Remembrance Read online

  Dorothy sighed. “What has Talis done now?”

  “What makes you think my hatred has anything to do with him?” Callie snapped. “What makes you think I have anything to do with him?”

  Dorothy gave Callie a look that said everything. Personally, Dorothy was beginning to think that loving only one man was like having only one food to eat. It became quite monotonous after a while. “You think of him, dream of him, live for him, your every thought, your—”

  “Ha!” Callie said, but she turned away from Dorothy and attacked some wolfsbane with a hoe, her abrupt action causing Kipp to give a squeal and nearly choke Callie with his tail. “Well, if I did ever think of him, which I do not, it would do no good. He has no time for me. He spends all his time with other women. He dances with them, sings to them.” She narrowed her eyes. “He fetches for them.”

  As Dorothy watched, amusement growing on her face, Callie began to parody Talis and the many women who surrounded him. Callie deepened her voice. “Oh dear lady, may I help you carry that very heavy needle? May I be allowed to walk behind you and caress the stones your feet have touched? May I be allowed to breathe the air that you breathe? May I please kneel at your feet and allow you to use my body for a footrest?”

  Dorothy couldn’t help giggling. Callie was so funny. Even when she didn’t mean to be, she was quite amusing, which is why Dorothy spent her time with Callie rather than with her sisters. Also, there was something about Callie that attracted men; they liked her. Callie was completely unaware of this fact as her every waking—and probably every sleeping—thought concerned Talis, but daily, men and strapping boys found a reason to stop by the garden. Like as not, Callie would put them to work in the garden, which was why in a mere year she had managed to take something awful and make it into something beautiful.

  Callie was now mimicking a huge woman walking, a great clumsy oaf of a thing, and then she was a bigger-than-life strutting man (who could only be Talis) looking up at the fat lady and rolling his eyes in ecstasy. He was telling her she is as dainty as a fairy, as lovely as a moonbeam, as delicate as dandelion fluff.

  Callie jabbed at a harmless root with her sharp-edged hoe. “Talis has become a liar and an all-round worthless human being.”

  “I think he is just learning courtly etiquette,” Dorothy said, but she did not tell Callie her true feelings. What was happening with Talis and Callie had something to do with her mother, Alida, but Dorothy didn’t know what was going on. Why was it important for Talis to have lessons on every conceivable subject but not important for Callie?

  “Etiquette is to tell some fat ugly woman that she is beautiful?” Callie asked, but it wasn’t really a question.

  “If she is also rich, yes.”

  “Then he is a liar.”

  Dorothy continued hoeing for a while. She had become used to Callie’s anger. If she was not with Talis then she was angry at him for not being with her. “Have you ever thought that Talis might marry one of these rich women?” Dorothy asked quietly. “For all that he is my father’s favorite, he is a younger son. There will not be much money for him. Talis will have to marry wealth if he is to live well.”

  “Yes,” Callie said, her voice sounding like death. “I have thought of this.”

  Dorothy took a while before she asked her next question. Part of her wanted to know what was going on, but part of her wanted to stay out of it. Unlike Edith, who never suspected anyone of ulterior motives, Dorothy always thought that what people said had nothing to do with what was true. “Has Talis told you that he wants to marry you?”

  When Callie answered, her face was pale and she could barely be heard. “No.”

  At that answer Dorothy knew for certain that her mother was involved. She didn’t know what her mother was doing, or why, but she knew it was her mother. Alida loved intrigue. Loved to tell one daughter something and another something else. Dorothy had seen it many times. If Talis was not telling Callie every day that he was working to marry her, then there was a nefarious reason.

  Dorothy saw the way Talis looked at Callie, how he watched her whenever she passed. The most beautiful woman in the world could be in his arms, and if Callie passed, Talis would drop her. This was not just Dorothy’s observation but every woman’s who made a play for the beautiful Talis. All the women worked hard at taking him away from Callie. In truth, his love for another woman made him even more valuable, as he was unattainable.

  So, if he hadn’t spoken to Callie of marriage then there was outside interference. Honestly, Dorothy was terrified of her mother, but maybe she could help a little bit, because as far as Dorothy could tell, there was no reason why Callie and Talis shouldn’t marry and produce half a dozen children—and her father could pay for it. Maybe if they did marry it would inject some happiness into Hadley Hall.

  Dorothy hesitated at telling Callie a story because Callie was so very good at storytelling, but, tentatively, she started. “Did you ever hear how my third eldest sister got her husband?” She didn’t wait for an answer. “She went to bed with a man.”

  Startled, Callie turned to look at Dorothy and waited for her to continue. Second only to telling stories, she liked to hear them.

  Acting as though she weren’t smiling throughout her body, Dorothy continued her story. It was pleasing to get the attention of a practiced storyteller like Callie. “By the time our second sister was married, we knew our father was never going to get husbands for the rest of us. He complained incessantly about the money a dowry and wedding would cost. Most of us were too young to concern ourselves with this, but Alice decided to take matters into her own hands. One night after a hunt, she chose a man, sent a small keg of wine to his room, then, much later, climbed into bed with him. She had her maid, who she paid handsomely, run weeping to fetch our father, and there he found his daughter in bed with a man. The man was married to my sister before he was sober.”

  Callie took her time before answering. She had not missed Dorothy’s point. “That would never work with Talis,” she said slowly and it was obvious she had thought of this trick. “He has such a sense of honor. He says that a man cannot get married if he has no money. And, besides, he is not…interested in me. Whenever I get too near him, he turns away.”

  Dorothy tried to hide her smile. This was one aspect of love she did not envy. Callie always thought Talis did not want her, that he lusted after other women. But Dorothy had seen Callie stretch, her gown expanding across her newly formed breasts, and at the sight Talis’s face would turn white with desire. Dorothy had thought that if a man ever looked at her like that once in her life, she might die happy. Well, truthfully, to be safe, she’d rather like to have most of the men on earth look at her like that.

  But always, by the time Callie finished stretching, Talis had managed to turn away, and the next moment he would be furiously attacking another man in mock combat. As far as Dorothy could tell, Talis combated his lust for Callie with physical exercise—which is why he was always in a frenzy of motion, dancing, riding, hunting, practicing with his sword. Once, when Edith had said, “Does he never sit still?” Dorothy had laughed out loud. As long as Talis’s desire for Callie was unquenched, he would never sit down. In fact he was losing weight. No matter how much he ate, it wasn’t enough to balance all the exercise he was getting as he tried to overcome his lust for Callie. One woman said that Talis rose before dawn to swim in the icy river that ran not too far from the house. But that couldn’t be true; no one could stand those frigid waters.

  “Perhaps Talis needs a little encouragement,” Dorothy said. “Maybe a push over the edge.” Personally, she thought that the push of a feather—a feather guided by Callie—might break whatever hold Alida had over him. “Perhaps he needs the right place and time. If he…had his way with you, would his honor not force him to marry you?”

  “Yes…,” Callie said tentatively as she pulled Kipp from around her neck and held him in her arms to stroke his soft fur. “Do you think he really thinks of me as