Chapter 24

If that which is commonly spoken be true, that to have companions in misery is a lightner of it, you may comfort me.

—Thomas Shelton, Translation of Don Quixote (1612)

"So that is that," said Beatrice to Mrs. Wolfe, when they climbed back into their waiting coach. "I wonder if I will ever see him again, apart from the morning of his wedding."

Her stepmother regarded her sorrowfully. It would do no good to say she had liked the man very well, so she took her daughter's hand, lacing their fingers together. Nor could she promise that Beatrice would one day love again—Beatrice with her steadfast heart and her aversion to change.

Mr. Wolfe, aware of her feelings, refrained from praising Clayton as well, but the same could not be said for her younger brothers. William and Edmund (well, mostly William) had much to say, their admiration plain. "Mama—must I go up to Oxford after Winchester?" Willsie complained. "I would rather be a canal engineer! You heard Mr. Clayton: as the speed and cost of transportation shrink, so will our world. What a shame it would be, to moulder in New College and miss such goings-on! The first thing Mundo and Peter and I will do when we return to Hampshire is to dig a canal between Beaumond and Hollowgate."

Edmund nodded his approbation, but Mr. Wolfe said, "If you boys can manage such a feat before your spring term begins, Clayton will hire you himself."

Even her return to Green Street did not spare her, for Lady Hufton quickly took her aside to say, "My dear girl, we have this very morning received an invitation from Miss Brand, inviting us to attend her wedding to Mr. Clayton, followed by breakfast at the Grillion. I do not see how you can avoid it, unless we were to claim you were ill, but if we do, that excuse must wait for the eleventh hour or you would have had time to recover."

"Lady Hufton, do not fret yourself," Beatrice answered calmly. "I will be perfectly able to attend."

In the days which followed, Beatrice divided her time between two circles. With her younger brothers she visited the Tower and Bullock's museum; with both the Huftons and the Wolfes there was Shakespeare at Drury Lane and a night at the opera; and with the Huftons alone she attended a musical evening on one occasion and a supper on another. But in none of these places did she glimpse Mr. Clayton again. Only at the supper did she once catch his name. Two gentlemen unknown to her discussed the stalled Regent's Canal, the first saying to the other, "Good thing Clayton can be trusted not to abscond with the funds. Wouldn't surprise me if he gets his branch dug before Morgan's Irish pick up their spades again." A thorough analysis of the Regent's Canal embezzlement followed, but while Beatrice listened with all her ears (to the point that the gentleman on her own right had to repeat himself several times), this was the only hint of him in her world.

The night of the supper she lay in her bed, hair braided neatly and a brick wrapped in flannel at her feet. Sleep eluded her, however, and she had spent an hour or two watching the flickering shadows on the ceiling and thinking of Mr. Clayton, when a muffled thump and squeak made her rise up on one elbow, listening.

A scratching. Another thump. A muttered complaint.

Throwing off the coverlet and snatching up her dressing gown, Beatrice stole into the passage. She hadn't far to go however, for Marjorie's room adjoined hers. Without knocking, she burst in to discover her cousin wrestling the casement open.

"Marjorie! What are you doing?"

Her cousin shrieked in surprise, turning her back on the window as if she might prevent Beatrice seeing it.

"Why are you dressed?" Beatrice demanded. "Are you sneaking away? Eloping?" Pushing past her, she rubbed the glass and peered down into the little garden.

"There's nobody there," snapped Marjorie, tugging on her dressing gown to pull her back. "Go back to bed. Why don't you mind your own business?"

"But Marjorie—" said Beatrice helplessly, "how can I? Could you, in my place?"

Her stepcousin scowled at her in the moonlight, her dark eyes bottomless pits and her pointy nose wrinkling. But as Beatrice watched, those distinctive features began to change. The eyes blinked. Once, twice, and then rapidly. The nose wrinkled further. And then Marjorie clapped both hands to her mouth to stop a wail and fell against Beatrice, much as she had at the rout weeks earlier.

"My parents are so cruel!" she burst out. "So heartless! I wasn't eloping—Doddy doesn't know about it—but I was going to run away to him and beg him to marry me!"

"Marjorie!" gasped Beatrice, almost awestruck by the magnitude of her cousin's recklessness. It quite eclipsed her own ill-starred tendre for Mr. Clayton, much less the writing of an unauthorized letter to Mr. Rotherwood.

