Amanda was about to speak when Rachel's expression made her choke back her words. Rachel ripped the bonnet from her head, not caring that the pins tore out a few hairs. "I'm not feeling well, please make my excuses at dinner," she said and scurried up the stairs. Two hours later, she was still crying in her room. Amanda knocked and called to her, but the only reply was the sputtering of her candle in the hallway draft.
The next morning Rachel would not speak to anyone. She nodded when they asked if she was all right, but ate her breakfast in silence and then returned to her room.
Finally Amanda couldn't stand the strained silence. She appeared at Rachel's door once more. "May I come in?" she asked. She heard the squeak of the bed, a rustle of blankets, and Rachel cracked the door open. She stared dolefully at the floor, one shoulder against the door jamb. "I just thought I would sit with you, if you don't mind." She nodded, letting Amanda follow her into the room. She curled up in her blanket, leaning against the headboard, and motioned for Amanda to sit on the foot of the bed.
"I don't know what happened between you and John. I assume you quarreled." She paused, but Rachel didn't confirm or deny the suggestion. She continued to stare at the quilted pattern on the bedspread.
"It hurts, I know," Amanda said tentatively. "If you've really given up on marrying him, I know it will hurt. All the things you imagined would be coming about, new changes, such hopeful things, and now they're all gone..." Amanda swallowed, forcing the emotion out of her voice. "I just want to let you know I understand."
"How did you give yourself hope to continue?" Rachel asked quietly.
Amanda pressed her lips together thoughtfully. "After Dabney... after he died, I didn't think very hopefully at first. I felt torn apart, completely out of my mind with grief. But the first tangible, real thing I remember is you and Marian sitting beside me. It seemed you had been there a very long time. I couldn't remember being alone. So I felt that since you had been there all along, I could go on another day, just try to get through. You wouldn't let anything else happen."
"Yes, Marian and I sat by you for that whole week," Rachel said.
"And if my sisters were that good, that loving... then life was going to be okay." Amanda smiled and reached over to squeeze her hand. Rachel squeezed it back, closing her eyes with a sigh.
Amanda sat with her for a few more minutes, a silent ache shared between them. After a while the corners of Rachel's eyes leaked tears, and Amanda offered a handkerchief. She wiped her tears away and sniffed.
"Can you tell me?" she gently probed.
"Not yet. I promised I would not, not until John had... changed some things." She shrugged.
Amanda nodded. "But there's no wedding?"
Rachel shook her head.
Amanda wrapped her in a hug, scooting closer to cradle Rachel's head against her shoulder. She began to cry again, slowly, then with more fervent sobs until she finally lay down again, clutching the pillow and gasping. Amanda smoothed her hair, some tears of her own rolling down her cheeks and she thought of the pain they both had borne that year.
#
Rachel stayed home from church Sunday, so Amanda later shared all that had happened with the Ellsworth family. Amanda and Mrs. Pearce had been visiting with Marian and Simeon after the service, hearing about her mishaps with the kitchen stove and the coziness of their cottage. The newlyweds had a kind of comfortableness about them that wasn't there before, and Amanda smiled to think they were becoming happy together. Maman was just inviting them to the vicarage for dinner when raised voices could be heard in the church. They knew John Ellsworth had asked Vicar Pearce to intervene in some family matter, and apparently the conversation was getting sour. Marian and Simeon excused themselves and said they'd come over another time. Amanda followed her mother's hurried steps into the carriage, but even then, the angry shouts and accusations carried outside the church's stone walls. She nearly chewed a hole in her glove before Father came out to send the carriage home, then he went on to Burley Park to try to mediate the problem. Maman said she'd never seen her husband so worried.
It was hours later when he returned home. He'd walked, although the night was chilly and a rainstorm was threatening. When he entered the parlor, Rachel, Amanda, and Mrs. Pearce were all seated, blankets pulled over their laps, reading near the fireplace.
"Father!" Amanda exclaimed, running to him. "You're so cold. Sit here with this blanket."
He sank gratefully into the chair, moaning and stretching his hands to the fire. "It's a dark, cold night," he began. "Such an awful night." He stared into the fire for a while.
"My dear, what occurred today with the Ellsworths? Can you tell us?" Mrs. Pearce prodded.
He nodded. "Yes, I must tell you. I've been asked to inform Rachel of all that has happened since she and John spoke last week... although I had no idea you've been suffering under so much." He reached for her hand, and she came and knelt at his feet. He kissed her forehead and put his hands on her shoulders for a moment.
"Well, you all should sit down. I have a story to tell, certainly."
