Page 97 of The Heir
What else could Victoria do? She kissed her aunt, picked Dash up, and went back out into the gaudy, crowded sitting room.
Lady Flora stood and shook out her skirts, every inch of her betraying her profound irritation. Victoria ignored her. She was too lost in her own thoughts. She did not believe Aunt Sophia was tired. She simply didn’t want to answer any more of Victoria’s questions. As soon as Victoria brought up Uncle Sussex, she had been dismissed.
She remembered Aunt Sophia’s admonishment.Good God! How suspicious you have become!
But it made no difference. The questions she did not ask followed her like the ghosts all the way back to her rooms.
Chapter 43
If Victoria had had any thought to spare, she would have expected to find her rooms much as she had left them. Mama would be writing, Sir John reading, and the waiting ladies working quietly at their mending.
She did hope that Jane would be there.I have so much to tell her.
But when the footman opened the door to the private rooms, Victoria found everything in chaos.
“No! No! You! Put it down there! Lady Flora, make him understand! Lady Charlotte, get that open—”
Mama stood on the threshold of the dressing room, directing half a dozen footmen, who were all carrying trunks. Lady Charlotte and Lady Flora were huddled with at least as many maids, murmuring and pointing at the wardrobe, at the jewel case, and the dressing table. Sir John stood beside his desk with a pair of men in clerk’s uniforms, issuing orders for them to write down.
Jane had indeed arrived in the middle of all this disorder. Her skirts were damp, and their hems muddy. She huddled on her stool in the corner, as bedraggled, ignored, miserable, and pale as the day they had found Dr. Maton’s corpse.
“What on earth!” Victoria cried. “Jane! Mama! What has happened?”
“Everything!” Mama cried. “Sir John tells us the departure date for your tour has advanced. We must all be ready to leave in two days!”
“What!” Victoria’s mind reeled. It was too much to take in. She was still dizzy from everything she’d learned sitting by Aunt Sophia. She could not grasp this new shift.
“We are invited by Lord Liverpool to his house at Tunbridge Wells,” Sir John said. “I have already accepted on your behalf. We will stay there several days. Then we will travel on to the Midlands, as previously planned.”
“But I am not ready . . . !”I need time! I need time to hear word from St. James’s, to convince Mama! I need time to discover how you’re involved with the Matons and what happened to the doctor and why his papers were all burnt—
“You will be made ready,” said Sir John. “Your mother and your very capable ladies have already begun.”
“And I want no fuss, Victoria,” said Mama. “I have a thousand things to do—all on your behalf, may I add. There’s no time to waste arguing.”
Victoria stared at her.This is why you were writing that list. You were going to alert the other families who will be hosting us that the time frame of the tour had changed. You knew all morning this was happening, and you did not tell me!
“Lady Flora,” said Mama. “Take the princess and Jane into the rose room. Her lessons for the afternoon are canceled, but she can write her letters and her journal and stay out of the way there. Lehzen, I will need you to help me with checking through the trunks and the wardrobes. There are surely items that will need repair, and you must tell me which dresses no longer fit—”
“No, Mama!” cried Victoria.
“Yes, Victoria!” shouted Mama. “Now!”
Victoria turned, searching desperately for support or for escape. Lehzen’s expression was closed and dark. But Jane moved her hand just a little. That was when Victoria saw what she had failed to notice before—that Jane clutched Wordsworth’s poems on her lap.
Victoria lifted her chin and pirouetted on her toes. “Very well. Come, Jane. Come, Dash.” She strode out of the room. “Lady Flora, bring my writing desk.”
The rose room was hung all pink and white. This was where Mama received ladies for tea. At one time, it had been Victoria’s playroom. She remembered inventing whole countries with her blocks and her dolls on the pretty pink carpet.
Now the carpet had faded to a kind of dull gray. The toy box still waited in the corner for the same reason the dollhouse and dolls waited in the bedroom—to remind everyone that Victoria was still a child.
Victoria plunked herself down at the round table by the window. Lady Flora placed the writing desk in front of her and retired to a chair right next to the door.
Keeping watch like a good jailer.
“Jane, come sit with me.”
Jane came and sat. Despite the stuffiness of the room, her fingers were dead white, and the ends of her hair were quite damp. She looked, in fact, like she’d been walking in the rain without a coat or bonnet. Victoria seized her friend’s hand.
