It was a full day's journey to Ashdown Hall, the rambling, old-fashioned farming estate where Grace's eldest sister Ellen lived with her husband Mr Montague and their four children. As James rode along behind the coach, Grace was spared all but the thought of his company except for the intervals when they baited the horses or stopped for a meal at an inn. And at those intervals, she managed to avoid talking to him, except in monosyllables to answer his inquiries of tiredness or hunger.
By the time they arrived, it was getting dark. Before the groom could even knock on the door, it opened and a stout child came running out, shouting, "Mama! They're here!"
Grace recognized the child as her nephew Benjamin, some six inches taller than when she had seen him last. He peered at her through the dim light.
"Are you getting married?" he demanded. Before she could answer, he turned his gaze to James who was just swinging down from his horse. "Are you marrying her?"
"And a good evening to you too," James said.
Ben stuck out his tongue. "Are you marrying her?"
"You're astoundingly rude," James said admiringly. "Is it just the vicissitudes of the day, or are you always like this?"
"It's rude not to answer my question."
"So it is. We are the pot and the kettle."
"Well? Are you marrying her?"
"I'm in wonderful health, thank you," James said. "And how about you?"
Ben scowled and turned on his heel to run back indoors as Ellen and Mr Montague came out, already in evening dress.
"You're dreadfully spontaneous," Ellen said, swooping down on Grace and kissing her cheek. "We only got Father's express this morning. And this must be Mr Redwood!"
James politely shook her hand. "It is."
"This is my sister, Ellen Montague," Grace said, before presenting her cheek to Mr Montague for a scratchy, whiskery kiss.
"Wonderful to see you, young Grace," he said. "Do introduce me to the young man."
With some stiffness, Grace introduced James to Mr Montague. Immediately, Mr Montague began a loud inquisition into the parentage of James's horse, whose reins James was still holding.
"Don't keep the poor boy," Ellen said, putting her hand on Grace's arm and leading her inside. "We've dinner in half-an-hour and he needs to get dressed." She turned to Grace. "You need to get dressed. Come. I'll take you to your room."
In the bedroom, Ellen sent Grace's maid away to deal with the trunks and set about helping Grace dress. It was almost like old times again, before she had married, when she and Grace had been the closest of friends.
"You must tell me all about your engagement," Ellen said, helping Grace out of her travelling cloak. "You are very lucky."
Right now, Grace did not feel lucky at all. She shrugged. "It is is not a love match."
"Love matches are often a great deal of trouble." Ellen started undoing the buttons at the back of Grace's dress. "What I mean, dear, is that he is a nice-looking young man with a not inconsiderable fortune, and that at your stage in life you could do very worse indeed."
"Yes," said Grace. "At my age, I could continue unmarried. I must console myself with that."
"You sound bitter." Ellen looked perplexed. "I should think you, of all of us, Grace, would not be too proud to be thankful for your situation."
"I am not proud. It is James I find it difficult to be thankful for, not my situation. He—" She was cut off by Ellen pulling the dress over her shoulders. A brief struggle ensued — the dress had been made for Alice, who was slighter than Grace, but had rejected it on the grounds of it being too dowdy. Grace emerged from the folds of the dress very suddenly and rather breathless.
Ellen tossed the dress on the bed and started rifling through an open trunk of gowns. "What do you wish to wear? This white one is very pretty. What did he do?"
"Not the white one. Alice said it makes me look—"
"Alice doesn't know chintz from cheesecloth."
"Not the white one, all the same." Grace looked doubtfully at Ellen's over-ruffled cream dress, straining at the high waist and ungenerous in the bust. Once, Ellen had been the prettiest and best-dressed of the sisters, but ten years of country living and four children had left her out of date and overweight. "Alice is very fashionable these days."
"Is she?" Ellen pulled out an indigo gown, very new, that Grace had not yet worn and very much wished to. "Too dark! You will look like you are in mourning. What did Redwood do, dear?"
