Laura Carroll Butler

by The Price of a Pearl

Rebecca furrowed her brow in surprise. “You knew all this time and you didn’t tell me?”

  “I truly didn’t believe it mattered,” he answered honestly.

  Rebecca thought for a moment then shook her head. “I suppose it really doesn’t.” Davis was surprised at how quickly his wife had acquiesced. “What matters now is finding Susanne.”

  “Michael—“

  “He won’t know where to look,” she said pragmatically and began to change her dress. Before she was finished, the steward’s son had arrived at the house and left a message. Susanne had been found and her husband was taking her back to their room at the inn. Davis delivered the message to Rebecca who only nodded in response. With her mother ill and her brother indisposed, it seemed a trivial matter that her sister was staying at a public inn with a man who was not her husband.

  ************************

  Sarah woke from her nap and found Rebecca seated by the window. When she saw her mother stir, she came to her bedside. “Can I get you anything, Mother?” she asked, taking her hand.

  “Some water, please.” Rebecca poured a glass; Sarah took a sip then handed the glass back. “I thought I heard Susanne’s voice,” she said as she tried to settle in comfortably.

  Rebecca was able to hide her face by helping her mother sit up and adjust the pillow. “Yes; she was here earlier, but you were asleep and she didn’t want to disturb you.”

  “Where did she go? Isn’t she staying here?”

  As a child, Rebecca learned that she could not lie to her mother. No matter how insignificant, Sarah always knew. Maybe it was the years of smiling at potential suitors and laughing at every ridiculous thing they said, or maybe men can’t or won’t see when a woman is lying to them. Whatever the reason, Rebecca now channeled that talent and treated her mother like a suitor. In her old coquettish manner, she touched a finger to her throat and said quickly “Susanne has a surprise for you. She wanted to tell you herself. She’s married, Mother!”

  “Married? But how, to whom? Martha said nothing about her getting married!”

  “Don’t agitate yourself, Mother. She married Lord Michael Brooks, Davis’ friend.”

  “Oh yes, that charming dark-haired man. Martha said he left London.”

  “He went home to take care of his father.”

  “Well…so my daughter will be a Countess!” she exclaimed.

  Rebecca had not thought of what Susanne’s title would be if she married Michael-Countess, sweet, playful Susanne a grown-up countess.

  “But how could she be married? She’s only nineteen.”

  Another brilliant idea--“Tristan gave her permission. Since Father is gone the vicar let him sign. We didn’t want to disturb you until everything was settled.”

  Sarah considered this. “It seems awfully sudden and hurried,” she mused.

  Rebecca smiled reassuringly. “They are in love, Mother, and it seems that they have been for a while. None of us realized it because we weren’t expecting it, I suppose.” She patted her mother’s hand and finished with “She’s happy with him, Mother. And she’s married.”

  Sarah sighed. “I suppose there is nothing to be done about it now. Though I am sorry she chose to elope and not wait to plan a wedding.” She smiled as she remembered her own marriage ceremony. “I wonder if the more in love you are, the more impatient you are to be married,” she mused. “Then you have less time for regret.”

  “Perhaps,” Rebecca answered.

  “I would like to see Lord Brooks alone. Will they be here for supper?”

  “I don’t believe so. The long trip tired them.”

  “Maybe tomorrow then.”

  *************************

  Sarah’s prognosis was not good. She had felt the lump on her left breast days after they buried Henry. She told no one, convinced that this was her punishment for banning her husband from her bed years before. Over the next two years, she watched her left breast become deformed and the cancer spread to her right, but she was determined that she would live long enough to see her daughters married. She would have suffered in silence if her maid had not glimpsed her one morning when the pain caused Sarah to be careless covering herself. The maid told the housekeeper, who told the butler, who told Tristan and amidst Sarah’s protests, a doctor was called.

  Short of surgery, risky and probably too late, there was nothing for the doctor to do. He gave her a salve to put on the breasts, dosed her with laudanum for the pain and left her to her son’s care. Sarah hated the drugged feeling, but she was too tired to refuse the laudanum.

