Her mother laughed. It wasn’t a happy sound but sharp and cruel. “Foolish child. You are not going to marry Stuyvesant Bradley or any young man from theFour Hundred. No one in New York society would have you. You’re only passably pretty, and even your impressive dowry is not enough to overcome our family’s current social dilemma.”
Cordelia held her breath. She was determined not to cry. She hadn’t sobbed when her father left. She hadn’t wept when her friends stopped calling and social invitations ceased. She would not break down now.
“If not Stuyvesant, who do you intend for me to marry?”
“I have given this matter a great deal of thought,” her mother said. “The only way for you, Edith, and me to re-enter society is for you to marry an English lord… Even Mrs. Astor, the undisputed leader of fashion, would not snub the mother-in-law of an English aristocrat, and whomever she approves of, the rest of New York will accept without question.”
Cordelia shook her head. “I am only eighteen years old. I am much too young to be married yet. Besides, I’ve passed the entrance examinations to Oxford University, and I thought the plan was that I attend there in the fall with a chaperone. You’ve always told me how important my education is. How a woman’s mind is equal to any man’s.”
“I don’t askyouto think,” she said. “Ido the thinking.”
“It’s 1893, Mama!” Cordelia burst out. “This isn’t the Middle Ages. Arranged marriages are a thing of the past.”
Her mother’s beautiful features contorted with anger. “You will do as you are told.”
“But it ismylife. And if I am only ‘passably pretty,’ why would an English aristocrat wish to marry me in the first place?”
Her mother smiled, a cold, calculated one. “If you weren’t so young and foolish, you would know that most English lords are desperate for money. There have been many marriages between American heiresses and Europeans with titles.”
Cordeliahadheard of them. The newspapers loved to publish articles on “cash for coronet” marriages. They called American heiresses “dollar princesses” and tried to sell papers by pretending it was a modern fairytale spectacle. But Cordelia was not fooled. She knew firsthand the misery that lay beneath the glitter and gold of the upper class. The sadness behind the smiles. And what little happiness could be found in a marriage based on money like her parents’ had been.
“I will not do it,” Cordelia said, shaking her head. “You cannot make me marry a complete stranger.”
Her mother clutched her chest where her heart should have been, but Cordelia thought it was empty underneath.
“Do you not care about your family? Your own mother? Your sister? What chance do you think Edith will have at school if you do not restore our place in society? And when she comes of age? She will be censured and despised. All because of your selfishness.”
“Perhaps you should have thought about that before you divorced Father.”
Her mother rounded on her. “You are a child. You know nothing. You understand nothing. I am your mother. You must be guided by me. And you will not leave this room until I have your word that you will marry whomever I select.”
“Then I shall stay in here forever.”
“We will see about that,” her mother said, and opened the door to the room. She stepped out and called for a footman. “Peter, see that Miss Cordelia does not leave her room and that no one else goes in unless it is one of her governesses.”
The tall footman bowed and walked to her door to stand as a sentry.
“I’ll give you some time to come to your senses and realize your duty,” her mother said, and the footman shut the door.
Cordelia fell to her knees, lacking the energy to stand any longer. She picked up the broken doll. More than half of the doll’s face was now a jagged hole. The only facial feature that remained was one blue eye, permanently open. Cordelia cradled her broken doll against her chest, crying for the loss of her childhood and her own dreams. And for Stuyvesant.
2
There was no service said over his father’s body. The seventh Earl of Farnham was buried in the Petersley Church graveyard, with nary a soul save for Thomas and the rector, Mr. Ryse. Thomas watched the two burly gravediggers shovel dirt onto the simple wooden casket until it could no longer be seen.
Mr. Ryse was a stout man of middling years, with thinning brown hair and a trimmed beard. He was a remote relation of the Ashby family and had spent more time at Ashdown Abbey than his father had. Mr. Ryse placed his hand on Thomas’s shoulder. “’Tis a bad business.”
What an understatement, Thomas thought. His father had shot himself in the ash grove adjacent to the house, leaving Thomas with a title, a heavily mortgaged estate, staggering debts, his mother, and his ward, Penelope Hutchinson, to provide for. Thomas barely had enough cash to pay for his father’s burial, as no one in the village of Petersley would give him credit. Not that he could blame them. The debt to the butcher was two years overdue and the wine merchant hadn’t been paid in five years.
“How are you holding up, young man?” Mr. Ryse inquired, still holding Thomas’s shoulder with his beefy hand.
“Well enough,” Thomas lied. He was only twenty-one years old and his family was depending on him to save them. But how? His father had already pawned all the family jewels, sold their 18,000-volume library and both the Raphael and Van Dyck paintings. The only item left of value in the entire Ashdown Abbey was the silverware. Thomas tried to picture himself paying the butcher’s bill with silver forks and spoons.
“At least you didn’t lose Ashdown Abbey,” Mr. Ryse said in a reassuring tone.
Thomas could feel the blood draining from his face. He felt as if he was going to be sick. He did not know how he could possibly save his home. It was already mortgaged past what it was worth, and he would still have to pay all of his father’s outstanding debts.
“I didn’t mean to frighten you, Thomas,” Mr. Ryse said quickly. “I only meant that twenty years ago your father’s property would have been forfeit to the crown. Suicide is a crime, after all.”
