Page 29 of The Work of Art

“Capital!” Edgeworth bellowed from his place at the card table. “Always fancy a good Scots melody.”

Miss Satterthwaite hesitated but a moment before politely begging Arthur’s pardon and rising from the window so she might go and do as her cousins had bid her. “I’ll likely be relegated to the pianoforte for the next hour at least.”

Arthur rose, as well. “Then I shall take my leave of you.”

“Now?” She looked up at him, at first with some little surprise, and then with a sad resignation that tore at his heart. “Oh, yes. Of course. I see that you must.”

He extended her hair decoration to her.

“Keep it,” she said.

“Miss Satterthwaite, I couldn’t possibly—”

“Please. It’s only a small thing, I know, and has no value at all, but I hope that…that if you have it…you won’t soon forget me.”

Arthur’s fingers closed around the hairpin. His voice, when he found it, sounded very unlike his own. “I have no intention of forgetting you.”

“Nor I you, sir.” She gave him a small smile. “Goodbye, Captain Heywood.”

Arthur stared at her. He knew then, as sure as anything, that he was never going to see her again. “Goodbye, Miss Satterthwaite.”

The words had a stark finality to them, and as he watched her walk away, all of the cold and darkness of his life once again enveloped him. Whatever small degree of light and warmth that had been his by virtue of proximity to Phyllida Satterthwaite was snuffed out as easily as a candle.

The next day Philly kept to her room for most of the morning. She didn’t expect that anyone downstairs would notice her absence. The entire household was suffering from the aftereffects of the dinner party. All the servants were exhausted from their labors. Mrs. Vale—who had indulged in far too much sherry with Lady Edgeworth—was bedridden with a blinding headache. And Elizabeth and Abigail were both sleeping late.

Only Uncle Edgar seemed unaffected by the previous evening’s festivities. He woke at the same early hour he always did, and after breakfasting, went straight to his library and shut the door behind him.

At half past eleven, Philly called in the maid to help her dress, and by quarter past twelve, she was walking out the front door of the townhouse wearing one of her favorite old gowns. She carried Fox under her arm, and Basil, Jasper, and Dash ran along at her heels. Her cousins and Sara trudged behind. They were quieter than usual, tired from their late night and resentful that they’d been forced to act as chaperones on Philly’s outings.

“If you’d only go in a different direction occasionally, perhaps it wouldn’t be so tedious to walk with you,” Elizabeth grumbled before falling silent.

Philly didn’t respond. She had no intention of exploring a new path. Even though she wasn’t likely to see Arthur Heywood ever again, there was still some small hope within her that she’d find him sitting on the bench where she’d come across him twice before. As they turned down the familiar path, her heart beat rapidly in anticipation. But when the bench came into view it was empty. There was no sign of him anywhere.

He’d left the party last night only moments after she sat down at the pianoforte. Her heart had been so heavy as she watched him go that she could scarcely finish playing the Scottish love song her cousins had requested of her.

She hadn’t known until then just how much he’d come to mean to her.

Her grandmother would have called it a tendresse. Her grandfather would have called it calf love. Philly wasn’t sure what to call it. All she knew was that she felt more fondness and affection for Arthur Heywood than for any other gentleman of her acquaintance. He’d been her first and only friend in London. She despaired of finding another as thoughtful and sympathetic as he’d been.

Of course, she understood his desire to return to his home in the country. He had nothing to keep him in London, and he preferred a quiet life, much as she did herself. And yet, when he’d spoken to her of his home in Somersetshire, he hadn’t sounded as if he were looking forward to returning there. Instead he’d been grave and melancholy, referencing the slow passage of time in the country as if he were a man who had been banished to some sort of half existence.

He was going to be dreadfully lonely there. Far lonelier than she was on her own here in London. It wasn’t what she wished for him. She cared for him deeply and wanted him to be happy. She wondered what would make him so, and unbidden, an image of Lady Eliot garbed in a diaphanous white-and-silver gown came into her mind. Once conjured, it was hard to dispel.

With a disheartened sigh, she attempted to focus on something else. It wasn’t a day for feeling sad. The sun was shining brightly, and there was hardly a cloud in the brilliant blue sky. She turned her face to the sun, feeling the warmth of it on her face, and—as she walked along with her dogs—her mood began to lift a little.

The sun had a similar reviving effect on her cousins. Soon, Elizabeth and Abigail’s sullen silence was replaced with lively chatter. By the time an hour had passed, they were in as fine a form as always, snapping and arguing with each other so aggressively that neither could finish a complete sentence.

Basil, Jasper, and Dash ran in circles around their little procession, and Fox, held tight in Philly’s arms, strained his head so he could watch them. Sara trotted along behind, as harried and nervous as ever, regularly reminding the three young ladies that they shouldn’t tarry too long in the park lest Mrs. Vale become cross with them.

“She’s not likely to care today.” Elizabeth kicked a stone with the toe of her half boot. “When I went into her room this morning, she could hardly open her eyes.”

“Constance Penniman says drink is the devil,” Abigail pronounced with some authority. “A real lady should never forget herself with the sherry as Aunt Vale did last night.”

“If she did overindulge a little,” Philly said, “I’m sure it was only because Lady Edgeworth was doing so.”

Elizabeth snorted. “Lady Edgeworth has a great capacity for drink. As much as her husband has for food, I daresay.”

Abigail was in rare agreement with her sister. “He ate ever so much Savoy cake.”