Scales and Sensibility by Stephanie Burgis
Chapter 27
The day of Penelope’s début dawned gray, grim, and drizzling with fat and sulky rain drops. Elinor’s sister Rose might have taken it as an omen. Unfortunately, Elinor was far too busy with Penelope to think about anything else at all.
The final two young men of fortune that Sir John had invited from London had been expected to arrive that morning. Unfortunately, all that had arrived in their stead had been two beautifully-written letters full of apologies and excuses that rang false even to Elinor’s ears. They had been the final straw.
“Why can’t anything ever go right for me?” Penelope wailed, for at least the tenth time since breakfast. She and Elinor were overseeing the decorations of the ballroom together, and the room was full of footmen on ladders, hanging swags of flowers and billowing pink silk, while housemaids scrubbed the chandelier to sparkling perfection. Penelope flopped deeper into her chair, a vision of perfect misery. “Just you wait. By suppertime we’ll have thunderstorms, and then no one will come at all. No one! My début will be canceled.” Her face crumpled. “I can’t bear it!”
“No one expects any thunderstorms.” Elinor should have been paying more attention to the white roses she was arranging in a purple stand; as she spoke, a thorn pricked the flesh between her right thumb and forefinger, drawing blood. Hissing out a breath, she counted to ten, then continued, in a tone of deliberate calm, “Remember what Mr. Hitchens said when your father summoned him to ask his opinion, Penelope. The clouds should part by mid-afternoon.”
“Oh, well if Mr. Hitchens says so—!” Penelope snorted. “For heaven’s sake, Mr. Hitchens is only a farmer on Papa’s estate. He’s not even a gentleman. Why should I trust his opinion on anything?”
“Well, when it comes to the weather…oh, never mind.” Elinor abandoned the argument in favor of a far more important point. “Have you decided yet whether your mother is to attend the ball tonight?”
Penelope scowled. “Papa says she must, or too many awkward questions would be asked in the neighborhood. I think it’s absurd. Why shouldn’t the guests believe she has a headache if we say so?”
“Perhaps because tonight is her only daughter’s début?” Elinor jabbed a sixth rose into the stand with more force than absolutely necessary. “What mother would miss it for a mere headache?”
“That’s what Papa said.” Penelope crossed her arms. “I said we could always claim that she had smallpox, but he said that no one would come to the house if that were true. So we have to pretend everything is normal and just pray she can be stopped from saying anything too dreadful before she’s taken away at the end of the night.”
Elinor squeezed her eyes so tightly shut, her forehead throbbed with pain. But when she opened her eyes again, Penelope was still there, looking sulky and disconsolate. This wasn’t just a bad dream, after all. So she would have to try another approach.
“I have another idea,” Elinor said brightly. “Why don’t you just tell all your guests that she’s gone mad? It is what you and your father truly believe, after all...or so you say. So you shouldn’t be ashamed to admit to your neighbors exactly what the two of you are doing to her.”
“Don’t be absurd.” Penelope stared at her. “I’m not ashamed of us. I’m ashamed of her! If we let the world know what she’s become, it will ruin my social chances before I’m even betrothed.”
“If you truly wanted to keep it a secret,” said Elinor, “then Mr. Armitage and his sister are the last people you should have confided in.”
“Mrs. De Lacey, I am deeply hurt.” Miss Armitage’s rich voice was laced with amusement as she spoke behind them. “Of course our dear Miss Hathergill knows that she can trust us.”
With her dragon posed like a statue on her shoulder, she sauntered forward, elegant as always in a deep burgundy morning gown. Society might dictate that unmarried maidens ought to wear only soft pastels, but even Elinor couldn’t fault her taste. The rich colours she favored suited her remarkably well.
“In fact, I’ve come to offer my support. With so many lovely flowers to arrange, you must need another friend to help. Mrs. De Lacey…” Miss Armitage smiled warmly and gestured to the empty flower stand at the far end of the room. “Won’t you show me the trick of doing them?”
