“Please be seated.” Cecilia paced the room, then picked something up from her desk and came forward. She held out her hand, clearly intending to give him something. There dropped into his palm a ring he had not seen for months.
“Where did you get this?” Even as he spoke, he knew the answer to the question. He had found Alice. More accurately, she had found him and played him for a fool.
“I was given it by a young man in a suit of silver silk in a small room in Paris. He told me to contact him through his father, the Marquis of Dacre, if I ever needed help.”
“What sort of help do you need?”
“I need a father for my child.”
“A child. You are with child.”
Ormiston was, naturally, dazed by this revelation. He thought back to Paris. Alice had been a married virgin. It had been February. It was now April. The girl did not look large. But she would be nearly three months with child. If it was his child, it was due no later than November. Perhaps she would not necessarily be large. He knew nothing of childbirth or gestation. There could be no annulment. He smiled. Alice was his. An echo from five years before rang in his ears. Cecilia Mary Alice Marchmont was his. No further need to woo or cajole. The maddening creature was irrevocably his.
“Well, it seems that the prospect of marriage to me has become tolerable to you.”
“Rather say inevitable. You take this very calmly, sir.”
“Yes, I do. I astonish myself.” Ormiston evaded Cecilia's glance by taking a deep interest in the state of his cuffs. As he straightened them, he continued speaking. “I do not wish my father to know of this development just yet. We will now go down and announce that we wish to make our marriage real. We will travel up to Hatherley and there we will have a blessing. And there we will stay until the child is born. Naturally, your brother and sister will accompany us.”
“I was hoping to return here to Sawards.”
“I see no need for that. Kitson is an exemplary steward, and you must acquaint yourself with your future demesne. You will be marchioness one day. Hatherley will be your home. It has had no mistress in many years. My father has always made it clear to me that on my return from Italy, it would be my task to take on the management of our lands. My heir will be born in his future home.”
“To uproot Reggie and Amelia at this time would be cruelty. They have endured enough these past few months.”
“They will be well cared for at Hatherley, and we will visit here regularly. But you, my dear Lady Ormiston, will live at Hatherley, make no mistake about that.” Ormiston stood and held out his arm. “Now, I suggest we return downstairs to inform our family that we have decided to let the marriage stand.”
Cecilia tucked her hand in the crook of his elbow and allowed him to escort her downstairs. They entered the drawing room to find Dacre and Lady Ketley struggling to instill the rules of whist into Reggie and Amelia's weary brains while Lavauden was deftly adding eyes to several embroidered cats that Amelia had half-completed.
Ormiston led his lady to a sofa near the fireplace, then sat beside her. The card table was abandoned and Lady Ketley asked whether Cecilia was sure she should be down.
“Yes. I am quite well. And there is something we need to discuss. Reggie, Amelia, you remember, a long time ago, I told you I was to be married.”
“I remember,” responded Reggie. “But you never said anything further about it and you never seemed to have a husband or a wedding ring. So I thought it must have been a hum.”
“It wasn't. Lord Ormiston is the man I married, and ...” Cecilia faltered.
“I saw your sister, Reggie, when I came to your father's funeral and realized that I wanted above anything else to take her to my home at Hatherley, with you and Amelia.”
“Why did you never wish to take her to your home before?” demanded Amelia.
“I was away, visiting France and Italy and other lands.”
“Did you forget all about Ceci?”
“No, not at all. I came back to England just to see her.” Ormiston suppressed a twinge of shame at his manipulation of events. Dacre's lips twitched sardonically and Lady Ketley appeared thoroughly astounded by this sudden announcement.
Cecilia continued into the uneasy silence: “We shall go to Hatherley and stay there for a little while. It is what Papa would want, I know. He said often what a magnificent place it is, with beautiful gardens, a stable full of the finest horses in the kingdom, and trout streams where the fish are so eager, they nibble at your toes. Do you not remember, Reggie?”
