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The greeting that awaited Isabella Garvey when she returned after a six year absence to her childhood home was not a warm one. Sir Edwin Garvey forgot to chew his toast for half-a-minute, while Lady Garvey merely raised her eyebrows a fraction of an inch over her cup of chocolate.
"'At 'oo 'ooing 'ere," Sir Edwin grunted.
"Pardon?" Isabella sat down at the breakfast table, in front of a plate of abandoned toast crumbs. Edwina's spot, she thought; Edwina never could sit still long enough to finish a meal. "Might I have coffee?"
After a pause, Lady Garvey said, "Why not." But there were no more cups, so Isabella sat without while her father swallowed his unchewed mouthful with an audible squelch.
"What are you doing here?" he repeated.
"Mrs Phillips found that she did not need me after her mother-in-law died," Isabella said.
"But I sent her a letter saying to keep you on until we'd found a place to put you." Sir Edwin's perpetually red cheeks flared momentarily purple. "I sent a letter!"
Isabella remained quiet. Her father had always hated efforts unnecessarily expended. She thought she might risk sending him into apoplexy by telling him the letter had been read and ignored. Mrs Phillips had wanted Isabella gone, and so Isabella had git.
"It is most awkward, you being here just now," Lady Garvey said. "Arabella is visiting, she arrives today, and tomorrow we are entertaining. We are obliged to do a great deal of entertaining at this time of year. It is very trying, really, but what is one to the world but what one's neighbour whispers of oneself?"
"Our neighbours will not whisper of me, if that is what you mean, Mother. At least, I will give them nothing to whisper of."
Lady Garvey shook her head, her heavy gold earrings making her earlobes sway like a rooster's wattles. "Why, I am at a loss for what we shall do with you. Edwina!"
The last was cried in a ringing falsetto. Isabella winced. A moment later, footsteps sounded in the hall, and then Edwina entered the breakfast room, looking down at a thin sheaf of papers she held in her hand. Isabella was surprised to find Edwina looked almost old — she would be thirty by now, of course, but Isabella had not expected there to be such deep lines around her mouth and eyes. Nor, for that matter, had Isabella expected her father to get so fat or her mother's hair so grey. The six years she'd been away seemed suddenly more.
"I'm busy, Mother." Edwina said, not looking up. "Thirty-one candles this week! What on earth do you do with them?"
"Decide what we are to do with your sister," Lady Garvey said.
"She'll stay in the blue room as usual," Edwina said impatiently.
"Not Arabella! Your other sister."
At last, Edwina looked up. Her brows rose and then drew together in a frown that gave Isabella a sudden understanding of the lines on her face.
"Oh," Edwina said. "What are you doing here?"
"Mrs Phillips seems to have gotten sick of her," Lady Garvey said.
"Goodness." Edwina could never be surprised long. Her brows unknitted. "Well, she's here now." With unchanged efficiency, Edwina began to plan. "For the moment, she can help me tidy the house. Then, Mrs Orville will know someone who needs a companion — or if she doesn't, she'll find out. If worst comes to worst, Arabella might take her for a while. I certainly shan't."
"I can't stay here?" Isabella said.
Stay. Once more, Sir Edwin's jaws stopped moving about his toast. Lady Garvey gave a shocked flutter of her earlobes. Edwina was for a moment silenced.
It had been six years since her family had decided that Isabella must Go. The scandal hanging over her had threatened to cast its shadow over her two sisters as well. But surely now both Edwina and Arabella were successfully married, there was no worry she would jeopardize their futures?
"I think you should know that our circumstances are not what they once were," Sir Edwin said, reaching for the peach conserve. "I cannot afford to support an unmarried daughter."
It was on the tip of Isabella's tongue to ask if she couldn't get married. Of course, at twenty-three, she was almost old, and with her reputation no great match could be expected for her, but surely there would be some middle-aged widower of comfortable standing who might condescend to accept her? Her dowry at the very least—
"You might as well be aware," her father added, wiping peach sauce from his mouth, "that I was required some years ago to spend the portion I had been saving for you. The rents have not been bringing in what they should, and through a period of distress, I was obligated to find capital from where otherwise I would not have touched it."
"Oh."
