“I am so sorry,” she said.

“Sit down,” Claudia said, drawing the other armchair a little closer to the fire, “and I will pour you a cup of tea. It is fresh.”

It had always been Susanna’s self-appointed job to pour the tea, but on this occasion she did not argue. She sank into the offered chair after setting aside her cloak and gloves with the shawl laid carefully on top of them. She welcomed the warmth of the fire against her chilled body.

“Now,” Claudia said after Susanna had taken her first sip of the blessedly hot tea, “what do you wish to tell me, if anything?”

They had never intruded into each other’s lives. It was remarkable that they had been such good friends for years without knowing very much about each other’s past-though, of course, Susanna had been only twelve when she came to the school.

“I saw someone in the Abbey,” she said. “Two people, actually, though I was not sure of the identity of the other person.”

“Two people you knew?” Claudia asked.

“A long time ago.” Susanna took a long drink from her cup and then set it in the saucer and put both on the table beside her. “I grew up in their home until the age of twelve, until my father died. He was secretary there.”

Claudia said nothing.

“He took his own life,” Susanna blurted. “He killed himself, Claudia. He shot himself in the head.”

“Ah, you poor dear,” Claudia said softly. “I did not know that.”

“I suppose my existence was not enough to make him want to live,” Susanna said. “He did not even make any provision for me.”

She was grateful that Claudia said nothing for a while. She had not even fully realized how much she had pitied herself all these years, how much she had resented the fact that her father had chosen death rather than her, even though she thought she understood at least part of his reason for doing what he had done. He had always been an affectionate father, though he had been content to let her grow up in the nursery with Edith and not see her for more than a few minutes in a day and sometimes not at all.

“And the person you saw this evening, the owner of the house, would make no provision for you either?” Claudia asked at last. “That is why you ran away, Susanna?”

“Lady Markham,” Susanna said, spreading her hands in her lap and looking down at them. “And I believe it was Edith with her. I shared a childhood with her though she was more than a year younger than I and the daughter of the house. We were very close even though I was really only a servant’s daughter. But my father was a gentleman.”

She had become defensive on that issue lately.

“Of course he was,” Claudia said. “I knew from the moment of your arrival in Bath that you were a lady, Susanna. You needed no elocution or deportment lessons, and you could already read. I have always thought that was why Mr. Hatchard noticed you and wrote to ask if I would take you here.”

“I was on my way from my bedchamber to the nursery,” Susanna said, pressing her palms harder into her lap and stiffening her fingers as she recounted the memories that had rushed at her earlier in the Abbey. “I was desperately seeking for some comfort, I suppose, even though there is no real comfort to be found when one’s papa has just blown his head off and one has not been allowed to see him despite one’s tears and screams. I wanted Edith. But I never got inside the nursery. I could hear Lady Markham speaking in there, though I have never known whom she was addressing. It could not have been Edith, who was barely eleven.”

She paused and drew a deep breath, which she expelled on a sigh.

“I believe I can still remember her exact words,” she said. “They are burned into my memory. The church has washed its hands of him, of course, she said. He committed a mortal sin when he took his own life. He will have to be buried in unconsecrated ground. And whatever are we to do with Susanna? This is such a burden for us to bear. She can hardly remain here. ”

She had fled-from the nursery and from the house.

“My father was not buried in the churchyard,” she said, “and I did not even stay to see what they actually did with him. I left him as he had left me and somehow found my way to London.”

“And now Lady Markham is in Bath,” Claudia said.

“Yes.” Susanna curled her fingers into her palms and lifted her head to stare into the fire. “And I am almost sure the young lady beside her was Edith. It is foolish to have been so discomposed. I was just looking around between pieces close to the end of the program, as I had been doing all evening. A large man a few rows behind me had moved out of my line of vision, and there they were. I suppose they had been there all the time. But I am fine now.” She smiled. “How was your evening with the senior girls?”

But Claudia ignored her question. She also was gazing into the fire.

