Cry of the Peacock (33 page)

“It’s not your plans I object to, old man, it’s your methods, and if ‘whatever it takes’ includes coercion, you can count on my continuing to object.”

“You’ll be back at University tomorrow.”

“Sir,” James said, addressing his father. “Surely you can see how much help I might be to you at home. If given a chance, I know I could—”

But Sir Nicholas only waved him away with a dismissive gesture of his hand. Clearly there was nothing more to be accomplished here. James, conceding, though reluctantly, bowed and quit the room.

*   *   *

David appeared at James’ bedroom door not half an hour later. He’d laid out his bags to begin packing, but was presently occupied in tending to the scrape on his face.

“You are all right?” David asked upon seeing it for himself. “Will it bruise do you think?”

“It’s nothing,” James said and tossed the rag with which he had been washing it aside.

“Will you tell me what you discussed? And why you did not wish to include me in the interview?”

“By the looks of you, you were on the very verge of throttling the life out of our brother. I wanted to talk to him rationally. I couldn’t take the risk of your losing your temper.”

“You know I never lose my temper.”

“Yes. Precisely why I considered it significant that you were apparently so very close to doing it.”

David turned from him, paced the rug once or twice and then took a seat. “Will you tell me what you discussed?”

James gladly recounted the whole of it. Of course David was not surprised by the events that had produced Benderby’s madness, but he was predictably enraged by them. James gave him a moment to regain his composure before addressing what was next to be done.

“What is there to be done!” David demanded. It seemed his temper was not entirely in check after all. “With you in Oxford and Ruskin now here and focused on his single-minded purpose, what can you or I or anyone possibly hope to do to alleviate the problems on the estate? Nothing. Not a thing!”

“I’m working on that,” James said. “At the moment, however, I’m more concerned about what goes on here when I’m gone. They mean to accomplish this by Christmas, you know.”

David looked at him very pointedly.

“You knew this.”

“Yes.”

“You might have said.”

“I suppose until now I was hoping some obvious solution would present itself. I was hoping she would have the opportunity to go out and be seen. I don’t know.”

James saw real despair in David’s countenance which made him feel both regret and hope.

“They’re not going to permit it, you know. It is Ruskin or no one.”

“Why did you let her stay?” James asked him. He thought he already knew, but wanted to hear it from him.

“I thought she could help. I did. And I think I hoped that what she saw today would make her see that Ruskin will never do more for Holdaway or its people than our father ever did. He will never be what she wants him to be. I did not mean to place her in danger.”

“Of course you didn’t. But what now? Do you not think, after all, that was what she might have come to realize?”

“What if she did? Will she be allowed to refuse him?”

James considered this for a moment, and then: “Perhaps it is time to tell her.”

“Perhaps it is,” David conceded. “But I cannot be the one to do it.”

James studied his brother. It was clear he was struggling with some matter of principle. Just what was behind it, though? “Have you thought of some other solution to her present dilemma?”

“Alternatives, I think, are what our family is prepared to prevent at all costs. Do I think it possible she might consider someone else and still hope to gain what is intended to be hers?” But he did not answer his own question, which only made James puzzle all the more.

“If she were prepared to fight for it?”

David examined the floor in front of him. “It’s impossible for me to say,” he concluded eventually.

“And so you have no suggestion to offer? No other option we have not previously considered?”

“No,” David answered, shaking his head.

“Meredith should be the one to tell her.”

David raised his gaze to meet his brother’s.

“If you cannot, as you say, then he must be the one. He understands it all. I trust him to serve her best interest.”

“Yes. Yes, of course,” David answered at last. “Of course you are right.”

“Unless you have another suggestion.”

“I don’t,” David answered.

“Very well then. As soon as it’s convenient, place the charge in his hands. I’ll return as soon as I can manage it.”

“Do you really mean to return to University?”

“No,” James said, looking at him very pointedly. “I don’t.”

I
T WAS MORNING. Abbie was certain of that much. But was it early or late? The door opened, and Mariana arose from her chair in a corner of the room to assist Becky as she brought in a tray. It was placed upon a small table, and Mariana helped the maid to set it out. The smell of food encouraged her to stir. Her body disagreed. She ached. Everything ached. She felt as though she’d been hit by a train.

And then she remembered. She closed her eyes against the memory, but it was no use. The anxiety, the shock and anger…the confusion…they all revisited her tenfold now she had recalled them. Slowly she sat up.

“You are awake,” Mariana said, observing her. “You slept so long.”

“Did I?” Abbie answered and knew it must be true. She raised a hand to her aching head.

“Are you unwell?”

“No. Not unwell.”

“Not injured? You were well enough last night, but sometimes it takes a day to feel an injury.”

Abbie considered. She did hurt, but she wasn’t sure she could define just how. Her neck was stiff, but that could have been from sleeping ill. Her legs ached. She surreptitiously examined them as her sister arranged the silverware, and then the flowers. There were bruises where she had been pushed up against the carriage step. She might have been crushed, were it not for… She closed her eyes against the memory.

