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Chapter 7
“I am delighted you had such a wonderful evening, Mary. I shall see you at the Witherspoon tea next week, if we are unable to see one another before them,” Sarah said, bidding Mary farewell.
“Yes, I shall see you then,” Mary replied, hoping that they would have time to spend together before the afternoon tea they were both planning to attend.
But the moment Sarah departed, Mary turned around and gasped. Charlotte was standing before her with those glaring eyes. Immediately, Mary knew that she was going to be in trouble, that her stepsister would not give her a chance to enjoy the evening she’d had.
“You had best remain at a distance, Mary. I am going to find a husband this season and you have no right to take any gentleman from me. I care nothing for what you may think you are entitled to have. Lord Hanbrooke is not your prospect. He is mine. And you are going to accept that you have no say in the matter,” she whispered.
Mary stood there, silent and stiff. She never found it within herself to stand firmly against anything that Charlotte or her mother did; rather, she always remained meek and dutiful. But now, more than ever, Mary felt hopeless.
Would she ever be allowed the chance for happiness?
***
The next morning, Mary sat at the table during breakfast. The others were already there—she was the last to join them. She wished that her father had been at the ball the previous night so he might know how she felt; how she interacted with her stepmother and stepsister when they were in public.
But, alas, Mary understood that he would never be likely to join them. She would simply have to rely on Lady Rachel to convey whatever version of the night she wished.
Although Mary wanted to live in the bliss she felt after having met Lord Hanbrooke, she knew in her heart that Charlotte and her mother would never allow that.
As Lady Rachel slathered her bread with more butter than she would ever allow either of the girls, she sparked the conversation with Mary’s father.
“You know, you must speak with your daughter,” she began. “She would have appalled you last evening. Can you believe that she danced with a gentleman we did not even know? None of us had ever been introduced to him!”
Mary tried to interject, hoping that her explanation would be heard. She couldn’t let her father think the man was just some stranger. He was a duke! He was a well-respected man, and he was family to a friend of Sarah’s.
“Father, he was—”
“There she goes again! How disrespectful! Really, Henry, you must speak with her. I am trying to inform you of her behaviour and she tries to speak over me so she might be able to convince you that things were not as bad as they appeared.
Well, unfortunately, I must tell you that they were. She was behaving most shockingly in her efforts. The gentleman did not even introduce himself to me or gain my permission first. He simply asked her for a dance, and she accepted!” Lady Rachel exclaimed.
“And? What am I to do about it, darling? You were there to be with her and to guide her. If she was approached by another man, you ought to have been present to engage him and stop the incident,” Mary’s father replied, utterly dry. He was busy reading through the financial pages and he did not take his eyes off them as he spoke.
“I havetwoyoung ladies to lead and to teach the ways of society. If you cannot respect how much effort I am putting into this, that is most disappointing. Your daughter is not yet ready to be taken out to balls and social gatherings. That is why I find it all so difficult,” Lady Rachel said.
Mary was shocked and offended. She noted the smirk on Charlotte’s face as Charlotte glanced down and picked up her tea. It was humiliating for Mary, but she was also terribly determined that she would not allow this to go on. She had to explain the matter for herself.
“Father, please. You cannot think that I must be taken out of society,” she said, turning to him.
“You need more time to learn what is appropriate, Mary. After what I saw last evening, I can scarcely believe that you have been allowed such freedoms for this long. It is far too much for a girl like you. If you understood the delicacies of society, it would not be so difficult for you to make a better impression of yourself,” Lady Rachel said.
Mary knew that she was perfectly respectable and that she had done nothing wrong the night before. But this, like so many other times with Lady Rachel and Charlotte, was simply a matter of rivalry.
It had never been something that Mary wanted to engage in, but in these last couple of years, she had been given no choice. Everything seemed to be a battle, and in any circumstance when Mary was coming out victorious, Lady Rachel and Charlotte would find a way to bring her back down.
“What do you say, Henry? May we please give your daughter a little while longer to learn how she ought to behave? I fear that she is going to make a mistake that causes others to think she is not the virtuous woman you wish to raise,” Lady Rachel said.
Shocked, Mary could hardly believe that her stepmother had stooped to such cruelty. She was suggesting that Mary was not virtuous, or, at the very least, she was trying to plant such doubts in the mind of Mary’s father.
It was dreadfully unfair. It was not right to behave as though Mary had done anything which would call her reputation into question. The only thing she had done was fail to ensure that Charlotte was not interested in Lord Hanbrooke.
“Darling,” her father began, looking at Lady Rachel, “I understand that you are very distressed by this matter. I am grateful that you care about Mary’s reputation, but you should understand that I married you so that you could be mother to both our girls. That means that if Mary is not living up to your expectations, you must help her more. She cannot learn if she is not being taught.”
Mary and her stepmother both looked horrified for a moment as they tried to understand what he was saying.
“What exactly do you mean by this, Henry?” her stepmother asked.