"Of course..." Her father's hand hovered over the conserves a moment, before selecting the quince jelly. "Over the years I will be able to restore the funds, but it will take time. If I live another ten years, which God allowing I will, you should be satisfactorily situated upon my death."
Lady Garvey coughed.
"Allowing, of course, for your mother's comfort as well."
Isabella stared glumly at the crumbs on the plate in front of her. She would be thirty-three by then. Too old to get married, and too poor, and too ruined. She was not stupid. She knew well enough that the hot-house conserves, the gems winking at her mother's throat and ears, and the gleaming silver breakfast set were the cause of whatever embarrassment her father was in now. She knew, too, that whatever reparations her father intended would never come about. There would be more bad rents. Newer bills coming in for whatever glittering trinkets had caught her mother's eyes or her father's stomach. It had long been obvious to Isabella that the only way to get anywhere with her family was to demand what you needed and take what you wanted. But demanding was not in her nature.
"I don't suppose I could be useful here, like I was with the Phillipses?"
"Oh, useful." Her mother waved the idea away. "My dear Isabella, I am very glad to see you after all this time, but what use could you be? We are none of us invalids."
"And I am all the help mother needs in keeping this house in good order," Edwina said, almost jealously. "Don't worry. I will find you someone who needs your help. Our Aunt Lydia perhaps. I believe she has — was it nerves or lungs, Mama?"
"Lungs," Lady Garvey said. "Ever since she was a girl."
Isabella's heart fell. She hadn't minded looking after old Mrs Phillips, exactly. There had been utility, purpose, service in it. And old Mrs Phillips had appreciated her, even if she had often been crotchety when her rheumatism was bad. It was nice to be appreciated. But Isabella didn't want to spend the rest of her youth being a caretaker for old women, until one day she was old too.
Through the window open onto the front lawn, there came the clop of horse hooves and then the creak of carriage springs. Lady Garvey's expression brightened.
"That will be Arabella!" She looked at Isabella. "She never misses my birthday, you know."
"She would if it lit between February and May," Edwina said sourly. She moved to the door then stopped and frowned at Isabella. "But you can go and let her in. I must get to the bottom of these receipts. Mother, it cannot be one and thirty candles!"
Isabella got up and went out into the hall as Lady Garvey began to argue with Edwina about candles. When Isabella opened the front door, she interrupted a groom in the act of knocking. He gaped at her and then turned back to Arabella, who was coming sedately up the front steps with a silk shawl around her shoulders and a diamond pin at her breast. The groom looked from one sister to another. But for their dresses and the style of their hair, they were still as alike as the day they were born. Isabella might have been looking in a mirror.
Only as she smiled, Arabella narrowed her eyes in a scowl.
"What are you doing here?" she demanded, coming through the door and holding out her hands for a maid to deglove.
"Mrs Phillips's mother died. I came home."
The maid, after giving them a surprised ogle, took Arabella's gloves and bonnet away upstairs. Arabella went immediately to a mirror and began to straighten her hair. She glanced at Isabella through the reflection.
"Don't tell me you're staying in this backwater now."
"I don't know."
"Hmph." Arabella gave one last pat to her hair and seemed satisfied. "Where are they?"
"The breakfast room."
"Well I'm not going to watch Father chew his cud. Tell Mother I'm in the drawing room."
Arabella departed in a cloud of perfume, and Isabella went back to the breakfast room where her mother was sitting in stony silence while Edwina rooted candle stubs from a drawer in the sideboard. Her father was still mechanically making his way through the toast and conserves. Isabella told them where Arabella was and, when Edwina and her mother went out, hesitated only a moment before following them. Even if Arabella didn't seem particularly pleased to see her, she might warm up later. She had always cared more for Isabella, in her own caustic way, than anyone else ever had.
In the drawing room, Edwina and Lady Garvey set to giving Arabella the requisite kisses, and her mother inquired particularly after her health. Isabella sat down, unnoticed, on a settee. When the reunion was complete, there was a general settling down of bodies and conversation. Arabella looked around the room.
"That is rather a pretty wallpaper, Mother. I remember you writing to me about it. You cannot tell from this distance that it is not hand-painted. I shall have my library done up just the same — after Locke has left again, of course." She sighed heavily. "You would think the son of a merchant would appreciate fine things, but he begrudges every penny spent on me or the house."
