would be in company with Lord Boring for the first time since he proposed to Charity, everyone eyed me with expressions ranging from avid curiosity (Prudence) to sympathy and concern (Mama and Miss Vincy). While it was true that I had rather not be obliged to stay at the Park just now, I did not wish anyone to believe it was an especial grief to me, rather than simply embarrassing. I therefore forced myself to smile, and observed that it certainly was good to have kind neighbors when disaster struck.
Doubtfully, they agreed that it was.
“And we shall be able to see Charity in all her glory,” I added. “What a handsome baroness she will make, will she not?”
None of them answered. They simply looked at me. I was only sorry that Mr. Fredericks, being outside on the box driving, could not witness my performance.
Mrs. Westing could not in common humanity avoid receiving us with some pretence of concern, and she paused in one of her eternal games of patience long enough to see to it that we were given rooms.
“When you are come down again we shall play a little faro,” she proposed, with an acquisitive gleam in her eye.
“I feel we are being marked down as a pair of likely gulls in a gaming club,” I whispered to Mama as we mounted the stairs. “Thank goodness it is well known that we have no money to lose.”
“Hush,” murmured Mama, trying to repress a nervous laugh. “I am afraid your last remark is more true than ever. Oh, Althea, whatever shall we do?”
She was right, of course. Our future did look grim. There would be a huge bill for repairs to the castle, always assuming it could be repaired. And we had lost the Baron, and Charity’s fortune, in one stroke.
“Never fear, dearest,” I said, giving her a quick hug. “I shall think of something; I always do.”
Mama and Alexander were to share a room. I, at Miss Vincy’s invitation, was to move into her quarters. I was pleased to do so; I remembered what Mr. Fredericks had said about her leaving soon, now that she was not to marry the Baron, and I knew I would miss her dreadfully.
Prudence and Charity would sleep in the same room. Poor Prudence! Soon she would lose her sister and confidante to marriage. Once Charity became a permanent part of the Park household I doubted she would spare much time for her sister, or for her erstwhile best friend, Miss Hopkins. However, Prudence did not appear to be at all cast down. She had asked for her collection of memento mori and her pens, paints, brushes and some paper to be brought from the castle, so she did not mean to be idle. Since my patient, whom she believed to be Mrs. Bowden’s grandchild seemed unlikely to die, thus providing a fit subject for her talents, perhaps she could turn them to a lighter subject and do something to commemorate her sister’s engagement.
Surprisingly, when we went downstairs again to join the others, we found Mr. Fredericks glowering in a corner of the sitting room and there seemed to be no immediate expectation of his departure. The subject was not raised, nor did Lord Boring go and speak to him, seeming, if anything, a little nervous in his presence. Mrs. Fredericks on the other hand was her usual imperturbable self, bustling about and offering refreshments. It occurred to me for the first time to wonder whether she would stay on if her son left.
I supposed she would. Mr. Fredericks had said that they were not destitute at his father’s death, but their establishment in London cannot have compared with Gudgeon Park, and once he left his cousin’s employ he was unlikely to be able to support her. In any case, her sister and nephew depended on her to organize their lives and run their household. Charity, I felt sure, would be only too happy to relinquish any and all duties to such an amiable and accomplished housekeeper, whose services could be retained for the cost of her meals and a few hand-me-down clothes.
Mrs. Fredericks made what seemed to be a special effort to welcome me, no doubt out of sympathy for my destitute state, bereft both of home and suitor, and I appreciated it.
“Ah, my little mermaid,” she said. “Wet again! Come here into the conservatory and I will comb and dry your hair.”
I sat upon a stool at her knee and she tended