The Heiresses

by Allison Rushby

  Clio wasted no more time, either. “Yes! Yes, I will!” she replied, a little too enthusiastically, causing Hestia and Ro to glance over, wondering was happening on the opposite side of the room. Clio, however, who only had eyes for Edwin, never noticed them watching, so she didn’t mind one bit that they looked on as her fiancé’s lips happily met hers.

  * * *

  Two days later, Clio strolled through the central path of the private garden in the midst of Belgrave Square, her right arm entwined with Edwin’s left, good one. “Are you sure you’re feeling perfectly well?” Clio glanced up at him, concerned.

  “More than well.” Edwin smiled back down at her.

  “I think you should sit down for a moment, just to be sure,” Clio told him, pointing over to a bench just past the next pergola. “Isn’t the wisteria beautiful?” She tilted back her head as they walked beneath the pergola. “It’s late to bloom this year, but I find some things are worth waiting for, aren’t they?”

  “I think you may be right about that.” Edwin said laughingly, as Clio hustled him onto the wooden bench seat.

  “That’s better,” she said.

  “Really! It’s nothing! Only a silly little thumb,” Edwin said as he shook his head. “You’ll be tucking blankets around me next! You should really save your worry for Thalia, though it appears she’s making an excellent recovery.”

  Clio nodded. “She does seem to be almost back to normal. Well, apart from that nasty bump.”

  “And her memory?”

  Clio frowned slightly now. “I’m afraid it still hasn’t quite returned. She can remember everything except what happened that day and where she was driving to. The last thing she recalls is going to bed the previous evening. I think she will remember, though. She just needs more time. And, of course, she is thinking of nothing else, which I’m sure doesn’t help one bit.”

  “No,” Edwin agreed.

  “Hestia’s gone to fetch her from the hospital now. They should be back within the hour.” Clio stared off into the distance at one of the garden’s many lush, green plane trees.

  “Are you worrying about Thalia now, or about meeting my mother next week?” Edwin asked, watching her closely.

  Clio chuckled slightly at this. “Most definitely about meeting your mother.”

  Edwin placed a hand over Clio’s. “You really shouldn’t worry. It’s as I told you, she was delighted when I informed her of the news.”

  “But…” Clio was desperately worried how Edwin’s family would feel about welcoming into their fold the illegitimate daughter of a duke, who had been raised the daughter of a vicar, in a tiny Oxfordshire village. She honestly hoped that somehow Edwin could find a way to explain her situation, as she felt rather faint at the prospect of having to do so.

  “Believe me, Clio. When I told her you wanted to move to Kenya, that was all she needed to know. You could have three heads and she would still accept you with open arms.”

  “Are you very sure you want to go?” Clio asked Edwin for the thousandth time.

  “Of course I’m sure! I’m also sure I have absolutely no idea what use I’ll be over there, but I’ll find something to do even if it’s not farming, which I’m sure I’ll be hopeless at.”

  “I was rather hoping you might paint,” Clio said to encourage him. “I’m told the scenery is beautiful. And so very different.”

  “I’m hoping everything will be very different over there.” Edwin squeezed Clio’s hand.

  “I am, too.” Clio smiled over at him. “Very much so.”

  * * *

  Later that day, after Thalia had returned to the town house, everyone retired for a well-deserved afternoon rest. Clio, however, found rest beyond her and quietly made her way downstairs, not wanting to disturb anybody. She started upon entering the drawing room. “Oh, I am sorry,” she said as she started to leave. She hadn’t expected anyone else to be downstairs, but Thalia was there, reclining on one of the long couches, her eyes closed, Haggis McTavish asleep on the floor beside her. He had barely left her side since she had returned home.

  “No, it’s all right.” Thalia sat up almost immediately. “I wasn’t asleep. Don’t go, I’ve been meaning to talk to you.”

  “To me?” Clio hesitated, turning back toward her sister slowly.

  “Yes, you.” Thalia threw her a look. “You needn’t sound so surprised.”

  Clio thought she had every reason to sound surprised, but didn’t dare say so. “All right, then.” She didn’t move from her spot halfway across the room.

