It had been a much-needed reprieve from her worries about Simon. A chance to cease studying old lessons, and to engage with nature directly. Simon referred to such activities as fieldwork. But it hadn’t felt like work. It had been pure pleasure. Not only because she enjoyed being with Betty and Firefly, but because she enjoyed being with Neville.
Spending so many hours together with the ponies had accelerated their friendship like nothing else. It had made them easier in each other’s company. Had brought them closer.
It had also wreaked havoc on Clara’s wardrobe.
She cast a rueful glance downward. The hem of her skirts was muddy from traipsing up and down the cliff road, and her bodice was streaked with dirt. She’d vowed to be more careful of her appearance today, but had been no more successful at it.
Swiftly ascending the stairs, she went straight up to her room to change into a fresh dress.
Winter in Devon, as a whole, was rather hard on one’s clothes. That is, unless one remained forever indoors. An unappealing prospect, especially now. Clara had never enjoyed being shut up in the house for hours on end.
She was just stepping out of her soiled crinoline when a knock sounded at her door. “Yes?”
“Miss Hartwright?” The Abbey’s housekeeper, Mrs. Quill, entered the room, closing the door behind her. “The post came early today from the village. You received another parcel.”
Clara’s fingers froze on the tapes of her petticoat. “A parcel?”
The housekeeper handed Clara the large, overstuffed envelope without further comment.
“Thank you,” Clara said as she took it.
It was smaller than the packets Simon usually sent. On closer inspection, she discovered the reason why.
It wasn’t from her brother at all. It was from her mother in Edinburgh. And it was postmarked four days ago.
She looked up at Mrs. Quill. “Is this all I received?” she asked. “There’s not a wire for me from the telegraph office?”
“No, miss. Only the parcel.”
Clara’s spirits sank. She needed an answer to the wire she’d sent her mother, not a packet of who knows what that had been sent days before. “Is it too late to send a reply by return post?”
“We don’t get the post but once a day here, Miss Hartwright. Not like London. Not with the cliff road being dangerous as it is.” The housekeeper paused, one hand resting on the doorknob. “I suppose, if it’s urgent, I could send someone down to King’s Abbot. The post comes there morning and evening—as late as five o’clock most days. But given the weather…”
A clap of thunder shook the windows. Outside, the storm clouds were no longer gathered over the sea. They’d moved up the cliffs, blanketing the Abbey in a fog of damp gray darkness. Rain fell again, hard and fast.
Clara was reluctant to subject a servant to such vile conditions. “It may not be necessary. I shall soon know if it is.”
“Very good, miss.”
Clara waited until the housekeeper was gone before tearing open the envelope. The topmost paper in the enclosure was a brief letter from her mother, but it wasn’t in response to the letter Clara had sent last Monday. It appeared to have been written many days earlier.
13 December 1860
Dear Clara,
Simon has encountered some manner of trouble at school. I am not in receipt of all the particulars, but understand that it is of a grave nature. It would behoove one of us to go to there and to lend him such assistance as we may, lest the situation result in his being sent down.
I advise you to make the journey as soon as possible after Christmas. I am unable to go myself. We have ten boarders at school, and Mrs. Ginch cannot manage them alone.
While you are in Cambridge, please attend to the enclosed tradesman’s bills, and bills from the university for various necessities of Simon’s academic life. The bulk of these I have paid myself. The remainder, you must pay out of your savings. As for the rest, you shall have to negotiate terms.
Be mindful of your duty.
Faithfully,
Mrs. A. Hartwright
A growing sense of dread built in Clara’s breast. Simon was in danger of being sent down? What in heaven had he done? She’d never heard of anyone being sent down from Cambridge, except in cases of gambling or public brawling. And even then, the conduct in question had to be egregious.
She set aside her mother’s letter to examine the sheaf of bills beneath. As she paged through them, one by one, her dread rapidly gave way to anger.
Necessities of academic life?
There were bills from the bedmaker, the shoeblacker, the cook, and the laundress. And those were merely the bills from university. She found a bill from a bootmaker, a tailor in Bond Street, and a jeweler who had sold Simon a pair of engraved cufflinks. There was even a bill from a smithy, who had apparently shod a horse for her brother in early November.
Simon didn’t even have a horse.
Clara thrust the stack of bills back into the envelope, her hands trembling.
The contents of her savings were meager. Only the pittance she’d managed to save during her time as a teacher, and the few pounds she’d set by each year since becoming a companion. It would pay some of Simon’s bills, but not all of them.
How in the world was she supposed to negotiate terms?
She could hardly promise to pay the balance of Simon’s debts at a later date. She had no means to find the money for them, either then or now. Her quarterly wages weren’t due until next month, and she had nothing she could sell, or spout. No valuable family heirlooms, or expensive jewelry.
“Cufflinks,” she muttered to herself as she changed her clothes. “Horseshoes.”
Her crinoline required washing, and her gown needed to be sponged and pressed, but there was no time for it. Mrs. Bainbridge expected her back in less than half an hour.
Clara supposed she could take a few minutes to dash off a letter. But to whom could she write? Another letter to Mama would be fruitless. A letter to Simon even more so.
She was, again, completely on her own.
And now Mama expected her to go to Cambridge. To upend her life, and endanger her new position. To drop everything in order to rush to Simon’s aid.
Would it have been this way if things had passed differently so many years ago in Hertfordshire? If Clara had not insinuated herself in on her brother’s lessons? Had not turned a few acts of kindness into something more?
Her brother had said he’d forgiven her, but Clara knew the truth. A lifetime of servitude—of orderly thoughts, and orderly habits—would never make up for her having damaged Simon’s prospects. She had been expected to pay for her sin, and would be expected to keep paying, for as long as she lived.