“There is nothing worse, is there,” she said, “than a past that has never been fully dealt with. One can convince oneself that it is all safely in the past and forgotten about, but the very fact that we can tell ourselves that it is forgotten proves that it is not.”

Susanna swallowed. “But remembering is pointless,” she said, “when nothing can be done to change the past. I am fine, Claudia. Tomorrow I shall be my usual cheerful self, I promise.”

But she did wonder about Claudia. Was there something unresolved in her past? Was there something unresolved in everyone’s past? Was memory always as much of a burden as it could sometimes be a blessing?

Claudia looked up and smiled.

“When I saw your face as you stepped into the room,” she said, “I was convinced that Viscount Whitleaf must have put that look there. I was quite prepared to march down to the kitchen, avail myself of Cook’s rolling pin, and stride off in pursuit of him.”

“Oh, Claudia,” Susanna said before she could stop herself, “he asked me to marry him.”

Claudia went very still.

“And?…” she said.

“I said no, of course,” Susanna said.

“Did you?” Claudia asked. “Why?”

“He is the sort of man…oh, I do not know quite how to describe him,” Susanna said. “He often takes gallantry to an extreme. He wants to shoulder the burdens of all women of his acquaintance. He wants to make them comfortable. He wants to make them feel good about themselves. He will go to great lengths not to hurt them or deprive them of what seems important to them. And even that description does not quite express what I am trying to say. He is kind and open and…And he is quite muddleheaded. He could see that I was upset when he walked home with me, and he wanted to comfort me. And he thought perhaps that he had raised expectations in me during the summer and so felt that he owed me an offer of marriage. I suppose that he believes being a spinster schoolteacher is an undesirable fate for any woman.”

“And did he?” Claudia asked, looking at her with disconcertingly keen eyes. “Raise expectations in you?”

“No,” Susanna said. “No, he did not.”

“Do you love him?” Claudia asked.

Susanna opened her mouth to say no but shut it again. She drew a deep breath and released it slowly.

“Love has nothing to do with anything,” she said. “I said no and I meant no. It would not have been a happy marriage, Claudia, for either of us. Love on one side would only have made it worse-for me and perhaps for him too.”

“I know you are feeling weak and vulnerable tonight,” Claudia said after a few silent moments, “but in reality you are a very strong person, Susanna. And you were a strong girl. I always knew, of course, that your father had died and left you all alone in the world-you told me so when you came here. But I had no idea of the terrible truth until tonight. You were always the sunniest-natured of girls nevertheless-even if you were rather wild and rebellious for the first few months. And you are the sunniest-natured of my teachers and very much loved by all the girls-almost without exception, I believe. I will not question your decision to reject Viscount Whitleaf’s offer. Such a match would have offered you security and wealth and comfort for the rest of your life, of course, but you know that without my having to tell you so. I am very glad that you had the strength to put happiness and integrity before material security. And of course I am selfishly glad for myself.”

Susanna smiled rather wanly.

“He is coming here tomorrow afternoon,” she said. “He wants me to go walking with him. Perhaps I ought to have said no to that invitation too after being away from school this evening.”

“Ah, Susanna,” Claudia said, “we must live too when given the chance. Teaching is a job, my dear, not a life.”

Susanna looked at her in some surprise. She would have expected Claudia to be disapproving of the continued relationship.

“It will be the last time,” she promised, getting to her feet. “He will be leaving Bath soon.”

“Good night, Susanna,” Claudia said. “But I have not even asked you about the concert.”

“It was wonderful beyond words,” Susanna told her.

A few moments later she was on her way up to her room, feeling considerably calmer than she had felt when she first arrived home. But there was still a heavy ache of grief somewhere low in her abdomen.

He had asked her to marry him.

And she had said no.

Ah, she had said no.

And then she had set about comforting him because she knew she had made him unhappy.

But still she had said no. She could not marry him just because he felt guilty about having lain with her.

He did not love her.