LITMIR.BIZ

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we could go by stage.’

      ‘Go by stage!’ Her mother was affronted. ‘Impossible.’

      ‘Perhaps I could take paid employment to help,’ Jane went on, ignoring her mother’s exclamation. She wondered if her mother really understood the gravity of the situation or was simply shutting her eyes to it.

      ‘Heaven forbid!’ her ladyship exclaimed. ‘You have not been brought up to work, Jane. And what can you do in any case?’

      ‘I can sew.’

      ‘Like Miss Smith, I suppose.’

      ‘No, not like Miss Smith, though there is nothing wrong with what she does. I meant designing and making high-class gowns. Or I could teach. I think I should find that rewarding.’

      ‘Bless you, Jane,’ Sir Edward said. ‘I hope it will not come to that.’

      ‘Well, I will not hear of it,’ his wife said. ‘You will make paupers of us.’

      ‘There is no question of that,’ he said, trying to smile. ‘But we do have to find ways of making substantial savings and the longer we put off doing so, the harder it will be.’

      ‘What about my wedding?’ Isabel had wailed.

      ‘I am not proposing to curtail your wedding, Isabel,’ her father told her. ‘But please limit the guests to fifty and try not to be extravagant over the banquet.’

      ‘We will postpone any decision about savings until after the wedding,’ her ladyship said firmly. ‘Once Isabel is married, no doubt Sophie will follow shortly afterwards and our expenses will not be so great. We may come about without all these measures.’

      Sir Edward gave up and left them. No one had mentioned Teddy’s problems, but he was going to have to mend his ways whether he liked it or not. There was no question in Jane’s mind that her inheritance would have to go.

      She set the gown aside on a nearby chair. ‘Let me look at the list.’

      ‘No,’ Isabel said. ‘You will cross everyone off and Mama has approved it. You shall not spoil my wedding, Jane.’

      ‘Will it spoil it if you have only fifty guests?’

      ‘Of course it will. I want everyone to see me in my wedding gown, marrying the most eligible bachelor for miles around.’

      ‘The wedding is not the be-all and end-all of a marriage, Issie. It is only the beginning.’

      ‘I know that. Do you take me for a fool? And what do you know of it?’

      ‘Girls, do stop brangling,’ her ladyship put in. ‘It is not becoming and I cannot see how a handful of guests can make you so up in the boughs, Jane dear. It is so unlike you.’

      The arrival of a maid to tell them that Mr Wyndham and Mr Ashton had arrived and were asking if the ladies were at home put an end to the conversation and set Isabel in a panic. ‘Mark mustn’t see the dress, Jane. It is unlucky before the day. Put it away quickly.’ She jumped up from her seat and knocked over the ink bottle. Its contents ran across the table and over the chair on which Jane had put the dress. Isabel’s terrible shriek brought the two gentlemen running into the room.

      ‘What has happened?’ Mark demanded. ‘Are you hurt, Isabel?’

      ‘Go away. Go away,’ she shouted in a paroxysm of angry tears.

      ‘But, my dear, you are distressed.’

      ‘We have had a little accident with the wedding dress,’ Jane told him. She was trying to be calm, but the sight of that black stain on the skirt of the dress had made her heart sink. The beautiful fabric and all those hours of work were ruined. She could have cried herself, but one sobbing woman was enough. ‘I will calm my sister, if you will excuse us for a few minutes.’

      ‘Of course, we will go away and come back later.’

      ‘That would be best,’ Lady Cavenhurst said, as she put her arm about her younger daughter to comfort her.

      As they bowed their way out Jane rang the bell for a maid to come and clean the table, then she spread the gown out to inspect the damage. ‘It might wash out if we are quick,’ she said.

      ‘No, it is ruined,’ Isabel cried. ‘How can I go to my wedding in a gown that has been washed? It is a bad omen, a very bad omen.’

      ‘Do not be so melodramatic, Issie,’ Jane scolded. ‘I will see if there is enough material left over to replace that panel.’ She doubted if there was, but she had to console Isabel somehow.

      ‘There,’ her ladyship said. ‘Jane does not think it is irretrievable. Do dry your eyes and go up to your room to wash your face, while Jane sees what can be done.’

      ‘It was her fault,’ Isabel said with an angry pout. ‘She should not have been sitting so close to the table where I was writing.’

      Jane was taken aback and opened her mouth to protest, then shut it again. Isabel was in no mood to be reasonable.

      ‘I do not know what is the matter with you girls today,’ their mother said. ‘I have not heard you quarrel so much since you were tiny children. This wedding is setting everyone at odds with each other.’

      A servant arrived to clean up the table and the carpet where some of the ink had spilled and her ladyship helped Isabel from the room, leaving Jane to gather up the gown, being careful not to smear the ink on any other part of it. She carried it up to Miss Smith’s workroom, to find the leftover material.

      There were several small pieces but not one large enough for a whole panel. She would need some ingenuity to refashion the skirt to make use of them. A join could perhaps be disguised with a band of ribbon, but she would have to put it on all the panels to make it look as if it were meant it to be like that. She would have to unpick some of the embroidery and redesign it around the ribbon. It could be done, but what worried her more and had been doing so for some time now, was her sister’s attitude to the wedding. She did not seem to be able to look beyond it to what married life would really be like. ‘But what do I know about it?’ she murmured to herself, as she sat down and began unpicking. ‘An old maid with no prospects of ever enjoying the role of wife.’

      * * *

      She had been working there perhaps half an hour when her mother joined her. ‘I have given Isabel a tisane and she has gone to sleep,’ she said. ‘She was a little calmer and is relying on you to rescue the gown.’

      ‘I think I can, but I will need to have a join halfway down the skirt. I thought of disguising it with ribbon. I am unpicking the skirt now.’

      ‘It was very naughty of her to blame you. I am sure she will apologise when she wakes up.’

      ‘It doesn’t matter.’

      ‘Jane, are you very unhappy?’

      ‘Unhappy, Mama, what makes you think that?’

      ‘I thought perhaps the arrival of Mr Ashton might have cast you in the suds.’

      Jane managed to laugh. ‘After ten years, Mama? Certainly not.’

      ‘I am glad. I know he is now wealthy and sure of himself, but his wealth has come from trade; he is still not a gentleman, nor ever can be.’

      ‘Not in the sense you mean it, Mama, but gentlemanly behaviour and good manners can be learned and I doubt Mr Ashton’s antecedents, or lack of them, will make him any less popular in the ton.’

      ‘So, you do still have feelings for him?’

      ‘No, Mama, I do not. I was simply trying to be fair to him.’ She realised suddenly that what she had said was true. It was not Andrew Ashton who disturbed her heart, but someone much closer to home.

      ‘It is so like you to see the good in everyone, Jane. But if it is not Mr Ashton, what is troubling you?’

      ‘It

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