Cry of the Peacock (47 page)

“You will not go,” Sir Nicholas said, but made no move to stop her.

“Thank you, sir, for the opportunity you gave me. I regret I could not find myself in a position to make more of it than I did.”

“Arabella?” It was Lady Crawford now, descending the steps as she fought with her wrappings. Her eyes were red, her complexion pale. She stopped to stand, breathless before her. “It isn’t true. Tell me none of it is true. It cannot be, I know, but I want to hear it from you. You did not come to us from a lady’s reformation society. It’s not possible.”

“I did,” Abbie said, looking for the moment stunned, but quickly regaining her composure. “And I’m returning there this minute.”

“But you cannot,” she said, taking hold of her by the hand. “You do not belong in such a place. Think what you do!”

“I’m sorry, my lady,” Abbie said, freeing herself once more. “I have thought, and it seems to me that to sacrifice myself for the wealth and comfort you have promised to provide, is really not at all that different from the position the Magdalenes of Newhaven House have been rescued from. It seems to me it’s the only place I belong.”

Abbie turned from Lady Crawford who stood, silent and agape, and from Ruskin fuming beside his father, who looked for all the world as though life as he knew it had ended. Perhaps, after all, it had.

David followed Abbie to the hired carriage and opened the door to put her into it. She got in and sat, and looked at him. There were no words necessary. He knew not what they might be at all events. He prepared to shut the door, but her hand on his stopped him.

“I am sorry,” she said. “For so much. I hope you will learn to forgive me.”

He looked at her a long moment. This was a goodbye he was unprepared to say. By one means or another, however, it must be said. “There is nothing to forgive.” He wished to say a hundred things more, a thousand words he had hardly allowed himself to think. But they would not be said. They would never be said. “Be happy.”

“And you as well,” she said with a sad smile.

There was nothing more to say, it seemed. He gave the signal and the carriage pulled away. It was a moment or two before David turned again toward his family. His father was placing a stunned Lady Crawford into the carriage with Ruskin’s help. When that was done, Ruskin moved to approach David, but his father stopped him, said a few words, and Ruskin joined his mother in the carriage, but not before offering David a venomous glare.

“Are you coming home?” his father asked of him, holding the carriage door open.

“I think I’ll stay at my club tonight, if it’s all the same.”

“You and I
will
discuss what happened tonight,” his father said to him.

“Yes, sir,” David answered, and watched as Sir Nicholas entered the carriage, as the door was closed upon them, and as it at last pulled from the curb. It was only then he dared to look in the other direction, where all that was left of Arabella Gray were tracks left in the newly fallen snow.

“G
ERMANY?” KATHERINE SAID. “America?”

David, leaning against the fireplace in Lord Barnwell’s best parlor, contemplated the coals and Katherine’s reaction to his news.

“How long?” she asked.

“A year, I think. Maybe two.”

“And what am I supposed to do in that time?”

“You might come with me,” he turned to face her. “The position doesn’t pay much, but I have my investments, and there remains what is left of my uncle’s bequest. We will not be able to live in high style, but it’ll be enough.”

“You would prefer this over what my father has offered you?” She seemed unable to comprehend it.

“I would like the opportunity to see if there is a future in it. If not, I can always pick up where I left off.”

“While I wait for you?”

“You needn’t wait, Kat. I’ve told you, you could come—”

“I won’t. I can’t.”

With his thumb he twisted the signet ring on his finger. Had he known she would not follow him? That she would not support him in this? “Why not?” he asked her.

“Do you not care what has happened? Everything you hold dear is dangling on a precipice. Your brother’s heart is broken! Do you not care at all?”

Yes, he cared. But he also cared for honor, and right, and those things lately appeared to have been abandoned by his family. He wanted none of their avaricious scheming.

“Papa said he might help. If we were married straight away, if you were to commit to—”

“Help?”

“Yes. He will take over the debt. You will owe him instead of your family owing some unscrupulous moneylender.”

David hesitated to answer. How long had this been in the works? “I’m grateful to your father,” he said at last, “for his interest and concern, but I won’t be made the family’s saving grace. And I won’t be dictated to, Katherine. Not in this. This is between you and me and no one else. If you wish to marry, we’ll marry, and as soon as you like, but because you love me, and I you…”

“You don’t, though.”

He stopped short. “How can you say that?” he asked, and he really wondered. He had said the words so many times, even he was no longer sure he meant them.

“David, I know.”

“You know? What does that mean?”

“Your feelings have changed. At least they do not compare to what you feel for her.”

