Chapter 3

I went into the inner room, locked the trunks I had packed the night before, and ignored him. Arthur stood silent for a moment, then spoke through the curtain. "I will come for you the day after tomorrow. If you don't want to go inside, you can wait in the carriage."

The door closed softly behind him.

When I came back out, the bag of lemon drops was still on the table. A small sticky ring marked the paper where the sugar had softened in the damp.

That afternoon, Lydia brought a jewelry case. She sat at my dressing table, opened the lid herself, and placed on top the gold hair comb she had taken from my hair at the dinner.

"Mother says you forgot to take this last night. She asked me to bring it back."

That hair comb had been made for the dinner to mark my identity. When Mother fastened it in my hair, she had said that a Harrow daughter must not be looked down upon. Less than half an hour later, she pulled the comb out in front of the guests and pressed it into Lydia's hair. The teeth caught and snapped several strands of mine.

Now Mother had sent Lydia to return it, as though giving back something she had merely borrowed.

"Take it back."

The smile left Lydia's face. "Do you not want it because I've worn it?"

"It is not mine. I don't want it."

"Mother gave it to you."

"At the dinner, she gave it to you."

Lydia closed the case but did not leave. Outside the window, men were carrying my trunks toward the south storeroom. She watched for a while, then turned to me. "Are you blaming me?"

"What answer do you want to hear?"

"I only want to know why, when you've already given me the old house, you still have to act like this." She twisted the handkerchief in her hands. "I grew up in the Harrow house. Father and Mother love me. Charles loves me. Is all of that my fault?"

"No."

She blinked.

I went on tucking the comb on the table into a cloth pouch. "Whom they choose to love is their affair."

"Then why can't you be the way you were before?" Lydia rose and followed me, her voice rising with urgency. "You never fought for anything. In seven years, you never once fought."

Her frankness stopped me in my tracks.

So my yielding had never looked like forbearance to her. It was simply a rule she had grown used to: I was meant to live in the north wing, to be absent from society gatherings, to admit, whenever her tears fell, that I was not fit to be called a daughter of the Harrow house.

"Lydia, you already have everything you wanted."

"But if you leave like this, everyone will think I drove you out."

"I never said I was leaving."

Her expression shifted. Only after the words were out did I realize she knew nothing of the deed of separation. Arthur had not told her.

At that moment, his voice came from outside the door. "What are you two talking about?"

Lydia turned. Her eyes were already red. "She won't accept the jewelry Mother sent back."

Arthur came in, glanced at me, then opened the case. "Since it was sent, you might as well keep it."

"You keep it for me."

"What would I do with women's jewelry?"

"Give it to whomever you like."

Arthur set the case back on the dressing table, impatience creeping into his voice. "Your mother has already made a concession. You ought to know when to stop."

Lydia said softly, "Arthur, please don't quarrel with her on my account."

"This has nothing to do with you."

Every time he said those words, he was shouldering all the blame in her place.

I took out a slim booklet and held it out to Arthur. "This explains what every key in the house is for and whom to call if one is lost. I have written it all down."

Arthur opened it, turned two pages, and shut it again. "Why are you showing me this?"

"Hobbs is getting on in years. He may not remember everything."

"But you'll still be here, won't you?"

I looked at him. He looked back, his gaze as steady and certain as ever.

In Arthur's mind, the deed of separation was no different from a bowl I might happen to break. I would be upset, I would lose my temper, but by morning I would sweep up every shard.

Lydia picked up the booklet and leafed through it idly. "You've been so thorough. You've even written down what tea Arthur drinks at night."

"That page can be torn out."

Arthur's brow darkened. He reached over and took the booklet from Lydia's hand. "Enough. Go with her to the old house the day after tomorrow, and then this matter is finished. No one is to bring it up again."

Lydia finally relaxed.

I neither agreed nor objected. After they left, I took a steamship ticket from the hidden compartment of my dressing table.

The mail packet departed from Watergate Wharf on the Thames. Once it left London, it would follow the southern coast westward, with one change of vessel, and after a little more than ten days arrive at the town of Lyme.

My grandmother had lived there for several years. In her old letters she wrote that houses in the town were not dear, that there was a long street by the sea, and in spring one could hear the flower sellers calling their wares.

With the money from the sale of the old house, I had rented a small cottage, the lease beginning on the first of next month. My grandmother had reserved the old house to my separate use in the marriage settlement; neither its sale nor the use of its proceeds was under my husband's control.

The solicitor in Lyme also handled judicial separations for married women. After six months of living apart, even if the husband refused to sign, a wife could apply to the Matrimonial Court for independent living and protection of her property, provided she had the testimony of a parish clergyman, a doctor, or neighbors.

The date on the ticket was the day after tomorrow.

I handed the jewelry case to a maid and asked her to return it to the Harrow house. The gold hair comb knocked softly against the lining.

That was the last time the Harrow family ever sent me anything.