A Certain Magic (13 page)

He felt a sudden longing to be back in the country, back at Westhaven. He had not been there for a whole year. He had avoided it, and still did not fancy going there, knowing that strangers were at Chandlos, knowing that he would never be able to ride or stroll there again and find himself more perfectly at home than he had ever been anywhere else in his life.

But Westhaven Park was still home, and he longed for the peace of it, away from the follies of town. And sooner or later he must accustom his mind finally to the knowledge that Web was dead and Allie making a new life for herself in Bath. She would always be his friend, he believed, but he must learn to realize that she could not always be there for him as she had been when she had been at Chandlos.

Yes, he had made up his mind. He just would not do it.

“I am not going to do it, you know,” he told Alice when he waltzed with her some time before supper.

“Am I to praise your decision or chide?” she said, raising her eyebrows and smiling up at him. “What is it you are not going to do, Piers?”

“Marry,” he said. “I have decided to go to my grave a confirmed bachelor. Or a confirmed widower, I suppose I should say.” 

“Half of London will go into mourning,” she said. “The female half, that is. The male half will probably cheer your withdrawal from the lists.”

“Ah,” he said, “you choose to laugh at me, Allie. You have become quite saucy lately. I suppose my mother will disown me. She will never have the experience of being a grandmama.”

“Am I permitted to ask what has caused this change in plan?” she asked.

“You have,” he said, and watched the smile arrested in her eyes for a moment. “You talked sense into me, Allie. Are you not pleased?”

“Yes if I have prevented you from making a disastrous marriage,” she said. “No if I have condemned you to a life of loneliness.”

“I am going to go back to Westhaven,” he said. “I wish I could leave tomorrow now that I have conceived the idea, but I cannot, confound it. I have promised to organize a party to Vauxhall for Miss Borden. Some time next week, I think, and then I shall be free to be on my way.” 

“How I envy you,” she said.

“Do you?” He grinned at her. “Then come with me. Be my guest. The house is large enough.”

“Piers!” she said, laughing. “The very idea. The whole neighborhood would disown you. “

“It would not be a good idea anyway, would it?” he said, his smile softening. “I imagine it would be hard on you to be a guest at Westhaven and to know that you did not belong at Chandlos any longer. And to know that Web is not there. Even I find that hard to face.”

“But I am glad you are going home, “ she said. “You are missed there, I am sure. I hope to return to Bath soon, too.”

“But not before the Vauxhall night,” he said. “I need you there for moral support, Allie. And you must promise me before you leave that you will never marry Lansing.”

She laughed. “I promise,” she said. “Only because you insist, Piers, but I promise.”

“He danced the last set with Miss Borden,” he said, “and has signed her card for the supper dance. Perhaps he plans to run off with her and the fishy fortune, Allie. Perhaps you will be safe from him after all.”

“I don’t think Mr. Bosley’s fortune will be a lure to Sir Clayton,” she said. “He is reputed to be very wealthy indeed. Do you realize what you have forced me to give up, Piers?”

“I was ever a killjoy,” he said.

***

“You must always remember, Cassie,” Mr. Bosley was explaining to his niece at luncheon the next day. Lady Margam was lying down with a headache. “A business head is a cool head. You will gain nothing if you allow yourself to be seduced by appearances.”

Cassandra toyed with the food on her plate.

“Mr. Carpenter is a young man and a good-looking one, too, at a guess. Eh, am I right?” he asked.

“Yes, Uncle, “ she said. 

“And so you agreed to drive in the park with him this afternoon,” he said. “It is very understandable, Cass. He is young and you are young. But he is a relative nobody, girl. His father owns a small property and has a fortune so modest that only the upper classes would call it a fortune at all. Not that that would matter if he were somebody, of course. But he has nothing to offer you.”

“No, Uncle,” she said.

“Your mother was moving in the right direction when she married your papa,” he said. “But in those days I was in no position to help with the blunt. Now I am, Cassie. You can do as well as your mama and better—and have the money to live on as well.”

“Yes, Uncle,” she said.

