Constance Penrose

Ch 2: 6 Month

The next 6 months were spent back at Penrose Manor, where Constance shared a suite of rooms with her parents. (It was now Uncle Walter's estate.) The decadent care allowed Daughter and Mother to recover much of what they lost to hardships over nearly two years in the workhouse. The child filled out, making a serious attempt at gaining height, and her coloring improved. She was a lovely girl, with her father's aristocratic nose and her mother's expressive eyes. Both features could earn her trouble in this household when she dared to lift her face as if she were an equal.

Constance was the lawful granddaughter of an Earl, as her father was the baby of his generation. The current Earl was the uncle who tossed them out barely a month after Father's ship arrived without him. He had not been the captain and was ill. That Lord of the Sea left Father at Tenerife to recover. It was another ship a year later that was searching for a captain after their own losses that brought them all the way back to China before bringing him home.

He could not, in good conscience, leave early on with the health of his wife and child, depending on mercy only he could wring from his family. Eventually, he would set sail and leave his wife and child destitute if he didn't come home in a timely manner. Life threatened to be a cycle of riches and poverty.

To say this incensed father was as apt as saying grass was green.

Despite the rift between the adults, the Earl of Armme had been the bigger man and formally apologized and begged them to stay at Penrose. It was not far from London proper.

Once Constance recovered enough to interact with relatives, she sat down to adult dinners with the family. She had just made 16.

Her aunt stared at her with a sour face, trying to cause her turned-up nose to aristocratically sneer at her kin, like Constance was vermin. Instead, she looked like a pig with sausage curls and a robust constitution to match. Aunt Letitia (Lettice behind her back) was blue-blooded to the soles of her feet. That didn't come with a single grace. She especially hated the lowborn who were gifted with the rosy hue of Consumption's gift, while she couldn't be better than them at playing the invalid.

"She's a bit robust, isn't she?" She sneered as she dabbed her lips on a napkin. "Looks like she inherited her mother's breeder stock. I'm sure Charles can find her a doting husband."

It was clear that she wanted Constance out of her home, with or without Father's presence. The girl could tell why, partially due to the coarseness of a workhouse upbringing. But there were other telltale signs. Her eldest cousin Victor's ears were bright red, and he wouldn't even look her way. Middle son Walter Jr.'s eyes had not left her very clothed bosom since she entered the room.

The youngest wasn't allowed to dine with them, but of the three, he sought her out for play, not caring if she was a girl or a boy. He only wanted a companion that was easier to boss around than his brothers.

Word had passed back through the servants that Lady Letitia didn't want James Bertram and Constance to spend so much time together. Bertie wouldn't hear a word of his mother's demands. He wasn't interested in his cousin, as marriage was the farthest thing from the boy's mind. If he had heard such talk, he would have demanded she marry only him, as his brothers wouldn't cross his mother and were thus unworthy.

He would have gleefully loved a wife to torment Aunt Letitia with.

The boy hated his mother.

Honestly, there wasn't a soul who liked her, not in the other sons who loved her. Certainly not even the man who still dutifully tried to produce a 4th son.

Instead, it was left up to her father to protest. "My brother may have the connections to suggest a marriage for my girl, but I am the one who decides."

"Then I suggest you decide before you go to sea, George." Walter Sr. faltered over his pronouncement, not quite stuttering. He was not the voice of his marriage. "If we have another go where we presume you lost, she's likely to be of age, and it's best for all if she's not left to chance again."

The vein in Father's head throbbed. He knew well that he was home by his family's mercy. He himself only tolerated them to spend his finances on his wife and daughter's health, and not a home. "I will handle their care this time. You may rest assured that I will not leave them as a burden in my absence."

Perhaps if Grandfather had not died during Father's last voyage, things would have been better. It was a what-if Constance had subdued in the workhouse, as it left her too upset to do the make-work assigned to her. But here, secure in food, health, and with idle hands, the old thought that this had been a genuine family when the elders lived reared its head.

It surprised the girl how much she wished her aunt and uncle had followed the old earl.

But the meal flowed on, more her aunt belittling Mother than focusing on the child. She showed contempt in another way: Constance Penrose was something to deal with, not the rival her aunt was still losing against even with the control she held over their lives.

Not even when James proved quite repeatedly that Aunt Letitia was losing ground to a 16-year-old girl.