A Chance Encounter (26 page)

Louise was going out afterward to visit a friend. “Do come, Elizabeth,” she urged. “You will like Sophia. She has moved here since you left, I believe.”

“No,” Elizabeth replied. “Some other time, perhaps, but today I must talk to John if he can spare the time.”

“I am not that busy that I cannot give a moment to my own sister,” he said with a smile. “Besides, I am curious to know what has brought you back home so soon, love.”

They went to his office, where they could talk without interruption. John ordered their tea sent there.

“Now, love, what has happened?” he asked, accepting a cup from her and seating himself in the chair behind his desk. “I know you well enough to be sure that something extraordinary has sent you from your employment so soon after you returned with such determination.”

“I had a visit from Robert less than a week ago,” she said.

His jaw tightened. “Will he not leave you alone?”

“I must confess that he had some reason to come,” she added breathlessly. “His friend, Mr. Mainwaring of Ferndale, made me an offer, you see, which I accepted, and he went to see if Robert would divorce me.”

Elizabeth gave a brief account of William Mainwaring's courtship and of Hetherington's refusal to set her free.

“Poor love,” John said. “Are you quite devastated?”

“No,” she assured him. “I am afraid that William might be, for I believe that he truly loved me. But I do not love him, John, and I know now that I did him an injustice by agreeing to marry him. I do not know, but I believe I would not have been able to go through with a wedding even if Robert had not thrown a rub in our way.”

“But you still felt obliged to leave the vicinity of Ferndale?”

“Yes,” she replied. “But that was not the only reason. Robert said more, John. We finally spoke of what happened six years ago.”

“Yes?” John's voice was tense.

Elizabeth told him all that Hetherington had accused her of and all that he had said of his uncle's part in the dealings.

“You see,” she concluded, “if Robert's uncle told him these things, he must have been guilty. He deliberately told terrible lies to separate us. I want you to come to London with me, John, to find him. I must get him to admit to what he did. Will you?”

John had turned very white. He was gripping the edge of the desk with both hands. “Are you sure,” he said, “are you quite sure, Elizabeth, that Hetherington did not delegate his uncle to act for him? Are you sure he is not guilty?”

“Oh, yes,” she said, wide-eyed. “Yes, I am very sure, John. I could tell from his manner that he was as badly hurt by our separation as I was. Besides, there were no ten thousand pounds.”

“Oh yes there were,” he said in a tight voice.

Elizabeth stared at him.

“When I came home from Oxford,” he said, “I tried to learn the business of the estate as quickly as I could. I was somewhat surprised to find that I had no debts to contend with, though I was by no means wealthy. But at the time my mind was occupied with my courtship of Louise and then by our proposed marriage. It was more than four years after your departure when I finally decided to go back through the estate books to examine all the business that had been done before I succeeded. I discovered that my father had been a very poor manager and that, in fact, he had been hopelessly in debt at about the time of your marriage. As you will remember, Papa did not cope easily with adversity.”

“No,” Elizabeth agreed. “He drank and he gambled.”

“Yet soon after your marriage, he paid all his debts,” John said. “I could not understand how. I reckoned that somehow he must have got his hands on about ten thousand pounds. It seemed unlikely that he could have won such an enormous sum at cards, but that was the only possibility that presented itself to me for a long while. I made many discreet inquiries in likely quarters, but never with any success.”

“Oh, God,” Elizabeth said, sinking into a chair and staring, mesmerized, at her brother.

“Finally I could stand the mystery no longer,” John said. “I journeyed to London to consult the man of business that Papa patronized whenever he could afford to. The man traced the source of the money. It had been paid to my father in lump sum by Horace Denning six weeks after the date of your marriage.”

“Papa!” Elizabeth whispered.

With one hand John was stroking the feather of a quill pen across the palm of his other hand.

Elizabeth rose to her feet. “John,” she said, “you knew this two years ago. Why did you not tell me? I thought you were my true friend. But you made yourself part of the conspiracy against me.”

“No!” he cried, flinging down the pen and upsetting his chair in his haste to come to her. “No, love. I did not tell you because I believed Denning had acted for his nephew. I have believed for two years that not only was Hetherington heartless enough to turn you off in order to satisfy his pride but that he had paid our father to keep you away from him. Elizabeth, are you sure he did not? He is a man of considerable charm. Are you sure that he has not decided after all that he wants you and is trying to raise himself in your estimation by making his uncle the scapegoat?”

“Yes, I am sure,” she said. “I know that he meant what he said, John. He truly believed that I had abandoned him for money.”

He took her by the shoulders and looked down into her eyes. “And does it still matter to you, love, whether he is guilty or not?”

She looked back through the tears that filled her eyes. “Yes,” she answered. “Yes. I love him as much as I did on the day I married him.”

He pushed her down onto her chair again and sat on the edge of his desk, arms folded, looking down at her.

“John,” she asked, her eyes on her hands, “did you ever read the letters that Papa received from Robert?”

“No,” he said. “He never showed them to me. When I asked, once, to see them, he said that he had burned them in a fit of anger.”

“The letters did not exist, then,” she said.

“It would seem not.”

“Why?” she asked. “Why would he do such a thing? Did he not love me, John?”

He did not answer for a while. “I believe he was a sick and unhappy man, love. You know that he used to talk incessantly about money and about the necessity of our marrying wealth. The chance of earning ten thousand pounds as a kind of reverse dowry for you must have been irresistible, especially if he really believed that Hetherington would divorce you and you would still have the chance to make an advantageous marriage.”

“Did he really believe that I had been divorced, do you think?”

“Probably not,” John said, considering. “He did not make any attempt to make a match for you before his death, did he? One would have thought that he might have done so had he really believed that you were free.”