  “Well, come over here.” Thalia already sounded exasperated and she hadn’t even said anything yet.

  Clio walked across the thick rug toward Thalia, stopping an arm’s-length or so away from her.

  “Sit down!” Thalia said, patting the seat beside her.

  Clio sat down, wary. “Have you remembered anything else yet?” she asked.

  Thalia shook her head. “No. As hard as I try, I can’t.”

  “Edwin was saying perhaps that’s the problem—that you’re trying too hard.”

  “He’s probably right,” Thalia told her. “Speaking of which, I hear you’re engaged to Edwin.”

  Clio nodded. “Yes.” Her eyes darted to look at Thalia. Would she consider this a good or bad thing, she wondered? Not to mention what Edwin’s sister, Venetia—who she had been studiously avoiding thinking about meeting again—thought.

  “And that you’re planning on moving to Kenya?”

  “Yes…”

  “I hope you don’t expect me to come and save you from the lions?” Thalia asked, quite seriously.

  It took Clio a moment or two to realize Thalia was joking. When she did, a lightness came over her chest. “Do you know something? You’re probably the only person I know who I believe might actually be able to save me from a lion!”

  “I’ll take that as a compliment.” Thalia nodded, with a slight smile.

  Silence descended over the pair.

  Finally, Clio could take it no longer. “Well, I suppose I’ll…” She started to rise.

  “No.” Thalia grabbed one of Clio’s retreating hands, forcing her to sit back down once more. “I do have something to say.” She released Clio’s hand and cleared her throat slightly. “I just don’t know how to begin to say it.”

  “Oh,” Clio replied. Surely Thalia couldn’t be about to apologize for any of her previous behavior toward her, for she was quite certain Thalia had never apologized for anything, or to anyone, in her entire life. To do so would have been against her very nature.

  “The accident…,” Thalia began. “It rather made me think.” She paused here.

  “About?” Clio nudged her along, realizing her discomfort.

  Thalia took a deep breath. “It made me think about many things. But, mainly, it made me think about the future. You see, the very first thing I remember on waking up, is thinking I was still in the motorcar. Over and over I kept repeating to myself, ‘This can’t be the end. I need to see what happens. To all three of us. It can’t be the end. It can’t.’”

  “Oh, Thalia.” Clio couldn’t help it; she reached out and took one of Thalia’s hands. And, amazingly, Thalia let her, as tears formed in her eyes.

  “I realized if I can’t love anything, or anyone, they’ll have won. I’ll be just like them. Just like them.” The tears spilled over now and Thalia wiped them away from her blue eyes messily with her other hand.

  “Like your family? Your other family?” Clio asked hesitantly.

  Thalia nodded. “They’d have won, then. If I was like them. Don’t you see? I can’t let them win. I can’t and I won’t.”

  Clio tightened her grasp on her sister’s hand. “I understand. It makes perfect sense.”

  “I was so frightened that it was the end. That I’d never see you, or Ro, or Hestia again, when we’d only just begun our journey together. And, in those waking moments, I knew I could have a better life. That I could be a better person. I mean, I know I’ll n
ever be like…” Her eyes moved to Clio’s own and Clio knew instinctively what she was about to say and stopped her.

  “Oh, no. Not this again. Why does everyone think I’m such a saint?” Clio shook her head vehemently.

  “Because you are,” Thalia said, with a miserable sigh. “It’s just to show me up, I’m sure of it.” She changed tack and laughed then.

  Clio laughed as well. “No, it’s really to annoy you, rather than to show you up. I’ve been practicing for years just for this moment, you know.” But then her expression grew serious and she clasped Thalia’s hand harder still. “Thalia, what you told me that day, at the nursing home … I’ll never forget it. I’ll never forget what they did to you. I wish I had known—that there was something that I could have done. I wish I could have shared that burden with you. I would have swapped with you, if I could.”

  Thalia stared at her intently as she spoke. “But don’t you see? I know you would have. The real problem is, I would have let you. That’s what frightens me—that I’m just like them. And the last thing I want in this world is to be anything like the Haigh Parkers.”

