Cry of the Peacock (26 page)

She didn’t answer.

“Have you changed your mind about your friend?”

“No. It’s just that…”

“Yes?”

“Well, she really does have some very low connections, you know.”

“Connections? You cannot mean her sister?”

“I don’t know,” Katherine answered. “Perhaps. And what of that Summerson girl she is so keen on helping?”

“That is her way, Katherine. She has always done so before. It’s no extraordinary thing, even in her new position—perhaps particularly in her new position—that she should wish to help them now. She told you about Hetty Summerson?”

“She told me she was helping her, and how.”

“And why?”

“She did not tell me that. I overheard it.”

“Overheard, Katherine?” David asked in a warning tone, and stepped back to look at her.

“I didn’t wish to hear. What do I care for Hetty Summerson and her kind?”

“I don’t understand you.” Katherine was not usually so narrow-minded, and he was a little disappointed in her in consequence. But she was clearly upset, and so he waited for her to go on.

“We had gone to her sister’s. She didn’t want me to come in. She said she would only be a minute. She was gone so long, though—twenty minutes at least—and so I went to find her.”

“What did you find?”

“It is not a respectable place, David. If your parents knew… If my parents knew! It would be all over for her in an instant.”

He wished very much to dismiss this as mere prejudice, but there was something ominous in Katherine’s insinuations. “Will you tell me what you saw?”

“You have rebuked me for betraying her confidences before. I don’t see how it’s any different if I tell them to
you
.”

“No. You are right.”

“I won’t speak of it—not to anyone—but it is such a burden to bear. They will learn of it eventually, you know. The gossipmongers will make the most of it, and what will become of you, or them, or us?”

“I think you may be making a bit much of it.” At least he hoped very much that it was so.

“Oh am I! And you don’t even know what it is I have come to know.”

“And you won’t tell me.”

“Even if I wanted to, I can barely stand to think of her now.”

“Do you think so little of her as that?”

“No. I don’t. I should, but I don’t. It’s just that to see her, to even think of her, is to wonder how long I can keep this to myself.”

“Katherine. I wish I knew what to say.”

“Yes. Yes, so do I.”

“Is there anything I can do?”

She turned and looked at him, and he regretted how troubled she appeared, how lonely she was for someone to confide in. He wished, though perhaps for more selfish reasons than he would like to admit, that she would confide in him. At last she approached him to lay her head on his chest, and to enfold herself in his arms. He held her, but wondered all the while what great secret she was hiding, and what it would mean. Would he be proved right, after all? How ironic that his concerns over the impending embarrassment—the impending scandal, if Katherine was to be believed—were more for Miss Gray than himself, or even his family. How ironic, indeed. And troublesome, too, in its way.

“You will not reveal her secret, Katherine, do you hear? Not to me or to anyone.”

She did not respond right away. At last, however, with her head pressed against his chest, she nodded her promise.

D
AVID WAS DISTURBED from his meditations the following afternoon by a loud knocking at his door. Grumbling, he answered it to find James on the other side.

“Were you sleeping?” James asked him.

“I think I told you I’m
not
sleeping,” David answered impatiently. “Is there something I can do for you?”

“I need the will. The copy. Where is it?”

He hesitated. “Why?”

“I want to show it to the lawyer.”

David pulled his brother into the room and shut the door. “You met him?”

“Yes.”

“And?”

“He’ll help us.”

“Us?” He was not sure he liked the sound of that word. How he wished he could just leave it to James. “Did you speak with the sister?”

“No, but I hope to see her today.”

David chewed the side of his mouth in contemplation.

“Well?” James asked him. “Can I have it?”

Again David hesitated to answer. Slowly he crossed the room, retrieved the copied document and laid it on the desk. “When?”

“Speak in complete sentences, if you please.”

“When do you go? You said today, but when?”

“Why?”

“I’m coming with you.”

*   *   *

The brothers stopped before Mrs. Newhaven’s gate. David recalled the last time he had been here, what he had seen, who he had seen. He remembered the haunted look, the silent plea, or so he had imagined, for assistance he had not then been in a position to offer. Was he any better prepared to offer it now? He examined the door and wondered what it was Katherine had seen here, and why it should cause her so much anguish. He looked to James, who was watching him.

“Are we going in?” he asked.

“No.”

“No?”

“We’re visiting the lawyer today,” James said. “She’ll be there.”

David was confused. “Is it far?”

“Not very.”

