Amy Snow (34 page)

Why should it have seemed sudden to him? She was always due to leave them in June—and come home to Hatville. If she decided to travel for longer, why should that have meant cutting short her time in Twickenham?

I try out a new theory, just for size.
What if Aurelia conceived a child with Robin?

They would have guarded against it, I am certain, but surely these things cannot be an exact science? It stands to reason that if it could be so easily controlled, there would be no unwanted babies. And even though the woman is most often disgraced, men too can be ruined by such a thing.

I am put in mind of Mr. Templeton and the maid with the strawberry-blond curls. Irrespective of the rights and wrongs of the matter, Mr. Templeton's standing in the community was compromised along with hers. Their liaison only ever came to light because she fell pregnant. If it had been within Mr. Templeton's full control to avoid this, why would he not have done so?

If
Aurelia was pregnant—
if
she was—what then? When might she have realized it? What
happened
to her? It would certainly explain her reluctance to commit to paper anything of what she was really experiencing in a letter to me.

And afterwards? During those last years of her life, when I felt we enjoyed a new, mature friendship as two young women rather than small child and big sister, could she really have kept such a vast secret from me
then
? I grit my teeth. They are the same old questions in a new context.

Perhaps, like her mother before her, she miscarried. Perhaps the Vennaway women do not easily bring a baby to term. I do not really know how these things work, I am thinking wildly. But it seems more likely than Aurelia having a child and never telling me. It seems more likely than Aurelia giving birth at all, given her condition. The risks of such a course, Dr. Jacobs had told us, were not slight. And she had not come together with Robin just once, in the heat of grief, but repeatedly.
Surely
she would not have done so if she were not sure it was safe? The old Amy cannot think that Aurelia—my clever, bright, big sister—could make a mistake so great. The new Amy, who appears to be developing swiftly, can see all too well that Aurelia was fallible and flawed and a little desperate, which does not foster sound judgment. Even so, there is little sense to be found . . .

I continue reading. She stayed in Derby, if the letters are to be believed, into August before traveling yet farther north to Manchester and Leeds, promising to return to us by Christmas. Here her letters regain a little of their natural color and conviction:

You should have seen the cotton mill at Hatby, outside Manchester, dear: like a never-ending Christmas the white flakes whirl and dance perpetually. But there are no snowmen and there is no cheer; the factory workers—men, women, and children too, some as young as six—are red-eyed from concentration and cough insistently, though no one can hear it over the sound of the machines.

I cannot help but recall an article that Aurelia and I had read about this industry some years ago. Was that before her trip or after it? I think it was before. I wonder whether there is a town called Hatby, and whether Aurelia ever really saw the inside of a mill.

Amy, the countryside of the north makes Surrey look like a pale imitation of the concept “rural”! Great fells that fall away as if the very winds had cut out great hunks of land, deep bluey-green rolling moors scattered with white rivers that bound over rocks and skip into cascades that come to rest in glassy pools and fairy glades. Yes! I saw fairies—everywhere—no one can tell me I didn't.

Yesterday, Amy, I went to York! Such a
pretty
city.

Last week I saw the sea at Scarborough. How you would love to go, dear.

I try to imagine that she is pregnant and understandably preoccupied. Or else that, having miscarried a child, she was weakened and grieving. I try to imagine her moving from place to place to place, throughout the summer, throughout a heat wave. Even if she were never pregnant, with her heart condition it smacks of lunacy. There is no answer that satisfies. After July there is no further reference to her health.

I read on. I read of her decision to extend her trip a little longer and return via Shrewsbury and Bath, in both cases invited by friends of people I had never heard of.

I did not imagine the letters from Bath. They are in my hands, postmarked and full of platitudes about the handsome features of Frederic Meredith, whom Mrs. Riverthorpe claims does not exist.

Here the letters end. She did not notify me in advance of her return. It was like Aurelia to make it a surprise.

I look at the pages scattered over my bedcovers. Here is a new puzzle, a treasure hunt within the treasure hunt. I gather what I know for certain. Aurelia was definitely in Twickenham. I know this because I have been there, and they knew her, and her letters are convincing and frequent. Aurelia was
not
in Bath, according to Mrs. Riverthorpe, and her letters are uncharacteristic and few. Her letters from all the places in between are also uncharacteristic and few, calling the majority of her journey into question. So where was she? And what was she doing?

The idea that there might have been a child is preposterous. If there was, then where is he or she now? It is, however, the only explanation that could conceivably justify her obsession with secrecy, the only secret important enough to warrant sending me hither and thither across the country, although I still do not understand the exact mechanics of her thinking.

And yet Aurelia was
not
always reasonable. She was not always thoughtful. She was anything but predictable. Maybe she
had
no good reason. It is like all the old mysteries—insoluble and cyclical.

I feel close to knowing, so close, and yet I still have to wait nearly three weeks! I only hope that the rest of my time in Bath will not be quite so eventful as last night.

The rest of the morning, at least, is decidedly
un
eventful. Or, more accurate to say, it does not bring the one event I long for: Henry's promised visit. He does not call, he does not leave his card, he does not send a note.

As morning melts into afternoon, I forget my preoccupation with Aurelia's secret and my new, outrageous suspicions. All I can think of is Henry. His absence sits in my stomach like a heavy stone at the bottom of a deep well. I pace the corridors, I slump in my room. I look at every clock a thousand times. At eleven o'clock, noon, luncheon, I tell myself that he has commitments this morning and that the afternoon will bring him, belated and brimming with apologies and smiles.

