“Not at all,” I replied. “I have no fixed engagements. But I thought you intended to commission a gown?”

“Expect me in an hour, Madame, when Miss Austen is recovered,” she told the modiste. “She will know then whether she likes the result of our officious interference, or should prefer to have her gown cut to her own cloth. Good day.”

• • •

Mrs. Lacey’s pastry shop was three doors farther down Bugle Street, on the opposite paving. The dresser, Eglantine, was consigned to wait with the phaeton and pair, which José Luis was leading along the stretch of Bugle that fronted the modiste’s shop. He stared at me balefully as I passed.

“How menacing he looks,” I observed faintly, “in that long black cloak he chooses to wear! I do not recall having seen it before!”

“It is the national habit of Portugal, Miss Austen,” my companion replied indifferently, “and suits him admirably. The poor man should not know where to look, did I subject him to a white-powdered wig and the livery of a major-domo! José Luis should leave my service at once — and that I cannot allow. He was taken on by my late husband, and has been with me a decade or more.”

I considered the cloak as I followed Mrs. Challoner’s brisk footsteps in a fog of gratitude at my escape, and misery, and disappointment — for, in truth, the amendments made to my sad gown of mourning had been immeasurably cheering. I saw, like an abyss yawning at my feet, the gulf that lay between those of means, and those without. On the far side of the cavern sat the comfortable and the happy, in cheerful looks and easy circumstances; and on this side stood I: arrayed as a penitent for the sin of spinsterhood, counting over my sparse competence with a haggard air. The idea was maudlin — it was ridiculously indulgent — but I could not outpace it, and must link arms with Oppression, and step side-by-side into Mrs. Lacey’s room.

“Shortbread, a pot of tea, and — what will you take, Miss Austen? A bit of marzipan, perhaps?”

“Thank you. I am partial to marzipan.”

I sank down in a chair near the shop window, while Mrs. Challoner drew off her gloves. “I owe you an apology. It is despicable to lead a friend into a compromising position, whether the error is done through spite — or merely ignorance. I cannot plead spite; but ignorance may be just as painful in its effects. Forgive me, Miss Austen.”

I summoned my dignity. “I confess myself surprised, Mrs. Challoner, that you consider an apology either necessary or within your power. You have been all kindness. It is I who must consider myself the obliged.”

“Do you imagine,” she demanded as she seated herself beside me, “that I have always gone in leopard spot and velvet capes? Do you imagine the jewels I wear” — with a negligent shrug of the brooch at her shoulder — “came to me at my birth? I was forced to flee England as a child — my father a desperate character with a price upon his head!”

“Good lord!” I exclaimed. “I had not an idea of it! What can your parent have done?”

“He killed a man in the heat of passion,” she said soberly. “From a desire to be revenged. It was the height of the Gordon Riots, you understand — and my family was the object of a mob.”[19]

“The Gordon Riots? Then — are you an adherent of the Catholic faith, Mrs. Challoner?”

Her lip curled. “If I may profess any faith at all. There have been times when I have questioned the existence of Providence — Catholic or otherwise. My family’s history is not a happy one.”

I reached for her hand. “Can you bear to speak of it?”

“There is comfort to be found in confession,” she returned, “as we Catholics know. Where should I begin? With the Riots themselves, I suppose. On the third night of that dreadful week, my mother was pulled from her carriage and beaten to death — and my father’s warehouses destroyed at the hands of a Protestant rabble. In the depths of his despair and rage, my father killed a man. Perhaps he was drunk—

perhaps he was quite out of his mind — I do not know. I know only that at the age of five, I was carried by night to a ship that rode at anchor in the Downs — and transported in stealth to the coast of Portugal. My father thought to make a second fortune there. But how we lived, I know not! Those were desperate years, Jane. Those were moments when I might have taken my own life from blackest despair!”

“Do not say so!” I whispered. “It is no wonder — with such a history — that you bear these shores scant affection.”

Or that you might, if well worked upon, consider a campaign of terror against its interests?

“Fortunately, I had my beauty,” she declared with a gallant smile, “and tho’ I had not two farthings to rub together — at the age of seventeen, my hand was sought in marriage by Mr. Challoner. I may admit to you now that it was solely from penury that I was forced to such a step!”

“You did not love your husband?”

“I valued him. I held him in affection. At the hour of his death — and we had then been married more than ten years — I infinitely esteemed him. But love? Of a romantic kind? For a man of phlegmatic temperament, nearly thirty years my senior, and twice widowed when we met? Do not make me weep, Miss Austen.”

The tea was brought, and she drank deeply of her cup.

“I have often wondered whether it is better to live for the idea of love,” I said slowly, “and grow old in expectation of a man who never appears — or to grasp at the chances thrown in one’s way, and accept a certain. . moderation of experience.”

“I take it that you have spurned several offers in the past?”

“If by several, you would mean two ... I have not repined in my refusals — and I cannot declare that I regret them even now. The prospect of a lifetime’s tedium, in the company of a gentleman one abhors, has always sunk every possible merit attached to the situation.”

She threw back her head and laughed. “Tedium! When one might possess all the power of freedom? — For no one is so free, I assure you, as a married lady of position, wealth, and liberal instincts, well-launched and established in her chosen society. Love, my dear Miss Austen, can be nothing compared to freedom. And freedom is only possible when one may command the means to purchase it.”

“Have you never felt the tenderer emotions, then?” I asked her curiously.

A shadow passed across her face. She set down her cup. “Everyone loves. It is merely the foolish who submit to love’s whims.”

“That is a speech that smacks of bitterness, Mrs. Challoner.”

“If you would instruct me, Miss Austen,” she said sharply, “pray call me Sophia. I shall feel the sting of your words less keenly, if they are offered by a friend.”

I smiled. “I could never intend to wound you — you, who are all kindness. It is I who must beg pardon, Sophia.”

“Let us declare ourselves mutually absolved,” she returned, with a spark in her deep brown eyes, “and blot out our indiscretions in the exchange of confidences. You shall inform Madame Clarisse that you want none of her Vandyke collars, and retire in a cloud of solvent virtue; and I–I shall impart the dreadful truth: I loved a gentleman once, but he was killed; and my heart has suffered a blight from which it shall never recover.”

“You have my deepest sympathy.”

Those words of hers, overheard in the Abbey ruins, recurred now in memory. I eat and sleep and breathe anxiety. It has become my habit, since Raoul was killed. The name was French; had he died at Vimeiro?

Was it this that had hardened her hatred of the English cause?

“It should have been something, to unite the freedom of wealth with the delights of passion,” she continued, with an effort at lightness, “but we cannot all expect such relentless good luck. And my situation is hardly so mournful. I am left with the means to trick myself out in the most current fashions — and excite the despair of every hopeful fortune-hunter in the Kingdom! There! ” She snapped her fingers. “I give you that for love!”