Elinor raised her eyebrows and met the other woman’s eyes measuringly. They were as enigmatic as ever. At any other moment, she would have found an excuse to avoid a private conversation. But just now…
She slid a glance at Penelope, and sighed. Slippery and untrustworthy as Miss Armitage might be, at least a moment or two alone with her might save Elinor from murdering her cousin.
She scooped Sir Jessamyn up from the chair he’d sat on, five careful feet away from Penelope. He perched happily in her arms, twisting his head around to follow every bustling movement of the servants around them as she and Miss Armitage crossed the busy, crowded room. Ladders swung through the air, brooms and sponges were wielded with fervor, and Sir John bellowed over all of it as he stepped into the doorway:
“For God’s sake, is no one in this household available to bring me a cup of tea when I ring for it? Have I hired you all to do nothing?”
Mrs. Braithewaite, the housekeeper, hurried across the room to soothe him, while another housemaid followed Elinor and Miss Armitage to carry the prickling mass of roses and greenery for them.
“Thank you,” Elinor said to the maid as they reached the stand. The maid only curtseyed in response, head lowered, but Elinor felt Sally’s accusing gaze on her back, and she drew a deep breath. The other girl stood only a few feet away, scrubbing the sideboard to a vicious gleam, and Elinor could feel her rage burning through the air. She had to force herself not to move away or hunch her shoulders in guilt.
No matter what Sally thought, Elinor wasn’t like Penelope. She did care about injustice, even if she hadn’t managed to prove it yet.
Lucinda hadn’t appeared at Hathergill Hall since Elinor’s first day, but as one of Penelope’s best friends, she had no choice but to attend the ball tonight. Penelope would accept no excuses. All that Elinor had to do was think of some clever way to unmask her there…before Sally could decide that she had waited long enough.
Miss Armitage knelt gracefully to choose among the pile of flowers, and her dragon balanced on her shoulder as beautifully as a dancer. “You are kind to show me how to do this.”
“I doubt that you need any help,” said Elinor. She shifted Sir Jessamyn to her shoulder—there were no chairs for him here, and if she set him down on the clean sideboard, Sally really might lose all control. “What is it that you want from me, Miss Armitage?”
“My, such refreshing directness.” Miss Armitage smiled as she straightened, holding an armful of roses. “If only more people believed in honesty, how much easier all conversations would become.”
Elinor felt her cheeks heat, but she didn’t lower her gaze. She might not have any evidence to prove it, but she was absolutely certain that Miss Armitage was far more versed in deceit than herself. “What did you bring me here to tell me, then?” she said. “As we are being so honest with each other.”
Miss Armitage raised one perfect eyebrow as she set the first of her roses into the stand. “You,” she said, “are very much in the confidence of Miss Hathergill, despite your blatant disapproval of her actions.”
“And?” said Elinor, without moving to help.
“And…” Miss Armitage pursed her lips consideringly as she set a delicate fern to one side of the rose, and adjusted their positions half an inch in each direction. “I very much hope that you may be able to enlighten me. Why exactly would Miss Hathergill turn away an advantageous offer of marriage just when one might imagine she would be in most urgent need of it?”
The tension in Elinor’s shoulders eased, and she let out her breath, curling her lips into a half-smile. “Are you telling me that she’s refused your brother?”
“I did not say that,” said Miss Armitage. “‘Turn away’ was the phrase I used—it was a refusal to give an answer…yet. So perhaps you can tell me, Mrs. De Lacey…what exactly is your young cousin waiting for?”
“Miss Armitage,” said Elinor, “I could hardly answer for Miss Hathergill’s whims. Perhaps she wishes to make her début first, before making any decision. After all, she might meet a young man tonight who sweeps her off her feet.”
“Tonight?” Miss Armitage raised both eyebrows this time. “This is a small country ball, ma’am, as you and I both know. My brother and Mr. Hawkins and his odd scholarly friend are the only gentlemen outside Miss Hathergill’s usual circle of acquaintances. All the other young men in attendance must have known her since birth. They can hardly surprise her at this point.”