“Westhaven is the one,” he said. “I have inquired about all the others who have shown interest in you, Cassie. Not one of them will do at all. Your mother mentioned that Sir Clayton Lansing danced with you twice last evening.”

“Yes, Uncle,” she said.

“And he was part of the group that went to Richmond, was he not?” he asked.

“Yes, Uncle,” she said. “He was obliging enough to walk with me there.”

“Hm,” he said. “ I shall have to make inquiries. In the meantime, Cassie, you must keep making up to Westhaven. You are doing so?”

“He is very attentive, Uncle,” she said.

“And still planning to take you to Vauxhall?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said. “He said he would call on Mama to make arrangements for next week.”

“Good girl,” he said. “You must attach him there, girl. A very romantic spot is Vauxhall. You must dazzle him and flirt with him. Just make sure you are never alone with him, Cass.” He winked at her.

“Yes, Uncle,” she said.

***

Phoebe was finally recovering from her sickness, though she felt very weak still, she assured Alice when the latter mentioned her plan to return home to Bath the following week. Far too weak to accompany Amanda everywhere and look after Mary, who was still peevish.

It was a strange weakness, Alice thought with some amusement a few days after Phoebe had mentioned it. It did not at all impede her doing what she wished to do, like chaperoning Amanda at balls and the livelier parties. Nor did it stop her from indulging in daily shopping trips. But it did have her wilting over the prospect of accompanying her daughter to concerts and the opera. And it certainly prevented her from taking her younger daughter about.

That fell to Alice’s lot. She took Mary to St. Paul’s and Westminster Abbey, to the New Mint and Madame Tussaud’s. And she talked to the child and tried to think of other amusements, though she was not very familiar with London herself. She hid her irritation with her brother, who spent his life complaining of how his family inconvenienced him and yet never did anything for their entertainment. Jarvis, to give him his due, was making some effort to keep Richard amused.

It was Piers who reminded her of the Tower of London and Astley’s Amphitheater. He asked her, at the opera one evening, if she would care to visit the British Museum with him the following afternoon.

“I will try to steer you away from the dustiest sections,” he said.

But she told him with a smile that she had promised to take Mary for an outing.

“I’ll come with you,” he said after suggesting the two possible destinations. “I will enjoy visiting them again.”  

“Liar!” she said. “You complained to me only the other day, Piers, that you get tired of having to take young ladies to those very places.”

“Did I?” he said. “I must have been in a vile mood, was I? But you see, Allie, it is the company that makes all the difference.”

“You like Mary, then,” she said. 

“Good Lord,” he said. “Do I know her? Actually I like her aunt. Shall we take my curricle and squeeze the child in between us?”

“I am quite sure she would be thrilled, “ Alice said. “Jarvis flatly refuses to take her up in his, claiming that he would be the laughingstock to be seen driving a child about London in such a sporting vehicle.”

“Ah,” he said. “Now you tell me. So I am to be the laughingstock, am I? You know, Allie, I have the most ferocious headache. Don’t you suppose the composer of this opera might have done us all a kindness by killing off the soprano in the first half instead of waiting until the very last scene?”

“Then there would not have been any point in having a second half to the opera,” she said sensibly.

He grinned. “That is a good point,” he said before sauntering back to join his own party for the remainder of the evening.

Mary was on her best behavior the following afternoon and far more goodnatured than usual. She was cheered by the prospect of being driven about London in the curricle of a gentleman whom her sister had described as very fashionable and her older brother as top-of-the-trees.

They went to the Tower on that first day and looked at the crown jewels and the armory and at the wild animals. 

“Though there are not too many of them left,” Mr. Westhaven explained. “What they lack in numbers they make up for in ferocity, of course.” And he went on to give a lurid account of occasions when the bars of the cages had been gnawed through by the ferocious animals and all the spectators had been gobbled up.

“Pooh,” Mary said, “those people were foolish not to run as soon as the animals started to bite at the bars.” 

“But when they are really in a fierce mood,” he said, “they can snap their bars in the twinkling of an eye. I don’t quite like the look of the gleam in the lion’s eye, do you, Allie?”

“How silly you are,” Mary said. But Alice was amused to note that her hand had crept into Piers’ clasp. The lion looked rather as if it were about to nod off to sleep, she thought.

