"Why must I wear white?" Caroline demanded, for what Rebecca conservatively estimated was the twenty-seventh time since Irene's package had arrived from the city.
"Because you have not yet been presented to the Governors nor made your curtsy to the King," Mother said, just as she had twenty-six times before. "And because your cousin Irene has been so kind as to send the cloth."
Beautiful cloth it was, too, Rebecca thought, smoothing Irene's letter out to read again. Caroline might choose to sneer at mere "white", but the bolt Irene had sent was sombasilk with flowers figured, white-on-white, which would be breathtaking made up into a girl's simple gown.
Not, Becca thought, that Caroline was likely to see it that way.
To her, Irene had sent a bolt of mahdobei, soft and slightly nubby; the color of wheat. It was far too rich a gift, and Becca had considered sending it back, and asking Mrs. Hintchston to make up the sprigged blue she had been saving—but Irene knew her too well.
You will not, her letter read, return this bolt to me, Rebecca Beauvelley. I want you to picture me saying that most sternly. No, more sternly than that! For if you do return it, I shall be quite cross, as will Edward when I importune him to ride cross-country with neither sleep nor food to hand-carry it back to you and stand by while it's being made up. I would do these things myself, but I am in what Edward's mother insists on styling as 'a family way,' as if Edward and I weren't a perfectly good family. In any case, Becca, you must have the bolt made up for this ridiculous dance of Caro's—have I said yet in this letter how very indulged and spoilt that child is? Ah! Now I have. So, dearest Becca! Please do me the very great honor of having the wheat made up into something positively stunning—and tell Hintchston that I said stunning, so she will be in no doubt as to what is required! Thank you. Now I may be comforted in my isolation by the knowledge that you will be ravishing!
There! No more scolding, I promise! Let us move on to gossip!
I wonder if you have heard that Charlie Mason—that would be the elder brother of Gerald, who you had eating out of your hand the last time you came to visit—and what long time that has been!
Well! Charlie Mason has been taken up by the Purity League for it comes to light that he has built a steam-powered carriage! I, for one, was astonished. I had no idea the lad was so mechanical. In any case, the League has taken the carriage away—and poor Charlie, too, of course. It's a great trial and scandal for the family. There's talk of a Board of Governors' Enquiry and possibly even a deportation, which I will allow to be quite dreadful, if it happens, which it may not, but one never does know with the Governors, does one?
Also, the drollest thing, darling. You know that Edward can't keep a name in his head for more than three minutes. Indeed, it is so very bad that every morning at the breakfast table I make sure to introduce myself to him: Good morning, Mr. Wellburton, how do you do? I am Mrs. Wellburton, your wife of eleven months fortnight. But there, I've lost my thought—oh! Edward, chuckleheaded creature that he is, is quite adamant that he has encountered a Mrs. Hale in town only recently. Well, I daresay there are an hundred Mrs. Hales in the world, and so I asked Edward, Did this lady hold house in the Corlands? and, Who is her husband? And of course the dear idiot knew nothing of any of that, only having been struck, as he had it, by the similarity in name to your affianced husband. He promises to find out something of use, should he encounter the lady again.
Now, let me see . . .I have scolded, given good gossip, and provided you with a mystery! I believe that is sufficient for one letter. Your part is to have that dress made—I am not scolding, only reminding!—and to write soon, dearest, and give me all your news, and tell me truly how you go on.
Do give my love to your mother and to Dickon, and say whatever is civil and conciliatory to Caro and your father.
All my love,
Irene
"Let Rebecca wear white, then!" Caroline said angrily. "And I'll have the wheat."
"Indeed you will not," Becca said, putting the last page of the letter face down on her knee. She looked at Caroline, standing pink-cheeked and rebellious in the center of the room. "Irene has ordered me to have the wheat made up, and you know that I dare not set myself against her."
"But it would become me so well!" Caroline wailed.
"Caroline, you will put an end to these unseemly lamentations at once!" Mother said sharply. "Sit down this minute and write to your cousin Irene, thanking her for her thoughtful gift."
