by Sarita Leone
Sophie smiled and closed her mouth with a tiny snap. She sat back against the sofa arm and waited for her mother to continue.
The wait was not long. “All this is true of your father and I; we are mature and compatible, and as such we are, thankfully, happily settled to a way of life that suits us. But we were not always this way, my dear. No, we were not always the people you see before you now. We were…” A small smile played around the corners of her lips when she said, “We were young once. Fun, carefree—much as you are now. We had, as you do, decisions to make. There were many times, I assure you, when I felt as you do—tossed about like a cork, which is, by the way, a very good comparison. It can make one feel somewhat queasy, can’t it, to be tugged in so many directions all at once?”
Mother understands! I am not alone in my misery!
“Oh, Mother, it does—honestly, there are times when I fear I will surely cast up my accounts from the stress of it all.”
“Tell me, Sophie…Are your misgivings and decisions all about men, or does something more bother you?”
Something more? Gracious, it hardly seemed fathomable that any other problem could exist. Every other aspect of her life was in order, and gave her satisfaction. Now, if she could only find a way to solve the treachery of her own heart, she might find some peace.
Her mother waited, so Sophie shrugged.
“I am quite ordinary, I fear. My problems are all affairs of the heart—nothing more, and nothing less. There are times when I am sure I know my feelings with such certainty I might never be dissuaded. Other times I am pulled between being satisfied with being a spinster and wanting to marry.”
Nothing prepared Sophie for her mother’s girlish giggle. The sound was so sweet and lyrical and so far removed from their guest’s telltale twitter that Sophie instinctively smiled.
“What is so funny?”
Her mother waved her hand, a fast flapping motion before her face, as if cooling her cheeks. When she turned around, Sophie saw a tear sliding down the familiar cheek.
“Are you all right? Mother, what is it?” Sophie leaned forward and pulled her mother’s hand into her own. It was cool and dry, so her immediate fear that the Randolph illness had spread to their home disappeared.
“Don’t fret so. I am not unwell—just amused. My dear Sophie, although you have the notion in your pretty head that you are, at your ‘advanced’ age, well on your way to spinsterhood, those who know you best know without a doubt that you would make a better hackney driver than spinster. And as I know your skills with animals are limited to petting cats and stray dogs on their heads, it is clear as a bell that you will never be happy unless you decide to get married.” She took a long breath, and then added, “Which, I most emphatically assure you, is the wish of both your father and me—that you marry. And since I am your mother and allowed certain latitude with regard to speaking freely, it is also our fondest hope that you will provide us with a houseful of grandchildren to spoil.”
“Mother! Grandchildren, when I cannot even decide the way my tortured heart leans? Let me point out, as well, that no man has offered his hand in marriage, so this is really a superfluous conversation.” How could she let herself get so caught up in outrageous situations? It was irresponsible and completely illogical—and wholly out of keeping with the way she had always conducted herself. Whatever is happening to me?
“But you will consider an offer, if one should come your way, won’t you?”
The way her mother’s lips quirked up at the edges gave her away instantly.
“You spoke with Rachel, didn’t you?” She should have known better than to think her younger sister could keep a secret. Stealth had never been one of Rachel’s strongest traits.
“Every day. I speak with all my children every day, thank God.” Sophie’s mother began undoing her braid, so she did not look up when she spoke. It wasn’t necessary. Sophie could hear the satisfaction and amusement in her mother’s voice.
“You know what I mean. Rachel told you about the New Year’s resolution she forced from me.”
The resolution, so blithely given, hadn’t been far from her mind since the night it was uttered. The words might haunt her forever. How could she entertain the next prospect of marriage when it was so horridly obvious that there wasn’t one anywhere on her immediate horizon? Had more than the family known about her bargain, she would have been mortified, but with Rachel and her mother the only—hopefully!—ones in on the secret, she was simply embarrassed.
“I won’t tell a Canterbury tale. Rachel did let me in on your surprising—and entirely appropriate—little arrangement.” She loosed the last few inches of hair, ran her splayed fingers through the thick locks and smiled. “I won’t lie when I tell you what I think of the idea, either.”
