In the following days, Livia pestered Charlotte for more details about The Plan. But Charlotte only smiled, shook her head, and carried on as usual. It was the Season, with its attendant rounds of afternoon garden parties and evening dances. The whirl of merrymaking, however, had long ago lost what little appeal it had for Livia: The ultimate purpose of this yearly assembly wasn’t fun and games; it was for unmarried ladies to find husbands and married ones to jostle for social prominence.
Livia wouldn’t say she’d never met any gentlemen who appealed to her. But those of lofty enough qualities to interest her never seemed to be interested in her. And those who did bother to pay attention to her failed to spark the least reciprocal warmth on her part.
A sorry outcome, to say the least. After Charlotte’s thoroughly unromantic analysis of the institution of marriage, Livia had been on guard against runaway emotions that might lead to regrettable choices. But this resolute lack of runaway emotions was dispiriting in its own way. One ought to fall in love at least once, oughtn’t one? If only to understand what Elizabeth Barrett Browning had meant when she’d written, The face of all the world is changed, I think / Since first I heard the footsteps of thy soul.
Yet this common, practically universal experience evaded Livia everywhere she went. And of course for her mother, Livia’s failure to garner a single proposal in seven and a half Seasons was a shameful burden to bear, a burden that Livia must hear of weekly, sometimes daily.
Lady Holmes’s latest tirade lasted the entirety of their ride home—they were alone in the carriage, it being Charlotte’s afternoon at the Reading Room of the British Museum, and the brougham was stuck in one of London’s horrible traffic logjams that took an hour to clear. Livia was exhausted by the time she escaped to her room. She feared she was coming dangerously close to the point when she would begin to encourage anyone, anyone at all, with a matrimonial interest in her—to get away from her mother, if nothing else.
If Charlotte would only succeed somehow in her endeavor. But every passing day sapped Livia’s confidence that any good would come of Sir Henry’s betrayal, that Charlotte would somehow rise triumphantly, phoenixlike, from the ashes of her hopes.
The sound of metal tires coming to a stop drew her to a window. Charlotte usually walked home from the British Museum and the hour for ordinary calls was well past. Who could be pulling up to their front door?
An unfamiliar town coach disgorged Charlotte, followed by . . . what in the world was Charlotte doing with the Dowager Baroness Shrewsbury? Lady Shrewsbury was the last person who would set foot in the Reading Room, so Charlotte couldn’t possibly have met her there. And even if she had, ever since Charlotte had turned down a marriage proposal from Lady Shrewsbury’s son, Lady Shrewsbury had been chilly toward the Holmeses, finding it an outrage that a girl from a family of lesser pedigree and standing had decreed her Roger to be not nearly good enough.
From her vantage point, Livia hadn’t been able to see Charlotte’s face properly, but something in her posture didn’t feel right. Livia opened the door of their bedroom, but there was no indication that Charlotte was coming upstairs. What could Lady Shrewsbury possibly want with Charlotte?
Below, her parents were headed for the parlor, exchanging whispered words with each other, sounding just as baffled as to Lady Shrewsbury’s presence: After all, Roger was now married—all the baroness’s sons were married—so she couldn’t have good news to announce involving Charlotte and any kinsman of hers.
They entered the parlor. Lady Shrewsbury’s voice called firmly for the door to be closed. She also instructed the footman that there would be no need for tea. Livia’s heart dropped a few rungs. What was going on?
She took a deep breath, tiptoed down the stairs, and sidled as quietly as she could to the door of the parlor.
“. . . an absolute disgrace. What girls these days think I have no idea. To turn down Roger’s proposal, only to indulge in a shameless affair with him six years later—as an unmarried woman, no less!”