by Sandra Byrd
Then it struck me. Letters, yes, letters! That must have been how the imposter had found out details about our lives. She’d read letters my mother had written. Perhaps she had taken them. She could have learned enough about our lives to perpetrate her deception. After all, that was how Captain Whitfield had ascertained that I was left-handed. She had, apparently, not found that letter. Or perhaps he’d taken it first. Mr. Highmore had said she’d presented something from my mother to the London Missionary Society to prove her identity. It may well have been that she’d found it in this attic, too. Where had that gone and what was it?
I recalled that Mr. Highmore’s secretary had suggested that I’d learned of the events from the newspapers. This, certainly, was as plausible for her as it was for me. Where could I find old newspapers? Perhaps if I found that they were commonly available, I’d understand what happened, see what facts had been published. Perhaps I could ascertain the first half of this equation, how she came to believe me dead, now that the second half, how she’d learned so much about my family, had been solved.
I moved to the first wardrobe, breathing heavily; the July air was pregnant with humidity but my lungs had already accommodated themselves to England. The hinges squeaked open and dust motes flew into the air, descending slowly, then drifting sidewise, gracefully, like the gentle ballet of jellyfish off the Kerala coast.
The wardrobe corners were stitched with spiderwebs! I gasped for air, closed my eyes and prayed away the spider memory, and quickly closed the doors again.
The second wardrobe, when I opened it, had but one lone garment, wrapped in a kind of tissue. I touched one corner, and it fell away, fragile with age. I pulled a little more, and it began to unwind like shroud clothes until there before me was the most beautiful wedding dress I’d ever seen. The edges were laced, Honiton lace, and I recognized the work as belonging to my grandmother. I could not remember her, of course, but my mother had her lacework on some linens we’d brought with us to India.
I could see why Mother had not brought this beautiful dress with her. I shook it out and held it up against myself. Pity there was no looking-glass at hand. I closed my eyes and tried to imagine what she had felt on her wedding day. I felt her, somehow, near me. Urging me? Warning me?
How could she be? Foolish. I shook my head to clear my thoughts.
“Mmm-hmm.” A throat cleared and my eyes flew open.
“Mrs. Blackwood.” I kept a hold on the dress but let it drop to my waist.
“Miss Dainley is here to see you,” she said.
“It’s not my at-home day, is that right?”
“Intimate friends are allowed to call on one another at other times,” she said. “She’s here to continue the planning for your picnic. That’ll be your first event as hostess, albeit jointly with Miss Dainley. You’ll want it to go right.”
“Oh yes,” I said. I began to wrap the dress and she came over to me.
“You go visit with Miss Dainley and we’ll do this and have it brought to your room. I’ve already asked Annie to prepare some tea.”
“Thank you,” I said with especial tenderness for the care as well as the suggestion. “I’m indebted to you, Mrs. Blackwood.”
She smiled. “The dress looked lovely. It’ll make a fine wedding dress for you.”
“Thank you,” I said. “But as I mentioned once before, it’s not certain I shall ever marry.”
Her countenance dropped then, and I wondered why it was such a particular concern to her. She turned back to her work as I descended the stairs.
Miss Dainley waited for me in the drawing room, and as I approached she stood.
“Miss Ravenshaw, I do hope you don’t mind my calling.”
“Not at all,” I said. “And as we are friends, please call me Rebecca.”
“And I must be Delia to you,” she replied. “I hope I didn’t interrupt?”
“Oh, not at all. I was just looking at a wedding dress.”
She went white and fairly plopped backward on the sofa. “Oh!”
“It’s my mother’s,” I rushed on to say. “I was going through her things.”
She began to revive, taking a cup of tea from Annie and then handing it back, quickly, for a refill. “Ah, well. Then. She didn’t take it to India with her?”
