AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Would Papa ever go back to being his old self again? Could she? Or Harr
iet? Would anything ever be the same again?
“Of course Martin will emerge from his state of depression soon, and neither of us should think otherwise. But you must realize that he—forgive me for being blunt, my dear—he loved your mama to a degree almost amounting to obsession. That is part of the reason why it is taking him so long to... Martin was always so sensitive! When our parents died I was afraid for a time that he might never recover from the shock. But life does have to go on, and we cannot turn back the pages or change what is written on them. You might remember that, Alexa, if you can. Because your life is just beginning, and you’ll soon learn that mistakes are meant to be learned from and not to be repeated, if you’re intelligent enough to realize that. Alexa, look at me!”
Still busy with sorting out the confusion of papers, Alexa had almost unconsciously spoken her thoughts out loud when Harriet entered the room to find out if she was ready for a cup of tea; and now, almost unwillingly, she lifted her gaze from the papers clutched in her hand to meet her aunt’s eyes.
“You think I’m still too naive and impractical because I like to indulge in wishful thinking sometimes? But what’s so wrong with doing so?”
“What have I taught you? Why do you think I’ve tried to open your mind?” It was not until Harriet suddenly reached down to grasp her wrist that Alexa realized how seldom her aunt had actually touched her; for she had never been given to any outward show of sentiment. “Opened your mind...” Harriet repeated in a strangely harsh voice. “Yes, that’s what I did for you, even if I had to fight them every step of the way! Your mama—and even my own brother. And God knows why I felt compelled to do so, unless it was because I thought I saw, perhaps, something in you that reminded me of myself in earlier days. I was something of a rebel too in my time, as surprising as it might seem to you; but I learned my hard lessons too late for them to make any difference. It shouldn’t be the same with you—if you’ve learned anything, that is. The important thing is to keep emotion and reason apart, always being able to distinguish and separate the two in your mind. It’s the only way, my dear Alexa, that you will always remain in control of your own Me and your destiny, whatever it might be.” With a short, discordant laugh, Harriet dropped her wrist as suddenly as she had grasped it. “As you’ll discover in time, one’s destiny is always a surprise, for all that we dream and plan and aspire—or even hope! But if you’re sensible enough you won’t take anything for granted, or let yourself be taken by surprise either.”
As if she had said too much already Harriet stopped and shrugged, raising one eyebrow when she noticed that Alexa’s forehead had puckered thoughtfully. “Here I stand making speeches while there is so much that has to be seen to. And I only meant to pause long enough to remind you that we shall probably have guests for dinner tonight—Letty Dearborn and her latest foreman, the young man who’s been such a help. He’s Portuguese, or something of the sort, I think she said when I spoke to her last. In any case, it’s her usual night to come to dinner and I’ve already reminded the servants to make two guest rooms ready.” Aunt Harriet’s rather wooden expression and deliberately noncommittal voice reminded Alexa immediately of all the whispers she remembered overhearing about Mrs. Dearborn and the succession of young, nice looking foremen she had employed to help her run her estate since her husband had been trampled to death by a maddened rogue elephant he had shot at and failed to kill. Anybody who did not know exactly what they were about and were not crack shots had no business trying to shoot elephants, Alexa remembered thinking unsympathetically when she heard what had happened. And since then Mrs. Dearborn had confounded the gossips and the pessimists not only by managing to run a large coffee estate efficiently and profitably but by showing her indifference to what anyone might whisper about her. She was a rather tall woman who wore her hair cropped short in the style of at least a decade ago, and on occasion she even smoked a cheroot. Even though she was considered eccentric and rather fast she was also known as a kindhearted woman who would do anything to help her neighbors if she liked them. And although the young foremen came and went, Alexa remembered meeting and quite liking Mrs. Dearborn herself on several occasions after, she had been considered old enough to join the grown-ups for dinner.
Aunt Harriet seemed to be waiting for her to make some comment, Alexa noticed, and so she said with an attempt at brightness, “It will make a pleasant change to have guests for dinner again, don’t you think? I remember Mrs. Dearborn as being quite nice. Is her foreman a nice sort of man too?”
“Nice enough, I daresay. And at least he seems to know what he’s about. Letty Dearborn tells me he was brought up in South America, where I understand they grow coffee quite successfully.” Harriet gave a disparaging snort before adding briskly as she turned to leave: “Well, since you can’t seem to make up your mind I’m going to send in a pot of tea and some nice buttered scones, in any case. And don’t stay poring over those books for as long as you did yesterday if you don’t want to be wearing spectacles before you’ve turned twenty.”
