Elisabeth Kidd (10 page)

They had reached the stream, and the viscount surveyed the tree in question critically. It was a large oak with thickly woven branches, the
first of which was fully six feet from the ground, but he declared just the
same that it did not look unscalable.

“An expert opinion, sir?”

“Do you doubt me, madam?”

Before she had time to say whether she did or not, he had dismounted
and tossed off his cloak. Then, with the speed, dexterity, and utter
disregard for grace of a gypsy’s monkey being pursued by a very large dog,
he jumped for the first available branch, hauled himself over it, and clambered halfway to the top of the oak.

“Is there anything you would like from up here?”

“Yes!” she shouted, laughing. “You!
Down
from there!”

“Your whim is my command.”

He descended nearly as rapidly as he had gone up, landing on both feet
and rubbing his hands together to clean them. Otherwise, he looked as if he had not moved from where he stood. Even the polish on his topboots
remained unviolated.

“You see how simple it is.”

“I grant you to be a man of many and varied talents.”

“None of which is of any use, nor may be taken seriously.”

“I did not say so.”

He mounted again. “But you do
not
take me seriously, Miss Fairfax.”

“How can I?” she objected feelingly. “Were I to take you in all seriousness, how would I judge everything else in my life that I once
thought important?”

He looked sharply at her, but lapsed into a silence as unaccountable as
his previous ebullience had been, and which was maintained until they
turned up the road to the stables. They slowed their horses to a walk up
the slope from the road, beyond which lay fields neatly divided by
hawthorn hedges and a progression of low hills fading into the horizon. Over them hung a light gauze of mist, pink-tinted where the chill, pallid
sun struck it.

Kedrington stopped and leaned forward in his saddle to look at the
country—not as an observer this time, but as a man looking on his
homeland. Antonia waited patiently.

“Have you ever been to Spain, Antonia?” he asked. “No, a stupid
question—of course you have not. But your brother will have told you
that it is a bewitching land. It holds one in its spell, but it offers no comfort in return, no gentleness. It is never so soft and green as England
is in the spring, or so full of promise even in the dead of winter.”

He was silent then, drinking in the view. But after a moment, he said,
“We saw ourselves as demi-gods there, or at least as heroes of no mean
order, and Spain was a land to match our ambition. But...well, one
outgrows adventure.” He turned to her. “Do you understand what I am attempting to say?”

“I think I do. But I think it is braver of you to come back. It is generally so much more comfortable to go on in one’s old, accustomed ways than to
make an absolute change, even from a harsh life to an easier one, and
then to make anyone understand what a change it was must be more difficult still.”

He smiled. “Yes, that’s very true. You said earlier that people believe
what they wish to believe; it is also true that they close their eyes to that
which they do not understand or cannot sympathise with. Oh, it’s true
that an occasional boy, mad for a pair of colours, will ask me if I was at
Busaco or Ciudad Rodrigo. But it is far more likely that anyone who
mentions the subject at all will only skim the surface or, like my Aunt Julia, vocally deplore the unfortunate habits I have acquired in my
wanderings. No one wants to know what it was really like. Memories are
uncommunicable things.”

He reached out to press her hand briefly. “I understand that well
enough not to burden you with any more of them!”

Antonia thought, as they turned their horses toward home, that she
could understand his feelings. She lacked the life of adventure which
gave finality to his sense of peace at coming to the end of it, but it seemed
to her that it was not necessary to have been in danger to know how to
live—nor deprived of love to know how to love.

She was, nevertheless, a little surprised to find herself wishing that he
had burdened her with more of his memories.

The fine weather held into the middle of the week, allowing for
several sight-seeing expeditions into the neighbouring countryside, in order to acquaint the newcomers with the local landmarks. On Friday,
with Philip Kenyon as their guide, they rode to Foxton to inspect
the famous seven locks in the Grand Union Canal and enjoyed a
nuncheon at an inn from which they were able to observe the canal
traffic and the complicated exercise of moving it uphill through each of
the locks in turn.

On Saturday, in somewhat more sedate style—Antonia and Isabel in Mr
Kenyon’s landaulet and the gentlemen riding alongside—they visited some of
the churches near Wyckham. Isabel took it upon herself to play the guide
here and pointed out to Mr Gary—who alone was eager to be shown
them—a fine Norman font and some unusual tombs with coloured
effigies.

Lord Kedrington was content to seat himself in one of the pews
and wait for them. He invited Antonia to sit beside him, which she did,
contemplating from that vantage point the carved wooden roof decorated
with angels holding musical instruments. A silence fell between them,
less comfortable than before. Kedrington found himself wondering what
was going through her mind—and fearing that he had no part in her
thoughts.

“Don’t stiffen up, Antonia,” he said, as much to catch her attention as to break the mood. “I’m not going to propose to you today.”

Startled, she turned her head sharply. He smiled at her and was
grateful to see a corresponding twinkle light her eyes.

“Why, when this is the perfect place to do so!” she admonished him.
“We are alone—for who else would venture out on a weekday to inspect
churches? —and unlikely to be disturbed.
I
certainly would not disturb
the peace of such a place by jumping up and running away. So you have a
meek, if not precisely willing, audience in me.”

“I can only suggest that you focus your attention instead on the
attractions your niece has been so diligent as to point out to us.”

“Oh, dear! I wonder if I ought to mention to her that gentlemen are not generally impressed by such displays of erudition?”

