Page 16 of The Heir
Mother lifted her head just a little and opened her limpid eyes.
“Good heavens, Jane! Your face! You’re swollen! And the color! Was it a beesting? Did you fall?”
“No, Mother,” mumbled Jane. She was suddenly enormously tired. She was shivering again. Both her tongue and her mind felt feeble and slow.
“Well, you can’t be seen like this.” Mother waved one long white hand to shoo her away. “Oh! I’m too tired to deal with you. I had my card luncheon today, and you know how that always fatigues me. Get yourself upstairs. I’ll send Meg to you.”
Jane hesitated. “Why Meg? Where’s Susan?”
Mother gave a wordless groan of frustration. “Susan has been dismissed.”
“What! Why?” Jane had been counting on Susan’s help, and her silence.
“She upset my best tea tray,” said Mama, more to the ceiling than to Jane. “And broke every piece of china.”
“Oh.”
What do I do now?Jane needed help, but she could not trust Betty or Meg. And Liza . . . Liza might be willing to keep a secret, but only if it amused her.
Thankfully, Mother completely misunderstood Jane’s discomfort. “Yes. It is a tremendous nuisance. Now we shall have to find another maid. But where one is to find any sort of trustworthy girl these days is beyond me. Still, what else could I have done?” Mother threw up her hands, but only for a moment, before allowing her arms to collapse delicately back against the pillows. “How I do wish we could get through one day without some sort of trouble!” Her eyes drifted closed. “Go and hide yourself, Jane. Meg will know what to do for you.”
Dismissed as easily as Susan had been, Jane took herself upstairs.
It was futile to hope that the rooms set aside for her and her sister might be empty when she arrived. The sitting room was, but the door to the dressing room had been left open, so Jane could see Liza at her mirror, tying up her curls in a yellow ribbon.
Liza took after Mama. All pale pink and gold, she was the picture of the delicate English female. When they were out in company, the men’s eyes, and not a few of the women’s, always followed Liza.
“What are you—” began Liza. Then she, too, saw Jane’s face. “Good grief, Jane! You’re a mess. What did you do?”
“Nothing.” Jane sank onto the sofa. Her jaw throbbed. Her head felt muzzy, and her stomach ached. She could not tell if she was hungry or simply sick. “I wanted to walk home across the green.”
“Did you fall out there? Your face is a disaster! Look at yourself!” Liza, with far more than the necessary energy, ran over and thrust a hand mirror in front of Jane.
It was the first time Jane had seen herself since the blow. She could understand why her mother had asked about a beesting. Her cheek was badly swollen. Rain and cold had left her pale and pinched. Dirt smeared her cheek and mingled with the deepening blue gray of the bruise. Dark circles under her eyes added a finishing touch.
She was, in fact, just as Liza described. A disaster.
Jane handed the mirror back. She did not want it.
“And you’ve managed to end up with your hems and good boots an inch deep in mud,” Liza went on in angry disbelief. “Well done, Jane. That was an excellent thought, taking a walk on such a day.”
Jane ignored this. What, after all, was there to say? If she tried to blame Father, she would only be asked what she’d done to make him angry. She let her gaze drift to her own dressing table, which stood beside Liza’s. Her reticule lay there, ready for her, should she need to retrieve something from inside.
Such as a pair of broken spectacles trailing a muddy ribbon. Jane hoped her melting relief did not show in her expression.
Liza sighed sharply. “Well, we’d better get you out of those things before Father sees you looking like that.”
Father has already seen me.“Don’t bother. Mother said she’d send Meg up.”
“Yes, and we all know how well Mother attends to details. I am not going to spend the night with you snoring because your nose has swelled up with cold. Come along.” She gestured for Jane to stand up.
While Mother truly was indolent, Liza merely played at it. Liza would complain when asked to undertake any form of exertion, but she could be remarkably brisk when it suited her. The two sisters acted as each other’s dressers most days, so Liza had plenty of practice wrestling Jane out of a walking costume, even one that was unusually muddy and damp.
“What happened to Susan? Mother said she’s been dismissed.” Jane was curious to hear Liza’s version of events. It was not that Mother would lie, exactly. But she might choose to simplify events to avoid the strain of answering questions.
“Lord, I don’t know. I was out leaving a card with Mrs. Ashford, and then I went to call on Greta Schumann. By the time I got back, Mother had already sent Susan packing. She said the tea tray was upset and there was a dreadful commotion, and that was that. Susan always was clumsy and sulky. Perhaps that’s why you two got on so.” The insult was casual, a normal part of Liza’s conversation when she was talking with Jane. “But personally, I don’t think it had anything to do with the tray.”
“Then what . . . ?”
