him. “Come with me to fetch my bonnet,” she said. He took one step toward her and then stopped. “Be my clever girl and go and fetch it without me,” he said. “Can you do it?” “Of course I can.” Her face lit up. “Count to fifty, Papa, and I will be back. Not too fast, though, silly,” she added, laughing with glee as he began rattling off numbers. “One…two…three,” he began again more slowly as she left the room. After a moment the dog scrambled to his feet and went after her. “She really is capable of a great deal, is she not?” he said. “I have been remiss. I ought to have arranged something for her much sooner than this. It is just that she has been a very young child, and love and protection seemed enough.” “Don’t blame yourself,” Miss Martin said. “Love is worth more than any one other gift you could give her. And it is not too late. Eleven is a good age for her to discover that she has wings.” “With which to fly away from me?” he said with a rueful smile. “Yes,” she agreed, “and with which to fly back to you again.” “Freedom,” he said. “Is it possible for her?” “Only she can decide that,” she said. But he could hear Lizzie’s returning footsteps on the stairs. “…forty…forty-one…forty-two…” he said loudly. “Here I am!” she shrieked from outside the door, and then she appeared in the doorway, flushed and excited, eyelids fluttering while the dog rushed past her. “And here is my bonnet.” She waved it from one hand. “Oh, bravo, Lizzie,” Miss Martin said. Love tightened in Joseph’s chest almost like pain. They spent an hour in the garden before Mrs. Smart brought out the tea tray. Lizzie engaged in one of her favorite games, bending over flowers and feeling them and smelling them before identifying them. Sometimes she clasped her hands behind her and played the game from the sense of smell alone. Miss Martin tried it too, her eyes closed, but she made as many errors as correct identifications and Lizzie laughed with glee. She also listened attentively as Miss Martin gave her a lesson in botany, pointing out parts and qualities of each plant while Lizzie felt to see what she was talking about. Joseph sat watching. He almost never had the leisure simply to observe his daughter. Usually when he visited he was the whole focus of her world. Today she had Miss Martin and the dog, and while she frequently called to him to be sure that he had noticed something, she was clearly reveling in their company. Is this what family life might have been like, he wondered, if he had been free to marry as a younger man—when he met and fell in love with Barbara? Would he have delighted in his wife and children as he was delighting in Miss Martin and Lizzie? Would there have been this contentment, this happiness? Their heads were touching as they bent over a pansy. Miss Martin set one arm loosely about Lizzie’s waist, and Lizzie set her arm about Miss Martin’s shoulders. The dog woofed around them before racing off to chase a butterfly. Goo d Lord, Joseph thought suddenly. Dash it all, this line of thought just would not do. This was exactly what he had resolved not to do this afternoon. He would have his family life. The wife and mother would not be either Barbara or Miss Martin, and none of the children would be Lizzie. But he would have it. He would begin wooing Portia Hunt in full earnest this evening. He would call upon Balderston tomorrow and then make her a formal offer. Surely she would relax more once they were officially betrothed. Surely she must want some affection, some warmth, some family closeness, out of her marriage too. Of course she must. The tea tray arrived to interrupt his thoughts, and the ladies came to sit down. Miss Martin poured the tea. “Lizzie,” she said after handing about the cups and the pastries, “I would like to see you get more fresh air during the summer. You enjoyed the afternoon in Richmond Park, did you not? I would like to see you walk and run and skip again and find more flowers and plants than you yet know. I would like you to come into the country with me for a few weeks.” Lizzie, who was sitting beside Joseph, felt for him with the hand that was not holding her plate. He took it in a firm grasp. “I do not want to go to school, Papa,” she said. “This is not school,” Miss Martin explained. “One of my teachers, Miss Thompson, is going to take ten of the girls from the school to Lindsey Hall in Hampshire for a few weeks. It is a large mansion in the country with a huge park around it. They are going there for a holiday, and I am going too. Some of my girls, you see, do not have parents or homes and so must stay with us during holiday times. We try to give them a good time with lots of activities and lots of fun. I thought you might like to come with me.” “Are you going too, Papa?” Lizzie asked. “I will be going for a while to a house nearby,” he said. “I will be able to come and see you.” “And who will take me?” Lizzie asked. “I will,” Miss Martin said. He looked closely at Lizzie. All the faint color the hour outdoors had brought into her cheeks had faded. “I am afraid,” she whispered. He squeezed her hand more tightly. “You do not have to go,” he said. “You do not have to go anywhere. I will find someone else to come and live here and be your companion, someone you will like, someone who will be kind to you.” Perhaps Miss Martin would disagree with him. Perhaps she would think that he should insist that his daughter find her wings, that he should push her out of the nest, so to speak. But she said nothing. And actually she had said just the opposite, had she not? She had told him that Lizzie