Chapter Sixteen

Sixteen

The following morning, Stella entered Daniel’s book room, hands clasped in front of her in what she hoped was a suitably penitent posture. Her brother awaited her within, seated behind his heavy, carved oak desk.

He had ordered her to meet him here at half past nine to discuss her future. There had been no discussing anything last night. On returning to the dining room, Daniel had been too angry to even look at Stella. Instead, he’d sent her to her room while he remained to deal with the chaos Stella had wrought among the Trents. Amanda had required sal volatile to revive her, and Mrs. Trent had been up in arms.

“My daughter’s tender sensibilities have been thoroughly outraged, sir!” she’d declared. “I little thought such vulgarity would be present in a clergyman’s home!”

Stella had been relieved to make her escape. But the humiliation had still stung her to her soul. She couldn’t recall when she’d last been ordered to bed like a disobedient child. Nor when she’d last been summoned to stand in front of Daniel’s desk like a prisoner awaiting sentence.

“Well, brother?” she prompted after a prolonged period of taut silence. “You wished to speak with me?”

Daniel’s anger didn’t appear to have lessened overnight. He regarded her from behind his desk with barely controlled fury. There were shadows under his eyes from lack of sleep. “Your behavior last night was inexcusable,” he said. “To speak as you did, addressing a gentleman of Squire Smalljoy’s station in such an indecent manner. And in front of my betrothed! Had you taken leave of your senses?”

Stella remained standing in front of him. He hadn’t offered for her to sit. She didn’t particularly want to. With luck, their interview would be brief. She didn’t think she could bear a lengthy scolding. “It was badly done of me,” she acknowledged. “But you must own that I had ample provocation.”

“What right had you to consider yourself provoked? Squire Smalljoy is a pillar of the community. He might have made you a capable husband. But no longer. After how you comported yourself last evening, the man wouldn’t touch you with a barge pole.”

“A state of affairs which suits me very well.”

“You’re two-and-twenty, Stella. Soon to be three-and-twenty. Have you no appreciation for the perilousness of your situation?”

“My situation is more than tolerable,” she said. “I’m in good health. I’m possessed of wonderful friends, and an excellent mare. And I—”

“None of which fulfills your duty on this earth. A woman’s purpose is to marry and produce children. It’s all that matters in God’s eyes.”

Stella had heard this assertion before, too many times to count. It never failed to grate. “On that fact, brother, we must agree to differ.”

“What then, pray? Do you propose to remain a burden on me for the rest of your life? To continue to live here at the vicarage, inspiring the village gossips with your rebellious ways, and stirring talk with the way you look?”

She flinched inwardly. “I can’t help the way I look.”

“You could be small and quiet as the squire said. You could be an asset to me instead of a liability. Had you given the sum Father left you to the church instead of parading yourself in London—”

“Not this old argument again.”

“It would have been a start,” he said. “Had you remained in Fostonbury, nursing the sick and tending to the poor, you’d have done more to merit my regard than—”

“I already nurse the sick and tend to the poor. The only difference is that I have a bit of money of my own. If I’d given it to you for your charitable causes, then I truly would have been a burden. You’d have resented me for having no means to support myself as surely as you resent me now.”

He uttered a scornful huff. “What do you expect to happen when I marry Miss Trent? That you’ll carry on in this parasitic existence? Doing as you please whenever you please, without any consequences?”

Parasitic?

Stella’s chest constricted as though recoiling from the sharp point of a knife. “I’ve always done more than my share. Always. I ask hardly anything for myself, except to ride Locket and to occasionally visit my friends.”

Her brother was too angry to listen, let alone acknowledge the truth of her words. “You won’t be visiting your friends anytime soon. Not under my chaperonage. I’ve discharged my duty to our father, escorting you to town so you might find a husband. But no more. This is my time now. If you insist on remaining here to live on my charity, by God, you will learn to behave yourself! Do you hear me?”

Stella was certain the whole house had heard him. She held herself rigid with the remaining threads of her dignity. “Is that all, Daniel?”

“That is not all.” He made a visible effort to regain his composure. “You will apologize to Miss Trent and her mother.”

