Gwen steps to the side, reaching out for Beth’s frazzled braid, and Beth seems to come back to life. She swipes at her hair until it’s captured in a messy knot high on her head.
It’s devastatingly beautiful. She is devastatingly beautiful.
They stare at each other, inches apart. It feels like the earth has tilted below them, everything wrong and off-angled.
“I’ll see you,” Beth starts, clenching her jaw as her eyes begin to shine.
Gwen nods, barely keeping her own tears at bay. “You will. We’ll write too,” she says, forcing lightness and promise into her words. They ring hollow around the little room.
Beth starts forward, but the door jerks open and they cleave away from each other. Gwen hurries back, out of sight of the hall, even though Meredith stands blocking any servant’s view.
“Come on,” she says, holding out a hand to Beth.
Beth glances at Gwen and their eyes hold for a moment, too much to be said, and never enough time.
And then she’s gone, and Meredith snaps the door shut, leaving Gwen leaning against the empty dresser in the dim sunlight from the street above, thoroughly ravished and utterly broken. They were supposed to have three more days.
When Meredith returns some ten minutes later, Gwen has managed through her sobs to step into her hoop and tie it with trembling fingers. Meredith just bends to pick up Gwen’s petticoat, helping her slide it over her ruined hair and fasten it over her hoop.
“We’ll make sure you see each other,” Meredith promises as they get her overskirt down on top of the petticoat.
“It isn’t—” Gwen starts, unsure how to explain how much that’s not enough. It will never be enough. She wasn’t ready to say goodbye. She thought they had three more days.
She thought she was coming here for tea.
“No, it’s not,” Meredith agrees, stepping around to her front to button the bodice Gwen threw on in a hurry before leaving her empty townhouse. “But it’s something.”
Gwen meets her understanding eyes. “Thank you.”
Meredith smiles sadly. “You would do the same for Albie, and I hope someday for me, if we needed you to.”
“I would,” Gwen says quickly, grabbing her hand. “If you ever need anything—”
“Be a good cousin to our children, a friend to me, to Albie, that’s all I ask,” Meredith says, her round face serene and earnest.
“I promise,” Gwen says swiftly.
“Good. Now, let’s go have scones, and then Albie will pick us up and we’ll promenade with my mother.”
Gwen deflates. “I don’t know that I—”
Meredith gives her a stern look. “You will not go home to grieve in an empty house. Beth has the luxury of being obnoxiously busy. We need to keep you at least half as occupied.”
And though it’s not enough, not by any stretch, the tea and scones do help. And listening to Meredith and Albie snicker about the ton keeps her breathing. And as the day wears on she finds that the world hasn’t ended. She still has her family, her friends. She’ll keep moving even though she’s been torn apart. It turns out you really can walk through life with an irreparably broken heart. Her father’s managed, after all.
That night, when she returns home, a little tipsy from the bottle of champagne Albie stashed in the carriage—of which Meredith’s mother happily partook while delivering Gwen home—she finds Father actually at their dinner table. He looks up, giving her an exhausted smile.
And for one moment, Gwen forgets her heartbreak and horror, and smiles back, settling at his side. Mrs. Gilpe brings their plates—a light summer salad with potato soup, easy and bright.
“You look well,” Father decides after they’ve eaten for a few minutes.
Meredith reapplied her makeup, and she supposes she doeslook sun brightened from the day. He hasn’t seen her frequently enough recently to really know better.
“You look exhausted,” she says, taking in the deep circles beneath his eyes, and the slight hollow to his cheeks. “Have you eaten at all in the last few days?”
“I—” Father begins, and then sighs, rubbing at the back of his neck. “I haven’t been home much, have I?”
Gwen shrugs and takes a sip of her soup, earnestly trying to hide just how much he hasn’t been home, and how much she’s missed him. It’s one thing to lose Beth—to feel like she’s losing him too...
