“Perhaps we will discover something new and exciting about ourselves while we figure it out,” Catherine said with more cheer than she felt.
“Stop it, Catherine,” Arabella said sharply, shutting off her words of optimism.
The words stung. She would not allow herself to fall apart simply because they were facing adversity. When she spoke next, she hated how small her own words felt. “I am only trying to help, Mama.”
“I know.” Arabella sighed, and her gaze started to seem more and more distant with every mile that they traveled. Her eyes started to glaze over, and it felt as if she were watching her mother’s very life force slip away. “If only it had worked before…”
Catherine knew that her mother was talking about the argument that she had gotten into with that man—Richard, he said. Lord Richard. The new owner of their house by proxy and extension of his father. It must have seemed a game to him, pretending to care about their dignity and belongings.
He must have arranged it all beforehand to come and ‘intervene’. While Catherine could not figure out the angle of the game that he was playing, she knew that it was most certainly a game.
He had lied. He was perhaps even more cruel than his father as he had ‘demanded’ that his men stand down. Those same men who had laughed in his face and shrugged off his comments. The debt collectors had laughed and mocked him as they refused to stop loading their personal possessions onto wagons.
They had not stopped because they knew that it was all some ruse. How many other families had he done this to for his men to know his game so well? How often had he ruined the lives of those in London for sport?
Even still, she had all but gotten on her knees to beg him to call them off, to give them more time.
He had not.
“Perhaps being out here will at least spare us the cruelty of others…” Catherine murmured, feeling the cold fingers of defeat herself.
Their quaint cottage on the outskirts of London had been a brief summer respite for Catherine most of her life, and Arabella had moped and complained each and every time that they had come here. While, naturally, it still offered all of the comforts of home, it was not conducive to entertaining.
Never mind that her mother’s friends were all in the city and shallow-minded enough that they would not wish to leave their own full schedules to come and visit with their friend in her hour of need. Arabella would not even write to them, for she knew that she would have done the exact same thing were the roles reversed.
Catherine only wished that there was some way that she could offer comfort to her mother. Father’s actions had been shocking and abhorrent to them both, but he had always been more changeable than her mother.
“It will be all right, Mama.” Catherine leaned across the carriage and placed a comforting hand on her mother’s knee, which the older woman seemed to ignore. Not wishing to be ignored, and needing a little bit of comfort herself, she switched sides in the small, cramped carriage until she was pushed in next to her mother and forced the woman into her arms. “We still have one another, it will be all right. We will endure.”
Arabella, even in her daughter’s arms, would not stop looking out of the open carriage window. Not even as she wiped a tear from her cheek and shook her head. “I fear that nothing is going to be all right ever again.”
***
It was hard to remain optimistic about their situation when her whole body ached and twinged by the time they had arrived in front of the small cottage. In her mind’s eye, it had been a lot bigger the last time that she had been here. Granted, that was remembering things through the eyes of a happy child. Standing here now, it was plain to see that the humble cottage had indeed seen much better days.
The lawns were overgrown and in need of pruning. The small, raised garden beds around the side of the house would need maintenance before food could start to be properly grown there. Even from standing outside of the home, she could see that it needed a deep and thorough cleaning that no doubt she was going to have to learn to do herself. The first of many chores that she was going to need to do.
Mother did not seem to fully grasp how poorly the home had been taken care of in their absence as she nearly fumbled out of the carriage without waiting for assistance before staggering into the darkened interior of the cottage. She left the door to hang open in her wake. It somehow made the image in front of her seem all that much more foreboding.
Catherine’s hands dropped down to the fine satin of the dress that she wore. She rubbed the fabric between her fingers and allowed herself a moment of despair. Just a small, soft moment to herself to stand in silence as the weight of how crushing her new life felt.
She allowed it to be heavy, to fully consume her as her footman unloaded their meager remaining belongings from the small carriage and, one by one, disappeared into the darkness of the cottage’s depths before her.
Just a moment, and then she let it pass.
Mud already clung to her slippers.
At least her work was cut out of her.
No matter what it took, no matter how long it took, she was going to make this into their new home. She was going to use this opportunity to better herself, to rebuild. She was going to make this into something thatnobodyandnothingcould ever take from her or her mother again. She would not have to shoulder the burden of society’s judgment as she did so, either.
Her dress would just have to be ruined, just like she now was in the eyes of society.
Catherine almost laughed.
“Pardon me,” a soft, feminine voice came from beside her. Catherine spun so quickly that she felt as if she were going to come out of her own skin. “Oh! Deepest apologies, my lady. I did not mean to frighten you!”
“No! You did not…well, I suppose that you did. It is my own fault for being so absorbed in my own mind, I suppose,” Catherine excused quickly as her focus shifted to the plain but pretty features of the woman standing in front of her.