Dacre intervened at this point, elaborating on Cecilia's halting description until the family was summoned to supper. Of course, Cecilia could not avoid a late-night interrogation from Lady Ketley. The admiral's wife swept into Cecilia's bedroom, dismissed Dorcas, and took up the hairbrush the maid had been wielding. She admired the practicality of the arrangement, but required some assurance that her niece was happy with this latest development. Cecilia remained calm. Having unburdened herself to Ormiston, there was no need to reveal anything further to anyone else. But when Lady Ketley had snuffed out the final candle in her room and left for her own chamber, Cecilia found herself unable to sleep as she recalled Ormiston's cool reception of her news. Their uneasy alliance had moved into uncharted waters. Years ago, he had seemed so beautiful, and yet so venomous. He was more beautiful than ever, and she knew from their encounter in Paris, tender and able as a lover. She knew better than to succumb to infatuation. Her suspicion that he was intent on his own revenge firmed, but she could not tell whether she was the target of that vengeance or whether it was another.
Nine
The formal announcement of an alliance between the houses of Marchmont and Dacre was greeted with immediate hullabaloo at Sawards. Dacre wrote at once to Hatherley to arrange a ceremony in the chapel and a tenants' dinner and rooms for the imminent arrival of the Marchmont family. Lavauden and Lady Ketley busied themselves with packing and closing up the house, leaving Ormiston and Cecilia in the still eye of a storm of activity. They still had one week at Sawards.
There were expectations on all sides that the happy couple should appear happy. Not merely happy, but also visibly seeking out each other's company. Dacre was keen to hurry them through their meals and then dispatch them to some corner of the house, provided they were together; Reggie and Amelia expressed their revulsion at the thought of having to view them “being all lovey-dovey” while clearly hoping that it would be an easy matter to see how one went about practicing this state; Lady Ketley and Lavauden were forever dismissing the pair for a walk in the garden. It had been agreed to announce a formal betrothal, and to build the impression that the trip to Hatherley was being made in order to seal the marriage. All Marchmont staff and tenants bent a benevolent eye on the couple, so that Cecilia and Ormiston both found that the only peace they could have was in each other's company.
This was, of course, awkward. Ormiston thought to solve it with the simple expedient of sketching his wife. This allowed them to sit together without having to converse. Events for Cecilia had been so tumultuous that she was, he could see, drained of all energy. She had no reserves, after the sickness and death of her father, or so he surmised. Cecilia herself recognized this, and knew that the discovery of her interesting condition and her worry about how to conceal it had also chafed at her.
At the first sitting, Cecilia brought a book, but once Ormiston had positioned her, she did not open it, gazing instead into the middle distance in a reverie. The next day, she did read and Ormiston spent a good deal of time on her hands, which seemed to him very elegant, although it was harder for him to capture this on paper than he had anticipated. He did ask what she was reading, and she revealed that it was Coleridge's tempestuous ballad,
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
. She did not say that an albatross hung about her neck, that she, too, was surrounded by a silent sea.
At first, he was engrossed in capturing the proportions of her head and neck and shoulders. As he began to add detail to his sketch, he found it harder to draw, easier simply to look, until he realized that watching her would not reveal to him the mysteries of her thoughts and dreams. He began to understand that lovely as she was, those neat eyebrows, the curve of her cheek, the elegant line of her nose, the sweep of her neck, the soft indentations at its base, the long eyelashes, the fullness of her lips, none of these could impart to him the essence of her being. Try as he might, he could not read the lines of her character. He knew nothing of her. And now, unfurling within him was the desire to discover all he could about her.
“Would you read to me?”
“Don't you know the poem?”
“It is years since I read it. Before going to Italy. I certainly never took a copy with me. It is about a sailor who commits a great crime, isn't it?”
“He shoots a great bird which had led his ship out of danger. All the crew die apart from the mariner and he sees strange visions until his sin is finally absolved.”
“What is it in the poem that appeals to you?”
Cecilia thought for a moment. “Everything is so vivid. Even though it is a fantastical tale, it seems real and true.” She started reading and completed the first part of the poem.
“I do not know that I see so very much in this poem, but read on.” Ormiston sounded wary as he sketched, and Cecilia, a little offended that he did not seem to like the poem better, began to read with more feeling.
