Page 89 of A Rare Find

“I got us into one too,” she admitted. “Let’s consider it even.”

“Even? You think this compares with live burial?”

There came a sharp rap on the door.

“Sir Hugh has gone for help,” announced Mrs. Alderwalsey. “I gave him explicit instructions, so there is every probability of success. Left to his own devices, he is indecisive and dawdles. It is very vexatious. Never play chess with Sir Hugh. You might as well watch the grass grow.” A pause. Then another sharp rap. “Say ‘How do you do, Mrs. Alderwalsey,’ so I know I am not speaking to a door.”

“How do you do, Mrs. Alderwalsey,” chorused Elfreda and Georgie.

“How do you do,” said Mrs. Alderwalsey.

“What sort of help is coming?” asked Georgie.

“Charles Peach,” said Mrs. Alderwalsey. “I passed him on my drive. He was pulling that rascally Mr. Hawthorne out of the ferns by the packhorse bridge. I believe they’d had an altercation. Both were disordered in their dress, red in the face, and panting furiously.”

Georgie made a strangled sound.

“You would rather not hear of him,” said Mrs. Alderwalsey, sagely. “But see the consolation: our Peach is the doughtiest fellow in the parish. Mr. Hawthorne won’t be making quite so bold after the encounter.”

“Mmm,” managed Georgie.

“What’s keeping Sir Hugh?” Mrs. Alderwalsey rapped a third time. “I should drive after him. If Mrs. Roberts arrives before I’ve returned, tell her to go home, there’s been an emergency, but you’re not privy to the details.”

“Aren’t we the emergency?” asked Georgie, but Mrs. Alderwalsey’s chuckle had already faded.

Elfreda stepped away from the door.

“In the ferns,” murmured Georgie. “I say, Phipps.”

Elfreda blushed. “Are you sure? It might have been an altercation.”

“Sometimes love is war.” Their grin was wicked. “Hearts are breaking in the House of Commons.”

She shook herself. “Quickly.”

The moment she knelt again at the basin the futility struck her anew. She and Georgie grappled with it, panting. It lay on its side, and they managed to tip it upright, but that was all.

“We can’t lift it.” She put her face in her hands.

“We can’t,” agreed Georgie. “But perhaps…”

“What?” She looked up.

“Perhaps we can levitate it.”

“Are you joking?”

“I once saw four debutantes levitate a drunk duke to the ceiling using just their pinkies. He wasn’t a small duke either.”

“You are joking.” She gnawed at her lip with frustrated hurt. This wasn’t a joke to her. “My father won’t see the humor. He’ll see that I’ve done something detrimental, to the church, and to his reputation with the committee, and that I’m foolish, unfit for a fellowship. It’s bad enough when I seem like a silly daughter, but one day he might not own me as his daughter at all.”

“What a loss that would be,” said Georgie softly, hands palm up on their knees. “For him.”

Her laugh was short and depreciatory.

“All these conditions on his love and aid,” continued Georgie, “they’re not fair to you. I recognize that you depend on him for many things. I hope your self-worth isn’t one of those things. Your sense of who you are. And what you deserve.”

She inhaled and realized she’d unwittingly mimicked their posture, hands palm up on her knees. Suddenly, gazing at them, in the dim church, she felt peace welling in her chest, clear and refreshing as water.