"Why shouldn't I?" Marjorie sobbed into Beatrice's neck. "He wants to marry me, and I him, and only my parents' stubbornness prevents us!"

"Oh, Marjorie, you didn't say anything to me of it." While it did not surprise Beatrice that Marjorie had not confided in her, she was glad this now made it possible for her to pose questions, even ones she knew the answer to. "Why do they object to the match?"

Digging a handkerchief from the pocket of her cloak, Marjorie blew her nose at length. "They said—they said his expectations were not what they would have been, had he been less fond of the races and the clubs. But—oh, Beatrice—what can they expect? A gentleman must live like a gentleman, and gamblers will have their lucky runs as well as their unlucky. My fortune would see Doddy over the unlucky patches, but Papa and Mama are so unbending!" More tears flowed, and she resorted to the handkerchief again. "Twice I have loved and been loved in return, and twice I have been denied! I can't account for it! You would think I was the one who pined for an engaged man or who wrote clandestine letters to someone who didn't want me—you needn't look at me like that, Beatrice Ellsworth, when you know it's true."

"But it isn't altogether true," insisted Beatrice, afraid she and Marjorie were going to have another towering quarrel. "It's true I shouldn't pine for Mr. Clayton, and I am determined to overcome it, but as for Mr. Rotherwood, as I have said more than once, it was only the one letter, and I wasn't asking him to love me but to invest in Mr. Clayton's canal!"

Waving these over-nice distinctions away, Marjorie threw herself across her bed and buried her face in the pillow.

Beatrice gave a silent chuckle. Well, indeed. Suppose the situation had been reversed: suppose Mr. Clayton were free and her parents had forbidden her to marry him—would she then have any patience for Marjorie's explanations and justifications about Mr. Dodson?

Sitting beside her prostrate cousin, she gave her a tentative pat. "I'm sorry," she murmured. "How hard things are."

It was the right note to strike. Abruptly Marjorie rolled over and seized the folds of Beatrice's dressing gown. "You needn't stand guard over me now," she sniffled. "I couldn't let Doddy see me like this. I suspect my eyes and nose are red."

"Honestly, Marjorie, what would you have done? Gone and knocked on the door of the Dodsons' townhouse?"

"I don't know. Most likely my courage would have failed, and I would have skulked home without seeing him."

"Or been taken up by the night watchman!"

This elicited a groaning sigh. "I had to do something, Beatrice. Something rebellious. Something in protest. If only for my own sake. Because you saw how I gave up Sam. If I am to give up Doddy as well, I wanted to mark my displeasure."

Beatrice thought Marjorie had proven her ability to mark her displeasure in other ways, but she wisely kept this opinion to herself.

"I will never marry now," Marjorie vowed, picking at the embroidery on the coverlet. "If I can't have Doddy, I won't have anyone. It will be my revenge on Mama and Papa."

"But don't you think that would be cutting off your nose to be revenged of your face?" Beatrice asked. "Suppose someone else came along whom you liked?"

"Is this what you say to yourself?" accused Marjorie. "That you'll like someone else soon enough?"

"No," she admitted.

"I didn't think so," said Marjorie. Pushing herself up, she tossed aside her sodden handkerchief and began to unbutton her cloak, and Beatrice was surprised to see her tears now dried and her face calm. But she was even more surprised when Marjorie leaned to kiss her cheek.

"You have comforted me, cousin," she said. "Or your own unhappiness has. Shall we make a pact that we will not try to talk each other out of our broken hearts? Let the rest of the world marry as they will—you and I will allow each other to be as miserable as we please."

As it happened, the first person of the rest of the world who chose to marry was none other than Mr. St. John Rotherwood.

"Rotherwood engaged?"

The news swept Mayfair with the force of a hurricane and an equal lack of preciseness. First it was said his mother Mrs. Rotherwood had eloped with a servant. Then it was amended to Rotherwood himself absconding with the lowest scullery maid, which report soon yielded to one of Rotherwood and Lady Sylvia Stanley, not eloping at all but setting a date at St. George's, Hanover Square. Rotherwood and Lady Sylvia—what was the least bit interesting about something which had been predicted from the first? Society sighed to be robbed of its scandal, but no sooner was the innocuous match bruited than Lady Stanley rose to rebut it, with admirable vigor and venom.

