Later that day, she took a walk with Theodora, hoping that it would give Evelina some time to herself.
“She sees me as a burden, I am certain of it,” Theodora sighed. “She ought to be enjoying her life as a wealthy young widow, and instead she has been forced to care for her insolent younger sister.”
“Nonsense. Evelina enjoys your company, and you know it. The household would be far too quiet without you, and she would be driven to madness in an instant. I would not worry so.”
“But I do. I know that thetonthinks. They say that I am taking advantage of her kindness, and that I should be married by now.”
“They say that about any young lady over the age of seventeen. It is all we are good for, apparently, and so anyone who is not promised to a man by the time she is out of her leading strings is a disaster.”
“Most unjustified,” she laughed sadly. “I was not expecting you to speak like this in public. Is it not something your husband asked you not to do?”
“It is, and I was willing to go along with it, but as he is not here, he is unable to hear it and also unable to tell me not to do so. If he takes issue with it, he knows where his home is.”
“Ah, one day of absence and you are already rebelling.”
“I am not!”
But she was. Whether she dared to admit it or not, Anna wanted Spencer to return. She wanted to see him, to feel him, and to prove that she was the only woman for him. Wherever he continued to go, she had to be more important to him, and she could not fathom why she was not.
“Well,” she sighed, “I suppose that I am. Do you know what he said to me when he announced he was leaving? He told me that I do not need him as much as his family does. He thinks that I am capable of handling myself, and therefore I do not need him.”
“If you ask me, he is right. You do not need him, which is precisely why I could not understand why you were so eager for him to stay. Evelina is far happier now than she ever was when her husband was alive.”
“And her husband was twice– perhaps even thrice her age, and from the few paintings she has kept there, he was not a particularly nice man to look at to begin with. It is not quite the same thing.” She took a ragged breath. “I had hoped,” she whispered, “that once, just once, someone might want me as I am.”
The sky was beginning to darken, turning from blue to orange as the sun dipped down. Anna stopped walking, admiring it.
“The sky does not know,” she whispered. “It is enjoying the beauty of the sunset so much that it does not know that the darkness is moments away.”
“Poetry,” Theodora replied softly. “You should write it down, Anna.”
“Perhaps, but it is not as though anyone would ever read it.”
“I would.”
She laughed sadly.
“Yes, you would.”
But, other than her friends, she would be alone. She was merely a woman alone, and without her husband, any effort that she made was for nothing. It had not mattered that she had cared for the estate well and that she had not needed any assistance at all. She needed a man beside her for all her labor to be taken seriously, and now that he had left again, she was back where she started.
“But consider this,” Theodora noted, continuing on her way. “The sky knows that the darkness is coming, and it enjoys the beauty of every phase.”
“How so?”
“Well, what comes after the night? The sunrise. The sun disappears for a while, but it always returns, and when that sunrise comes, is it not the most beautiful thing?”
Anna did not reply, for she did not know what to say. She, like her other friends, had often seen Theodora as a sister of her own, a younger one who did not know as much as they did. She was, however, wise beyond her years, and she had told her precisely what she needed to hear.
“He will come back,” she assured her. “I know that I am not particularly fond of him, but you seem to be.”
“I think you simply like to disagree with me.”
“I am disagreeable. You have heard what polite society says of me.”
They both laughed together, and in spite of everything, Anna could not help but feel better about what was to come. Spencer had made a mess once again, but he would make amends. He would do right by her, for that was the man she wanted to believe that he was.
But the days passed, and nothing came. She did not receive word that he had arrived, nor that he longed to see her, or that he wanted to return. Once again, she was left with nothing and could only assume what was to happen to her.
