“She died, ma’am, not long after giving birth to a son, Josiah—my father—but I never knew much about her. It was only when my great-grandmother, Charity’s mother, was very old, and began to speak more freely, that I learned a little more. She kept talking about Charity’s terrible fall, the shame of the family, and how Charity stubbornly refused to name the father of her baby.”
Old Mrs. Penhallow was slowly shaking her silvery head. “If only she had. How differently things might have turned out.”
Into Jane’s mind came an image of the cold, drafty, tumbledown little house in which she had lived for all her life back in Nantwich. It could easily have fit into the massive hall through which she had just passed, and with room to spare. But before she let herself fall into a dangerously wistful dream of what might have been, she gave herself a little shake and went on:
“Yes, well—Charity never did say, ma’am. And when I found the letter a few months ago, hidden inside that chapbook, it was another piece I thought I could add to the puzzle.” Jane drew a deep breath and took the plunge, hoping she wouldn’t sound ridiculous, impertinent, or both, and thus promptly booted out of the house by the outraged Penhallows. “You see, I—I wondered if Titus was the father of Charity’s baby.”
“He most certainly was the father, and therefore your grandfather,” Mrs. Penhallow said. “You need only to look at his portrait. Gabriel, if you would bring it to Miss Kent?”
“Of course.” Gabriel Penhallow rose to his feet, took from the fireplace mantel a small framed painting, and extended it to Jane, who carefully received it in both hands and stared down at it, her breath catching in her throat. It was uncannily like looking at her own reflection in a mirror. The same wavy hair, the color of palest straw. Eyes of an unusual gray, with thick dark eyelashes and above, dark winged eyebrows. Even the same pointed chin. “My God.”
“Yes,” said Mrs. Penhallow. “The likeness is unmistakable, which explains my shock upon seeing you in the Great Hall. For further confirmation, you may wish at some point to see Titus’ other portraits, most of which hang in our Picture Gallery. Well! It seems, Miss Kent, that I am, in fact, your great-grandmother.”
Jane stared at that handsome lined face opposite her, her hands gripped tight on the portrait frame as if it were the only solid thing in a topsy-turvy world. Was it really possible that her wild and rather desperate guess had been correct?
Old Mrs. Penhallow continued firmly, answering Jane’s unspoken question: “Yes, thanks to the letter, your astonishing resemblance to Titus, and the license that was found in his pocket, I have no doubt. I’m your great-grandmother, and Gabriel is your cousin.”
Jane stared at them both, amazed, thrilled, her heart beating violently in her chest with a kind of stunned happiness.
“A day of wonders, to be sure,” remarked Gabriel Penhallow, his manner a little less cool, his expression a little less reserved. “A long-lost relation turning up on one’s doorstep. One feels quite like a character in a storybook.”
“One certainly does,” responded Mrs. Penhallow. “A feeling I’ve had more than once in my long, long life. Miss Kent, may I inquire as to your age?”
“I’m twenty, ma’am.”
“Indeed? You look younger. Perhaps it’s the slightness of your person.”
Slightness of your person. Jane had to repress a sudden crazy desire to laugh. What a tactful way to say skeletally thin. Politely she replied, “Perhaps, ma’am.”
“How very extraordinary this all is!” Livia exclaimed. “Jane—if you don’t mind my calling you that?—I have so many questions! Which I hope isn’t horribly rude of me? Oh—here’s Mary with tea. Thank you, Mary, I’ll move this little book so you can set down the tray.”
As the maidservant placed on the low table a large, laden silver tray, Jane could feel saliva pooling in her mouth again and she forced herself to tear her gaze away from a plate heaped high with what looked to be ham sandwiches, cut attractively on the diagonal. Lord, oh Lord, there were devilled eggs too, and muffins, and a whole entire seedcake, dotted with caraway seeds and fragrant with cinnamon that teased at her nostrils in the most seductive way.
Sternly Jane instructed her stomach not to rumble again, and for a few moments she felt that same disconcerting urge to laugh. Here she was, having miraculously found these interesting (and also slightly terrifying) new family members, thinking—once again—about food.
Well, who could blame her?
After two long years without much to eat, a certain interest in the subject was only natural.
“Four Hundred Practical Aspects of Vinegar . . .” Livia had picked up the chapbook and was looking with fresh wonder at the title. “. . . As Used to Reduce Corpulence, Purify the Humours, Improve the Complexion, and Attract a Most Desirable Spouse. Jane, why did Charity keep Titus’ letter in this? Did it have a special significance for her?”
Jane turned to face Livia, which was a fairly effective way of keeping the tea-tray out of her direct line of sight, although peripheral vision was still a bit of a problem. “Charity’s parents had a little print-shop in London, ma’am. They put out all kinds of pamphlets and chapbooks, mostly with—ah—advice like this. Apparently all written by my great-grandfather.”
“Very creative,” said old Mrs. Penhallow dryly, and gave a sudden crack of laughter. “Oh, I can easily imagine Titus wandering into a shop like that, and buying several of these pamphlets as a joke to dispense among his friends! Ever one for a lark, my darling madcap Titus. That must have been how he met Charity.”
“And so perhaps Charity tucked his letter into one of her family’s chapbooks,” said Livia. “But you only discovered it a few months ago, Jane?”
“Yes, ma’am. My great-grandmother died this past autumn, and with my parents long gone, it was just me left. I knew I couldn’t afford to stay in our house much longer, so I started clearing out the old trunks and boxes stored in our attic. That’s how I found the chapbook with the letter, in a little valise of Charity’s. This same one.” She nodded at the valise next to her feet, saw her skinny exposed ankles again, and gently set aside Titus’ portrait so she could tug her skirt down an inch or two. Titus: her grandfather!
“And to think,” said Mrs. Penhallow, with longing in her voice, “I might have seen you years ago, Miss Kent, and your father, perhaps, in London.”
“No, ma’am, you wouldn’t have,” replied Jane. “My great-grandfather died of an apoplexy not long after the failed elopement, and without him to provide all the writing, the print-shop went under, so my great-grandmother took Charity back to the little town she herself had been raised in—Nantwich.”
“That’s near Liverpool, I believe?” Mrs. Penhallow asked.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“It must have taken you quite a while to get here.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Had you a companion of any sort? A maid?”
“No, ma’am.”
“How very enterprising of you, Miss Kent.”
Enterprising. Jane choked back another laugh. A diplomatic way to describe an unpleasant, uncomfortable, nerve-wracking journey. Still, it sounded like a compliment, so she said, “Thank you, ma’am.”