The Last Dance of the Debutante, page 29
“I would tell you that he seduced me, but a seduction implies that one of the parties enters into the affair without wanting the exact same thing from the start. I wanted him just as badly as he told me he wanted me. I didn’t realize that no man of forty-one should want anything to do with a sixteen-year-old girl.”
Joanna’s expression darkened. “I started to sneak out at night, shinnying down the trellis that ran up to my back bedroom and then through the garden gate to his car that would be parked down the road. It was fun doing something so incredibly wrong right under everyone’s noses, but that only lasted a few weeks. By the middle of March, I was sick as a dog. I knew what that likely meant, especially when I missed my monthlies.
“I wrote him a letter, but naive as I was, I didn’t think anything of leaving it unsealed in an envelope in my desk drawer. The next day, my aunt was waiting for me in the parlor when I came home from school, the letter on the table in front of her. A maid had found it. Before I could try to explain, Aunt Patricia had telephoned my mother long-distance, and Josephine was there in Washington two weeks later. I suppose you know the rest.”
“Josephine told me that she pretended that you’d fallen ill and she rushed off to Washington to nurse you back to health,” said Lily.
Joanna scoffed. “I’m sure that fit her picture of herself nicely. Always the perfect wife and mother. She was smart about it, though, I will give her that. She told Aunt Angelica—who never could keep her mouth shut—that she was pregnant before she left. It bought her time. Meanwhile, Aunt Patricia put it around that I had fallen horribly ill—I can’t remember what disease she chose—and locked me in my room until Josephine arrived.
“I’ll never forget what Josephine said when she walked into my bedroom for the first time. She hadn’t seen me in months, and I was miserable and heartbroken, but she took one look and said, ‘I suppose you’re very pleased with yourself.’ I told her I was, even though I was scared out of my wits.
“She took me down to Hot Springs, and we waited in a poky little house on the edge of the town. The only person I saw was the doctor and the maid.” Joanna pointed her cigarette at Lily. “You caused me fourteen hours of pain in the end.”
Lily took a deep breath. “Why did you let her keep me? Why pass me off as your sister?”
For the first time since Lily had entered that messy little cottage, Joanna looked uncertain. “I didn’t have any other choice. I stole writing paper once, before Josephine thought to take it away from me, and I wrote to that man. I told him what was happening. That I was going to have his baby. I got the letter back unopened with ‘Addressee unknown’ scrawled across the front of it in blue ink. I was sixteen, and the man who I loved and who had told me that he loved me had just abandoned me in a foreign country. What was I supposed to do?”
“That doesn’t answer my questions,” Lily said, her voice cracking.
Pain seemed to pull at the edges of Joanna’s mouth even as she took a long draw on her cigarette. She blew the smoke out, as though steadying herself, and then asked, “Do you know where you are staying the night?”
Lily jerked at the abrupt change in the conversation. “No, I hadn’t thought that far ahead.”
“The bus to the train station won’t be running much past six, so my guess is you’ll have to find a room in a guesthouse. I suppose you do have money,” Joanna said.
“Yes,” said Lily.
“I’ll call ahead to Mrs. Roberts in Hawkshead and let her know you’re coming. She’ll probably try to read you the scriptures, but she runs a good, clean establishment.”
A moment later, Lily found herself being hustled into her coat while Jorey watched at his mistress’s feet. Joanna held out her suitcase to her. When their fingers brushed on the handle, Lily turned quickly for the door, hoping that it would hide the tears that were beginning to collect in the corners of her eyes.
She was halfway down the path when Joanna called out, “Lily!”
She half turned to her mother.
“There’s more to the story, but I can’t face it today. Come back tomorrow around ten o’clock. I’ll tell you the rest.”
Lily swallowed around the lump in her throat. “I will.”
“I’ll make tea,” Joanna added weakly.
She nodded and hurried to the edge of the garden. It wasn’t until she was on the outskirts of the village that she realized that Joanna, who had an entire cottage to herself, hadn’t offered her a place to stay.
Twenty-Nine
Joanna had been true to her word and telephoned ahead, so when Lily found Mrs. Roberts’s guesthouse with the help of instructions from the girl at the shop in Hawkshead, a room was ready and waiting for her as promised. However, Joanna hadn’t prepared her for the inquisitiveness of her hostess.
“And will you be staying long?” Mrs. Roberts asked after she’d shown Lily the bathroom down the hall from her room.
“I don’t know,” she said, still holding her suitcase.
“There are not many people who come to see Mrs. Bute,” Mrs. Roberts tried.
“No, I don’t suppose there are.”
“And how is it that you said you know her?” asked the landlady.
“If you’ll excuse me, I’m rather tired, Mrs. Roberts,” she said, indicating the open door of her room.
Mrs. Roberts folded her hands in front of her, her expression suddenly frosty. “I don’t know what you were planning for your tea. I didn’t know you were coming until it was too late. What I have for the other guests might not stretch.”
The thought of being forced to sit around a dinner table with other guests made Lily’s skin itch.
“If you could spare some bread and cheese and a little tea, I’ll make do with that,” said Lily.
“It’ll cost you extra,” said Mrs. Roberts.
