The Foundling (Rags to Richmonds #3)

Chapter 19

CHAPTER NINETEEN

F rederica slept for a few hours and awoke in time to help Mrs Digby in the dinner hall. The repose did little to alleviate her exhaustion; she felt clumsy with fatigue as she attended to the usual evening routine and took her several turns in the sickroom overnight, caring for Lucy. It was a stupor that persisted the next morning, also. She tried in vain to execute her duties as though nothing was amiss, but everything felt out of kilter—she did not seem able to do anything properly.

When Mr Milliard did not turn up to teach his lessons again, she attempted to help Mr Carnegie with the boys, only for him to send her away when they grew unruly in the face of her distraction. She turned her attention to the outstanding correspondence regarding current adoptions but found she had lost all confidence in her ability to administer the process competently. She attempted to change Lucy’s bedsheets, but the girl screamed in agony, and Frederica gave up, unable to bear being the cause of any more of her pain.

She felt utterly useless and, by mid-afternoon, perfectly ready to admit that it was not fatigue that mired her thoughts in treacle. It was heartache. She thought it likely that if she slept for a month, she would wake still feeling desolate and lost.

She had no idea what to do. At the ball, she had been ready to give up everything she had ever known for a new life with a new family. By the next day, she had resolved never to leave Taverstock, horrified by the selfishness that had seen her abandon the children in the pursuit of her own gratification. Neither path seemed tenable any longer. She, who had always prided herself on her conscientiousness and discernment, now knew herself to be undependable, impressionable, and deplorably na?ve.

And she had lost Penrith. She felt it as a palpable ache, deep in her chest, which had more than once stolen her breath and sent her thoughts scattering as she reeled from the intensity of it. She had loved many people in her life—old Mrs Cromarty, each of her adoptive parents before they gave her up, every child who had ever come through Taverstock’s doors—but never had she experienced an attachment such as she felt for Penrith. She loved everything about him; from his devotion to his children to the compassion he had shown towards her and her family; from the dignity with which he bore his grief to the courageous way he had learnt to smile again. She did not think she could bear her loss as bravely—certainly not if her present state of incompetence and inattention was any indication.

She had just been sent away from the kitchen by Mrs Digby after miscounting the grocer’s delivery for the third time, when Daisy informed her there was a carriage rolling into the drive. Irrationally hopeful that it might be Penrith, Frederica set off for the front door, her quick steps rapidly becoming a run as she abandoned decorum and tore through the house with her heart in her mouth. She stopped in her tracks upon arriving on the doorstep, for she could see straight away that it was not the duke’s carriage—at least not the one she had ridden in either time he had sent one for her. She stood still, breathless with exertion and dismay.

Yet, in the next moment, the occupant of the carriage stepped down and looked at her, and Frederica let out a small cry to feel her heart ease by the smallest but most desperately needed degree.

“Oh Frederica, you look positively wretched,” Oakley said, his expression etched with pity. His compassion brought every ounce of her misery to the fore, and she ran to him, racked by sobs too violent for sound, her shoulders shaking silently as he hugged her, rubbing her back and whispering gentle words of solace. At one point, he broke his hold to lead her into the privacy of his carriage, then he hugged her again until her tears ran dry.

“There now,” he said, passing her his handkerchief as she tried to compose herself. “Should you like something to settle your nerves? My coachman always carries a hip flask with something warming in it, if you think it would help.”

Frederica chuckled faintly, vastly grateful for his attempt at levity. “No, thank you. I am sorry for making such an exhibition of myself, only it has been a difficult few days, and I am ever so relieved to see you.”

“Do not apologise. I regret not coming sooner, now that I see how unhappy you are. We all thought it best not to trouble you yesterday, for we had been given to understand that you would be receiving a different visitor, and that things might have turned out rather happier. But we guessed when we did not hear anything that no such visit had taken place.”

Frederica took a deep, shaky breath and her voice wavered as she admitted, quietly, “I have made a terrible mistake.”