Lady Garvey shook her head. "I cannot understand such an attitude — your father is always sympathetic to the efforts I make to keep up appearances."
"Locke doesn't care one whit about that!"
"But he does have the money, doesn't he?" Lady Garvey pressed.
"Of course he does! And he can go gadding off to Europe whenever he pleases, but if I so much as buy myself a new gown..." Arabella blinked, her eyes suddenly bright. "He is so cruel, Mama."
Lady Garvey launched into a flurry of comfort, patting her hands around Arabella's shoulders and uttering coos of sympathy. Arabella dabbed at her eyes with a lacy slip of a handkerchief. From across the room, Edwina met Isabella's eyes and rolled her own. At first, Isabella was shocked, but a moment later the lacy handkerchief was discarded, Lady Garvey's hands were pushed away, and Arabella launched once more into cheerful conversation.
"How do you like this dress?" she said. "Is it not magnificent?"
"It is a very fine print indeed." Lady Garvey pawed at the satiny fabric. "Why, look at the colours it shows in the light!"
Isabella looked down at her own faded gown. It was hard to remember what colour it had been originally — green, she thought, with little yellow flowers. Now it was nearer white.
"I bought you something too of course, Mama," Arabella said, getting up and going to the door. "I'll be back in a moment."
Lady Garvey gave a coo of pleasure as Edwina's expression soured. Edwina turned to Isabella:
"Arabella always buys Mama some little trinket, and saves the best for herself. For all she complains of her husband, at least he is wealthy."
Isabella looked doubtfully at Edwina's silk gown. Walter Garvey could not be too poor, she thought.
"A little trinket," Lady Garvey said, "is better than no trinket at all. I find Arabella very thoughtful, she always thinks of me."
"If I had as much money, I'd spend it as freely," Edwina sniped.
Isabella felt suddenly guilty for having nothing to bring upon her coming home. She had quit the Phillipses' house so expediently that she had little more than a few coins in her pocket, and the grandest of her worldly possessions was a brooch that old Mrs Phillips had left her in her will.
As though reading her thoughts, her mother turned to her: "Then old Mrs Phillips is dead — did she leave you anything? You were very good to her, all those years. And these old women have a way of squirrelling away their pennies until they are a very many pounds." Lady Garvey's eyes gleamed.
"I have a brooch," Isabella ventured.
"What sort of brooch?" Edwina asked indifferently.
"It is carved as a bird on a branch," Isabella explained. "She said it was ivory, but I think it must be bone."
The gleam in Lady Garvey's eyes faded. "I do think it was very cruel of old Mrs Phillips, after all you had done for her, not to do more for you."
"There was not more she could do, I think. She was on but a hundred pounds a year after her husband died."
"A lot can be done with a hundred pounds! Why, I'd have five new gowns out of a hundred pounds."
It was beyond Isabella to remind her mother that old Mrs Phillips had had obligations beyond new gowns. Silence fell over the room until a footstep alerted them to Arabella's return. She came in and laid around her mother's shoulders a shawl of fine grey lace.
"I thought it the very thing!" Arabella said.
"A grey shawl!" Lady Garvey sniffed. "At my age? I am not in mourning, I tell you." She modified that. "At least, a black ribbon may do for Mrs Phillips. She was only a cousin of a cousin after all."
Isabella, who had tried her best to dye her oldest gown black and given up the job when it turned bright purple, sighed. It would have been nice to be able to do the right thing by old Mrs Phillips.
"Still," Lady Garvey said, examining the lace, "but I do think this is very good quality, is it not? How much did you pay?"
"Thirty shillings."
"Why, then you have made a bargain of it! I would not price it less than three guineas!"
"Oh, I never overpay these tradesmen," Arabella said contemptuously. "Though I have not paid yet, you know. I thought it would look good if I had a bill to present to Locke that was not for me."
Isabella winced. "Is that fair to your husband?"
"Fair?" Arabella raised her eyebrows. "My dear sister, why should I be fair to That Man?"
"Because he is your husband?"
Arabella tossed her head. "Husband! And what does he do to deserve such a title? Why, he is gone eleven months of the year and makes it clear he loathes my presence the twelfth! He spends it drunk, you know. I have not seen him sober since the night I married him. And yet he sees fit to judge everything I do, to condemn me, to despise me!"