“That’s fine. I don’t suppose that I could use your telephone?”
“Where will you be calling?” Mrs. Roberts asked.
“London and Cambridge.” When she saw the landlady’s brows pop, she quickly added, “Naturally, I’ll pay the extra expense.”
“I suppose you can use the telephone. Note down the time and I’ll add it to your bill,” said Mrs. Roberts.
She thanked the landlady and made for her room. She shut the door and sagged against it, letting her suitcase hit the carpet with a dull thud.
She was exhausted—a bone-deep tiredness that could only come from being wrung out over the course of an afternoon. She hadn’t known what kind of greeting to expect from Joanna, but it certainly wasn’t what she’d received. Perhaps if Joanna hadn’t played a part in perpetuating a lie that had shaped everything about who Lily thought she was, she might have admired her carefree attitude. It couldn’t be easy to be a still-young woman playing at being a widow in a remote village where even the shopkeepers commented on your business. It looked, at least from the outside, like a lonely life with only Jorey to keep Joanna company.
But for all of Joanna’s bravado, Lily hadn’t missed the way that Joanna’s face had crumpled when she’d spoken about feeling abandoned by Ethan Hartford. He’d used her and then cast her aside.
A pulsing ball of rage that had been building over days rose up in Lily’s throat. Ethan Hartford had taken advantage of Joanna. When he heard that Lily was going to be born, he’d paid to keep them all away, quiet and shoved into obscurity, while he went on with his own life with no consequence except for the loss of £150 a month. His abuse of a girl too young to understand what he was doing to her went unpunished.
Lily snatched a lace-trimmed pillow off the bed, pressed it against her face, and screamed into it. She screamed her rage and her disappointment and her sorrow with all of her might until her muffled voice became raw and every muscle in her body went limp. Then she dropped onto the bed, her limbs limp, and fell asleep.
* * *
Lily awoke with a start. Disoriented in a strange room done up in dusky pink with valances, frills, and bows everywhere, it took her a moment to remember where she was. Mrs. Roberts’s guesthouse. Hawkshead. The next village over from Joanna.
She rolled off the twin bed with a groan and went to the little mirror hanging over the sink in the corner of the room. She had creases on her face, and her hair—already wrecked from its beauty parlor set—was all pushed up on one side.
She splashed some water on her face and opened her suitcase to retrieve her comb. A few minutes later she was looking at least somewhat presentable. Her stomach growled, and she checked the time on her watch. It was half past nine.
Carefully, she opened the door. The lights in the hall were low, but she could see enough to find a tray with a few bits and bobs laid out on a plate for her and a pot of tea covered in a cozy. She eased the tray into her room, sending up a little silent thank-you to Mrs. Roberts, when she saw a note tucked between a piece of cheese and a few slices of bread.
The telephone is in the room off the ground floor hall.
Lily took a bite of the sharp, sour cheddar as she rummaged through her luggage for her address book and diary. It seemed preposterous to her now that two slim pale blue leather books had ruled her life so completely this year. In her address book, the information for every one of her fellow debs and their escorts was scribbled down. In the diary, she’d written the details of every party, tea, luncheon, and ball in pencil. She opened the diary to the ribbon marker for the following week, reading off the names of all of the different parties she was meant to be going to in London and the home counties. Thomasina Beckett’s ball at the Dorchester tonight, Alice Macaulay’s ball Monday at the Hyde Park Hotel, Lucy Cannadine’s ball at her family’s home on Tuesday, up to Eton for the Fourth of June picnic and the regatta, then down to East Sussex with Philippa and Ivy for the Honorable Sarah Bragg’s ball on Friday. It seemed so strange, this world where her greatest worries were what she would wear, whether or not she would have an escort for a dance, and if she would be seated with one of the Imperfects at dinner.
Lily set aside the diary and took the address book with her downstairs, along with a cup of tea, moving quietly so as not to disturb any of the other guests. She wasn’t sure if any of them would still be about at this hour, but she didn’t want to cross paths with any of them.
In the hall, she found the telephone room. It was more of a booth than a room, with a tiny table and a chair squeezed into it. There was a pad of paper and a pencil for notes sitting on the table next to a small desk lamp. If she kept her knees tucked under the table, she could just close the glass-fronted door to give her a small bit of privacy.
She had two calls to make that evening, one infinitely easier than the other. She thought about taking the easy road, but silently shook her head. She wasn’t a coward. Still, her fingers trembled when she paged through the diary until she found the first number.
She picked up the receiver and gave the switchboard operator the exchange. A few moments passed while she waited to be connected. Then the line jumped to life, and on the other end she heard Ian say, “Hello?”
“It’s Lily.”
“Lily.” The relief in his voice made her heart ache. “I tried to call you earlier, but your mother said you weren’t feeling well enough to come to the phone.”
She cradled the phone to her ear. “I’m fine. Well, I’m as fine as I can be. The truth is I’m not in London right now.”
“What’s happened? Where are you?” he asked in a rush.
She squeezed her eyes shut. It hurt to hear him so concerned and to know what she was about to do. “Maybe I’m not fine after all. I’m upset and sad and a little lost.”
