“I know Father just as well as you do, Frances,” Beatrice objected. “I might be younger than you but I still have eyes and ears and have lived under the same roof. I see nothing but a loving husband and a devoted father who loves his daughters too. Why can’t you see that?”
“He is a faithless husband, Beatrice,” Frances finally burst out, goaded beyond bearing by this naive portrayal of their family life. “He betrayed Mother with another woman for years when she was ill.”
“How can you even say such things?” exclaimed Beatrice, hands on her hips. “That’s a terrible accusation to make without any proof.”
“I have proof, Beatrice,” Frances shouted. "I saw them with my own eyes when I was thirteen. It had been going on for years by then. After he was caught, Father told me that he had ended it but I had no way of knowing if he spoke the truth. He might have taken any number of other lovers besides.”
Beatrice’s hand flew to her mouth at this news, her face shaken and disconcerted.
“My God, I had no idea. I don’t want to believe it…”
“Why would I lie about something like this, Beatrice? I have never told Mother because it would break her heart. You know how much she loves Father and believes in him. Every time he speaks of love to Mother, he lies. He has never deserved her.”
For a long time, Beatrice stood there in silent dismay, struggling to reconcile this story with the affectionate and dependable family man she had always believed her father to be.
“Who was she, this other woman?” her sister finally asked in a shaky voice, coming to lean against the wall close to Frances.
“Penelope Keeton, Lady Mulford, our former neighbor who died six or seven years go. She had other lovers too, as did her husband Maurice, but I think Father…”
“You were friends with their son, Oswald,” Beatrice remembered, screwing up her face with the effort of remembering these figures from her very early childhood. “She had long red hair, didn’t she, and was always very glamorously dressed?”
“Yes, that’s her. Was I friends with Oswald? Or did Father only make me Oswald’s friend so that he and Lady Mulford could be alone together? I believed for years that he took me over there to play, when he was really going to visit his lover and using me to cover his tracks.”
“Oh! Did Oswald know about his mother? Did he tell his father?”
“He was with me on the day we stumbled across the two of them,” said Frances bleakly. “Oswald, Lord Mulford now, saw exactly what I saw, although I have no idea what story Lady Mulford may have concocted later.”
“You never saw him again?”
“We saw one another, but after that day, we were never friends again. It changed both of us. Oswald seemed to blame me for Father’s behavior, and then as he grew up, he seemed to… fixate on me in some way and blame me for that too.”
“What do you mean, Frances?” asked Beatrice, not yet quite out in society and more innocent of the world in general than Frances had been at the same age.
“Oswald Keeton has grown into the most awful man, Beatrice,” Frances tried to explain. “You are still young and I cannot describe the way he torments and harasses me, but when you come out, you must never be alone with him. He can be most inappropriate, in his words and actions.”
Beatrice looked horrified by this, her eyes growing wide and unblinking.
“If Lord Mulford… harasses you like that, you must tell Mother and Father, surely,” the girl responded, still possessingthat naive faith in her parents, even after Frances’ shocking revelations.
“How could I ever tell them, without revealing the story of Father’s infidelity to Mother?” said Frances with a bitter laugh. “Anyway, I am married now and I hoped that he would not dare to insult me any more as Duchess of Westall.”
“I am sure that Ambrose would not permit it,” Beatrice stated staunchly, sounding just as unworldly and sure of herself as Lydia had done in Hyde Park. “You ought to tell Ambrose if he does. Have you seen Lord Mulford since your wedding?”
“No, but he wrote to me. It was the most horrible letter I have ever received and I burned it straight away.”
“Oh, Frances!”
Lacking the words to communicate as she wished, Beatrice hugged her older sister instead. Stiff at first, Frances relaxed after a few moments, glad to have finally admitted so much to someone close to her and even more relieved at apparently having found understanding.
“I never thought anyone would believe me,” Frances admitted when they stood back from one another. “Both about Father, and then about Lord Mulford. Thank you for not doubting my word.”
“I do believe you. But still, Father loves Mother so much,” Beatrice insisted now, speaking to herself as much as to Frances. “I see it in him every day. I can believe that he was unfaithful but I cannot believe that he does not love Mother.”
“How can there be love without honesty and trust, Beatrice? I don’t understand love in that way. If a man makes a promise, he ought to keep it, and if a man lies, you can never trust him again.”
These strong statements seemed to trouble Beatrice all over again, but still she shook her head.
“People can make mistakes, Frances, men and women. I do, and I know you do too. What if Father made a mistake and he is sorry?”
