How would he have looked into Caroline’s eyes? She could not help scourging herself with that thought. Would there have been joy in those clear blue eyes, and the sense of a man happy to make such promises? For all she could see was the chilly firmness of purpose of a man unshakeably determined to do his duty as well as he could.
Now it was her turn to take his hand and say her part.
“I Griselda Anna, take thee Thomas Francis, to my wedded husband, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love, cherish, and to obey, till death do us part, according to God’s holy ordinance; and thereto I give you my troth.”
“The ring, Sir Thomas?” said Dr Hopkins. Thorpe, still kneeling beside her, removed his signet ring from his little finger and laid it on the open prayer book. “Your glove, my dear,” said Dr Hopkins.
She had a little trouble taking it off – it was a trifle too tight for her. She had borrowed it from Lady Farquarson, and it was inside out by the time she accomplished the task. She remembered the glove he had tried to steal from her, how that had been the last time he had kissed her, and how she had been so angry with him and yet wanted him so desperately to kiss him in return. Now he was taking her hand and slipping his signet ring onto her wedding ring finger. She felt sure it would not fit, that it would be too loose or too tight, but oddly it slipped perfectly into place as if it had been made for her finger. The flat seal, engraved with the Thorpe crest, settled as it should, on display to the world. Their eyes met in mutual surprise for a moment.
But only for a moment. He looked down at her hand and practically in a whisper, as if he meant her only to hear him, said, “With this ring I thee wed, with my body I thee worship, and with all my worldly goods I thee endow.”
He pressed her fingers with his own. Griselda felt her heart thudding and quickly told herself it was from agitation at the enormity of what she had done.
“Let us pray,” said Dr Hopkins, and Sir Thomas Thorpe, her husband, now helped her from her stool to the hassocks that had been put at the chancel steps.
***
The landlord of the Blue Bell had been sufficiently bullied by Sir George Farquarson to provide a modest but not inelegant wedding breakfast that matched the position of the bride and groom, if not their appetites.
“I could not find a piper or a fiddler,” said Sir George as they sat down the cold meat, wine and a plum cake. “But when you first come to Glenmorval, Grizzy, we will have both, and you shall dance all night, and then some more. Yes, and I’ll have them light bonfires, and you can walk from house to house in the old manner. Our people will want a proper wedding feast for the laird’s daughter.”
“I dare say that by the time she and Sir Tam get to Glenmorval, she’ll be in no condition for dancing,” said Lady Farquarson. “Let alone walking all over the neighbourhood.”
“By God, yes, there’s a thought. My first grandchild – it had better be a boy, mind Grizzy, or I shall be very cross with you and not send so much as a silver mug. Tam, my boy, see the ladies have what they desire.”
Now that the register was signed and the marriage lines handed to the groom, Sir George had pushed any lingering notions of parental outrage aside. Griselda winced at that “Tam, my boy,” unable to know when, if ever, she would be able to address her husband by anything other than “Sir Thomas.” He was no stranger to family formality – she had seen it with his own mother and why should things be different with his wife, the wife whom he had married out of duty rather than love? She could not expect an affectionate “Grizzy” from Thomas Thorpe.
She took the cup of chocolate that he had politely offered and sat down next to him at the table. She remembered how he had handed her that cup of chocolate at that other inn, how her hand had rattled the cup in the saucer at the touch of his fingers. Now she felt beyond trembling. There was a crisp breath of the autumn in the air and the room was cool. She felt the draught at her shoulders, for they sat beneath the window, but it did not make her shiver. She felt nothing but the unaccustomed weight of his signet ring on her finger, as heavy as an iron manacle on the ankle of a slave. Putting down the cup, she sat with her hands on her lap, twisting it, hoping to pull it off and then not quite daring to.
“Eat something now, my dear,” said Sir George, who was carving a side of pressed beef with his usual flamboyance. “You’ll need all your strength tonight.”
