“Oh, my,” she said, and it was all she could trust herself to say. Something pressed upon her heart, and it choked her.
From this pretty parlor he led her into a small dining parlor. Then he led her to a nursery, laid out with so much affection and understanding of Lucie that her heart ached. She had her own little table and chairs and a tea set. She had a little set of shelves to hold her books, and a painted chest to hold her toys and treasures.
Thence he led Marcelline to another, larger room.
“I thought you would prefer this room,” he said. “If it doesn’t suit, you ladies can always rearrange yourselves. But you’re the artist, and I thought you should not overlook the busy street but the garden—such as it is—and perhaps catch a glimpse of the Green Park, though you might have to stand on a chair to do it.”
She was a Noirot, and self-control was not a family strong suit. But she, like the others, had a formidable control over what she let the world see.
At that moment, it broke. “Oh, Clevedon, what have you done?” she said, and the thing pressing on her heart pushed a sob from her. And then, for the first time in years and years and years, she wept.
MRS. HUGHES BEGS leave to inform her Friends and the Public in general that she intends opening Shew-Rooms on Tuesday, the 4th inst. with a new and elegant assortment of Millinery and Dresses, in the first style of fashion…Mrs. Hughes takes this opportunity of returning thanks for the great patronage she has already received from her numerous friends…An Apprentice and Improver wanted.
Advertisements for January,
Ackermann’s Repository, Vol. XI, 1814
Tears had never come easily to her. When she learned the cholera had taken her parents, she’d ached for the missed opportunities and for what she’d always hoped for from them, against all odds and all evidence. When the disease killed Cousin Emma—who’d taken in Marcelline, Sophy, and Leonie time and again when Mama and Papa abandoned them—Marcelline had been deeply saddened. She’d grieved for Charlie, too, for whom she’d given up all her young girl’s heart.
Yet Marcelline hadn’t wept like this. She’d never had time to indulge her grief. Each loss had meant she had to act, right away, to save her family.
She hadn’t wept when Lucie had been so very ill, because there wasn’t time for tears, only for working as hard as one could to keep her alive. When it seemed the fire had consumed her, the searing shock and pain left Marcelline nothing to cry with.
But now…but this…
It was the last straw, the very last straw, and she broke down and wept. But no, wept was too small a word for the great sobs that seized her, like talons trying to tear her apart. She tried to get free of them, but they were too strong. She could only stand, her face in her hands, and weep helplessly.
“Oh, come,” Clevedon said. “Is it truly as ugly as all that? I flattered myself I had a little taste—a very little. One would have thought some of yours would have rubbed off—Dammit, Noirot.”
She would have laughed if she could, but a dam had burst inside her. All she could do was stand, her face in her hands, and grieve for she hardly knew what.
“Curse you,” he said. “If I’d known you’d make such a fuss, I should have taken you straight back home—I mean, to Clevedon House.”
Home. His home. He’d given her a home when she’d lost hers. Then, today, while she thought of nothing but business, he’d made her a home. Another wave of misery churned through her, making her shudder.
“It was supposed to be a pleasant surprise,” he said. “You were supposed to say, ‘How good of you to think of it, Clevedon.’ Then you were to accept it as your due. The way you accept everything as your due. Really, I hope your clients never see you carry on like this. They’ll lose all respect for you. And you know it’s crucial to cow them. You must rule them with an iron hand, or they’ll run roughshod…” He gave up. “Devil take it, Noirot. What’s the matter?”
You. You’re all that’s the matter. Only you.
But the storm was subsiding. She took her hands away from her face. To her amazement, they trembled. She found her handkerchief and wiped her face. It was then she saw how he stood, so stiff, his hands fisted at his sides.
He’d wanted to do the natural thing, she supposed. To move to her and put his arms about her and comfort her. But he wouldn’t let himself. What had he done? Conjured Lady Clara in his mind, and thought, for once, of her and what he owed her?
Marcelline wanted to laugh then, too. The irony was too rich.
Now, when he’d demolished her defenses at last, he’d found the moral fiber to keep away.
“You d-don’t underst-stand,” she said.
“You couldn’t be more correct,” he said.
“No one,” she said, and her voice wobbled again. “N-no w-w-one.” Another sob racked her chest. She bit her lip and waved the handkerchief at their surroundings. “In all my life. No one. A h-home. You made a h-home.”
It was true. No one in all her life had ever made a home for her. Her parents had never stayed in any place for long. There had been lodgings, places to hide, to camp, like gypsies. Never a home, until Cousin Emma had taken them in, and even then, what they had was a place to eat and sleep and work. Nothing in it had belonged to Marcelline and her sisters. Nothing in it was arranged for them. The small rooms on the upper floors of the building on Fleet Street constituted the first true home they’d ever had.
Now this. He’d done all this. He’d done it today, quietly, while she was otherwise occupied. He’d planned a surprise for her.
“Oh, Clevedon, what am I to do?” she said.
“Live in it?” he said.
She looked up at him, into those haunting green eyes, where she’d seen the devil dance, and the heat of desire, and laughter and rage. Oh, and affection, too, for Lucie.
“Someone had to think of it,” he said. “You had so much else to do. The shop was—is—the most important thing, of course. Without it, you have nothing. But you only needed me to stand about and look ducal, and I grew bored.”
And there was that, too: He understood what her business meant to her. In a few short weeks he’d gone from completely dismissive—no, scornful was more like it—to this. She’d read in novels of people who couldn’t speak because their hearts were too full and she’d always thought, Not my black heart.
But now she couldn’t speak, because it was too much, whatever it was. Everything was falling into place, a great puzzle she hadn’t realized wanted solving. Now the pieces shifted into place, and she saw.
“It seemed stupid to distract you with ordinary household matters,” he went on. “As it was, you were undertaking the impossible. But that’s so like you, to undertake the impossible. Clara’s gown. Stalking me in Paris. Who on earth would think to do such a thing? Who on earth could imagine she’d succeed? If you had asked my opinion, I should have told you it was a harebrained scheme—”
“And you’d be right,” she said. “It was a mad scheme.”
“But it succeeded.”
“Yes. Yes, it did.”
Except for one slight miscalculation. She felt her eyes filling. She blinked and forced a smile. “I’m happy,” she said. “I couldn’t be happier. Everything I wanted.” She gestured.