She smiled faintly, her grey eyes still fixed on the happy pair below. And yet she could not help but wonder.
Was there happiness meant for her as well? Or was she forever to watch it from a distance, keeping her heart safe, guarded, and untouched, while others walked freely into joy?
A soft rustle of skirts drew Matilda from her reverie. She turned to find Hazel approaching, with her step unhurried as though she had been careful not to startle her.
“Are you all right, my dear?” Hazel asked almost in a whisper, as though the night itself listened.
Matilda gave a faint smile, though it did not reach her eyes. “Am I different now, Hazel? Since… everything. Since my marriage.”
Hazel tilted her head, her brows knitting gently. “Different how?”
“As if I have changed for the worse.” The words tumbled out before Matilda could soften them. She clasped her hands before her, trying to hold them still. “There are moments I scarcely recognize myself. I used to feel—” She faltered, searching for the right word. “Free. Foolish perhaps, but free. Now I feel… smaller. As though a part of me has been shut away, never to be opened again.”
Hazel came to stand beside her at the balustrade. She did not look at Matilda at once, but out over the garden where Evelyn’s laughter still lingered in the air.
“That is not a failing, my dear. It is the mark of what you endured. Your late husband sought to bind you, to bend you to his will. How could you not feel less free after such treatment?”
Matilda swallowed, feeling her throat tight. “Then perhaps he has succeeded, even from the grave.”
Hazel’s hand, steady and warm, came to rest over hers. “No. He may have wounded you, but he has not won. Wounds need time, Matilda. Time to close, time to knit back together. You need not force yourself into joy before you are ready.”
Matilda kept her gaze fixed upon the shadows of the garden, afraid that if she looked at Hazel’s kind eyes, her composure would break. “Do you think they heal, truly? Or do we only learn to live with them?”
Hazel’s answer was quiet, but resolute. “Some do heal. Others remain, faint but present, reminders of where we have been. But even those scars need not lessen us. They may teach us how strong we are.”
Matilda let out a breath she had not known she held. The night air was cool, the scent of roses drifting faintly from below, and for a moment, one blissful moment, she felt something ease within her.
The following afternoon, the drawing room was full of laughter and the rustle of tissue paper as the long-awaited gowns were revealed. Boxes from Madame Fouché’s establishment lay open upon the tables and chairs, silks spilling forth like captured rainbows.
Cordelia was the first to squeal in delight. She held up a gown of brilliant turquoise, the skirts shimmering when she twirled them before the window.
“Oh, it is even lovelier than I imagined! Mason will not know where to look first.”
Hazel smiled at her exuberance, though her own choice was far more restrained: deep plum satin, dignified yet striking.
“You will have all eyes upon you, Cordelia. Try not to trip over yourself in your enthusiasm.”
“I will trip most gracefully, I assure you,” Cordelia returned, her eyes alight.
Evelyn, seated upon the sofa, lifted a gown of soft blush pink, the embroidery delicate as lace. She touched it reverently.
“It is perfect,” she whispered, while a dreamy smile softened her features. “Robert will laugh at me for fussing, but I want to feel my best.”
Their joy was uncontainable, bright as the silks they pressed to their cheeks.
Matilda unfolded her own gown last. A pale dove-grey muslin, modestly cut, with no daring embellishment save for a faint silver trimming at the hem.
Perfectlyappropriate.Perfectlyproper.Perfectfor vanishing into the crowd.
Her friends exclaimed over their jewels: Evelyn’s pearls, Cordelia’s diamonds, Hazel’s amethyst pendant. They all wished to gleam beneath the chandeliers of the coming ball that was to follow the baptism. Matilda, meanwhile, smoothed the fabric across her lap and felt nothing stir within her but the familiar sense of distance.
There had been a time, in girlhood, when the arrival of a new gown filled her with anticipation. But that delight seemed to belong to someone else now, someone she no longer was. Her friends’ laughter rang about her, warm and unselfconscious. They spoke of hair arrangements, of ribbons and gloves, of how their husbands’ faces would light with admiration. Matilda listened, smiling faintly, but her heart was quiet.
Evelyn’s soft voice drew her back from her thoughts. “Do you like your gown, dearest?”
Matilda looked down at the dove-grey folds in her lap. “Yes,” she said carefully. “It is precisely what I expected of it.”
Cordelia tilted her head, her turquoise skirts gathered in her arms like waves of the sea. “And is it what you wished for, though? Or do you find yourself wanting something else now?”