“I’m sorry about Gideon,” he said quietly. “I know that you two were close.”
“Thank you,” she whispered. She did miss Gideon and the way he laughed as he danced her around the floor at countless nightclubs. But she also missed the way worry would etch his brow and he’d pull her aside for a quiet word. He’d been a rare thing among the deb’s delights: a friend.
“I found something out about my family right after you dropped me at the house the night it happened,” she continued.
“Do you want to talk about it?” he asked.
The tears that had been threatening all day finally began to spill. “I’m afraid.”
“Afraid of what?”
“Afraid that if I tell you, everything will change,” she said. That you won’t look at me the same way any longer.
“Lily,” he said softly, “I can’t imagine that there’s anything in this world that would change how I feel about you.”
She pressed a hand to her heart, willing it to stop beating quite so quickly. All her life she’d been surrounded by lies—so many that she hadn’t even realized that they were right there in front of her. The last thing she wanted to do was to lie to this man and try to pretend that everything she’d learned hadn’t happened. She owed him the truth, even if it might break her own heart.
“It’s my father. I found out… That is, I thought my mother had had an affair and my father…” She swallowed around the lump rising in her throat. “My father wasn’t actually my father. But when you dropped me off, I learned that my mother isn’t who I thought she was, either.”
There was a slight hesitation, and then he asked, “You were adopted?”
“No. That is, not in the way you think. The woman who I thought was my mother is my grandmother.”
There was a long pause on the line.
“You learned this all on the night Gideon died?” he finally asked.
“Some of it. I read a letter I wasn’t meant to see a few weeks ago, and I thought that my mother had had an affair. I thought that was the worst betrayal I’d learn about, but I was wrong.” She gave a hollow laugh. “Naive of me, really.”
“I’m sorry, Lily.” His voice sounded tight and strained.
She leaned her forehead against her palm, wishing that she could take the words back, but she knew she had to push forward. To finish what she’d started, because if she didn’t tell him, she would be no better than everyone who’d spent the last eighteen years lying to her, because that kiss they’d shared on the beach was a promise that perhaps there could be more between them. She wanted there to be more.
“I’m in the Lake District now, trying to find out more about my mother. I… I met her today,” she said.
“Who is she?” he asked.
If I tell you, I won’t ever be able to take it back.
“I knew her as my estranged sister, Joanna,” she said.
Another silence.
“I understand if you don’t want to speak to me anymore,” she began, dashing away a tear.
“Why would I do that?” he asked sharply before softening his tone to say, “I would never want that.”
“But I’ve just told you I’m illegitimate. That my family lied about everything—to me, to everyone. Everything you know about me is untrue. My father is a man who turned his back on me before I was even born. And my mother—the woman who gave birth to me—left me behind to be raised by my grandmother. Everything I know about myself is wrong. I’m wrong.”
She was crying now, deep jagging sobs that shook her body at that little telephone table. She clung to the phone as a lifeline, even as she dreaded the next words out of Ian’s mouth. They would, she had no doubt, be final.
When her sobs finally eased into hiccuping breaths, Ian said, “I’m so sorry that you’ve gone through all of this, Lily. I’m so sorry that you’re hurt. I cannot imagine how difficult this must be.”
She nodded miserably, even though he couldn’t see her. “Then you understand.”
“I understand that you might need time. That now is not the moment to push you for answers or promises,” he said.
“I don’t know what I’m going to do,” she whispered into the receiver.
“You do. You just don’t realize it. Think about what it is that you want. Not your grandmother or your mother or your friends. Don’t think about what’s expected of you and what people want you to do. Think about what you want.”
She used the edge of her soft wool cardigan to swipe at her wet cheeks. “That sounds like very good advice.”
He gave a low chuckle. “It’s advice I should follow myself from time to time. How long are you going to stay up north?”
“I don’t really know. I haven’t thought of anything beyond making my way here. I didn’t have much of a plan,” she admitted, although thanks to Katherine’s generosity, she was well funded.
“I have no doubt you’ll come up with a very good one. Perhaps, when you’re back in London, we’ll see each other again, and you can tell me what you’ve decided,” he said, a forced cheeriness in his voice.
Her shoulders sagged. He was just being kind. She had unloaded a lifetime’s worth of family secrets on him, and he’d listened to her, but that was all he was obligated to do. They weren’t married—they had seen each other only a handful of times, danced, and shared one kiss—and he was under no obligation to listen to her. It was only his goodness that was keeping him from hanging up the phone and deciding to spend his time on a girl who came with fewer complications.
It was better this way, she tried to tell herself. Ethan Hartford was his benefactor and associating with her could only complicate things. She needed to let Ian go.
“It’s late,” she said with a shaky breath. “I should probably say goodbye before the landlady objects.”
“Take care of yourself, Lily. Promise me that you will,” he said.
She murmured in agreement and then hung up the telephone. She took a deep breath, trying to shake off the raw sadness that hung about her. If none of this had happened, she would have just been piling into a taxi after a long dinner—hopefully with people she enjoyed the company of. She would be on her way to Thomasina’s ball, looking forward to her night and hoping to see Ian.
