Free Cousin Cecilia by Joan Smith

to London to make a debut, and that is where she landed Wickham. Her folks were thrilled to mince meat. She was a blonde girl, very pretty.”
    Cecilia listened closely. If he liked blondes, then perhaps Martha might interest him. “Did you know her well after her marriage?”
    “Not well. She did not mix a great deal with the local crowd. She was back in London on the slightest pretext and had the Abbey full of her and Lord Wickham’s friends. We were invited to a few large dos. They seemed a happy couple.”
    “Why do you suppose she left him? I would not think a merchant’s daughter would have any regrets at marrying a lord, and a lord with an Abbey besides. She seemed happy, you say.” The idea occurred to her that the heavy partying might have been Wickham’s idea. From there it was an easy leap to imagine that he had taken a lover, and that was the cause of the rupture.
    Mrs. Meacham had nothing to offer but conjecture. “Everyone thought she must be twopence short of a shilling to do anything so foolish. I expect she found us a dull lot. The man she ran off with—Gregory was his family name—was only a commoner, though a vastly rich man. She ran away with him to Italy—well, she knew her swell London friends would cut her dead. We all thought, when Wickham left, that he had run after her, but it turned out it was not Italy he went to first at all. It was Egypt and Turkey and such outlandish places. She and her Mr. Gregory bought up a villa in Florence, and that is where she died. Of a fever, folks said, but it wouldn’t surprise me if she just died of partying every night.”
    “He does not speak of her at all. I have never even heard him mention her name, though he did say he was a widower. Of course I don’t know him well.”
    “Pride, that is what is keeping him close on the subject. I would not advise you to mention her to him. The Wickhams are all as proud as Spanish grandees. There never was such a scandal in the family before. At least her dying saved the disgrace of a divorce. She never married Gregory, you know, but just lived in sin with him. I don’t know how a Christian girl could do it.”
    A motion in the street distracted her from her story. “He must be coming out. There is Sally dropping a bag of buns all over the street. Ha, she has outdone herself this time. She has dropped a bottle of something, too—it is running down the gutter. What can it be? It looks like marbles. Olives! It is olives, nasty things, all pickled in brine. And here comes Lord Wickham. But she is out of luck. Mr. Cosby is helping her pick up the buns. They’ll be brushed off and put on the table, or I miss my bet.”
    “That one won’t see her table,” Cecilia said, when a mongrel grabbed one in its jaws and ran off. Lord Wickham entered the cobbler’s shop and came out with a long box.
    “He is buying a new pair of top boots,” Mrs. Meacham conjectured. Cecilia was more interested to notice that he had good reason to drive his phaeton. It wasn’t deference to his call on her that caused it.
    Their conversation was broken off by the entrance of the girls, back from the vicarage, and eager to hear all about Wickham’s visit. They had news of their own to relate as well. Andy Sproule had been at the vicarage. He had seen the Spanish dancer again and was looking forward to the new performer slated for that evening. The gentlemen, including Lord Wickham, planned to return to Jack Duck’s again that night. Any good Wickham’s visit had done was undone by this disclosure.
    “We shall send out the invitations for our rout next Saturday evening,” Cecilia said, to keep their spirits up. Her own mood was one of grim determination.
    It seemed no less than treachery that Wickham had come to see her, buttering up Mrs. Meacham and slyly arranging to return the next day. Why had he done it? The answer was clear to a six-year-old. He wanted to enjoy a ‘trifling’ friendship with her, and that would require her