“It is preposterous!”
Sophie’s mother turned to face her, and this time her look was not amused at all. With a stern expression, she said, “The only thing that is preposterous, Sophie Clare Teasdale, is your blatant doubt that you are worth marrying. Goodness, did I fail so horribly that I didn’t teach you your own self-worth? Is that the problem? If it is, I owe you a huge apology, my dear. You seem to think you are not marriage-worthy, that you are simply Rachel’s older sister and little else. Why, it is true…we don’t have a large dowry for you girls, and there will never be a suitor on our doorstep who wishes to marry into the Teasdale family to better his financial situation. I am, most assuredly, thankful for that fact. When you and Rachel marry, I want it to be for love, not money. I want you girls to lose your hearts to worthy men, men who are able to see past made-over dresses and humble circumstances. I want you and Rachel to find husbands who love you for yourselves and nothing more. But first, before any of that can happen, you must believe in yourself. It hurts me to say it, but it’s true. No man will see your worth until you value yourself.”
Sophie sat in shocked silence. She had never received such a severe lecture. It left her speechless. It also brought a fresh set of thoughts and emotions to her already taxed mind.
Fortunately, her mother seemed not to require any sort of reply. Shaking her hair over her shoulder, she stood and said, “The whole house will be awake before I know it. Time for me to begin my day.” She crossed the room, but stopped at the doorway. “I hope you will carefully consider what I have said, Sophie. It is, I believe, in your best interest to do so.”
The day presented little time for introspection once it began, and Sophie was glad for it. Better to keep busy than agonize over the mess inside her own head.
With no one save themselves to plant the kitchen garden, every aspect of the affair fell to the family. More to the point, since they were children, it had been Rachel and Sophie’s job to care for the small garden plot they kept in the back yard. Neither had ever minded the job and, as a result, the family had a wide assortment of produce every year for their dinner table.
Gardening was not a pastime limited to the summer months. During the bleakest winter days, the seeds for the spring planting were sown. With nothing better to do, Sophie and Rachel decided the January morning was an ideal time for the work.
They supposed their guest might not wish to dirty her hands with the planting, which turned out to be an accurate guess. Wendy claimed to be allergic to soil and chose, instead, to spend her morning in the guest room.
Downstairs, in the small glassed greenhouse behind the kitchen, the sisters went about their business with little conversation. They each enjoyed the break in chatter and fits of giggles for well over an hour before breaking the silence.
Rachel inserted dried corn kernels into miniature clay pots filled with a mixture of rotted manure, peat moss, and garden soil. The mixture had been resting since last summer, so any offensive smell it may have had had long since vanished. Now the soft loamy mix accepted the seeds with no more than a slight poke of a finger. She patted soil over the seeds before she paused.
For the last quarter hour, Sophie had studiously avo
ided looking up. She felt Rachel’s gaze on her several times and knew the younger sister well enough to know she wanted to talk. While Sophie had no objection to hearing whatever it was that might be on Rachel’s mind, she didn’t fancy being subjected to hearing another lecture on her own behavior.
“Sophie?”
“Mmm hmm?” She kept her attention on the Swiss chard seeds in her palm. They were tiny, and could be lost easily if she didn’t keep them in her sight. “What is it?”
Even a blasé tone couldn’t dissuade Rachel when she wanted to talk. Sophie knew it, so when her sister went on, she wasn’t surprised.
“I have been wondering something.”
When Rachel failed to elaborate, Sophie sighed and asked, “Well? What have you got on your mind?”
“Well…” Rachel pushed a kernel into the dirt with the tip of her index finger. She patted it carefully before looking up and across the table. Wiping her fingertips together delicately, she asked, “Do you think the same men will be at the Atwell’s St. Valentine’s Day dance as were at the New Year’s dance?”
Precisely one of the questions she had been mulling over.
“I suppose so. I mean, it does seem logical, doesn’t it?”
