by Anne Gracie
She understood now why Mama had fallen for Papa and run off with him. It was a kind of madness. Irresistible. She shivered again.
Perfectly resistible, she told herself firmly, when you knew the consequences of such imprudence. Had Mama and Papa known how their great love story had ended, they’d never have run off together.
Though they’d never once seemed to regret it—only their circumstances. But the one had led to the other. Had they thought it was worth it? Abby claimed they’d been very happy, almost until the last, when Mama got sick and Papa got desperate. But Abby thought love mattered before everything.
Jane squashed that thought. Love was a choice and Jane had made her choice and a very good, sensible one it was; she would marry Lord Cambury and she would not even think of a tall, impossibly handsome, wholly untrustworthy gypsy.
A well-born Englishman of distinguished lineage.
She snorted. He changed his story as often as he changed his coat. What would he claim next—that he was a long-lost prince in disguise?
Well, she wouldn’t stand around all day watching an irritating man getting drenched for no purpose. She smoothed down her pelisse and checked her hair in the looking glass. She was dressed to go out. Abby would be here shortly, to collect her in the carriage. They were going to make a call on Lady Dalrymple. Their first.
Jane hoped it wouldn’t be their last. It had taken all Jane’s powers of persuasion to get Abby to come with her this time. Now, it all rested with Lady Dalrymple and what she had to say for herself.
Mama’s mother. What would she be like? Jane was excited and nervous, eager and anxious, all at the same time.
She glanced out of the window, but the square was deserted; no sign of any tall, dark man standing bareheaded in the rain. He’d gone.
Good. She hoped he’d finally got the message.
Foolish man. He’d probably catch his death of cold. Serve him right.
* * *
Lady Dalrymple lived in Green Street. Jane had sent a note ahead, asking whether it would be convenient for her sister and her to call. Lady Dalrymple had sent an instant response, inviting them to take tea with her that very afternoon.
The carriage swished through the damp streets. Abby sat stiffly, clutching her reticule, pale and resolute. Despite her presence, she was far from accepting a reconciliation. “I will accompany you and hear what she has to say,” was all she would promise Jane.
Jane was grateful for her presence. She didn’t know what to expect, but she was hopeful, at least.
Abby slipped her hand into Jane’s. “Don’t expect too much of her, love. She’s hurt us enough already.”
Jane nodded. “It’s all right, Abby. I’m prepared.”
Abby gave her a rueful smile. “No, you’re not. You’re too softhearted for your own good.”
The carriage pulled up in front of a small, pretty house, and the driver pulled down the steps for them, holding a large umbrella. The front door opened before they could reach the doorbell, and a butler ushered them into a small, elegant parlor.
Lady Dalrymple rose to greet them. Fashionably dressed in lilac silk, she was small and plump, with a soft, pretty face, gently wrinkled about the mouth and eyes, and light tawny-fair hair attractively streaked with silver. Her eyes were blue, the same color as Jane’s.
In forty years’ time, Jane thought dazedly, I will look a lot like this.
“Oh, my dears, my dears,” Lady Dalrymple exclaimed breathlessly, hurrying toward them. “I thought this moment would never come and I’d go to my grave not knowing—oh! let me look at you!—Jane, the image of my darling Sarah—oh! I cannot believe it—my dearest, dearest girl—and Abigail”—she turned to Abby—“Oh, my dear, so very like your papa and with just that same look he used to get, the poor boy! But let us not be morbid on this happy, happy occasion!” And apparently oblivious of the tears pouring down her soft, plump, lightly powdered cheeks, she embraced them, first Jane, then Abby, still talking all the while.
Quite stunned and not a little overwhelmed by the effusiveness of the greeting, Jane glanced at Abby, currently standing stiffly in Lady Dalrymple’s embrace, to see how she was taking it.
The expression on Abby’s face was . . . strange. Jane had no idea how to interpret it.
“Oh, listen to me, babbling on like a perfect lunatic—but you must forgive an old lady’s emotion—it’s not every day one meets one’s long-lost granddaughters—oh, and look! I’ve made you all damp.” And unself-consciously she produced a dainty lace-edged handkerchief and proceeded to wipe her tears off Abby’s cheeks.
