An Impossible Deception

Chapter One: Stay

The greeting that awaited Isabella Garvey when she returned after a six year absence to her childhood home was not a warm one. Sir Edwin Garvey forgot to chew his toast for half-a-minute, while Lady Garvey merely raised her eyebrows a fraction of an inch over her cup of chocolate.

"'At 'oo 'ooing 'ere," Sir Edwin grunted.

"Pardon?" Isabella sat down at the breakfast table, in front of a plate of abandoned toast crumbs. Edwina's spot, she thought; Edwina never could sit still long enough to finish a meal. "Might I have coffee?"

After a pause, Lady Garvey said, "Why not." But there were no more cups, so Isabella sat without while her father swallowed his unchewed mouthful with an audible squelch.

"What are you doing here?" he repeated.

"Mrs Phillips found that she did not need me after her mother-in-law died," Isabella said.

"But I sent her a letter saying to keep you on until we'd found a place to put you." Sir Edwin's perpetually red cheeks flared momentarily purple. "I sent a letter!"

Isabella remained quiet. Her father had always hated efforts unnecessarily expended. She thought she might risk sending him into apoplexy by telling him the letter had been read and ignored. Mrs Phillips had wanted Isabella gone, and so Isabella had git.

"It is most awkward, you being here just now," Lady Garvey said. "Arabella is visiting, she arrives today, and tomorrow we are entertaining. We are obliged to do a great deal of entertaining at this time of year. It is very trying, really, but what is one to the world but what one's neighbour whispers of oneself?"

"Our neighbours will not whisper of me, if that is what you mean, Mother. At least, I will give them nothing to whisper of."

Lady Garvey shook her head, her heavy gold earrings making her earlobes sway like a rooster's wattles. "Why, I am at a loss for what we shall do with you. Edwina!"

The last was cried in a ringing falsetto. Isabella winced. A moment later, footsteps sounded in the hall, and then Edwina entered the breakfast room, looking down at a thin sheaf of papers she held in her hand. Isabella was surprised to find Edwina looked almost old — she would be thirty by now, of course, but Isabella had not expected there to be such deep lines around her mouth and eyes. Nor, for that matter, had Isabella expected her father to get so fat or her mother's hair so grey. The six years she'd been away seemed suddenly more.

"I'm busy, Mother." Edwina said, not looking up. "Thirty-one candles this week! What on earth do you do with them?"

"Decide what we are to do with your sister," Lady Garvey said.

"She'll stay in the blue room as usual," Edwina said impatiently.

"Not Arabella! Your other sister."

At last, Edwina looked up. Her brows rose and then drew together in a frown that gave Isabella a sudden understanding of the lines on her face.

"Oh," Edwina said. "What are you doing here?"

"Mrs Phillips seems to have gotten sick of her," Lady Garvey said.

"Goodness." Edwina could never be surprised long. Her brows unknitted. "Well, she's here now." With unchanged efficiency, Edwina began to plan. "For the moment, she can help me tidy the house. Then, Mrs Orville will know someone who needs a companion — or if she doesn't, she'll find out. If worst comes to worst, Arabella might take her for a while. I certainly shan't."

"I can't stay here?" Isabella said.

Stay. Once more, Sir Edwin's jaws stopped moving about his toast. Lady Garvey gave a shocked flutter of her earlobes. Edwina was for a moment silenced.