He twisted the ring a little faster. “I haven’t the foggiest idea what you are talking about, Katherine.”

“Yes you do. Perhaps you’re not prepared to admit it. I think it’s time we faced the facts, nevertheless.”

“Very well, then,” he said, frustrated in his own right. Was not Katherine being a bit hypocritical? “Is there not someone else for you as well?”

She appeared stunned for a moment, but then she colored.

“That’s what I thought.” He sat.

They were silent for a long time, he thinking, she watching him think.

“David?” she said at last.

“Hmm?” he said through his hand as he rubbed at his whiskers.

“I did not mean for it to be this way.”

“Of course not, my dear. Nor did I. But it is what it is, I suppose.” In truth he was grateful for Katherine’s sense of pragmatism, though he had hardly been prepared for it. “You will wait for
him
, I take it.”

“Who?” she asked and colored again.

“Ruskin, of course.”

She looked down at her clasped hands.

“If you meant what you said, and your father means to help them out, I expect he’ll recover from his losses quickly enough.” David arose from his chair. There was no point remaining.

“David!” she said, rising with him and stopping him.

He looked at her a moment. She was on the verge of tears. He’d seen quite enough tears for one night. He regretted them all the more from her, and for the part he had played in causing them. He approached her, and taking her hand, he kissed it. “Forgive me, Katherine,” he said. “I do hope you will be very happy.”

“Say we will be friends?” she said, stopping him once more.

“Always,” was his sincere answer, and with that he quit the house.

*   *   *

It was snowing. Slushy trails had formed on the streets where the snow had begun, but had failed, to stick. But here, in the little yard before Aunt Newhaven’s door, a thin blanket covered the ground. The snow was not so purely white here in Town as it was in the country, but it was nevertheless beautiful, and seemed to lay a sort of superficial lacquer of peace over the world, which was in sharpest contrast to what Abbie felt within.

Inside as well, all was dim peacefulness. But the quiet, the emptiness and general absence of activity, lent an ominous air to the stillness.

“Is all well, Mrs. Giles?” Abbie asked of the housekeeper, who was apparently unsurprised to see her. It was the question alone that appeared to be unexpected.

“Did you not receive your sister’s message? Surely that is why you have come?”

“I received no message, Mrs. Giles. I came of my own accord.
Is
something the matter?”

“I’m afraid it looks to be very bad, Miss Gray,” the housekeeper answered and cast an anxious look in the direction of the staircase and the second floor to which it led.

Abbie did not hesitate but climbed the stairs to her aunt’s room. Upon entering, she found Mariana sitting at the bedside, reading. She only looked up when she had reached the end of the passage.

“Abbie,” she said apparently relieved. “You have come. I knew you would.”

“Yes,” was all Abbie could say, and looked to her aunt who was lying very still upon her bed. “How is she?”

Mariana only shook her head sorrowfully.

“You look tired,” Abbie observed. “Have you had any rest?”

“Very little. But you know I cannot leave her.”

“I know you cannot neglect sleep forever. I’ve come,” Abbie said, “you may rest now. I’ll sit and watch.”

Mariana appeared reluctant, still.

“You must rest, Mariana. You’ll make yourself ill. Let me do this. I’ll wake you if there is any change.”

Mariana sighed. “Very well,” she said. “If you are sure you do not mind.”

“I want to do this. I owe her something, after all.”

Mariana studied her sister a moment. “You must change first, of course. This is the dress?”

Abbie looked down, touched the skirt with her gloved fingers and held her hands out helplessly. “It is. All that fuss, and for what? It all seems so very trivial now.”

“It
is
exquisite.”

“Yes, it is. Isn’t it?”

“You never learned who gave it to you?”

“No.”

Mariana appeared to regret this as much as did Abbie, and studied her for a moment more. “Well, you will not want it ruined.”

“I have brought nothing with me. I’ve left them, Mariana.”

Mariana studied her for half a moment, and then: “I’ll bring you something. I’ll not be a minute.

She left the room then, leaving Abbie alone with her aunt. Abbie sat down beside her and watched her sleeping so quietly, barely breathing it seemed. She was watching her still when Mariana returned.

“Here,” she said, and handed Abbie the familiar mourning, which Mariana then proceeded to help her sister change into. “Will you tell me what happened?” she asked as she helped her with the last of the buttons.

“There is little to tell. I cannot marry him.”

“Ruskin?”

“Yes,” she answered a little impatiently. “Who else?”

Mariana only shook her head. “And what do you feel? Are you relieved? Do you regret?”

“I think it is too soon to know.”