Abby looked half frozen, half panicked. Neither she nor Jane had uttered a word yet; they hadn’t had a chance.
Lady Dalrymple continued, “There now, that’s better. Oh, what am I thinking? Sit down, my darlings, sit down here with me and let me look at you. And Jarvis will bring in tea and a little something to eat.” Clutching them each by the hand, she tugged them down onto a chaise longue, one on each side of her. “Oh, my Sarah’s daughters, oh!” And the tears came again. “Tsk, tsk, look at me, such a sight I must present and I had such good intentions for this meeting.” She mopped at her face with the soaked handkerchief. “But so happy, my darlings, so happy.” She gave Jane a wondering look. “I cannot believe it, here you are, looking just exactly like my poor darling Sarah before I lost her, as if more than twenty-five years had not passed. We were very much alike in so many ways. I was once as pretty as Jane here, though you would never know it, to see me now.”
Abby’s eyes met Jane’s. “Lost her?” Abby repeated in a flinty voice. Jane could see she was struggling for composure.
Lady Dalrymple looked at Abby and her face crumpled. “Oh, my poor darling child—those letters you wrote—I vow, I never wept half so much in my life when I read them. You brave, miraculous, wonderful child, however did you manage? It quite broke my heart, reading them.” She embraced Abby again.
Abby endured it rigidly. Her eyes met Jane’s.
At this inopportune point the butler entered, followed by two footmen who brought in a tray containing two teapots, cups, saucers, a milk jug, slices of lemon and sugar and a large three-tiered plate containing a truly staggering variety of cakes, biscuits and cream-filled pastries. The butler also brought a small stack of neatly pressed lace-edged handkerchiefs that he silently placed in front of his mistress.
The girls waited in polite silence as they were served with tea and invited to eat. Jane, having a sweet tooth, selected a delicious-looking cream pastry, and Abby, when pressed, reluctantly accepted an almond cat’s tongue. She was looking rather pale, Jane thought.
As soon as the servants had departed, Abby set down her cup and plate, untouched. Jane said quickly, “So you read Abby’s letters.”
“Yes, I found them in my husband’s—your grandfather’s—desk after he died. The ones from Sarah herself and your poor, dear papa, as well as Abby’s. They utterly broke my heart. I never knew where my Sarah was, you see, never even knew she had children.” She put her cup and plate aside and blew her nose fiercely. She looked at Abby’s face. “Oh, my dear, you didn’t think—you did! I can tell.”
She took Abby’s hands in hers and said urgently, “I read those letters for the first time just a year ago, some weeks—well, probably several months after George—your grandfather—died. If you only knew how I regretted not doing it the day he died!” She wadded her handkerchief. “I had no idea they were there, you see—he’d never told me, and I’d never so much as touched his desk—he was always dreadfully fussy and meticulous about that—and so it wasn’t until he’d died and I had to clear out all his papers and then . . .” She shook her head. “And by the time I got to that horrid Pillbury place, you’d left it, Jane.”
Jane’s eyes widened. “You went to the Pillbury Home? Looking for me?”
“Of course I did. For both of you, but
Abby was long gone, and you’d already departed for Hertfordshire, only the woman—Bodwin, Bedwyn?”
“Mrs. Bodkin.”
“Yes, she said you’d disappeared on the way—some very confusing story, but in the end she said you’d gone to your sister in London.” She turned to Abby. “So of course I went there but those frightful people you were working for—”
“The Masons?” Abby said, shocked.
“Yes, ghastly parvenues—you poor darling, having to work for such people—the wife was frightful, simply frightful!—and of course, when I discovered they’d dismissed you without a character—my granddaughter!—just a few short weeks before!” The bright blue eyes sparkled with indignation for a moment, then she slumped and heaved a gusty sigh. “But you’d gone, and nobody knew where. I even hired a man to look for you, but . . .” She shook her head. “I thought I’d found my Sarah’s daughters, but instead I’d lost you again.” And more tears rolled down her cheeks.
