“No. No arrangements. No plans. No Bath. I am not going to Bath.” Her tone was forceful, but she was insistent on being heard this time. Surely Mama would listen to her — she must!
Her father lowered his newspaper and looked at her in surprise.
Lady Esther merely raised her eyebrows a delicate fraction. “Are you confident then that you can secure Bertram?”
“I am not even going to try.”
Her father folded the newspaper and put it down.
“But Beatrice,” her stepmother said, “what then will you do? Do you have someone else in mind? One of the Landerby gentlemen? Lord Grayling, perhaps?”
“Not Lord Grayling. Not anyone.” Her voice rose even higher, and the Newcastle accent broke through, but Bea no longer cared. “I’m not going to marry anyone. Who am I to marry a lord, anyway? I’m not you, Mama! You’ve spenteight yearstrying to make me a lady and it hasn’t worked. I’ll never be a lady like you, never, because it’s bred into the bones from birth. I’m nobody, nobody at all, and I’ll never be fit to marry even someone like poor Mr Fielding. I can’t do it, and you can’t make me, not any more. I’d rather go and live with Aunt Betty than go on trying and trying and failing over and over again, like you did. Because that’s all this is, isn’t it? You want to succeed with me where you failed yourself. I have to marry a lord because you didn’t and had to settle for Papa, instead. And I don’t want to! Do you hear me?I don’t want to!I’ve had enough! I’m sick and tired of being paraded about like a prize cow, so leave me alone and let me be an old maid if I want to. There’s nothing wrong with being an old maid, because then I could do as I please and learn Latin and not try to be something I’m not, and that has to be better than settling for someone —anyone— just to get a ring on my finger and say I’m married.”
So saying, she stormed from the room, slamming the door behind her for good measure.
Harper was in her room, laying out her nightgown, but a peremptory “Out!” sent her scurrying away. Then Bea hurled herself onto the bed and sobbed for a full ten minutes.
She never cried for long, however, and so it was on this occasion. She sat up, dried her eyes on her sleeve and washed her face. Then she was left with a dilemma. She would have to return to the parlour to apologise. Not to take back the substance of her tirade — certainly not that! But to apologise for the manner of it, that would have to be done. But if she went down too soon, she would have to sit and be chastised by Mama until dinner arrived, and that could not be borne. And if she went down too late, she would miss dinner and that was not to be borne, either.
As she puzzled over the problem, however, there came a tap at the door and her father’s head appeared. “May I come in?”
“Only if you arenotgoing to tell me I have behaved very badly, for I know it perfectly well.”
He laughed, and came in, closing the door behind him. “I came to see if there is anything you need. A glass of wine? Shall I have your dinner sent up to you? There is no need to come downstairs if you prefer to be alone.”
“Is Mama dreadfully cross with me?”
“Cross? No. Upset, yes. And very, very shocked.” He gave a little chuckle. “I should not say this to you, Bea, and you must never tell a soul, but I enjoyed your little rant very much, if only to see the expression on your stepmother’s face. Very few people dent her composure, but you managed it tonight.”
“Oh! You certainly shouldn’t tell me that, or I’ll be tempted to do it again.”
He laughed outright at that. “Do you truly want to go to your Aunt Betty? I should be extremely sorry for it if you do.”
“Would you let me?”
The bed strings stretched and the mattress wallowed as he sat down beside her. “Of course, if it is what you truly want, even though I should miss you abominably. And you need not go to Bath or do the season or even go to Marshfields again, if you dislike the idea. You are of age now, and so long as you are suitably chaperoned, your life is yours to order as you please. You need not go anywhere or do anything against your will.”
“Oh! I wish I had known this sooner.”
“And for my part, I wish I had known sooner that you were unhappy under your stepmother’s regime.”
“Not so much unhappy… mostly bored, I think. Then may I learn Latin?”
“Of course. I am sure that Bertram would be delighted to assist your studies. I had planned to arrange it all once we got home, but you have pre-empted me. I think perhaps I have left you too much in your stepmother’s care. I thought she knew what was best for you, but perhaps I should have intervened more to be sure you were being brought up to be yourself, and not moulded into something you are not. If learning Latin would give you pleasure, then by all means go ahead. I want you to be happy, Bea, and to be your true self. I was not comfortable with some of the ideas your stepmother put into your head. I only wish that you had exploded a little sooner, so that we could have spared you some, at least, of the misery you have clearly been suffering under for some years.”
“It has not been so bad as that, Papa. I was content to follow Mama’s advice, on the whole. For a long time I did as I was bid, because I believed it was what I wanted. It was only recently that I began to wonder at it.”
“Because I told you that you are not of my blood?”
She hesitated. “That is part of it. Papa… do you know who he is, myotherfather?”
“No. I never asked and your mother never told me. Nor was there any clue amongst her private papers. The secret died with her.”
“Did she have hair like mine? Because no one else in her family does.”
“That came from your father, presumably.”
She was pensive for a moment. “He could not have been a good man, could he? He should have married her. He should at least have looked after her.”
