Authors: Juliana Gray
TWENTY-TWO
F
or a brief moment, on waking, Alexandra was surprised not to find herself engaged in vigorous sexual congress with Phineas Burke atop an African elephant.
She lay against her pillows for a long moment, recovering from the disappointment. The dream was so real, so vivid. She could still sense the sway of the elephant, feel Finn’s steely arms encircling her, smell the earthy mingling of oil and smoke and sweat on his shirt . . .
Smoke.
She bolted upright. What time was it? Why the devil was she sleeping in her own bed?
Where was Finn?
She flew to the window. Late morning, from the height of the sun. The hills rolled away from her, exactly as they had the day before, every detail in its place. In the vineyards the men tended to the grapes, shirts billowing white against the greens and browns of the earth. No sign of anything out of place. No sign of Finn.
In swift movements she shed her smoke-laden clothes and cleaned her face and hands and neck with cool water from the pitcher on her dresser. Dressed anew, she hurried down the silent corridors to Finn’s room and found it bare and lifeless in the brightness of day.
In the kitchen, she encountered signs of life at last. Signorina Morini stood at the kitchen table straining the jugs of milk from the goats.
“Has Mr. Burke been downstairs?” Alexandra asked breathlessly.
Signorina Morini looked up. Her face looked rather pale. “No, signora.”
“There was an accident in his workshop yesterday. A fire.”
“Yes, I have heard this.” She hesitated and picked up another jug to pour through the strainer. “But there is nobody hurt?”
“No, nobody. I stayed to help Mr. Burke clean up, and then . . . then I suppose he must have brought me back here, though I don’t remember it. Did you see anything?”
The housekeeper shook her head, not looking up. “Nothing, signora. You are perhaps a little hungry? A little thirsty?”
“Yes, rather. Only I’d like to run down to the workshop first, to see if he’s there.”
“Eat first. Drink first.” Signorina Morini wiped her hands on her apron and turned to the cupboard. “The feast, it is a long time ago.”
“No, really. I’ll only be a moment. Where is everybody?”
“Signorina Abigail was milking the goats.” She set out bread and cheese on the table and went to fill the kettle with water. “There is a letter for you.”
“What, a letter? So early? From whom?”
The housekeeper nodded. “On the table.”
Alexandra saw the folded sheet and picked it up.
My dear Alexandra, I have been obliged to depart unexpectedly early this morning. I shall return as soon as possible. You must not follow me.
It was not signed, but the copperplate handwriting, though hasty, was unmistakably that of her cousin Lilibet.
“How odd.” Alexandra fingered the edge of the paper. “Did you see her leave this here? Did you speak to her?”
Signorina Morini hung the kettle above the fire. “No, signora. I did not. A little of the bread?”
“But surely you heard something? Horses, a messenger?”
The housekeeper went back to the cupboard for the tea. “Signore Penhallow, he is not here this morning.”
Alexandra dropped into a nearby chair. “Penhallow! She’s run off with Penhallow?”
“Perhaps.” The housekeeper cleared her throat. “Or perhaps there is something else . . .”
But Alexandra wasn’t listening. She clapped a hand to her mouth. “Oh, good God! Good God! Why didn’t you say anything? And the boy?”
“He is gone, too.”
“Oh, how marvelous! She’s done it! Oh, the darling girl!”
Signorina Morini managed a strained smile and turned back to the kettle on the fire.
“Perhaps you don’t approve, with her husband and all that, but I assure you Lord Somerton has quite forfeited any claim on her.” Alexandra took up the bread. “It’s marvelous. I’m delighted.”
“You are wanting a little of lemon with your tea, signora?”
“No.” Alexandra rose. “I’ll drink it later. I’m off to the workshop. I can’t wait to tell F—. . . to tell Mr. Burke.”
“Wait, signora! Your breakfast!”
But Alexandra had already fled out the door, bread clutched in her hand.
It was just the news to raise Finn’s spirits.
* * *
A
t first, as she pivoted about in the smoke-scented center of the workshop, she thought he must be testing out the automobile on the road.
Of course he would want to make sure the machine hadn’t been damaged in the fire. He’d probably woken early, unable to rest until she’d achieved her forty miles an hour to his satisfaction.