"I consider Sylvia well out of danger," the countess proclaimed to any who would hear her. "Imagine Rotherwood allying himself not only with a nobody, but a scandalous nobody! His mother is beside herself."

Even when they heard the name of the scandalous nobody who won the catch of the season, Beatrice and the Huftons did not know if they could have picked her out of a crowd, though in a crowd was exactly where they would have met her, for the scandalous nobody Miss Harriet Hapgood had reportedly attended both Lady Aurora Robillard's rout and the Finlays' ball.

"She has reddish hair!" proclaimed Marjorie, as if this were a fault which should have disqualified her at once. "Reddish hair like Miss Brand. But when I rack my brain to think who this Miss Hapgood might be, I can only picture Miss Brand."

The girls were sitting and sewing together. Indeed, ever since Marjorie had made her "pact" with Beatrice, she stuck to the latter like a burr to wool, as if determined to make up for lost time. And while Beatrice preferred this unrelenting fellowship to the hostility it replaced, her puzzled brothers grew impatient with it.

"What's that to do with anything?" demanded William. "Reddish hair?"

Marjorie tittered. "Young man, you will understand if you ever aspire to fashion. Reddish hair is decidedly not fashionable."

Beatrice could not stifle a laugh at William and Edmund's appalled expressions. It was a trying afternoon for them, Mr. Wolfe having some business in the City to transact, leaving them in Green Street with the Huftons.

"Not only does she have unfashionable coloring," Marjorie continued, "but my maid Crook tells me that there has been all manner of gossip about her recently. Something about a scurrilous print and a masked ball in the Argyll Rooms! Why do you suppose he would choose such a person? He, who might have had an earl's daughter! Why, Beatrice, your escapades are nothing compared to this Miss Hapgood's."

"Thank you," said Beatrice dryly.

Marjorie scooted closer to snake an arm about her waist. "Not that I wish he had chosen you, even for his own sake. Because if he had, who would I have had to sympathize with?"

This was too much for the boys.

"Shall we go out, Bea?" demanded William. "For a walk or back to the British Museum?"

"Tattersall's," Edmund suggested.

"But it's so dreadful out," protested Marjorie. "I'm sure Beatrice would rather stay home with me."

"No, no," Beatrice demurred quickly, "my family won't be here much longer. I would far rather the boys see what they would like. I'll get my cloak and the umbrellas."

With a huff and reproachful look, Marjorie reluctantly put aside her needlework. "All right, then, if you insist—"

Beatrice was shaking her head. "Of course I don't mean you need to come out, Marjorie! As you said, it's not very pleasant, and Willsie and Edmund are my responsibility, after all."

"But I have to come!" she insisted, though behind her William made a pleading face and Edmund drew a finger across his neck. "Suppose I should have a fit of melancholy by myself, without you near to condole with me?"

However trying Beatrice might have found her career as Marjorie Hufton's sole Source of Consolation, it was mercifully short-lived. For upon their return from the British Museum at Montagu House, Lady Hufton hastened to meet them in the entry.

"The Dodsons are here," she hissed, scrambling Marjorie out of her cloak. "Both Mr. Dodson and his mother in the drawing room with your father. William, Edmund—you two go to the kitchen for a cup of tea. Now quickly, girls!"

Marjorie dug her fingers into Beatrice's arm. "What can be happening? Help me, Beatrice—I will faint. I know I will."

"Nonsense. If you were going to faint, you wouldn't be on the point of snapping my arm in two. Courage, dear Marjorie."

They entered the drawing room decorously to find Sir John and Mr. Dodson flanking the mantel, the baronet's hand on the young man's shoulder, while Mrs. Dodson beamed, rising from her armchair.

"You will wonder what brings us here," began Mr. Dodson, when bows had been exchanged and the ladies had each found seats, Marjorie collapsing onto the sofa beside Beatrice like the morning's load of coal dumped in the basement bin. In answer to this address Marjorie could only move her lips and issue a squeak, but her eyes never left his face.

"Ah, I see you are speechless, Miss Hufton, and I have not even shared my news," he chuckled. "My very, very good news."

