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Daniel looked up, met Miss Pendleton’s shocked gaze, and dropped his eyes again. He was disturbed by the emotion that vibrated through this passage. His mother had clearly been concerned about her friend. He hadn’t thought she cared deeply for anybody except his father. Now he found that there were others. Which made her treatment of him all the worse, in his opinion. He set his jaw and read on.
I’ve never forgotten the moment we met, quaking new arrivals at Miss Scofield’s Academy. I would have set all the teachers’ backs up if you hadn’t stepped in and smoothed things over. As you continued to do for three years. I never had a better friend.
Warn your family that if they don’t cosset you, I shall descend upon them in clouds of wrath and put some stick about, as my father used to say.
Your ever friend,
Serena
“Marshes,” said Penelope. Her brain whirled. “What can your mother have wanted with a sailor in the marshes? What story?”
“I suppose it was someadventurethat she thought more important than endangering a friend,” replied Whitfield.
“But is this the origin of Mama’s illness?” Penelope leaned over to reread the last letter. His shoulder against hers was at once a thrill and a comfort.
“It sounds so. People do contract relapsing fevers in the marshes. And she seems to have caught one in my mother’sservice.”
His tone was so curt. Though she knew it wasn’t directed at her, Penelope hid a wince. “She was sorry.”
“She says she was. But then she never visited. Actions speak louder than words.”
Penelope picked up the next letter. She was both curious and daunted. The mother of these letters wasn’t the woman she remembered, and the contrast was vastly unsettling. She took a breath and read.
Dear Serene Serena,
Such a time since I heard from you. I suppose you are off on your travels again with not an instant for correspondence. I wrote to the Boston address you gave to tell you about my new daughter, Penelope, but I’m not certain that letter got through. Did you receive it, I wonder?
I adore the embroidered shawl you sent me from New Orleans. I showed it to Penelope, and she was eager to chew on the fringes, which of course I did not allow! She is such a dear baby.
I would say this to no one but you—we have always kept each other’s secrets, have we not? I prefer her to Philip. I know a mother isn’t supposed to admit such preferences, but he is a loud and unruly child. His favorite word isno, and he becomes absolutely furious when thwarted. Angrier than I thought a child could be. I often don’t know what to do with him, but Jared only laughs. I hope that school and a crowd of other boys will improve his temper.
He will be more like you than me, I expect, standing up for his friends like Joan of Arc. Or some hero, I should say, in Philip’s case. I suppose you are doing something very like that with your secret missions. I can only say—bravo!
Your forever friend,
Kate
Penelope blinked back tears. She’d known her mother favored her. It had been an uncomfortable feeling for most of her life. On the one hand, she cherished her love. On the other, it wasn’t fair. And Philip had, inevitably, noticed and resented it.
“Secret missions,” said Whitfield. He sounded puzzled and contemptuous. “Is that some kind of joke between them?”
“Her notebooks may tell us,” replied his companion. “I’m even more convinced they’re in code.”
He made an impatient sound. “There’s a gap of several years before the next letter.”
“Because some were lost,” Penelope said. She wanted to believe that Serena had kept up the connection in those years when her mother had been often ill.
“Perhaps. This is the last one we have.”
Penelope bent closer to look at the date. It was a week after her mother’s death. She’d never received this missive from her old friend. It had been gathered up with the others and returned.
“I’ve just remembered. My parents took a long voyage to the East around that time,” Whitfield said as he unfolded it to read. “I suppose she didn’t bother to write until they were back. A letter sent from there would have been slow to arrive.”
Dear Kate,
Remember how we talked about what a different world it would be if young women had property of their own? I have seen such terrible inequities in the last few years. You really can’t conceive. Far worse than we imagined in our privileged youth in our little school. I don’t even want to tell you.
I cannot change all that, but I am going to see to it that your daughter has what we never did. I suppose she won’t need it. And it might simply pass to her husband if she’s wed, but I don’t care. She shall have a cottage from the estate here, free and clear. And we will arrange things so that her benefactor is a secret. She won’t have to be beholden to anyone. She can do whatever she likes with the property. Might it be a godsend? A refuge? I hope so.
