Chapter Eleven
But Charlotte was neverallowed to speak to Lina privately, for news of the great scandal had arrived ahead of them somehow, as all gossip of a salacious nature will do. Lina was found in the garden, draped across the lap of Mr. Carrington, by the hostess and several of her dowdy friends, who had been sent to look at a “most compromising situation” by an unknown source.
By the time the horrified Mrs. Tilton had gathered up the girls in her care and seen to the matter, the ladies had called for a doctor, who examined Lina and concluded that she seemed quite inebriated and little more was wrong with her than that. Mr. Carrington was sent away from the party and the hostess attempted to brush the whole affair under the rug by sending Lina through the garden to an awaiting carriage.
The cover-up was for her own good, not Lina’s, but still somehow the story had reached the Harlowes, and likely all of society. Mrs. Harlowe wailed and threw herself upon a couch, and told Lina to go to her room or she would likely murder her where she stood. Charlotte, before being ushered out the door by Mrs. Tilton, grasped Lina’s hand in both of hers and whispered fiercely: “Stay strong and you shall prevail, you have done nothing wrong!”
Mrs. Tilton wrenched her arm away from Lina’s sharply enough to make her gasp, and Charlotte hissed furiously as they squabbled their way out the door.
Lina went to her room as she was told, and Evangeline sobbed and wailed herself to sleep, crying that her own life was ruined forever.
Lina was almost trapped in her dress, and no one came to help her, so she took it off and considered, momentarily, putting on a nightgown and prowling about to see what she could discover about the evening and what had happened, or perhaps even confronting the Harlowes to tell them the truth, but she felt quite exhausted, and ill, and terribly sad. Exhaustion, more than any other feeling, won out, and she fell asleep on her side, with her feet still planted indecisively upon the floor.
She was awoken by a banging on her door, and the frantic entry of the house maid, followed by Mrs. Harlowe, wringing her hands. “Caroline, get up, get out of bed!” Mrs. Harlowe almost shouted, while the maid flung open the wardrobe and began to assess it as though it were a pantry, speaking to herself as she did so.
“Oh!” Mrs. Harlowe said, holding her head, and looking about the room frantically.
“Get up, get up!” Mrs. Harlowe said. To the maid, she shrieked, “Go and get the chests, I will have her dressed by the time you return, we cannot waste a moment of time!”
“What is happening?” Lina managed to say. “Mrs. Harlowe?”
An ache in her heart gripped her, and she felt another plunge inside of her, as the events of the evening before came back to her. As she watched Mrs. Harlowe pacing the room, waving her hands about, she felt certain that she was being thrown into the streets.
“Hurry, child, and get dressed. It may be possible to salvage this terrible, terrible... incident, yet. Mr. Blackstone has sent for you, you are to be sent immediately to his estate, and he has made no mention of canceling the wedding, nor anything of the kind. He has sent a telegram... can you imagine such a thing? All the way from there?”
Mrs. Harlowe paused at the wonder of modern technology, however briefly, and then set herself to pushing Lina out of bed and toward the wardrobe, where she stripped her of her shift without so much as a word and started to pull a traveling frock over her head.
“But what?” Lina said, from inside the dress as it passed over her head. “What is happening? Mrs. Harlowe, I—”
Mrs. Harlowe spun her around and held her very tightly by the shoulders. Her eyes were filled with a sort of wild fury that Lina had never seen. They were blue, but her temper had made them burn green. She looked almost rabid. “Listen to me, you most insolent little wench. Your loose, wanton behavior at the ball almost cost us everything! By some grand miracle, Mr. Blackstone appears to have decided to send for you immediately to be married anon. So you are being sent off this moment, that you may hopefully arrive and be wed before the rumors of your terrible deeds reach him.” She put a finger up and wagged it sharply in Lina’s face, a crude gesture Lina had never seen the likes of from Mrs. Harlowe in her life. “I do not know what, but the grace of God, has prompted the man to send for you at this moment, but you shall get dressed and be packed up with your things and sent away, and we shall all hope for the very best.”
“Mrs. Harlowe, I don’t recall what happened last night, but I—”
“Say nothing!” Mrs. Harlowe shouted. “Nothing, about last evening. Not a word, not another word. You have disgraced yourself, and you had better start hoping that you say “I do,” before the rumors catch up to you, or...” Mrs. Harlowe pressed her lips together and shook her head. “I don’t know what any of us will do.”
She was packed into a carriage within the hour. Mrs. Harlowe tossed a bag with bread and cheese into the carriage at the last moment, else she might have starved. She did not get a chance to say goodbye to Evangeline, whose nerves had been so frayed that a doctor had been called to give a sedative for her hysteria, nor to Anna, who managed to wave sadly from a window, and make a sign with her hands and fingers of writing a letter. Lina was in tears as the carriage whisked her away, and she was so distraught that she could not even bear to open the curtains and look, for what might be the last time, on the glorious streets of London.
