Page 87 of Miss Delightful
Oh, Melanie.“He says these things from Canada?”
Melanie shook her head and pushed back the cover from the keys of the piano in the corner. “He has written to me faithfully, but then last year, his letters stopped coming. I despaired, Dorcas. Every warning you ever gave me, every sermon and lecture, came back to me. If MacKay hadn’t come across me… but he did. He said I must let my family know I was alive, because family worries about us.”
“I did worry. Melanie, I did nothing but worry. I could have stopped you. I could have told Papa or Uncle or somebody and stopped you from running off with Beauclerk. If you were driven to desperate measures, that is my fault. If your reputation is in tatters, that is my fault too.”
Melanie ran the nail of her third finger over the keys in an ascending glissando somewhat out of tune. “MacKay said you blamed yourself. I had no intention of giving in to his lectures until he told me that. You are being a gudgeon, Dorcas, and if it’s one thing you are not, it’s a gudgeon. If I had it all to do over, I would do exactly the same as I did.”
“You cannot mean that.”
Melanie left the keys uncovered and moved on to the lectern from which Papa would offer a combination welcome grace and Speech from the Throne. His aim would be to bolster flagging spirits as well as flagging contributions to the poor box.
“I love Beauclerk, Dorcas. He loves me. I have known passion, joy, hope, dreams… I found strengths I never knew I had. I escaped from a life that was killing me one proverb and psalm at a time. I have a beautiful son, all because I was—in the eyes of my family—foolish. They attend divine services without fail, but know nothing of what’s truly divine about life.”
Melanie made an oddly imposing figure behind Papa’s lectern. Her false weeds gave her an air of sternness, and her inherent flair for drama added weight to her words.
“But you areruined,” Dorcas said, having lost her command of euphemisms. “You are turning your back on that beautiful baby boy. You are trusting the word of a bounder and a cad.” And this time, Dorcas could not stop her cousin.
“Beauclerk is neither, Dorie. When his letters ceased, I assumed the worst as well, but he had taken ship for London. The passage was rough, the ship had to put in for repairs in Scotland, and I did not get word that he was making the journey until after he was already in Britain. By then, I had conceived John, and my life had become quite a muddle.”
“I am confused,” Dorcas said. “Beauclerk is not John’s father?”
“He is not.”
Good gracious, andpoor Melanie.“But Beauclerk… How did he expect you to survive without his pay packets or your family’s support?”
“Pay packets go missing in the mail, Dorcas. I was not his wife, so he could not assign me a portion of his pay. I lack much aptitude for profitable sin, as it turns out, but neither could I tell Beauclerk that I’d played him false.”
“You did what you had to do to survive,” Dorcas said. “I’ve met entire jails full of women who did much worse than sell their favors for a crust of bread, Mellie.”
“But those women are not your cousins.”
Maybe not in any legal sense, but the longer Dorcas contemplated marriage to Isaiah Mornebeth, the more she understood their desperate determination.
“You could not tell Beauclerk that you carried another man’s child.”
“And I could not marry him. He begged me, Dorcas. He pleaded, and when I refused him, he returned to Canada a very hurt and bewildered man. I did the honorable thing by sending him away, and I have never regretted a decision more.”
“This is why you’ve abandoned John? So you can hare off to Canada and be with Beauclerk?”
The question should have been an accusation, but Dorcas could not make it one. She understood the temptation to retreat, to be selfish, to reason away hard truths.
“I’m not haring anywhere, Dorie. I was barely managing. I had to save up to buy paper to write to you, and I was sliding toward debtors’ prison anyway. Had John taken sick, had I slipped on the ice and hurt my hands too badly to sew, we’d have been in the poorhouse and from thence to Marshalsea, where my boy would have died before his first birthday. Because I am a fallen woman, I have the legal authority to make provisions for John that a married woman would not. John will thrive in MacKay’s care. You know that. John is better off without me.”
“Melanie, don’t do this.Iam not better off without you.” And that was probably the most selfish and honest thing Dorcas had ever said.
Melanie pushed away from the lectern and took a sniff of the daffodils in the center of the table at the front of the room. “Too late for that, Dorie. I have done it. I will write to you, but if you marry Mornebeth, you will never get my letters.”
“Of course I will.” Though even as the words left Dorcas’s lips, she knew them for a hope rather than a truth.
“You hate that man, Dorie. You would never use those words, but you hold him responsible for leading Michael astray, and I do too. Michael was a lamb to be shorn, and Mornebeth always keeps his clippers sharp. As foolish as you might think me for eloping with Beauclerk, you aredementedto contemplate marrying Mornebeth.”
Increasingly, Dorcas felt demented. “MacKay told you about that?”
“His silences speak volumes. MacKay has offered you his heart, and you turned him aside—for Mornebeth? I can only think Mornebeth has evidence that you’ve been disporting with a married man or stealing from the poor box.”
Dorcas remained silent, though Melanie of all people would not judge her.
“Has Uncle Thomas stolen from the poor box?” Melanie asked, returning to her seat. “I cannot credit that, but I’ve learned that we all have a price. I never thought I would share my favors for coin, but a body must eat.”
