“Pray stop, the both of you!” Felicity shook her head at them. “Really, I don’t know whether to laugh or to ring a peal over you.”
A rueful look came into Silvestre’s countenance and she put her arm about her twin in a quick hug. “I’m a beast, Hetty. Don’t heed me. There!”
Henrietta sniffed. “Well, I won’t. I am just as anxious as you to help Felicity, if you wish to know.”
“Very well, but let us concentrate on the journal. I think you should read it again, Felicity.”
“In the hope of finding mention of Papa’s family? Frankly, I very much doubt I will. If he never spoke of them to me, and I am sure he did not, I cannot see why he would write about them.”
Henrietta looked daunted, but Silvestre was clearly made of sterner stuff.
“You don’t know that. You said yourself you don’t recall what was written in it besides what he said about you.”
“Very true.” Although Felicity was not sure she wished to find out. But she did not speak of her reluctance. One aspect did beckon, however. “What may be of use, perhaps, are his entries about where we were. The journal ends abruptly. I never thought to look at the name of the place where he died. If it is there.”
Silvestre’s gaze brightened. “The very thing! It may jog your memory about his effects. Moreover, I have been thinking about this allowance you mentioned.”
“What of it?”
“Well, did it stop? And who was providing it? You might find a clue to that in the journal, perhaps?”
Even Henrietta began to look more interested. “Gracious, Felicity! By rights, it should have come to you!”
“Well done, Hetty! Yes, indeed. Who paid for your schooling?”
Felicity frowned, feeling all at once uncomfortable. “I must suppose it was my guardian.”
“Lord Maskery? But he never has a feather to fly with!”
Henrietta’s eyes grew intense. “Felicity, do you suppose he used the allowance?”
“What, for my schooling? Perhaps. I don’t know. I have been earning my keep for so long, I had not thought about it.”
“Well, think now,” said Silvestre, looking dissatisfied. “I must say, I find it most odd you seem to have had no curiosity at all about all this, Felicity.”
She had to smile. “When you have to earn your living, there is little leisure to indulge in curiosity. A schoolmistress is rarely off duty, you know. Most of our girls board, which means one may be needed night and day to supervise, or to sort out a problem. Or if one of the girls is ill, perhaps.”
Now she came to think about it, she had not opened the journal for years. It was a keepsake, like Mama’s locket, representing Papa, a substitute in his absence. Its contents were precious for being written in his hand, almost as if the journal thus contained something of his essence. Bereft, she had held it dear all this time, never thinking to search its pages for a past that had become little more than a cloudy and distant memory.
“To tell you the truth,” she said aloud into a thoughtful silence, “until my guardian came to Bath with his proposition, I never questioned my destiny. It was fixed.”
Silvestre’s brows drew together. “You never wondered about your father’s family?”
“I’m afraid not. Or if I did, it was but a fleeting interest.”
“What of your mother, dear Felicity?” Henrietta sounded hopefully anxious.
“I hardly remember her. I don’t even know what she died of, just that she was ill.”
“But her family?” Thus Silvestre, still delving. “Perhaps this journal may contain a clue to that?”
“I doubt it. I’m not sure it goes that far back. Papa may not have set up the habit of writing it while she was alive.”
“Or there may be earlier versions.”
Henrietta tutted. “It is no use saying that, Silve, when she has only the one.”
“True. It is odd, though, that all your papa’s things have disappeared without trace.”