Caroline stared. "But, mother—"
The door to the ladies parlor opened to admit Janies.
"Mrs. Hintchston," he said, stepping aside to allow the dressmaker, bearing the bag in which she kept the tools of her trade, entry.
"Good morning, madam," she said, with a curtsy for Mother. "Miss Beauvelley," another curtsy, followed by a nod, "Miss."
"Oh, Hintchston, you're here at last!" Caroline cried, before Mother could return the dressmaker's greeting. "I will be measured first—"
"Good morning, Mrs. Hintchston," Mother said, as if Caroline's voice were so much birdsong drifting through the open window. "I hope all is well with your daughter?"
"She's on the mend, madam, and kind you are to ask. I hope to have her back in the shop with me next week. In the meantime, she's fretting for something to do—you know how she is, madam; never happy unless she has work in hand! I've brought her 'round some hemming, which she can do while resting on the sofa. And she did ask me to be certain to thank Miss Beauvelley for the tea. Credits it with her being able to come so quickly back to health."
"I am delighted to hear that the tea was efficacious," Mother said with a solemn smile.
"Yes, madam, as I am. Now, if I may—there are gowns to be made?"
"So there are, so there are." Mother moved a hand, inviting Mrs. Hintchston to inspect the bolts laid out on the table. "Mrs. Wellburton has sent some fabric from the city, as you see."
"As I do see!" Mrs. Hintchston moved over to the table and examined both bolts, then looked up, her hand lingering on the mahdobei. "Miss Irene has the best taste in three counties," she said positively, and tipped her head to one side, looking even more like the robin she resembled. "There's to be nothing new for you, madam?"
"Mrs. Janies and I will be reworking the gold-and-purple," Mother said, and Mrs. Hintchston nodded. Mrs. Janies was, after all, her sister, raised in the dressmaker's household and destined for the trade until Janies came to take his post at Beauvelley House, and it was love, so Becca had heard the tale told, at first glimpse. Mrs. Janies had never looked back, and if she pined for her place in the family business, or for her own small shop, she did an uncommonly good job of hiding it. And she was still a wizard with needle and thread.
"So, a dress for Miss Beauvelley and a dress for Miss Caroline," Mrs. Hintchston said, and set her bag down on the table, extracting tape measure and chalk. Caro stepped forward.
"Rebecca will be measured first, please, Mrs. Hintchston."
Caroline actually gaped. "Mother—"
"You were writing a letter to your cousin, I thought," Mother interrupted. "Pray go up to my room and do so. Prudence will give you ink and paper. I will send for you when it is time."
Caroline looked mutinous, but she went, closing the door . . .firmly . . . behind her.
Becca sighed, then bit her lip, her eyes flying to her mother—who only nodded, wearily, or so it seemed.
She rose and smiled at Mrs. Hintchston. "I was to tell you particularly," she said, "that Mrs. Wellburton wishes me to have a stunning dress ."
"That would be the wheat, of course," said the dressmaker, nodding. "If Mrs. Wellburton says stunning, then there's nothing for it, as you know, Miss Becca."
"Yes, Irene rules us all with an iron hand," Becca returned. "But, honestly, ma'am, we all of us know that I am not in the least stunning, and frankly I doubt my ability to pull off anything like. If Irene were here—"
"Which she cannot be," Mother interrupted; "a circumstance that she feels keenly, as she writes me. Therefore, my dear, you must needs go on just as if she were here to put some starch in your spine, as I believe she phrased it." She sighed. "Edward has been teaching her cant."
"More likely Irene has been teaching Edward cant," Becca said absently. It was true that Irene had always been the spirited one; the one who had thought up adventures and gotten them into scrapes. It had been Irene who had pointed Kelmit Tarrington out to her cousin Rebecca, miserable and ignored in town during her first Season. It had been Irene, too, who had nursed Becca during those terrible days after the accident, and who had wept and begged forgiveness, as if it had all somehow been her fault.