Amanda nervously drew up her chair while Maman brought a cushion for Father's feet. Amanda struggled to keep her jaw from dropping as Father relayed what Rachel had already been told but no one else yet knew: John Ellsworth had met a girl near one of their other properties. He'd fallen in love with her, and at age 21 had bought a common license to marry, so he would not have to have banns read. They were married in the girl's own parish, by her own father. Even now they have a child. "No!" she whispered. "How... duplicitous... and unfair. Rachel, how...?" Rachel just stared at her hands in her lap.
"I do not know what to think of it," the Vicar sighed. "Yes, he has used Rachel abominably. He has been working on his mother, slowly convincing her that he would do well to marry the Vicar's daughter. He showed how much time he was away with her, showed how unflinching he was in his affection, even when his mother protested at first. He said he would make no announcement until she was persuaded that she would accept a clergyman's daughter as her own. But this whole time, he was not talking of our daughter, but some other daughter. Rachel was the placeholder; if she'd agree to Rachel, she'd have to agree to this other girl."
"But they were already married," Rachel said.
"Yes, and Lord Ellsworth has worked to find some sort of loophole to have the marriage annulled. But all the correct procedures and licenses were there; he didn't need parental consent, and she had her father's consent. They were married properly in church. There seems to be nothing amiss that would make the marriage not in force. He asked me about several points of the ceremony and the obligations with marriage—all have been properly followed through." Rachel blushed at the insinuation of this last point. Of course, with a child produced from the marriage, there was no question of their committal to each other.
"The longest hours of our discussion were spent trying to calm down Lord Ellsworth so that he would not disown John entirely. I urged him to look on the situation with the forgiveness of our Lord. After all, if our Father says we simply ask, and we shall receive, can we refuse those who ask, and not give?" He peered thoughtfully into the fire for a moment. Looking up, he said to Amanda, "It was one thing for me to imagine my daughter being the wife of a peer. This girl—his new wife—is quite humble in station. No formal education, very little in worldly goods, no dowry. I at least had something for you girls." He paused. "But John swears it is not a concern for him. Even when most peers must marry an heiress to keep up their lifestyle, he insists he'd rather live modestly, never travel to London or present her at St. James, and have his love."
Rachel stood and drew nearer to the fire, leaning on the mantelpiece. "He's very much in love, then."
"Aye," her father agreed. "He had a miniature drawn up of her. She's quite beautiful." They all sat quietly a moment, taking it all in.
"You knew this?" Amanda asked Rachel incredulously.
"Most of it. John drove me out to Kildale last Thursday, where I met her—Esther—and their daughter, Amelia."
Maman began to mutter rapidly in French, but Rachel smiled. "No, Maman, the thing is, I liked her. She is quite becoming, and very sweet. She and I would have been friends, had we met at school or been introduced in a ballroom. But she is much devoted to her father and younger brothers and sisters. She spends most of her day helping them, and would not move away, even if they inherited all of Burley Park. I cannot see any fault in her. And now they have a beautiful baby, with dark, round eyes. John was very proud." She turned back to the fire. "She was born the night of Amanda's ball. That's why he was so late, and so incredibly happy when he finally came."
"Lord Ellsworth says he will leave Kildale to him, and he'll have the title, eventually. Otherwise, he's settled all he could on Phoebe and made her one of the most attractive heiresses in the nation." Amanda's eyes opened wide with this news.
"Lady Ellsworth is another story. I've never seen such anger. After the first hour, she left the room and would only write her opinion down if we sent her maid in with a note. She means to never speak to John again."
"That was what he feared," Rachel added quietly. "He knew she wanted a smart match, a very stylish wedding. He cared for none of it."
"He cared enough that he wanted to win his mother's good opinion by using his dearest friend in a false engagement!" Amanda said hotly.
"It was very badly done," Maman added. "Très mal, très mal."
"It hurt," Rachel agreed. "At first he said it was so Amanda could get engaged. That Father wouldn't have any objection to his youngest getting married if his oldest was engaged. For Amanda, I was convinced to do it. Yet something was not right. Something in the way he described, sometimes, this lady who was so devout, so steady, and he would stare across the hills... I flattered myself that he meant me. I wish he had meant me." She began to cry again, and Maman went to her. She hugged her and pulled her down on the settee next to her, letting her cry quietly for a while.
"Lord Ellsworth thought I had some complicity in the matter," Father said. "I told him I was never aware of this other arrangement, and was just as shocked today as he was to learn my daughter was not really engaged to John. It took a heavenly amount of fortitude to forgive all that, I can assure you!"
Rachel smiled amid her tears to hear her father's response. "He was relying on our ability to forgive him," she said between sniffles, "even from the beginning. He said we were too good of friends to let it come between us."
Amanda harrumphed at this, and Rachel voiced her thoughts: "Our friendship may not be completely gone, but it will never be the same."