Odd, though. The spare battery was missing as well.
Perhaps he’d had it tossed out with the rest of the rubbish. It seemed a tremendous waste, but if he thought nothing could be salvaged from it, well, that was that.
The blankets had been picked up from the floor, she noticed. A tidy gesture. But where had the chests gone? The spare parts? The tires?
The hydraulic lift for the battery?
Her heart thudded in her ear. Nothing to be concerned about. Any number of likely explanations.
If only she could think of one.
I changed my mind. I thought perhaps it might be better to leave sooner, rather than later.
With leaden steps she walked back outside and around the building, past the carriage doors, tightly shut, to the protective shed that housed the dynamo. Massive black steel machine, custom-made to his specifications, too large and loud to be housed inside the workshop. He’d shown her how it worked, how it converted the mechanical energy from the nearby stream into the electrical energy that charged the battery.
Her hands trembled as she opened the wide door to the shed. It swung easily, as if the hinges had been recently oiled, and revealed nothing but a great dark void where the dynamo had been.
Empty.
She shut the door at once and turned and leaned against it, staring upward at the pure, depthless blue of the sky, at the small silver green leaves of the nearby olive trees. Under her feet, she knew, there would be marks: scuffed dirt and wheel tracks and footprints. Signs of Finn’s leaving.
All at once, she pushed herself upright. He wouldn’t have left without a word. A note of some kind must exist somewhere.
She strode back purposefully through the clipped green grass to the workshop and flung open the front door. Where would he leave it? She scanned the worktable, the long counter. She opened the scorched wooden door of the cabinet. The windowsills, the walls—he occasionally pinned notes and diagrams into the wood, where he wouldn’t miss them.
The chests? Mostly gone, but a pair remained, near the lamp table. She drew near and saw a stack of envelopes, today’s post perhaps. She picked them up and flipped through them, curled and browned at the edges, but thankfully far enough from the blaze to have escaped destruction.
A sheet fluttered to the ground.
She bent to pick it up and caught, from the corner of her eye, her own name written there in tidy handwriting.
Precise, even, legible handwriting. A lawyer’s handwriting, a businessman’s.
Nothing like Finn’s.
Dowager Marchioness of Morley, 22,800 shares
She folded the paper before she could read more, running her fingers along the creases to sharpen them, but it made no difference. The letters still burned in her brain, black and stark and impartial, stating the undeniable fact of the case.
A world, a lifetime of guilt, packed into those few brief words and numbers.
Alexandra, you must tell me the truth. You must trust me.
So he’d found out. Had questioned her, and found her wanting. Now he’d made his decision: to leave for Rome without her.
She could follow him. Could beg him to forgive her, to understand. But how could she face the look in his eyes, the distance, the pity? The power it would give him, having forgiven her? The chance, possibly, that he might not understand, that he might not forgive her?
And how could she forgive herself, for deceiving him in the first place?
She couldn’t do that, couldn’t come to him as a pauper
and
as a supplicant. Everything she had would depend on him: on his money, on his mercy.
She replaced the papers on top of the chest and walked out of the workshop, into the sultry midsummer air, where the birds chattered impatiently in the trees and the men in the fields had gone in to lunch.
TWENTY-THREE
Two weeks later
T
he goat eyed her balefully, ears flattened with suspicion.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Alexandra said. “You’re supposed to look grateful. That udder of yours looks as if it’s about to burst.”
Abigail sighed at her from two goats over. “Alex, there’s no point trying to win over goats with irony. They don’t appreciate it.”
“I should think a goat would adore irony.” Alexandra reached for the bucket and placed it with due care underneath the pertinent udder. “I think it suits them.”
“Now there’s where you’re wrong. It shows you have no real understanding of goats at all, not after two full weeks of instruction.” Abigail gave her goat a final squeeze and rose with her bucket. “I’m ashamed of you.”
“They may hate me all they like, but they can’t argue with my technique.”
“You’re a natural, I admit.” Abigail poured the milk into one of the tall jugs lining the wall and moved on to the next goat. “One look at you, and the poor thing lets its milk down in a torrent. Probably out of sheer fear.”
