But they had rounded the corner onto Daniel Street, and Claudia and Susanna, alerted by the arrival of the carriage with their bags, were out on the doorstep watching for them. Anne was swallowed up in hugs and greetings and laughter. And just as she drew free and looked beyond them to the doorway, she saw another lady standing there, looking tall and dark and slender and elegant and exquisitely fashionable—and smiling joyfully.
“Frances!” Anne exclaimed, and stepped into her open arms.
“Lucius and I are just back from the Continent,” Frances, the Countess of Edgecombe, told her, “and came to Bath on our way home to see if one of you would like to spend the final two weeks of the holiday with us at Barclay Court. Susanna is going to come. Anne, howdelightedI am that you have arrived home just in time for me to see you. I never stop missing you. And justlookhow bronzed you are!”
Frances had found love in a snowstorm when her carriage ran into a snowbank, driven there by the reckless driving of the earl and his coachman as they overtook it. It had been hate at first sight—and love ever after. For some time after Frances’s wedding the three remaining friends had looked at life with more hope, though they had not admitted as much to one another.
“I would havehatedmissing you,” Anne said. “Oh, Frances, just look atyou.”
But she turned back to the doorway before going inside and could see that David was right up in Joshua’s arms out on the pavement, his arms wrapped tightly about Joshua’s neck, his face buried against his shoulder. Joshua had one hand spread over the back of the boy’s head and was kissing the side of it.
Anne’s eyes were blinded by tears and she blinked them away.
Why did everything wonderful have to be left behind? she wondered. Why was life so heavily punctuated with good-byes?
Joshua set David down, cupped his face with both hands, kissed his forehead, and turned to Anne.
“You have done a fine, fine job with him, Anne,” he said, reaching out his right hand. “He is a great lad. I’ll write from Penhallow.”
She set her hand in his as David darted past her into the school, not pausing to greet any of the ladies or even Keeble, one of his favorite people.
“Thank you again,” she said.
“Anne,” he said, lowering his voice and tightening his grip on her hand, “youaredoing a fine job, but that lad needs a family. And there is one waiting to acknowledge him in Cornwall—Prue and Ben, Constance and Jim Saunders, Freyja and me. And Chastity and Meecham too, though they don’t live there. David has aunts and uncles and cousins even if hewasborn out of wedlock. You must at least think about telling him something of his lineage. Will you?”
“I can look after my own son, Joshua,” she said stiffly, withdrawing her hand. “But I do thank you for being so kind to him.”
“I’ll write,” he said, shaking his head, clearly in frustration.
“Good-bye, Anne.”
“Good-bye,” she said, and watched him until he had turned the corner and gone out of sight.
But there were different kinds of good-byes, she thought. This one was not heart-wrenching for her, though it clearly was for David. She would see Joshua again—perhaps as soon as Christmas.
She would never see Sydnam again.
Not ever.
Susanna linked an arm through hers and she stepped inside the school with her friends.
She was back home and it was good to be here.
But never was an awfully long time.
By the time Anne got David to bed that night she seemed finallyto have convinced him that Christmas was not so very far away. He had been partly consoled too by the interest Matron and several of the girls had shown in his holiday. He had regaled them with tales of where he had been and what he had done.
“Mama,” he admitted after she had told another episode of an ongoing bedtime story and tucked him in for the night, “itisgood to be back. I like having my little room all to myself.”
Yes. It was good to be back. And there would be much to do in the coming days. Susanna was going to Barclay Court with Frances and the Earl of Edgecombe, and so there would be only Anne and Claudia to amuse the girls. And there were classes for the coming year to prepare. There were letters to write—of thanks to the Duchess of Bewcastle, of simple friendship to Lady Aidan and her aunt, to Lady Rosthorn, and to Miss Thompson and the other Bedwyn wives.
It was good to be back.
Tired as she was after the long journey and the teeming emotions with which she had left Glandwr, Anne sat up late in Claudia’s sitting room, the quartet of friends complete again with her return and Frances’s visit. Frances was staying the night at the school despite the fact that the earl had taken rooms at the Royal York Hotel. He had come to dinner but had then left, telling the ladies that he realized his presence would be decidedly de trop for the rest of the night, besides which he needed his beauty rest but realized they would all sit up talking for at least half the night.
Anne liked him. They all did, and they all rejoiced in Frances’s happily-ever-after.
They talked about Frances’s travels and singing successes on the Continent, about Anne’s month in Wales—minus all reference to Sydnam Butler—about the school holiday in Bath, and about numerous other topics. They had always been able to talk to one another about anything and everything. It had always seemed to Anne that they were far more like sisters than mere friends. They still missed Frances’s constant presence among them, even though she had been gone for two years.