It was a vulgar remark and even Lady Farquarson blushed and tutted at it.
“A little cold chicken might be more to your taste,” said Thorpe. “You should eat something.”
He was jointing one of the cold fowls, and had carved a few neat slices of the breast for her.
“Yes, listen to your husband,” said Sir George. “You know you must do as he says now.”
Thorpe put the plate down in front of her.
“I wish you would eat,” he said, very quietly. “You are not yourself.”
“How can I be?” Griselda said, equally softly.
He bit his lip and turned to Lady Farquarson. “You’ll have some of this chicken, ma’am?”
“I will, thank you sir. My, it’s a pleasure to see you carve a bird. You do it very daintily. Not like my husband, who will slit up a chicken like it’s a roebuck he’s just felled.”
“Ah, yes, I was meaning to ask you, Tam,” said Sir George, his mouth full of beef. “Have you ever been deer shooting?”
“Not in Scotland, sir,” said Thorpe. “A friend from Cambridge has a place near Exmoor. We have had some rare sport there but I dare say to shoot deer in Scotland would be rarer indeed.”
Griselda pictured Thorpe in his shooting coat, his gun crooked over his arm while some poor doe lay newly dead, or worse still dying, on the brown heather and bracken of the moor above Glenmorval. She felt like a wounded doe herself, unable to struggle to her feet and run away. She felt she was bleeding silently to death as they sat there at that charade of a wedding breakfast. Where was her strength, her will to oppose this? What was happening to her?
“Then you have pleasure in store for you at Glenmorval,” said Sir George. “For that is the best sport you will get in the world, I can assure you.”
“Then you have not chased the fox in my country yet, sir,” said Thorpe, raising his wine glass to Sir George.
Outside there was a rumble of carriage wheels drawing up at the inn. Thorpe got to his feet and glanced out of the window. “Ah, that will be Gough.”
“Gough?” said Sir George.
“My man,” said Thorpe, sitting down again.
However, a few moments later, the landlord could be heard saying in the passage way outside, “Sir Thomas Thorpe, ma’am? Straight ahead – first door you come to.”
“Who can that be?” said Thorpe getting up from his place at the table. He went over to the door and pulled it open.
And stood there saying nothing.
“Oh, but you are all right!” said a woman’s voice, Caroline’s voice. “Thank God! I have been so worried, Sir Thomas. When Gough came to me and told me you had been injured,” Caroline went on. “I had to come with him. I could not have stayed comfortably at Cromer knowing you were injured. And he has been so concerned for you. It is all right, Mr Gough, your master is quite safe. Tell us what has happened.”
“I told you the man was exaggerating,” Griselda heard Lady Amberleigh say. “Good morning to you, Sir Thomas, I am glad to see you well. Now is there any sign of my niece yet, I wonder?”
“My Lady, Miss Rufford, you had better come in,” said Sir Thomas and showed them into the room.
“Griselda, my dear, you are here too – you are found!” exclaimed Caroline with real pleasure while Lady Amberleigh looked around her for a moment, obviously trying to master her surprise.
“Well, brother, I knew you were en voyage for Cromer, but this is hardly the place I expected to find you. A pleasure, though,” she said and put our her hand to Sir George to kiss.
“You’re looking very well, Jacobina,” said Sir George kissed his sister vigorously on each cheek in turn. “And this must be little Caroline! By heavens, what a beauty you’ve grown into.” And then he kissed Caroline on each cheek. “Not that you weren’t a very pretty child but… Well, this is most fortuitous. You are just in time to drink the health of the bride and groom.”
“Oh yes,” said Caroline smiling. “Colonel Farquarson told me of your marriage, sir. My very best wishes.”
“Oh, not my marriage,” said Sir George, “Though you may drink to that as well, if you choose. No, my daughter. Griselda and Sir Thomas here have just made a match of it. This very morning.”