James turned to move on, but David lingered a moment as he looked into the withered flower garden, remembering still what he had seen there, and considering with some amazement, all that had happened since.

“Did you lose something?” James asked him impatiently.

“No. Of course not,” he said, and without really looking, moved on to follow his brother, but collided with a passing stranger.

“I beg your—”

But the man was already beyond hearing, his head bent low and walking very quickly away.

“Was that…?” James said.

“What?” David asked, confused. “Who?”

“Never mind.” Still James remained staring down the sidewalk. At last he shook his head. “Let’s go, shall we?” he said, and very briskly he walked the ten or twelve steps to Mr. Meredith’s door.

“The lawyer lives here?” David asked.

“Convenient, isn’t it?”

“Indeed.” Perhaps it was too convenient.

*   *   *

James, impatient and a trifle nervous, struck the door. It was opened without delay, thank heaven, and by the lawyer himself. David was introduced, and the two men shook hands, if rather stiffly, before they were shown into the lawyer’s sitting room. They were not the first to arrive there.

Mariana arose as the gentlemen entered. She appeared much different, much improved if such a thing was possible, than when James had seen her three weeks ago. Her formerly accusing and distrustful manner was gone. She was all supplication and kindness today.

Mr. Meredith cleared his throat and advanced into the room ahead of the two brothers. “Miss Gray, may I introduce Mr. James and Mr. David Crawford.”

James took the hand she offered. “Miss Gray. I’m pleased to properly make your acquaintance, at last.”

“Miss Gray.” David bowed his head and might have taken her hand, only James had not yet released it.

“Please,” she said and gestured for them to sit. “You have news of my sister, I believe.” She appeared nervous, at least anxious, as she fingered the braided trimming of her chair.

“Mr. Meredith has told you nothing of our conversation yesterday?” James asked her.

“No. That is, he told me you came, that you discussed my sister, and that you wished to share what you spoke of with me. Will you?”

James exchanged a look with his brother. There was nothing for it, he supposed. “Miss Gray,” he said after clearing his throat. He leaned forward in his chair. “What do you know of your family’s history as it relates to that of my own?”

“My mother’s family were neighbors of yours, of course.”

“That is all?”

“Well, I imagine thy must have had some sort of falling out, but what it was I haven’t been able to discover.”

James hesitated a moment, looked once more to David, and pressed on. If only he could know how she would take this news. Would she hate him for it, or thank him? “The fact is, your mother was at one time engaged to marry my uncle.”

Mariana, with eyes wide, stared at him in silence. “Is this true?” she said at last, and directed the question, by look at least, to David.

“It is, Miss Gray,” David said.

“Tell me,” she said, turning her attention once more and fully upon James. “Tell me everything you know.”

And James proceeded to relay the entirety of his family’s history with that of Elizabeth Fairbourne, and, consequently, her daughters. He told her how Miss Fairbourne had thrown off her engagement to elope with another, how her family had disowned her, how they had blamed her for their subsequent ruin and how that ruin had come about. Mariana listened to him in rapt astonishment, but only for a moment did she cease her nervous fingering of the chair’s upholstery.

“I can hardly believe what I’m hearing,” she said when James had done.

“That’s the story as I read it from my grandfather’s hand,” David answered.

“I certainly understand why it is my Aunt is so loath to speak your name, or why my mother never spoke of her history. I’m glad to know it, and yet…”

“Yes, Miss Gray?”

“There is a reason you are telling me this now. Does it somehow concern my sister? I think it must.”

“It does,” James answered.

“When your father first issued his invitation,” Mariana said, “he had mentioned a desire to make up to us that which had been denied us by circumstance, and by my mother’s choice.”

“It is more than a desire that motivates him,” James answered. “It is a legal obligation.”

“I do not understand.”

“There is a will.”

“A will?” she said in apparent shock.

“Yes. Written by my grandfather at the request of my dying uncle, that all that could be done to make up for what, by their hands, had been lost, would be done. The reparations, however, were not to be paid to your mother. They were to go to—”

“To my sister.”

“Just so.”

“There are conditions, I take it. There always are.”

“Only one. She is to make a suitable marriage.”

Mariana simply stared at him a moment or two. “Does Abbie know what you have told me?” she asked at last.

“She knows what is expected of her,” James said, “but not why or what is at stake.”

“They mean for her to marry Ruskin.”

“Yes.”

“And will she?”

“We were rather hoping you might tell us that, Miss Gray.”

