The Sisterhood

by Penelope Friday

  “You can’t have puffy eyes, Rebecca. Not today,” Mrs Bellingham said, implying (probably correctly, Charity thought bitterly) that Rebecca might cry all she wanted on any other day without it bothering her mother in the slightest.

  Then the girls were sent to wait upstairs, Rebecca forbidden to sit down lest it crease the lilac dress which had been chosen. Charity tried to converse naturally, but it was next to impossible with only one thing on both of their minds, and that something that neither of them felt capable of talking about. Instead, Charity went to the window, hoping that she might see Mr Fotheringay when he arrived, so that Rebecca at least might have that little portion of warning. But the window’s view did not overlook the door, and instead she stared at the raindrops sliding down the windowpane and waited.

  It seemed forever and it seemed barely a second until they heard the noise denoting a visitor. The two girls looked at each other in silence.

  “There’s no use my saying anything, is there?” Charity said, trying to keep her voice calm.

  “No,” replied Rebecca, and Charity could hear the same tone in her sister’s voice too.

  Finally, the moment arrived.

  “Rebecca,” called Mrs Bellingham. “Mr Fotheringay has something to say to you.”

  Rebecca was always pale, but she looked positively white to Charity right now. Charity felt helpless in the tide to prevent what must be to come. She desperately wanted Rebecca to refuse, to turn down the proposal. She suspected that in her heart her sister wanted the same thing. But she knew, and Rebecca knew, that this was not going to happen. When she next saw Rebecca, her sister would be a betrothed woman.

  “Coming.” But the voice in which Rebecca replied was too quiet for her mother to hear, and the call was repeated.

  “Rebecca, now!”

  Charity squeezed Rebecca’s hand and walked with her to the doorway, but she said nothing. There was nothing left to say. Rebecca walked down the stairs as if going to her execution, and Charity, unexpected tears in her eyes, stayed and waited.

  Chapter Seven

  With the engagement official, it was time for the details to be arranged. Charity had expected the wedding itself to be the biggest area of contention, but she had mistaken the matter. In a marriage between Rebecca and Mr Fotheringay, it was unexpectedly Charity who was the biggest problem.

  “I shall be moving to Bath soon after the wedding,” Mrs Bellingham announced to her daughters.

  Charity sighed. Another move. Another new city. Another place to feel like a fish out of water and long for the gentle rural town of her childhood. Was this how it was going to be now, following her mother around like an unwanted puppy? She had hoped—indeed, presumed—that they would be returning to Warwickshire. She hadn’t had high expectations of happiness, since she and Mrs Bellingham were hardly similar in character, but at least she would be able to get out and ramble in the fresh air and beauty of the Midlands.

  Rebecca also looked alarmed at this information. “But Mother, won’t you be staying close by?” she faltered. “I thought you would be here, to help me.”

  That, Charity realised with a bolt of understanding, was precisely why Mrs Bellingham was determined to move away. Never maternal by nature, this was at least a chance for her to off-load responsibility of one of her children onto someone else. But it seemed that Mrs Bellingham had no intention of merely detaching herself from one of the girls.

  “Certainly not.” Mrs Bellingham pursed her lips. “Far be it from me to interfere, Rebecca. You are to be a married lady, and no one, not even a mother, should intervene in someone else’s marriage. No, I feel sure that it is much better for you and Fotheringay to settle down quietly together in town.”

  “When do we leave?” Charity asked resignedly.

  Her mother turned to her. “‘We’? Goodness no, Charity. I couldn’t possibly have you in Bath. For your own good, you must stay in London.”

  Charity felt as if she had been unexpectedly pushed off a high cliff. The world seemed to tumble around her, nothing making any sense. She opened her mouth to say something, but no words would come out.

  “But Mother, Charity can’t live alone,” Rebecca said, reaching out a hand to steady Charity as she swayed.

