A Chance Encounter (12 page)

“Indeed?”

“Yes. I am so miserable,” the girl continued, “and there seems to be no one else to talk to.”

“What is it?” Elizabeth asked encouragingly.

“You must know that I have an affection for Mr. Dowling and he for me,” Lucy said. “Mama says I am being absurd, that I merely imagine I love him because he is the first gentleman to take any notice of me.”

Elizabeth did not comment. She had to admit to herself that the same thought had passed through her mind.

“It is not true,” Lucy continued anxiously. “I know everyone thinks him dull. I know he is not excessively wealthy or very important. But he suits me, you see, Miss Rossiter. You taught me how to converse with people, and it works. Mr. Dowling has much to say to me. And I find him interesting. I like to hear about his farm and his livestock and his plans for the future.”

“I am very glad to hear it, Lucy,” Elizabeth said gently. “But would you not like to try your newfound skills on other people? Perhaps you will find other gentlemen even more interesting.”

“Oh, I think not,” Lucy replied. “You see, I have always been shy and awkward. I never feel that other people will like me. But Ira makes me forget that I am not pretty or clever or witty. I feel comfortable with him, Miss Rossiter. And he loves me.”

“He has told you so?” Elizabeth asked.

“Oh, yes,” the girl said earnestly, “and he has offered for me, you know. But Papa has refused.”

“Oh, dear,” said Elizabeth lamely.

“Mama will not understand,” Lucy went on. “She insists that she has my best interests at heart. I will soon forget Ira, she says, when I get to London and meet other gentlemen. Oh, but I shan't, Miss Rossiter. I know I shan't.”

“How old are you, Lucy?” asked Elizabeth.

“Almost eighteen.”

“And Mr. Dowling?”

“He is six and twenty.”

“Perhaps you should agree to your mother's plans,” Elizabeth suggested. “A winter in London can do no harm, you know. It will give you experience and polish and some connections. It will also help you know beyond a shadow of a doubt whether your feelings now are lasting ones. I cannot speak for your parents, but I believe they are not tyrants. Perhaps if they can see next summer that your feelings and Mr. Dowling's feelings have not changed, they will consent to the match. A year is really not that long a time.”

“A year is an eternity when you know that nothing will change,” Lucy said firmly. “I know our love will never change.”

Elizabeth smiled. “Then being separated for a few months cannot really harm you, can it?” she suggested.

Lucy looked doubtful but did not reply for a while. She looked up finally. “You are right, Miss Rossiter,” she said. “I believe I must do as you say. But what if he does not wait for me that long?” she added on a wail.

“Then you will be hurt,” Elizabeth replied carefully, “but at least you will have discovered before it is too late that he did not really love you. You will have escaped a bad marriage.”

Lucy smiled ruefully and got to her feet. “I shall go to London,” she said, “and I know that Ira will wait for me and that I shall continue to love him. Papa must consent eventually. Thank you, Miss Rossiter. You always speak such common sense that I wonder afterward why I did not think of the answer myself.” She held out a hand to Elizabeth. “I wonder you did not marry. Cecily has told me that you were in society once. You are so beautiful and so wise, I wonder all the men did not love you.”

Elizabeth laughed. “There were so many duels over who should have me,” she said, “that finally there was no one left alive to claim my hand. I am a very tragic figure, you know.”

“And that is something else you do,” Lucy said as she drew on her gloves. “You joke a great deal about yourself so that no one can get close to really knowing you.”

Elizabeth was startled. Lucy was the last person she would have expected to penetrate so close to the truth.

Finally Elizabeth ventured outdoors. It had rained all morning. She had spent the time in the old schoolroom with Cecily, going through a pile of the girl's clothes, helping her make small alterations to make the garments more fashionable. They had ended up with a lengthy list of small items: buttons, ribbons, lace, and such, needed to complete the transformations. Elizabeth had volunteered to brave the elements and walk into Granby after luncheon to fetch the purchases.

