EIGHTEEN YEARS LATER

Betty Fane was a pretty girl, her mother thought with pride. The father who had created her had given her a certain handsomeness that blended nicely with her mother's smile and dark hair, but she was Walter's child through and through. Despite all her efforts with the two of them, neither could read a note of music -though they loved hearing Kitty play- and owing perhaps to the nights he'd spent reading to her in the womb, Betty was far more scientifically inclined than her mother. The father who raised her could not have been more proud.

By now, her parents had come to accept there would be no more children. Kitty had hoped desperately for another, but it seemed the fault lay with Walter and not herself, since she'd had no trouble conceiving with Charlie. It was Walter himself who had put forth the theory, his voice conveying the deepest sorrow but no bitterness.

"I'm sorry," she'd said one night when Betty was five. "I suppose we missed our chance to have one of our own."

"I rather think Betty might have been our only chance."

"What do you mean?" She'd raised her head from his chest to look at him, not quite understanding.

"Two years, and nothing. Then Townsend came along."

"Walter, please-" They'd moved back to their own country not long after Betty was born. To everyone else, they wanted to raise her among proper English society; in truth Kitty had been unable to bear the idea of their child ever being around Charlie, and Walter had made the necessary arrangements so that he might work in England. Charles Townsend had not been spoken of, since, and it needled her that he should do so, now.

He shushed her, and his voice held no accusation as he continued. "I imagine, then, the defect lies with myself, not you. If not for him, we wouldn't have Betty." Kitty had nodded sadly, lying back down. "And I can't resent that," he added, embracing her just a little tighter.

"At least you'll know, then," she said with a watery laugh, "if I've been faithful." The joke was a grim one, but she hadn't truly meant to be funny.

"The silver lining," he agreed, answering in the same vein.

They made their peace with it, and Betty had yet to ask who she looked like. Another blessing, then, for a sibling might have given her cause to wonder why her own features didn't quite match up with her family.

"I'm nervous, mummy," Betty said, picking at her breakfast. Her final exams were today.

"There's no need. If I know your father, you know everything on that test forwards and backwards. Eat," she added, "you can't think on an empty stomach.

"Listen to your mother," Walter added. "Eat up, or you're going to be late."

Kitty was pleased to have such a clever daughter and had very little doubt that she'd pass and go on to university. Their Betty had been raised much differently from her mother. Kitty had been unable to help being proud of her child's beauty, but Betty valued herself as intelligent, as well, and knew she need never settle for a man she didn't love just to have a roof over her head. She would complete her studies in her own time, and she would find a man who valued her from the first as more than a pretty trinket.

After their daughter had rushed away to "have her fate decided," Kitty allowed her own nerves to get the better of her. Walter tried to distract her, even going so far as to turn on the radio and offer her a dance; a noble sacrifice when he was still so hopeless at it, but though she laughed with him, at him, she fretted for Betty's dreams. For the dreams she, too, might have had if she'd been raised to be more than a doll. Walter had made an effort at instructing her the way he did Betty, but she feared it was too late for her. Or perhaps she'd never had a head for intelligence at all. She didn't know which was worse.

That evening, after dinner, a very nervous Betty informed them that Robert had proposed to her in front of school on the way home. Kitty choked and went silent. Walter nudged her foot under the table, telling her without words he was going to leave this battle up to her.

"What about university?" Her voice conveyed all her disappointment.

"Mummy, please don't look at me like that. Of course I'm going to university. We're going together, that's all. We've applied to all the same ones."

"And if this doesn't work out?"

"Then we go our seperate ways. Perhaps he'll meet someone else, or perhaps I will. We've talked about it. Please don't worry."

Kitty promised that she wouldn't, but in bed that night, she admitted that she still did. "I don't want her to rush."

"Our Betty is a smart girl, and she knows how to make her own way. She's not going to get desperate and settle for the first bore who comes along."

"You are a dreadful bore," she snarked at him because she knew his choice of words had been intended to get a rise out of her.

Walter only laughed and kissed her goodnight.