Forever and Ever (27 page)

“Puh!”

“Why is a man who inherits his father’s house a better lawmaker than the man who earns a living painting pictures? For myself, I’d rather the Commons were more full of brains than bricks.” Croddy snorted. “If we choose an architect—or a general, or a sea captain—by his
merits
, why not elect as lawmakers the men who have the most natural ability to make laws? I maintain such men can be found everywhere, with and without property.”

“I’m sure it suits you to do so, sir. I’m sure it suits you very well.”

“Now, gentlemen—”

“Are you insinuating something by that?” Connor asked, setting his glass down carefully.

“I’m not insinuating anything at all. I’m saying what everyone here already knows—that you acquired your property qualifications through your wife.”

“Robert—”

“And I’m hardly the only one who says you
married
her for them.”

When Connor got to his feet, the back of his chair crashed against the wall behind him. Everybody jumped. Croddy stood up, too, hands clenched, jaw thrusting. Sebastian Verlaine rose between them and turned his back on Croddy. “Easy,” he said in a murmur, and with his hand he gave Connor’s arm a slow, hard squeeze. That and something purposeful in his stern glance settled Connor down, enough so that punching Croddy in the nose didn’t seem quite as imperative as it had a second ago.

“I think we might join the ladies now, don’t you?” Knowlton suggested to his host. Vanstone rose smoothly and led the way out of the room.

Bloody sodding hell
, thought Connor, taking a glass of brandy from the silver tray one of Vanstone’s ubiquitous servants held out to him. Across the cluttered drawing room, Sophie was trying to catch his eye. He avoided her after a glance at her worried face. She could always tell when something was wrong, and he imagined his own face was looking pretty grim just now. Wait until he told her Robert Croddy had nearly goaded him into a fistfight in the dining room. She’d love that. He downed his brandy in three throat-scorching swallows, and when the servant passed again, he reached for another. Bugger all.

The ladies were talking about opera, although it took him a few minutes to make that out. Talk of
Lucrezia Borgia, Martha
, and
Norma
confused him until someone mentioned
The Marriage of Figaro
, and finally he was able to nail down the topic. Sebastian Verlaine entered into it eagerly; it turned out that he was an aficionado. “Have you seen
Rigoletto
?” he happened to ask Connor, who was leaning with him against the fireplace mantel.

“No, I haven’t.”

“I saw the premiere in Venice about seven years ago. Magnificent. Do you know Verdi?
Traviata, Il Trovatore
?”

He shook his head. “I don’t really know the opera.”

Croddy heard. “Really? What do you do with yourself when you’re in London?” He asked it genially, as if five minutes ago they hadn’t almost come to blows.

Connor steeled himself. He’d be damned if he’d lie. “As a matter of fact, I’ve never been to London.”

It was a conversation stopper.

“Goodness,” said Lily Hesselius, the doctor’s flighty wife, after a long, unbearable pause.

“I’ve only been one time,” said Mrs. Carnock softly. Kindly.

“You haven’t missed much,” Reverend Morrell said—kindly.

Connor felt the heat flare in his face. Across the way, Sophie peered intently into her sherry glass, motionless.

Croddy stirred. He and Falkner exchanged looks. They’d found the opening they were seeking, the chink in the enemy’s armor. “But I thought you were a university man,” Croddy said with feigned surprise.

“If you mean Oxford or Cambridge, the answer’s no.”

“Where, then? If you don’t mind my asking.”

“I attended the Bryce Pennon Workingmen’s College. In Manchester.” There, that ought to do it. Just the mention of Manchester, the center of working-class radicalism for the last fifty years, set off alarms in tender, middle-class hearts.

“Don’t think I know it,” Vanstone mused.

“I’ve heard of it,” said Croddy, hardly able to hide his glee. “It’s closed, hasn’t it?”

Connor nodded slowly. “Yes.” He decided to add, “I went there on scholarship.”

“Oh. Quite.”

“Because my family couldn’t afford to send me. My father was a tin miner. So were all my brothers. There, I think that’s the worst of it, Mr. Croddy.”

The last awkward silence was nothing compared to this one. Except for Croddy, no one could look at him. Even when Anne Morrell deliberately opened a new topic, Sophie kept her gaze resolutely trained on the lacquered fan in her hands, examining the painted scene between the folds with particular, minute care. Worst was the deep red blush staining her cheeks. Because she was embarrassed for him. Ashamed of him.
Look at me
, he commanded, while around them the chattering voices rose and fell meaninglessly. She never moved.