must decide for herself. “Those girls would hate me,” Lizzie said. “Why would they?” Miss Martin asked. “Because I have a home and a papa,” Lizzie said. “I do not believe they will hate you,” Miss Martin said. “I would not say anything about having a papa,” Lizzie said, brightening. “I would pretend to be just like them.” Which was exactly the way Miss Martin had described her to the Duchess of Bewcastle—as a charity girl brought to her attention by her man of business. And he was not going to speak up in protest? Was he really ashamed of her, then? Or was he just bowing to what society expected of any gentleman? “Would they do things with me?” the child asked, turning her face in Miss Martin’s direction. “Would they think me a nuisance?” Yet again Joseph admired Miss Martin’s honesty. She did not rush immediately into a denial. “We will have to find out,” she said. “They will certainly be polite. They learn good manners at my school. But it will be up to you to make friends.” “But I have never had friends,” Lizzie said. “Then this will be your chance to make some,” Miss Martin told her. “And I would come back here after a few weeks?” Lizzie asked. “If you chose,” Miss Martin said. Lizzie sat very still, no longer touching Joseph. Her hands fidgeting in her lap showed her agitation. So did the fact that she rocked back and forth as she sometimes did when she was deeply troubled. Her eyelids fluttered and her eyes wandered beneath them. Her lips moved silently. Joseph resisted the urge to gather her up in his arms. “But I am so afraid,” she whispered again. “Then you will remain here,” he said firmly. “I will start looking immediately for a new companion.” “I did not mean I would not go, Papa,” she said, “only that I am afraid.” She continued to rock and fidget while Miss Martin said nothing and Joseph felt resentful of her—quite unjustifiably, of course. “I have learned all about courage from some of the stories you have told me, Papa,” Lizzie said at last. “You can only show courage when you are afraid. If you are not afraid, there is no need of courage.” “And you have always wanted to do something courageous, Lizzie?” Miss Martin asked. “Like Amanda in your story, when she might have escaped from the forest earlier if she had not stopped to rescue the dog from the rabbit snare?” “But it is not just for fighting witches and evil, is it?” Lizzie said. “It is also for stepping into the unknown,” Claudia said, “when it would be easier to cling to what is familiar and safe.” “I think, then,” Lizzie said after another short silence, “I will be courageous. Will you be proud of me if I am, Papa?” “I am always proud of you, sweetheart,” he said. “But yes, I would be especially proud if you were to be brave enough to go. And I would be very happy if it turned out that you enjoyed yourself as I daresay you would.” “Then I will go,” she said decisively, and abruptly stopped rocking. “I will go, Miss Martin.” Then she turned sharply to paw at Joseph’s arm and scrambled onto his lap to hug him tightly and hide against him. His arms closed about her and he tipped back his head and closed his eyes. He swallowed, feeling absurdly close to tears. When he opened his eyes, he could see that Miss Martin was watching them steadily, looking like a disciplined teacher again—or like his very dear friend. Without thinking he stretched one arm across the table between them and, after looking at his hand for a moment, she set her own in it. Ah, sometimes life was bitterly ironic. He felt again as if he had found a family where there could be none—just when he was honor-bound to offer for a woman who wanted never to be kissed. His hand closed about Miss Martin’s and squeezed tightly. 14
Late one afternoon two weeks later Claudia was dressed in her old faithful blue evening gown and was styling her hair herself, having declined the Duchess of Bewcastle’s kind offer of the services of a maid. She was feeling unaccountably depressed when she had every reason to feel just the opposite. She was being treated as a favored guest at Lindsey Hall rather than as a teacher in charge of a largish group of charity schoolgirls. And within half an hour she would be on her way with the Bedwyn family to a celebratory dinner and social evening at Alvesley Park. She would see Susanna there. She would also see Anne, who had arrived from Wales with Sydnam and their children just yesterday. The journey from London a few days ago had proceeded un- eventfully, though Lizzie had been tearful for a while after leaving the house and her father and had clung to Claudia the whole way. But Susanna and Peter, with whom they had traveled, had been kind to her, the dog had snuggled up beside her, and she had been more than thrilled when the carriages had stopped and Harry’s nurse had brought him forward to his mother and Lizzie had been allowed to touch his little hand and smooth her hand over his downy head. It had been good to see Eleanor Thompson again and the girls she had brought to Lindsey Hall, and they had all seemed genuinely glad to see her. They had greeted Lizzie with caution and curiosity, but on the very first evening Agnes Ryde, the most dominant of the girls and sixteen years old, had decided to take the new girl under her wing, and Molly Wiggins, the youngest and most timid, had chosen Lizzie as her particular friend and taken her firmly by the hand. She had promptly offered to brush Lizzie’s hair and had borne her off to the room they were to share, while Agnes took her other arm. It had been good to see Flora and Edna again, and to discover that both
