forgotten that.”
“You carried him upstairs because he refused to let the footmen help.”
“He was impossible. He still is.”
Their conversation continued in half-finished thoughts, understanding one another without explanation in a way Eleanor had once been able to do too.
She remained where she was for only a moment longer before moving silently away.
As she climbed the staircase, an unexpected heaviness settled quietly in her chest at how tenderly they spoke with another.
Gabriel and Cassandra belonged to a history forged during the six years Eleanor had been absent. They shared memories she could never have, burdens she had not helped bear, and a trust earned one day at a time while she had been another man’s wife.
She was Gabriel’s wife. Even so, standing outside that room, she felt less like someone who lived at Ravenscourt and more like a guest that was politely welcomed and kept at a distance.
The thought lingered long after she closed her bedchamber door behind her, carrying with it the unwelcome sting of jealousy.
She tried, in vain, to ignore it.