go hang, too, and then I cried myself to sleep when my parents wouldn’t speak to me anymore.” She laughed. “I was a great trial to him, but Mr. Hathaway was very patient.” She reached across the table and put her hand on Serena’s arm. “Can you not bring yourself to confide in me?”
To her surprise, Serena wanted to. That was how she’d felt, at home. It had been such a relief to break the rules. She’d never heard anyone say it out loud before. But she looked at Mrs. Hathaway, comfortable and motherly with the late afternoon sun streaming through the kitchen windows and turning her butter-colored hair to honey and her hazel eyes a warm gray, and the words dried up in her throat. “No, ma’am,” she said with some difficulty. “I’d like to, but—”
“All right, then.” Mrs. Hathaway squeezed her arm. “I’ve been awfully selfish, thinking only of my son, but of course you must follow your own heart. Don’t let him wear you down—Solomon can be awfully persistent when he wants something. When he was seven and wanted his first chemistry set, he talked about it for six weeks straight until we sent away to London for it. And then when he decided nothing would do but Cambridge, we heard of nothing else for a good half a year until I gave in and asked my brother if he would send him when he was ready. My brother-in-law didn’t want to hire him either. Thought he was born for better things, I suppose.” Mrs. Hathaway pressed her lips together for a moment. “But Solomon talked him round. He’s always known what he wanted, that boy.”
Serena stared at the heap of spoons. Did Solomon really know what he wanted? Because if he did, then—
Serena had believed that she would make Solomon and herself miserable, and that he would let her. But—he wasn’t letting her, was he? He was breaking it off. All this time, she had called him naive and deluded for loving her. But maybe Mrs. Hathaway was right—he merely saw things as they were and knew what he wanted.
She had thought of herself as different from other women; she had thought of Mrs. Hathaway as practically another species. But they were the same, really. Or they could be. The difference between them was that, like Solomon, Mrs. Hathaway dared to try to be happy.
That wasn’t naiveté, it was confidence and courage, and Serena had refused to see it because then she would have to face her own fear and self-doubt, her own inability to believe she could have what she wanted—or having it, that she could be worthy of it.
What had Solomon said? That sometimes love wasn’t worth what one had to sacrifice for it? Serena was suddenly afraid that all the things she had refused to sacrifice might not be worth what she had lost, what she still stood to lose. She had moped all this time about being ruined, but here she was, ruining herself. Turning herself into a hermit and a coward.
“I—would you be very angry if I asked Solomon to take a walk with me instead of going to dinner?” she asked. It was rude, but she didn’t want to wait.
Mrs. Hathaway gave her a beaming smile. “Not at all.”
Chapter 29
The sky was gray, but it was warm and the country lanes were picturesque. The path they were on led to an apple wood half a mile off, and when they wandered off onto the grass it was uneven and soft underfoot. Everything was so different from London. She had forgotten how clear the air was in the country.
“Solomon, I—” Now that the moment was here, she didn’t know how to begin. “I—I want to talk to you.”
“I thought you might.” His face, for once, gave nothing away.
“I don’t—I don’t know how to say it.” Her tongue felt clumsy in her mouth.
“You never do,” he said with a touch of bitterness.
“Don’t be an ass,” she said. “I’m trying.”
“You don’t have to.”
“Don’t patronize me. I know I don’t. But I am, because I want to.”
“You look like you’d rather have your teeth pulled with red-hot pincers,” he said. “When I tell you I love you, you look at me as if I’m holding your head underwater. I can’t—I don’t want to hurt you. I don’t want to be like Daubenay. I don’t want to make demands and beg until you hate me.” But he waited, listening. He’d always believed she could do