  “You’re not. You won’t be. I believe that with all my heart.”

  But Thalia only glanced away. “I know you do. I just wish I believed it myself.”

  * * *

  Ro knew she should leave well enough alone, but she simply could not help herself. She had been stewing about the situation with Vincent for days now, and it was feeling concerned for Thalia that tipped her over the edge. Her simmering anger, previously directed mostly at her sister, now turned with full force toward the true wrongdoer here—Vincent. Ro knew quite well that Thalia had demonstrated beyond a shadow of a doubt that Vincent was putting her to ill use, but it took the shock of Thalia’s accident for Ro to truly see where her loyalty lies.

  She took a guess as to when Vincent would most likely be in his rooms and made her way to his university for an unannounced visit, wondering ruefully if she would find him alone. She now realized she may very well find him entertaining company of the female persuasion and was, now she considered the situation further, surprised she hadn’t done so before.

  As she climbed the final set of stairs that would lead to his rooms, she had to pause for a moment; she was almost breathless due to the sickening mix of anxiety and elation at the confrontation she hoped was about to take place. She had no idea what she would say to him – just that she needed to see him this one, final, time. To look him straight in the eye and show him that he had not broken her.

  Outside his door, Ro paused before knocking, her two paths suddenly clear to her—the path she would have taken if Vincent had truly wanted her and her path now. Her future path. This was what she wanted to speak to him about—these two paths. Ro knocked then, loudly. Feeling bold, she didn’t wait for an answer, but took it upon herself to open the door straight away. What did she care now? If he were with some other girl, so be it.

  “Ro!” Vincent looked up from the mess of his desk, surprised. Amazingly, Ro noted, he was, in fact, alone. Unless he had managed to secrete one or two females inside the small cupboard and drawers that were contained within his desk. She would not have put it past him, considering he had hidden her away when Genevieve had stopped by uninvited.

  “Hello, Vincent.”

  “But … I thought…” He stood up, confused. “What are you doing here?”

  “Oh, I was in the area,” Ro replied breezily, not waiting for an invitation, but stepping inside and closing the door. She was quite aware that she looked lovely—a sweep of Thalia’s red lipstick, combined with a fabulous cream cotton-batiste embroidered peasant dress and matching hat that made the most of the summer’s day, saw her at her very best. “And I just wanted to let you know that there are no hard feelings. Which is really for the best. I mean, what if we have to work together in the future in some way?”

  “Work together?” Vincent frowned. “Whatever do you mean?”

  Ro took a deep breath. “Oh! Haven’t you heard? I’ve been accepted to study medicine. At Oxford!” It was a lie that had come to her as she knocked upon the door. But, Ro hoped, a believable one. And now that she had made the daring statement, Ro felt slightly giddy with the realization that she would make this lie come true. Not to show Vincent that she was capable and clever and ambitious enough, but to show herself so. She would try for a scholarship, ask Hestia for the money, or even stoop so low as to beg her Aunt Alice.

  Vincent gave her an odd look. “Really? Is that what you want?”

  “Yes,” Ro said as she nodded decidedly. “It is. And I have you to thank for it.”

  “Me?” Vincent now looked more confused than ever.

  Ro smiled her best, widest smile. “Yes. It was you who made me realize what I really wanted—my own study, my own research. Not to be standing in the background, applauding someone else’s.” She didn’t tell him that it was only seconds ago she had come to this conclusion.

  “Ro…” Vincent sighed, cocking his head to one side. It was not until now that Ro realized how annoyingly condescending he could be.

  “No.” Ro held up one hand, taking a deep breath. “It’s all right. I wouldn’t have been happy like that. With you, I mean. I would have been forever in the shadows, wouldn’t I? It would have been all about you. Not that you ever really wanted me. You were only interested in the promise of me. Of what I might have. And in my aunt’s connections.”

  “Ro, that’s not true.”