“That’s what I thought. I almost wonder if there might be even more men in attendance, now that the weather may be letting up somewhat. It stands to reason that by February there should be less snow underfoot, so travel will be easier, even within the city. The party should be even better attended than the last.” Rachel hesitated, then said softly, “Given the facts, wouldn’t you think everyone who attended in the miserable weather will also be there when it is less inclement?”
Despite Rachel’s assertion to the contrary, Sophie saw she hoped to meet the same man she had danced with at the Atwell’s on New Year’s at the Valentine’s dance. It seemed heartless, as well as fruitless, to dismiss the possibility. Besides, her sister voiced the selfsame hopes she harbored within her own heart.
“I think there’s a very good possibility that all who were there last time will show again. And I would imagine that those who were kept away by the bad weather will, hopefully, not be kept away by the same sort of problem in February.”
Thoughts of the upcoming dance sent a flock of nervous butterflies careening through Sophie’s midsection. She swallowed hard and tried to regain the calm state that planting had brought. Before Rachel began the discussion, she had been somewhat tranquil, something that happened to her each time she did gardening work. Now, however, the peace had vanished—borne off on the wings of imaginary oversized butterflies.
“Colin should be there.” Rachel finished with the corn kernels and wiped her hands on a moist rag. She handed it to Sophie so she could do the same. “That, at least, is a good thing, don’t you agree?”
Colin again! Everywhere she turned, Colin showed up—even when he was nowhere about. Had she been looking for him—which she most assuredly was not—he would have been scarcer than an empty hackney during a thunderstorm.
She heaved a jagged sigh. How to escape someone who had been part of nearly every memory of one’s life? It seemed impossible—and, more to the point, it seemed unthinkable. It wasn’t that she didn’t want Colin in her life. Rather, she wanted him in his proper place in her life. The question was…in what capacity? And what, exactly, place should Colin inhabit?
He is growing entirely out of the best friend position, Sophie thought glumly.
“You imagine I care more deeply about where Colin is, and with whom, than I actually do. It isn’t a becoming trait, Rachel, to try to put feelings into a person which they don’t have.”
“You protest too much, dear sister.” Rachel let out a tinkling laugh, one she had used since childhood but which now, with their “allergic” guest so nearby, grated on Sophie’s nerves in a rather unpleasant manner.
“Enough, Rachel! It isn’t up to you to decide how much is too much about anything I do.” Sophie couldn’t help herself. Her temper, ordinarily slumbering like a satisfied cat, reared its head and growled—loudly. She wouldn’t allow a younger sister the liberty of making her feel foolish. It wasn’t fitting—and she simply wasn’t going to tolerate it. “All of your attempts to push Colin Randolph at me are entirely inappropriate. Colin and I are adults, and as such are in control of our feelings toward one another. He and I—and only he and I—will decide where our association goes. It is, must I remind you, only friendship we share. Nothing more—nothing more!”
Remorse seized her instantly. Her tone was unduly abrasive, and she knew it.
Rachel’s eyes shimmered with unshed tears. She wasn’t used to such a dressing down from anyone. She was especially not prepared to hear such harsh words from Sophie, for her older sister had never uttered such stern words.
“I—I…” A tear fell, sliding slowly over Rachel’s creamy cheek. It hung on her jaw line for a moment before it dropped onto the shoulder of her serviceable morning dress. “I didn’t mean…I wasn’t—”
Sophie rushed forward and grabbed her sister in a crushingly tight embrace.
“I’m sorry,” Rachel sniffed. “I didn’t mean—”
“Hush.” She wiped a soothing hand down her sister’s back, and wished she hadn’t been so awful. “I’m sorry, Rachel. I’m being a beast and you are the lamb led to the slaughter. I don’t know what overcomes me sometimes. It doesn’t take much these days to bring me to a fit of temper. I apologize. Oh, my dear, I apologize most heartily.”
She held Rachel at arms’ length, searching for mercy in the eyes so nearly identical to her own. To her relief, she found pardon.
“Honestly, these past weeks have been a trial for me,” she admitted. Rachel wiped her eyes with the back of one hand, and nodded her understanding. “It’s been one thing after the other since…” The memory of the masked dancer’s arms about her stilled Sophie’s tongue. She couldn’t say the words, so Rachel finished the thought for her.