Isabella shrank back against this onslaught.
"Really, Isabella, Mr Locke is no friend of our family," said Lady Garvey.
"He's an odious man," Edwina agreed.
"Then why did you marry him?"
"I was younger then," Arabella said. "I was not so wise."
"Hoodwinked us all," Lady Garvey added darkly.
Edwina caught Isabella's eye and rubbed her thumb and forefinger together meaningfully.
"Oh don't let's talk about him!" Arabella said. "I hate him! Mama, tell me about your dinner party — who is coming?"
"The Orvilles naturally," Lady Garvey said. "And the Watersons. And Lady Kilpatrick and her brood."
"And the Sempells?"
"Oh, of course! I know what good friends you are with Mrs Sempell."
The discussion continued. For Isabella, many of the names were entirely foreign or half-forgotten. She sat back and watched Arabella talk. Arabella did not seem to have aged as much as the others — but then Isabella had seen herself in the mirror every day for the past six years, and marked the same changes in herself — the features starting to lose their youthful softness, the faint lines that came and went around the mouth. All the same, Isabella realized she no longer really knew her twin sister. She had been seventeen when she left, and they had both been girls then. Now Arabella was a woman, in her manner, her movement, her talk. And Isabella, five minutes the younger, felt a child by comparison.
At length, the conversation faltered and Arabella leaned back on the couch with a hand over her eyes.
"I must rest, Mama," she said. "I am ever so exhausted. So much dust on the road."
Lady Garvey was all solicitude at once, but when Arabella stood she pushed her mother away.
"No, Isabella shall attend to me." She fixed her dark eyes on Isabella, with something of a smile in them. "I imagine we must have so much to talk about."
Perhaps they did, but they went upstairs in silence. In the blue room, the best room, Arabella flung herself down on the bed with a groan.
"Doesn't Mother natter so?" she said. "On and on and on — it's exhausting."
This agreed with what Isabella had been privately thinking, but it seemed disrespectful to Lady Garvey to admit it, so she only shrugged.
Arabella rolled over on the bed and propped herself up on one elbow to gaze at Isabella. "Why are you really back?"
"Mrs Phillips doesn't need me anymore."
"Hm." Arabella narrowed her eyes. "What was it then? One of her sons fall in love with you? Or was it the husband?"
Isabella felt her cheeks burn. Arabella let out a peal of laughter.
"Men!" she said. "Oh, don't worry, I won't tell."
Relief swept over Isabella. She sat down on the edge of the bed.
"He was really very awful," she said. "He kept putting his hands on my knees — under the dinner table, once even in church. It was mortifying."
"Only hands and only knees? Dear child, you may consider yourself lucky. Besides, you will never have to see Mr Phillips again."
Arabella's tone became gloomy. Isabella's relief withered; of course it was impossible to expect sympathy from Arabella. However, Isabella was not as solicitous as her mother. She waited for several moments, and, when it became obvious that Arabella wanted to be asked, would not speak until she was, offered the begrudging query:
"Is Mr Locke so objectionable then?"
She was curious anyway. She had never met Arabella's husband and had heard little of her marriage. Mr Locke was wealthy, she knew, but it did not seem to have made Arabella happy.
"Awful." Arabella sank back down amongst the pillows. "I would never have married him if Mother had not pushed me into it. All she could ever see of him was his fortune. I tell you, he is an ugly man — ugly of heart and body. It is difficult for me to even talk about the cruel things he does."
"It must be indeed," Isabella said gravely. "You have brought him up only twice this past hour."
Arabella flashed her a suspicious glance. "I am not telling you the half of it. I am very afraid of him. He is awful to me when he is angry — and he is always angry."
Of all things, Isabella feared a man— or a woman —in a temper. She bit her lip.
"Why, you never told me—" and then she broke off. Arabella's letters had been few and far between the past six years. Edwina had consulted regularly, sent Isabella letters full of good advice at least once a quarter, but Arabella only ever wrote letters that began with "I am so bored, my darling," usually around November or January, or sometimes in a rainy March.
"I did not know," Isabella finished. "I'm so sorry. But can we help?"
Arabella shrugged and blinked back tears. "There is no help — but fortune in that he is never here long."
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A/N: I am really, really looking forward to this one.