A Lady's Guide to Fortune-Hunting(60)
‘If they loved you when you did not love them, Kitty, then you would be denying them something beautiful,’ Cecily said, voice full. ‘I would just find it a little sad.’
This statement fed the guilty feeling within Kitty’s chest, making it all the more uncomfortable – and Kitty the more irritable.
‘It isn’t – we don’t have time to feel sad for them,’ she snapped. ‘Feel sad for us, if you need to be sad for someone. They are men and rich ones at that. They can have any future they want and at least they get to choose it – we don’t. We don’t get to have who – what – we want!’
Cecily looked shocked at her vehemence – and even Kitty herself was a little disturbed by it.
‘I was just saying,’ Cecily said.
‘Let us walk home,’ Aunt Dorothy interrupted. ‘There is no use arguing.’
They did not speak further on the way back, but Kitty felt put out, nonetheless. She occupied herself by rehearsing arguments and defences of herself in the privacy of her mind, which she imagined delivering to Cecily and – for some reason – Radcliffe, alternately. They did not understand, either of them. They did not have to worry about what would happen to Jane and Harriet and Beatrice, about how dark a young woman’s life could so easily become without money, about the myriad fears and futures that could befall any of them if Kitty lost control for a single moment. But Kitty did – Kitty was always worrying about it. And she had too much to do without wasting time on guilt.
Kitty dressed herself in sharp, jerky movements that evening. They could not afford to purchase any more ball gowns, and so were instead creating the illusion of new outfits through means of clever alterations, the liberal use of feathers, and by the sisters swapping dresses when the occasion demanded it. This was a piece of economy that Kitty stood by, but she could not help feeling like an over-ruffled goose in the pink frothy gown that Aunt Dorothy had purchased with Cecily in mind (the skirts let down, and embroidered with a pattern of silken rosebuds) while Cecily wore her favourite blue crêpe (the skirts taken up and now resplendent with elaborate lace trimming added at the hem and sleeve).
By the time Kitty had finished dressing her hair, however, her agitation had devolved into melancholy, and she took herself into her aunt’s boudoir. This had become something of a ritual the past few weeks, as Kitty found something indescribably soothing in sitting upon her aunt’s bed, curling her feet up beneath her, and watching Dorothy expertly apply lip stain.
‘Do you think I am a good person?’ she asked her aunt now.
Aunt Dorothy made a humming sound. ‘Do you want me to tell you you’re a good person?’
‘Only if you believe it.’
Aunt Dorothy sent Kitty a noncommittal sort of expression through the mirror.
‘Very reassuring,’ Kitty said wryly.
‘Good is subjective, darling,’ Aunt Dorothy told her, taking out her rouge. ‘Many people would consider me a bad person, simply for my previous profession. Does that weigh with you?’
‘Of course not,’ Kitty said indignantly. ‘You were not hurting anyone.’
‘Certainly never purposefully,’ Aunt Dorothy agreed with a little smile Kitty did not understand. ‘But for you, I think, it is more important what you think about yourself, than what the world does.’
There was a pause. ‘But do you think – that is, what do you feel Mama would think of me?’ Kitty asked, voice small.
Aunt Dorothy eyed her through the mirror.
‘Of what you are trying to do, here in London, do you mean?’
Kitty nodded.
‘Well, you know her background. She was a very practical woman,’ Aunt Dorothy pointed out. ‘I’m sure she would understand completely.’
Kitty considered this statement, wanting badly for it to reassure her … But it did not quite ring true. Mrs Talbot had been practical, yes, with cunning in spades, too – Kitty had always liked to think they shared that quality. The ruthless bent of Kitty’s recent behaviour, however – that her mother had not shared. Kitty could not imagine her mama ever acting to the detriment of another person’s happiness. Rather the opposite, in fact, she could unfailingly see the good in people and was forever getting herself embroiled in schemes designed to help one neighbour or another – like when she arranged for poor Mr Swift, so beleaguered after the war, to meet Miss Glover on the merest hunch they would suit well. They had married last summer, though Mrs Talbot had not lived to see it.
‘I think,’ Kitty said slowly. ‘I think she might be a little disappointed that I have not been kinder.’
Dorothy let the statement sit unattended for a while, neither agreeing nor disagreeing but rather considering it – and Kitty – frankly.
‘You have made such a mess of your hair, Kitty,’ she said finally – a response Kitty had not expected.
‘I have?’ Agitation did not perhaps lend itself to elegant hair arrangements.
‘Come here,’ Aunt Dorothy tutted. She rose, seating Kitty before her on the chair and beginning to unravel the curls gently. She dropped the pins one by one onto a silver dish with a clink, and Kitty closed her eyes, letting herself be soothed by the warmth of her aunt’s hands, the smell of her vanilla perfume.
‘Perhaps,’ Aunt Dorothy said softly, pulling a comb slowly through the tangles, ‘we ought all to try to be a little kinder. Perhaps that is what being “good” is – trying to pass on kindness, even when it is not convenient. I’m sure you could begin now, if you so wished.’