“Very well.” Stella had planned to do that anyway. She might have already done so if either Amanda or her mother had deigned to appear at breakfast. Instead, they’d remained in their room—Stella’s room—as though Stella’s conduct had caused them a physical injury from which they still must recover.

“And you will write a note of apology to Squire Smalljoy,” Daniel said.

Stella stiffened at the prospect. “I will not.”

“It is not negotiable!” His fist came down with a crash onto the surface of his desk, making the scattered papers jump. “I want the note written and delivered before nightfall. You can send it to Castaway Green with your groom. It’s too late for the morning post. The wretched postboy came early today.”

Stella’s stomach sank. She’d thought, at the very least, she had dispensed with the threat of Squire Smalljoy. That threat would only be revived if she was obliged to write to him. He would doubtless take any apology as encouragement. And then where would she be?

But her brother could not be reasoned with.

“It will be as you wish.” Stella turned to leave.

“Take your post with you,” Daniel said.

She immediately went back for it. It wasn’t unusual for her to receive bundles of letters, newspapers, and ladies’ journals. There was little else to break the monotony in Fostonbury.

But there was only one letter today.

Her brother handed it to her—a thick envelope that had been sealed with a pale blue wafer. “Who is Mrs. Archer?” he asked.

Mrs. Archer!

Stella’s guttering sense of hope sprang into a brilliant flame. Taking the letter, she pored over the return address in a rush of excitement. It was sent from Devon—a house called Greyfriar’s Abbey in a place called King’s Abbot.

“She’s a lady I met in Hampshire,” she said distractedly. “The wife of a well-to-do tradesman the earl invited to view his roses.”

Daniel grunted. “Singular.”

“Not at all. There were many tradesmen in attendance. The earl has a wide and varied acquaintance.” Stella caught up the skirts of her morning dress, moving to the door. “If you’ll excuse me?”

Exiting the book room, she crossed the empty hall and bounded up the steps to the box room. There, the door shut firmly behind her, she sank down on the edge of the sagging mattress and broke the seal of Mrs. Archer’s letter. It was a lengthy one, if the thickness of the envelope was to judge.

But on unfolding the letter, it was revealed to consist of only a single outer page, with another, longer letter folded small inside of it.

Stella’s pulse quickened as she read the outer letter. It was merely a polite missive—cordial and frank in its offer of friendship, but quite clearly a tissue-thin formality to shield the possibility of scandal from the smaller letter within.

It was that letter Stella hastened to unfold, knowing full well who it was from.

My dear Miss Hobhouse (it began) ,

Forgive my sister’s complicity. I assured her that you would welcome a letter from me. I trust I’m right, and that I’ve not presumed too much upon our short acquaintance in Hampshire.

How are you faring in Fostonbury? How is that famous mare of yours? Have you been riding this past week—or should I say galloping?

I am presently in Devon, at Greyfriar’s Abbey, not lacking for company. The Abbey’s owner, Captain Thornhill, and his wife, Lady Helena, are in residence, along with their little daughter, Honoria. So, too, is Tom Finchley, a capital attorney, and his wife, Jenny; and Neville Cross, a farmer; his wife, Clara; and their newborn baby, George. These men are something like brothers to my brother-in-law, all of them raised in an orphanage together many years ago. It’s a bleak history that has made for a strong bond between them, and puts me in the position of having a rather larger family about me than I can creditably tolerate.

I spend most of my time in the drawing room. It has an enormous window that looks out toward the sea. Seascapes are, as ever, my occupation in Devon. I can’t get enough of painting them. Jennings has been obliged to procure additional canvases for me from the village, when the cliff road isn’t washed out from the storms. And it does wash out with alarming regularity, leaving the abbey all but isolated.

The sea is a beguiling subject. Of course, if I had my way, I’d be painting quite another prospect, the inspiration of which still haunts me day and night.

Has my humble sketch at all managed to change your mind? I endeavor to hope that, on reflection, you may see some merit in my committing your likeness to canvas. I do believe it would be the making of me. And who knows but that it might not have a favorable effect on your life as well? There are worse ways to end one’s days than to be made immortal.

Write back to me if you’re so inclined. I seem to recall that you said you would. But perhaps I only dreamt it. There were stars at the time, and a brief moment in a sleigh that rather muddled my senses.

Your friend,

Teddy Hayes