Page 22 of The Spinster (Rags to Richmonds #2)
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
T he reverend’s countenance was arranged in carefully blank lines, his gravity a marked contrast to the overall gaiety of the room. Seeing him there like a great black crow amid the charm of Lady Leighton’s airily elegant drawing room was too incongruous to be comprehended. Scarlett’s head swam and she felt too warm as she rose on shaking knees and stood beholding him, awaiting she knew not what. One thing was certain: his face might have been inscrutable to the others, but his displeasure was plain enough, at least to Scarlett.
“I daresay you might like to see me swing for ruining your party, my dear,” Sir Humphrey cried out jovially, seemingly oblivious to the ominous shadow behind him. “Ran into a terrible accident just ahead of the tolls, and it did not feel quite the thing to just leave the poor souls to get to a party. ”
“Oh, you are too good!” Lady Leighton went to present her cheek to her husband for a kiss. Bess, too, flew to her papa’s side, to be petted and adored and told she was the loveliest creature on earth.
“And see, there is our little Scarlett over there!” Sir Humphrey cried out gaily. “Well! London certainly agrees with you, my dear—do you not think so, Reverend?”
“Scarlett,” the reverend pronounced, “looks the very picture of a fine London lady.”
It appeared to Scarlett that she was the only one who understood the faint insult implied.
“You must forgive me, Reverend,” Lady Leighton was saying. “Sir Humphrey did not send word?—”
“Margrave surprised me, too!” Sir Humphrey boomed. “Had not the least notion of bringing him to town with me until this morning!”
“I am much obliged to you, sir, madam,” said Reverend Margrave, his mouth curling around the words. “I fear Scarlett has trodden upon your hospitality, and now I must too, just for one night?—”
Cries went up from Lady Leighton and Sir Humphrey—He must stay! He must meet Scarlett’s suitor! He must see the exhibition at the Royal Academy!—but the reverend was unmoved. Scarlett could almost see waves of disgust emanating from him.
“Scarlett and I shall depart at first light,” he said, and the severity of his voice was at last enough to penetrate even the Leightons’ good humour .
Adelaide had been standing behind Scarlett throughout, but she went to Lady Tipton following a slight gesture from her ladyship. Lady Tipton murmured something in Adelaide’s ear, and Adelaide subsequently left the room, returning moments later with Lord Tipton.
His lordship entered the room with all the gravitas of his station. Oakley, hard on his heels, looked decidedly more cheerful, seeming to imagine some exciting opportunity to meet a new friend was ahead of him. Worthe and Kem were the last to enter the room, looking curiously at the reverend, so darkly still and upright in their midst.
Lady Leighton hastened to make introductions to those who were not acquainted. There was such a heaviness of silence throughout that by the last of them, the good lady was observably disconcerted. Scarlett felt mortified on her behalf as she finished by enquiring, weakly, whether the newly arrived gentlemen would like some dinner. No one replied, but she sent for food to be brought to them regardless. “Let us all sit down,” she finished uncertainly.
Lord Tipton had not taken a seat, but had elected to stand by the mantel, his hands clasped behind his back. Beginning in amiable accents, he addressed the reverend. “Sir, it seems that we have a unique situation between us, an extraordinary circumstance whereby one of my family… I beg your pardon?”
The reverend had begun to slowly and definitely shake his head, back and forth, with his eyes closed. When the earl said ‘I beg your pardon’, he opened his eyes and gave Lord Tipton a tight smile.
“You must forgive my daughter for having importuned you so. I am heartily ashamed of her, I assure you.”
“Not at all,” Lady Tipton hastened to say. “She wished to know her relations, and we have had a great deal of enjoyment getting acquainted with her!”
“Relations? No, I am afraid there has been some mistake,” the reverend said. “Nay, not a mistake…a lie.”
Lord Tipton sent a sideways glance towards his wife. “A lie?”
“It shames me to own that Scarlett has always had a tendency towards lying.”
“Lying?” Scarlett gasped. “What on earth can you mean? I have never?—”
The reverend continued speaking over her, addressing Lord Tipton. “Let me guess—was it some tale about an adoption?”
Lord Tipton’s face looked very odd as he tilted his head to one side and studied the reverend. At the others in the room—Lady Tipton, Worthe, even Kem—Scarlett dared not look.