“I expect they know I have nothing left to lose.” She took hold of the teats and squeezed with vigor, enjoying the sight of the swift white lines shooting into the pail, enjoying the visible proof of her own usefulness. Or perhaps
enjoying
was too strong a word for this rather subdued sense of satisfaction she felt just now. The most, really, she was capable of feeling.
Still, it was something. It gave her a reason to rise out of bed in the morning. To dress, to eat, to speak, to carry on.
Tomorrow she and Abigail would be returning home. Their trunks were already packed. She had no desire to be near when Finn returned from his exposition in Rome. No, they’d leave the men in peace. They’d do what they ought to have done long before, and let Wallingford and Finn pursue their studies without further hindrance.
Back to London, then, to a rented house in Fulham or perhaps Putney. She would sell her shares in Manchester Machine Works and invest the meager proceeds in sound British consols. Together with her remaining capital and Abigail’s small inheritance, they would have perhaps two hundred pounds a year. Enough to live in genteel dignity, with a servant or two. An occasional dinner party, if she were economical. Books from the lending library, as many as she liked. Visits from Lilibet and Penhallow, perhaps, whenever that pair turned up again: They’d had no word at all in two weeks.
Somehow, the prospect didn’t seem as bleak, as desperate as it had a few months ago. The physical details of her life no longer mattered much.
“What did you say?” asked Abigail.
“Nothing.”
She went on milking alongside her sister, in the warm, companionable silence of the goat shed, the final milking before tomorrow’s dawn departure. When the last animal’s udder had been emptied, she picked up two of the tall metal jugs and carried them across the stableyard to the door to the kitchens.
“Hullo,” said Abigail, “what’s that?”
Alexandra turned her head and stopped. A trail of fine yellow dust rose up in the air from the long main driveway. “I’ve no idea. Penhallow and Lilibet, perhaps?”
“It can’t be. They’d have written; there’s been no word at all. Perhaps a guest?”
Alexandra frowned. “I can’t think who. Unless . . .” A shiver of trepidation crawled up her spine.
“You don’t think it’s Lord Somerton?”
“Of course not.” She stared at the cloud of dust, at its hard brown center that might possibly be a carriage of some kind. “Come along. Let’s get this milk in the kitchen. If we’re to entertain guests, we ought at least to clean the goat droppings from our shoes.”
And indeed, no one would have mistaken the polished, well-dressed lady who descended the main staircase, twenty minutes later, for the homespun woman bringing in the milk jugs from the goat shed. Not that she cared, particularly. Good grooming was a matter of habit, ingrained in her by her mother and a succession of nursemaids and governesses from the time she could walk.
One brushed one’s hair and pinned it neatly in place even when one’s heart was breaking. One extended one’s thoroughly washed hand in greeting to visitors, even when one wished all the people of the world to the devil.
“Good morning,” she said now to the young man in the great hall, whose tweed-covered back was turned as he contemplated the medieval vastness of his surroundings. “I know, it’s a great deal of empty space, and most inhospitable, but . . . Good God! Mr. Hartley!”
Her nephew-in-law whirled around and dropped his hat from under his arm. “Lady Morley!”
“What on earth are you doing here?”
His thin mouth opened and closed. “I . . . I . . . I should ask the same! I thought . . . Isn’t this . . . Isn’t Mr. Burke staying here?”
“Oh! Mr. Burke! Of course.”
William Hartley bent over and picked up his hat. “I beg your pardon. I’d . . . it’s the devil of shock. I knew you were away on the Continent somewhere, but . . .” He checked himself, hands chewing at the edges of his hat, the wheels of his brain visibly whirling. “Did you . . . you and Mr. Burke . . . I say, I . . . I didn’t know you were acquainted.” His voice struggled audibly for tact.
“Oh, we weren’t. It was all a great misunderstanding. A muddle with the estate agent.” She smiled and took his arm. “Come with me to the library. It’s the only habitable reception space, other than the dining room.”
By the time they’d settled into the moldering sofa in the library, and Francesca had arrived with tea, Mr. Hartley seemed to have recovered himself. “Lady Morley! Gad! Here of all places. Charming surprise.”