  “Yes, it is. Quite true. I see that now. I should have seen it before, but it took Thalia to make me wake up and see the whole situation for what it was. Not just with you, but with my upbringing as well. I mean, I do love my Uncle Henry, but I was wrong in thinking it was good and proper that he has always been oblivious to everything but his work. I see now that this only worked when my Aunt Charlotte was there to pick up after the pieces of the rest of his life, including me. I don’t want to be a part of something like that. I won’t make that same mistake. I won’t be like either my Aunt Charlotte, or my Uncle Henry.”

  “Ro…” Vincent was seemingly lost for words.

  “I just wanted to let you know that. And to tell you good-bye, properly. Thank you for your valuable lessons. I do mean that. I learned a lot in”—she blushed with this—“many ways. Still, I’m quite sure you’ll scheme your way into some titled family or another. Perhaps you’ll find a girl whose aunt is equally permissive, but not quite so knowledgeable about modern forms of birth control. Voilà! Fait accompli!”

  And then, before he could utter one more word, Ro turned and left Vincent’s presence behind her, with a wide smile upon her face.

  * * *

  The following afternoon, Clio bit the inside of her cheek nervously—a nasty habit left over from childhood. When she realized what she was doing (biting her cheek) and where she was doing it (at Claridge’s), she stopped immediately and began to jiggle one knee beneath the white linen tablecloth instead.

  She was still trying to regain her composure after walking through the hotel’s front entrance. The sparkling chandeliers and ivory columns had taken her breath away. It was as if she had been transported directly into one of the famous frothy, numerously tiered ivory wedding cakes Thalia had been showing her in an American magazine at breakfast that morning. Some of those wedding cakes had been very odd indeed, one even having an oversized baseball on top. It had all been very confusing. Why would anyone want a baseball on top of their wedding cake? (Thalia had suggested a lion for her cake!) And then there was the picture Thalia had shown her of Princess Mary’s wedding cake from 1922. “Look! Miniature electric light bulbs! Fifty of them!” Thalia had pressed the magazine into her hands. In Thalia’s fragile state (which really did not seem so fragile at all) Clio had not had the heart to tell her sister she doubted that her wedding cake would equal Princess Mary’s, or that there would be even one electric light bulb upon it, let alone fifty.

  “Clio?” Hestia reached over and touched her
niece’s hand.

  Clio started and glanced at the two people sitting with her at the beautifully laid table with its fine bone china. “Oh, I’m sorry. Did you say something?”

  Felix gave Hestia a wry smile. “Ah, young love. I do remember being in a complete daze like that. Rather wonderful, really.”

  “I was actually thinking about Princess Mary’s famous wedding cake.” Clio was embarrassed to think they assumed she was daydreaming about Edwin, then she realized what she had said. “Not that I think mine will be anything like hers, of course, it was just that Thalia did go on about it this morning.”

  Hestia laughed. “Yes, she did. She is quite … keen to help you with the preparations, isn’t she?”

  “Just a little,” Clio said as she smiled slightly, before the thoughts she had been holding back for days rushed forth in an anxious avalanche. “I’m young, I know. And Kenya is so very far away, I know that, too. And I don’t want you to be disappointed in me, Hestia, or you to be sad that I’m leaving so soon, Felix, but I must. I know we are rushing, but I need to make my own life. And then there is my mother’s health to think of and…”

  “Clio, Clio…,” Felix spoke up now. “No one is disappointed in you. Of course I am sad to see you go so quickly, but we have all the time in the world to get to know each other.”

  Hestia only seemed confused. “Why would you think I was disappointed in you? Edwin seems to be a lovely young man and he comes from a very good family. Yes, he has acted a little foolishly in the past, but I think we can both recall times we acted a little foolishly in our youth.” She shared a knowing look with Felix.

  “But … I thought…,” Clio started.

  “Yes?” Hestia encouraged her onward. “What did you think?”

  “Well, I thought you would be quite against marriage. I thought that’s why we were here.” Now it was Clio who was confused.

  “Against marriage? Of course not! It might not suit me, but it suits other women very well. Do you know”—Hestia glanced at Felix conspiratorially—“Felix and I were speaking on the telephone just last night and we both agreed that, of you three girls, you are most like your mother in that very way?”