He could feel a burn in his chest widen, deepen, like a spark searing a hole in dry paper. Until now he’d thought she was with him: Connor and Sophie against the world. What a boneheaded mistake. It hadn’t taken much to send her over to the other side, had it? If she’d ever been on his side to begin with.

Or maybe it was the brandy. He saw her smiling at something her uncle was saying in her ear. Connor strolled over to the drinks table and poured himself a tall one.

The group broke down into smaller units, animated pockets of conversation that he moved around and through but never joined. Sophie found him by the long black windows, brooding. “You’re drinking too much,” she murmured, keeping her back to the room, barely moving her lips.

“Do you think so?” He looked down at the inch of cognac left in his glass. He toasted her before he tossed it back, licking his lips afterward with exaggerated relish. The way her face flinched in nervous shock amused him. “Afraid I’ll embarrass you again, sweetheart?”

“Lower your voice,” she hissed urgently, moving to block from sight as much of him as she could. “What’s the matter with you? Why are you drinking like this?”

“I don’t know.” He set his empty glass down with a too-loud clatter. “It sure as hell isn’t helping. Get your coat, Sophie, we’re leaving.”

“What? No, we can’t—it’s too early!”

“I said we’re going.”

“But we
can’t.
It would be rude.”

“Stay, then.
I’m
leaving.”

He’d had just enough brandy to make the flash of panic in her eyes look comical to him. Moving her aside with his arm, he went past her and started for the door. Knowlton was in his way. “Enjoyed meeting you,” he said into his startled face, shaking hands. Honoria was his hostess, so he detoured to where she was sitting on a velvet love seat with the doctor’s wife. “Thanks for dinner,” he told her, and kept going.

“Connor.”
If you could scream in a whisper, Sophie did it. He heard her behind him. Following him into the hall, she grabbed the back of his coat to make him stop.

“Are you coming?” he asked before she could speak.

Alternatives flickered in her beautiful blue eyes. She decided to dare him. “No.”

“Stay here with your friends, then. Since you like ’em so much. Stay all night, why don’t you? I’m sure your uncle will be glad to put you up. You and Honoria can sleep together.” He spun on his heel and stalked away. A surprised butler saw him from a distance and tried to get to the door to open it for him, but Connor beat him to it.

The wind had come up. A cold, damp blast in his face sobered him slightly. He turned around in the flagstone path. Sophie was coming toward him through the doorway, and the light behind her made her hair glow like a halo. “Come with me,” he said. Asking her this time, not ordering.

“Damn it!” She was mortified. “Come back inside, Con, right now! Can’t you see this is just what they want?”

“Are you coming with me?”

“No!”

He pivoted. “I’ll come and get you in the morning, then,” he tossed over his shoulder. “Or you could ask Croddy to take you home. That’d be like old times.” He yanked at the reins that were looped over the Vanstones’ black iron hitching post. Over Val’s welcoming nicker, the door slamming shut sounded like a gunshot.

***

“Connor’s not feeling well,” Sophie announced in the drawing room doorway. “He—asked me to apologize for his hasty departure. Good night to you all—thank you, Uncle, Honoria, for a lovely evening. No, don’t see me out, he’s waiting for me—stay with your guests. Good night—good night!”

They let her go, all of them looking puzzled and uncertain, and Anne more than that—but thank God no one went with her, and after the stone-faced butler helped her with her evening shawl and opened the door for her, she pulled it firmly closed in his face. Because if anyone learned the truth, that Connor had gone home in a huff and left her stranded, she would never live it down.

The moon had all but disappeared. Fast, angry clouds flew across it, blown by the same wind that ripped at her hair and tried to fling her back against the gate. Muttering curses, she put her head down and trudged into the blast, grateful at least that the street was deserted and there was no one to witness her solitary flight.

On the toll road, she could barely make out the verges; more than once she walked straight into a black, prickly hedge. Dead leaves blew in her face, caught on the dangling fringe of her silk shawl. The creak and scrape of tree limbs sounded eerie under the hurtling roar of the wind. She could smell the sea, heavy and wild, calling to something in her that loved a storm. The wind made her stagger, tried to snatch her shawl from her shoulders. “Blast!” she shouted, and the wind blew the word back into her mouth. She had walked this two-mile journey a hundred times, a
thousand
times, but never on a black, blustery night in a thin dress and thin-soled slippers, with no hat and no hood. Anger kept her going. She couldn’t wait to get home and yell at her husband.

Then the rain started.