“No, we had little trunk space. If she’d planned to be married there, she could have, though. You can’t be an Englishwoman and not be married in an English wedding dress. It isn’t done. The best gowns, of course, have Honiton lace because it was used on Her Majesty’s wedding dress.” I smiled. “My mother had Honiton well before the Queen!”
Delia’s face looked so sorrow-filled and abject then, perhaps thinking of her own future wedding in India to a man she’d have known but weeks, that I pushed the small silver cake tray toward her. “Please, take one.”
She did and within a few minutes had recovered. “These tea cakes are superb. It will be difficult for you to replace Cook, indeed, this household, when Captain Whitfield leaves.”
I had the idea that it was more a question than a statement, but I did not feel compelled to answer any questions, spoken or not.
“I shall have some difficulties, that is certain.” I thought about Michelene leaving to Winchester without permission. “How to gently address concerns with one’s staff. I should need insight on that, too.”
She set down her teacup. “Anyone currently in mind?”
I was not ready to confide in her to that level yet. “There are ongoing concerns,” I said.
“The perfect person to assist in these matters would be Lady Ashby,” she said. “I can think of no one better suited to help you, and she would be most eager to come to your aid, I’m certain of it.”
“Lady Ashby?”
“Of course. I saw her when I mentioned the picnic to Lord Ashby. He is most enthusiastic, and so is she.” Every time she brought him up her face grew bright—as a matchmaker’s might, not as a potential lover’s would. She wanted me with Ashby. For my sake, possibly, but more likely for her own. To free Whitfield from whatever she assumed might be between us. She had not, I suspected, the financial resources to attract Ashby and his mother on her own merits even if she’d wanted to.
“Shall we begin?” She turned back to the small sheaf of papers she’d brought. Should she have wished it, I was certain she’d have made a fine governess. I did not want to mention such an idea to her. However, for the time being, I would strive to be an apt pupil. I knew I had much to learn and I wanted the picnic to go perfectly for my sake . . . and for Whitfield’s.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
I’d looked forward to our garden outing and had been concerned that the day would be very much like the one before—wet and gray as a hunting dog—but I was delighted to be wrong. Michelene helped dress me, of course. I requested a dress I’d always found especially flattering, and had been waiting to wear, made of ivory with roses scattered upon it. The waist was becomingly tight and yet I could comfortably walk in it.
“Très jolie,” she said, tugging gently at the lace sleeves. “It is enjoyable to wear the colors again, is it not?”
I’d eased out of mourning and back into life. I missed my parents still, of course. And yet I was young and I was certain my mother would have found extended grief to be a waste of my youth, given that I knew where they now were. The ruffle at the back went all the way up to the top of my neck, but dropped into a slightly daring scalloped cut in front. I handed a bottle to Michelene. “Please blend some of this into my pot of gloss.”
She opened the lid and sniffed it. “Cinnamon?”
“Oui,” I teased in feeble French. “For le puffing of les lips.”
She grinned. “Ah, Miss Ravenshaw has some Indian secrets of her own. I shall have to steal this idea. With your permission, of course.”
“Of course,” I said with a wink. “As lo
ng as you don’t use it for the benefit of anyone with whom I am in competition.”
“Which competition?” She grew unusually pointed.
“Oh,” I said coyly, “you yourself brought it up months ago. Any at all I might find myself in, I suppose.”
“But you hold all the most important cards, as they say,” Michelene responded. “Headbourne. Your fortune. Your beauty . . .”
“There are others here more beautiful than me,” I replied. She did not refute me.
“Some gentlemen prefer the dark hair, as I well know,” she teased. I suspected it was to make me feel better, but her reference to that made me understand that we were both thinking of Delia and her fair skin and sunlit hair.
Michelene returned a few minutes later with my tingling gloss. I was now ready to meet Captain Whitfield. I hummed downstairs, where the good captain awaited.
The care taken had not gone unappreciated.
“I am at a loss for words, Miss Ravenshaw,” he said. “And I promise you, that does not often happen. You are lovely. I would say unmatched, but having once been chastised for comparing you with other women, I hesitate to risk it again.”
