Someone to Hold

Camille sank onto a chair and slipped off her shoes and ignored the disgrace of her hair, even worse now after being flattened by her bonnet. Did anyone ever get used to that hill? And would she ever grow accustomed to being a workingwoman? Or would she die of exhaustion before she had a chance to find out? Well, she would not die of exhaustion, and that was all about it. That would be far too mean-spirited of her. It would be the ultimate defeat. She took the cup and saucer from Abigail with a word of thanks and waved away the plate of cake and scones.

“You ought to eat, Camille,” her grandmother said. “You will be losing weight.”

“Later perhaps, Grandmama,” she said. “All I need now is a drink.” And she could probably do with losing at least half a stone. It would be less weight to lug up the hill every afternoon.

“Oh, Cam, such wonderful news,” Abigail said, sinking down onto the sofa and clasping a cushion to her bosom. “You will never guess.”

“Probably not,” Camille agreed after taking the first mouthful of hot tea and closing her eyes in sheer bliss. “But you will no doubt tell me.”

“There was a letter from Aunt Louise this morning,” her sister said. “The whole family is coming, Cam, to celebrate Grandmama Westcott’s seventieth birthday. I had forgotten all about it.”

“Here?” Camille stared at her in dismay. “All of them?”

“Here, yes,” Abigail said. “To Bath. And yes, everyone except Aunt Mildred’s three boys. It was Aunt Matilda’s idea, as she believes it will be good for Grandmama to take a course of the waters for a week or so as a restorative to her health, though Grandmama never seems to be ailing except in our aunt’s imagination, does she? But everyone likes the idea of coming anyway. The boys are going to a house party with friends from their school for a week or so, and Aunt Mildred apparently wrote Aunt Louise that she and Uncle Thomas will feel like fish out of water if they remain at home. So they are coming too. Aunt Louise says that Jessica is beside herself with excitement. The Reverend and Mrs. Snow are returning to their village near Bristol after spending about a month at Morland Abbey, and Anastasia and Avery are going to accompany them and then come here for the celebrations.”

“The Reverend and Mrs. Snow?” their grandmother asked.

“Anastasia’s grandparents, Grandmama,” Abigail explained. “Her mother’s parents, remember? Anastasia and Avery went to visit them after their wedding before calling here.”

“Ah, yes,” Grandmama said. “Anastasia was called Anna Snow when you first encountered her, was she not?”

Camille’s cup and saucer lay forgotten in her hand.

“Oh, and Aunt Louise invited Cousin Alexander,” Abigail added, as though she had not already said more than enough, “and he and Cousin Elizabeth and their mama will be coming too. She has also written to Mama, but I do not expect she will come. Do you think she might?”

Why here? Camille was asking herself. Why to Bath of all places? She could not remember their grandmother ever having come here before or any suggestion having been made that she take the waters. And the whole family? Even Althea Westcott, whose husband had been only a cousin of Grandpapa Westcott’s, and her children, Alexander and Elizabeth? They had been included, she supposed, because Alex was now the Earl of Riverdale. What was so very special about a seventieth birthday? But she had only to ask herself the question for the answer to be obvious. Grandmama’s birthday was just an excuse to allow them all to descend en masse upon the lost members of the family in order to reel them back in. She ought perhaps to be as excited about it as Abby. But she was not yet ready to be reeled in. She was not sure she ever would be. They were her blood relatives, but they were divided from her now by a great gulf of a barrier. Was she the only one who could see it?

“No,” she said, realizing that Abigail was anxiously awaiting an answer to her question. “I doubt Mama will come.” Their mother was not related in any way to the Westcotts, even though for almost a quarter of a century she had borne their name and been apparently daughter-in-law, sister-in-law, aunt, or cousin to every one of them.

“You are not happy about their coming, Cam?” Abigail asked.

They had been kind and supportive from the start. Both Grandmama Westcott and Aunt Louise had offered them a home—even their mother. Mama had turned her back upon them, however, taking Camille and Abigail with her. Now they were coming to Bath. But could they not see that Mama had done the only possible thing? There was not a one of them who did not have a title—except for Cousin Althea, who nevertheless now had the distinction of being the Earl of Riverdale’s mother. All of them were of impeccable lineage. All of them had regarded Anastasia with outrage when she had been shown into the salon at Avery’s house on that most infamous of days. They would have continued to do so, even after knowing she was Papa’s daughter, if she had also been his illegitimate daughter. They could not seem to see that that was exactly what Camille, Harry, and Abigail were. Viscount Uxbury had seen it in a heartbeat. So would the rest of the ton have done if they had been given the chance. There was no way back for them. It was illusory to think there might be. It was actually almost cruel of them to come and raise Abby’s hopes.

But how could she, Camille, impose her own sense of alienation upon her sister? Who had made her God? “I am delighted for your sake,” she said, forcing some warmth into her smile. “You have been missing Jessica in particular, have you not?”