She explained to him the whole of it—Lucy’s accident and Tom’s arrest, her guilt, and Penrith’s interrupted proposal. Her brother listened quietly, his dismay at hearing her relate so much unpleasantness obvious.

“You called it a mistake,” he said when she was done. “May I take it that you regret your decision?”

“I regretted it instantly. I would never have refused him under any other circumstances, but I was upset and tired, and I felt terrible about what had happened to Lucy. I could not even think about getting engaged at such a moment.”

“Surely he must understand that. He is a reasonable man.”

“He did, but I told him he was wrong, assured him I was thinking clearly—though I know now that I was doing anything but.” Frederica grew more agitated as she spoke, her sentences coming in staccato beats. “I told him I would never leave Taverstock. That he should find somebody else to love him. I told him to leave. I have ruined everything.”

Oakley did not argue. Instead, he patted her knee and quirked his mouth sympathetically. “It seems you have inherited my luck when it comes to matters of the heart. But you must not despair. This is by no means a hopeless situation. I am certain that when you next see him, you will be able to make it clear that you spoke in haste.”

“If I have not made him hate me, you mean? I cannot imagine he will care two straws for my regrets after the way I have treated him.” She plucked at the corner of Oakley’s handkerchief and shook her head. “I doubt I shall be seeing much of him here from now on.”

Her brother regarded her pensively for a moment, then spoke with exceeding gentleness. “Then why not come to Chiltern Court with me?”

Frederica looked at him, taken aback by the suggestion but not as panicked by it as she had been by every previous mention.

“You are due to visit at the end of the month in any case,” he went on. “Why not come early? Meet your aunt and uncle, take stock for a week or two—perhaps longer. You never know, if Penrith hears that you have left Taverstock, perhaps he will comprehend that you are willing to step away from this world after all. Unless…” he added cautiously, “you really do feel unable to leave. ”

Frederica turned to the window, nudging the curtain a little farther aside with one finger and staring sadly at the building that had been her home for most of her life. “I used to think I was indispensable, but you were right. Anyone could do what I do here. And I daresay there are some who could do it much better.”

“That is not quite what I meant.”

“It is true, though. The governors have taken to arranging the adoptions without my knowledge, and they have decided to send Lucy to a convalescent hospital to be properly cared for. One of the schoolmasters has been brutalising the children, and I never even suspected it. I am of minimal use in the schoolroom, and I am more hindrance than help in the kitchen. They do not need me.”

Oakley took up one of her hands in both of his and squeezed it. “That does not mean you are not valued, Frederica. You have made a difference to the lives of countless children with the work you have done here. But you might allow it to lessen your guilt for wanting to leave. You are who you are. You cannot change it.”

“Our father did.”

“Except, he did not, and when he died, his problems were passed on to his children. We four have had to live with the consequences of his decisions, all of us battling some evil, be it neglect, hardship, or lies—but we have found each other at last. We have the opportunity to set things to rights.”

He paused for a moment, while she considered that, then urged her again, “Come to Chiltern Court, Sister. Be with your family. ”

After all Frederica’s soul-searching and dread, the decision to leave was, in the end, a ludicrously uneventful matter. She nodded quietly to her brother, he smiled kindly at her, and that was that. It was agreed that he would return the next day, giving her time to pack her things and make the necessary arrangements. That, too, proved to be a dispiritingly simple endeavour; Mr Mulligan readily agreed to her going, announcing that temporary hands would be hired in her absence. Frederica thought he seemed rather more relieved than inconvenienced, proving that his patience with the arrangement had been waning—as she had always suspected it would.

Oakley returned as agreed to collect her and take her to Avonwyke, where they would stay overnight before travelling the next day, in convoy with the others, to Bedfordshire. She left with the promise of returning in two or three weeks. Nevertheless, it felt inescapably final as her trunk was loaded onto the carriage, and she watched Taverstock shrink into the distance behind her.