Silvery brows raised high, as if surprised, Great-grandmother said, “Of course not, my dear Jane. And naturally we’ve taken you in—you’re family, and this is your home now. Your being here with us is, I know, exactly what Titus would have wanted.”
“Family,” Jane murmured, and smiled. What a beautiful word.
There was a tap on the open door. The Hall’s butler, Crenshaw, said in his concise, measured tones that the headmaster of the village school—of which Henrietta Penhallow was patroness—awaited her in the Green Saloon. “Tell Mr. Lumley I’ll be there directly, Crenshaw, thank you,” said Great-grandmother, and rose to her feet in a brisk rustle of silken skirts.
Cousin Gabriel stood up as well. “And I’m to my study, to meet with my bailiff. I’ll see you at dinner, ladies.”
Jane watched as they left the room, then turned to Livia, admiring how neat and composed she looked in her simple, elegant gown of dark blue. Her vivid auburn hair was dressed in a high knot at the back of her head, with soft tendrils allowed to fall loose about her ears and frame her face. Jane wondered if her wavier hair would look as pretty like that.
“I’ve barely had a chance to talk with you, Jane, these past three days,” Livia said with a kind smile. “I know you’ve needed to rest, and I’ve been so busy. How are you getting on?”
“Oh, ma’am, I hardly know. It feels like a dream. A good dream, but . . .”
“A little overwhelming?”
“A little,” Jane admitted.
“I was overwhelmed too, when I first came here. I can’t tell you how many times I got lost trying to get from one place to another! And I made so many mistakes and missteps.”
Jane stared. How surprising. Livia seemed so easy in herself, and so accomplished. “Did you really, ma’am?”
“Oh, yes! Frequently, I assure you! But it got better, you know, over time. And please, won’t you call me ‘Livia’? There aren’t that many years between us, after all.”
“Livia it is, then,” answered Jane, a little shyly.
“Good! That sounds much better.” Livia smiled at her again, then went on in a more serious tone. “I’ve been thinking about what you said that first day, Jane, and how it must have been so hard having your great-grandmother Kent pass away, leaving you all alone.”
“It was hard,” Jane said, “but in her illness she suffered so much those last two years, especially as we began to run out of money, that in a way I couldn’t help but be relieved for her. If that doesn’t sound like an awful thing to say?”
“No, not at all.”
“We did get along better toward the end, which made me glad. I’m afraid that I was rather a disappointment to her. She was very proud of her years in London, you see, and she tried so hard to bring me up in the same mold. She taught me how to speak properly, having once been a lady’s maid to a well-educated banker’s wife, and she also taught me to read and write, and to stand up straight, and bathe—that in itself made the other children see me as rather freakish.” Jane gave a wry smile. “And she did her best to keep me close at home, which I hated. Although after my parents died, she had to let me go about the town, picking up and delivering the mending. And she even had to admit that I was good at it. I was clever at counting and making sure people didn’t try to short the fee. Oh, how I loved my moments of freedom!” Then Jane sobered once more. “Looking back—and knowing what I do now—I think she was afraid I’d end up like Charity. She was always warning me against the village boys, saying I had to look higher. And how furious she was that her grandson Josiah married a mere blacksmith’s daughter. Poor lady—life was so hard for her.”
Livia nodded sympathetically. “But Jane, why exactly were you a disappointment to her?”
“Oh, because I hated sewing, and sitting quietly, and being good. I wanted to be running around with the other children, getting dirty in the mud and swinging from tree-limbs and chasing pigs. And I was always asking her things. I think I drove her half-mad with all my questions. Why is the sky blue? What are the stars made of? Why do some trees lose their leaves in the autumn? Where do babies come from? If it isn’t true that toad-powder tea will cure the bloody flux, why did Great-grandfather write it in a pamphlet? What happened to make our poor king go mad? Are there really pixies in the forest? And boggarts, lurking in the dark and just waiting to bite one’s ankles? And so on.”
“You know, you’re reminding me of something Granny once said about Titus,” Livia remarked thoughtfully. “That he was a great one for asking questions, too. And he never liked doing what he was told, either.”
“Did she say it like it was a bad thing?” asked Jane, a bit anxiously.
Livia laughed. “No, she said these were qualities Titus got from her. Apparently Granny was rather a renegade in her youth as well.”
Jane leaned back against the sofa, in her mind picturing Great-grandmother Henrietta as she was now—so dignified, ramrod-straight, elegant, and exacting. “I must say, that’s hard to believe.”
“Isn’t it? But that’s what she says, and always smiles in a mysterious way and refuses to tell us anything else. She looks exactly like the Mona Lisa when she does that—full of fascinating secrets from her past.”
Jane found herself wondering precisely what those secrets might be, and looked to the mantelpiece where, next to Grandfather Titus’ portrait, was a small painting of Richard Penhallow—Great-grandmother’s long-dead husband. Titus’ father; Cousin Gabriel’s grandfather. And her great-grandfather. Richard wore a long frock-coat, with white frilled sleeves extending from below the wide cuffs, a gorgeously embroidered waistcoat, close-fitting knee-breeches, white stockings, and black buckled shoes. His hair was worn long, and on his attractive face was a small, mischievous smile.
He looked quite like a person she would want to know, Jane thought. Was there something to do with Richard, perhaps, that had sparked Great-grandmother’s mysterious smile?
Also, who was Mona Lisa? Someone else from the neighborhood to whom Jane would soon be introduced? And why did she have a mysterious smile? Was it really because of secrets in her past? Most people had those. Jane had some of her own, in fact, and a few of them actually did make her smile sometimes . . .
She broke out of her reverie when Livia stood up and said in her kind way:
“Well, Jane, I must go off to the kitchen and talk with Cook, and I want to stop by my poultry-yard for a few minutes, and go up to the nursery after that. Are you tired, or would you like to come with me?”
“Oh, I’m not tired anymore! And I’d love to come with you. If you truly don’t mind?”
Livia flashed a warm smile. “I’d love it. It’s wonderful having you here, Jane.”
“Really, Livia?”
“Oh yes. I don’t know how it is, but somehow it seems like you’ve always been part of the family. You fit in so well. And Gabriel just told me yesterday how your being here is such a nice boost for Granny. She gets a little melancholy sometimes, you know, about all her children being gone.”
“Well, it’s wonderful for me too,” said Jane, blinking away sudden tears, feeling less like a grubby little sparrow and more like a nice clean swan, and then she rose to her feet, reaching out impulsively to hug Livia. “I never had a sister, but now I feel like I do.”