Although April offers her finest, most convincing sunshine of the year, I willingly confine myself to the gray chambers of Hades House. At three o'clock I worry that Henry's forgotten commitments might keep him busy all day and that I might not see him until tomorrow—or Monday . . . I truly don't know how I might wait so long. At half past the hour, when an almighty knocking thunders at the door, my heart leaps out of my chest. I jump out of my seat before remembering that it is not my place to answer. I force myself to lurk sedately on the stairs while Ambrose goes to the door—did she always walk this
slowly
? My disappointment knows no bounds when she announces Mr. Garland.

He seems to make a habit of finding out where I am staying and arriving unannounced. So I reflect churlishly, in my despondency that he is not Henry. Ambrose shows him into the drawing room, and Mrs. Riverthorpe appears, garbed in purple, a mischievous gleam in her eye. I do not trust that gleam.

He has come, it seems, to establish that I will be at the archery meet tomorrow afternoon and to ask Mrs. Riverthorpe and me if we would like to see a new pair of horses he has just acquired. Perhaps we might fancy a bowl around the city in his carriage, he suggests.

Mrs. Riverthorpe, already on her feet and halfway out of the door, agrees that she might. “Was there ever such a boring day?” she demands, glaring at me as though it were my responsibility to brighten it, though I have seen no sign of her all day.

In contrast, I linger reluctantly by the fire. “I . . . I . . . cannot, though I thank you for the invitation,” I stammer, rigid with awkwardness. I will not leave this house and risk missing Henry, but I am well aware I have no good excuse to give.

“Why not?” demands Mrs. Riverthorpe, and I am put in mind of a heron's jabbing beak, skewering a fish. “Exhausted by the demands of the huge social circle you've acquired in the last three days?”

I force myself to smile. “Of course it is not that. But I have a great many things to do this afternoon, letters to write—”

“Ah, yes, your wide network of correspondees—that's it, of course,” she jeers.

“Please don't inconvenience yourself, Miss Snow.” Mr. Garland, tactful as ever, glides over to me, leaving Mrs. Riverthorpe fidgeting in the drawing-room doorway like an impatient child. “It was an impromptu suggestion, with no guarantee that I might find you at liberty. I must wait until tomorrow for the pleasure of your company, but would you like to see the horses, at least, before we leave you in peace? They are just outside, and I remember you saying you have a great love for animals.”

“Oh, I do! You're quite right, how very thoughtful.” I am flattered that he should remember. “Very well, Mr. Garland, you are most kind.” In truth it is a joy to be distracted from Henry, or the lack of him, for a few minutes and we all troop outside.

The April sun is warm and gentle. Mr. Garland has a fashionable little phaeton in sky blue and gold, which is exactly the sort of carriage I would have imagined for him. The new horses are two gleaming bays, identical in height and with strong hocks and finely turned heads. Lord Vennaway would have admired them. I smile as I stroke their smooth noses and hold my hands under their inquiring velvety lips. They duck their heads and butt my chest, disgusted with my failure to bring titbits. I stumble, laughing, and Mr. Garland reaches out to steady me. Flustered by the warm pressure of his hand on my arm, I comb my fingers through their silken black manes, perfectly straight and crisply trimmed, relishing the always comforting feeling of horsehair under my hands.

“Come on, come on!” calls Mrs. Riverthorpe from inside the phaeton. Mr. Garland smiles ruefully and bows.

“Until tomorrow, Miss Snow.” He swings easily into the carriage after her and they move off. I am reluctant to see those beautiful animals go. Horses were a part of my life at Hatville that was never complicated, and always enriching. I watch them trot smartly down the street until the happy sound of hooves has faded and then I go inside to wait.

•  •  •

And wait. Days pass, with no sign of Henry, and I am lonelier than ever. When Mrs. Riverthorpe asks me whether I will accompany her to this or that occasion, I say yes more often than I say no, simply to make the time pass more quickly. No matter my social obligations, I ensure that I go for a walk each day. Every day I cross Bath to walk the length of Henrietta Street, hoping that I might happen across Henry. Every day I return to the bridge where we met, I walk past the coffee shop where we talked and toasted our friendship. I see him everywhere, and yet he is nowhere.

I cannot understand it. His delight at seeing me again had felt real. Our
friendship
had felt real. He promised to call on me the next morning. My imagination runs wild. He has heard, and believed, that I am a lady of easy virtue . . . or he has simply thought better of a friendship with a woman leading so unconventional a life. I am too unusual, too free-spirited. Even I realize that, considering my fears upon our first meeting that I was too small and dull and dowdy, this is quite a turnaround . . . but I just do not know how to fathom his silence. And I
know
he knows my address—it is not easily forgettable.

Perhaps he has mentioned me to his friends the Longacres and they do not like the sound of me? They are meant to be a steadying influence upon him; they may suspect a roving single woman of no established background.

Or perhaps he has met someone—a lady—and feels our odd little friendship would not foster well a new romance. If this is the case, I will try my earnest best to wish him well with all my heart, for I could only ever wish Henry happy. Only I cannot help but wish I might be the one to make him happy and, as with so many things, I wish I
knew
.

Time passes so achingly slowly. With all I have learned about Aurelia, and all I suspect besides, I am wild to receive the next letter. I remain convinced that the end of the trail and all the answers are near. I know better than to press Mrs. Riverthorpe to give me the letter early, so it is a question of counting days. If she is happy to have my company, she disguises it well, but neither does she forbid me to join her. The presence of Quentin Garland at most of the functions I attend makes them more bearable.