Authors: Mary Balogh
“Mr. Golding, my lady,” she said, “to call on Miss Haytor.”
Miss Haytor jumped to her feet, her cheeks suffused with color.
“Oh, Mary,” she cried, “you really ought to have called me out. I will come—”
But it was too late. A gentleman came past Mary into the room, and then looked acutely embarrassed to find it occupied. He stopped abruptly and bowed.
Cassandra got to her feet and hurried toward him, both hands outstretched, her face glowing.
“Mr. Golding,” she said. “It has been a long time, but I do believe I would have known you anywhere.”
He was a small, thin, wiry man of middle years and unprepossessing appearance. His dark hair had receded from his forehead and
thinned to an almost bald patch on the crown of his head and silvered at the temples. He wore wire-rimmed spectacles halfway down his nose.
“Little Cassie?” he said, setting his hands in hers and looking as delighted as she. “I would
not
have known
you
except maybe for your hair. But you are Lady Paget now, are you not? Miss Haytor told me that when I met her yesterday. I am sorry about your husband’s passing.”
“Thank you,” she said, and she turned to present him to her other guests, her face still bright and happy and quite incredibly beautiful. She explained that he had been her brother’s tutor for a short while when they were children, though now he was secretary to a cabinet minister.
“I came to pay my respects to Miss Haytor,” Golding said after he had made his bows. “I did not intend to walk in on you and your visitors, Lady Paget.”
“Do have a seat anyway,” Cassandra said, “and a cup of tea.”
But he would not sit down, clearly intimidated by the company.
“I merely came,” he said, “to see if Miss Haytor would care to join me for a drive out to Richmond Park tomorrow. I thought we might take a picnic tea.”
He looked at Miss Haytor, clearly uncomfortable.
“Just the two of us?” she asked, the color still high in her cheeks, her eyes bright. She looked really quite handsome, Stephen thought. She must have been a pretty girl in her day.
“I suppose it is not quite the thing, is it?” he said, turning his hat in his hands and looking as though he would be glad of a hole opening at his feet to swallow him up. “I just do not know who else I could ask to accompany us. I suppose I could—”
Beginnings needed middles before they could find endings, Stephen thought, whether in this potentially budding romance between two middle-aged people who had been a governess and a tutor together in a long-ago past, or in his new relationship with
Cassandra, his new
friendship
with her that might lead anywhere as far as either of them knew now. But he wanted to discover where that anywhere was.
“If you have no great objection,” he said to Golding, “and if Lady Paget has no plans for tomorrow afternoon, perhaps she and I could join the two of you on your picnic. The ladies could be each other’s chaperone.”
“That would be very decent of you, my lord,” Mr. Golding said, “though I do not wish to impose.”
“It is no imposition at all,” Stephen said. “I only wish I had thought of it for myself. Now all we need, Golding, is to have two ladies agree to accompany us.” He looked inquiringly from Miss Haytor to Cassandra and back again. “I ought to have asked you first, Miss Haytor, if you mind my being one of the party. Do you?”
He shamelessly smiled his most charming smile at her.
But he could see from her eyes that she very badly wanted to go.
“You are quite correct, Lord Merton,” she said sternly. “If Cassie is with me, I will be able to chaperone her and see that she comes to no harm. Mr. Golding, I would be delighted to come.”
They all looked questioningly at Cassandra.
“It seems,” she said without looking at Stephen, “that I am going on a picnic tomorrow.”
“Splendid,” Golding said again, rubbing his hands together, though he still looked horribly embarrassed. “I will have a hired carriage outside the door at two o’clock, then.”
“Perhaps,” Stephen said, “since you are presumably supplying the tea, Golding, you will allow me to supply the carriage?”
“That is decent of you, my lord,” Golding said, and he bowed himself out of the room without further ado.
“It is time we all took our leave,” Meg said, getting to her feet. “Thank you for tea and your kind hospitality, Lady Paget. And it has been very pleasant to meet you, Miss Haytor.”
“It has indeed,” Kate said. “I wanted us to share some teaching
stories, Miss Haytor, but we have not had a chance, have we? Perhaps next time.”