"He..." A sudden caution came to Grace. The Ellen who had been able to advise Grace on fashion was left somewhere in the past eight or ten years ago. Who knew how else she had changed? Confiding everything might not be wise. "He drank too much last night and embarrassed me."
"Mr Montague has sometimes embarrassed me in the same way. But he is a very good husband in other regards." Ellen pulled out another pale, dated gown. "How about this? No?" She returned to her rummaging. "When we do not have company at home, Mr Montague always spends his evenings with me and the children in the drawing room. Whenever he goes into town, he makes sure to bring me back some small present. And even though the rents never bring in what he wishes they would, he is very careful in the management of his money. No, I have a great deal to be grateful for in Mr Montague, even if he does sometimes drink too much or talk too loud or snore in church. No doubt you will discover Redwood's virtues too."
"I'm not sure he has any, or that I'd consider Mr Montague's habits great virtues either. That red gown, please. I will wear that one."
"When you have been married ten years, you will be grateful for a good deal less." Ellen picked up the red dress. "Goodness, this is a daring colour! Mr Montague has in every way satisfied me as a husband. He has provided a hearth and home and my three dear children. And Benjamin."
Grace was prevented from replying by the effort of getting into the red dress, which was a very delicate gauze affair with gold-thread trimming and demanded much care. When Ellen was working on the ties at the back, she said, "And what of romance?"
"I never expected much of that to begin with. For that, my dear sister, we have poetry." Ellen cocked her head to the side and examined the dress. "You know, over your shift, it's almost pink, which is not so loud, though it is still rather daring. I suppose these deep colours are coming into fashion. But it is a very pretty effect. Your hair just needs a little rearranging. Sit down." She set about with the brush and comb. "For that matter, I never saw you as romantic. Surely you will not let such weak notions prevent you from making what is such a good match. I should fancy, you know, that even if you were eighteen, you would be let down on the romantic front. Most women are."
"I will not let it prevent me," Grace said. "But I am beginning to think I am a great deal more romantic than I knew."
"You ought to read poetry," Ellen said. "In fact, you ought to get Redwood to read poetry to you."
The idea of James reading poetry made Grace burst out laughing. Then, to her surprise, she recalled that Benson had read poetry to her when they were courting, quoting from a slender book of Cowper's most religious poems. Had she really enjoyed it, Grace wondered, or had she only enjoyed the idea of a man reading poetry to her? It had felt like the sort of thing people were meant to do when they were courting.
"Well you don't have to," Ellen said, miffed.
"No, no it's not that. It's just that James wouldn't— couldn't read poetry. He's not the type."
"Then you'd best stop hoping for romance from him," Ellen said decidedly. "And really, with the practical advantages of the match, you won't need romance anyway."
"Are there really so many advantages? I will have to leave Richmond and live in London. My husband will continue to embarrass me with his manners and behaviour. We do not love each other. We perhaps never will."
"Those are not practical matters," Ellen said. "He will have an independent fortune. He is young and healthy. Our family approves the match."
"I'm beginning to wonder if I approve," Grace said, tears coming to her eyes. "Last night... It was so humiliating."
Emma patted her on the shoulder. "It will pass. Besides, you always have been a rather anxious creature, Grace, you do tend to fret about things. I suppose you get it from Mother. I'm not sure you've ever really been happy, truly happy. Redwood is unlikely to change that, but he will make you rich. Far better to be rich and fretful than poor and fretful."
Grace set her jaw. "I'm not fretful. I'm not like Mother."
"Rubbish, of course you are," Ellen said. "You and Emma and Harriet all take very much after mother, you know. I take after father. And Alice, well, she's a black sheep in the making if ever there was one."
"And I have been happy. I was very happy when... when I was engaged to Benson."
"Not a practical choice," Ellen said, shaking her head. "No money, that one."
"He is wealthy now."
"Now that he married a rich wife." Ellen looked thoughtful. "You're not still in love with him, are you?"
