Candy's heart was light, too. Poor Aunt Elroy, thought Candy. She is suffering from loneliness so much, but she is too proud to be open to people.
When the girl grew up, she began to understand those who didn't like her in childhood. She used to think of Madam Elroy as an unsociable vixen, but now she could feel her pain and loneliness.
"She likes to sit alone, like an old crow," Neil said once, but Stear, Archie and Antony all said the same. And Aunt Elroy loved them as much as she could. In her world, good manners, knowledge and family's honor were the most important things in life.
Miss White was going downstairs when she suddenly saw the person she had also wanted to talk to – Mrs. Legan, Neil's mother.
"Mrs. Legan!" Candy called. The elegant woman turned around.
"Candy," whispered Sarah Legan.
The girl came up to her and froze in unintentional admiration in front of this perfection.
Mrs. Legan! When Candy had seen her for the first time, she had thought this woman was an example of a true lady. Beautiful, slender, her hair always combed, always wearing elegant dresses…
In her childhood, Candy wanted to imitate her, but then she realized Mrs. Legan would never become her mother. "You are not our daughter, Candy, are you?" this beautiful and cruel woman once said…
Then Candy became disenchanted with her. She was not ideal, she was just a person. Maybe even not the kindest and fairest one…
But now the girl was looking at her differently. She was looking at the mother of the person she loved.
She had given birth to him, and in her facial features – her eyes, her smile, her gestures – Candy could guess the similarity with her beloved person. At least for this could Candy feel a wave of tenderness towards her.
"You… you're so beautiful today, Mrs. Legan!" the girl exclaimed childishly.
But Sarah only sighed and tightened her lips. Candy's ingeniousness had always irritated her very much.
"Thanks," she replied dryly. "Did you want something from me?"
"Yes," Miss White answered under the squinted brown eyes. "I… I wanted to talk to you."
"About what?" the lady raised her eyebrows.
Candy felt like a little girl, who hadn't pleased her stepparents. Again, she didn't know what tosay. Apologize. "You must apologize, Candy…"
The girl stood silently, and then suddenly, as if she had remembered something, Mrs. Legan said in a completely different tone:
"Come on, let's go sit in the blue hall."
Then she smiled and motioned to follow her. Candy obeyed, trying to remember the words she had thought about in the morning…
They were sitting in front of each other at a small table with the cups filled with aromatic tea. The blue hall was very beautiful – the furniture and the decorations were blue and made in the same style.
"We should have told you about our engagement before we announced it," said Candy.
"Neil makes decisions on his own. He is a grown-up man, a businessman. He has decided on the wedding on his own, as well," Sarah said without any emotions, but Candy could feel slight sadness and concern in her voice.
"You… you don't like his choice, do you?" she asked quietly.
The emotions that Mrs. Legan had been hiding so carefully finally came over her. She looked Candy in the eye with a long and scrutinizing gaze, then stood up and came up to the window.
"Don't know why you need all this," the lady said quietly. "You don't love him."
"I…"
"Hold on. When you were to get your inheritance, you denied it, didn't you? Then it's not about the money, because you would have been rich anyway. Why then?"
"Mrs. Legan, I do love him!"
The emotion in the girl's voice made Sarah turn around.
"You do? You said you hate him, you said it yourself in front of the whole family!"
Candy stood up and came up to Mrs. Legan.
"Yes, I hated him then," Miss White looked down. "But now I love him."
"Sounds like a woman's novel," Sarah smirked.
"Still, that is true," Candy replied firmly.
"And what happened that made you change your mind?"
The girl looked into Mrs. Legan's eyes, so much like Neil's. She realized Sarah wasn't waiting for a formal answer, but instead, she feared lest her son should be unhappy.
It must have been a great shock and humiliation for Neil's mother when Candy had rejected his proposal. Like all mothers in the world, she had thought of her son as the best, the most handsome, the most brilliant and so on and so forth, and suddenly he got rejected in public… And now he wanted to marry this girl again.
Insult and anxiety for her child were hiding behind Sarah's cruel words.
Candy smiled.
"How can you not love him?" she asked.
"What" Sarah didn't understand.
"I mean, not you, but generally, how can someone not love him? He is so handsome, so smart and funny. I can feast my eyes on him forever, like a painting."
The girl missed her fiancé very much, and, having imagined his face, admiringly listed all his merits – the actual ones and those only visible to her amorous eyes.
"He has an infectious smile, and he is a great driver…"
"That's true! And this Archie is always complaining about Neil, although he himself drives worse," Mrs. Legan suddenly supported her and sighed: "Oh! When he was a little boy, he was so sweet!" The lady looked in the window, but it seemed that she was looking somewhere far away. "You'll understand it one day. When your child has grown up and doesn't need your advice any longer."
"Why?" Candy argued heartedly. "A person always needs mother's advice!"
"Oh, come on, if I stay here and you go to Florida, what kind of advice would you need?" Mrs. Legan's lips shivered. "If I'm going to see him only on big holidays."
"We've decided to live here."
"You… you've decided to live here?"
"Yes, we thought it would be better."
The elegant lady blinked several times, not believing her ears.
"Mrs. Legan," Candy whispered. "Wish us happiness… Please."
The girl was talking so sincerely, that Sarah believed her. She was doing her best to keep her self-control and not burst into tears.
"Well, of course I wish you happiness. This is exactly what I told Neil," she said in a flat voice.
But her cold eyes had become warmer…