Before Nellie could speak Mr. Montgomery put himself between her and her father, almost as though he meant to protect her. “Miss Grayson very kindly agreed to sit with me when I so rudely arrived quite early for dinner.”
Nellie held her breath, for there was a hard tone to Mr. Montgomery’s voice, as though he were almost daring her father. No one spoke to Charles Grayson in that tone.
Before her father could speak, before Mr. Montgomery could say another word, Terel came floating down the stairs, her eyes alight at the sight of the beautiful man.
“What is all the fuss?” Terel said in her best there’s-a-handsome-man-in-the-room voice as she moved toward Mr. Montgomery. “Please forgive us, sir,” she said, bowing her head demurely and looking up at him through her lashes. “We are usually not so inhospitable.” Never taking her eyes from his face, she continued, “Shame on you, Nellie, for telling no one that Mr. Montgomery had arrived. If I had known, I would have hurried back from my charity work to entertain you myself. As it was, you can see that I had no time to dress properly. May I take those?”
Terel took the bowls from him and shoved them at Nellie. “Why didn’t you tell me he was young and handsome?” she hissed. “Were you trying to keep him for yourself?”
Nellie didn’t have a chance to answer before Terel slipped her arm through Mr. Montgomery’s and began leading him toward the dining room.
Nellie turned away and went to the kitchen. So much for her afternoon’s flirtation, she thought. So much for a handsome man’s words that he wasn’t a flirt. Even as Nellie told herself that this was what she’d expected, she suddenly felt very, very hungry, as hungry as she’d ever been in her life.
On the sideboard was the jam roly-poly she’d made for dessert. It was light sponge cake filled with homemade jam, then rolled into a log. Nellie didn’t even think about what she was doing. She didn’t bother with a plate, didn’t bother getting a fork. One minute the dessert was there, and the next she had eaten it.
Afterward she stood staring at the empty plate, as much in wonder as anything.
Anna, found by Charles, came running into the kitchen. “They want dinner, and they want it now.” The maid looked from the empty plate to Nellie’s jam-smeared mouth and began to smirk. “You eat all the dessert again?”
Nellie looked away. She would not cry. “Go to the bakery,” she said, trying to hold back tears of shame.
“It’s closed,” Anna answered, her tone of voice telling how she was enjoying her triumph.
“Go to the back. Tell them it’s an emergency.”
“Like last time?”
“Just go,” Nellie said, almost pleading. She didn’t want to be reminded of the other times she’d eaten the dessert meant for the family meal.
Her shame at once again having eaten an entire cake made her keep her head down throughout the meal. Anna lazily and sullenly served the dinner while Charles and Terel kept up a steady stream of conversation with Mr. Montgomery.
Nellie didn’t enter into the talk because she was dreading the time when what she’d done would be discovered. Her father had specifically asked for jam roly-poly for tonight, and she knew he’d be angry when he didn’t get it. She also knew he’d know instantly what had happened. Every word he’d ever said to her over the years about her eating came back to her. Throughout the long meal she prayed that her father wouldn’t say anything in front of Mr. Montgomery.
All too soon, Anna brought in the bakery cake. There was silence from her father and Terel, and Nellie hung her head lower.
“Did it happen again, Nellie?” Charles Grayson asked.
Nellie gave a brief nod, and there was a longer silence.
“Anna,” Charles said, “you will serve the cake, but I believe my eldest daughter has had enou
gh.”
“Nellie has a bit of a problem,” Terel said in a stage whisper to Mr. Montgomery. “She often eats whole cakes and pies. One time she—”
“Excuse me,” Nellie said as she tossed her napkin on the table and ran from the dining room. She didn’t stop until she was outside in the coolness of the garden. For a while she stood there, trying to still her pounding heart, making all her usual promises to herself. She swore she’d try in the future to control her eating, she swore she’d try to lose weight. She promised herself all the things she’d promised her father during the many talks they’d had in his study.
“Why do you have to be an embarrassment to both me and your sister?” he’d said a hundred times. “Why can’t you be someone we’d be proud of? We’re afraid to go anywhere with you. We’re afraid you’ll have one of your attacks and eat half a dozen pies in front of everybody. We’re—”
“Hello.”
Nellie jumped at the sound of a voice. “Oh, Mr. Montgomery. I didn’t see you. Are you looking for Terel?”
“No, I was looking for you. Actually, your family doesn’t know I’m here. I told them I had to leave. I went out the front door and came through the back gate.”
She couldn’t bear to look at him in the moonlight. He was so tall and handsome, and she’d never felt so dirty and fat before in her life.
“It was a delicious dinner,” he said.