“Alas, I am sorry to inform you all that it is quite untrue. There was no adoption.” The reverend had somehow changed himself, going from a frightful crow-like personage to a gentle, humble soul. The phrase ‘all the world’s a stage’ shot into Scarlett’s memory, a remnant of her mother’s teachings. She had never really understood what it meant, but now she did. Was everyone just acting a part?
“This has all been her fancy,” Reverend Margrave continued. “She heard about the discovery of your niece at a house party, you see, and her head became filled with the notion of being a hidden heiress herself. Of course, I can see now that the likeness is extraordinary. There must be, somewhere in our lineages, some shared ancestor.”
The reverend smiled genially at Lord Tipton and, to Scarlett’s abject horror, it appeared that the earl believed him. He was nodding slowly in reply to all that the reverend said.
“Sir—” Scarlett began, hardly knowing whom she ought to address. “I assure you I am not so overtaken by fanciful notions that I have imagined all of this! What of Mrs Blythe’s letter? What about your ledger?”
“Mrs Blythe? Who is Mrs Blythe?” the reverend asked.
“The mistress of the orphanage,” Adelaide said immediately. “Princess Caroline’s Home for the Care of Unfortunate Waifs.”
The reverend thought for a moment. “I do not believe I have ever heard of such a place. Is that where you were in your infancy, Miss Richmond?”
“It is the place where both Scarlett and I were,” she shot back defiantly.
“I am afraid not,” the reverend said. “Lord Tipton, it pains me, truly it does, that my daughter has acted as she has, has run off from home and put herself forwards as some relation to you. The fact of it is, Scarlett has never been satisfied with her place as the daughter of a mere country parson.”
Scarlett opened her mouth to protest, but in fact, in this he was correct. It was not her place, and she was not satisfied in it.
“It delighted her to imagine that she had some place in higher society just waiting for her. Having heard of Miss Richmond’s um…rags to riches tale—” he smiled with false kindliness at Adelaide, “—I daresay she just became consumed with jealousy, and wished to have such good fortune for herself. Her hair is, in fact, not even this colour! I was told by our housekeeper that she used some sort of cleaning agent to lighten it.”
A small sound escaped Scarlett, a fragment of the sobs she wished to unleash. “None of that is true,” Scarlett said, her voice trembling. “Anyone with eyes can see that Adelaide and I are twins, and I have never in my life pretended to be something I am not! I saw the letter from Mrs Blythe!”
With measured, controlled paces the reverend came to Scarlett, and kissed the top of her forehead. “It is very well, my dear. Papa is here now, and soon all this confusion will be behind you.”
He looked at the rest of the room, promising, “I shall take her back to Stanbridge tomorrow morning, first light. You have my word that she will not trouble you again. ”
Worthe, Oakley, and Kem had been silent throughout the conversation, still standing near the door where they had entered. Scarlett had not wanted to look their way, but she did now, seeing expressions of varying confusion and alarm on each of their faces.
It was Worthe who detached from them, walking over to where Scarlett and the reverend stood. Extending one hand towards the reverend, he said, “Sir, I am Lord Worthe.”
“Yes,” the reverend said with amusement. “So I remember from our introduction a few minutes ago.” He shook Worthe’s hand. “How do you do?”
“Um, yes, very well, thank you.” Worthe smiled, albeit humourlessly. “Would you do me the honour of granting me a private audience, sir?”
“You wish to speak to me in private?” The reverend gave a mocking grin to the room at large, extending one arm as he did so. The world—or at least the drawing room—had indeed become his stage, and the play he enacted was of his own creation.
“About what shall we speak, Lord Worthe?” he asked in grand accents. “Surely we can have no clandestine business between us, having just met?”
Worthe pressed his lips together for a moment and then said, “I wish to speak to you about Miss Scarlett, about…a possible?—”
“No.” The reverend said it so quickly, everyone seemed taken aback, most particularly Worthe. The reverend softened a little, raising one hand to pat Worthe on the arm and said, “Before you embarrass yourself, there is something you ought to know. Something of a surprise. I had not planned to tell everyone tonight, but it seems like I should.”
With a beaming smile that looked frankly bizarre on his face, Reverend Margrave announced, “Scarlett is engaged!”