I found the key and opened the chest.
There were but five guineas there.
I was amazed because I had believed I should find at least a hundred.
Then the truth which I should have realized before dawned on me. Of course, the horse! The riding outfit!
Later I also found lengths of material in her cupboard, and when Jilly Barton came with a velvet gown which she had made for me, I knew what had happened.
The dower had been spent to buy clothes for me that I might show myself to be a worthy partner for Joel Derringham.
I awoke on the first Christmas Day alone to a sense of great desolation. I lay in bed unwisely remembering other Christmases when my mother had come into my room carrying mysterious parcels, calling out: “Merry Christmas, my darling!” and how I would reach out for my gifts to her and the fun we had scattering wrappings over the bed and exclaiming with surprise (often assumed because we were always practical in our choice of gifts). But when we declared, as we often did,
“It’s exactly what I wanted!” it invariably was, as we knew each.
other’s needs to perfection. Now here I was alone. It had been too sudden. If she had been ill for some time I could have grown accustomed to the knowledge that I had to lose her and perhaps that would have softened the blow. She had not been old. I railed against the cruel fate which had deprived me of the one I loved.
Then I seemed to hear her voice admonishing me. I had to go on living.
I had to make a success of my life and I should never do that if I gave myself up to bitterness.
Grief is always so much harder to bear on feast days and the reason is self-pity. That sounded like my mother’s reasoning. Because other people were enjoying life that should not make one more miserable.
I arose and dressed. I had been invited to spend the day at the Mansers who farmed some of the Derringham estates. My mother and I had spent Christmas with them for several years and they had been good friends to us. They had six daughters and they had all been at the school-the two youngest were still there, great strapping girls destined surely to become farmers’ wives. There was a son too Jim, a few years older than I, who was already his father’s right-hand man.
The Mansers’ farm had always seemed to us a house of plenty. They often sent us joints of lamb and pork and my mother used to say they kept us in milk and butter.
Mrs. Manser could never be grateful enough for the education her children had received. It would have been quite beyond the family’s means to send the children away to school -and they were not the kind to employ a governess and when my mother had opened the school so close at hand, the Mansers said it was like an answer to their prayers. There were several other families who had felt the same and that was why we had had enough pupils to support the school. :
I rode to the Mansers’ on Dower and was especially warmly received by all, which was touching. I tried to throw off my grief and be as bright as possible in the circumstances. I could scarcely eat any of the goose which Mrs. Manser had prepared with such loving care, but I did try my best not to cast a gloom over the day. I joined them in the games they played afterwards and Mrs. Manser contrived to partner me with Jim, and I could see how her mind was working. It might have been amusing if I were not in such a sad mood, to see how the people who cared for me were anxious to see me settled.
I could not believe I should make a good farmer’s wife, but at least Mrs. Manser’s solution might be more possible than the wild dreams in which my mother had indulged.
Mrs. Manser insisted that I stay the night and spend the next day with them, which I did, feeling grateful not to have to go back to the lonely schoolhouse.
It was mid-afternoon of the following day when I returned. School would start at the beginning of the next week and I had to prepare the curriculum. I could scarcely bear the silence of the house, the empty chair, the empty rooms. I longed to get right away.
I had not been in the house an hour when Joel called.
He took my hands and looked into my face with such compassion that I could scarcely restrain my grief.
“I don’t know what to say to you, Minella,” he told me.
I replied: “Please say nothing. That is best. Talk … talk about anything, but not…”
He nodded, releasing my hands. He told me he had wondered about me during Christmas and had come over on the morning of Christmas Day to find me gone. I explained where I had been and told him of the kindness of the Mansers.
He took a box from his pocket and said he had a little gift for me. I opened it and there was a brooch lying on black velvet a sapphire surrounded by rose diamonds.
"I was attracted by the sapphire,” he said.
“I thought it was the colour of your eyes.”
I was overcome by emotion. Since my mother’s death I had been too easily moved by a show of kindness. It was a beautiful brooch-far more valuable than anything I had ever possessed.
“I was good of you to think of me,” I said.
“I have thought of you a great deal … all the time … since…”
I nodded and turned away. Then I took out the brooch and he watched me pin it on my dress.
“Thank you,” I said, “I shall always treasure it.”
“Minella,” he said, “I want to talk to you.”
His voice was gentle and a little apprehensive. In my mind’s eye I could see my mother’s smiling eyes, the happy curve of her lips. Could it really be?
Panic seized me. I wanted time to think . to grow accustomed to my loneliness . my unhappiness.
“Some time,” I began.
He said: I will see you tomorrow. Perhaps we will ride together. “
“Yes,” I replied.
“Please.”
He went and I sat for a long time staring ahead of me.
I was aware of a serenity in the house. It was almost as though my mother was there. I could almost hear the strains of “Heart of Oak’.
I spent a restless night turning over in my mind what I should say if Joel asked me to marry him. The brooch was perhaps a symbol of his intentions which I was sure were honourable with a man like Joel they could not be anything else. I seemed to hear my mother’s voice urging me not to hesitate. That would be foolish. I imagined that she was with me and that we discussed the matter together.
“I don’t love him as one should love a man one marries.” I could see her lips purse as I had seen them so often when she expressed contempt for a point of view.
“You don’t know anything about love, my child. That’ll come.
He’s a good man. He can give you all I ever wanted for you. Comfort, security and enough love to do for the two of you . for a start.
You couldn’t help but grow to love a man like that. I see your little ones playing there on those lawns near the sun-dial where you first really got to know each other. Oh, the joy of little ones. I only had one, but after your father died she was all the world to me. “
“Dearest of mothers, are you right? You often were but do you know what is best for me?”
I could never have told her of my feelings when the Comte had seized and kissed me. There had been a kind of stirring within me, something rather terrifying and yet irresistible. It had brought with it a realization that there was something I did not understand but which I must before I entered into marriage. The Comte had made me realize that Joel could not have that effect on me. That was all.