An Impossible Deception

Chapter Two: No Mistake

Lady Garvey had not been aggrandizing when she said that they were entertaining a great deal just now. It was early June, and many of the Garveys' friends were temporarily returned from Town to rusticate at home for a little while before drifting on to their usual summer watering holes. For the Garveys, whose mismanagement of their finances prevented them ever visiting Town, the early summer weeks were the highlight of their social year. The very first evening of Isabella's return, Sir Edwin was holding a dinner party in honour of his wife's birthday.

At first, it seemed that Isabella would not be invited — there were efforts even to move her on to Aunt Lydia's before the day was out — but while her mother was complaining about the settings and her father was fretting about the number of poussins, Arabella had violently taken the opposite course and insisted on Isabella attending.

"I simply can't bear to lose my darling sister again so soon," she said sweetly. "She must stay a night or two at least, Mama. She must come to the dinner party. I am sure everybody will be so excited to see her."

Though Isabella was in no hurry to leave so soon, she was a little shy of the prospect of a dinner party.

"I have nothing to wear," she protested.

"I'll lend you one of my old dresses," Arabella said. "So you needn't be afraid of embarrassing us. But wear your hair very plain, for I will have white pearls in mine."

Isabella had nothing to put in her hair anyway, for her companionship and nursing of old Mrs Phillips had been unpaid, and her pin money, when she got it, barely stretched to the occasional ribbon, let alone pearls. But Lady Garvey, who could never refuse Arabella anything, conceded with a sigh.

"After all," she said, "the neighbours might think it queer if she were to leave again so quickly."

Edwina settled the matter. "If you're here for the afternoon," she said, "you might as well help me sort the linen closet."

Isabella made no protest. She thought if she made herself really useful, Edwina or her mother might want her to stay. As they pulled out the bed-linen to examine it for stains and threadbare patches, Isabella asked Edwina about Mr Locke.

"It has gone very bad, hasn't it, Arabella's marriage?"

"I don't believe it ever was very good," Edwina said. "She never could abide him, though she took great care before it was settled not to let him know it."

"Why on earth did she marry him then?"

Edwina shrugged. "She wanted to marry money. She will tell you that Mother pushed her into it, but no one ever could make Arabella do anything she didn't want to do. No, she saw her chance to make her fortune, and she took it."

"And Mr Locke? Was he in love with her?"

"Until their wedding night, I believe he was."

"That poor man."

"He had fair warning, if he'd but the wit to see it. All he had to do was look in a mirror and ask himself what she saw in him."

Isabella shuddered at the callousness of Edwina's tone. "Is he so unhandsome?"

"Quite monstrous really — he had smallpox as a child, and his face is covered in the scars."

"He cannot help that!"

"No more, I suppose, than Arabella can help finding him ugly for it."

Isabella folded a sheet in silence, her heart troubled. She loved Arabella better than all people on earth, but she was not blind to Arabella's faults. To marry for money, despite all contrariness of heart, was a selfish, cruel thing to do to someone else. And a cruel thing to do to yourself too, Isabella thought, for it meant that you could never truly be happy.