Remembrance

“The man who is to be Callasandra’s husband. I have found her one. Do not look at me like that! He is a good man, honest and kind. I have done what I could to console the girl for the loss of my Talis, so I have chosen well for her. He is handsome and intelligent. He is everything a woman could want.”

“He is not Talis,” Penella muttered.

Alida ignored her as she turned her face so Penella could comb the other side of her hair. She imagined that she looked like a fair, frail maiden, but in truth she was emaciated, the muscles in her face and neck mere strings, and her eyes glittered with her sickness.

“Is he rich?” Penella asked.

“He is now. I have given him much to marry Callasandra. He is to meet her and marry her in the same day.”

At that Penella paused in her combing, but quickly resumed. It wasn’t any of her business what Lady Alida did to her own daughter.

There was a knock at the door.

“Let him in! Go on, quickly,” Alida said, making Penella give her a look of disgust. She was acting like a girl about to receive her lover. Had Penella not been treated so badly by her mistress, she might have felt sorry for her dying loneliness. But now she felt only repugnance at the woman’s behavior.

Peter Erondell was indeed handsome, with dark red hair and a pleasing freckled complexion. He was not tall, but he was broad shouldered and strongly built. And when he saw Lady Alida he smiled at her without flinching, kissing her raised hand as though she were a beautiful woman instead of the stringy old chicken she was now.

“You are well?” she asked, fluttering her pale lashes at him.

Penella was glad she did not have to remain by the bed to see more of the display, but went instead to answer the door and admit Callie. Penella did her best to harden her heart to the girl, but even now, before Callie heard what was to happen to her in this room today, she had a haunted look in her eyes, as though she had already given up on life.

Penella knew exactly what was wrong with the girl because she had heard every word that Talis had said to Alida, as the ravaged boy had begged and pleaded to be allowed to marry this girl he loved so much. Since Alida had so very cleverly, so heartlessly not allowed the boy to tell his beloved that he wanted to marry her, Penella knew that Callie, like most girls, worried whether her love was returned.

Penella snapped her head around. It was none of her business!

“Here she is,” Alida said, motioning toward Callie as she stood there with her head down, not seeming to care where she was or what was being done to her. “Is she not what I told you she was?”

Penella knew that any man would want Callie, with her shapely body and her blonde hair peeping from under her cap. She was an appealing little thing.

But Sir Peter shocked both the women. “But this is the girl from the Poison Garden,” he said. “This girl is the light o’ skirt of young Talis.” He turned an angry face to Alida. “Madam, you have played me false. I was given to believe I was to marry a virgin, one of your own daughters. This…this creature is little better than a harlot. All of Hadley Hall and the village know that.”

With that, he turned toward the door, meaning to leave.

It took a great deal of strength that Alida did not have to spare, but she shouted, “No!” with so much force that she halted him.

“The girl is a virgin. I swear it. She will be examined and you will see. Please…” Alida said. “Have I not given you enough money? I have a thousand more acres in Scotland. I will give you that.”

The man paused with his hand on the latch. “I will not marry a girl who gives birth to another man’s bastard within six months. I will not be laughed at the rest of my life.”

“I do not ask you to. Penella will examine her. She will tell you—”

“Do you think that I would trust your maid? No, she will be examined by my sister’s maid. She is here with me. I will fetch her.” At that, he left the room, showing Alida that he was eager for the match—if the girl proved to be a virgin.

Through all of this, Callie had stood by in wide-eyed silence, not understanding anything that was going on. But now she was beginning to understand. “No,” she whispered.

Seeing that a storm was about to start, Alida waved her hand toward Penella. “Take her away to wait. I do not have time to hear her protests. Go, now, I am tired.”

Penella clamped her hand on Callie’s arm, but Callie jerked away from her and ran to the side of Alida’s bed.

“What!?” Callie demanded. “What is going on? What do you mean to do with me?”

Penella did her best to harden her heart to the look of anguish on the girl’s face. Had Callie been raised with this family she might have been prepared for the sudden and absolute decisions of Lady Alida, but Callie was not. She had grown up under the love and protection of two kind-hearted sweet-natured people, and that love had not prepared her for the machinations of a woman like Alida.

“What is it?” Callie wailed. “What are you doing to me? Please, please, I beg of you to tell me.”

“The man you have just seen is to be your husband by nightfall.”

Callie backed away from her mother until she was against the wall by the head of the bed. “No, this cannot be. I am to marry Talis.”