  “Certainly not. It is unthinkable. No, there is only one answer. She must stay with you and Mr F,” her mother said briskly. Then, toning down the briskness in favour of a more plaintive tone, “I am too unwell to look after Charity as well as myself. Besides, the sort of lodgings I will be able to afford in Bath simply would not be big enough for the two of us. Whereas Fotheringay is rich. It is to be hoped that this modern desire for hot beverages continues. Why, Rebecca, in a few years, he may be worth even more money. He can certainly afford to house your sister.”

  “Mother, I can’t ask him,” Becca said, her hands flying to her cheeks. “Please. I…I barely know him.”

  Charity bit her lip. How could Becca have agreed to marry someone so much her senior? Someone that, in her own words, she ‘barely knew’? Mr Fotheringay might—well, he might—be all that one could wish as a husband. But how, how could Rebecca have the courage to go through with the wedding, with the pomp and ceremony of being joined in a lifelong bond to any gentleman she had met only a handful of times? Even if anyone had asked Charity to wed them—which, of course, there had been no hope for; even from the beginning; her mother had known that from the start—she did not think that she could have agreed.

  “Nonsense. He is to be your husband, and Charity is your sister. He owes you that much, at least.” Mrs Bellingham brushed off Rebecca’s concerns as if they were a spider’s web she had just walked into. “He can hardly,” she added, the words too familiar to hurt Charity, “expect to get all of the pleasures of marriage with none of the responsibility of the unpleasant aspects.”

  “Please, Mother.”

  “Oh, very well.” Mrs Bellingham stood, smoothing the already immaculate folds of her dress down around her. “If you want something to be done well, do it yourself. If you insist on this contrary attitude, Rebecca, I will have to ask him myself. And don’t blame me if he asks you why you have to use your mother as a go-between. No one can say that I don’t do the best for my children however.”

  She bustled out of the room. Rebecca stared after her, the faintest frown between her eyes. “Oh dear. It’s so difficult, Charity.”

  “I’m sorry.” Charity realised that what she was really apologising for was her own existence. It was, perhaps, the story of her life.

  “It’s not that I don’t want you,” Rebecca said. “It’s just…” And then the façade dropped, and Charity saw the fear in her sister’s place. “Oh, Charity, I’m so scared.”

  Charity went to her sister, putting her arms clumsily around her. Rebecca’s admission of her worries went straight to Charity’s heart. Charity remembered how Rebecca had spoken of love, when Mr Scorton’s interest in her had been shown. But instead of contracting the marriage of love she had clearly been dreaming of, her sister was about to be sold to a rich man. It wasn’t fair. Oh, it wasn’t fair!

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered again. “I could go away, somehow. I don’t know. Be a governess? Someone must want me, surely. I don’t want to ruin your life too.”

  Rebecca held her close for a second. “You never have,” she said, letting go and looking up at her big little sister. “Don’t ever think that. And I want you, I do. Never doubt that, please, Charity. And anyway”—she produced a wobbly smile—“Mother will sort it out. I’m sure she will.”

  Charity forced a smile in return. “Yes.” Mother would sort it. Of course she would. The alternative was being left with Charity on her hands, and she had no intention of having that. Maybe Mr Fotheringay was to be pitied rather than blamed: little did he know of the family he had just adopted as his own. Charity hesitated. “I hope you’ll be happy, Becca.”

  Rebecca nodded. “Me too,” she said, and left the room, leaving Charity looking thoughtfully a
t the door she closed behind her.

  It did not take Mrs Bellingham long to broach the subject with Mr Fotheringay. When something was in her own interests, it was amazing how efficient she could be. Two afternoons later, Charity came downstairs to sit, as she was expected to do, in the drawing room with her mother and sister. The drawing room door was ajar, but just as she reached a hand to push it open, she heard voices from within. Mrs Bellingham’s and—oh, that must be Mr Fotheringay.

  “I’m really not at all well,” she heard her mother say in a trembling, self-pitying tone. “And Rebecca has always been such a dutiful daughter.”

  “You said. Not sure what it has to do with me, yet.”

  “Well, you see, you are taking my right hand and stalwart away from me.”