  Rebecca did not fool her. Sarah knew Susanne was not married to Lord Brooks, but saw no need to contradict Rebecca. She would give her consent, privately, to Susanne, but not until she had spoken with Michael and made sure that his intentions were compatible with Susanne’s. Her youngest daughter didn’t have the best judgment in men, but Martha liked Michael and he was a friend of Davis.

  ************************

  Tristan never loathed himself more than he did now. No matter his feelings for Susanne, he knew that what he had said to her, especially now while their mother was so ill, was inexcusable. He could blame the liquor, but that was too easy an excuse. He feared that his jealousy of Susanne as the favored child had made him a bully to her. He feared that he was becoming his father. He confessed this to Rebecca.

  “No,” she answered emphatically. “You are not becoming our father. You are nothing like him.

  “I wanted to hurt her, Rebecca. I actually enjoyed seeing her crushed,” he said.

  “The fact that you feel remorse makes you a better person than him.”

  Tristan’s remorse made no difference to Susanne.

  Davis and Rebecca arrived at the inn early the next morning. Rebecca went alone to their room, pulling out the last reserve of strength from God-knows-where; she had barely slept between consoling Tristan and caring for her mother. But when Michael answered, she smiled brightly and asked to speak with Susanne alone. He looked at Susanne, who nodded and then left the sisters alone.

  Susanne looked as exhausted as Rebecca felt. They sat together at a little table in the room where the remnants of breakfast lay.

  “What Tristan said yesterday,” Rebecca began, “I didn’t know.” Susanne stared at her blankly. “What’s more…it doesn’t matter. Not to me. Not to Mother.”

  Susanne nodded slightly. “I suppose then you told her.”

  “Oh no!” Rebecca exclaimed in horror. “No, of course not. She knows nothing about what happened yesterday.”

  Susanne stared in silence until she broke down in tears. She covered her face with her hands; Rebecca reached out to touch her arm and said, “Susanne, you are my sister; you are my family. This changes nothing.” Susanne continued to cry. Rebecca stood up and went to her, putting her arms around her in comfort.

  When she could finally speak, Susanne asked “Why do the children suffer for the sins of the parents?”

  “I don’t know. Father built our family on a foundation of anger and cruelness. I don’t know why we should be surprised that he can still hurt us from the grave.”

  “Your mother-“, Susanne began.

  “She is your mother, too,” Rebecca interrupted.

  “How is Mama?” Susanne asked, her voice breaking again.

  Rebecca gave her a handkerchief and sat down. “She needs to see you. She asked about you.”

  “She did?”

  “Yes, of course,” Rebecca smiled. “She heard you downstairs. I told her that we thought she was asleep and that you would be back later.” She paused and swallowed. “I told her that you did not stay at the house because you were with your husband,” she added brightly.

  “You told her I was married?”

  “Yes.”

  Susanne laughed bitterly. She looked away from Rebecca then responded, “I suppose you needed to lie to avoid more scandal.” She turned back to Rebecca. “It doesn’t matter; as far as I am concerned, it is the truth. Michael is
my husband, regardless of what the church or the Crown has to say.”

  Rebecca didn’t challenge her, believing that it was safer to let the matter rest. “Will you come to see Mother?” she asked.

  “Of course I will.”

  “Tristan feels horrible, Susanne.”

  “He should.”

  “Will you speak with him also?”

  “No,” she answered firmly.

  “But—“

  “It is not up for discussion,” she said in a strong voice. “I am coming for my mother. If Tristan approaches me, I assure you that I will leave after I have explained why to Mama. As for Michael-as for my husband-I think it best that I come alone.”

  “Mother would like to speak with him also.”

  Susanne’s tone softened. “Of course she would,” she said quietly. “I will speak to Michael. But it would be best for us all if Tristan were not around.”

  “Of course,” Rebecca answered.

