“What happened?”
“He fell ill. The wedding was postponed, and then postponed again. When his health continued to decline, he released Miss—well, never mind her name, for she has changed it since then. Suffice it to say that he released her from the engagement, and after protesting that she had no desire to be released, she finally returned his ring.” Mrs. Jennings tugged a lace-trimmed handkerchief from her sleeve and dabbed at her eyes. “On the day we buried him, the announcement of her marriage was published in the Morning Post. I was thankful he did not live to learn of it.”
“I’m very sorry,” Theo said, and meant it. “But what—why—?”
She gave a determined sniff and tucked the handkerchief back into her sleeve. “It deserves a happier fate than to remain hidden beneath my bed, a memorial to heartbreak and loss. It is perhaps a bit out of date, but gentlemen’s fashions haven’t changed so very much, have they? And we can’t have you courting Daphne looking like a common laborer.”
“I—I don’t know how to thank you,” stammered Theo.
“You can thank me by preventing Daphne from marrying that coxcomb, Sir Valerian. She deserves to be a duchess, and he—” She gave a disdainful sniff. “He would turn his own mother out into the street if he thought he could gain from it. I knew his father, and he was just such a one, too.”
“Mrs. Jennings, have you told anyone? About who I am?”
“Good heavens, what sort of gabby do you take me for? Whatever you’re about, you must have your reasons, and you won’t want an old woman meddling in your affairs. When you came down to dinner in that garb, though, I thought you might not object to a bit of assistance.”
“Not at all,” he assured her with feeling.
“The shoes need a bit of work,” she observed, regarding them with disfavor. “We’d best step lively. If you’ll run and change your clothes, I’ll see if I can’t polish them up a bit.”
Theo was quick to do as he was bidden, and by the time he padded back to her room on stockinged feet, she had contrived to buff the silver into something resembling a shine. At the sight of him in his borrowed finery, she was obliged to seek recourse once more to the handkerchief in her sleeve.
“They might have been made for you,” she said between sniffs. “It’s almost like seeing my Edward come back to life.”
“Actually, they’re a bit loose,” Theo confessed, shrugging his shoulders to demonstrate. “He must have been a broad-shouldered fellow, your son.”
“Aye, that he was, before the illness took him. A well-built lad he was, and ripe for every kind of lark. He would be delighted to know he was playing some part in your adventures. The shirt has yellowed a bit,” she observed, startling Theo once more with her sudden change from sentiment to practicality. “Still, I daresay it won’t be noticed in candlelight, and in any case, it’s better than what you were wearing before.”
“Much better,” he agreed, stepping into the shoes. These proved to be a little too large, but this problem was easily resolved by stuffing the toes with scraps of silk cut from an old pair of stockings. Having overcome this last obstacle, Theo held out his arm to his benefactress. “I would be honored if you would accept my escort.”
This, however, Mrs. Jennings refused to do. “You won’t want to dance attendance on me when there’s Daphne waiting. Then, too, I would rather be alone tonight with my memories. Seeing you wearing his clothes brings him back to me, you know, in a way nothing has in a very long time.”
For a long moment, Theo shifted his weight awkwardly from one foot to the other, then bent and kissed her on the cheek. “In that case, please accept my sincerest thanks—and thank Edward, too, for the use of his clothes. I assure you, I shall never forget it.”
16
I do perceive here a divided duty.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Othello
DAPHNE HAD SEEN THE squire’s barn many times before; in fact, she had been inside it only a few weeks earlier, having been dispatched by her mother on an errand involving the purchase of a pig whose slaughter would provide the residents of the boardinghouse with carefully rationed bacon and ham throughout the long winter months ahead. Tonight, however, the building had been transformed. Many of its four-legged residents had met with the same fate as the Drinkards’ pig, and their salted carcasses now hung in the smoke house. Their more fortunate fellows had been turned out into the pasture for the occasion, and the newly vacated barn had been shoveled out and its floorboards scrubbed until no threat to the ladies’ dancing slippers remained. Lanterns had been hung from the rafters to provide lighting, and a long table set up against one wall groaned under the weight of food and drink provided by Sir Valerian for his guests. Nor had he spared any expense on musicians; rather than old Mr. Barnhill sawing away on his fiddle, as was the usual musical offering at the infrequent local assemblies held at the Red Lion, Sir Valerian had insisted upon sending to Manchester, and fully half a dozen musicians now occupied a makeshift dais at the far end of the barn.
In fact, the matter of dance was one which had caused her mother considerable mental exercise, Daphne recalled, stealing yet another futile glance at the door through which, surely, Mr. Tisdale must enter at any moment. Only a few of Sir Valerian’s guests would have enjoyed the tutelage of a dancing master, and yet it would be a very poor hostess who would allow the untutored majority to languish against the wall watching their betters enjoying themselves. The Sir Roger de Coverley had been an easy choice; as it was more than a hundred years old, most of the persons