She was drenched in a minute. And she was exactly halfway home—too late to turn back. The violence of the wind astounded her. She tied her shawl over her head and walked backward, gritting her teeth and wiping tears out of her eyes, until the gale shifted and blew in her face again. She tripped over something—a limb, ripped from a tree—and went sprawling in the road, scraping her palms on sharp pebbles and muddying her skirts. She got up slowly, carefully, feeling fear begin to creep inside her, clammy and cold, supplanting the hot anger.
What if I hurt myself?
she thought for the first time.
Oh, God, what if I hurt the baby?

She staggered on, lurching through the rain until a slashing, sideways torrent forced her to take cover in a coppice of denuded hawthorns. Shuddering from the cold, teeth chattering, she huddled in a wet crouch and alternated between swearing at Connor and begging him to come and save her. But he wasn’t going to come, and when there was a second’s hush in the mauling, battering rage of the storm, she unwound and set off again, into the teeth of the wind.

XX

Connor made it between the stable and the house at a flat-out, head-down sprint, but he was still soaked to the skin when he clattered down the area steps and burst through the kitchen door. It took forever to light the lantern because his hands were wet and water kept sluicing off his hat and dousing the match. If Sophie had come with him, she’d be drenched by now; she might have taken cold. So. Behaving like a complete horse’s ass had had a compensation.

It was Friday, Mrs. Bolton’s night off. He made all the noise he wanted while he built a fire in the stove and put the kettle on to boil. He thought of continuing to drink all night, or until every vivid, burning-hot memory of the Vanstones’ dinner party was obliterated from his mind in a drunken fog. They would still be there in the morning, though, only magnified by a sick headache. Besides, alcohol was partly what had brought him to this wretched pass; if he hadn’t drunk all that brandy at Vanstone’s, he wouldn’t have walked out on Sophie like a petulant child. Chastened, he shoveled a spoonful of sugar into a mug of tea and carried it upstairs to the parlor.

There were still some embers glowing in the fireplace. He blew on them with the bellows and threw on kindling, then fresh wood. Stripping off his wet jacket, he unfurled a knitted blanket Sophie kept on the arm of the sofa and threw it over his shoulders. He thought of sitting in the dark, nothing but the fire in the grate for light, no sound but the storm outside blowing and shrieking, while he brooded on his sins. But there was something unattractively self-indulgent about that picture. It was too romantic. He hadn’t done anything romantic tonight. He’d behaved like an idiot, and part of his punishment was going to be facing that fact head-on without mitigating frills. So he lit the oil lamp on the table, and a couple of mantelshelf candles for good measure.

Why was he like this? He forgave himself for wanting to beat up Croddy; that was an
honorable
impulse, he decided, maybe not high-minded but perfectly understandable. But why had he flared up at Sophie? To pay her back for being ashamed of him? No—he hadn’t really wanted to hurt her. But she’d humiliated him by her embarrassment, pierced him in his weakest spot, his pride. So he’d turned mean and sullen, like a child. Were they doomed to reenact this stupid scenario for the rest of their lives? How could they break out of it? By talking, of course—but how could they talk when they were both so full of anger and resentment they couldn’t see straight?

His marriage wasn’t the only thing he’d put in jeopardy tonight. How was he going to break it to Ian Braithwaite that his first meeting with Knowlton, the man who held his professional fate in his hands, had been a debacle of enormous proportions? The fact that Croddy hadn’t distinguished himself either was no comfort. Personally Connor wouldn’t blame Clive Knowlton if he told the party committees to dump both of their candidates and start over.

But it was Sophie who preyed on his mind. It wouldn’t have mattered if Knowlton had set a crown on his head tonight and called him Your Highness. When things went wrong between him and Sophie, the world looked gray and paltry and unengaging. He could go through the motions, but he couldn’t care.

The mantel clock struck ten forty-five. Rain smashed against the windows like handfuls of tacks, and the wind blew billows of smoke down the chimney and into the room. He got up and went downstairs for more tea, and as he was coming back he heard a noise. It sounded like pounding at the front door, but more likely it was a loose shutter smacking against the house—the wind was strong enough for it. He went to the door anyway to make sure.

At first he didn’t even recognize her. With her sodden shawl covering her head and strands of dark, dripping hair plastered to her cheeks, she looked like a beggar woman, or a half-drowned cat. “Sophie!” Her frozen hand was stiff as a claw. He pulled her into the hall, the parlor, pushed her close to the fire. “Sophie, what did you do?” She couldn’t speak; her teeth were chattering uncontrollably. He knew the answer anyway. “Idiot,” he chided, gruffly tender, hiding his fear.