“Charming.” She reached for the teapot and poured.
“I say, you’re looking splendid. Roses in your cheeks and all that.”
“Why, thank you. I find life in Italy agrees with me tremendously. Would you like cream and sugar?”
“Oh yes. Both, if you please.”
“I’m afraid you’ve missed Mr. Burke, however. He’s already gone down to Rome for his automobile exposition.” She dropped in the sugar and stirred it, the muscles of her fingers remembering the ritual even though her brain found it oddly foreign.
“Yes, of course. Headed down there myself.” He took the cup and saucer from her and beamed. “It’s just as well I found you, in fact. The most tremendous news. We’ve had our breakthrough at last!”
“Breakthrough?”
“Splendid, splendid business! Finally sorted out the steam transmission, ridiculously complicated affair, had my engineers confounded for ages.” He leaned forward. “It’s highly privileged information, of course. You’re not to tell a soul. I shouldn’t tell you, if you weren’t a shareholder and all that.”
“Why, no. I mean, yes, I’m a shareholder, and no, I shan’t tell a single soul.” She set her own tea on the lamp table. Her fingers were shaking too hard to keep the cup from clattering.
“We’ve entered the automobile in the exposition. The race, you see.” He set down his own cup and knit his fingers together. “We fully expect to win it, and then—well, once the news is out, I daresay you’ll finally be able to sell those shares of yours at a handsome profit. Yes, a very handsome profit, ha-ha!”
She blinked. “Win it?”
“Oh yes. I’ve clocked her at forty-five miles an hour, Lady Morley. Forty-five! Well, I daresay that means little to you, but I assure you it’s tremendous.” He picked up his tea again and took a dainty sip. “Tremendous.”
“Yes. I’m . . . I’m quite thrilled.”
He replaced the teacup in the saucer and coughed into his hand. “Always felt a bit rotten about that, you know. Investing your jointure, and having things work out . . . well, rather poorly. Never expected old Morley to kick off so soon, you see. Oh, egad! I beg your pardon.”
“No, not at all,” she said dazedly. “But I’m afraid I don’t quite understand. Why were you coming to see Mr. Burke, if it’s all meant to be a great secret until after the race?”
“Oh, that. Well, it was a bit of an impulse, really. I was on my way down and realized I was no more than a few hours’ drive away, so I thought I’d come to refuse his offer in person, ha-ha. Just to see the look on his face.” Mr. Hartley grinned.
Her throat went dry. “His offer?”
“Why, he’s been sniffing after the company himself! A week or so ago, we received a formal offer from his business manager to the tune of fifty shillings per share. Fifty shillings, ha-ha!”
She dropped her teacup into its saucer with a sharp crack. “Fifty shillings a share!”
“Fifty! Can you credit it? When the stock’s trading at under five shillings at the moment.” He drank his tea and shook his head in the same gesture. “The man must be mad, unless he’s had some wind of our success.”
“Quite mad.”
“Of course I shall jolly well refuse him now. If we win this race as I expect, Manchester Machine Works will be worth a great deal more than that, ha-ha. And I’ve no doubt that we will. No doubt at all.”
“Fifty shillings per share.” Her mind went over the calculations again, and returned the same extraordinary number.
“Charming figure,” Mr. Hartley agreed. He reached for one of Signorina Morini’s fine almond macaroons. “These are jolly splendid. Have you a good cook here?”
“Marvelous. It’s . . . it’s been altogether the most delightful time of my life.”
“What, tucked away here in the middle of nowhere? Lady Alexandra Morley?” He laughed and took another macaroon from the plate.
“Extraordinary, isn’t it? But I find that the longer one spends away from London, the less one tends to miss it.”
“No doubt, no doubt! I like a nip of the old country air myself, from time to time.” He brushed the crumbs from his lap and consulted his watch. “But I must be off. I’ve a train from Florence tomorrow morning, and all sorts of arrangements to manage. The machine’s coming in by steamship to Civitavecchia.”
She stood up and held out her hand. “A pleasure, Mr. Hartley. A charming coincidence. I wish you much luck at the exposition. Do . . . do stop by when you’re next in London, and tell me all about it.”
