she’d committed a Fatal Error.
‘Leave her be, Eunice,’ said Aunt Cordelia. ‘It can’t be easy watching a stuck-up little madam like that swanning off to town when our Cassy…’
Had been stupid enough to trust in a handsome face and a scarlet jacket, and a kindly demeanour…
Oh, dear, there went her lower lip again.
She dug into the pocket of her apron for a handkerchief, and surreptitiously dabbed at her left eye, which was, in spite of her resolve, starting to leak. She had no intention of letting the aunts see that she was on the verge of tears. It might make them think she was unhappy with her lot. Which would be terribly…disloyal. Because if they hadn’t taken her in and given her honest work, she could easily have ended up lying dead in a ditch somewhere. Or, worse, staying alive and earning her living by…
She pulled herself up short with a sniff. She hadn’t had to endure such horrors. Because the aunts had taken her in. Even though her own mother and stepfather had refused to do as much, claiming she would bring shame on them and blight her younger brother’s reputation, as well.
It was true that Aunt Cordelia, who was not really an aunt but only some sort of cousin of her mother’s, had only opened her door grudgingly. But that hadn’t been anything to do with Cassandra’s actions.
‘We don’t mix socially any longer,’ she’d said gruffly. ‘Not since we’ve set up house together. And if you come to stay the rest of the family will turn their backs on you, because they will consider you’ve been…er…contaminated by our sort of…’
‘Eccentricity,’ Aunt Eunice had concluded when Aunt Cordelia had floundered.
‘Yes, that’s the least unpleasant way they have described our arrangement,’ Aunt Cordelia had mused.
Cassandra hadn’t understood what they’d meant, not then. So she’d simply said that it wouldn’t make any difference, because none of her immediate family would have anything further to do with her anyway. Her stepfather had warned her that he would see to that.
‘Well, he has no say here,’ Aunt Cordelia had said firmly. ‘I’ve never had any time for that old lecher who married your mother for her money. And as for the rest of them…well, they all washed their hands of me many years ago, when I refused to marry some oafish male, and set up home with my good friend instead. But…that’s why you came to me, isn’t it?’
Cassandra had nodded.
‘Then you can stay for a while and see if we can all rub along together.’
And they had. They did.
Cassandra blew her nose. She had become, if not exactly happy, then at least content with her lot. Her aunts never made her feel she was a failure, or a disappointment, or a burden. On the contrary, they made her feel that she was making a valuable contribution to the upkeep of the household, since she was such a swift and neat stitcher. Which was, ironically, thanks to her stepfather’s insistence that she and her mother make all their own clothing rather than pay a dressmaker to do it.
However, on days like this, when the clouds looked as though they might part and let the sun through at any minute, and spears of daffodils were nosing their way through the frosty ground, bringing a sense of hope to everyone else, she was always particularly susceptible to suffering from regrets.
So Cassandra didn’t think she’d better attempt to converse with her aunts until she was in better control of herself. Therefore she stayed where she was, gazing out of the window that overlooked their front garden and the lane which led, eventually, to the road to London. And kept her handkerchief at the ready.
She had blown her nose for the fourth, and positively the last, time when she saw the top of a carriage driving over the hump-backed bridge.
‘Oh,’ she said. ‘It looks as though Miss Henley has forgotten something. At least…no, actually, I don’t think that is her carriage coming over the bridge. There are no trunks on the roof. And, oh! You should see the horses. Four of them. All greys.’ And all of them a distinct cut above the mixed team of chestnuts and blacks that Sir Barnabas occasionally put to work on his home farm.
Cassandra heard the clatter of scissors falling to the table an instant before feeling the presence of Aunt Eunice at her back.
‘She’s right, Cordelia. A spanking team. And, oh, my word, a crest on the door,’ she said as the coach drew level with the cottage.
‘A crest?’ Now it was Aunt Cordelia’s turn to toss her work aside and join them at the little bow-fronted window. ‘What on earth can somebody of that rank be doing in an out-of-the-way place like Market Gooding? Especially up this end.’ For the lane on which their cottage stood only ran between Henley Hall and the London Road.
‘They must have got lost,’ said Aunt Eunice as the carriage drew to a halt by their front gate. ‘Look, that fellow,’ she said, as one of the pair of footmen, who’d been perched up behind, jumped down and opened their gate, ‘is coming to ask for directions.’
‘Then why is the other one opening the carriage door and letting down the steps?’ asked Aunt Cordelia.
All three ladies fell silent at the first glimpse of the passenger, who was clearly a very grand lady to judge from not only the crest on the door, but also the air of reverence with which the footman held out his arm to help her alight.
‘A lady like that wouldn’t get out to ask her way from the inhabitants of a cottage like this,’ said Aunt Cordelia.
‘She must be a new customer,’ said Cassandra as her footman deftly caught the lady’s muff and the furs which must have been swaddling her, before they scattered in all directions.
‘Not she,’ said Aunt Cordelia. ‘No lady decked out in a carriage dress that fine could possibly want to mar her image by buying anything from a provincial dressmaker.’
Cassandra felt Aunt Eunice swell with indignation at the slur on her creative talent. For she was the one with the eye for seeing just what would suit those who consulted her, as well as the skills of measuring and cutting. Cassandra did the rough basting, and plain stitching nowadays, while Cordelia added the finishing touches. ‘I could turn her out just as fine,’ she growled.
‘Well, yes, you could,’ Aunt Cordelia acknowledged. ‘If you were able to get your hands on that amount of velvet, in just that shade of blue, and if she were to ask you to, but she wouldn’t, would she?’
‘Well, we’re about to find out,’ she retorted, as the footman who’d been stalking up the garden path rapped imperiously on their front door, causing all three ladies to cease their perusal of the vision of sophistication, who was finally ready to take the arm of the second footman, and rush to adopt various industrious poses around the room while Betty, their maid, went to answer the door.
Although Cassandra strained to make out the conversation taking place in the hall, the thick oak door to the parlour kept it frustratingly muffled. Her aunts, who were merely holding the tools of their trade, while leaning in the same direction, were looking equally frustrated.
But at last the door opened and the lady in blue velvet came floating into the room on a cloud of exotic perfume. It was as well they’d watched her arrive, otherwise they would all probably have sat there gaping at the vision of fashionable elegance,
