“I really came to talk about the Earl of Heyward,” she said, leaning slightly forward in her chair.
“Oh.” Miss Goddard sat slightly back in hers. “Are you regretting that you refused him?”
“No, not at all,” Angeline said, her heart plummeting nevertheless to take up residence in the soles of her shoes. “I want to ask you a question. You must not feel obliged to answer, for of course it is impertinent of me and absolutely none of my concern. But all this business of ton alliances and marriages is horridly complicated, you know. Everyone wants to marry well, which means choosing and setting one’s cap at the most eligible … other. I will not say man, because it works both ways, though that did not really occur to me until after I had come to town and made my come-out. I had always thought that it was only we ladies who would be hoping to find the perfect husband, but of course that was shortsighted of me because men have to marry too, for a variety of reasons, and they also want to marry the very best candidate. And the very best, for both men and women, is not necessarily the person they like best. It is often whom their family likes best, or who society suggests is best, or who has the most illustrious title and lineage or the most money, provided it has not been acquired in business or commerce, of course, for then it is tainted by vulgarity, just as if money were not simply money. No one even thinks about love or the fact that the two people have to live together after they marry and make the best of what often turns out to be not a very great bargain at all even if it pleases all the rest of the world. People can be terribly foolish, can they not?”
“Far too frequently,” Miss Goddard agreed. “What is your question, Lady Angeline?”
“Well, it is very impertinent,” Angeline said. “But I shall ask it anyway since it is what I came here to do. Do you love Lord Heyward, Miss Goddard? I mean, do you love him in a way that makes you ache here when you think that perhaps you will never have him?” She tapped a closed fist over her heart.
Miss Goddard sat farther back in her chair and set her arms along the armrests. She looked perfectly relaxed—except that the fore- and middle fingers of her right hand were beating out a fast little tattoo.
“Why would you ask such a question?” she asked. “We are friends. We have been for years.”
“But would you marry him if he asked?” Angeline asked her.
Miss Goddard opened her mouth once to speak but closed it again. She started once more after a short silence.
“We once had an agreement,” she said, “that we would marry each other at some time in the distant future if nothing happened in the meanwhile to change our minds. Neither of us felt drawn to marriage at the time, though we both recognized that eventually we might see the advisability or the necessity of entering the marital state rather than remaining single. We were seekers of knowledge at the time, two earnest young people who had not yet felt the pull of the world beyond the pages of a book or the learned confines of Cambridge or the exciting workings of our own minds. Something did happen to change our minds, of course. Edward’s brother died and he became the earl in his place. It made all the difference, you know. Not to who he is, but to what. And the what is important in the real world.”
“But why?” Angeline asked her. “He does not need to marry money. At least, I do not believe he does, or Tresham would not even have allowed him to speak to me yesterday. He does not need to marry position. All society really demands of him is that he marry respectably. You are eminently respectable, Miss Goddard. You are a lady, and you are refined and sensible and intelligent. And you are his friend.”
Miss Goddard smiled.
“Lady Angeline,” she said, “you refused Edward yesterday. Are you trying to matchmake for him today?”
Angeline looked down at her hands. It was precisely what she was doing. Though not so much for him as for her new friend, whom she liked exceedingly well. She dearly loved Martha and Maria and hoped they would remain her close friends for the rest of her life, but Miss Goddard was the friend she had always yearned to have. She could not understand quite why it was so. It just was. And it hurt her heart to see her friend a wallflower at balls, unseen and unappreciated when she was the equal of anyone and the superior of most. She was Angeline’s superior.
“It just struck me,” she said, “that in all likelihood you love him and he loves you and yet he was forced into offering for me. Not literally forced, I suppose, but definitely maneuvered by what society expects of him. And by his family too, even though they are very pleasant people. I believe they actually like me and genuinely believed that I would be the best possible wife for him. But it is you he ought to marry. It is you he must marry. When he strolled about the ballroom with you last evening after supper—after you danced with Lord Windrow—you looked very right together. As if you belonged with each other.”
“He certainly thought you looked very happy,” Miss Goddard said.
“Oh,” Angeline said. “I was happy. Quite blissfully so. I have never enjoyed an evening so well in my life.”
She looked down at her hands again. And instead of picking up the conversation, Miss Goddard let it rest. The silence stretched. Angeline looked up again after what must have been a full minute.
“I just want to be your friend,” she said, “if that does not strike you as being too utterly absurd. I thought we might walk together in the park occasionally or go to the library together or spend a little while in each other’s company if we are attending the same entertainment. But I also want you to know that I will not find it awkward if you wish to encourage Lord Heyward’s suit. I will not feel you are somehow betraying me—if you accept my friendship, that is. Indeed, I would be very happy for you. I—Oh, dear, I have no right to be saying any of this. And the very idea that you would wish to be my friend—”
“Lady Angeline.” Miss Goddard leaned forward suddenly and reached out a hand in Angeline’s direction. “I grew up in Cambridge with my father and my brother—my mother died when I was six. I grew up surrounded by men. In many ways it was a wonderful upbringing. I was allowed to read anything I wanted and to listen to endlessly stimulating conversations and drink in knowledge to my heart’s content. I knew no girls of my own age—I never went to school. Now I am here with my aunt, too old to mingle easily with girls of your age, too young to settle into a resigned spinsterhood. I am not poor or of lowly birth, but neither am I really a member of the ton except as the niece of Lady Sanford. I have never had a come-out. I do not have a bright and sparkling personality to be noticed when I do mingle in society. I do not wish to paint an abject picture of myself. I have always been very content with my lot in life. I have been privileged in many ways. Although I did not have governesses or go to school, I believe my own education to have been an excellent one. It was certainly one that always excited me. But Lady Angeline, I believe I have always longed for a female friend.”