"No," Grace said flatly. "Not at all." After what he had said in the curricle last night, she felt nothing for him but anger and a strange, confused shame. "But as a comparison—"
"There's no point comparing men," Ellen said decisively. "You must learn to be content with the one you have, rather than dream after one you do not." She gave one last pat to Grace's smooth hair. "And Mr Redwood will be a very foolish man indeed if he is not content with you."
When Grace and Ellen came downstairs, she discovered that the party was a great deal smaller than she had expected. Some five strange men, all Mr Montague's age or older, sat in the drawing room awaiting them. There were no women; Ellen explained that it was to be a hunting party proper, and Grace was only here to keep Ellen company while Mr Montague was busy with his guests. James was late, still, Grace guessed, trying to squeeze himself into one of his gaudy waistcoats. Introductions were given and a glass of sherry was pressed into Grace's hand. She sipped it slowly, feeling very out of place in a room full of so many middle-aged men and her sister Ellen seeming very middle-aged in the midst of them. And she's only five years older than me, Grace thought despairingly. When I'm thirty, will I be the same way?
One of the men, a stout, heavily whiskered man of about forty-five, by the name of Blythe, seemed to take pity on Grace. He came over to her and said, "You look a little lost, Miss Follet."
"Do I?" Grace sipped her sherry.
"I would have had my daughter come with me, if I had known there was to be female company," Mr Blythe continued. "She's about your age."
"I'm twenty-five," Grace said.
"You don't look it." A somewhat keener light appeared in Mr Blythe's eye. "My daughter is a little younger than you then. She is nineteen. My only child. I am a widower."
"I'm very sorry for your loss," Grace said, trying to catch Ellen's eye. Ellen, however, was too busy talking with one of Mr Montague's friends. "How very sad."
"It was fifteen years ago. I'm quite recovered. I assure you." There was a long pause, as though Mr Blythe expected Grace to speak. When she did not, he continued hopefully, "Of course my daughter is at a delicate age, when she needs the guiding hand of an older woman — not too much older, of course. And I always do regret that my property — Avenden Manor — Is not to go to a son but a weak sort of nephew of mine."
"Is the property entailed then?" Grace asked. "A great pity when properties cannot go to daughters. I have only sisters myself, you see, but we are lucky in that there is no entail on our father's property — then again, it is but a townhouse and there are no rents to manage."
She rather hoped that Mr Blythe would be put off by the implication of small fortune, but Mr Blythe only coughed. "Not entailed, no. Poor Catherine would not have the ability to manage Avenden Manor. Nor does my nephew, come to that. No, no, I have been thinking that — for Catherine's sake — I had much better remarry so I might have a son."
He was becoming more odious and more obvious by the minute, but Ellen, now talking with her housekeeper by the service door, was oblivious to it. Grace sighed.
"I think it's almost time for dinner," Mr Blythe said, holding out his arm. "May I take you in?"
There was a polite cough from behind them. Grace turned, expecting to see James in his loudest, tightest waistcoat, but instead she saw another of Mr Montague's guests. She struggled to recall the name — Devan? Demont? Demery! And he was younger than she had thought at first, perhaps in his early thirties, but seeming older by the weariness of his expression.
"I think you should know, Mr Blythe, that Miss Follet is engaged," Demery said in a low, quiet voice.
And then, saying nothing more, he moved away again.
A dull flush suffused Mr Blythe's face behind his whiskers. "Are you really?"
"Yes."
"You ought to have said something."
"Why?" Grace saw James enter the room at last, dressed indeed in that awful pink waistcoat she hated so much. Mr Montague called him over and began to introduce him to his friends. "Why should I have said something, Mr Blythe?"
"It's a little deceptive, isn't it? To be engaged and not say anything of it?"
James was sidling away from the introductions with one eye upon Grace.
"I made no attempt to deceive. I had not the chance."
