Miss Prestwick's Crusade (26 page)

"Don't, Helen,” he said awkwardly. “Don't cry. It is not over. Why, we have been searching for a scant month."

"Yes, but if anything was going to turn up, it should have done so by now. Your agent has covered the most likely sources of information."

Observing Helen's anguish, Edward would have given all he possessed to lighten her burden. The graceful column of her neck bowed in distress.

"Yes,” he said as briskly as he could, “but that's the key phrase—'the most likely sources.’ There are other sources, not so likely. I'll send people to cover the coach routes, for examples. Coachmen run into travelers from all over the country. We'll have them asking questions of every village postmaster in the country."

Helen's lips curved in a watery smile. “Thank you. You're being very kind."

"Not at all,” returned Edward. He sat, then, speechless, until Helen raised her brows.

"If there is nothing else, Mr. Beresford . . ."

Edward fairly leapt to his feet, cursing himself for his inability to craft even the most rudimentary of conventional phrases.

"No, of course not. I shall let you get on with your work. Shall we see you at dinner?"

A flash of what looked like panic appeared in Helen's gaze.

"Oh. Oh, no, I do not think so, sir. I would prefer to take my meals separately from now on. I think it more—fitting."

Edward felt as though yet another crack had appeared in his heart. “But—” he began, but Helen shook her head.

"Things can never be the same between us, Edward. I do not wish to seem petty, but I believe it would be better for both of us if we were to maintain a strictly professional relationship from now on."

Her eyes glittered dark as gunmetal in her white face. She was obviously waiting for him to go.

"We shall discuss this further—later.” Edward whirled and fled from the room.

Helen collapsed onto her chair. Dear God, she could not go through many more scenes like that She shivered. If only she were not so cold. She could not seem to think straight.

A sigh emerged from the depths of her grief. At least, now it was really over—whatever had been between her and Edward. He had offered no argument to her little speech about separation. Well, she certainly had not expected he would, had she? And was it not much better this way. In the future, she—

She was interrupted in her melancholy reflections by Barney, who swept into the room without so much as a tap.

"I met Edward on the landing,” she said without preamble. Helen merely nodded.

"Well?” Barney continued. Helen stared at her blankly.

"Oh, for mercy's sake!” exclaimed the older woman. “Are you two still at loggerheads? By the Lord Harry, do you both need hitting over the head with a roof beam?"

"What are you talking about?” Helen asked dully. She could not help wondering what the devil Barney was doing here. She loved the old woman dearly, but she really was not in the mood for a chat. She lifted a hand in supplication. “Please, Barney ..."

” ‘Please, Barney, leave me alone?'” retorted Barney. “Is that what you're going to say? Leave you alone to molder like a ripe cauliflower? Good gracious Gertrude, my girl, when are you going to come to your senses? I vow I am losing patience with you.
And
that overgrown stick of wood you've fallen in love with."

This last phrase grasped Helen's complete attention.

"Fallen in love with!” she gasped.

"Yes, as in smitten, head over teakettle, ‘til death do us part.’”

"Barney!” The chill that had enveloped Helen was abruptly replaced by a hot rush of embarrassment. “How did?—That is, whatever are you talking about? Edward and I had become friends, but now—that is all over. He cannot forgive me for my deception—and I can't say that I blame him. If I—"

"Friends! Are you trying to tell me that is all you ever felt for him? Friendship? Helen Maria Prestwick, if that isn't the biggest load of blather I ever heard in all my born days."

At the evident distress in Helen's eyes, Barney's voice softened. “It is not a sin to fall in love with a man, you know, my dear. And Edward is an eminently lovable man, if you ask me."

At this the tears that had been dammed up under Helen's heart for the better part of a week burst forth. Sobbing, she fell into Barney's open arms, and for the next several minutes she allowed her misery to pour forth. When at last she subsided in a series of watery hiccups. Barney patted her shoulder as she had done when Helen was a child, weeping over the death of a beloved kitten.

"There, there, sweeting. It will be all right. You'll see."

