Page 91 of Lady for a Season
Maggie nodded.
“Then I will trim the bonnet with white roses for you and it will be done by morning.”
Maggie spent the last few hours of the day in a daze in her room, ate the food sent to her and then went to bed, scarcely able to believe she would be married the next day.
Maggie woke at dawn and had to wait for Celine who appeared holding a fresh white muslin and a bonnet she had trimmed with white silk roses. She knelt at Maggie’s feet, making a tiny adjustment to the embroidery on the hem of her dress.
“Joseph has said he will be leaving after the wedding,” she said. “His Grace has given him a generous sum and his blessing.”
“I hope you will not be leaving?”
“I’ll stay with Her Grace when she moves to the Dower House. But I’ll finish training Jane before I go, unless you want someone else? You can have anyone you want.”
“No, I will keep Jane. I’d have you if I could, but I think you are too fond of the Duchess.”
“I’d like to stay with her.”
“I wish Edward’s mother would be kinder to him, at least. I know she will always hate me; I will have to make my peace with it. But it hurts Edward to have such a cold mother. He cannot forgive her for standing by and doing nothing when his father bullied him, allowing him to be locked away as a lunatic when he was only afraid and hurt.”
Celine said nothing.
“I know you have served her a long time,” said Maggie. “You must see some good in her, I suppose. I struggle to see it, myself. But I am sorry she cannot be reconciled to the two of us being together, even if only because it makes Edward happy.”
Celine sat back on her heels. “She was married very young,” she said.
Maggie thought of the painting in the hall, the newly-wed Duchess, barely a grown woman, coquettish and pretty in a magnificent dress.
Celine sighed as she bent to lace up Maggie’s rose-coloured slippers. “She was one of the most desirable matches of her coming-out season, considered a great beauty. She could havemarried anyone she chose. There were men falling in love with her everywhere, and she received many proposals. But she was only a girl, believing in fairy tales. Here was an unmarried duke seeking a wife and she thought it was meant to be. The chance to become a duchess, one of only a handful in the kingdom, was too great a lure. She fancied herself in love and married him despite his reputation for being a rake, possessing a bad temper when he had been drinking.”
Maggie sat down on the dressing chair, her face close to Celine.
“Was he unkind to her as well as Edward?”
Celine nodded. “He used his fists on her more than once. She lost a baby girl she was carrying after a beating he gave her. When Edward was little, she tried to stand up for him, but it only made his father worse and in the end she withdrew. She spent most of her days in her rooms, left the boys to the care of a nursemaid and allowed the Duke to do as he wished. They never ate together unless there was company. After the incident with Pigeon, the Duke said Edward must be mad and wanted him locked away and she said nothing, allowed him to hire Doctor Morrison and have him taken away.”
“Her own child?”
“She cried all night the day he was taken,” said Celine. “I was new here then.”
Maggie tried to imagine the Duchess crying and failed.
“She said he would be safer under Doctor Morrison’s care than here,” said Celine.
Maggie thought of the pale, frightened young man she had first met scarce above a year ago and was unsure. But the Duchess would not have seen the treatments Edward had been subjected to, she would only have received reports saying that all was well. Perhaps she felt reassured that her delicate son was being taken good care of, far away from his father’s harsh lessons.
“A mother does not give up a child without a reason,” said Celine.
The ledgers at the Foundling Hospital agreed with her. In them were the tragic stories of women who had been abandoned by those who should have protected them; from families and friends to lovers and husbands, leaving them destitute and unable to care for their children. They gave them up only when they had lost all faith in themselves and the world around them, certain that by keeping them they would only visit greater suffering on them. Unable to bear the thought, they had instead turned to the only place that offered hope, left their children within its doors and taken away with them only abiding regret and sorrow, held close to their hearts for the rest of their unhappy lives. The pathetically worthless tokens left by some, who hoped one day to return and reclaim their child, had always been heart-breaking to Maggie, though perhaps worse were those who had left nothing at all, miserably certain of never being able to return.
Maggie nodded. “I will try to find a way to breach the gap between us,” she said. “I am ready, now, I think.”
“You must have a veil. Wait here.”
Celine was back in a short while with a package that she unwrapped with care, disclosing a short but beautiful veil trimmed with delicate lace, which she draped over Maggie’s bonnet, covering her face. “It was my mother’s on her wedding day. She was a happy bride and wife.”
Maggie hugged her. She had been afraid Celine would bring out the Duchess’ wedding veil from storage and she did not like the idea of something both overly grand and tainted with an unhappy marriage.
“And flowers,” said Celine. “I have sent Jane for them.”