There was a long silence, then Abby said in a queer, frozen voice, “You didn’t even know about us until last year?”
“No, not until your grandfather died. And when I found those letters, I could have killed him again! How could he keep it from me, knowing how all these years I’ve fretted and worried and grieved for my daughter. But George was always a cold, proud, hard man—and stubborn. He never admitted he might have been wrong, when anyone could have seen how much those two loved each other.”
She saw Abby’s expression. “If I’d had the least idea where my daughter was, I would have come for her and brought her—brought all of you!—home where you belonged! When I discovered what had happened—your papa—such a handsome, impetuous boy—and that my Sarah died in such a way—” She broke off, emotion choking her.
Jane and Abby exchanged a long, silent look. Abby’s eyes were wet with tears, as were Jane’s.
It was the explanation they’d craved, the answer to the questions that had haunted them so long.
Lady Dalrymple wiped her eyes and blew her nose again and sat up with fresh resolve. “Now, enough of this weeping—truly, I am not generally such a watering pot—so tell me all about yourselves. I want to know everything. I want to know why you girls call yourselves Chance and not Chantry, I want to know what your connection is with Lady Davenham—old Lady Davenham, Beatrice, I mean, and of course I am dying to know how Abby went from being a governess to those ghastly cits one minute and married to the fabulously wealthy—and handsome!—Max Davenham the next—and clever, clever Jane for making the catch of the season—Cambury, no less—what a pity he’s losing his hair, but never mind, what are hats for?—and I must hear all about how that came to be—the betrothal, not the baldness, poor boy—but first Abby, as she is the elder.” She looked expectantly at Abby.
Abby stared at her for a long moment, then she gave a shaky laugh. “You sound just like Mama,” she choked. “Exactly. If I closed my eyes, and listened to you, I would think she was here with us.” And her face crumpled.
“She is, my darling girl, of course she’s here with us,” Lady Dalrymple said, hugging her. “Where else would she be but with those who loved her best?”
And then they were all three of them in tears.
A short time later, declaring she needed something much stronger than tea, Lady Dalrymple dispatched her butler to fetch sherry, and also more handkerchiefs. “Though the way we’re going, my dears, we’ll need one the size of a tablecloth! Still, there’s nothing like a good cry, is there, for making one feel better?”
“I’m still amazed that you went all the way to Cheltenham, to the Pill,” Jane said. “And all for nothing.”
“Oh, it wasn’t for nothing,” Lady Dalrymple told her. “I got to hear all about my granddaughters from the woman in charge. Bodkin—was it?—had nothing but praise for you girls.”
“Really?” Jane said. Abby, yes, but she doubted that Bodkin would be singing Jane’s praises. She’d never had the impression Mrs. Bodkin had any time for her at all.
“Oh, yes, I heard all about what a clever and responsible girl you were, Abby, and how she’d tried to have you kept on as a teacher after you turned eighteen—”
“She tried to keep me on?” Abby said in surprise.
“Yes, for Jane’s sake, and because you were such an excellent teacher. Only the governors—foolish men—wouldn’t allow it. And you, Jane”—she turned to Jane—“she told me how wonderful you were with the little ones and said it was such a shame you couldn’t be a governess too, only with your looks it would be asking for trouble, and I quite see now why she had to send you instead to be the companion to an old lady, depressing as that must have seemed.” She wrinkled a nose. “A vicar’s mother.”
“I thought she thought I wasn’t clever enough,” Jane said.
“No, too pretty and too softhearted, she said. Abby, she said, had more grit to her.”
“Grit?” Abby said, half laughing. “She meant I had no looks to speak of.”
“Nonsense. She said you had grit and brains.” She eyed Abby indignantly. “And it’s positively wicked to say you have no looks at all—you have the kind of distinguished elegance that will only increase as you age. You get that from your father’s side, though there was an expression in your eyes earlier that also reminded me of my late husband. He was also very distinguished-looking.” She sighed. “Also proud, stubborn, hardheaded and rigid—quite abominably rigid. When I think of those letters and how, if only I’d found them earlier . . .”