The dye from her skirts was dripping in blue rivulets and puddling on the floor at her feet. He whipped the shawl from her head and threw it on the stone hearth, turned her around, and started on the buttons at the back of her gown. Her clammy skin was cold and too white; he chafed it with his hands while he got her dress off, then her petticoats, corset, chemise, shoes, stockings, everything soaking wet and heavy as laundry. “Stay here,” he ordered, wrapping her in the knitted blanket and pushing her into a chair he drew close to the fire. As an afterthought, he put her bare feet on a pillow. On his way out the door to get her some hot tea, he remembered his own cup. “Drink this,” he commanded, handing it to her. But she couldn’t hold on to it, her fingers were useless. He held the cup to her bluish lips, held the back of her neck with his other hand, unnerved by the violence of her shuddering. He made her drink all the tea, and then he rebuilt the fire until it was a snapping, spitting blaze. “I’ll get more blankets,” he told her, and started out again—then halted in the doorway. “No, a bath, a hot bath. I’ll put water on to boil. And brandy, I’ll get the bottle.” Her wind-reddened face was all wide, frightened eyes. She hadn’t said a word yet, but she didn’t have to; he knew what she was thinking. He was thinking it, too. But he hurried out of the room without saying anything about the baby.

There was a big cast-iron tub in the basement lavatory, but he decided to put her in the smaller copper tub in the kitchen, because that room was warmer. He made her lie back so that nothing but her head and knees broke the surface, and he massaged her stiff arms and legs until she finally stopped shivering and turned a healthy pink color all over. He dried her by the stove, then helped her put on her heaviest flannel nightdress. “I can walk,” she protested when he picked her up off her feet. He’d made a turban for her head with a dry towel; she sagged in his arms, looking like a tired, droopy sultana. “I know you can walk. I want to carry you.” She sighed, and rested her head on his shoulder, and neither of them said anything about the baby.

He put her to bed, and kept pouring hot tea into her until she held up her hands and said, “No more,” in a weak plea. She looked small and frail by the light of a single candle flickering on the bedside table. He pulled the covers up to her chin, and when she closed her eyes he stayed where he was, staring down at her still face.
I love you, Sophie
, he wanted to tell her.
I’m sorry for what I did.
But all he could say was, “How do you feel?”

“Fine.” She whispered it tiredly, not opening her eyes.

He bent and put his cheek next to hers. “Go to sleep, sweetheart. Don’t worry. Everything’s all right.” She nodded, then turned away from him, curling up on her side.

He sat beside her for a long time, listening to the whisper of her breathing. Gradually the tension began to let go of him; he relaxed. The wind had died sometime—he hadn’t even noticed; the storm was nothing but rain now, falling hard and steady, straight down. He stroked his hand over the thin bulge of Sophie’s shoulder under the counterpane. She was sleeping deeply, naturally. She was going to be all right.

***

The bleeding started just before dawn. She slept all night through tedious, complicated dreams, and awoke in the cold gray hour before daylight with an urgent need to use the night commode. At first the dark stain against the white of the china pot confused her. Her body understood before her brain, and turned ice-cold where she stood. She covered her mouth with her hands, gasping. In an instant she knew it all, everything that would happen, and in the next, she pushed it out of her mind.

She crept back into the bedroom, holding her elbows, hunchbacked, protecting her womb. “Con?” she murmured, too softly for him to hear. She wanted to cry so badly. “Connor.” She shook his arm, and he came awake. Before she could say anything else, he threw the covers back and sat up, reaching for her.

“What’s the matter?”

He already knew, too; she could tell by his face. “I think something’s wrong.” If she spoke above a whisper, her voice would crack.

“Why? What is it?”

She hated saying the words. “I’m bleeding.”

He blanched, turned sheet-white, but immediately he took her hand, all business, and made her lie down in the bed on his side. The warmth of his body clung to the sheets, comforting her. “It might not be anything,” he said, leaning over her.

“I know.”

“It’s probably not anything.”

She nodded. She wanted to grab his hand, but that would prove she was scared.
It might not be anything.

He was throwing on his clothes, his movements quick and smooth, not panicked. “I’m going for the doctor, Sophie. I’ll wake up Jack before I go. I’ll be back in less than an hour.”

“Can’t you send Thomas?”

“It’ll be faster if I go.”

She didn’t want him to leave. When he came to her and cupped her cheeks with his hands, she took his wrists and held him still. “Oh, Con,” she burst out, and he said, “Shh,” softly, and put his face next to hers. He didn’t want her to break down. “I’ll be back as soon as I can. Do you need anything?”

“No.”

“You’re not in pain are you, Sophie?”

She shook her head, whispering, “No, no—it might not be anything,” and he said it back. They held on to each other for a long, wordless minute, and then he kissed her on the mouth and went away.

