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Three letters arrive the next day. Mother, Catherine and I are all in the library, various mending projects and embroidery hoops spread between us. I’ve been half-heartedly darning stockings, my hands working automatically while I think of different books to lend to Mr. Barrett. Too many of my favorites feature houses that burn down, heroines trapped behind heavy doors while smoke curls around the hero trying to reach her. Everything is different since Mrs. Tidewell told me about his past and the fire that shaped it; the world I thought I understood has shifted slightly, casting everything in a new light. I’m overcome with the urge to protect him in any small way possible from the specter of his past. There’s also a little niggling of worry in my stomach. What was it Mrs. Tidewell said? That she heard he was engaged already? Maybe he was only visiting out of pity after all. Is there someone else? But Catherine hasn’t mentioned anything about that, and she makes it her business to know everything.
Father wanders in, letters in hand, and passes an envelope to Mother. “I suppose the one from my sister is for you, my dear.”
Aunt Phillips is Father’s older sister and only sibling. She lives in Boston with her husband where they’re well-to-do society types thanks to a generous loan Father gave Uncle Phillips in the early days of his printing business. With no children of her own, Aunt Phillips always took an active interest in us girls, and many a visit to their neat brick house on Acorn Street was spent getting our cheeks pinched and our dresses fawned over. That is, until the rumors started swirling and the invitations dried up. Maybe now that we’ve been out of Boston awhile and things have quieted down we’re finally back in her good graces.
Father frowns, squinting at the next in the stack. “Can’t make out the hand on this one, and it’s only addressed to Miss Montrose.”
He looks between Catherine and me, but it’s Catherine who springs up to take it before retreating to the corner to tear it open. Mother had forbidden Catherine from corresponding with Charles, not wanting even the appearance of scandal, but of course as with all things, Catherine got her way. Now I realize that all those notes I saw her slipping Joe when we first came must have been to Charles. And as with all things too, Mother doesn’t have the energy to enforce her own rule.
Father raises a brow in surprise at the last latter. “Lydia,” he says, passing it to me.
With a frown, I take it from his hand. My shoulders slump when I see the handwriting. Cyrus.
This isn’t the first letter that Cyrus has sent me since he returned to Boston, and if the previous letters are any indication, this one will be full of clumsy declarations of love, followed by disdainful accounts of his reduced circumstances. I crumple it up and press it into the side of my skirts.
With a heavy grunt, Father lowers himself to the settee beside Mother and takes her small hand in his while he reads his paper. He’s in a rare good mood now that the land deal with Ezra Clarke has gone through and he can start construction on the new mill.
“Oh,” says Mother, her temple creasing in a little frown. “Aunt Phillips has had an accident.”
Father raises a brow but doesn’t say anything, already absorbed in his newspaper.
“It seems she took a tumble getting out of the carriage. The doctor thinks her ankle might be broken, and she’s confined to bed while it heals. Uncle Phillips is in New York, but they have that hired girl now who’s helping tend to her and see that she’s comfortable while she recovers.”
“Grace always was clumsy like that,” Father says, shaking his head. He goes back to his paper and Mother silently reads the rest of her letter.
Aunt Phillips always was a martyr to her gout, and I suspect that it wasn’t a tumble from a carriage so much as an eruption of her old condition that has left her bedridden.
It’s suspiciously quiet on the other side of the room where Catherine is hovering, her knuckles white as she clasps the back of a chair. Her eyes are feverishly scanning the lines, but as she does her smile fades and her face goes colorless. For a second I think she is going burst into tears, but then she hastily folds the letter back up and composes her face into a cool mask.
Mother sighs, folding up her own letter again. “What’s wrong, dear? Not more bad news I hope?”
“No, it’s nothing. Just a letter from an old friend.” Catherine hastily slips it into her pocket. “I think I’ll go read the rest of it in my room. Lydia?”
It takes me a moment to understand that she expects me to come with her. I don’t want to leave the library. It’s so nice for once to all be in the same room, Father, Mother, Catherine and me. It’s like having a normal family again, almost, and even if we’re all in our own worlds, I can pretend.
But there’s a desperate, pleading note in her voice, so with a sigh, I put aside my darning and leave the cozy fantasy behind.
No sooner does the door click behind us than Catherine thrusts the letter in my face. “How dare he! I knew him to be selfish and false but I still can’t believe he would have the nerve!”
I quickly take in the contents of the letter while Catherine paces about the room ranting. It’s not from Charles, but Mr. Pierce.My mother has informed me of an unfortunate story circulating in Boston... Can’t attach myself to a family with such a reputation... Feel that you’ve misled me... Regret that I will no longer be able to...
I look up. “Oh, Catherine. I’m so—”
“It was his miserable mother who put the idea into his head, I just know it was!”
The letter says as much, and I’m only surprised that it took him so long to hear about the scandal. I bite my lip, trying to mask my own disappointment. What is there to say? “I’m sure he didn’t want to leave you, Cath. I’m really sorry.”
Ignoring my attempts at consolation, Catherine throws herself facedown on the bed, only coming up for air occasionally to curse her would-be groom and mother-in-law. So far “miserable” is the tamest description she has come up with.
“The old bat, pretending like she’s on the verge of death, and all the while her ears are open and her mouth is flapping that tired story all over Boston. I could wring her old neck. And August! Playing the dutiful son, all the while using his mother as an excuse to get away from me every chance he could.”
The way she says it I don’t doubt for a second that Catherine could indeed wring Mrs. Pierce’s old neck. I run a meaningless hand down her back, soothing and shushing, but my heart isn’t in it. It’s over. Catherine’s best chance for finding a husband and avoiding calamity have come to naught.
Suddenly Catherine sits up and wipes a careless sleeve under her red nose. “Maybe it really is all his mother, and not August at all.” Her face brightens and she sniffles back her slowing tears. “She probably made him write that letter and kept him in Boston, forbidding him from coming back to marry me. He could be trying to make his way back to me for all I know.”
“Catherine...” It’s false hope and I think even she must know that. A bedridden woman couldn’t keep her strapping young son hostage in the house, though she could cut off his inheritance, and for a dandy like Mr. Pierce that would be even worse.
“But why not?” The tears have dried and she’s pushing me aside, stumbling to her writing desk. “You could ask Mr. Barrett for me. You could give him a note to give to Mr. Pierce.” She’s already scribbling away, ink still wet as she thrusts the missive at me. “Please, Lydia.”