Helplessly, she shook her head, her mouth still working silently, and Beatrice was put in mind of the fish which the Lord instructed Peter to catch, to pay the temple tax. Their vicar Mr. Spence said the shekel in the fish's mouth was perhaps the size of a crown—too large for Marjorie—but she might have fit a farthing.

"I have been the recipient of a stroke of good fortune, Miss Hufton," he announced. "That is, I am fortunate in that your father tells me it will be enough to marry on. And while I was not close with my great uncle—"

Marjorie gasped and swayed, guessing at once that a sentence which begins with a great uncle must end, as the night follows the day, in an inheritance. And so it was, though her fainting fit delayed the full story for some minutes. But at last all was revealed: the great uncle had parted in anger from his son, Dodson's uncle, a mere fortnight before dying of apoplexy, and while he could not alienate the son from inheriting the property, he worked like a fiend to distribute elsewhere as many assets as he could. And Dodson, being his oldest nephew, came in for a great deal.

"Therefore, charming Miss Hufton, if you will still have me, in a matter of months I may boast of being a man of considerable means."

"Oh, Doddy!" Marjorie cried, trying not to burst into tears, lest her appearance suffer. "I am so happy!" But the urge to weep proved unstoppable after her mother embraced her, eyes welling, and Mrs. Dodson joined in. Embarrassed to be the only female with dry eyes, Beatrice screwed up her features and dabbed at them with her handkerchief, while the satisfied husband-to-be accepted the outpouring of feminine emotion as his due.

The rest of the evening continued in the same vein, as the Dodsons stayed for supper, and Beatrice soon wished she could have escaped back to Mivart's hotel with her brothers. As it was, she too must smile vacantly at the lovers, who mostly murmured to each other, unless Mrs. Dodson called down the table to tell Marjorie of a brooch she must wear on her wedding day, or to ask that Miss Kempshott might attend her on that all-important occasion.

It appeared Mr. Dodson had instantly and thoroughly superseded Beatrice as Marjorie's Source of Consolation, but would he be a good one? When his suit had been denied by the Huftons, Beatrice had of course refrained from reminding the mourning Marjorie of his flaws—what would be the use? But now that Marjorie would soon be joined to him for life, ought she to point them out?

Fate decided for Beatrice, she concluded afterward. For that night, just as she was about to snuff her candle, Marjorie stole into her room.

"Thank heavens, you're still awake. I must tell somebody, or I will surely explode. Make room for me, Beatrice." Climbing atop her bed, she snatched up one of the pillows to hug to herself, while Beatrice braced herself for another hour enduring the praises of Mr. Dodson.

"You mustn't tell Mama this," whispered Marjorie, "but Mr. Dodson's inheritance was not the only windfall."

"No? Has he turned highwayman as well?"

Her cousin giggled and crept closer. "Wouldn't that be dashing? But, no. I told you his luck would turn, and it did."

Beatrice pulled a face. "He had a good run at the clubs, you mean? Oh, Marjorie, you mustn't depend on such things. He mustn't depend on such things. I hope he will not risk his inheritance—or your fortune—thus."

That did it. Marjorie's brows flew together, and she gave Beatrice's leg a push through all the quilts and coverings. "What a spoil-sport you are! You just don't want to hear me say I was right. Because I was. He did win at the clubs, but it wasn't all luck. It was his own powers of observation, as well."

"What are you talking about? Do you mean he cheated?"

This earned Beatrice a blow with the pillow Marjorie held. "Certainly not! I only mean Doddy is more clever than the other bettors, for they all wagered Mr. Rotherwood would choose Lady Sylvia, and Doddy was the only one who took all his money off of her (and eventually off of you and Miss Kempshott, I'm sorry to say, if it hurts your feelings), and entered a new wager in the books: ‘Rotherwood will marry none of the above-named.' Well! Everyone thought he was mad to rule out the three top candidates, so they all bet against him, and now he has won! Doddy says there was such an uproar about it—he thought Lord Brinmore would call him out because the marquess had wagered five hundred guineas! And then Doddy thought he would have to call out a few of them because they were saying he must be in league with Rotherwood to rob them all—why, Beatrice, whatever is the matter?"

For Beatrice had groaned and covered her face with her remaining pillow.

Marjorie tugged it away. "—But Doddy reminded them that Rotherwood need not resort to such measures when he was already rich as Croesus, and that turned the tide, and now Doddy is owed four thousand pounds! And being debts of honor they must be paid over as soon as the wedding has taken place."