“I wish I could. I wish I had some idea of her feelings. I do not. I know that she once felt both flattered and honored by his regard, but she tells me very little now. Her letters are full of her daily doings, of the progress on the estate, of little episodes in her experience at Holdaway—and now in London—and of her concerns for me, but nothing that leaves me with anything more than a vague suspicion of what she must be feeling for herself.”

“Your suspicions, Miss Gray?” James ventured to ask her. “What are they?

“Ruskin is a good man, I believe,” she said in lieu of a proper answer, “and what your family has set about to do for her is a wonderful thing.”

“If it is what she wants.”

“But even if she won’t have him, she stands to gain a great deal.”

“Possibly. Of that we are not yet certain. If my father is executor then he may deem anyone unsuitable, to the exclusion of Ruskin. Considering all my family stands to gain, or at least to maintain by the union, you can see how he might be motivated to do just that.”

“Certainly they would not force her to marry him if she did not wish to do it.”

James had no reply for this.

David, with a look, was appealed to next. “That may be putting it a little strongly,” he said, “but when one considers all that is at stake, and that in combination with my brother’s regard—which I assure you is sincerely held—”

“I’m glad to know it.”

“It is possible a great deal of pressure may be applied. My brother is not a patient man, Miss Gray. An answer will be wanted of her, and soon.”

“And if it is not the one they want…?”

“I wish I could say,” David answered.

“Should she not then be made to understand precisely what it is your family is prepared to do for her? And what she stands to lose or gain?”

“If only we knew what that was,” James said. “But then that is why we have come. To consult with you as to your opinion, and to enlist Mr. Meredith’s help in the matter.”

“You will help, of course?” she asked of the lawyer, who sat silent but carefully listening on the other side of the fire.

“You know I will,” was his answer.

“Of course if she should decide she can return Ruskin’s regard…” Mariana began.

“Then our concerns are laid to rest,” James answered, finishing the sentence for her.

“Provided she’s allowed the time she needs to make that decision,” David added. “It’s chiefly for this reason we feel she should remain ignorant. At least for the present.”

Mariana examined him a moment. Did she doubt him?

“It isn’t a comfortable position,” David assured her. “But I feel that she should be granted every opportunity to make up her own mind, free from the pressure of having to weigh a fortune besides. Free from the pressure of obligation on the one hand—for my father means, you can be quite sure, to make her feel obligated—and blind willfulness on the other.”

“You fear she might be tempted to throw your family over as my mother did.”

“It has occurred to me as a real possibility, Miss Gray. Am I wrong in my estimation of your sister’s sense of independent pride?”

“No, you understand her, Mr. Crawford. You understand her very well. I wonder…”

“Yes, Miss Gray?” David prompted her.

“Do you truly mean to support her, whatever she chooses?” she asked, looking to David and James alternately.

“Absolutely,” James answered without a moment’s hesitation.

David, however, seemed rather disinclined to answer.

“Mr. Crawford?” Abbie pressed.

“Yes, of course,” he said at last.

“Truly?”

“I’m not land proud, Miss Gray. I never wanted it. I do not want it. As I see it, she takes away nothing more than was hers, or yours—”

“My mother’s,” Mariana corrected him, “and she refused it. But that wasn’t what I meant. Do you not still have some objection to her marrying your brother?”

James too was eager for the answer, and suspected it might not be possible to give it quite honestly. He knew David’s opinion had at last altered, but just how complete was the alteration, he had yet to determine.

“I do,” he said, “but not for the same reasons I once held. She is deserving of this. I am in doubt of Ruskin’s ability to make her happy.”

“If you are her friend,” she said, “you would do her a great kindness were you to let her know it.”

“I have tried, Miss Gray. I don’t know that it’s any use.”

Mariana flashed him a look that was both sympathetic and disappointed, before turning to James, and then Mr. Meredith in turn. “What now?” she asked of the latter.

“These gentlemen, I believe, have brought a copy of the will. If you have it, I’d like to look it over.”

“Certainly,” David said and stood. “I’ll come with you, if I may.”

“Yes, of course,” Mr. Meredith answered, and the two men, after excusing themselves, quit the room.

*   *   *

“You remember me, I think, Mr. Meredith,” David said to him when they were safely within his office.

“The impression you left is not one easily to be forgotten, Mr. Crawford.”

“I should apologize for my behavior that day.”

“Have you an excuse?”

“Not a good one.”

Mr. Meredith was prepared to wait for it nevertheless.

“I wanted to get a glimpse of my brother’s choice of…”