“Yes, of course,” Mariana answered. “When you are ready to talk about it…”

“Of course,” Abbie said, but she did not know that she ever would be prepared to talk about it. Her feelings at present, perhaps now more especially, were conflicted. She wished to stay with the Crawfords, to make a life there like that which she had once believed they were offering. But she could never sell her happiness to a man like Ruskin Crawford. Not for any price. She was glad to have at last escaped him, but there were other things she had left, and not all of these were things she wished to talk about, much less admit aloud. No, for now, for some time, she feared, she would keep her feelings very close.

Mariana left once more. She was nearly off her feet with exhaustion. Abbie, too, was tired, but it was not sleep she required, but peace. Here, just perhaps, she would find it. She returned to the chair beside her aunt’s bed, and there she remained, through the night. Ann arrived with the sun’s rising and relieved her to have a quiet breakfast in her room before retiring. She slept well and long, and returned once more to her aunt’s room, where she and Mariana sat together, sometimes quietly, sometimes reading, and sometimes reminiscing over old times, over simple lives lived humbly on a struggling estate on the Hampshire Downs. So much had changed. Life had changed.
They
had certainly changed. But when they had gone the round of their reminiscences they could not say, after all, that they regretted the changes that had been wrought. They were wiser now, better prepared for the world into which they had been thrust.

It was these thoughts that sustained Abbie through the days and nights that followed. Aunt Newhaven, on the precipice of death, lingered. Some days she was better, and spent a little time awake, though she did not seem capable of conversation. Neither did she seem able to recognize those around her. Other days she was worse, rarely waking, moaning in pain, but whether her anguish was physical or merely the result of some emotional torment, it was impossible to tell. Even the doctor, who came twice daily, could only guess at the source of Aunt Newhaven’s discomfort. Draughts were given, sedatives. They calmed the woman, helped her to sleep, but it was the rare moments of wakeful awareness that Abbie longed for most.

Days went by in just this way. Abbie did little but sit and watch—and wait. Sometimes she read. Mostly she thought. There was no forgetting now, and she did not try to do it. She did not imagine it possible. And while letters began to arrive, one each day, from Ruskin, it truly was impossible to forget, or even to regret the choice she had made to refuse him.

Have you any idea what you have done to me?
the first of these had read.
Do you understand the fool you have made me? Have you any concept of the pain and disappointment—

She could read no more, and tore it in half before throwing it into the fire. The next day’s letter read similarly.

I hope by now you have had a chance to reconsider your hasty decision. It is not too late, you know. Only think what you give up by your stubborn pride, when you might be very happy. I could make you very happy.

It received the same treatment. Others followed, but these she did not even open before committing them to the coals.

Such was the only disturbance from the pleasant and predictable monotony of watching over her aunt. She did not mind this work. She rather enjoyed it, for here she could do some good, and though her aunt was seemingly unaware of her presence, it was Abbie’s pleasure to serve her. She owed her much. She only wished it were not too late to make her aunt understand the remorse she felt for leaving her as she had done, for not trying harder to understand that her warning had been born of experience she had wished to spare her young nieces.

But God answers the prayers of the heart sometimes as readily as those that are prayed aloud. Late one evening Aunt Newhaven awoke, as she sometimes did, to silently study her surroundings. Her gaze at last landed on Abbie, and there it remained.

“Hello, Aunt,” Abbie said, and expected no answer.

“You are home,” Aunt Newhaven observed in a weak and raspy voice.

Abbie, surprised by this, and feeling the significance of this rare moment of lucidity, took her aunt’s hand in her own as a tear slipped down her cheek.

Aunt Newhaven pointed, as if she wished to wipe the tear away, but she had not the strength for such a feat. Abbie, handkerchief in hand—they were not the first tears she had shed today, or any day this week—dried them, sniffed and smiled.

“How are you feeling?” Abbie asked.

Aunt Newhaven took a deep breath and let it out. “Tired,” was all she said by way of answer. “I am glad to see you.”

“And I you, Aunt. I’m so sorry for the way we parted. You were right. About everything. I should have trusted you.”

Aunt Newhaven patted Abbie with her free hand. “Shhh,” she said, and closed her eyes, exhausted from the effort.

“I wish you had told me of your history with the Crawford family. I wish I had known, before I left you to go to them, what had transpired between you.”

“Would it have made a difference?”

Abbie considered this very carefully. “Perhaps not,” she said. “But if I had known that it was they who had wronged us I might not have considered myself so very indebted to them. Mr. Ruskin wished to marry me, you know. It was through him they meant to restore what they had taken.”