“Octavian seems to be impressed.”

“I daresay he may only be excessively well mannered.”

“Perhaps you had rather she did not make an impression on him?”

“If you mean, do I approve of Mr Gary keeping her company, it is not
up to me to approve or disapprove. Isabel is quite capable of choosing her
own friends.”

“If it eases you to know it, Octavian, while the youngest son of a family
of modest means, will never want for a means to live comfortably.”

She regarded him speculatively, and it struck him that she wanted to
confide something to him and could not decide whether to risk it. He
held his breath for a moment, but was disappointed when she looked away.

“It is true, you know, that most gentlemen are not fond of bookish females,” she said. “I should not care to have Isabel suffer in future for
such an easily remedied affliction. I think I will drop her a hint.”

“No, don’t do that,” he advised. “Far from its being a deficit, I count
Isabel’s enthusiasm one of her greatest charms. It would be too bad if she were to become like so many girls, afraid to open her mouth for fear of saying something intelligent. Isabel will find her future far easier to live
with if she has not built it for herself upon deceit and pretending to be
what she is not.”

Miss Fairfax appeared to consider this. “You are perfectly in the right,
of course. It is only that it is so much more difficult for me, being closer
to her, to see the matter in such a light.”

“I shall make it my business to remind you of it, as the need arises.”

She said nothing, but glanced at him sideways, a roguish smile hovering
at the corners of her mouth. He went on, “And—naturally—to see that
you continue to set her an excellent example.”

“Do you imagine, my lord, that I stand in danger of succumbing to the
very lures against which I must guard Isabel?”

“I think, fair one, that a surprise attack might rush your defences
before you are aware of the danger.”

“I have a good eye, my lord. ‘I can see a church by daylight.’ “

He laughed appreciatively and stood up, holding his hand out to her.
“That is precisely how I should prefer to view a church! Shall we await
the tourists outside?”

She was agreeable, and they resumed their conversation with a walk
around the churchyard, forgetting how long it had been since Isabel and Octavian had wandered away together until the pair reappeared via the
side door, full of the merriment of two children sharing a prank. They
regaled Antonia and Lord Kedrington with the tale of the persistent
delusion of an old caretaker they had encountered, who was convinced that they had come in search of a cleric to marry them, and who, despite their denials, continued to insist that the vicar was in Oakham and that if they wished to be married, they would have to go there.

“In the end,” Mr Gary said, “we were obliged to tell him we would go to Oakham at once, and left him shaking his head over the whimsies of
modern youth, none of whom know what they want or what they will do
with it when they get it!”

Even Isabel laughed freely over this episode, and Antonia told the
viscount on their way home how gratified she was to see that the incident
had not thrown her niece into the blushes that would have afflicted any
other damsel of her age. “Indeed, I believe you may well be right, and a
lack of missishness in Isabel may after all be of benefit to her—at least, it
will set her apart from the common run of young ladies.”

The same lack in the elder Miss Fairfax was, however, causing Lord Kedrington less satisfaction. He lapsed into contemplative silence on the
ride home through the still, wintry afternoon and the empty countryside,
over which a leaden sky hung heavily. They passed no living soul, and all
that stood out in that melancholy landscape were the lonely spires of
parish churches, keenly visible in the remaining light of day. His mood was not lightened by Antonia’s observation that Anthony had often been so blue-devilled on such days. When he replied that he had no wish to
remind her of her brother, she only laughed and said he could not hope to
be exalted much higher than that.

The upshot of these exchanges was that his lordship spent the evening
staring morosely into a glass of port until Octavian at last enjoined him,
if he could not keep his mind on their chess game, to take himself to bed.
But he awoke the following morning in much the same humour. On the
pretext of giving his horse some exercise, he rode out to a remote part of the estate, keeping half an eye out for signs of Miss Fairfax, who had
informed him that she was accustomed to pass at least one day each week
in paying calls on her tenants, but that due to the dissipated life she had been leading of late, she had not attended to this duty for some time. Kedrington entertained little hope, therefore, of calling on her at home,
but trusted to their old familiarity to make a chance encounter acceptable.

Old? Good God, had it been less than a week since they met? It did not seem possible. They had already settled into the familiarity of old friends, which was precisely what he did not want and which he attempted—with
dulling regularity, it seemed!—to upset with reminders to her that it was
not friendship at all that he sought from her. Indeed, the more evidence
she presented to him that she did not need his friendship, but accepted it as a kind of unlooked-for luxury in her life—something that made her
more comfortable, like a new pair of boots or a warm shawl—the more
determined he became to prove himself of genuine value to her. But there
was nothing he could do for her in the way of chivalrous deeds, and she
would not, it seemed, oblige him by simply falling in love with him.

He had not even a friend’s or a brother’s advantage of inspiring confidences from her. Antonia had not told him the entire truth about
her season in London—this he discovered through Octavian Gary, who
had it from heaven knew where—and while such secrecy would have
been understandable in a more reticent maiden, it did not fit in with
what he thought he knew of Antonia Fairfax. In addition, it gave him her present relationship to Charles Kenyon to puzzle over. Of course, he had
not been entirely candid with her, either, not having mentioned the
possibility of his purchasing Windeshiem and moving to Leicestershire.
He was not certain why he had not told her of it. Lord knew, he had bared
his soul about everything else, unaware as she seemed to be that he had
done so.