“I will look forward to tomorrow, ma’am,” Stephen said, making her a bow before following the others out of the room. Cassandra was with his sisters.
He let Meg and Kate go out to the waiting carriage while he lingered in the hall to take his leave.
“I have always had a weakness for picnics,” he said. “Fresh air. Food and drink. Grass and trees and flowers. Congenial company. They are a powerful combination.”
“The company may not be very congenial,” she warned him.
He laughed.
“I am sure,” he said, “I will like Golding very well indeed.”
She half smiled at his deliberate misunderstanding of her meaning.
“I meant myself,” she said. “You must know that I do not want to go, that this new … relationship you spoke of last night is doomed to failure. We cannot be friends, Stephen, having once been protector and mistress.”
“Lovers cannot be friends, then?” he asked her.
She did not reply.
“I have a need to make amends,” he told her. “Instead of bringing some joy back into your life, I did the opposite, Cass. Let me make amends.”
“I do not want—”
“We all want joy,” he said. “We all
need
it. And there is such a thing, Cass. I promise you.”
She merely stared at him, her green eyes almost luminous.
“Tell me you will look forward to the picnic,” he said.
“Oh, very well,” she said. “If my doing so will make you feel better, I will say it. I will not sleep tonight for eager excitement to have the picnic begin. I shall say my prayers for good weather every hour on the hour.”
He smiled at her and flicked her chin with one finger before hurrying outside and climbing into the carriage to take his place opposite his sisters, his back to the horses.
“Oh, Stephen,” Kate said when the door had been closed and the carriage rocked into motion, “I did not understand this morning. Or perhaps I
chose
not to understand. Are none of us to have a smooth road to matrimony and happiness, then?”
“But it was a rough road that led three of us to happiness, Kate,” Meg said quietly. “Perhaps a smooth road does not do it. Perhaps we should
wish
this rough road on Stephen.”
But she did not smile or look particularly happy. Neither did Kate. Stephen did not ask them what they meant—it was all too obvious.
They were wrong, though.
He was merely attempting to set right a wrong.
He was merely trying to bring some joy to Cassandra’s life so that his conscience could rest in peace.
They rode on in silence.
13
C
ASSANDRA
spent the following morning on Oxford Street. She was not shopping for herself, however. She had asked Mary if she might take Belinda with her in order to buy her a sunbonnet for the summer to replace the quaint hat that had once belonged to a stable boy. She did not offer to buy more clothes for the child. One had to be careful with Mary. She was very proud. She was also very protective of her daughter, whom she adored.
The task was accomplished at the very first shop they entered, and Belinda came out wearing a pretty blue cotton bonnet with a slightly stiffened brim and a frill to shield her neck and shoulders from the rays of the sun. It was tied beneath the chin with sunshine yellow ribbons, which were attached to the bonnet with clusters of tiny artificial buttercups and cornflowers.
Belinda was wide-eyed with the splendor of it and turned when they left the shop to admire her image in the glass.
They strolled along the street, hand in hand, until they stopped outside a toy shop. Soon Belinda’s nose was pressed to the glass as she stared silently through it. She showed no visible excitement, no expectation that anything in the window or the shop would ever be hers. She demanded nothing. But she was obviously lost to the world around her.
Cassandra watched her fondly. Just having the chance to stand and gaze was probably enough to make this the high point of Belinda’s day. She was a remarkably contented child.
She was gazing, Cassandra realized, not at everything in the window, but at one particular toy—a doll. It was not the largest or fanciest. Indeed, it was just the opposite. It was a baby doll, made of china and wearing only a simple cotton nightgown as it lay on a white woolen shawl. After gazing and gazing, Belinda lifted one hand and waved her fingers slowly.
Cassandra blinked back tears. As far as she knew, Belinda had no toys.
“I think,” she said, “that baby needs a mama.”
“Baby.” Belinda pressed her hand against the glass.
“Would you like to hold him?” Cassandra asked.
The child’s head turned and she gazed up at Cassandra with big, solemn eyes. Slowly she nodded.
“Come, then,” Cassandra said, and took the child’s hand again and led her inside the shop.