As soon as the door had closed behind her aunt’s rigid back, Alexa gave an unconscious sigh before she turned back to her mound of papers and ledgers. Thank goodness she had always been good at figures and had been used to helping Papa before, or she would not have known where to begin. And thank goodness for any task that would keep her mind occupied. There was nothing that demanded more concentration and was so impersonal at the same time as balancing books filled with row upon row, line upon line of figures—some red and some black. Income and expenses. Money on paper. Numbers on paper that had never seemed quite real. Bank accounts. The money from some trust fund or annuity that Papa received from England every quarter—quite a tidy sum. Money put aside every month that would have been used for Freddy’s grand tour. “Of course, you’ll inherit everything now,” Harriet had reminded her bluntly only yesterday. The plantation, the house with all its furnishings, the money. She was an heiress now and did not need to look for a rich husband to support her. She could stay home and be a support to Papa and everything could go on almost as usual. Mama was gone and poor little Freddy, who had not lived long enough to enjoy life at all; and it was only because of that double tragedy that she...
Alexa’s eyes had begun to sting with treacherous tears when she was rescued from allowing herself to become what Harriet would have called “morbid” by the entrance of a servant carrying a tray bearing the tea and scones that Harriet had threatened her with, a second servant following close behind with two glass-chimneyed lamps that glowed brightly even in the daylight. As she had half expected, Harriet herself glanced in not too long afterwards, awarding her a brief nod of approval when she noted that at least two of the scones had disappeared along with at least half a cup of tea.
“Good! And don’t forget to allow yourself time to bathe and dress for dinner tonight. We’re having oxtail soup as a special treat, and steak and kidney pie as a second course to follow the curried chicken. And trifle for dessert. It’s Letty Dearborn’s favorite.”
“I’m glad she’s coming. I like her, you know, and there’s so much I want to ask her about everything. In fact, I think I shall go out riding tomorrow morning and keep her company for at least part of her ride back home. Would you mind telling Muttu?”
Her head bent in concentration over one of the thick ledgers when Harriet looked in, Alexa had glanced up only briefly before returning to her task again; but the casually authoritative manner in which she had spoken without being consciously aware that she had done so made Harriet lift her eyebrows after she had closed the door behind her. So! She had not expected to see it so soon, in spite of all her lectures and admonitions, but whether Alexa herself realized it or not, she had already begun to make her own decisions. And to give orders expecting without question that they would be obeyed. Power. Ah, the girl obviously had not realized it yet—her full potential now that she and not her sickly, overly pampered little brother would be in charge of everything. Poor, soft, weak little Fre
ddy had been Victorine’s child in every way, taking after his mother in his looks as well as his nature and constitution. Pretty, silly Victorine, whose only talent had been her ability to attract men with her wide eyes and her helplessness that made them want to protect and cosset her. Just as she had done in her turn with Freddy, the son she had always yearned for. Weakness nurturing and encouraging weakness, that’s what it had been. But she had made Alexa hers— her child much more than she had ever been Victorine’s. Strong, willful, intelligent, with a mind that she, Harriet Howard, had helped develop. Alexa was her father’s child and Harriet’s child, and that it had turned out to be so was not revenge, for revenge was too petty. Justice, rather!
There was a small mirror in a carved gilt frame on the wall just outside the office. Victorine had wanted it there so that she could make sure she looked pretty enough before she knocked and then went in there to sit on Martin’s lap and chatter about foolish trivialities, disrupting the afternoon’s work he’d planned. So that in the end it was usually Harriet, or more recently, Alexa, who ended up finishing what he had begun.
On this particular afternoon Harriet paused before Victorine’s mirror and looked back at herself without flinching, as she had learned to do quite some time before. “A handsome woman,” they used to call her after the word pretty had gone out of style. “A bluestocking.” She’d heard that too. And later it had been “old maid.” Well, by God, at least she had chosen her own fate and her own path. She’d had her choices—several of them—but Harriet Howard, who had once had one of the most eligible bachelors in all of London at her feet, pleading for her favors and calling on her almost every day, could never have settled for second best! Just for a moment she almost imagined that she could see the girl she had been smiling back at her from the dark mirror. Riotous brown curls spilling over a gold headband—“a la Tite,” they had called that particular style in her youth. A full, smiling mouth and eyes that could laugh, or so he had said several times during the months he spent courting her. And what if she had said yes to him instead of playing a tantalizing game of hard-to-get? Said yes while he still wanted her and pursued her—and before he had become acquainted with her new best friend, the little emigree from France?
