It took Verity some weeks to believe it. She went back to Houglen in a daze, and spent weeks refusing any company but her own. Her grandmother came to offer her condolences and advice, and Verity saw her for only long to summarily reject both of them. Mrs Walthrope begged interview, and was flatly refused. The letter she left behind expressed her regrets at leaving Houglen on such short notice, without the chance to say goodbye, and left a forwarding address. Verity burned it apathetically. Even comforting old Mrs Roper was shunned every time she tried to entreat Verity to a cup of tea or a game of cards. Instead, Verity took long, aimless walks around the grounds, wrapped up against the winter chill. She never went out of sight of the gates. It seemed to her that at any moment another express might arrive, saying that Neil had been found safe.
The express never came.
She came to believe it only that day in mid-December when Richard Armiger called once more. It was a mercy to her that he was too awkward to attempt to be kind.
A funeral had been held in Albroke, with an empty coffin as centrepiece. A stone would be laid in, when the ground settled. When the legal processes were through, the estate in Houglen would be turned over to the running of his father. At that point, she would be evicted.
"I have come to give you fair warning," he said stiffly. "I am not ignorant of the predicament my actions, and those of my father, have put you in. I can only soften the blow."
"It is feather light," said Verity, with more than a trace of Neil's irony in her tone. "So very kind, I'm sure."
"My father believes it would be best if you returned to your father's house."
"Your father believes?" Verity laughed. "Your father is either the stupidest or the cruellest man on earth – perhaps both. I will be out of here before he claims the property. Don't worry. I have no wish to ever lay eyes upon that man." Her gaze encompassed Richard's diminutive, twisted form. "Or for that matter, you."
And she rose and left, unable to bear it any longer.
Christmas she spent, of all places, at her grandmother's table. There seemed no good reason to refuse the invitation. She tolerated the cutting remarks of her crueller aunts, and was cut deeper by the patronizing kindness of her cousins. The day after, there was a family conclave. The topic was what was to be done with Verity. Her reputation was altogether tarnished, and completely without hope of redemption. It was, everybody agreed, not entirely her fault. The actions of the Armiger clan had been unjust, even cruel. The matter remained that Verity's reputation did not just reflect upon her life, but upon those of her unmarried cousins. What was to be done? To cut Verity from the family now would of course be best for the family – and the unmarried cousins. And yet her family were the only people she could rely on now – she was at their mercy.
Various suggestions were made. Each was more unpleasant than the last. A thousand pounds and a ticket to America. A nurse to crotchety old Aunt Agatha. A governess to Edith's spoiled children. A nunnery in Scotland.
"I think," Verity said finally, "That I am quite capable of relying on myself as it happens. In fact, if I can be honest, I am enjoying my ruination more than I ever enjoyed my honour."
She smiled at her family. She was getting used to a certain kind of smile these days. It went only skin deep, and hurt less than tears.
She did not know what she was going to do. It seemed that there was nothing she could do, except helplessly tread water in whatever direction the flood took her. In sum, then, as she had done her entire life.
The new year came in, and Verity returned to her isolation, wandering the halls and grounds of Neil's manor, losing herself frequently in the memories of the happiness she had found there. Sometimes she lost herself so deeply that for days at a time reality seemed a foggy nightmare, one she had had long ago, as perhaps only a child. On coming back to it, to find that happiness had been the dream and that the nightmare was true and inescapable, she felt anew the pain of her heartbreak, as deeply and physically as if her body itself was shattering into pieces.
One day in January, Mr Baker died.
Verity was called in from one of her walks by a manservant. She sat down in the drawing room while Mr Abernathy explained matters to her. His voice seemed to come from a distant and unimportant place. Mr Baker had collapsed walking home from the pub the night before. The doctor had been called, but it had been instantaneous, and painless. He had never seen it coming.
"I don't see how he could failed to see it," Verity heard herself say. "I've been seeing it coming every day for the past twenty years."
Awkwardly, the vicar shuffled his feet. "Of course, we shall take care of his funerary arrangements. We shall put it on the parish budget, if there is not the money. It is not a woman's place to be at a funeral. But if you would like to go through his things, at the cottage... what little he had."
"Of course. I will do so. Thank you, Mr Abernathy. You are very good to me."
He blushed, perhaps remembering another time, when he had not been so good to her. But it did not matter anymore. She only knew she could not bear to see or touch her father's body. She wanted nothing to do with it. After the vicar had left, she found herself almost relieved by the event. In a way, it was one less problem.