At these words, not heard for so many years, Helen uttered a rusty chuckle. She drew back from the older woman's embrace.

"Thank you, Barney. Though it's never going to be anywhere near all right, you have always contrived to make me feel better."

"But that's what I came up here for. To ask when you intend to make it better."

Again, Helen bestowed a blank stare on her friend.

"I? Make it better? Barney, I have torn the fabric of my friendship with Edward—and that is not like one's second best shawl, to be mended in a trice with a length of silk. He has allowed me to remain at Whitehouse Abbey, but—"

Barney sighed patiently. “I wish you would stop talking this everlasting nonsense about friendship. Why don't you just tell him that you love him?"

"What?"
Helen's eyes were by now so swollen she could barely see Barney, and she knew she must make a ludicrous picture, with her mouth hanging open as well.

"Barney,” she replied at last in an outraged choke. “How can you suggest such a preposterous idea?"

"Why? It seems to me there's a good chance he returns your feelings."

"Yes. Well, he might have at one time, but—I guess I did not tell you this, but at one time he did—give some indication that—but—well, I couldn't tell him how I felt with that wretched
Woman at the Window
fiasco hanging over my head. I—I gave him to believe that his, um, sentiments were not returned. And that I—well, that I wished he'd leave me alone."

Barney flung her arms in the air and stamped around the table. “Oh, excellent! You finally meet the man you've been waiting for all your life and you throw him away like an unacceptable piece of fruit."

"But don't you see?” wailed Helen. “I have been giving this a bit of thought, you know. After having exploded my little bombshell under his feet—and you already know how he feels about all that—how can I now rush up to him and whisper shyly that I didn't mean anything of what I said before and that I would look favorably on, urn, further expressions?"

"Oh, Lord. Would you
have
to phrase it like the heroine in a bad play? I see your point about encouraging his— ardor, but—"

"Don't you see. Barney? He'd be sure to think that I was trying to make the best of a bad situation. That I was desperate to get in his good graces, so that I could continue on here at the Abbey under his willing protection, and—"

"It seems to me,” rasped Barney, tapping her foot, “that that is precisely the kind of thinking that plumped you into such a parcel of trouble in the first place. For the love of heaven, why can't you just be honest with the man? Don't you think he deserves that?"

Helen said nothing for a long moment but at last whispered, “Of course he does. I think that if I were honest with myself, I'd realize that I'm afraid. Afraid he would turn away in contempt."

"I think you're being ridiculous.” Barney shifted. “In any case, faint heart never won fair gentleman. And that is all I came to say. I shall leave you now. Perhaps you will join me a little later in the nursery. I have promised William a fast game of peep-bo."

For the first time, Helen smiled. “I'd like that. I've been neglecting my favorite nephew of late, and I miss him."

With a small wave. Barney bustled herself out of the room. Helen sat down to her work once more, but her gaze remained, unseeing, on the far wall of her attic work chamber.

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The Camberwell board was graced at dinner that evening by all the family members at present in residence at the Abbey. Helen, realizing that she was being absurdly obstinate in her determination to take her meals alone, sat in her usual place. Conversation was desultory, until Artemis brought up the endlessly fascinating (to her) topic of her London season.

"I am nearly all packed. I'm quite pleased with the gowns Mrs. Brinkson made for me, although I thought she would never get them finished to our specifications.” Artemis turned to Helen. “Do you know, I had to return that apricot muslin morning dress three times? Do you remember? We ordered a broad band of ribbons in the Bolognese style crossing the bosom? Well, she neglected to continue them over the shoulders, tied in small bows! She said we never told her to do that, but we did, did we not?"

At Helen's abstracted nod, she continued. “I don't understand why that woman cannot seem to comprehend the simplest of instructions. Oh, Helen, I cannot wait to have you meet Madame Phanie when we get to London. I know you and she will get on famously and—well, between the two of you, I shall be the most stunningly gowned female in Town."

Across the table, Helen emerged from the seemingly terminal fog of unhappiness in which she now seemed enshrouded.
When we get to London?
She shot a sidelong glance at Edward, who was apparently absorbed in the consumption of his fricassee of veal.