Not even Irene, however, could overcome the antipathy of Edward's mother for including a ruined, wanton girl in her beloved son's wedding party. Becca sighed. She and Irene had promised each other when they were girls that they would stand each for the other, at their weddings. Odd, how one was taught to honor promises above all things, for a man—or woman!—who broke their word was, as her father had it, "a damned scoundrel." Life and circumstances, however, took little note of promises—or of honor, either—as far as Rebecca had observed.
"Will your betrothed be attending the dance, Miss Becca?" Mrs. Hintchston asked, pulling Becca's thoughts back to the present.
"I don't believe he has responded as yet," Becca said calmly.
"Yes," Mother said, almost at the same moment, and gave Becca an apologetic smile. "He had written to your father on a business topic and mentioned at the end of the letter that he was very much looking forward to the dance. He has even made arrangements to stay at the the Hound and Horn, though of course there's more than enough room—but there! A custom of the Corlands, I daresay. I had meant to tell you this morning, love, but with one thing and another . . ."
"I quite understand," said Becca, around an unpleasantly hollow feeling somewhere between her stomach and her heart. It had not occurred to her until this very instant that she would rather not meet Sir Jennet—which was simply absurd. She was to be married to the man, and would be spending considerable time in his company. If she could scarcely bear to think of spending a few moments with him at a dance . . .
"If you'll allow me, Miss Becca," Mrs. Hintchston murmured, busy with her tape, "I believe I know exactly how to satisfy Mrs. Wellburton and please Sir Jennet."
Please Sir Jennet? Becca thought, and took a deep, deliberate breath. Certainly, it was the business of a wife to please her husband—and she would need to become accustomed to that, too.
"Miss Becca?"
"Certainly, Mrs. Hintchston," she heard herself say, as if from a distance. "I put myself entirely into your hands."
She'd fled into the herb garden when Mrs. Hintchston was done with her, but the rebirth of the growing things neither soothed nor exalted her. Her heart pounding, and her head light and peculiar, she sat down on the bench under the old elitch tree and tried to order her tumbling thoughts, oblivious to both the alluring scent of a rising garden and the beguiling sight of new leaves dancing in the breeze.
When the match with Sir Jennet had at first been proposed to her, she had accepted it without dismay. The marriage would indeed, as her father forcefully pointed out, solve a great many things. Mostly, it solved the problem of what to do with a ruined daughter that one was yet too squeamish to consign to a Wanderers Village. With her married and away, Caroline would be able to have her Season in town, and a chance to make a brilliant match. Which, Becca thought, shivering in the shade of the elitch, she very likely would. Yes, she was ill-tempered, vain, and a little stupid, but she was also a Beauty, and the world forgave a Beauty much.
The world did not forgive foolish, headstrong girls who failed to consider what was owed to their families. Her father had been quite clear on this point, and he had related to her in excruciating detail his long and laborious search for someone—anyone—who would be willing to take "damaged goods."
She had ought, her father had said, rejoice in her good fortune. And while she had never, really, rejoiced in Sir Jennet's suit, she had felt it was—
No. Her mind had accepted the problem as defined and the solution as provided, but she had felt nothing.
Now—now her entire spirit rebelled, and the thought of marrying Sir Jennet, leaving her family and her country, depending upon the kindness of strangers in what every knowledgeable resource assured her was an inhospitable and difficult land . . .
"I cannot," Becca whispered, and the new leaves above her rustled in the breeze, seeming to repeat her words.
Surely, she thought wildly, if I speak to Mother, she will speak to Father, and the wedding may be canceled before it is too late! Surely—
But she knew better. The banns had been read; the date of the ceremony had been published. The whole village knew. Indeed, the world knew! Could she sink further? Could she jilt the man? Would Father cast her out?
And would that, she wondered, be worse?
Becca shivered, suddenly aware that the breeze had come up, and that her arm was aching. She should, she thought, go inside, where it was warm; before the damaged arm grew chilled and stiffened.
But it was some few minutes before she was able to take her own advice, rise, and walk, slowly, up the garden to the house.