Camille informed everyone at breakfast the following morning that she was going with Abby to deliver Mrs. Tavernor’s written invitation to Harry’s birthday ball.
“And Harry ought to go with you,” Grandmama Kingsley suggested. “It would be very fitting, since the three of you practically grew up here at Hinsford and Mrs. Tavernor was once the vicar’s wife.”
“Of course,” Harry said when all eyes turned his way.
Apparently Abigail had asked Lydia at church yesterday morning if she might call upon her today with Camille, and Lydia had given her permission. But how would she react when he turned up with them? It might seem like harassment since she had said a firm no to him just two days ago. But he wanted very badly to see her, to judge for himself whether she was coping with the disruption to her life.
She was at home when Harry arrived with his sisters. Not alone, however. Mrs. Bailey was with her, and the first few minutes were taken up with a flurry of introductions and hearty greetings and assurances by Lydia that no, their calling was not an inconvenience to her, and assurances by Camille that no, Mrs. Bailey must not feel obliged to leave on their account.
“We have come because I asked at church yesterday if we might,” Abby explained after the ladies were all seated in the living room.
“Our mother has told us about her friendship with your mama when they were both young, Mrs. Tavernor,” Camille said. “She was delighted to discover that her friend’s daughter was living right here. Sometimes happy coincidences really do occur.”
“Is this true?” Mrs. Bailey beamed her pleasure from one to the other of the ladies. “Do tell us more, Mrs. Cunningham.”
Which Camille proceeded to do, with embellishments of the already embellished story their mother had told. The conversation moved by natural progression to London and Seasons past. Mrs. Bailey reminisced about her own courtship, which had come about becausehermama had once enjoyed a friendship withher husband’smama.
“Not that he was my husband when we first met, of course,” she added.
Harry was standing with his back to the room, looking through the window while Snowball, who appeared to have accepted him as a friend of long standing, settled across one of his boots. After a while, when it became apparent that Lydia was not participating in the conversation, he went to draw up a stool beside her chair, and she leaned down to lift the dog onto her lap.
“Is it very bad?” he asked, keeping his voice low.
“It will blow over as such things inevitably do,” she told him. “I am grateful for what your mother did on Saturday and for what you and Mr. and Mrs. Bennington did at church yesterday. I am grateful too for this morning’s call. I do not doubt they will all sway public opinion, if not quite in my favor, at least no further away from it. But this is enough now, Harry. I am quite capable of living my own life. I do not need any further assistance.”
“I do not doubt it,” he told her. “But Lydia, I—”
He got no further.
“We have brought your official invitation to Harry’s birthday party, Mrs. Tavernor,” Camille said, raising her voice. “It is to be a ball. I wish we had known we would meet you here, Mrs. Bailey. We would have brought yours too. I believe my mother intends to deliver it to the vicarage this morning. We want as many of Harry’s neighbors as possible to help us celebrate. My brother will turn thirty only once.”
“For which fact I am fervently thankful,” he said.
Mrs. Bailey laughed heartily.
“Thank you,” Lydia said, taking the card when Camille got to her feet to hand it to her. “I will consider it.”
Abigail stood too and pulled on her gloves. “Wonderful,” she said, smiling warmly. “We brought Mrs. Bartlett’s invitation card with us too since she lives just next door. We must be on our way to deliver it.”
“Lydia,” Harry said, getting to his feet too and putting the stool back where he had found it, “after we have made that delivery—in about half an hour, I suppose—will you come with us and perhaps take a stroll in the park? With me? It is such a beautiful day.”
He had not planned the invitation until the words were coming out of his mouth. And she was bound to say no. But dash it all, why should they deny themselves any sort of friendship when they had clearly grown to like each other? And all because of the risk of the very stupidity that was now happening anyway? Why not be bold and open about it and to hell with anyone who wanted to make scandal of it?Notthat she was going to see it that way, of course. And now he had probably embarrassed her in front of the vicar’s wife and his sisters.
“That would be just the thing for you, dear,” Mrs. Bailey said with a comfortable smile.
“Please do come,” Abby said. “Your little dog looks eager for some exercise.”
Snowball was standing on Lydia’s lap, facing away from her, her fluff of a tail brushing across her bosom.
Lydia’s chin had risen in a stubborn gesture Harry was beginning to recognize. “I shall be ready in half an hour,” she surprised him by saying.
“Why not?” Lydia had thought when he asked. Whynot? What had a more or less careful adherence to propriety and common sense achieved? And that wasnota question that needed answering.
So here she was, doing what she had never done in four years of living in Fairfield and well over a year of being in her cottage right opposite the drive to the manor. She was on Hinsford property, walking through a park in which she had never before set foot toward a house she had never seen. The drive wound between large, ancient trees, giving the impression that one was moving into an enchanted place, a land apart.
She was with Major Harry Westcott, whom she had very sensibly and very firmly renounced—if that was not too strong a word—almost a month ago. She was not walking beside him, however. It was actually worse than that, for she was walking arm in arm with Mrs. Camille Cunningham, his elder sister. Just as she had walked a couple of days ago with his mother along the village street.
There was very little from the last few days that made any sense to her, either in what was happening beyond her doors or in what she herself was doing in reaction to it all.
