Amy Snow (33 page)

“Very well, child, don't excite yourself. Yes, yes, the world is full of lovely people and true devotion is what makes the world go round. Is that why I was so popular tonight, do you imagine?”

I snort a little into my glass. “Mrs. Riverthorpe, forgive me, but I am astonished that you were so popular tonight.”

She cackles. “It is because I am rich, of course, and better than that, I am alone in the world with no heirs to inherit my fortune. They are vultures circling, Amy, waiting to pick me over when I am dead. Each professes to find me amusing, to admire my determination to live forever when in fact they find it tiresome in the extreme. I am what you might term an uncertain investment of time and self-respect: they know they
might
pay court to me for years and put up with all my disgraceful ways and never receive a sou.” She smiles a truly wicked smile, her gray eyes bright in the darkness.

I cannot help but share her glee, unkind though it is. I find I am suddenly relishing her company. If I were not wearing a hoop the size of Bath, I should like to tuck my legs up underneath me in this large brown armchair. “I do not understand you, Mrs. Riverthorpe. You profess to scorn society yet you live at its very heart! Why?”

“Bath society is what I know. It amuses me! I could no sooner live a quiet life where everyone stitched and smiled and offered one another hankies than I could fly to the moon. That is the delicious irony of it, Amy. I feed off
them
! They who want me dead are keeping me alive.

“Watching Quentin Garland pay court to you, for instance.” She leans toward me eagerly, scrutinizing my face. “Hilarious! I'll wager
he
does not know your humble origins. I'll wager he thinks
you
look like a sound investment.”

“You're wrong.” I do enjoy saying it. “Mr. Garland met me when I was shabbily dressed and lost. He was as gentlemanly then as he was tonight.
And
I imagine he knows where I come from, for all of Richmond knows it and he is connected there.”

“Is that so? Well, that is interesting. In that case, be careful. But come now, you have me in a mellow mood. Do not waste the opportunity, but ask me the things you really want to ask.” She sits back again and waits.

I am a little unnerved by her comments about Mr. Garland, but she has hit on the one sure way of distracting me. “May I have Aurelia's letter and leave?”

“Haaaaa! That bad, eh? You've been here only two days! Oh, you are a tender little thing. No, you may not. You and I both made promises to that girl. I shall not betray her wishes.”

“I knew you would say that. But
why
are these her wishes? For heaven's sake, she cannot
possibly
have thought I would be happy here. Do you know her great secret, Mrs. Riverthorpe, the one that she is guiding me towards?”

“I do. I shall not tell you, naturally, but I do.”

I frown at the bent, embattled old woman in front of me. Not only did Aurelia trust her sufficiently to involve her in the treasure trail, but she has entrusted her with the outcome too. I look at Mrs. Riverthorpe in a new light. Mercy, is the trail indeed to end here in Bath—where everyone now thinks I am a courtesan?

“As it happens, I know the answer to your other question too, and that I can tell you. The reason she brought you here, Amy, is not
about
happiness, it is about choice.” She can read my mind. I knew it. “That is why I am not to release you yet. Whether you approve of it or not, society, money, a fashionable life, are things that the majority of people in our world covet fiercely. She wanted you to have that choice.”

Now it is my turn to scoff. The proposition seems outlandish. “But Aurelia knew me better than that. Aurelia loved flirting and being fêted. That is not
my
way.”

Mrs. Riverthorpe's face is, as ever, rascally. She reaches out a bony arm and takes my hand. “Don't dismiss it so fast and sit there feeling superior. You have been here only
two days
—you know nothing! It
wasn't
your way, for how could it be? Aurelia wanted you to make an educated choice. Don't tell me you weren't flattered at being singled out by that shimmerer Garland tonight. Is he your true love, d'you suppose? Do his attentions confer upon you a distinction you never had before—and which you
like
?”

I stutter a little, wanting to defend myself, but she rolls on, still gripping my hand. “Did you not see the jealous glances cast your way by the other young ladies tonight? If you did, then perhaps you are not averse to being fêted at all costs after all. If you did not, you must be a little stupid.”

“I . . . I didn't,” I murmur. Clearly, then, I am a little stupid. She appears unsurprised.

“Well, there we are then. But consider this, Amy: with Aurelia's fortune and my introduction, if you wanted to stay here and live the life of a great lady, you could. No doubt you could marry some elegant buck like Quentin Garland and have elegant babies.

“Now, I am sure you will not choose thus; nevertheless, it remains a possibility for you until you walk away from it. Aurelia knew she had deprived you of choice by keeping you with her. All that is changed now. You can have anything you want.”

She releases my hand at last. I think the late hour and the high drama of the evening have overwhelmed me. “But I cannot! I cannot have Aurelia back from the dead. I cannot return to Twickenham unless I betray her trust. I cannot leave here tomorrow. So no, I
cannot
have anything I want.”

She curls her lip in disgust. “Very well, dear, woe is you.”

We lapse back into silence. The fire has dwindled again and it is very cold. I should like to go and fetch something warmer but I'm loath to turn my back on Mrs. Riverthorpe in case she vanishes in a puff of smoke. Something else has occurred to me. I take a vain poke at the fire but it promises to expire any minute.

“Mrs. Riverthorpe, I find it bewildering that Aurelia would send me here of all places when she has been at such great pains to protect her secret. A treasure hunt! Letters strung across the land! Me traveling hither and thither in complete ignorance of my purpose! But it renders all my efforts at secrecy completely superfluous if everyone I ever met along the way is to converge in Bath.”

