Chapter Eighteen
“May I help you?” Hattie addressed the back of a customer examining the display of Vincennes lace. The woman turned, and Hattie rocked back on her heels.
“Aunt Elaine!”
Her aunt, yet not. Impossibly old, now, with a crook to her spine and wrinkles garlanding her face like lace, making it appear softer as she stared back at Hattie. “Hortense. You appear well.”
Hattie was too flabbergasted to speak.
Elaine’s softness disappeared. “I received your letter and immediately arranged to take a train to the city. A great discomfort I may assure you. I have information to impart which is best delivered in person.”
Hattie fought her way past the shock of her aunt’s arrival to recall her manners. “Please, come with me into the back room where I may offer you some tea.”
The short walk gave her the time she needed to gather her composure. Of all her imagined responses to her letter, this visit was not one of them. A return correspondence was the most she had hoped for. Complete silence was what she had rather expected. Hope fluttered inside her at the possibility of a heartfelt reunion with truths and apologies shared on both sides. But hope’s wings were clipped by the phrase “information to impart,” which did not bode well.
Hattie offered Aunt Elaine a seat at the work table. “I would invite you upstairs to my rooms but the climb is steep.”
Her aunt regarded the plain wooden chair as if she would like to wipe it with a cloth. “This will do. I shan’t stay long,” she said as she braced a hand on the table and carefully lowered her body onto the chair.
Luckily, a recently brewed pot of tea was still hot underneath its cozy. Hattie chose the best of her mismatched cups and prepared the tea as Aunt Elaine used to take it; no sugar or cream, only a thin slice of lemon. She set it before her visitor then sat near her.
As Elaine sipped the brew, grimacing slightly as if it were too weak or insufficiently hot, Hattie plunged in, “I am so happy to see you, Aunt. I did not anticipate a visit, but am very glad you have come. You are correct in saying our conversation is best discussed in person.”
“Quite.” Elaine placed cup on saucer with a quiet click. “I shall eschew pleasantries and state the unhappy news that your Uncle Martin passed away two years ago, and your Cousin Emily succumbed to influenza last fall.”
A fresh wave of shock assaulted Hattie, not only at the news but at the matter-of-fact way her aunt delivered it. “Oh no! I am so sorry. I should have been there to attend their funerals.”
She attempted to summon the appropriate depth of sorrow for these losses, but in truth, she had rarely spoken to her uncle throughout her life. He had no use for children and usually missed little Hortense’s once-a-day visit to the drawing room. The man had spent his life either sequestered in his study or away on business. It was difficult to feel anything for such a distant figure from her youth.
As for Cousin Emily, she had married and moved to Austria long before her parents became Hattie’s legal guardians. An occasional Christmas visit, not even every year, was all the exposure Hattie had had to her cousin’s family. It was difficult to mourn people with whom she had so little connection. Yet Aunt Elaine’s watery blue eyes were enough to prompt Hattie’s tears.
“I am very sorry.” Hattie reached to touch Elaine’s hand where it rested on her lap. “You must have felt so alone.” I owed you more than that. I should have behaved like a daughter even if you never treated me like one.
Aunt Elaine withdrew her hand and straightened her posture. “I wished to inform you in person. It is the right thing to do. In addition, I wished to express my regret for the manner of our parting. I thought it best you leave the area until the scandal died, but I didn’t intend for you to disappear like a thief in the night. Your uncle had made arrangements for you to stay at a sanitarium in Westchester until you recovered your health and mental balance.”
I wasn’t ill, Hattie wanted to protest. But there was no point in displaying ruffled feathers over something that had happened so long ago. She had chosen the direction of her life and it had led her to this moment of facing her widowed aunt in the middle of the business Hattie had built.
“I apologize for the manner in which I left. As I expressed in my correspondence, my behavior was that of a very young and selfish girl. I have grown since then to appreciate the importance of family and the debt of gratitude I owe to both you and Uncle Martin, God rest his soul.” She paused. “Please, tell me more about Emily’s family. My second cousins must be grown by now.”
“They are. Both have emigrated to America, so I do not expect to see either of them again,” Elaine said succinctly.
“Are you still in the house at Kirby? You must be since my letter reached you. Are you quite all right in that large house alone? Do you wish me to visit you on occasion? I want to be of help to you if you need me.”
“Quite unnecessary. Your uncle has left me well set. I have my friends and my pastor.” Her lips pressed tight in the stubborn line Hattie knew so well.
Hattie forced a smile. “While you’re in London allow me to show you around the city. In what inn are you stopping? I shall leave the shop in my assistant’s hands and spend the next several days with you.” She prayed her barely-trained new assistant Margaret was up to the task of
