Chapter 21

Recovery was slow, but steady. Not just my physical improvement, but emotional as well. I still missed Father terribly, but it had been reduced from an overwhelming, all-encompassing pain to a dull throb. I began going on short walks around the property surrounding our manor. I still didn’t venture out into public; I wasn’t prepared for that yet. But I would seek the tranquility of the outdoors again, reveling in wind blowing on my face, the soft carpet of pine needles beneath my feet, the chatter of birds and squirrels. It felt healing. Peaceful. Exactly what I needed.

Instead of staying closeted in my room, I began staying in the sitting room after dinner, talking to Mother and Comfort beside a crackling fire. Comfort would tell us about the freshest batch of gossip from town. She would occasionally even bring me new books in various languages as a gift, something to help me pass the time. I rejoiced each time I received one.

Mother would sit in her rocker, calmly knitting lace doylies and listening to us. Every once in a while, Comfort would press her for details about the increasing amounts of time she was spending with Algernon. Mother would blush that delicate shade of pink and tell us about how Algernon had taken her for a carriage ride to see the mountainside, or to visit a waterfall.

Then one evening, she made an announcement. “Algernon asked me to marry him.” She always was so soft-spoken and mild-mannered that this declaration didn’t seem to register at first.

Comfort squealed and jumped up. “Oh, Mother! I knew it, I just knew it!” She hugged Mother.

I sat stunned. How was it that I was so grossly out of the loop that I hadn’t foreseen this? I had only supposed that he and Mother would be friends. Good friends, but just friends.

“What did you say?” I asked, still dumbfounded.

“I said that I would talk with you girls first.” Mother smiled at us. “We are a family…a package deal.”

“Say yes, Mother! Say yes!” Comfort was beside herself with glee. “Oh, this will be so much fun. We can plan a huge wedding. Truly, Cynthia, and I will be your bridesmaids, and we can have it right here in the garden. Truly! We get another sister!”

Comfort kept talking, discussing plans for who to invite, which house we would live at, how much fun it would be to have more people join our family, if we should release birds at the ceremony, and about a thousand more things, but none of it registered with me.

Mother was going to marry someone I hadn’t even met. Was I the only one still thinking about Father? Who missed him at all? Did my opinion count for nothing? If we were a package deal as Mother claimed, why hadn’t a word of this been breathed to me before now?

‘You are the one shutting yourself away from the world,’a voice at the back of my mind said. ‘You can’t blame anyone else for moving on with their lives.’

I stood up, a smile plastered across my face. “I want you to be happy, Mother.” I hugged her and left her and Comfort to discuss wedding preparations.

The next few weeks passed in a flurry of invitations, cake testing, wedding dress sewing, and a multitude of other tasks. For this I was grateful—I had a purpose again! Comfort and Mother needed me to work on the wedding dress, carefully address each envelope, and prepare the decorations. I still retreated back upstairs any time we had guests, but I had each day filled with wedding preparations. I didn’t have time to feel sorry for myself when I was busy helping Mother.

Cynthia and her father came for dinner nearly every night. It was getting much more difficult to avoid them. I knew at some point I would have to meet them, but I was still so self-conscious. I wanted our first meeting to go well, but my embarrassment about my face kept me paralyzed by fear.

The wedding was only a month away. I knew I needed to greet Cynthia and her father soon. But with each passing day, it felt like it was now too late to meet them. What had Mother and Comfort told them about me?

One evening while we sat around the fire, creating each invitation by hand, I asked, “What do Cynthia and Algernon know about me?”

“That you are a talented linguist, that you enjoy horseback riding, and that you were very close with Father,” Comfort said.

“That isn’t what I meant.”

Mother smiled understandingly. “I told Algernon about the incident in Avivia when he asked how Cuthbert died. I did ask him to not tell Cynthia. I thought perhaps that was too personal an experience to share with just anybody, and I would certainly never spread around any information I knew you didn’t want people to know about.”

Comfort nodded. “I didn’t say anything to either of them.” She squeezed my knee. “That is your story to tell. It doesn’t matter what someone looks like, but who they are as a person. They will understand that.”

Tears welled in my eyes. They were so good to me. So patient and kind. “Thank you,” I whispered.

The next day after Comfort had been to town, I found a bag full of cosmetics, brushes, and creams outside my bedroom door, along with an intricately carved hand mirror. “To help you see the beauty we already see in you. We miss your confidence,” was written on the card.