"Take a little friendly advice from an older and wiser man, that it would be wise to be more open about your circumstances. To talk so readily with one man, while secretly engaged to another, might be seen as, well, as fast, Miss Follet."
James arrived to hear the last of this. He ignored Mr Blythe entirely and turned to Grace.
"Sorry I'm late. Is—"
"The only fast person here is you, Mr Blythe," Grace interrupted. "Your mind leaps so rapidly to such very odd conclusions. I am afraid I cannot follow you at all."
A dull flush suffused the flesh behind Mr Blythe's whiskers. He turned stiffly and walked away. James looked curiously at Grace.
"That was not half the dressing-down he deserved, and yet quite twice the dressing down I expected from you," he said.
"I don't need your rescuing from that old fool," she snapped.
"No." He took the claret glass carefully from her hands. "I'm very glad you do not."
"And I'm not drunk." Grace took the glass back. "I'm only angry."
"With me?" There was a teasing, infuriating smile on James's face. "What have I done to displease you, my dear?"
Grace raised her chin. "The musicale."
The smile faded. "It was an unfortunate mistake. I'm sorry. I didn't think you'd be so offended by it."
Grace scoffed. "You didn't think I'd be offended? What did you think? That I wouldn't notice?"
"Notice that I didn't come back? I was rather hoping you would, actually."
"Hoping I would?"
James frowned. "Yes, because... Grace, I'm not sure we're not talking at cross purposes here. Can we—"
Ellen rang the bell. "Dinner," she said. "Dinner at last."
As the only female guest, it was Grace who was to go first into the dining room. James offered her his arm and she could not refuse it. They sat up the head of the table, leaving Grace between Mr Montague and James. After a few disinterested enquiries about her parents, Mr Montague returned his attention to the rest of the table and his favourite topic of hunting, horses, and hounds. This left Grace with no company but James, as the man opposite her was Mr Blythe and he would not look her in the eyes. Grace picked at her food in silence. At intervals, James attempted to talk to her, but she rebuffed his efforts so coldly that he gave up by the second remove. That gave Grace the chance to realize that she and James were being observed. Mr Demery, down the other end of the table, kept his gaze fixed upon them, something cold and daggerlike in his expression. Only when Ellen spoke to him — kindly and over-friendly — did he turn away, and then only to answer her with polite reserve. Grace wondered if Demery knew her from somewhere. He had known she was engaged, but she could not recall meeting him before in her life.
When the women rose to leave the men to their port, Demery stood too.
"I'm going for a walk," he announced. "Excuse me." Then he left without further word.
"Poor chap," Mr Montague muttered. "Still feeling it."
A pitying hush followed that. Grace wondered what had happened to Demery.
"Grace?" Ellen said by the door.
"Yes. Coming." She moved to go, but James took her hand and pulled her back.
"Come to my room after dinner," he whispered in her ear. "Please. I want to talk."
Grace glared at him and turned away.
"Lover's quarrel?" Ellen remarked when they were out in the hall.
"Not quite."
"He seems fond of you."
"He is not." Grace sought to turn the conversation away from James. "That Demery is a strange, strange man."
"Oh!" Ellen pushed open the drawing room door. "Yes... I do pity him. Such a tragedy."
"Really?" They sat down on the couch and Grace curled up close to Ellen. "Tell me about it."
"You might have heard — he was engaged, but the engagement was broken on his wedding morning when his bride-to-be was discovered to be with child." Ellen lowered her voice, though there was no one to overhear. "Not his, you see. Terrible scandal. Broke his heart."
"Oh." A pang of shock and pity came over Grace. "I have heard. The man whom Catherine Balley had been meant to marry. I didn't know his name."
"Now you do." Ellen shook her head. "He was very much in love with her, silly woman. She didn't know what she was losing when she played the fool for someone else."
__
A/N 2021-06-18: The next update will be Monday, not Sunday, because I need my weekend. I'm looking forward to the next few chapters. There's some good stuff in them.