Lady in Rags

Chapter Thirty-One: In Disgrace and Humiliation

In the end, Verity went to her grandmother's house the next day. The shabby cottage, even after Mrs Roper had helped her clean out the attic bedroom, had proved too full of draughts and dust and bad memories for her to stand it any longer. Shivering when she woke and dressed that morning, she decided to swallow her pride. She would accept her grandmother's help – if it would be still be on offer when Lady Duvalle learned of her condition.

She walked there, through the woods that backed onto the cottage, and the farmland behind them, realizing halfway that this must have been the same route that she had taken the day she had stabbed Mr Harlan and fled the cottage. Only this time, when she had to stop for rest on a tree stump in a field, there was no Neil to rescue her from her tiredness, or the faint dusting of snow that was beginning to fall across the countryside.

He had never properly told her what happened that night. She knew only that he had carried her into her grandmother's house in his arms. He had refused to admit his part in heroship. Her only memory of the event, vague and untrustable, was that he had kissed her forehead and begged her to wake.

She would never know now if it had really happened. Part of her had hoped that he had cared, even then. Perhaps he never had loved her, but he had come to care for her, perhaps as early as that horrible night. She had to believe he had, or she would never be able to walk onwards.

By the time she reached her grandmother's house, she was exhausted. Her grandmother was in the dining room, seated by the fire, eating breakfast. She looked Verity up and down with a grimace.

"Now that you're here, I suppose you'd best eat with me. You look half-starved."

"I have not been well recently, and I have lost some weight." Verity nudged a seat closer to the fire and sat down. The waiting maid found her a plate and a cup, and would have stayed to serve her, but Lady Duvalle nodded at her to go.

"And you have come here, to beg of me a sick bed again?"

"No." Verity sipped chocolate, found it was too hot, and put it back to cool. "Maman, I have much to tell you. I have decided what I am going to do, and it will not impose upon you – except, perhaps, for a week or more. Lord Albroke has arrived at Neil's house, and I can stay there no longer."

"I had heard he had arrived." Lady Duvalle's nose wrinkled in displeasure. "Yes. I had heard. And you may stay here while he is in the town. I can give you that much. But I shall not keep you forever. What are you going to do with yourself?"

Verity began to eat a roll covered in jam and butter, and was saved from answering for a moment. Finally, Lady Duvalle snapped impatiently,

"Well? You came here to tell me, didn't you?"

"Yes." Verity swallowed hastily. She did not know how to say what she had to say. "First, Maman, I must tell you..." Except she couldn't. She forced a sick smile to her face. "I must tell you that there shall be money. I shall have some money, of my own."

Lady Duvalle poured herself more chocolate. "Money? How? It is not Lord Albroke who is giving it to you, I presume?"

"Indirectly, yes. He honoured his deal to give my father ten thousand pounds... and my father is dead now. The money shall pass to me."

Lady Duvalle drank and considered this. "It is sound. You must forgive me the sentiment, but I cannot withhold it from you. It is no ill thing that your father died when he did."

Verity looked away. "He ruined me. Why do I waste tears on him? Why?"

Lady Duvalle was not moved to such an expression of emotion. She passed the bread basket to Verity. "You have not eaten enough."