“You have flowers,” Mariana said.

She looked at them, and looked away. “Who sent them?” she asked, but knew the answer already.

“Ruskin. And there is a note. Do you want to read it?”

Abbie hardly heard the question over the pounding of her head. Mariana didn’t wait for the answer, but placed the note in her hand.

My dear Miss Gray,

Please accept my sincerest apologies for what happened yesterday. I blame myself. I never should have allowed you to go. David never should have allowed you to remain. My brother is a fool and a lout, and I’m sorry. Rest well. Come down as soon as you can manage it. We are quite anxious for you.

I am quite anxious for you.

R.

Abbie refolded the note. At least it was her intention to refold it, but the paper that fell to the floor resembled a crumpled ball more than a neatly folded message.

Mariana looked at her, puzzled, and picked it up from the floor. She smoothed it upon the table and tucked one corner beneath the vase in which had been arranged a dozen or more blood red roses.

“Are you hungry?” Mariana asked her.

“No,” Abbie answered. “No. Only very tired.” If only she could rest without thinking, sleep without dreaming. For a few hours only she had rested well enough to forget. How she wished she could forget again.

Mariana came to sit beside her. “You are not ill?” she asked again and felt her forehead.

“I’m not ill. I just want not to think. Only I know I must. I must decide what I am to do.”

“To do? Do you mean about Ruskin? What did his note say?”

“It isn’t the note, Mariana. It’s everything. He was so angry yesterday. He quite frightened me.”

“He was understandably upset that you had experienced a trial and he was not there to comfort or protect you”

Abbie closed her eyes against the memories once more summoned. Would Ruskin have been able to do as David had done? Sacrifice himself for her? Would she have felt as safe in Ruskin’s arms as she had in his brother’s? She could barely imagine it. But then Ruskin was to blame for it all, wasn’t he? She wanted to believe in him, and yet he made it so difficult to do. She had such high hopes for what she might accomplish, and yet she was checked at every turn. And
she
was angry.

“Why is it my regard for him must hinge upon his success with the estate? I know it shouldn’t, but it does. I want him to succeed. I want very much for him to do all he might. And I know that to have the influence I hope to have, with him, with Sir Nicholas, with the workers, I must do and be everything they would wish for me to be.”

“Must you?” Mariana asked and looked at her very keenly.

“Yes. Somehow I see that more than ever. I have not tried hard enough. Or I have tried in the wrong way.”

“How do you mean?” Mariana asked, seemingly skeptical.

“I knew that building the cottages would be a challenge, financially. Ruskin did not know how important were the allotments to the cottagers. I knew and I did not tell him. We have not been working together as I had hoped we would. I have insisted. He has done the best he knew how with the knowledge he had. If he has failed them, have I not failed him in turn?”

“Are you determined, then, to accept him?”

Determined? Yes, perhaps that was the right word. She must determine herself to something, after all, or the temptation to entertain ideas that were utterly impossible—and utterly wrong—would have their way. She must determine herself to be what Ruskin would have her to be. Perhaps she, in turn, might mold him into her ideal. Was it so impossible?

“Abbie,” Mariana said, interrupting her thoughts and placing her hand atop her sister’s as it rested on the counterpane. “I know that you feel a great deal of pressure to accept Ruskin, but I beg you not to forget that the choice is yours, whether to accept or refuse him. It is a woman’s privilege to make that decision, or to request the time necessary to do it. A man who does not comply is no gentleman at all.”

“I thought you wanted this for me?”

“I want to see you happy. If he cannot make you so then you mustn’t feel obligated to him, whatever might be the benefits to the union.”

“Were I to do it, Mariana, you might be able to leave our aunt’s.”

“I’ve told you, Abbie. I have no desire to leave Newhaven House. Not now or any time in the foreseeable future. If you want for us to be together, you’ll simply have to join me there. But that would mean giving up all this for good. I’m not sure I would wish that for you.”

Neither could Abbie bring herself to even think on it. Going back to that… No. The darkness and the gloom, her aunt’s coldness. To go back would be to cast aside forever what the Crawfords might have done for her—might yet do—with or without Ruskin’s suit to consider. It was impossible.

“Do you love Ruskin?” Mariana asked her. “Can you love him?”

“I needn’t love him, Mariana. All I require is to respect him. To feel respected by him. Love isn’t reason enough to marry, and a lack of it isn’t reason enough to ignore all the other advantages.”

She heard the words from her own mouth. She wished to believe them, for they certainly made sense, at least to her mind. Her heart, however, rebelled, for the question had summoned once more the memories she was trying so hard to forget—the memories, the feelings inspired, or perhaps encouraged, by one moment’s sanctuary in the arms of a man who was not and could never be her own. He was to marry Katherine, and Abbie, too, was intended for another. She turned to Ruskin now as if it were her only hope of saving herself from something that was not only foolish, but actually dangerous to consider. “I want to love him. Of course I do. But it’s not as if I must. Not at first. If we are friends, if I can respect him, and he me, perhaps that is enough. I
can
learn to love him. In time, I’m sure of it.”