“Since the New Year’s dance. You haven’t been yourself since that night, have you?”
Sophie shrugged. She let her hands drop from Rachel’s shoulders and hugged them tight around her middle.
“No, I fear I haven’t been myself at all.” A sigh, its release a slight consolation, allowed her to go on. “I don’t know what happened, Rachel, between then and now. I was happy before and now I am…”
“Unhappy?”
She quickly shook her head. “No, not exactly. I’m at odds with the unfamiliar feelings I suddenly have. And yes, I suppose a small part of me is not at all happy I am so unsettled since the party, but that just isn’t the whole of it. I cannot put my finger on what, precisely, troubles me, but it’s clear I’m suffering some kind of…” The word escaped her completely. How to term what felt like craziness but which had to be something else? At least Sophie hoped mental illness wasn’t what plagued her.
Good Lord, can I be losing my mind?
Rachel smiled, and the expression of understanding stilled Sophie’s conscience. She was forgiven, and nothing else mattered.
“I almost hate to say it, for fear you may chop off my head…” Rachel’s eyes twinkled mischievously. “But I am going to take my chances and say it sounds like you are in love, Sophie.”
“And how would you know anything about how it feels to be in love?” she teased, pulling a ringlet beside Rachel’s ear. “Tell me, oh wise one, what do you know about love?”
The tinkling laughter did not annoy her when it came this time. With an airy wave of her hand, Rachel replied, “Why, I know all about love. After all, I have read Ms. Austen’s works, remember? She’s taught me simply everything!”
Chapter 11
When the tap-tap-tap came at the closed bedroom door, the sisters exchanged guilty glances. They had been awake and dressed for some time but lingered in their room. Neither wished to go downstairs and begin another day punctuated by Miss Wentworth’s incessant giggles, so they had simply stayed put. They busied themselves dusting t
he furniture and straightening dresser drawers. Now Sophie darned a stocking heel, while Rachel sketched in her journal.
It was rude, they knew, but they couldn’t help themselves. It was one day past their guest’s scheduled departure date, and every extra hour spent in the woman’s company brought Rachel and Sophie one step closer to foul tempers.
Tap-tap-tap.
Heaving a ragged sigh, Rachel closed her book with a snap and tossed her pencil on the table. It hit the surface so hard the point broke, which brought a fresh sigh.
When she glanced at her, Sophie shrugged. What could she do? If Wendy had tracked them down, there was no way to escape. It wasn’t as if they could evade discovery. The only exit was the door which, even now, was getting a new wave of tapping. That or the window, and Sophie didn’t wish to avoid their guest so vehemently that jumping from the window was on her list of options.
“Girls, let me in, please.”
At the sound of the familiar voice, Rachel hurried to the door and pulled it wide. “Mother—we didn’t realize it was you.”
“I should hope not. I stood out in the hallway for so long my feet nearly took root in the floorboards. And carrying this heavy load, besides.” An impeccably starched dress and upswept hair showed they weren’t the only early risers in the household. Her arms were so full her nose was barely visible above her load. Layers of crimson fabric fluttered behind her as she swept into the room, kicked the door closed with her foot and placed her burden on Sophie’s bed. “There!”
Sophie set aside her needle. She went to the bed, staring down at the vivid hue splashed across her white counterpane. Reaching for the fabric, she asked, “What is this?”
Their mother gave a soft laugh. “I’m not sure, exactly. It was one of my old ball gowns—my favorite one, actually. Oh, I may as well confess—” She swept a slow fingertip across one of the crimson folds and said, “This is the gown I wore the night your father and I met. It has been tucked away all these years, in fabric and a sturdy box in order to preserve it. Truthfully, I have not given the gown much thought in a long, long time. Then, I recalled its existence yesterday afternoon. It is, I know, horribly out of fashion, but I believe it can be made over into a beautiful gown. Something more modern…something with a bit of Valentine’s Day spirit.”
