He proceeded to tell them some facts about his son. And he wondered as he did so whether he ought to ask Matilda to go to Vauxhall with him and thus keep alive the connection between her family and his. Perhaps his children would resent it. Though Adrian did not seem to do so. Quite the contrary, in fact.
How would she answer if he did ask her? Would she accept? And what would it mean if she did? It was to be an intimate eventwith his family.Would anyone get the idea that he wascourtingher?
And would he be?
When Matilda received a written invitation to join Mrs. Barbara Dewhurst and her family for an evening at Vauxhall Gardens in celebration of her birthday, she thought at first that the lady must have mistaken her for someone else. But only for a second.
“You look as if someone had just died, Matilda,” her mother said from across the breakfast table. “Whatever has happened?”
Matilda looked up blankly. She would have loved to take the card upstairs to digest its contents in the privacy of her room, but it was too late for that. Apparently her face had betrayed her.
“Who is Mrs. Dewhurst?” her mother asked after Matilda had read the invitation aloud.
Matilda knew. She had known when Charles married and whom he married and where. She had known when each of his children were born—and married. She knew when his wife had died. For someone who had obliterated him entirely from her mind and memory over thirty years ago, she knew a lot about him. And she had suffered a great deal over each milestone in his life while denying every pang.
“She is Viscount Dirkson’s elder daughter,” she explained.
“But why would she be inviting you to join a family party?” her mother asked. But she did not wait for an answer. She set down her half-eaten slice of toast, dabbed at her mouth with her linen napkin, and sat back in her chair, regarding her daughter the whole while. “Do you have the viscount himself to thank for this?”
“I do not know any more than you do, Mama,” Matilda said. Except that he had kissed her, and she had had a hard time both eating and sleeping in the week since, poor pathetic creature that she was.
“You fancied yourself in love with him once,” her mother said.
“Oh goodness.” Matilda laughed and stirred her coffee, even though the cup was already half-empty. “That was a long age ago, Mama.” She looked up as she set the spoon in the saucer. “But I did notfancymyself in love with him. I loved him with my whole heart and soul.”
Her mother continued to regard her steadily, and Matilda waited for the tirade of anger and ridicule that was bound to be coming. Instead her mother set down her napkin beside her plate and sighed.
“I know,” she said.
Matilda lifted her cup, changed her mind, and set it back down on the saucer. She raised her eyes.
“I am not sure I knew about the ‘heart and soul’ part at the time,” her mother said. “Though I understood it later, when you would have nothing to do with any of the many perfectly eligible gentlemen who would have courted you in the years after. I told myself it was infatuation. I told myself you were merelyinlove, something girls fall in and out of a dozen times before they settle into a sensible marriage.”
“I fell only once,” Matilda said. Oh goodness, she and Mama never talked like this.
“Yes, I know,” her mother said again. “He ran wild with Humphrey, Matilda. Humphrey was my own son, but I was never blind to his many faults. Viscount Dirkson, or Charles Sawyer as he still was in those days, was a year older. I blamed him for leading Humphrey astray, or deluded myself into blaming him. My heart broke at the prospect of you marrying him and having to endure a wretched marriage for the rest of your life. I was not wrong about him. He grew worse than just wild as the years went on.”
“I know, Mama,” Matilda said.
“But,” her mother said, “I have always lived with the guilt of denying you that misery—or that happiness. For it is impossible to know if his life would have proceeded differently if you had married him. Did he love you heart and soul too?”
“I believed so,” Matilda said. “Indeed, I knew so.”
“Being a parent is a hard job,” her mother told her. “One so very much wants one’s children to be happy. One wants to do all in one’s power to prevent their being miserable. But where does wise guidance end and blind interference begin?”
Matilda frowned across the table at her mother. “You and Papa did the right thing,” she said.
“Did we?” Her mother lifted her napkin again and proceeded to fold it neatly. “You were my firstborn, Matilda. I hesitate to say you were my favorite, for you wereallmy favorites at different times and in different circumstances. But you were special. You were my … myfirstborn.”
Matilda found herself blinking back tears. Her mothernevertalked this way. And she had never been a demonstrative parent. She had never before said that she loved her eldest daughter, let alone that she had been the favorite.
“I must go and send an answer to Mrs. Dewhurst,” Matilda said, getting to her feet. “I will decline, of course.”
“Why?” her mother asked.
“I do not belong with that family,” Matilda said. “I would feel embarrassed and awkwardly out of place.”
“Why?” her mother asked again. “It is obvious that it was Mrs. Dewhurst’s father who suggested your name. Why else would she have thought to ask you? I daresay she does not even know you.”