“Bravo! I cannot say which I like more, this second part of the poem or your rendition. I find it most compelling:
Water, water, everywhere, Nor any drop to drink.
This captures something real, when there is a surfeit which nonetheless is impossible to use. Will you read on?”
With this enthusiastic endorsement of the verses, Cecilia read on, relieved that at least there would be one topic on which she could find herself in agreement with her husband.
Later, dressing for dinner, Ormiston smiled at the memory of his wife's mellifluous voice and her obvious relish for the somewhat gruesome verse. She was very different from Giugliana, whose only literary interest had been in overflow-ery tributes to her own charmsâwhich he, Ormiston, was ruefully obliged to admit, had been all too ready to shower upon her. Now, he could not help pondering on the nature of his passion for the Italian: in retrospect, he had been more in love with the notion of love than with his inamorata. Which left him where? With a wife who was a stranger, with a wife he might learn to love. Although, the more pressing question remained: would she learn to love him?
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The progress from Sawards to Hatherley required three coaches and three wagons to accommodate not only the family travelling but also menservants and nurserymaids, trunks, valises, and assorted pieces of furniture regarded as essential by Reggie, Amelia, and Lavauden once they realized that essentially, they were uprooting themselves on a permanent basis. Ormiston and Dacre resigned themselves to travelling with the ladies, although both found the confinement of carriage travel irksome. Still, it was only a two-day journey, with the night comfortably broken at Dacre House in London.
The Marchmonts did not terribly take to Dacre House. Reggie broke a vase, Amelia lost herself in the middle of the night, and Lady Ketley's bed was so soft that she failed to sleep. Reggie and Amelia were entrusted to the marquis and his son for the day's travelling, while Cecilia and Lavauden attempted to cheer or soothe the admiral's lady in the great Dacre landau. It was a relief when the coaches finally bowled up the drive to the imposing frontage of Hatherley.
The house was very beautiful both within and without. Built of local brick, its proportions were graceful and its parkland exquisitely laid out. The central section of the house rose three stories high with symmetrical wings and a great colonnade in the style of Palladio. It was of the same period as Sawards, but far grander. Reggie sighed as he took in the elegance and turned to Dacre.
“I suppose you have many more things here a chap must take care not to knock over. I shall go on tiptoe, I promise you.”
“There are a great many things at Hatherley, Reggie, but we shall have them all made safe so you may go careering where you will.”
Dacre's indulgence toward the child irked Ormiston. It seemed to him that his whole childhood had been hemmed in, and here was his father handing the freedom of the place to a young whippersnapper who had no right to it at all. Then the viscount's natural sense of justice reasserted itself. The cases were very different: where Ormiston had needed to learn the lesson of care for his ancestral home, Dacre's first object was to make this orphaned boy welcome and happy in the strange place that must be his chief residence until he was of an age to manage his own estates.
The sight of Buchan emerging from the great front doors of Hatherley cheered Ormiston immensely. The carriage had barely come to a halt before the young man was out the door and pumping the hand of his tutor and friend.
“It is very good to see you again. You'll have had my letter?”
“Aye, I have, and good news I think it, too.”
Ormiston looked skeptically at the Scotsman, by which time Amelia and Reggie were halfway up the stairs. “Come, meet my new friends. Reggie, I believe, has a real talent, though as yet unformed. You shall not shake us off just yet.”
There was a scurrying and flurrying as the travellers decanted themselves into the house and thence to their rooms. Cecilia was aware of surreptitious examination from the staff of the great house. From the moment she set foot in the house to the moment when Dorcas closed the door of her chamber, she was scrutinized by footmen and parlormaids, all engaged on pressing errands which brought them very close to the betrothed of the heir.
