“Perhaps Lord Maskery dealt with it all,” Henrietta suggested. “He came to get you, Felicity. And he was your guardian.”
“Yes, and someone must have arranged for the funeral. Did you attend, Felicity?”
A remembered pain sent a pang through Felicity’s breast as a series of pictures flitted through her mind. “Our landlady was with me. There was a church. I don’t know who was there. Not many. We stood around the grave. Nanny clutched my hand throughout, I remember.” She gave a tiny laugh. “I think she was more distressed than I. It was not very real to me at the time. Afterwards…”
She faded out, recalling the emptiness of a world without Papa’s merry laughter and the warm hug of his arms when he lifted her up.
A sudden remembrance of the other night, caught in Lord Lynchmere’s arms, caused a flush of warmth within. She had not been held like that since she’d lost Papa. Not by a man. It had been like, and yet unlike.
She came to herself to find Henrietta weeping again, her twin patting her on the back in a resigned way. Although there was a suspicious brightness to Silvestre’s eyes too. Felicity pulled herself together.
“I do beg both your pardons. I had no wish to make a parade of my sorrows.”
Henrietta at once disclaimed in a somewhat watery tone, but Silvestre became bracing, rising and crossing to the bell-pull. “What we need is a cup of tea to cheer us all up. Or would you prefer coffee, Felicity?”
Opting for the latter, Felicity heaved a sigh of relief. The whole exercise was depressing in the extreme. She wished with some fervour that her guardian had never come to Bath with his preposterous and false proposal. He had turned her world upside-down to no purpose. Or rather, to an evil purpose which had cast into doubt everything she previously knew or thought about her existence.
“Is he even my guardian?”
She had spoken aloud unthinkingly. The reaction was almost laughable. Henrietta gasped, her mouth dropping open. Silvestre, in the act of returning to the table, halted abruptly.
“Good heavens! Do you think Maskery may have lied about that too?”
Felicity felt warmth rising in her cheeks. “I don’t know. It just seems everything is suspect now.”
“But you never had occasion to doubt him before,” said Henrietta, finding her tongue again. “Would not your Mrs —? I forget her name.”
“Mrs Jeavons.”
“Would not she have known? She cannot have taken you in without being assured of him being who he said he was.”
Silvestre came to the table, standing over her sister. “Why not? Why should she think otherwise?”
“No reason, I suppose, but —”
“I spoke a random thought aloud,” Felicity cut in before another argument could develop. “Pray don’t make an issue of it. I dare say it is nonsense.”
But this would not do for Silvestre. “All the more reason to discover what you can about your papa’s family. I wish you will consult this journal as soon as possible.”
Felicity had every intention of so doing, but she would infinitely prefer to keep the matter private. The twins meant well, but Silvestre was showing signs of wishing to delve into the mystery of it and Felicity could not persuade herself that any answers she might find were likely to be palatable.
By the time her hostess was ready to return home, Felicity felt more battered than enthusiastic. The Latimer twins were exhausting, not least because of their tendency to interlard every discussion with little squabbles, thus losing the point and going off into unimportant side issues.
Felicity had been glad to be interrupted by the two matrons, who lost no time in changing the direction of the conversation. She was able to retire into her own thoughts while the more positive effects of the auction became the topic of the day. Not that she was permitted to sit quietly throughout, being constantly appealed to by one or other of the two girls to support their ideas.
It was too much like the academy, and she was dismayed to realise how much she was dreading a return after this brief respite. Had she been merely enduring all these years? Had this sense of suppressed frustration always been a part of her life? Or had the talk of Papa merely dredged up too much comparison with a time when she was happy?
The recognition that her life had been uniformly unhappy ever since could not but dismay her. Surely it was not so?
There had been shared laughter, with the girls sometimes, with other teachers and Mrs Jeavons on occasion. Little flashes of colour in the grey painting of her existence. Not dull, no. Never that. One could not be dull with a plethora of lively girls needing attention. Tedious. Demanding. Tiring. With then that thread of dissatisfaction that ran, unheeded, through everything.
Was that why she had fallen victim to Lord Maskery’s promised land? Felicity was both shamed and distressed by these reflections. They came tardily, unwelcome when she had determined on going back. How in the world would she settle again after this?
Somewhat subdued, she felt relieved when Angelica failed to notice, being still engrossed in the results of the auction even as the carriage drove them back to George Street.
“I must say I did not expect the thing to come off in quite so spectacular a fashion. When Gawcott told me the sum of his collections I felt quite stunned. Besides which, not all have as yet honoured their pledges. I hoped it would cause a stir, and so it has. But poor dear Margaret is so grateful for the money. She may buy the girls a new gown or two, which she hopes will hide the fact they are now purse-pinched. Not that she intends to squander the takings. Indeed, I advised her to hoard them against a rainy day.”
She continued in this strain until the carriage came to a standstill and she was obliged to desist to get down. Felicity was looking forward to a period of quiet, but this hope was shattered by the first words the butler spoke to his mistress.
