Keeping the Castle - By Patrice Kindl Page 0,61

Boring, as I’d once believed? It occurred to me that, given the speed of recent events, she might not even know of his engagement to Charity. I looked at her as she bent over her son’s bed, and I sighed.

She turned white and beckoned me out of the room.

“What? What is it, Miss Crawley? Do you see something I do not? He seems so much better today.”

“No, no, no,” I assured her. “I quite agree. He is going on very well.”

“Then why did you look so sad, and sigh?”

I should have been quite happy to have passed it off with an excuse, but she was remorseless. She was determined to know the truth, and, with a worried mother’s single-mindedness, she assumed it had to do with her sick child. At last I said, “It was for quite a different cause, I assure you. I was thinking of Lord Boring and Charity.”

She stared at me blankly. At least I could be certain that Lord Boring had been little in her thoughts of late. “Lord Boring . . . and Miss Charity Winthrop? But why should they make you sad?”

“Oh, not sad, exactly. In fact,” I said, “it is quite happy news. They are to be married.”

Her eyes, so like Leon’s, grew enormous. “Miss Crawley! Althea, dear. I am so, so sorry! How selfish of me. Here you have been, wearing yourself out on our account, when you must be wretched. I feared it would happen, but I hoped you would not mind too much.”

I smiled and assured her that I did not mind at all. She frowned and looked doubtful, whereupon I said, “I did mind, at first. But I do not believe he is to be regretted. He is not the man I thought he was. But I was afraid that you might be upset by it.”

“I? But why should I be upset?” And she looked so startled by the idea that I saw that there had never been a partiality on her side, only on her mother’s. “Althea—that is, Miss Crawley . . .”

“No, I beg you will please call me by my first name.”

“And you must call me Hephzibah. Surely you must realize that Lord Boring never had the slightest intention of marrying me, however rich my papa is?”

“But, but . . . ah . . . Hephzibah, I feared that you might wish it, nevertheless.”

Miss Vincy burst out into a peal of laughter. “How funny it sounds! No one ever calls me Hephzibah, no one! Even Mr. Annuncio did not.”

“Mr. Annuncio—? Oh! You mean . . .”

Miss Vincy, or rather Hephzibah, ceased laughing. “Yes,” she said. “Mr. Annuncio. My husband.”

18

“MR. ANNUNCIO WAS THE drawing master,” explained the lady I now knew to be Mrs. Annuncio, also known as Miss Vincy and Hephzibah.

“Ah,” I said.

“We were legally married, tho’ it was ‘over the anvil’ in Scotland, not by a minister in a church, and my son is legitimate, tho’ unrecognized as such by his grandparents. His grandfather would like to see him, I know, but my mother will not allow it.”

“They know of Leon’s existence, then.”

“Oh, yes. Keeping Leon a secret from everyone else was made a condition of my being taken back into their household. My mother covered my flight so well that not a word about the marriage escaped. She convinced her aunt, who is dependent upon her, and who lives quite out of society, to say that I was on an extended visit to her home. Of course, my parents do not know that I had Leon conveyed here to Yorkshire and installed nearby where I could visit him from time to time. I could not bear to be parted from him, and so I gave my old nurse, who was caring for him, some jewelry to sell to finance his journey and housing, and arranged to have him follow me north. That is,” she went on, “I suppose that since Mr. Fredericks told them I was tending a child nearby, they do know, or at least they must guess that it is so.”

“I see. And your husband is now . . . ?”

“In his grave,” she replied calmly. “When you enquired some weeks ago about the present whereabouts of my former tutor I told the truth in saying that I did not know. I am not certain of the exact location of his remains, only that he is no more. It did not last long as a marriage. He was a bad husband and