Annoyed at herself for indulging in such ridiculous, pointless flights of fancy, Harriet frowned loweringly back at her reflection. Over and gone! She wasn’t a silly young girl any longer, and lost chances could never be retrieved. She was a middle-aged woman with greying hair severely parted in the middle and scraped back from her forehead; stifling corsets and voluminous skirts over six or seven starched petticoats replacing the short curls and clinging muslins of her youth.
hi spite of herself, Harriet could not help sighing shortly. What a different world she had lived in when she had been just Alexa’s age! Wars—or the constant threat of war— and the ever-present threat of Old Boney just across the channel. A sense of breathlessness and urgency—men in their dashing military uniforms who knew they might never return from some foreign battlefield and wanted to live life to the fullest while they could. And ah, the beautiful simplicity and elegance of the clothes that women had worn then! Thin, almost transparent materials that were sometimes dampened so that they would cling to the body—banded under the bosom and falling straight to the ankles—sometimes slit up at the sides to show one’s legs, if they were shapely enough to display. Muslin, tulle, gauze, and the very finest, thinnest silks and taffetas. A woman had to have a figure in those days to carry off the latest styles; but today who could know what kind of figure might be disguised under layers upon layers of petticoats?
Shaking out her own detested skirts, Harriet squared her shoulders before she made her way upstairs to look in on Martin and make sure that he had eaten something off the tray she had carried up to him earlier. After that she would choose something suitable for Alexa to wear tonight and make sure that it was pressed and laid out across her bed by the time the girl remembered that she should change before dinner.
As it turned out, Harriet found herself obliged to remind her niece of the lateness of the hour and the imminent arrival of their dinner guests.
“Oh dear! Is it almost dinnertime already?” Alexa flexed her aching shoulders and stretched widely before adding with a glance at her ink-stained fingers, “I suppose I should go upstairs and make myself a little more presentable.”
“Your bath is ready for you, and I had your ayah press a suitable dress for you, so you have no excuse for dawdling, my girl.”
“Suitable?” Alexa murmured with a grimace that made Harriet snort.
“Yes, indeed! Or had you forgotten that even plain upcountry folk usually dress for dinner when they are expecting guests? You haven’t been paying very much attention to your dress or your appearance of late, I’ve noticed, and it’s high time you did. I thought your dark green velvet might be just right, since the color is so dark it looks almost black by lamplight. And it should fit you perfectly now. I have noticed that since you have stopped eating sensible meals at the proper times, you have begun to look positively gaunt.”
Did she look gaunt? Alexa was annoyed at herself for continuing to study herself critically in the mirror while her grumbling ayah tugged at the ribbons that laced up her corset. Nonsense! It was true that she had lost some weight, but it certainly did not show in her face yet. At least the green velvet fit her perfectly now, where before it had always been just a trifle too tight. It had a tight waist that dipped into a vee in front, a fashionable bateau neckline, and puffed and banded sleeves reaching to her elbows. And Harriet had been right about this particular color; it did set off her hair, somehow.
Although she derided herself for bothering about her appearance, Alexa made sure that she surveyed herself from every angle before she went downstairs, a slight flush coloring her cheekbones at the thought of her own ridiculous vanity. She hoped that she was not late enough to appear rude, for Aunt Harriet had informed her that poor Letty Dearborn had grown rather sensitive to slights in recent times.
So the gossips have been at work again? I wonder what they will have to say about me in the end. Cruel, nasty minded females like Mrs. Langford who shed crocodile tears while they tear you to pieces with their claws. Hypocrites! Fortunately, none of Alexa’s thoughts showed on her face.
“And this, at last, is Alexandra. I’m sure you must find her greatly changed since the last occasion you saw her.”
As Alexa dropped a small, polite curtsy almost by habit, she felt Mrs. Dearborn take her hand in a warm, firm grip and give it a squeeze before releasing it. “My dear,” she said in a husky, almost mannish voice, “you’ve grown into a ravishing beauty! And with pretty manners too. Don’t you agree with me, Paul?”