“I shall, Lady Morley.” He took her hand and shook it vigorously. “I shall.”
She saw him out to his waiting carriage and walked in a daze back inside to the kitchen, where she collapsed in a chair at the table and stared at the swirling grain of the wood.
What had Finn meant by it?
A week or so ago, Hartley said. Finn had known she was a shareholder by then. He knew her fortune depended on the company. It couldn’t be coincidence.
But he’d left. Without a note, without a kiss. Without a word.
So was this, then, his good-bye? The most generous, most selfless of gifts: her independence. The restoration of everything she valued most. A tender, dignified farewell.
Or simply payment for services rendered. A slap in the face.
She put her head into her arms. The sobs overtook her in a gust, wracking her body, relentless and unfamiliar. She hadn’t cried, really cried, in years. Not since before her marriage, not since that night at Lady Pembroke’s ball.
She couldn’t explain why. She had what she wanted, after all. She had her money back, or nearly so. In a few weeks, assuming Hartley won his race, she could go back to London and resume her old life, as if nothing had changed, as if she’d never been away. No more Fulham or Putney. No lending libraries. No shabby dinner parties, the remains of the roast carefully husbanded to last the household for the rest of the week.
She should be laughing, not crying.
She should feel full, complete. Not empty.
Not hopeless.
Something touched her shoulder, warm and steady. She caught the faint scent of baking bread just before she heard Signorina Morini’s voice.
“Signora, what is wrong? Why the crying?”
“Nothing. Oh, nothing!” A fresh burst of tears overwhelmed her.
“Signora, signora.” The housekeeper settled into the chair next to her. “You are missing Signore Burke.”
“Of course not. I’m . . . I only cracked my elbow on the . . . the corner . . . and . . .”
“Hush, signora.” Her plump arm lay across Alexandra’s back with gentle pressure. A comforting warmth seemed to radiate from the contact. “Hush.”
“. . . and it hurts so . . . hurts like the
devil . . .”
“Of course it is hurting you. Of course. Hush, hush,
mia cara
.” She stroked Alexandra’s hair. “I have the post from the village.”
Alexandra let out a shuddering sigh. “Just put it on the table. I’ll have a look.”
“There are letters for Signore Burke, for the duke. There is also the newspaper.”
“How charming. I’ll see that Wallingford gets it.” She rolled her head sideways, away from Signorina Morini, facing the wall of cupboards. No point letting someone else see one’s misery.
“Hmm, yes,” said the housekeeper. She went on stroking Alexandra’s hair with light fingers. “Of course, it is possible you see something in the newspaper, something to give the smile back into your face.”
Alexandra managed a choking little laugh. “Oh, quite impossible. Nothing but death and scandal and mayhem in the newspapers. The best one can hope for is bad news for one’s enemies.”
“Ha. You are clever, signora. Is what I am loving best about you, this clever head. Is making me laugh. Is making Signore Burke laugh.” She gave Alexandra a squeeze across the shoulders. “The laughing, it gives a long life. Signore Burke, he is wise to choose you.”
Alexandra straightened and wiped the tears from her cheeks. “Well, he seems to think it a poor bargain indeed. He has, thankfully, come to his proper senses, so we can all resume our . . . our former lives without further ado.”
“Hmm, yes.” Morini rose from her chair with a last pat to Alexandra’s shoulder. “Still, signora, there is the chance you see something you like. Something of the good news. Is rare, the good news, but perhaps that is the reason it make us happy.”
She left as quickly as she came. Alexandra sat staring at the table, still feeling a warm tingle in her scalp from the housekeeper’s stroking fingers. So soothing, so comforting. Morini would have made an excellent mother.
The post lay on the table where the housekeeper had been sitting. Alexandra glanced at the pile of envelopes and the newspaper underneath and tried to summon the barest scrap of interest in the doings back home. Which ministers were in favor and which were out. Which opposition members had given scintillating speeches against this or that law and which had fallen flat. Railway disasters, diphtheria outbreaks, mine cave-ins, food shortages. Lady X’s party had featured servers dressed as centaurs; Lord Z was conspicuously absent from his wife’s latest confinement.