Elinor frowned. “It was an odd coincidence, those other two young men from London both canceling their attendance at the last moment, wasn’t it?” She’d been so busy this morning, and so distracted by her own worries, she’d only been annoyed by the news as it had impacted Penelope’s temper, without thinking more about it. But now that she did…
“Very distressing,” Miss Armitage agreed calmly. “It was almost as if they had come into some disturbing knowledge of the family.”
Elinor’s eyes narrowed. “I have noticed you writing a great many letters since you arrived at Hathergill Hall.”
“Have I?” Miss Armitage smiled serenely. “My goodness, I am flattered that you noticed…especially when you were so busy writing them yourself. Although not to your usual sort of correspondent, I don’t think.”
Elinor blinked. She’d only sent one letter.
One letter…
She remembered Benedict setting it atop the pile of letters in Miss Armitage’s hand. She hadn’t had the chance to hide it deeper in the pile before the others arrived, and she hadn’t been with them when they’d returned to Hathergill Hall. She’d been in the wilderness with Benedict. But still…
“I wonder,” Miss Armitage said dreamily, “how exactly would Sir John react if he knew you were writing letters on his niece’s behalf? Seeking her out a comfortable new position and using his daughter’s own stolen dragon as an inducement for them to hire her?”
“You opened the letter,” Elinor said blankly. “You stole a private letter and you read it—and you don’t even feel ashamed to admit it.”
“I?” Miss Armitage laughed gently. “I am not the one who would feel shame if confronted with the truth, Mrs. De Lacey. Sir John is a magistrate, is he not? And—correct me if I am wrong, but—it is a legal crime, is it not, to knowingly aid and shelter a thief?”
Elinor pressed her lips together. They felt oddly numb. The room seemed to be narrowing around her, until she could barely breathe.
Sir John stood in the doorway, haranguing the housekeeper. Sally stood five feet behind from her, glaring at her back. Miss Armitage smiled with false kindness.
There were no escape routes, no matter where she ran. Even her one chance at governessing had been taken away.
“What is it that you want from me?” Elinor said, for the second time in minutes. But this time, she heard despair in her voice.
Miss Armitage must have heard it, too. She smiled as she set a final fern among her roses. “I want only the best for my brother,” she said, “so I want him officially and publicly betrothed to Miss Hathergill by the time her début ball is over, with no doubts in anyone’s head as to their binding.”
Perhaps it was the overpowering smell of the roses, or the fact that Elinor hadn’t slept well in days, or that she was just being blackmailed by one too many people. But she found her mind stuttering, as if it couldn’t take in this one last demand.
“Why?” she said. “Why should it matter so much to you? Those other gentlemen were frightened away by the stories of madness—stories that you spread, to drive them off. Why haven’t they driven you off, too?”
“Oh, Mrs. De Lacey.” Miss Armitage shook her head reprovingly. “You know just as well as I that Lady Hathergill is not mad. If all I have to fear from Miss Hathergill’s bloodline is a bit of plain speaking in middle age…well, my brother is not so cowardly as to mind that.”
“But why is it so important to you?” Elinor studied Miss Hathergill’s elegant figure, bent over the flower stand. “Why can’t your brother wait any longer to persuade Penelope to accept his offer? In fact, why should it matter so much whether she accepts him at all? Everyone knows about his fortune…and you cannot pretend that he’s actually in love with her.”
“You have a great many questions, Mrs. De Lacey. And you are, of course, admirably intelligent. Unfortunately…” Miss Armitage straightened and dusted off her hands. “You are in no position to demand any answers. I have your letter, and I am fully prepared to pass it to Sir John, with my deepest horror and outrage on his behalf, if my brother is not betrothed to Miss Hathergill by ten o’clock tonight. Do we understand each other?”
The flower arrangement in the vase was, of course, perfect. Miss Armitage’s smile glinted with satisfaction.
Elinor hadn’t thought that she could dread tonight’s ball any more than she already did…but of course, she had been wrong.
“Perfectly,” she said, and walked away with both of her blackmailers’ gazes on her back.