Grace in Wonderland - Chapter 20
20. A Change of Decision
“W-Welcome.”
“Where is Lady Montague?”
Richard slightly modded his head, half-heartedly acknowledging Grace’s greeting. Then, he immediately inquired about Lady Montague’s whereabouts.
“She’s in… on the second floor… in her bedroom. B-But…”
“We’ll talk as we go.”
Richard ascended the stairs in a single stride, leaving Grace to quicken her pace to follow him.
“What exactly happened?”
“Well… actually…”
Grace’s face was as pale as a sheet. Richard stopped in front of Lady Montague’s bedroom and waited for her response.
“I-It’s nothing serious.”
“Nothing serious, you say?”
Richard frowned deeply. That Lady Montague had collapsed was serious enough, and if it truly wasn’t, then sending someone to the Spencer estate to summon the family physician made no sense.
“Well… it’s true she collapsed, but she woke up shortly after I sent for help.”
“And then?”
“She said it must’ve been indigestion. She mentioned that it sometimes happens when she’s under a lot of stress. She told me not to worry.”
Grace finished her explanation in a voice barely above a whisper. Richard sighed briefly before asking another question.
“Has the Earl’s physician arrived?”
“N-Not yet.”
“And what is her current condition?”
“She took some antacids and is now resting. I… I didn’t want to wake her until the doctor arrived, so I’ve just been watching over her.”
“I see.”
Richard quietly observed Grace, who was trembling slightly. Considering the time it would take for the estate servant to fetch the physician, the preparation required for a house call, and the journey to the Montague residence, waking Lady Montague immediately didn’t seem necessary.
“Miss Gurton.”
“Y-Yes?”
“If you don’t mind, may we have a conversation?”
Richard proposed. He intended to use the waiting time, both for the physician’s arrival and for the examination to be completed, to learn more about Grace Gurton—the cause of his recent headaches.
***
“Why haven’t you agreed to my aunt’s proposal, Miss Gurton?”
Richard asked in a dry tone. Despite holding a teacup steaming with warmth, his voice was cold and detached.
“I… I’ve never thought about something like that b-before.”
“Still, isn’t it a tempting offer? Being adopted into the Montague family would change a great many things.”
Richard had expected Grace to eagerly accept the proposal without hesitation, even prostrating herself in gratitude. Sebastian had thought the same, and likely so would most people. Thus, Grace Gurton’s refusal was not only surprising but bewildering.
Grace Gurton had a glaring weakness: she stammered. Just as she was doing now.
No matter how noble a lady’s lineage, if she stammered, she was bound to become a subject of ridicule. An irreparable flaw like that would inevitably bring shame to her parents—just as Richard Spencer himself was a source of shame to the Countess.
Moreover, Grace Gurton wasn’t of noble birth. She was the daughter of Annabel Gurton, who had been the subject of scorn in society for the past twenty years.
Annabel Lovelace, once the daughter of a viscount’s family in southern Ingrint, fell in love and bore a child before marriage twenty years ago. While shameful, such incidents occasionally occurred even in the tumultuous world of high society and could often be remedied by marrying the child’s father, restoring some measure of reputation.
The problem lay in the fact that the man she loved was the young vicar assigned to the parish on the Lovelace estate. Although Ingrint’s Anglican laws didn’t outright forbid clergy from marrying, the issue was that the vicar was already married.
Both parties had their reasons. Annabel claimed she hadn’t known the vicar was married. The vicar himself, Lewis Gurton, hadn’t known he had a wife.
Lewis Gurton had left his hometown to study theology. While he was away, his father had arranged a marriage for him without his knowledge to secure a large dowry.
Such practices were unthinkable in Lydon, but in the remote southwest corners of Ingrint, such occurrences weren’t unusual.
Though Ingrint was a constitutional state, customs often took precedence over law in more remote areas. Lewis Gurton’s marriage was one such case.
Ingrint’s Anglican registry required all life changes to be recorded. Local parishes sent updates to their dioceses, which forwarded them to the headquarters in Cantenbury—a process that took years. Thus, Lewis Gurton had been unaware of his own marital status.
Unknowing of this, Lewis fell in love with Annabel Lovelace, a cheerful noblewoman who attended his church services. Before long, they fell in love and, away from the watchful eyes of adults, had a child together.
Viscount Lovelace was furious. However, as he couldn’t marry off his pregnant daughter to another man, he had no choice but to consent to the marriage.
However, shortly after their wedding, as the couple basked in their newfound happiness, a woman claiming to be Mrs. Gurton suddenly appeared. Lewis Gurton had sent a letter to his family home to announce his marriage to Annabel Lovelace, but it had been received by the woman listed as his legal wife in the church registry.
This “Mrs. Gurton” declared Lewis’s marriage to Annabel null and void. She then filed a complaint with the ecclesiastical court, accusing Annabel of adultery with a man who already had a wife.
Desperate, Lewis persuaded Annabel to flee. Their destination was Aire, a remote corner of the continent beyond Ingrint’s jurisdiction.
On a stormy night, Lewis quietly took his heavily pregnant wife by the hand, and together they boarded a ship. After that night, no one ever saw them again.
Their disappearance caused an uproar in society. Such an extraordinary scandal could never remain buried. The nobles of Lydon, notorious for their penchant for digging up and showcasing buried secrets, made sure it didn’t.
Though Lewis and Annabel had physically left, they hadn’t truly disappeared. Their bodies might have escaped Ingrint, but their names remained behind, to be chewed over, torn apart, savored, and gossiped about.
Premarital pregnancy, adultery, and elopement—a perfect trifecta of scandal that wouldn’t reappear in the next hundred years. Because of this, their story was retold and retold, turning Annabel Gurton into the enduring refrain of Lydon’s social gossip.
Although both parents were said to have died, their daughter Grace Gurton survived. With the help of Lady Mary Montague, she left Aire and came to live in Ingrint.
Richard thought it might be better for Grace to continue living unnoticed, as she seemed to be doing under the protection of Professor Charles Dodgson in Grentabridge.
Whether Grace Gurton was a femme fatale or not was not something Richard judged. From her circumstances alone, exposing her to the jungle-like world of high society could very well backfire.
Nevertheless, Mary Montague’s decision to embrace Grace appeared to be for the sake of her friend, Annabel Gurton. Mary seemed resolved to restore Annabel’s tarnished reputation—repeatedly summoned as the refrain of high-society gossip—and to secure Grace’s future.
Meeting someone willing to overlook such flaws was a rare stroke of fortune in life. Having made the decision, Mary and Anthony Montague would extend their generosity to accept Grace Gurton into their family. All Grace needed to do was accept the luck handed to her.
If Mary Montague became her mother, Grace’s life would be enriched and improved in every way: a comfortable life, an excellent social standing, and the loving, respected presence of adoptive parents. There was no reason to refuse.
Yet Grace had declined the proposal outright. Persuaded by Lady Montague, she had eventually said she would “think about it,” which, in typical Ingrintian style, meant, “I’ll refuse later, but let’s stop here for now.”
And so, deep within Richard Spencer’s mind, a faint, almost absurd expectation began to form—the thought that perhaps Grace Gurton might actually grasp the nuances of Ingrintian language and the logic of mathematics.
That hope lasted only until her next words.
“S-So… I’ve decided to a-accept Lady Montague’s proposal.”