“Miss Tess!” Tom said, his face a picture of guilt. He licked his lips, and shuffled his feet, but the girl rested her other hand on his arm and looked up at him with a troubled expression. As if she had spoken, he nodded, then patted her hand. “Miss Tess, this is… this is Ruby… Mrs Shapman… my wife. We were wed this morning. I hope you’ll wish us joy.”
There were occasions when it was a great inconvenience to be brought up as a lady, and be coolly polite at all times, no matter the provocation. Tess’s mother was an expert in such manners, but Tess had never before been put to such an extreme test. How much more satisfying it would be to scream and rant and hit out and slap faces and pull hair. It took all her twenty years of training to plaster a smile on her face.
“I will… I do… I felicitate you, Mrs Shapman. Both of you. May you enjoy a long and happy marriage.”
“Thank you, milady,” the girl said, with a beaming smile, bobbing a little curtsy.
“Where will you live?”
“We’ll live over the workshop just at first,” Tom said. “Then when my little sister Sally goes into service after Christmas, we’ll have a room with Ma and Pa, just until I can afford a place of my own.”
“May I send you a wedding gift?” Tess said, the smile stiffening her face.
“That’d be right kind, Miss Tess,” Tom said. “Will you… I mean, we’re going to show Ruby her new home. You’re welcome to—”
“No,” she said quickly. “No, I must get back to Corland.” Then, with genuine feeling, she added, “I wish you every happiness, Tom.”
“Thank you,” he whispered, flushing a little.
And then the procession flowed on down the street and away, leaving Tess stranded like a starfish on the beach after the tide has gone out.
She fled, reaching the blessed privacy of the path back to Corland where, hidden by the sheltering trees, she allowed the tears to flow unchecked. Striding along, her eyes too full to see where she was going, she crashed headlong into a figure pelting down the track towards her. She would have been bowled clean over by the impact had not the person grabbed her forcibly and kept her upright by holding her tightly against his chest.
“Tess! Oh, Tess, I am so sorry!”
Edward’s voice! Not a stranger, not a neighbour who must be fobbed off, and best of all, not Betty or Harold, who might relate the whole to her mother. It was Edward, her friend, who understood.
“He is married!” she sobbed, burying her face in the shoulder of his greatcoat.
“I know,” he murmured. “I have been looking everywhere for you to tell you myself, so that you would not find out in this horrid way. Did you see him?”
She nodded. “And her.”
“Oh, Tess darling, I am so, so sorry.”
For a long time he held her tight while she wept and wept, making a soggy mark on his coat. When the storm had abatedsomewhat, she lifted her head to look at him, and saw his face filled with compassion for her.
“My poor darling,” he murmured, and somehow, she could not tell how, they were kissing and it felt so right, so infinitely reassuring that she had no mind to push him away. With his arms around her and his lips warm and gentle on hers, the world did not seem such a hostile and painful place as it had just a short while before. There was strength in those arms, one around her waist and the other wrapped firmly around her back, pulling her close to him. Nothing could hurt her when Edward was there to take care of her!
That was a strange thought. She had never needed or wanted anyone to take care of her before. She had been fiercely proud of her independence, gleefully following her own path. Yet in Pickering, it had been good to have Edward’s enthusiastic support for her plans, to plot and plan and do things together.
With a sigh, she rested her head on his shoulder.
“Better now?” he said, still holding her tightly.
“A little,” she said. “But where were you? You were here and then you disappeared. Now here you are again.”
“I went to York to get Tom Shapman out of gaol.”
Her head shot up excitedly. “Youdid that? How good you are!”
“Sir Hubert wrote the letters of authority to have him released, but I undertook to make the journey. I got back with him yesterday.”
“But then… how is it that he is married today? When were the banns read?”
“No banns. He was married by licence.”
“Bylicence?But how? That must be expensive…”