"London?” she echoed. “Why, I do not plan to go to London."

"Not go to London!” Artemis's voice ascended into her favorite squeal register. “But whyever not?"

"I have no reason to go to London,” she replied quietly, pleased that her voice remained calm. “I have my work here at the Abbey, and I must apply myself if I am ever to make any order out of your family's collection."

Edward lifted his head to send her a questioning look.

"But you are family. Miss Prestwick. I believe it behooves you to participate in our activities."

"You are very kind, Mr. Beresford, but, I—I do not wish to go to London. I would much rather remain at the Abbey with William."

"Well, but is not William to come with us to Town?"

Dear Lord, thought Helen dazedly, why was he so insistent on this “member of the family” theme? He had made his disdain for her painfully clear, yet she was now to be considered part of the Camberwell menage—an integral part of the household and involved in all the Camberwell projects. Now he wished her to accompany the family to London? For what purpose?

"Why, yes,” declared Aunt Emily in response to Edward's question. “I have made arrangements for William to travel with Finch and an undernurse in a separate carriage so they will have plenty of room to spread out."

Helen eyed the dowager curiously. The older woman had appeared distracted all evening long, eating little and speaking only infrequently. Was she aware, as Edward had murmured to her in the Yellow Salon just before dinner, that her brother had taken an inordinate number of possessions with him for a brief sojourn in London? Her thoughts swung to Stamford Welladay. Had he really stolen the jewels from the Poggini Cup? It certainly seemed more than likely. How terribly distressing for the countess it would be, to have her own brother accused of such monstrous behavior.

When dinner at last dragged to its inevitable conclusion, Edward declined to linger over port in the Dining Room. Nor did he join the ladies in the Drawing Room, pleading the press of his duties. Helen, too, fled the room early, avoiding Barney's gimlet-eyed glance. She muttered something about chemical reactions set in motion and hurried from the room.

Once in her workroom, she bent determinedly over a painting to which she had applied a cleaning solution a little earlier. The composition had begun to work very nicely, and she began removing the layer of grime that had formed on the painting's surface. Unfortunately, the task did not require much thought, and her mind was left vacant for the mournful reflections that had been occupying^ it for too long.

Darkness fell, and she lit candles. Finally, she swabbed the last section of the painting she had treated with crystalline damar. She glanced at the candles guttering in their sockets. Goodness, it must be past midnight! Putting away her equipment, she rose and, stretching the kinks from fingers and back, made her way down the darkened staircase to her room.

She paused with her hand outstretched to the handle. She felt unaccountably restless, and tired though she might be, she did not think she would easily fall asleep. Smiling to herself, she retraced her steps to the stairway and descended though the silence of the sleeping house to the Hall. Good, the servants were obviously all abed. She let herself out the front door, carefully leaving the latchstring off the hook.

A crescent moon floated across the April sky, and the blossom-scented breeze that caressed Helen's cheek was considerably warmer than that which had chilled her only five weeks ago. Five weeks. What a very short time for such an upheaval to have taken place in her life. She pictured William, asleep in his nursery cot. She hoped with all her heart that he would soon be acknowledged as the Earl of Camberwell, but that prospect seemed remote at the moment. Still, his future was assured. She only wished she could say the same for herself.

No. She would not tread this path again—this useless fretting over what could never be.

"Put your chin up, my girl,” she told herself austerely. “Your world is not going to crash to its end just because you cannot have the gentleman of your dreams."

Purposefully, she wove plans for a career in London. After some minutes in this only marginally profitable endeavor, she returned to the house. She made for the front door, but when she set her hand to the latchstring, she found it...

"Oh, dear God—locked!” She said the words aloud in horror-stricken accents. But how could this be? She had been so very careful to leave the latchstring off. Now what was she to do? She turned to walk around to the side.

Sure enough, there was a patch of light shining on the lawn, indicating Edward's presence in his study. She vowed instantly that she would remain outside on the lawn until dawn rather than go to him. She retraced her steps and prepared to try the myriad other doors that led into the manor.