A Wedding In Springtime(8)
The elderly lady grew still, a look of pained dignity taking hold.
“Oh,” said Penelope softly. “I see.” She fiddled awkwardly with the reticule in her hands. Had this poor woman been abandoned by her family? Pen glanced around the room, which, despite the yellow wallpaper, managed to look drab. Here is where her unremarkable time on the marriage mart would end, stranded in the ladies’ retiring room with the rest of society’s discards. Pen sighed. She could not in good conscience leave an elderly lady in distress.
“Please, allow me the pleasure of conveying you home,” Penelope said to the elderly lady, who somehow managed to exude a royal aura despite being stranded in the ladies’ retiring room.
“Thank you. I am pleased to accept.” Her voice was smooth but the rigidity in her manner showed she was anything but pleased. She stood slowly, leaning heavily on a pearl-handled cane.
Penelope walked with the elderly lady, who had still not identified herself, back to the front of the church. Their pace was a considerably slower pace than the one in which Pen had entered the church.
“So, your sister was married today?” the lady asked.
“Yes, my youngest sister married Sir William Aubrey. We are frequent visitors here as my three other sisters have also taken their turns at the altar before her,” said Penelope.
“And do you have a date with the altar?”
“No, ma’am,” said Pen simply. No use in belaboring that point.
The lady gave her a warm smile. “Next season will be yours.”
“Unfortunately, I have been here three seasons already, and I fear my time in London will shortly come to a close. We have been sponsored by my aunt, and she plans to close her London house and retire to the country.”
“And do you return to the country too?”
“My plans are not quite settled.” Pen had wrestled silently with her future for many months since learning that Julia was to be married. Her aunt had hinted broadly at retiring to the country alone, leaving Pen in need of a new living situation.
The lady gave a sly grin. “Care little for country life? I cannot stand it myself. Find yourself a Town man as your sister has.”
“My sisters have been fortunate in finding excellent husbands.” Pen put on a tight smile, the one that hurt her face if she wore it too long. She was tired of pretending not to notice the contrast between her beautiful blond sisters and her own plain features topped with mousy brown hair. “My sisters are all quite pretty, you understand. I have found that men are primarily interested in the essentials when choosing a wife, which are of course her beauty and her dowry. Having little of either, I find a long and dreary future as an old maid before me.”
The lady raised her eyebrows, and Penelope flushed at what had just come out of her mouth. A deplorable tendency to speak her mind was yet another item on the long list of reasons why no offers of marriage had been directed her way.
The lady laughed and rapped her cane on the marble floor, causing a sharp staccato snap to echo through the hall. “You forget family, my dear. More than one marriage has been based on the greedy aspirations of a social climber.”
It was Penelope’s turn to laugh. “Then, as a daughter of a country parson, my matrimonial prospects are decidedly negligible.”
“You have wit, child, and that more than makes up for anything else you might lack.”
“You may be right, but I have yet to find a man who courted a woman based on the size of her… er… wit.”
The lady beside her laughed again, her bright blue eyes twinkling. Pen smiled in return, happy her own sorry circumstances at least served as an amusement to others.
“I fear, after three seasons in London and the marriage of my youngest sister, I am officially on the shelf,” said Penelope with a shrug. “Since I must find a new living situation, I was considering taking a post as a lady’s companion or perhaps a governess.”
The elderly lady gasped. “Surely your sisters would not abandon you!”
“Oh no, any one of my sisters would be glad to have me live with them. I have no brothers, you see. But I…” Pen paused. She had not vocalized this to anyone. The lady waited attentively, and Pen found it was easy to talk to this stranger about topics she would never broach with her sisters. “I do not wish to burden them when they are so newly married. The thought of being passed around from sister to sister like an old gown does not appeal.”
The lady nodded in understanding, the smile wilting from her face. “I understand not wishing to be a burden, easily put aside and forgot.” Her eyes slid past Penelope to the open door of the church. “Ah, look, my grandson has seen fit to remember this poor old woman.”