Always in April

IV.

Sebastian gave a level nod to thank Lord Hatherington for his advice.

"Sir William could be a great friend of yours indeed," Lord Hatherington added. "I did not place you under him merely to put you in a respectable position. It is a position from which you may rise, a position from which you have a duty to rise."

"If he can." Lady Hatherington heaped salad on her plate. "You forget, Lord Hatherington, that not all men have talent. We may plant the seed, we may water the ground, but oaks will only grow from acorns."

"Let us hope that Mr Price is an acorn then," Edmund said jovially, pinching Sebastian's arm. "You look more like a chestnut to me."

Lord Hatherington disapproved this — and all — levity. "A duty," he continued as though his wife and son had not spoken, "to your wife to rise up as close as you can to the position in society from which she came. A duty to us to return in gratitude and industry what we have given you in patronage and charity."

Sebastian's eyes flashed across the table to meet Cecelia's. "I am aware of my responsibilities towards Lady Cecelia," he said.

"I do not think you are," Lord Hatherington said. "Do you understand that you have the chance to make it right? The wrong you did us all?"

Cecelia's hands tightened on her fork. Sebastian swilled his wine as though he hadn't a care in the world.

"I don't think you feel the weight of your position," Lord Hatherington said. "You seem unconcerned."

"There is little point encouraging bad feelings for the sake of them," Sebastian replied.

"On the contrary, our bad feelings may guide our conduct to righter paths. A little shame expressed, Mr Price, would not go amiss."

"I have done nothing of which I am ashamed, my lord."

"He always was an unfeeling bastard," Edmund said half-admiringly.

Lady Hatherington set down her wineglass empty. "The point, Mr Price, is that you have brought shame on us. On my daughter."

At that, Cecelia almost spoke. She made a move to; Sebastian caught the move and looked at her. When she met his eyes, she knew she was ashamed. Not so much of him. Of herself. She had eloped. More than that, she had put her trust in a man she was no longer sure of. That was something to be ashamed of. Being tricked. If she had been.

"Our daughter was born to a certain position in this world," Lady Hatherington said. "In one night, you dragged her down to a far lower one. The cruel look on and laugh behind their hands at us, at our daughter, at what you did to us. The kind pity us and fear the same fate for their own daughters. And yet you show no remorse. You show no comprehension of what you have done to us."

"I comprehend fully the manner in which my actions have discomfited you," Sebastian said. "And I can only assure you once more that I will work hard to raise my own position so that hers will not be shadowed. But I will not pretend to be ashamed of marrying Cecelia."

Lord Hatherington thumped the table, making Cecelia jump. "Work hard! That's what you said last time! Pah! I do not believe it! If you had any intention of working hard, you would never have married her in the first place!"

────

"Work hard!" Lord Hatherington scoffed, striding up and down the drawing-room carpet. "Why, if the boy meant to work hard, he'd never have married her in the first place! He did it for her money, Anne! And it cannot be undone. It can never be undone."

That had been after Lord Hatherington had calmed down long enough to cease shouting, and Lady Hatherington had gathered her wits well enough to keep her tears at bay. Cecelia and Sebastian sat on the couch like prisoners in the dock awaiting sentence while her parents argued the matter over their heads. She could not look at Sebastian. It was the seventeenth time her parents had said he had married her for her money. She could not believe them, but there was the chance that if she looked at Sebastian and saw something in his eyes, it would confirm it. She dared not. Instead she looked at the carpet, at Sebastian's boots, the Gretna Green mud flaking from them.