“They always rest before they attack,” Mr. Westhaven continued. “Just as the lion is doing now. And the bear. The elephant, of course, can remove the bars of his cage merely by wrapping his trunk about them. It would be most interesting to see, don’t you think, Allie?”

“I think perhaps we should move on to see the birds,” Alice said, “before Mary’s knees buckle under her.”

“Oh,” the child said scornfully, “I know Mr. Westhaven is just funning us, Aunt Alice.”

“Oh, here it comes,” he said as the lion exerted itself to lift its head and yawn. “Hold on to me, ladies.” And he wrapped an arm about each and hugged them to him, while Mary gave a little shriek.

“Piers!” Alice said, pushing him away and straightening her bonnet. “You are worse than any child. Poor Mary will have hysterics.”

But Mary, looking prettier and more animated than Alice had ever seen her, was giggling up at Piers and telling him again how silly he was. And he was laughing at both of them, his arm still about Mary. An elderly gentleman who was standing a short distance away with a lady was smiling with some amusement at them.

Alice turned sharply away and moved over to the cages of the birds. She had felt all her insides somersaulting. The old gentleman had undoubtedly seen them as a family. They must look like a family.

And Piers would be such a good father. He was giving every appearance of enjoying the afternoon, not merely enduring the tedium of having to spend it in company with a child. He had made Mary forget all her peevishness and her aches and pains. The girl had become a child enjoying an outing. 

He might have had a nine-year-old daughter now. Just two years younger than Mary. He might have been taking her about London and. exerting himself to amuse her. And she might have had a ten-year-old son. Nicholas. She might have been showing him London. Instead they were both childless, both widowed, entertaining someone else’s child.

She swallowed twice in quick succession.

“Did I offend you, Allie?” A hand squeezed her shoulder from behind. “I should not have grabbed you like that. It was not good for your dignity, was it? Forgive me, please. You know I am a careless fellow.”

“No,” she said, reaching up quickly and patting his fingers with her own. “It was not that, Piers. Quite the contrary. Mary is not your responsibility, and yet you have given up an afternoon to her amusement.” She turned to look at her niece, who was still standing before the elephant’s cage.

He bent down to look into her face, his hands clasped behind him. “Neither is she your responsibility,” he said. “But she exists and is a child and has a right to some pleasure. And so we have given her pleasure. What is it, Allie?”

She smiled bleakly and shrugged. “Nothing,” she said. “I just suddenly had the thought that you might have been here with your daughter or I with Nicholas. That is all. A flash of self-pity.” She smiled more firmly.

“But we are not,” he said gently. “We are here with your niece and each other. I’m sorry, Allie. Now, once every bird has been gazed at and remarked upon, I shall escort you both out to my curricle again and take you to Gunter’s for ices.” Mary had come up to them by that point, “That is, if you are good girls, of course. Only tea and cream cakes if you are not.”

They were both judged worthy of ices a half hour later, though Mary a announced when hers was half devoured that her mama would never allow her to have one for fear of drawing on a chill.

“It will have to be our secret, then,” Piers said. “I won’t tell if you don’t, Mary. And we shall ask your aunt to raise her right hand and swear not to tell. Come along, Allie, let’s see it.”

She took the oath with great solemnity.

“But listen, Mary,” he said gravely, “don’t you dare catch a chill within the next month.”

Mary giggled and promised.

“Now,” he said, “shall we twist your aunt’s arm and persuade her to join us at Astley’s Amphitheater tomorrow afternoon?”

“Oh, yes, please!” Mary squealed. “Please, Aunt I daresay Papa will not let me go alone with Mr. Westhaven.”

“I daresay he will not,” Alice agreed. She looked at their grinning companion. “Are you quite sure, Piers? You must have a great many more important things to do.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Not a single one,” he said.

And so they spent another carefree afternoon together the next day, though they were forced to take Piers’ closed carriage as rain threatened to fall.

Mary sat across from them on the return journey and lapsed into silence after having spent all of ten minutes reliving the equestrian wonders she had seen. She looked from one to the other of them.