It was a foolish extravagance. She was no longer Lord Merton’s mistress, was she? And she had already bought the bonnet. But food and clothing and shelter were not the only necessities of life. Love was too. And if love must cost her some money this morning, then so be it.
It all seemed worthwhile when the shop assistant leaned into the window and lifted out the doll and placed it in Belinda’s arms.
Cassandra would not have been surprised to see the child’s eyes pop right out of her head. Belinda gazed at the china baby with slightly open mouth and held it stiffly for a few moments before cradling it in her arms and rocking it gently.
“Would you like to take him home and be his mama?” Cassandra asked gently.
Again Belinda’s eyes turned upward, and she nodded.
Behind them a smartly dressed little girl was petulantly
demanding the doll with the long blond ringlets, not the stupid one with the velvet dress and pelisse.
And
she needed the baby carriage because the wheels had come off hers.
And
the skipping rope because the handles on the one she had had for her birthday last week were an ugly green.
The baby doll came without clothes, Cassandra discovered. She bought the nightdress to go with it and then, because Belinda kissed the baby’s forehead and promised in a whisper to keep him warm, she bought the blanket too.
She had had no idea children’s toys were so expensive.
But as they walked out of the shop she did not regret the extravagance. Belinda was still virtually speechless. But she did remember something of the persistent teachings of Mary. She looked up at Cassandra, her baby held close in her arms.
“Thank you, my lady,” she said.
There was nothing careless about her gratitude. It was heartfelt.
“Well,” Cassandra said, “we could not just leave him there without a mama, could we?”
“She is a girl,” Belinda said.
“Oh.” Cassandra smiled, and looked up into the smiling faces of Lady Carling and the Countess of Sheringford.
“I
thought
that was you, Lady Paget,” Lady Carling said. “I told Margaret it was, and we crossed the road to make sure. What a charming child. Is she yours?”
“Oh, no,” Cassandra said. “Her mother is my housekeeper, cook, maid—my everything.”
“She is Belinda,” the countess said, “and I see that she is wearing her smart new shoes. How do you do, Lady Paget? It looks as if you have a new baby, Belinda. May I see her?
Is
she a girl?”
Belinda nodded and moved the blanket back from the doll’s face.
“Oh, she is lovely,” the countess said. “And she looks warm and contented. Does she have a name?”
“Beth,” Belinda said.
“That is pretty,” the countess said. “Beth is usually short for Elizabeth. Did you know that? But Elizabeth is far too big a name for such a tiny baby. You are wise to call her Beth.”
“Margaret and I are on our way to the bakery for a cup of tea,” Lady Carling said. “Will you join us, Lady Paget? I am sure there will be at least one cake there to take Belinda’s fancy. And surely they serve lemonade.”
Cassandra’s first instinct was to say no. But it could do her no harm to be seen in public with such ladies. If she could become gradually more and more accepted in society, perhaps eventually she would be able to find some elderly or sickly lady who needed a companion and would trust her enough to employ her. It was not a happy prospect, and she did not know what would happen to Alice and Mary when the time came, but …
Well, it did no harm to accept any olive branch that was freely extended to her.
“Thank you,” she said. “Belinda, would you like a cake?”
Belinda, saucer-eyed again, nodded and then remembered her manners.
“Yes, please, my lady,” she said.
The ladies sat talking for almost an hour while Belinda sat quietly at the table, first eating the white cake with the pink icing that she had chosen with meticulous care, then holding her cup with both hands to drink the lemonade, and finally wiping her mouth and hands carefully with her linen napkin so that she could rock her doll again. She murmured to it and kissed it as the ladies talked.
“It is a lovely day for your picnic in Richmond,” the countess said.
“A picnic?” Lady Carling looked at Cassandra with interest. “How lovely for you. There is no better way to spend a summer afternoon, is there?”
“My former governess, who lives with me, is only forty-two years old,” Cassandra said. “Far too young to go as far as Richmond for a
picnic alone with a gentleman of the same age—or so she believes. When Mr. Golding came calling yesterday afternoon to ask her to go, she hesitated, though she clearly wanted to say yes. And so Lord Merton offered his services and mine as chaperones.”