“You're quite right. That was a miscalculation on her part. And vastly inconvenient besides.”

“Then why on earth did she do it? Why insist on such stringent measures if only to bring me to the most public place imaginable?”

“Because she did not know.”

“But Aurelia was not stupid. She must have realized there was a good chance that I would cross paths here with at least
someone
I had known elsewhere.”

“No, she didn't.”

“However so?”

“Because, my dear, she never was in Bath.”

I wrap my shawl closer. The hairs stand up on my arms. “Of course she was! I had letters from her. Do you mean she did not stay in this house? Did she have other friends here? Unfashionable friends . . . servants, perhaps? It would be like her. Might that be why you have never heard of Frederic Meredith? Is that why no one tonight seemed to know Aurelia?”

Mrs. Riverthorpe stands up stiffly and leans heavily on her cane. I realize with a sinking heart that I have lost her for tonight. “No, Amy. I was not in Bath when I met Aurelia. I shall say this, then go to bed, for I have more evildoing to enjoy tomorrow and I need my rest. Aurelia did not know what it is like here in Bath because she never came here. And as for Frederic Meredith, I very much doubt that he even exists.”

I wake early on Saturday morning, recent events cavorting into my mind like unruly ponies. It feels as though this should be happening to some other girl; the spirited girl in red I glimpsed in the mirror last night, perhaps. No, I cannot deny it; she is me.

Despite all I am learning about myself, what I am learning about Aurelia is yet more perplexing. Since I left London, only weeks ago, I have discovered so much about Aurelia that I never knew. But that is nothing compared with last night's discovery. I am in Bath and she never was. And Frederic Meredith does not exist? Not only did Aurelia withhold a number of truths from me, then, she also
lied
. Is Mrs. Riverthorpe making mischief? Is it she who is somehow
wrong
? And if she is telling the truth, then where
did
they meet? In what circumstances did a lonely heiress from Surrey encounter—and apparently form a great bond with—an elderly eccentric from Bath? The possibilities are endless and somewhat overwhelming.

I climb out of bed and ring for coffee. I wrap a shawl around my shoulders and take out Aurelia's letters—not her recent letters, the ones from years ago. I return to bed and decide I will not leave it until I have reread every last one. Thoroughly.

The letters begin as I remember them, full of exuberance about her time in London. She also sounded homesick for me and for the countryside. There is no mention of her parents. None of this strikes me amiss.

Then she went to Twickenham. The letters are plentiful, detailed, happy. I looked through these old letters just recently, when I was in Twickenham—already I am rereading with an altered awareness. Different details jump out at me.

In the heat wave of 1844, I read these letters and worried that her adventures would prove too much for her, that she would sicken and die and I would never see her again. Today, with those fears consigned to the past, I read with new eyes. I try to imagine how it really was for Aurelia, after finding love in Robin's arms, after a bitter betrayal by her parents, after fleeing from home. How she must have longed to be well, to relish every chance to enjoy herself without her mother's constant cold-eyed vigilance. How it must have angered and frightened her when her health compromised the freedom for which she had fought so hard.

I find myself returning again and again to certain passages.

May 31st, 1844:

This morning I did not feel strong and felt sure I should have to miss out on the picnic in Whitton, but I was able to eat a little soup at noon and I rallied after all!

June 5th, 1844:

Lady Caulton's dance was highly amusing—the assorted great and good endeavoring to be less serious for an evening. I danced almost every dance, impressive considering how weak and downright shoddy I had felt only that same morning.

June 17th, 1844:

For once my obstinacy failed me. I forced myself to dress only to be overcome with giddy spirals. I passed out, Amy, and lucky I did so with the bedroom door open for apparently Hollis spied my prone form and summoned his sisters with a great many yells. I recovered swiftly, but dear Madeleine would not leave me, not for all my entreating . . .

A strong suspicion comes upon me then, one which makes my own head spin. I wonder if Aurelia suspected it also. I think not, or I do not believe she would have written of her symptoms so frankly. Of course, such references are brief, lost amongst the many passages describing happy times. And all the while she sounded like Aurelia.

Then suddenly, she is in Derby. Here is the never-forgotten warning that the journey would mean a break in our correspondence:

The journey will be a long one, dear, and there is a great deal to prepare . . . Please do not be alarmed at this delay.

Here is the break in the letters: only three brief notes throughout July, all sent from Derby. As an insecure thirteen-year-old, I was bored by the accounts of this gentleman with fifteen thousand a year and that young baronet with twenty. Today they bore me still but for a different reason: it is because they are not vivid or warm or
real
.

She may have been trying to submerge her doomed feelings for Robin by searching for a replacement. Or perhaps she felt bitter that they had no future, and tried to assuage this by flirting with anything in a cravat. But however I explain it, these pale accounts do not sound like the Aurelia I knew.

In the light of what Mrs. Riverthorpe told me last night, I find myself wondering, abruptly, if she was ever there at all.

Surely this is an insane thought. Here is a letter from the August, and another, and another, all written from Derby. But . . . not that many letters, all told, considering how long she was there.

Her sketches are unconvincing too. I do not mean that artistic merit is lacking, but Aurelia's drawings always included deeply personal or whimsical touches. The sketches from Derby are all of the hills, none of people, or animals, or quaint corners. They do not match the letters and they do not contain any little details that had captured Aurelia's attention and that she wanted to share with me. They could as easily have been copied from a book as drawn from life.

I remember what Michael told me the morning I left Twickenham.

“She went away too soon as well, disappeared all sudden, just like you.”