A little later, Jack poked his head in the door. “Sophie?” She sent him a feeble wave and a tightlipped smile. “Do ee want some tea? I’ll go and make it. I know how,” he added when he saw she was going to protest.

“No, Jack, stay in bed and wait for Connor to come home. Anyway, Maris will be here soon.”

He came farther into the room. His dark hair, so like Connor’s, was sleep-tousled, and his feet were still bare under his long night robe. “I can make a egg if you want it boiled. Any other way and ee’re out o’ luck, but boilin’ I can do blindfolded.” When she couldn’t return his determined grin, he sobered. “Con telled me. About last night. I’m that sorry, Sophie. Sometimes he’m a rash idiot, and stubborn as stones.”

“It’s not his fault.” She shifted, drawing her knees up. She didn’t want to talk, not about this. “Go back to bed, Jack, I mean it. I’m fine—I just want to lie here and be quiet.”

“Right, then. Holler if ee needs anything,” he said softly, and she nodded. She closed her eyes, and heard the door click shut behind him.

She was staring at the ceiling, praying hard, making God desperate promises, when the cramps began.

***

Connor was pacing in the narrow hall between Jack’s room and the nursery when the door to the bedroom opened and Dr. Hesselius came out. Behind his spectacles, his large brown eyes looked mournful—but Connor told himself that meant nothing. Hesselius always looked like a whipped dog. “Well?” he said aggressively, striding toward him, stopping in front of the staircase.

“I’m sorry. Sophie’s losing the baby.”

His head jerked in an angry spasm. He couldn’t talk. The news felt like a physical blow, even though part of his mind had known it already. He watched the doctor take a pipe out of his pocket and finger the empty bowl, press his thumbnail into the teeth marks on the stem. Connor wanted to slap him in the face. The tobacco smell that hung around Hesselius like a cloud repelled him, and in a quick flare of hope, he saw that he didn’t know what he was talking about—he was wrong, incompetent, this was all a mistake.

“The fetus is dead. Complete abortion could take a few hours or a few days. Sophie—”

“How do you know it’s dead? Can’t you stop it?”

He shook his head sadly. “I’m very sorry. The child is not living, Mr. Pendarvis. I’ll stay with Sophie if she wants me to, but at this point there isn’t much I can do to help her.”

He kept blinking, flailing in his mind for a way to fight this. Because this was going to hurt Sophie to the heart. “Will she be all right? Will she be in pain?”

Hesselius reached for Connor’s arm, and looked at the floor while he said, “The fetus is about fourteen weeks old. Sophie’s miscarriage will be like a labor, but probably much faster, and there shouldn’t be as much pain.” He dropped his hand. “I’m very sorry. But she’ll recover, and there’s no reason she can’t have another pregnancy, a normal pregnancy, in the future.”

In their room, she was huddled on her side in the big bed. Maris was with her, but when she saw Connor she got up from a chair at the bedside and went out. Her plain, kind face looked tragic; she didn’t speak, but she gave him a quick, commiserating shake of the head as she passed him in the doorway.

He sat beside Sophie on the edge of the bed. She hadn’t been crying, but as soon as he took her hand her eyes overflowed, wetting the pillow. She used the cuff of her nightgown to dry her face, and turned slightly, to see him better. She was so pale. He didn’t know what to say, how to help her. All he felt was misery, and there was nothing he could do. “I’m so sorry.” He had to say that, but it only made everything worse.

“The doctor says it’s nobody’s fault. The baby might’ve . . .” She squeezed her eyes shut, unable to say the word. “We might’ve lost her anyway.”

“Her?”

Her voice sounded raw, as if her throat hurt. “I thought it was a girl. I don’t know why. But I was sure.”

He hadn’t thought it was anything. It hadn’t been real. But now it was, now that they were losing it. He put his forehead down on Sophie’s hand, struggling to feel the right thing. He kept thinking,
I don’t know what I’m doing, I don’t know what I’m doing.

She made a grating sound and bared her teeth, hunching, drawing her knees up. He huddled over her, frightened. “Sophie?” She clutched his hand painfully. It was like a contraction; after a minute, her muscles went slack and she lay still, panting.

It went on for hours. True to his word, Hesselius stayed with her, but there was nothing for him to do. Connor, the doctor, Maris, even Jack—they kept up a grim, dispirited vigil, taking turns sitting with Sophie. She lay lifeless and silent, not seeming to care who was with her. In the afternoon her contractions became rhythmic and severe, and Hesselius sent everyone out of the room. Jack wanted to stay with Connor, but he couldn’t talk anymore. Couldn’t keep up the front that he was strong and reconciled and stoic. He had to get away by himself.