She took up her skirt in her hands and marched across the ballroom floor toward the matron who’d made her tremble as a girl and had repeatedly corrected her pronunciation of Worcestershire.
“Victoria Beck,” said Mrs. Baxter before Vix could even finish walking. “Gracious, girl, you look like you’ve seen a ghost. Have you?”
Vix hesitated, much of the wind immediately blowing in the wrong direction, directly out of her sails. “I don’t think so,” she said, faltering from one foot to the other, “unless you yourself have passed prior to this event.”
Mrs. Baxter huffed, glancing down at her own hands in black net gloves. “I don’t think so,” she said wryly, “but one can never be certain.”
Vix blinked. She had the oddest impulse just then to burst into tears and immediately averted her eyes.
“You’ve done a fine job here,” said old Baxter, looking around with a sniff. “Very fine. I imagine you could sponsor three girls rather than just one, if you had a mind to, after tonight.”
“I thought about that,” Vix admitted, sounding rather small to herself. “But I thought the additional money could go toward new clothes and particulars for the whole of the charity wing. They deserve better than fraying books and shared petticoats.”
“Do they indeed?” said Mrs. Baxter, giving her a sidelong look. “No one ever thought so back when I was a charity girl.”
Vix balked. She stared. She ogled.
“You never were,” she announced, because it could not be true, but the old bat only chuckled.
“Of course I was,” she said. “Why do you think I was personally involved with the lot of you? And I always told you true, didn’t I? I did my best.”
“You were often quite mean, actually,” Vix returned, crossing her arms. “Often much harsher than was required.”
“Ah, well,” said Baxter, shrugging. “The eternal challenge of being a good mother, I suppose. Do you think anyone ever manages it?”
Vix frowned and glanced across the room again at Helena Aster. “No,” she said. “Maybe. I’m not sure.”
“Neither am I. I never had one, myself,” said Baxter. “I saw your friend, the vicar’s boy, earlier. He looks much the same as he did when he was a lad, doesn’t he?”
“Does he?” said Vix, looking for Matthew in the crowd. “He is the vicar proper now. His father died some years ago.”
“Is he indeed?” Baxter asked, chortling. “I greeted him directly and asked him how fared the Archbishop of Liverpool. He turned red as a turnip.”
Vix paused, turning with fascination to gaze at the older woman. “What do you mean?”
“Oh, Victoria,” said Mrs. Baxter, cutting her a glance. “Did you really think I believed that was a real person?”
“Yes,” said Vix, outraged. “You did believe it. You accepted me.”
“Those two things are not dependent on one another,” Mrs. Baxter said. “Did you see these hydrangeas? Some fool messed up the alkalinity of the soil.”
“Mrs. Baxter!” Vix cried, half a breath away from stomping her foot like a child. “You could not have known! You never had a sliver of patience for falsehoods.”
The old woman gave a short, barking laugh, tilting her head as she turned her gaze back to Vix. “Girl, if that were true, you wouldn’t have made it a week. You are the most prolific liar God ever put on this earth.”
“I am not,” Vix protested.
“Ah,” said Baxter, raising her brows. “Another lie. See how easily they come?”
Vix clamped her teeth together, her cheeks heating. “Youclaimed—”
“I punished the lies that were unnecessary,” Mrs. Baxter said, raising a finger. “And ignored the ones that protected you. Learning to spin a good falsehood can protect a woman, especially if she’s quick about it. The more I let you do it, the cleverer and wittier you became. It was a kind of lesson, in the end.”
“The more youletme,” Vix repeated, aghast.
It made Baxter chuckle again. “Have you spent much time around young girls? I believe your charges at the Tolliver household were just toddling lads, weren’t they? Try them nearing the threshold to adulthood, with all the edges and cleverness of femininity, and come back to me. You might change your tune.”
“Oh, the Tollivers,” Vix said, grasping for anything that might give her her footing back. “That is another thing.”