“Are you, though?”

Abbie looked at Mariana, determined to convince her, but she had so far failed to convince herself. She lowered her aching head to her hand. She could barely think over the throbbing of it, over the flashing memories of the day before.

“You’re not sure.”

Abbie shook her head as it rested in her hand and sniffed back the tears.

“What will you do?” Mariana asked her.

“I cannot think, Mariana. I cannot still my mind to think. I do know that to give up on him is to give up on the people of Holdaway. It’s to throw all the Crawfords have done for me, all they mean to do for me, in their faces as if I did not care at all for them or what they have done, and might yet do for me. If one of those is to restore our family to a portion of its former respectability, do I do wrong not to try? It isn’t too late for Ruskin to make things good. He did not know about the market gardens. Now that he does, he can amend his mistake. He can lower the rents again. He can do all manner of things for them that he had not thought to do before. What can anyone do, though, while we remain here?”

“You won’t remain forever in London.”

“Of course you are right.”

“And you have come to Town for a purpose, which purpose you must fulfill first. If you prove your power here, your power will be all the stronger there. You still have the ball to look forward to, do you not?”

“Yes, of course.”

“In the meantime,” Mariana continued, “I want you to rest, and to eat. And I think we need something to get your mind off of things. Have you a book?”

“I’ve read all the ones I brought with me.”

“Then you need something new. Perhaps we can read something together. That would be fun, don’t you think?”

“Yes. Only let it be something truly diverting. Something we’ve not read before.”

“Of course,” she said. “I’ll go now. If you’ll promise to eat.”

“Very well. When did you become so skilled at bargaining?”

“One learns all manner of things in my line of work. Now eat, will you?”

Abbie nodded her agreement and watched her sister go. She changed places then to sit at the table. Becky approached to help her. She was a quiet, attentive, but humbly reserved young woman, and Abbie was grateful for Mariana’s foresight in bringing her.

Her breakfast sat before her, but Abbie could do little more than stare at it. At last she picked up her spoon and tapped the egg.  The sound of cracking shell sounded as shattering glass on her overwrought nerves. She stopped Becky’s hand and laid the spoon down again. She took up the toast and broke it in half. The sound was that of gravel crunching beneath the feet of men as they struggled one with another. She laid the two halves down and arose from the table to lay down upon her bed. She drew her pillow to her chest and held it close, burying her face in the linen cover that encased it. She closed her eyes tightly and gave up the battle to forget as the tears came. She pulled a rug over her, to cover her, to shield her. As a greatcoat had shielded her but a day before. How does  one resist a memory and yet cling to it at the same time? The inner recesses of her heart longed to remember. She only wished to forget because she knew she must.

*   *   *

Mariana found the study occupied. David stood upon her entrance.

“Forgive me,” she said. “I didn’t mean to intrude.” She turned to leave again.

“How is she?” David asked, stopping her. He was apparently anxious for the answer.

“She has a headache and has been made very anxious by the excitement.”

“Of course. Is there anything—”

“She wants a book.”

He turned to the shelves.

“She wants something to help take her mind off of yesterday’s events. Perhaps you can suggest something?”

David, who had been listening attentively till then, turned once more to the shelves, but his gaze soon dropped to the floor and remained there.

“Mr. Crawford?”

He looked up again.

“Have you anything to suggest?”

“Perhaps,” he said, and crossed to the desk, from which he took up a book. One that had been lying open.

“Were you reading it?”

“I was, yes. I’ve read it before. It’s quite all right.”

“I’m sure there are any number of books that would do just as well.”

“No,” he said very certainly. “This is the one.”

“Very well,” she said, taking the book from him. “Thank you.” She prepared once more to leave him.

“Only…”

“Yes, Mr. Crawford?”

“Do not tell her I gave it to you. You chose it. At random. Do you understand?”

“I don’t understand, Mr. Crawford. But I trust you, and I will do as you say.”

“Thank you,” he said, with apparent gratitude.

“Can I ask you something?”

He nodded.

“Did something more happen yesterday than Abbie told me, or than you explained to your father last night?”

David’s face clouded momentarily. “I don’t believe so.”

“Another question?”

“If you wish.”

“Can your brother amend his mistakes?”

“I want my family’s estate to prosper, the people of Holdaway to be proud to live and work there.”

“And the rest?”

“The rest?”

“The rest of your brother’s plans? You know what I mean.”

“I do.”

She waited for his answer. He was not, it seemed, prepared to give it.

“What would it take to re-establish peace on the estate?”

“Besides a miracle, do you mean?” he said, abandoning his former reticence, and his usually calm manner. “Or my brother’s humbling himself to do the right thing, which amounts, more or less, to the same thing?”