It was a dreary afternoon. The rain had stopped for a while, but the clouds hung heavy and gray and a cold wind emphasized the dampness in the air. The roadway was muddy, the grassy verges wet and cold on the ankles. Despite it all, Elizabeth was glad to be out in the fresh air. She hated to be cooped up indoors for more than a day or two at a stretch. Yet she had hardly set a foot over the doorstep in five days.

It did not take her long to accomplish her errands. She stuffed the packages into the large reticule she had brought with her and started on the return journey. A glance at the sky told her that she must hurry. The rain would not hold off much longer. About half a mile out of town she moved over onto the grassy verge in the hope of saving herself from being splashed with mud by the vehicle coming up behind her. Her head was lowered against the wind.

Elizabeth looked up as a phaeton slowed beside her. She found herself looking into the smiling eyes of Mr. Mainwaring.

“Well met, ma'am,” he said, touching the brim of his beaver. “Do let me take you home.”

Elizabeth hesitated, but it seemed ill-mannered to refuse. Besides, she felt quite delighted to see him again. Until then, she had not realized just how dreary a week she had just lived through.

She smiled and placed her hand in the one he had stretched down to assist her. “Thank you, sir,” she said. “But I am afraid I shall soil your vehicle. My hem and boots are all mud.”

He laughed as she seated herself beside him. “How delightful it is to see you again, Miss Rossiter,” he said. “How have you been entertaining yourself during this bad weather? By tramping about the countryside regardless?”

“Oh, no,” she said, pulling a face, and she proceeded to give him a short account of her week's activities.

“We have fared almost as badly,” he admitted. “I could shoot a hole through the next pack of cards I see, Henry declares he will break a cue over the head of the next person who suggests billiards, and Robert has been snapping the head off anyone foolish enough to try to draw him into conversation. He has quite lost his legendary charm. The ladies are no more cheerful. Bertha swears she will scream if she hears another scale on the pianoforte, and Amelia prowls around from morning to night telling us all what delightful entertainment she could be enjoying in Brighton right now. We are all too gallant, I suppose, to remind her that it sometimes rains in Brighton too, despite the presence of the Prince Regent.”

“Oh, dear,” Elizabeth said, holding out a hand, palm up, and pulling her pelisse closer around her with the other hand, “here it comes again.”

And indeed, the rain, having given fair warning that it was about to fall, came sheeting down, blown into their faces and down their necks by the strong wind.

Mr. Mainwaring grasped the ribbons more firmly and watched his horses' footing with care. “Ma'am, we are very close to Ferndale,” he said to her, not taking his eyes from the road, which was fast developing into a bath of mud again. “Shall you object if I take you there until the rain has eased again?”

“No, please do,” Elizabeth said, bowing her head against the wind again and mindless of everything except the misery of the rain and the cold, which soon seemed to have seeped into her very bones.

It was a very bedraggled pair who alighted a few minutes later at the front steps of Ferndale and who burst unceremoniously into the marble hallway. Mr. Mainwaring threw off his own caped greatcoat and beaver hat and turned quickly to take Elizabeth's dripping bonnet and to help her off with her pelisse.

“Come up to the drawing room immediately and warm yourself by the fire,” Mr. Mainwaring said. “Afterward I shall get Bertha or Amelia to lend you some dry clothes. And I shall send a servant to inform Mrs. Rowe that you are safe and sound here.”

Elizabeth was still too cold to argue. But she was very conscious of her stockinged feet, the wet and muddy hem of her gray dress, and the heavy strands of hair that had freed themselves from the knot at the back of her neck as she entered the drawing room ahead of her host to find Mr. Prosser taking his ease at one side of a roaring fire and Hetherington sitting reading a book at the other.

“I have brought Miss Rossiter home with me,” Mr. Mainwaring announced cheerfully. “I saved her from a certain drowning out there in the storm.”

“And it would have been a muddy death,” Elizabeth added, gazing ruefully down at her soiled hem.