Debts of honor, fiddlestick! thought Beatrice. What had honor to do with such things?

"What is it?" Marjorie asked again, thunderclouds gathering in her eyes. She sat up on her knees as if to prepare for battle.

Knowing her cousin's temper, Beatrice herself struggled up to lean against the headboard. She could hardly risk telling the truth while lying down. Why was it easier to say whatever she pleased to her sisters and brother, when they were just as likely to retaliate? For one thing, not one of them is as impossible as Marjorie. And for another, not one of them would have to be told why I don't like my name to be entered in betting books!

"I have already told you what troubles me," she said cautiously. "That I think it…ungentlemanlike to gamble upon young ladies as if they were horses or dogs, and—and—and nor do I think it gallant for Mr. Dodson to discuss me, or indeed Lady Sylvia or Miss Kempshott (his own cousin!), in such a light manner."

Steeling herself for the wallop of the pillow which must follow, Beatrice was alarmed to see Marjorie's rage surpassed such easy release. The girl was visibly vibrating, even to the ends of her hair and fingertips, and she suddenly thrust herself off the bed, nearly falling to the carpet in her haste.

"You're just jealous!" she shrilled. "Jealous of me because I got what I want and you never will!"

Scrambling from beneath the bedclothes, Beatrice hissed, "Hush! Do you want your parents to hear you?"

"Jealous!" accused Marjorie, stamping her foot. "Jealous jealous jealous! Because I am happy, and you wanted me to stay miserable with you!"

"Why you wretch!" Beatrice cried, goaded. "I wasn't delighted when I thought you got your heart broken!"

But her cousin was now stamping in a circle, as if she would wake not only her parents and the household, but all of Green Street. "Jealous jealous jealous!"

Beatrice had enough.

With a bellow which might even have caused her younger brothers to quail, she flew at her, whether to clap a hand to her mouth or to wrestle her into submission they would never be certain, for Marjorie took to her heels. A chase ensued, around the bedroom, over the bed, through the window curtains. The shriek Marjorie sustained throughout would have done credit to a screech-owl, only breaking off when Beatrice caught hold of her nightgown, and Marjorie had to gasp for breath to tear herself free before taking flight again. The pretty oval-backed Hepplewhite chair was knocked over and water from the basin slopped, which, on their next circuit Marjorie slipped in, skating across the polished floorboards to collide with the Chippendale writing table. Ink bottles, pens, pen knife, books, candlesticks—all tumbled down, raising a racket worthy of the end of the world.

And then the door opened.

Lady Hufton stood, eyes agog and candle upraised, Sir John behind her. "Girls! What on earth?"

Before Beatrice could formulate a possible response, much less catch her breath to deliver it, Marjorie sprang to block her view, her narrowed eyes expressing once more what the maid Crook had so eloquently called "war to the knife."

"It's nothing, Mama, Papa," Marjorie threw over her shoulder at her parents. "I was only hurt because Beatrice said she wanted to return to Winchester with her family, even if it meant missing my wedding."

"Heavens! Was such…violence necessary?" asked Lady Hufton. "Is—this so, Beatrice?"

For a moment as she panted she thought of gainsaying it. But what difference would it make? The Huftons already knew Mr. Dodson gambled to excess at times—it had been the cause of their original refusal. If they now hoped his current circumstances would last, or that the steadiness brought by marriage would prevail, there was nothing more to be said. And to add her own complaints about his lack of gallantry…Marjorie was right. Likely they would deem her opinion sour grapes and not look very kindly on her for trying to mar her cousin's joy.

She met Marjorie's unwavering glower with resignation. Well—she had spoken her mind to her cousin, at least, and one thing was certain: if Marjorie ever did decide she wanted her Mr. Dodson to give up betting and gambling, Beatrice almost thought she could carry her point.

Therefore, smoothing her rumpled nightgown, she took a slow breath and replied calmly, "Yes, Lady Hufton. I—I'm sorry to disappoint Marjorie, but seeing my family has reminded me how much I miss Winchester. While I am so grateful for these weeks with you all and for your generosity in hosting me, and while I am sorry to miss Marjorie's wedding, I think when my family goes next week, it will be a good time for me to accompany them. I think I had better go home."