“She is going to have adukefor a father-in-law,” Frances said.
“And a duke’s heir for a husband,” Anne added.
They all looked at one another poker-faced before they too collapsed into laughter.
“Itisthe funniest thing,” Frances agreed. “Our Claudia to be aduchessone day.”
“It is a just punishment for all my sins,” Claudia said, sobering as her attention returned to her image in the glass and she saw all the splendor of her new apricot-colored dress with the frivolous new straw hat that Frances’s maid was just pinning to her hair above the luscious curls at her neck. A straw hat in early October!
Goodness! Did she really look ten years younger than she had just a few months ago? Surely it was just her imagination. But her eyes looked larger than she remembered them and her lips fuller. There was surely more color in her cheeks.
“But who,” Susanna said, “could resist Joseph’s charms? I have always been exceedingly fond of him since Lauren first introduced me to him, but he has risen immeasurably in my estimation since he had the good sense to fall in love with you, Claudia.”
“And who,” Anne said, “could possibly resist a man who dotes so much on his child? Especially his blind, illegitimate child.”
“It is a very good thing that we have Lucius and Sydnam and Peter,” Frances said. “We might be mortally jealous of you, Claudia.”
Claudia swiveled on the stool. The maid tidied the top of the dressing table and left the room.
“Is it natural,” Claudia asked, “for a wedding day to evoke such opposite emotions? I am so happy that I could fairly burst. And I am so sad that I could weep.”
“Don’t do it,” Susanna said. “You will make your eyes red and puffy.”
As they had been last evening. It had started with the final, farewell dinner in the school dining hall, to which the day pupils had stayed—and the surprise concert and speeches that had followed it. It had continued with the exchange of hugs and final words with every pupil and teacher. And it had concluded with a couple of hours in Claudia’s private sitting room—soon to be Eleanor’s—talking and reminiscing with these three friends and Lila and Eleanor.
“I was happy teaching here,” Anne said now, “and I was not at all sure I would be happy with Sydnam when I married him. But I am, and you will be with Joseph, Claudia. You already know it.”
“It is perfectly natural to be sad,” Frances assured her. “I had Lucius and the promise of a singing career to go to when I married, but I had been happy here. It was home, and my dearest friends were here.”
Susanna got to her feet and hugged Claudia carefully so as not to disturb either her hair or her hat.
“This school was home and family to me,” she said. “I was taken in here at the age of twelve when I had nowhere else to go, and I was educated and loved. I wouldneverhave left if I had not met Peter. But I am very glad I did—for the obvious reason and because I could not bear now to be the last one of us to be left here. I am that selfish, you see. But I cannottellyou how happy I am for you, Claudia.”
“We had better go,” Anne said. “The bride must not be late, and we must be at the Abbey before her. And what a very lovely bride. That color is perfect on you, Claudia.”
“I love the hat,” Susanna said.
Claudia held back her tears as each of them hugged her and went down to the carriage that was awaiting them.
After they were gone, she drew on her gloves and looked one last time around her bedchamber. Already it looked empty—her trunk and bags had already been removed earlier in the morning. She went into her sitting room and looked around it. All her books were gone. It was hers no longer.
For the past week the school had officially been Eleanor’s. After today it would be Miss Thompson’s School for Girls.
It was a terrible thing to leave one’s life behind. She had done it once before, and now she was doing it again. It was like being born again, leaving the safe comfort of the womb to brave the vast unknown.
It was a terrible thing even though she ached with longing for the new life, for the home that awaited her, for the brave, intelligent blind child who would be her daughter, for the other child who would be born in a little more than six months—she had told no one yet except Joseph yesterday when he had arrived from Willowgreen—and for the man who had stepped into her school almost four months ago and into her heart not long after.
Joseph!
And then she went downstairs, where the servants were lined up to say good-bye to her. She held her poise and had a final word with each, most of whom were in tears. Mr. Keeble was not. He stood woodenly by the outer door, waiting to open it for her.
And somehow saying good-bye to him, her elderly, crotchety, loyal porter, became the hardest thing of all. He bowed to her, somehow setting his boots to creaking. But she would have none of such formality. She hugged him and kissed his cheek and then nodded briskly for him to open the door and hurried outside, where Joseph’s coachman was waiting to hand her into his carriage.
She would not weep, she thought as the door closed and the carriage rocked into motion and she left behind the school and fifteen years of her life for the last time. She blinked her eyes several times.
Shewouldnot weep.
Joseph was awaiting her at the Abbey.