  Charity knew she should not be eavesdropping, but she guessed the main thrust of the conversation ahead long before Mr Fotheringay did. It was her own future, and she found it hard to walk away.

  “You’ve got the other one, though. Healthy-looking gal. She’ll look after you, right and tight.”

  Charity heard her mother sigh. “I wish it were so easy. Charity has always been a worry to me. Rebecca, bless her soul, has done what she can to lift the burden from her ailing mother, but…”

  Lips pressed firmly together, Charity spun on the spot, walking back towards the stairs as quietly as she could. If it were true that eavesdroppers never heard any good of themselves, then perhaps she deserved to overhear her mother’s plaintive complaints. Charity wondered what Fotheringay’s reaction would be. It might be one thing taking a second helpful young lady like his wife-to-be under his roof, but Charity couldn’t help wondering whether Mrs Bellingham had misplayed the situation. After all, who would want a girl of the character her own mother had just attributed to Charity? One last line of her mother’s floated up to her as she reached the fifth stair: “And it would be a terrible thing to break the betrothal at this point…”

  It was a threat, thought Charity, and one which would probably work. Mr Fotheringay’s money might make him acceptable in the polite world, but his background meant that it only just did. If he were to back out of the betrothal… Well, certainly it would be awkward and distressing for the Bellinghams, Rebecca in particular, but as there was no more money for another Season, it would not necessarily do too much harm. They would retire from London, either back to their house in the village, or to Bath, depending on their mother’s whim. Whereas Fotheringay would still be in London—he would be not only the gentleman with too few gentlemanly ancestors in his past, but a man who had cast off his betrothed for no good reason. It would affect his standing so very much more.

  No, thought Charity grimly, perhaps her mother had judged this just right.

  * * *

  The wedding, which was set to take place on the sixth of July, just past the final days of the London Season, had as much pomp and ceremony as Mrs Bellingham had been able to cram in. Rebecca’s dress had more lace on it than Charity had ever seen in one place, and the mother of the bride was resplendent in purple satin, though still wearing black gloves as a delicate sign of her widowed status. The service stuck to the traditional wording, of course, but the reception afterwards was as modern and up to date as possible. Pink champagne flowed freely, a string quartet played softly until the dancing began and the dancing itself started with a waltz, with Rebecca and her new husband taking the floor.

  That last was a sign of Rebecca’s new married status. Mrs Bellingham still refused to allow Charity to take part in the waltz, even though she had received the signal from the doyennes of the ton that it would be acceptable for her younger daughter to dance. Charity did not mind: it was an excuse as to why she stood hugging the wall whilst the other ladies danced. In such close contact with a gentleman, her height would be more noticeable than ever. She doubted that any man would wish to lead her out. She should have been a boy, she thought for the millionth time.

  “Are you enjoying yourself?” Rebecca asked.

  Charity took a good look at her sister. She was smiling, but her eyes were scared. “As much as you are, I imagine,” she said gently.

  An almost-laugh came from Rebecca. “It’s that bad?” she said. Then, quickly, “It is an amazing day, isn’t it? Mother and Mr Fotheringay have organised it well.”

  Charity forbore to mention that it was supposed to be Rebecca’s day too. She knew, and her sister knew, that it was nothing of the kind. Rather, Rebecca was being sold to the highest bidder. The spectacle was a glossy covering for the truth.

  “It’s beautiful.”

  Rebecca nodded. “I’d better go. I think Mother is expecting me to speak to every guest.” She reached out tentatively and grasped Charity’s wrist. “I don’t know if I’ve said this,” she said, “but I’m so glad you’re going to be with me. You know, after…”

  She trailed off. The honeymoon had been arranged with care equal to that taken with the marriage. Mr Fotheringay had a hunting box, and they were repairing there for six weeks or so, just the pair of them. Charity had no idea what would happen during this time—she suspected Rebecca did not either—but she knew that Becca was dreading it. Just her and her new husband, a man she hardly knew.