At that, I laughed aloud. And then I stopped.
“What is wrong?” His face grew somber.
“Nothing is wrong,” I said. I looked up and smiled. “I just realized that was, perhaps, the first time I have laughed aloud since I’ve been home.”
“I could not be more delighted to be the one to have teased that out.” A tender note, hitherto unheard, undergirded his voice. “Shall we?”
I nodded and placed my hand in the crook of his arm. He wore lightweight black trousers, a linen shirt, and high black boots. I remembered one thing Michelene had told me about Hussars. “Their uniforms are vivid,” she’d said, “but they truly need no color. The men themselves are the panache.”
Ah, yes, indeed. I was falling under the spell of the man and his panache and, for the moment, had no desire to wake from it.
We took the carriage to Winchester—the day was bright and I was especially proud to be riding in a carriage fitted with such beautiful glass.
The town bustled and Daniel neatly wound his way through the streets so we could enjoy the view of people shopping and walking, and there were quite a few who tipped their hats, from street or carriage, to Captain Whitfield as we passed by. He seemed to know nearly everyone, but I noted most greeted him with reserve, perhaps even suspicion: a slight raising of the hand followed by a quick tug of a hat to cover the eyes, or a nod with a nearly instantaneous turning away. Whitfield flushed just a little and grimaced after quickly releasing forced smiles that appeared to cause him both embarrassment and pain.
Hadn’t Annie said that both the doctor and the constable were his great friends? But when we passed the doctor he turned his back to Whitfield after the briefest of acknowledgments. The doctor had grown awkward with me, too, after I’d asked questions. Perhaps I imagined those instances, but if not, I wondered that Whitfield should want to stay here.
But his family was, after all, here. Perhaps he’d thought owning Headbourne would change how people felt about him. But Headbourne was now mine.
“If you . . .when you choose to buy another property,” I began, “will it be here in Hampshire?”
He shook his head. “No, I do not think that would suit. I have a friend, Captain Chapman, who will soon return to England and his family’s estate, which he’s just inherited in Derbyshire. He’s almost convinced me to take up residence there as well.”
“Derbyshire! So far?”
“It’s far enough,” he said quietly, but he seemed thoughtful and there didn’t seem to be an appropriate follow-up so I said nothing more about it. I considered where I’d last heard Derbyshire mentioned; it had not been long ago.
Ah, yes. Delia had said she’d prefer to move to Derbyshire, if need be, than depart for India. I thought it hardly coincidental that was the county she’d named.
“Here, then,” Whitfield said as we pulled up to a lovely building, by the side of which was a large lawn with a pretty paved path.
“Finest Quality Statuaries To Be Found Near Or Far,” I read on a plaque near the doorway. “Marble and Other Fine Materials.” My delight to be on such an outing, with such a man, must have shown because Mrs. Ross squeezed my hand and said, “Don’t go overboard, lassie.”
Captain Whitfield had already descended from the carriage so I leaned over and whispered to her, “With the purchases or the man?”
She grinned back. “Both!”
Whitfield helped me down, then her, and we proceeded through the gardens whilst she sat nearby.
I felt attached to my Flora statue, so, rather than replace it, I asked the proprietor if he could make some improvements to it instead.
“Of course.” He looked rather downhearted.
“I’m delighted,” I said.
“And now,” Captain Whitfield spoke up, “perhaps we may look at urns and other statues you have. New ones, for purchase.”
The proprietor’s smile returned. “Yes, I remember the statues you purchased for the other lady. You have fine taste, Captain Whitfield. Follow me!”
I turned to him inquiringly.
“My mother,” he responded smoothly to my unanswered question. His mother. Lord Ledbury did not accompany her for her purchases? It seemed unusual.
After selecting some urns and a few Greek statues that would make noble companions to the ones we already had, I stopped in front of a large statue of an imposing angel, not at all cherubic, but a warrior, with a drawn sword and a ready stance.