  *************************

  Susanne found Sarah in the library at her desk. The room showed no signs of the violence of the day before; it was a perfectly normal scene except for the loose gown Sarah wore and the pallor of her face. Sarah looked up from her papers and smiled at Susanne. Susanne wanted to run to her and bury her face in her mother’s skirts, letting Sarah’s soothing voice tell her everything would be fine, that yesterday was just a bad dream. The fragileness in Sarah’s face reaffirmed that this was real; her mother was sick and worst of all she would not recover. She was also not her real mother. But Sarah’s voice was as warm as always and Susanne realized that her mother couldn’t possibly know what Tristan had revealed.

  “Should you be up?” Susanne asked.

  “I am tired of sleeping,” she answered, smiling at her words. “Rebecca told me that you were in town with your husband and I did not want him to see me lying about.”

  Susanne was momentarily startled at the word “husband” even as she remembered the lie Rebecca had told. She forced a smile and played along. “Michael would never think badly of you,” she responded.

  Sarah stood shakily, another strong indication to Susanne of how ill her mother was. She rushed to her side, took her arm, and helped her to the sofa. Sarah took a minute to make herself comfortable, then took Susanne’s hand.

  “I must say, dear, I am disappointed that I had to find out there was someone special in your life only after you had married him.” Sarah’s nonchalant chastising made Susanne want to laugh. Her tone was as serious as if Susanne had tipped over a glass of milk or dirtied her skirts and it rendered her speechless. “I am not angry,” Sarah continued. “But I wish that I had known.”

  Susanne stared down at her lap to avoid her mother’s eyes. “It all happened so quickly.”

  “Is he the reason you wanted to say in London with Martha?”

  Susanne looked up suddenly. She wondered what Martha might have relayed to Sarah. “Well, yes, but we were always chaperoned,” she defended. “Michael has always behaved as a gentleman toward me.”

  Sarah smiled reassuringly and patted Susanne’s hand. She knew that Susanne had left London for Elysian Fields and had remained there, thus the pretext of being married. What would have bothered her a year before, she now shrugged off; what was done was done. And if Susanne had a man who truly loved her, it was more than Sarah had ever known. And wasn’t that what all mother’s wanted for their children? Still….

  “I am not angry,” she repeated, “Just disappointed that I couldn’t share in your special day.”

  Susanne’s face was a mix of relief and confusion. “My special day? Oh, the wedding! It was a small affair, just the two of us and the vicar.”

  “And a witness.”

  “Of course. The vicar’s wife.”

  Sarah pressed for no more details. “I wonder…would you and Lord Brooks consider renewing your vows here? It would mean so much to me.”

  Susanne blinked back tears. She had come home for her mother’s permission and blessing, was it only the day before? How could so much have changed so quickly? The only answer she could give was the only honest thing she had said so far: “I must speak with Michael.”

  “Of course, Susanne. There is something else,” she said and reached into her pocket. “When Rebecca married, I gave her an amethyst pin that had been in my family for many generations.” She held out a pin made of pearl and enamel in the shape of a lily-of-the-valley. “This pin is not as old. It was a gift. When you were born, the lilies had just bloomed and their fragrance was everywhere.” Her eyes were on Susanne, but her mind drifted, lost in the memory of being handed an infant to care for as her own and being so overwhelmed by their individual helplessness in the situation. “Her name is Susanne,” was all Henry had said. At the moment of transfer from Henry to Sarah, Susanne became her responsibility to care for and protect. Henry made it difficult and Susanne constantly tried her patience, but until the day of Henry’s funeral, she had never thought of Susanne as someone else’s child. In her grief, she had let the secret slip, but only to Tristan. It did not occur to her that others in the community might know the truth, so insulated from the gossip she had made herself. Sarah handed the pin to Susanne. “I want you to have this. Maybe someday you will give it to your daughter.”

  *************************

  By the time that she had finished speaking with Susanne, Sarah needed to rest. Susanne helped her up the stairs to her room. As she closed the door behind her, she was contemplating what clothing she had left in the house when she saw Tristan in his room. She had thought the upstairs was empty and had no desire to speak with him. She started to walk quickly past his room when he called to her. She would have kept walking, but she did not want her mother disturbed.

