And she believed him.
THREE
He didn’t come back.
Not at Michaelmas.
Not for the October harvest.
Not in November, when the days turned short and the wind turned cold.
And by Christmas, Hetty realized he was not coming back.
Which meant she had to leave.
FOUR
Have you heard? There’s abaronin Highbury!”
The Knightleys’ Michaelmas Ball was every inch the crush Highbury had expected, everyone in the town eager to attend, eager to see their host and hostess in proper marital bliss. The Knightleys had married only half a year prior, and had immediately taken up residence at Hartfield to be closer to Mrs. Knightley’s aging father, who enjoyed being caretaked more than most.
There might have been a time, years ago, when Hetty’s own experience caretaking Mrs. Bates would have brought her closer to the newly wedded Mrs. Knightley, but it was difficult to see past what had transpired between them in the months and years leading up to Emma’s marriage, and beyond. Hetty was perfectly aware of her lack of fortune, monetary or otherwise, but she couldn’t help resenting Emma for drawing a line beneath it at every possible chance.
The dress, for example. What should have felt like a kindness instead felt like mockery when Hetty put it on earlier that evening.
It was exactly as beautiful as it had been in the box. The kind of dress a girl dreamed of having, because it made one feel just as beautiful as the frock. But Hetty Bates was no girl, and so when she peered into the looking glass in the front room of her threadbare home, she did not feel that she’d been made beautiful by the silk and gossamer and silver threads.
She felt silly.
Like a child, playing pretend in her mother’s Sunday dress.
Before she could take it off, however, her mother had enteredand gasped her delight at the thing with a too-loud “Oh, Hetty!” and “You look so youthful!” and “Why, I don’t think I’ve ever seen you without a cap!”
“Of course you’ve seen me without a cap, Mother,” she snapped. “I wasn’t born a spinster.” Luckily, the old lady didn’t have her ear horn, so she did not catch the full blast of Hetty’s irritation. She didn’t deserve it. Not really.
“Is there something wrong with the frock?” her mother asked, replying to whatever she’d imagined Hetty had said.
“No,” Hetty said. It was not the dress; it was the day.
It was the lifetime.
“I don’t much care for Michaelmas,” she admitted softly.
A long pause before her mother said, “That’s nice.”
“We should bring your ear horn, Mother,” Hetty had replied as a knock sounded on the door, heralding a too-charming Frank Churchill, arrived with the Westons’ second-best carriage to take them to Hartfield.
And now Hetty was posted at the far side of the ballroom, near a collection of potted ferns and the seats reserved for the event’s most seasoned attendees, searching the crowd for Jane and listening to Charlotte Tilbury chirp about the mysterious baron in their midst.
“I had heard of the baron!” Hetty chirped in reply, falling easily into her role. “How very exciting! Darling Jane wrote to us and said he’s let Lorimer House! It really is quite exciting.”
“It is, isn’t it?” Mrs. Tilbury said. “Have you heard anything of him? I do wonder if he is unmarried?”
Charlotte had three daughters, two of marriageable age, and was always on the lookout for eligible gentlemen upon whom to foist them, so Hetty knew the script. “One can hope, my dear!”
“Indeed!” Charlotte replied, breathless with dreams of a fresh, titled son-in-law.
“I heard he’s not just a baron,” Mrs. Pearson said, lifting her chin to peer through her spectacles at the assembly. Hetty held back a little smile at the words—as though a title in Highbury werejustanything. “I heard he’salsoa military hero.”
