Page 28 of To Winter at Wildsyde

― Excerpt of a letter from Mrs Ruth Anderson to Miss Matilda Hunt.

6th December 1814. South Audley Street, London.

Matilda stared down into her teacup, her fingers rubbing small circles around the tender spot at her temples.

“Oh, I know just how you feel.”

Matilda looked up as Jemima Fernside walked into the breakfast room. She was a pretty girl, but too slender and far too pale, more so than usual this morning after their late night—or early morning, as it had been gone four am before they’d returned.

“It was worth it, though,” the girl said, grinning at Matilda. “Such a wonderful party.”

“It was, and Bonnie looked so terribly happy,” Matilda said, sighing with pleasure and reaching for a slice of toast.

The good thing about being less than respectable was that no one was surprised if you did something shocking like drinking champagne. Not so good were the after-effects if you took advantage of that fact. She buttered the toast, though her stomach protested, and took a resolute bite.

“Bonnie looked as smug as a cat with a yellow feather hanging from its mouth,” Jemima said, chuckling, and Matilda could not deny it.

The Earl of St Clair had given a lavish ball to celebrate Bonnie’s marriage to his brother, and to show the ton that both he and his mother were overjoyed by her. As Bonnie had done nothing from the moment she’d arrived from Scotland but set tongues wagging with her outrageous behaviour, the old tabbies that delighted in spreading rumour and gossip had been waiting for the earl and his mother to disown her. They were to be disappointed.

After a slightly shaky start, Bonnie and her new mother-in-law were thick as thieves and set to cause more mischief together than Bonnie had ever dared alone. Suddenly, Matilda could see clearly how the dowager Countess St Clair had raised two such charming and devastating sons.

“Goodness, what a feast.”

Matilda smiled as Jemima nodded for the footman to fill her plate with eggs, sausages, bacon, and fried tomatoes. Though the very idea made Matilda queasy, she endured the smell, determined to feed Jemima up during her stay. Though, for now, Jemima had only agreed to stay for a week, Matilda hoped to persuade her to remain longer.

Matilda chewed her way through the toast and then nursed her teacup, watching with pleasure as Jemima accepted a second helping of eggs.

“Goodness,” the young woman said, pushing a stray lock of fine blond hair from her eyes. “What a glutton I am. I feel fit to burst.”

“It’s done you good,” Matilda observed, watching her with approval. “There’s a bit of colour in your cheeks now, and glad I am to see it. You’re far too pale, and I’m certain you’ve not been eating.”

With a quiet word, Matilda dismissed the footmen and then reached across the table and took Jemima’s hand.

“Now then,” she said, giving her the stern expression she reserved for wheedling the truth from her friends. “Tell me what is going on.”

The colour in Jemima’s cheeks flared brighter, but the girl put her chin up, her delicate features doing little to disguise the flash of pride in her dark grey eyes.

“Going on?” she repeated with a laugh that was far from convincing. “Why, Tilda, whatever are you accusing me of? Do you think me at the centre of some dreadful scandal? I assure you I am not.”

Matilda gave a huff of frustration. “Oh, do come down off your high ropes, of course I don’t think any such thing. I do think….”

She paused, well aware that, of all the Peculiar Ladies, Jemima was the one who had slipped furthest away from them. It did not take a genius to figure out she was suffering financial difficulties, but how to help the young woman—whose pride was so fierce she’d never accept charity—was something of which Matilda was not at all sure.

“I do think you have been experiencing some… some troubles, of one sort or another,” she said, hoping that was vague enough not to cause offense, but inquisitive enough to gain an answer.

There was a slight stiffening of Jemima’s shoulders, and her mouth tightened as she stared back at Matilda. Matilda waited, holding her breath, wondering if she’d misjudged and overstepped the mark. Her desire to help others was often perilously near to meddling and she lived in dread of becoming an interfering old woman. Jemima let out a breath, a rueful glint in her grey eyes.

“I can see why the rest of them have taken to calling you Mama Poule,” she said, shaking her head.

“An interfering mother hen,” Matilda agreed with a shrug. “I can neither deny it nor help myself from sticking my nose in.”

“Ah, well, it’s kindly meant, I know it. The truth, if you must have it, is that my aunt died a few months ago.”

“Oh, Jemima,” Matilda reached for her once more, clasping her hand tightly between her own. “Oh, my dear, why ever did you not say so? But—” Stopping herself just in time, Matilda clamped her lips shut, though her eyes had already strayed to the pale yellow gown that Jemima wore.

It was faded and out of date, but it was not black.

“She forbade me to wear black,” Jemima said, her chin going up once more. “It was not my wish nor my idea, but she… she had some fool notion that my life would be brighter if I wore colours for her, n-not….”