“You like this one?” Whitfield asked.
I nodded. “I-I think so. It reminds me of something, I’m not quite sure. Perhaps because I felt that, somehow, the Lord must have sent angels to surround and protect me in India. Or maybe, well . . . I’m reading Paradise Lost once again.”
“I see.” He took my hand and placed it on his arm, comforting and friendly but not forward. “You feel as if in the Uprising you lost Paradise?”
He’d understood it was not the book I was speaking of, but my life. I nodded and held back tears that threatened. I hadn’t cried for some time and did not wish to spoil the day.
“I understand, Miss Ravenshaw.” He put his arm around me, protectively. “I’ve been at war and seen its ravages; I’m afraid I grew quite callous to death, and even to the taking of life in the pursuit of a necessary cause.”
A troubling sentiment.
“Perhaps Paradise once lost cannot be regained no matter how one wishes it might.” He looked downcast.
He next ran his finger along the sword. “This was cast by a man who has held a sword in battle. It’s not for show.” He turned to me; I looked at it in awe. “Would you like this statue for your gardens?”
“Yes,” I said. “Yes, I truly would.”
“Then I shall see to it that it is yours,” he said quietly, and indicated to the owner of the business that he should mark that one as sold.
A thrill ran through me, yes, because I truly wanted that statue in my gardens and was overjoyed to see it come to fresh life. But also, I drank in the feeling of having a man stand beside me, strongly, protecting me and looking out for my interests, one who could be both warm and cool. Strong and affectionate. One, yes, in honesty, whom I could not completely understand and, therefore, control. But was he trustworthy? This I did not yet know. What, after all, did he find to be a necessary cause for taking a life?
After we placed our final order with the proprietor, he invited us to sit for tea, which one of his men delivered to a delicate table placed under a jasmine vine that climbed around a pretty arbor. I looked at the men gently removing my new statue to be wrapped and then delivered within a day or two. “Do you believe in angels, Captain Whitfield?”
“I must, mustn’t I?” He
looked at me for a long moment; the look in his eyes was hungry and I could not decide if it thrilled or scared me. “At least, now that I’ve come to know you, I cannot deny that there are angels on earth.”
“You flatter!” He may have been trifling with me, but he lifted my spirits and made me feel wanted; somehow, he alone was able to coax forth joy in me. Perhaps it was not Headbourne alone over which he tendered care. The jasmine was now blooming and the blossoms sent a heady, intoxicating scent into the air between us, which was already heady with unexpressed emotion. Some of the buds had unfurled, showing white petals, as beautiful as the finest pearls. “Shall I tell you a story of white petals, and India, Captain Whitfield?”
“I should like nothing better.” I looked him full in the face, and he didn’t flinch; his gaze was open and I believed that in this, at least, he did not trifle with me.
“Many people believe that India was a land untouched by Christianity before the missionaries arrived, but that is not true.” I reached up and plucked a white blossom from the tree above us. “Actually, Saint Thomas arrived in India fewer than twenty years after the crucifixion, well ahead of the faith’s arrival in Europe. Thomas was eager, as were all the apostles, to share the Good News.”
“Like your parents,” Captain Whitfield said.
“Yes.” I reached for one more blossom, the only other one within my easy grasp. “One day, Thomas walked among the Brahman as they threw water into the air as an offering to their god. ‘Why does your god reject your offering?’ Saint Thomas asked. ‘If it falls back to the ground, surely he cannot find it pleasing. My God would not reject such an offering,’ he said. He then scooped up a handful of water and threw it into the air.”
“And it disappeared?” Captain Whitfield asked. I could not tell if he was mocking.
“No. The droplets hung in the air but for a moment, and then fluttered back to earth as white flower petals.” At that, I threw open my hand and released the jasmine petals into the air above us. Some landed on my head, but in the main they came to rest on Captain Whitfield’s dark hair. I laughed at the sight of it.
