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Chapter 19
Summer Blooms
Oh, the daisies are in bloom, thought Clara, shuffling listlessly down the garden path. How utterly wretched.
The English summer had blossomed into its full, ripe state, and the grounds of the St. George estate were a riotous symphony of oranges and whites and greens, and alive with bumblebees. Clara spared a momentary thought for how different the world looked from when she had first arrived in this house—but that sentiment passed without a trace, as she expected.
She had spent the previous days in a state much like sleepwalking. Clara had mused that it felt much like being asleep, this sort of existence—nothing amused her any longer, nothing saddened or excited her. Françoise badgered her about this or that, letters arrived and went unreturned, books fell helplessly from her languid hands, unread. It did not matter.
Her attempts to flee from Edward’s path were made joyless and easy; Clara wondered how she had found it difficult to escape the man in such an enormous house, especially when he was so occupied with work all the time. Now she wandered the floors like a long-tolerated ghost, with those she passed by regarding her as a momentary curiosity before walking on to their own business. Even Miss Forsythe had taken to pointedly ignoring her rather than her usual course of aggressively slow pursuit. Clara decided not to let this bother her.
And, also like sleep, she was visited periodically by memories. Happy memories, mostly, though the pain of their parting was still so fresh that when she awoke from these reveries she was lonelier and more despondent than ever. Some of the memories were of a comelier nature, so much so that in her daydreams she could almost recall what it felt like to desire Edward and be desired in return, to have the taste upon her tongue that invited further savouring. These too left an emptiness when they dissipated.
Even her visit from Sophia that morning had put only dark, foreboding thoughts into Clara’s mind.
* * *
Her friend had been so generous with her sympathy as Clara poured out all the thoughts and feelings that had been simmering inside her since her break with Edward. In heart-rending detail Clara laid out every conversation, every twist and turn in their relationship, from her initial forward manoeuvring to what she had heard Helena and Judith demand from Edward to their tearful kiss in the library.
For the longest time, Sophia seemed content to merely sit in the salon with her and listen, offering the occasional gesture of commiseration or friendly embrace.
But then, when Clara finally shed the last of her tears and slouched back in her chair, out of breath, Sophia was all too quick to add fuel to the fire of her misery.
“My dear, sweet friend,” Sophia said with a piteous shake of her head. “That sounds like such a horrible thing to have to go through. But surely you have cause for relief now that the split is behind you?”
Clara felt her heart leap into her throat. Her voice hoarse from so much crying, she choked out, “What are you talking about?”
“You have not heard, then?” Sophia asked. “Gossip is a funny thing, isn’t it? I had assumed you must know since you are at the heart of this matter…yet I suppose it is the person who is gossiped about that is the last to hear the rumours, isn’t it?”
“Sophia, I have not the faintest idea what you mean,” Clara snapped.
“I spoke with my mother just this morning. She told me she heard from Lady Wynn that your Mr Morton’s mother told the ladies at her club that her son paid her a visit yesterday.”
After taking a moment to follow the trail of this information, Clara sighed and answered without any real curiosity, “And what is so remarkable about that? He does not see them often, I understand, but surely a son speaking with his parents is not really noteworthy in any way?”
“It is when the subject of matrimony comes up!”
Clara could not believe it. Just as she had felt the last of her emotion wrung out of her, now she was once more filled with dread. More than that, she felt herself charged with all manner of shades of jealousy she had never experienced before.
Of course I told Edward I wished for him to pursue his happiness elsewhere, she thought, struggling to catch her breath. But…so soon? With whom? How could he even have had time to meet another woman in the last few days, much less arrange a—
Then she stopped, the obvious answer falling upon her like a brick.
“Oh,” Clara said at last. “His parents must have chosen someone for him, then. They were always trying to match him with some Countess or another.”
The expression on Sophia’s face was so maddeningly self-assured that it nearly provoked Clara to lash out at her.
“I would not be so sure,” Sophia said with an infuriating grin. “That Mr Morton is a strange one, and I think there is a much likelier candidate still closer at hand.”
At first, Clara could not even begin to imagine what her friend was hinting at. Then, as her mind pieced together the implication, she refused to believe it. “Rubbish,” she said through stiff lips, her eyes darkening. “Sophia, have you not heard a word I have said? It is over between us. It must be so.”
Yet even the menace that was building within Clara could not dissuade Sophia’s light heart. With another laugh and a friendly touch on the shoulder, Sophia said, “Oh, dear Clara. The sooner you understand how impenetrable men really are, the better off you will be. No doubt he has some grand plan or another that he thinks will win back your heart. All you have to do is wait for it and act surprised, no matter how foolish it really is.”
Clara was not entirely sure what happened after that—if she asked Sophia to leave or if she simply got up and left the room. Regardless, after that she was alone once more, left to take up arms again with the feelings that were once more battling within her.
* * *
Preposterous. No, worse than that—horrible, Clara thought now as she sat on a stone bench and scowled at the flora in the St. George garden, storm clouds crossing her features. I cannot believe Sophia would be so rotten. Throwing false hope my way based on mere eavesdropping and idle speculation…how cruel! I do wish she had not even spoken such a thing to me, especially as she does not know what she is talking about.