  “Me too.” It was only half a lie: Charity had no wish to live with Mr Fotheringay, but on the other hand, little wish to be with her mother in Bath, especially given how clearly her mother had stated her desire to be rid of Charity. Being with Rebecca would be nice, if only it weren’t for him. “Becca?” she said as Rebecca turned away. Her sister looked back over her shoulder at Charity, and Charity realised anew how pretty she was. “Be happy.”

  “Yes.” It was only a breath of the word, and Rebecca was gone.

  Chapter Eight

  With her older daughter safely married, Mrs Bellingham was deep into organisation for her removal to Bath. She would leave two days after the newly-wed couple returned from Leicestershire, so the rented lodgings were full of boxes and chaos. For once in her life, Charity felt useful: she was an efficient packer, and her mother even unbent enough to praise her on one memorable occasion. Perhaps, Charity thought, Mrs Bellingham felt able to be positive, knowing that very soon she would be rid of both of her daughters. Their mother had never been particularly maternal, even to Rebecca. The fact that Fotheringay was willing to house Charity as well as her sister must have been a godsend.

  One thing pleased Charity more than any other: amongst her arrangements, Mrs Bellingham had ordered that Charity’s piano, until now in storage at Forsbury, should be sent to Fotheringay’s house. Charity had not quite realised how much she depended on the piano and her music for escape until it had not been available. The thought of being reunited with her instrument was a joyful one. The thought of being separated from her mother was also not unpleasant.

  The time during which Rebecca and Fotheringay were away, therefore, passed quickly. Mrs Bellingham had decided that they would have a quiet family welcome home before settling down to married life. She had originally intended some sort of soiree to show off her newly married daughter, but the practicalities of such a thing proved to be too complicated—which was to say that it would have involved her staying an extra week in London, when she was more than eager to move on to pastures new.

  Consequently, on the evening of Mr and Mrs Fotheringay’s return in late August, the sun shining down as if in celebration of the event, they were greeted with an extensive meal but only the company of Mrs Bellingham and Charity. Rebecca, Charity thought, looked tired, but she was usually quiet, so there was little difference there. Mr Fotheringay seemed in health, however, and Mrs Bellingham was unusually effusive, giving Charity little chance to speak to either of the guests and none at all to have private conversations with her sister.

  The first opportunity she had to speak openly with her sister was two days later, as Rebecca helped Charity organise the last of her belongings, ready for Mr Fotheringay’s servants to remove them from the lodgings and upstairs to her new bedr
oom in Fotheringay’s house. As they sorted out the clothes, Charity asked, “So, did you enjoy your honeymoon?”

  “Y-yes,” Rebecca said uncertainly. “At least…he showed me round his country estate. It is not like Forsbury, you know. It is not a family house. He bought it when he made his fortune”—both girls were rather uncertain as to precisely how this had been made, though Charity had a vague idea that it was something to do with tea—“just to have somewhere to retreat to in the heat of summer, or…or when it is the hunting season. He says he’s considered getting somewhere bigger, but there seems little point as he doesn’t intend to use it much. He needs to be in London for business, he says.”

  “I take it you have no say in the matter?”

  “Oh no!” Rebecca looked shocked. “He is so much older, you know, and a man. Besides, I do not think he would like it.”

  In other words, Charity thought grimly, Mr Fotheringay had married a young girl expecting and intending her to bow to his every whim. Well, it was not an unusual situation, bitterly as she might resent it on Rebecca’s behalf.

  “I see,” she said.

  “But we rode around the estate, and he introduced me to everyone. All his tenants, you know,” Rebecca said. “And I met…Oh, Charity, there were so many servants! And most of them just stay there, in an empty house, waiting for his return!”

  “The indulgences of the rich.” Charity forced herself to sound light-hearted. “I daresay you will be accepting this as your due soon. You’re a wealthy lady now, you know.”

  Rebecca looked uncomfortable. “There is so much I am supposed to know,” she confessed. “Mr Fotheringay expects me to speak to the housekeeper every morning and arrange…In truth, I do not know what he expects me to arrange, though thankfully Mrs White herself seems to know what to do. In all honesty, I think she is more the lady of the household than I am.”