“John, I have to go to Robert,” she said. “I have to tell him. Will you come with me?”

He thought before answering. “It would not be good form,” he said. “Your best course, love, would be to write inviting him here. You could explain perhaps that you wish to share with him some discoveries you have made concerning what happened at that time. If he is interested, if he truly wishes to know exactly what happened, he will come.”

“But I cannot bear to wait here doing nothing,” she said.

“He will be here within three days, you may be sure,” he said firmly. “It is the best way, believe me. It would look most strange for a lady to arrive at Hetherington Manor asking for him. Remember that his household staff probably knows nothing of your existence.”

Elizabeth was forced to agree, though reluctantly, that his advice was good. She went immediately to the drawing room and wrote six letters before she was satisfied that she had said enough to whet Robert's appetite, yet not enough to appease his curiosity. She took the finished letter immediately to John, who assured her that it would be on the evening's mail coach, and began the feverish wait.

Although John had said three days, she had convinced herself that it would be four days before she could reasonably expect to see Hetherington, even five if he had any immediate engagements that he felt he could not avoid. She would hope for him on the fourth day, she decided, but expect him on the fifth. It was a very sensible decision, but she found that she started to watch the driveway, at hourly intervals, the same evening as the letter was sent.

Elizabeth was very tired of watching, therefore, when the fifth day came. Louise and John had both done their best to entertain her, and she had tried to cooperate. She had played with the baby; helped Louise go through all his baby clothes and decide what would be needed for the new arrival; helped outfit a new bedroom for Jeremy, as the baby would be needing the nursery within a few months; and played endless games of cards. In the few intervals when she was left to herself, she wrote letters to the Rowes in Bath and to the Worthings and the Claridges in Granby. She sewed herself new gowns for the approaching autumn. But she refused to leave the grounds of her brother's house. When Louise went shopping or visiting, Elizabeth stayed at home. When John and Louise dined out one evening, she stayed at home, although she too had been invited. And always, even against her will, her feet would take her to a window that commanded a view of the driveway.

On the first four days she had consoled herself with the assurance that he would come on the fifth day. But when that day came, she was far from certain. A dread formed somewhere in the pit of her stomach and she knew that the watch was hopeless. He would not come. Why should he? He had been hurt by her once. He had been quite convinced of her guilt. Why should he come now just because she had written to tell him that she had more information concerning that episode in their lives?

Louise had made a point of staying home on that day. After luncheon she and Elizabeth took Jeremy out onto the lawn. She was tactful enough not to suggest that they go anywhere out of sight of the driveway or the main door. Louise sat down on a bench while Elizabeth rolled a ball to Jeremy and helped him run after it when it rolled too far.

“Oh, I wish I might get up and join in the game,” Louise called to a flushed and breathless Elizabeth. “But John has made me promise not to undergo any exercise more strenuous than a walk.” She pulled a face. “I am not that bulky yet, am I?” She patted a thickened waistline.

“No,” Elizabeth replied, “but you know you delight in pleasing John even when he is being just a mother hen. Besides,” she added, puffing and seating herself beside her sister-in-law, “keeping up with a toddler is a little much, even for my energy.”

They sat watching Jeremy as he toddled across the lawn and finally sat down with a plop amid a crowd of daisies and began systematically pulling the heads off them.

“He is not going to come,” Elizabeth said tensely.

Louise did not pretend to misunderstand. “Give him time, love,” she said. “You do not know what he was occupied with when your letter arrived. Perhaps he was not even at home. He will come, never fear.”

“What makes you so sure?” Elizabeth asked.

Her sister-in-law was firm. “I did not know you six years ago,” she said, “and although I heard the story from John, perhaps I can see things more objectively than either you or he can. When I met the Marquess of Hetherington when Jeremy was so ill, I was fully prepared to dislike, even hate him. But I could not, Elizabeth. He has a charm that is not all of the surface. He was genuinely concerned about the baby and about my health. And you may not believe this, love, but I could see that he was very concerned about you. I know he disliked your working for a living and dressing like a governess. But it was more than that. I suspected that he loved you. I told John so, but of course he would not have it, either. But I have hoped ever since that somehow you would resolve your differences. I have even schemed for ways of bringing the two of you together again. He will come, Elizabeth, I know it. Even if it is not today or tomorrow,” she added.

Jeremy had tired, of the daisies and was headed for the trees that led to the lake. Elizabeth was forced to chase him and then to devise a game that would head him back toward his mother. The topic of conversation was changed, by tacit agreement, when they did rejoin Louise. The three of them went inside for tea.

The following two nights and the day in between were torture for Elizabeth. She wanted to take comfort from what Louise had said. She wanted to believe what her own senses had told her at her last meeting with Robert. In her heart she was convinced that he would want to hear what she had to say. But her head told her that she could watch that driveway until she was old and gray, but that Hetherington would never ride along it toward her.

She sat at her window on that second night, unable to sleep, unwilling to wait like this any longer. Notwithstanding John's advice, she was going to have to go to Hetherington Manor herself. Surely he would not refuse to see her if she came. Even if he rejected her story, even if he refused to believe that she had known nothing of the agreement between her father and his uncle, she would have the satisfaction of knowing that she had done all she could. And at least then she would be certain. If rejection was to be her fate again, she could at least then begin the dreary task of piecing together a meaningless life. Anything was better than this endless waiting. Perhaps even, as Louise had suggested, Robert was away from home. Although she would still then have to await his return home, she would be able to do so with some renewal of hope. Tomorrow, after breakfast, she would talk to John. She was sure that he would not refuse to accompany her.