“I shall be quizzed at supper, all right.” Dorcas grinned wryly as she helped Cecilia off with her pelisse and travelling boots. She went to the cupboards and there, carefully pressed and hung, was the trousseau that had been sent ahead of the travellers. First, she helped Cecilia change into an afternoon gown of muslin, then asked what miss would care to wear that evening. After laying out a suitable ensemble, Dorcas left to sort out her own affairs, allowing Cecilia to stretch out on the chaise longue, hoping that she would be left to her own devices for the rest of the afternoon. Her chief intention was to rest. She knew that Lady Ketley and Marston would be deep in their own affairs, while Lavauden would ensure that Reggie and Amelia were distracted from any homesickness. She had seen Ormiston go off with Buchan, and Dacre had closeted himself almost immediately with his secretary. For once, she should be guaranteed some peace.
The past week had been swallowed up and with it, any independent life. Now she was as effectively pinned down as one of the specimens in her father's study, and she must put her mind to taking on the role of mistress of Hatherley and all the other Dacre domains. She must bear this child and she must strive to be a good wife to a man she scarcely knew. At last, she understood that there was no turning back, that those moments of utter folly in Paris had been the point at which she allowed herself to be swept away in a turmoil of emotion whose result was this strange marriage.
However ill-disposed she had felt toward the viscount before his arrival at Sawards, Cecilia was prepared to admit that he had behaved in an exemplary fashion since returning from the Continent. He had accepted her interesting condition, he had striven to interest and entertain her brother and sister, he had made good his promise of assistance given in a moment of lunacy to an unknown female. But he still filled Ceci with unease. She could not trust him. He was capable of cruel words, harsh judgements, and fickleness in his amours.
It was in this vacillating, wary mood that Cecilia opened the door to her husband an hour later. The appointed time for her tour of Hatherley had arrived.
Dacre, who was to act as guide for both parties, joined them in the Great Hall. This gave Cecilia the opportunity to relinquish her husband's escort in favor of her father-in-law's arm. Ormiston's lips tightened, then he shrugged and accepted his place at his father's other elbow.
Dacre's knowledge of his family home was extensive, albeit idiosyncratic. He was able to tell the stories behind the purchase of marquetry cabinets from Italy, French landscapes, and Greek statuettes; he remembered some of the wilder decorative schemes imposed on the house by his grandmother, and the more restrained furniture and wall-coverings restored by his own mother. He also had an inexhaustible memory for the distinguished visitors who had graced Hatherley, including numerous Princes of Wales and the ominous (and apparently wart-ridden) Lord Protector Cromwell. Dacre did not neglect to introduce and share the family background of several footmen, the housekeeper, and the kitchen staff. The servants clearly held him in high esteem and affection, and the house was run on a well-regulated but not inflexible system of operation.
The gardens were an equal delight, landscaped in a classical model, with a series of walled gardens leading one into another, complete with cascades and shell-encrusted grottoes in the Italian style, which Ormiston pronounced both charming and authentic. There were orchards whose blossom was beginning to bear fruit and glasshouses where a profusion of berries, peaches, and even a pineapple were under cultivation. Once again, Dacre demonstrated his familiarity with his staff and his close involvement with the property. When cornered by a plaintive head-gardener with some lengthy dilemma to be unravelled, he waved away his son and daughter-in-law, saying, “This can only bore you. Walk for a space in the gardens. We will meet up again at dinner.”
Hesitantly, Cecilia rested her hand on Ormiston's forearm. He tucked it more comfortably into the crook of his elbow and led away. But he did not escort her directly to the house, instead taking a circuitous route into the Italian garden. He stopped at a bench, indicating that they should sit. She settled her skirts and he sat beside her. For a short space they were silent. Then, hesitantly, he asked,
“Do you think you can be happy here, Cecilia?”
“It is a very beautiful place. But do you think that the marquis is truly ready to relinquish the running of it? He seems so closely tied to the people. And if he does not allow you to take any significant role here, surely the question must be whether you think
you
can be happy?”
“Wise words,” Ormiston smiled “but an evasion of my question.”
“My lord, I am more concerned to see my brother and sister happily settled. My own happiness is not something I seek. I have renounced any right to happiness through my own rashness. It is my business to make others happy and in that aim, I hope to find some satisfaction.” Cecilia stared straight ahead of her, almost undone by her own words.