But later that night, the dam she had kept on her feelings for the past two months broke. It broke on no provocation; it was only the ever growing swell of sadness finally breaching its banks. Lying in her bed, watching the moonlight through the window, she had been overcome. She had cried as though her tears had no end. She had sobbed and shaked and laughed to herself all the night.
The next morning, she could not get up. She stayed in bed while Mrs Roper brought her soup and bread and tea. The day after that, it was not much better. Though she knew how to walk, how to move her legs, how to stand, she had no volition to. It seemed easier to lie in bed and just wait... wait...
She waited.
The funeral was held.
She waited.
The landlord was wanting the cottage cleared out.
She waited.
Her twenty-first birthday came and went.
She waited.
Lord Albroke and his son would arrive on the morrow to take possession of the house.
She waited.
Lord Albroke and his son were downstairs in the library.
"Perhaps if I do not walk out of here," Verity murmurred, staring out the window, her arms wrapped around a pillow, "Mr Richard will be kind enough to carry me."
"Aye," said Mrs Roper. "And Lord Albroke would be cruel enough to throw you. Come on, love, it's time to get dressed, and manage things."
Verity shut her eyes.
"Don't you do that," Mrs Roper warned. "You must get up, and go to your grandmother's. The grey dress, I think. You're in mourning."
Mrs Roper bustled about, opening drawers and pulling out clothes. She had packed a lot of Verity's things in the days previous, in preparation for Verity's move to her grandmother's house. She even had the idea in her head that afterwards she and Verity could take a small house in the neighbourhood on the annuity Neil had left Mrs Roper. It was quite apparent that whatever happened she was not going to abandon Verity. Perhaps, Verity thought sleepily, she believes I really can't look after myself.
Because I can't. I can't.
A maid knocked at the door. "The gentlemen have asked me to clean out this room, Miss?"
"We need a little more time in here. They have enough, certainly," Mrs Roper said briskly. When the maid was gone, she added, "Though perhaps you should stay in bed after all. I can tell them you are ill. It it not a falsehood. You are certainly not well of late."
Reluctantly, Verity opened her eyes. Mrs Roper was holding a moss grey woollen dress. It was the closest thing Verity had to mourning clothes.
"Who am I supposed to be in mourning for?" she asked.
"Yourself, I believe." Mrs Roper came close and put a tender hand to Verity's forehead. "Should I tell them you cannot rise?"
Verity's gaze slipped from Mrs Roper to somewhere in a far and untouchable distance. Something within her was resolving itself, had been resolving itself for all the past week, perhaps the past few months. It was something that had almost defeated her. It was something that roiled and burned and tore at her soul.
"I'm tired of treading water," she said bitterly. "I'm tired of it."
"Just let me put this away. I'll tell them you are ill."
Mrs Roper went back to the cupboards.
"Yes," said Verity, sneering at herself. "Put it away."
With momentous effort, she drew her legs up from out under the blankets. She pushed herself up, and sat on the edge of the bed. For a moment, the room spun a little. She had not eaten more than a few bites for some days. She stared it down, and it slowed to a stop.
"Put it away, Mrs Roper," she added, when the woman came near again, still holding the unwanted dress. With another shove, her spine shaking, she managed to stand.
Mrs Roper looked her up and down in concern. Her legs were shaking slightly. Her nightgown was wrinkled and stained with the sweat of days of wear. Her face was as pale and fragile as porcelain.
But there was steel in Verity's soul. There always had been. Her absurd, arrogant pride came to her rescue, as it always had. She thought it beaten out of her, but she had been wrong. It rose like an angry beast within her, stiffening her shredded nerves, her trembling voice, her shaking legs. She would not beg of Lord Albroke hospitality. She would not even flee his house unseen, like a thief, an interloper. No. It had been her house, and it was he who had taken it from her.
"Put it away," she repeated. "I will wear the red silk."
"Are you sure you can get up?" Mrs Roper asked hesitantly.
"The red silk, Mrs Roper. I am no longer in mourning." There was steel in her voice, and steel in her eyes.
Obediently, Mrs Roper went to obey.
~~~~~~~~
A/N: This chapter marks the beginning of Part Four. Wow, it's depressing. And, slow. Stick with me guys. Next chapter has some left hooks coming.