Jane laid her hand over Lady Dalrymple’s small plump one. “Let’s not dwell on the past too much.”
Her grandmother nodded. “You’re right, my dear. Regrets are so dismal, and quite useless. You can’t change the past. Now tell me, how is your season progressing? That dress you were wearing the night I first saw you—such a divine creation! I must know, who is your dressmaker?”
They stayed, talking and laughing, with only the occasional tear, all afternoon. There were still many things they hadn’t told her—why Jane hadn’t gone to Hereford, for a start, and where they’d met Daisy and Damaris, nor that Abby was going to make her a great-grandmother—but there was time for all that in the future.
Before they left, Lady Dalrymple invited Jane to make her home with her.
Very gently, Jane refused. “Lady Beatrice has done so much for us—we owe her everything. I could not abandon her now.”
Lady Dalrymple sighed. “No, I suppose not.”
“But I will come and visit you often,” Jane promised, seeing the disappointment on the old lady’s face. “You don’t think you’re going to get out of being a grandmother, do you? We have years to make up for.”
“Oh, you dear, sweet child.” Lady Dalrymple groped for another handkerchief.
As the two sisters drove home, Abby said, “Thank you for making me come, little sister. I wouldn’t have missed that for the world.”
“We have a grandmother.” Jane hugged her. “Does she really sound so much like Mama?”
Abby nodded. “It’s uncanny—her voice, the melodic pitch of it, the cadence—and the way she rattles on, skipping from one subject to another.” She laughed. “Whenever Mama did that, Papa used to tease her about it and say she was just like her mother.”
Jane smiled and leaned her head on Abby’s shoulder. “You’ve forgiven her?”
Abby nodded. “Impossible not to, really.”
“She must have just missed us, you know. By a week or two.”
“I know.” They were silent a moment, trying to imagine what their lives would have been like if Lady Dalrymple had found Jane at the Pill, and rescued Abby from the Mason household.
“I’m not sorry,” Jane said, just as Abby said, “I don’t regret it in the least.” They both laughed.
“I can’t imagine not having Damaris and Daisy and Lady Beatrice in our lives,” Jane said.
> “No, and I would never have met Max,” Abby said softly, placing a hand over the slight swell of her abdomen. “We might have started off in a dreadful place, but it’s all worked out perfectly for us, hasn’t it, Jane?”
Jane forced her mind away from thoughts of a tall, dark figure with compelling silvery eyes. “Perfectly,” she echoed. It sounded a little hollow.
Abby glanced at her. “Are you all right?”
Jane nodded. “Just a little tired after all that emotion. Thank goodness the masquerade ball is tomorrow night. I barely have enough energy to climb into bed tonight.”
* * *
“You look delightful!” Jane was going to the masquerade ball as a shepherdess, wearing a gown of pale blue silk, looped up in several places around the hem to reveal a froth of white petticoats beneath. It was an old dress of Lady Beatrice’s cut down, much to the old lady’s outrage.
“You’d have the gel wear an old dress of mine? To the masquerade of the season? Where everybody who’s anybody will be there to see her?”
But Daisy was adamant. “I’m not goin’ to cut into new fabric on something that’s only going to be thrown away afterwards. And this’ll do fine and will save me time as well as money.” Lady Beatrice, Damaris and Abby had made their own arrangements for their costumes—Damaris and Abby were keeping them a secret—but Daisy was determined she would make every single outfit Jane would wear for the season. Or bust!
Jane was getting worried it might indeed be bust, but she didn’t say so. This was Daisy’s dream, after all.
“Save you money?” Lady Beatrice was appalled at the notion.
But Jane and Abby had spent their entire lives wearing other people’s cut-down clothing, and they understood the need for economy, particularly the economy of time. “I agree with Daisy,” Jane said. “I’ll only ever wear it once, and besides, it’s going to look delightfully old-fashioned, and so pretty.”
“And no shepherdess would wear the latest fashion, would they?” Abby added.
The old lady sniffed. “No shepherdess would ever wear hoops either.”
