Simply Magic

if he were her father. “I worry when one of you ladies is out after dark. Miss Martin wants you to join her in her sitting room.”

“Thank you,” Susanna said as he passed her in the hallway in order to lead the way upstairs.

She would give anything in the world, she thought as she followed him up, to be able to go straight to her room, to dive beneath the covers of her bed, to hide from the world and herself there forever and ever. And yet contrarily she could not wait to reach the calming comfort of Claudia’s presence.

Oh, how she missed her mother! Ridiculous thought, but really, how she missed her.

“Miss Osbourne, ma’am,” Mr. Keeble said after knocking at the door of Claudia’s sitting room and then opening it, announcing Susanna formally as he always did when given the chance.

It was an enormous relief as she entered the room to see that Lila was not there, fond as she was of her fellow teacher. Claudia was sitting beside a cozy fire, a book in her lap, looking rather weary. But she looked sharply enough at her friend and cast the book aside in order to get to her feet as Mr. Keeble shut the door.

And then quite inexplicably Susanna was in her arms, her head on Claudia’s shoulder. Nothing like it had ever happened before. She relaxed into the sheer comfort of the embrace for several silent moments before stepping back, biting her lip, embarrassed.

“I am so sorry,” she said.

“Sit down,” Claudia said, drawing the other armchair a little closer to the fire, “and I will pour you a cup of tea. It is fresh.”

It had always been Susanna’s self-appointed job to pour the tea, but on this occasion she did not argue. She sank into the offered chair after setting aside her cloak and gloves with the shawl laid carefully on top of them. She welcomed the warmth of the fire against her chilled body.

“Now,” Claudia said after Susanna had taken her first sip of the blessedly hot tea, “what do you wish to tell me, if anything?”

They had never intruded into each other’s lives. It was remarkable that they had been such good friends for years without knowing very much about each other’s past-though, of course, Susanna had been only twelve when she came to the school.

“I saw someone in the Abbey,” she said. “Two people, actually, though I was not sure of the identity of the other person.”

“Two people you knew?” Claudia asked.

“A long time ago.” Susanna took a long drink from her cup and then set it in the saucer and put both on the table beside her. “I grew up in their home until the age of twelve, until my father died. He was secretary there.”

Claudia said nothing.

“He took his own life,” Susanna blurted. “He killed himself, Claudia. He shot himself in the head.”

“Ah, you poor dear,” Claudia said softly. “I did not know that.”

“I suppose my existence was not enough to make him want to live,” Susanna said. “He did not even make any provision for me.”

She was grateful that Claudia said nothing for a while. She had not even fully realized how much she had pitied herself all these years, how much she had resented the fact that her father had chosen death rather than her, even though she thought she understood at least part of his reason for doing what he had done. He had always been an affectionate father, though he had been content to let her grow up in the nursery with Edith and not see her for more than a few minutes in a day and sometimes not at all.

“And the person you saw this evening, the owner of the house, would make no provision for you either?” Claudia asked at last. “That is why you ran away, Susanna?”

“Lady Markham,” Susanna said, spreading her hands in her lap and looking down at them. “And I believe it was Edith with her. I shared a childhood with her though she was more than a year younger than I and the daughter of the house. We were very close even though I was really only a servant’s daughter. But my father was a gentleman.”

She had become defensive on that issue lately.

“Of course he was,” Claudia said. “I knew from the moment of your arrival in Bath that you were a lady, Susanna. You needed no elocution or deportment lessons, and you could already read. I have always thought that was why Mr. Hatchard noticed you and wrote to ask if I would take you here.”

“I was on my way from my bedchamber to the nursery,” Susanna said, pressing her palms harder into her lap and stiffening her fingers as she recounted the memories that had rushed at her earlier in the Abbey. “I was desperately seeking for some comfort, I suppose, even though there is no real comfort to be found when one’s papa has just blown his head off and one has not been allowed to see him despite one’s tears and screams. I wanted Edith. But I never got inside the nursery. I could hear Lady Markham speaking in there, though I have never known whom she was addressing. It could not have been Edith, who was barely eleven.”

She paused and drew a deep breath, which she expelled on a sigh.

“I believe I can still remember her exact words,” she said. “They are burned into my memory. The church has washed its hands of him, of course, she said. He committed a mortal sin when he took his own life. He will have to be buried in unconsecrated ground. And whatever are we to do with Susanna? This is such a burden for us to bear. She can hardly remain here. ”

She had fled-from the nursery and from the house.

“My father was not buried in the churchyard,” she said, “and I did not even stay to see what they actually did with him. I left him as he had left me and somehow found my way to London.”

“And now Lady Markham is in Bath,” Claudia said.

“Yes.” Susanna curled her fingers into her palms and lifted her head to stare into the fire. “And I am almost sure the young lady beside her was Edith. It is foolish to have been so discomposed. I was just looking around between pieces close to the end of the program, as I had been doing all evening. A large man a few rows behind me had moved out of my line of vision, and there they were. I suppose they had been there all the time. But I am fine now.” She smiled. “How was your evening with the senior girls?”

But Claudia ignored her question. She also was gazing into the fire.

“There is nothing worse, is there,” she said, “than a past that has never been fully dealt with. One can convince oneself that it is all safely in the past and forgotten about, but the very fact that we can tell ourselves that it is forgotten proves that it is not.”

Susanna swallowed. “But remembering is pointless,” she said, “when nothing can be done to change the past. I am fine, Claudia. Tomorrow I shall be my usual cheerful self, I promise.”

But she did wonder about Claudia. Was there something unresolved in her past? Was there something unresolved in everyone’s past? Was memory always as much of a burden as it could sometimes be a blessing?

Claudia looked up and smiled.

“When I saw your face as you stepped into the room,” she said, “I was convinced that Viscount Whitleaf must have put that look there. I was quite prepared to march down to the kitchen, avail myself of Cook’s rolling pin, and stride off in pursuit of him.”

“Oh, Claudia,” Susanna said before she could stop herself, “he asked me to marry him.”

Claudia went very still.

“And?…” she said.

“I said no, of course,” Susanna said.

“Did you?” Claudia asked. “Why?”

“He is the sort of man…oh, I do not know quite how to describe him,” Susanna said. “He often takes gallantry to an extreme. He wants to shoulder the burdens of all women of his acquaintance. He wants to make them comfortable. He wants to make them feel good about themselves. He will go to great