  She stood in the doorway and quietly said “We have nothing to discuss, Tristan.”

  “Yes we do.”

  “You made your feelings to me very clear yesterday.”

  “I was wrong to speak to you that way, Susanne. I had too much to drink and Mother—“

  “Don’t bring her into this. You said what you did because you wanted to.”

  “Don’t you see, Susanne; I am becoming him!”

  “Are you still drunk?” Tristan didn’t know how to respond to Susanne’s sarcastic comment. It was unlike her and caught him off-guard.

  “It’s fate, I suppose, or punishment—,” he responded, hoping to elicit her sympathy. But his words the previous day had changed her.

  “There is no fate, Tristan, nor destiny. There is only what we choose to do and our intentions. I chose to do what I have done, but I never intended to hurt you. It never occurred to me how my actions would affect you. I was a child. But you chose to say what you did yesterday. You intended to hurt me. It was not the drink or your grief. It was your revenge.” Tristan listened hard, knowing Susanne was right. “Forgiveness is easy, Tristan. But I will not easily forget what you did. You gleefully took from me my mother. I will heal, eventually, because I have someone who loves me. But you have to live with knowing what you did. And why you did it.”

  Tristan tried to deflect her words. “He loved you best.”

  But Susanne was wiser. “He didn’t love me. He didn’t love anyone. He just used me to torture the rest of you.” And she left Tristan to deal with the truth of her words.

  *************************

  “Rebecca has a tell,” Sarah began. She was awake from her nap and speaking with Michael who stood by the window to maintain his distance.

  “A tell?” he asked, though he knew what she meant.

  “She has never been able to fool me with a lie, though I don’t think she has ever figured out why.”

  “And what is Rebecca’s tell?” Michael asked with a smile.

  “When she is being…beguiling, let’s say, she touches the hollow of her throat. I saw her do it as a child and when she was courting. Men find it…intriguing. I suppose someday I should tell Davis this, though he may have figured it out on
his own.”

  “And why are you telling me this, Mrs. Newland?” he asked in an amused voice.

  “Rebecca told me that you and Susanne had married. But she wasn’t honest.” Sarah smiled, warmly, she hoped. “It doesn’t matter so much to me in light of recent disclosures. But I believe it would matter to Susanne at some point. Rebecca’s lied to protect me; but I am afraid that it has made Susanne more vulnerable.”

  “You should know that she intended to ask for your permission. But things got…muddled.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that. I would suggest that we ‘unmuddle’ them by having the two of you renew your vows.”

  “How would that ‘unmuddle’ things?”

  “Susanne and Rebecca think that I believe that you two are married. I am guessing that you and Susanne wish to be married. So you renew your vows when in actuality you will be saying them for the first time. Everyone gets what they want and no one is the wiser.”

  Michael laughed. “You would approve of this deception?”

  Sarah’s smile was genuine. “The truth may set us free, but sometimes we must deceive the ones we love to spare them the pain.”

  Michael nodded. “We lie to protect them.”

  “Yes,” Sarah agreed.

  Michael considered this. “What is Susanne’s tell?”

  “She will not look at you. Susanne’s eyes cannot lie. She believes in the good in the ones she loves with her whole heart. That is her weakness; because if she were to be deceived by someone she loves…well, just remember that sometimes we lie to protect the ones we love.”

  *************************

  Susanne and Michael were married in the drawing room across from the library. Davis and Rebecca stood as best man and matron of honor. Susanne wore a dress borrowed from Rebecca, the lily pin, a hat she found in town and a blue ribbon in her hair. The vicar pronounced them husband and wife in the company of Tristan, Sarah and the servants. Tristan kissed Susanne’s cheek when it was offered to him. Michael shook his hand firmly and coldly.

  The cook had made a white cake decorated with sugared violets. The newlyweds were toasted then left for the inn where they had registered as husband and wife days before.