Both men had risen to their feet. Mr. Prosser came hurrying across the room and grasped Elizabeth by the elbow. “Come to the fire, ma'am,” he said, “and warm yourself. You must not risk taking a chill.” He led her to the chair he had just vacated and she sank gratefully into it, feeling immediately the welcome warmth of the log fire.

Hetherington had crossed the room without a word and now returned, carrying two glasses of brandy. The one he handed to Mr. Mainwaring, who was also standing before the blaze, his hands stretched toward it. He gave the other glass to Elizabeth, standing before her and looking at her with cold blue eyes as he did so.

“Thank you, my lord, but I should prefer tea,” she said hesitantly.

“You shall have your tea, ma'am, but this first,” he said, his voice so devoid of expression that Elizabeth shuddered. He stood there until she had taken the first sip and sputtered over it, and then he disappeared from the room. He returned a few minutes later with Mrs. Prosser and Amelia Norris.

“My thanks to you, Robert,” Mr. Mainwaring said, “and my apologies to you, Miss Rossiter. I had forgotten that I was placing you in a compromising situation by bringing you into a room where there were no other ladies present.”

Elizabeth was beginning to feel human again. She smiled. “I am afraid that I was so delighted to encounter a fire that I did not notice, sir,” she replied.

“My dear Miss Rossiter,” Mrs. Prosser said, “you have made yourself dreadfully wet and muddy. Whatever were you doing outside on a day like today?”

“I was in town making some purchases for Cecily,” Elizabeth replied. “Indeed, I did not know that the rain would return so soon.”

“I do not know what Miss Rossiter was doing walking out in conditions like these,” Amelia Norris said petulantly. “Does Mr. Rowe not allow his servants to ride?”

“Don't be foolish, Amelia,” her sister said briskly. “Come, Miss Rossiter, we must get you out of these clothes immediately. I am broader than you, but something of Amelia's should fit.”

“I do thank you, ma'am,” Elizabeth said, leaping to her feet, “but there is no need, I assure you. I must leave for home immediately. Now that I have had a chance to warm myself, it will be no trouble at all. I shall take a shortcut across the fields.”

“You shall do no such thing,” Mr. Mainwaring said firmly. “It is raining quite as hard as when we came in, ma'am. You would take a chill for certain if you ventured out again. I shall dispatch a servant immediately with a message.”

“Oh, but, really, sir,” Elizabeth cried, distressed at the awkward predicament in which she found herself, “I could not trespass further on your hospitality. The rain may not ease all night. I would sooner leave now, while there is still daylight.”

“I shall have the housekeeper make up a guest chamber for you, ma'am,” Mr. Mainwaring said. “I believe you are right. The rain will not let up for a long while. And I am sure that Mrs. Rowe can spare you for one night.”

“And you will spare us from the boredom of the same company again this evening,” Mr. Prosser added. “Please do stay, ma'am.”

“I believe Miss Rossiter should be allowed to do as she wishes,” Amelia Norris said shrilly. “Perhaps she does not feel comfortable in elevated company.”

“You speak a pile of nonsense sometimes, Amelia,” her sister scolded. “Come, let us find some dry clothes for Miss Rossiter to wear.”

Very much against her will, Elizabeth allowed herself to be led from the room by Mrs. Prosser.

“I really do not believe that I have anything suitable,” Amelia said as she followed them out of the room.

By the time they had found a gown suitable for Elizabeth to wear, Mrs. Prosser suggested that they all rest prior to getting ready for dinner.

“William keeps country hours here,” she explained. “We dine early. I shall send my own dresser in one hour's time to help you get ready.”

“I am sure Miss Rossiter is accustomed to do for herself,” Amelia said acidly.

“Indeed I am, ma'am,” Elizabeth said, smiling at Mrs. Prosser. “I beg you will not inconvenience yourself.”

“We shall see,” the other woman assured her. “Now, please do rest. I am still worried that you will have caught a chill this afternoon.”