“I beg your pardon, sir?” said Caroline, glancing from Tom to Griselda. “I take it this is a joke – or am I misunderstanding something? Sir Thomas, Griselda?”
Griselda could bear it no longer. The long suppressed emotion rose up inside her with something like volcanic force. She jumped to her feet and shouted at Thorpe: “Well, will you tell her or must I? Will you tell her what we have done?”
“It is true, Miss Rufford. We were married this morning,” he spoke rather quietly and, if Griselda was not mistaken, with a great deal of regret. “When I told you in my letter that the circumstances had changed, I ought to have been more frank with you.”
“Your letter?” Caroline’s brow clouded.
“Did Gough did not give it to you?”
“I have had no letter from you,” said Caroline.
“Oh dear Lord,” muttered Thorpe.
“What letter is this?” said Griselda furiously, turning to Thorpe. He ignored her and spoke to Caroline.
“Miss Rufford, I apologise, but there is no pleasant way of putting this. I wrote to ask you to release me from our engagement. I gave the letter to Gough yesterday morning. You ought to have…”
“You wrote to ask me to break the engagement?” said Caroline, with a rising note of horror in her voice. “You wrote to me on such a matter rather than face me? Why? What on earth…?”
“You coward!” exclaimed Griselda.
“Now, Grizzy, that’s no way to talk to your husband,” said Sir George. “A little respect if you please.”
“Why? He deserves none. You do not know the half of it,” said Griselda.
There was a shocked silence.
“Which is?” Sir George asked, looking at her sternly. “That he’s seduced you after all?”
Griselda could not answer. She found herself blushing. Sir George turned to Thorpe, shaking his head.
“I thought you were damnable keen to take my Grizzy. Ha!” Sir George gave a disgusted snort. He turned to Lady Farquarson. “I told you he’d tumbled her, Maggie, I told you so. But you would tell me all that romantic clap-trap about elopements. Well, Thorpe, you’re a damnable blackguard sir, and you well deserve the piece of trouble you’ve got for a wife. And you could have had my pretty niece instead of this disobedient chit. She would have been a better bargain, and no mistake.”
Caroline’s puzzlement seemed to be dissolving into pain. She turned away, steadying herself with her hand on the chair rail.
“This cannot be true,” Caroline in a small dry voice. “I cannot believe this is true. Sir Thomas, you did not…? Griselda?” She turned back and looked across at Griselda. Griselda, red-faced with shame and misery, could only manage a slight nod.
Caroline gripped the chair back a little more tightly, her eyes closed, her face deathly pale. She swayed slightly and then staggered and would have fallen in a heap on the floor had not Thorpe stepped forward and caught her in his arms. He cradled her with such tenderness that Griselda could not bear to look at it. She turned away to the window, her arms folded around herself, the tears starting in her eyes.
“I have the salts here,” she heard Lady Farquarson saying. “Here, hold her, Sir George – you, Thorpe, you take yourself and your lady out of here. We shall see to Miss Rufford, and take her back to her people. This is all too much for her. Now, come, my dear…” Caroline spluttered and coughed on the salts as she came round again.
Griselda felt Thorpe’s hand on her shoulder. But only briefly.
“Come, we had better go,” he said.
“It is a bachelor’s house,” Thorpe said, when they were alone in the library at Priorscote. “I dare say you will want to make some changes. Do what you like. You had better make yourself as comfortable as you can.”
Griselda was mortified by the cool carelessness of this speech.
“Or perhaps you would prefer to live at Hanstead,” he went on, pouring them both a glass of Madeira. “That is my mother’s house at present, but if you prefer it – ”
“No, no, I have no wish to change anything.”
“That is just as well. My mother detests the very idea of the dower house.”
She took the wine he offered to her – she felt she needed it. She went to look out of the window at the park. A large expanse of well-tended green turf stretched out in front of her, edged all about with sheltering plantations of trees. It was dusk and she could sense the cool decay of autumn in the air.