Amy Snow (35 page)

I saw him, of course, for the archery on Sunday. He then encouraged me to go to a luncheon at a Mrs. Rathbone's on the Monday. Later that afternoon, he called in his carriage and took Mrs. Riverthorpe and me out for a ride. She is as dire towards him as can be, but he seems at ease in her company. Since I now find myself growing fond of her, for reasons entirely beyond my comprehension, I like him all the better for that. In fact, I like him a great deal. He is always courteous, always reliable, and if the impression persists that he is far too glossy and perfect for me, I tuck it away and ignore it, for I have decided he is free to come to that conclusion—or not—himself. Certainly he seems to seek out my company and that gives my heart a warm, full feeling that is new and welcome.

•  •  •

When I have been in Bath, I feel sure, approximately six months, I check the calendar and learn that I have been here a week. Readying myself for another dinner, I pause to rest my forehead on the windowpane and gaze at the street. It has become a habit. I see park railings, black and curlicued; an old lady with a small dog taking the air, accompanied by her maid; and pink cherry blossom in a garden. I see a gentlemen walk past briskly. I follow his progress idly, watching as he tips his hat to another gentleman approaching in the opposite direction. I stand up straight and look again. The approaching gentlemen is Henry! It is Henry! For a moment I am unable to move for the joy of watching him walk along Rebecca Street to see me. Oh, the relief! I cannot imagine what has taken him so long, but I'm sure there's a good explanation and I will learn it very soon now. I turn to run to the door, then stop and watch him. Ambrose will call me and I want to savor the moment.

He looks taller than ever, dressed smartly for a call and wearing a new top hat, or at least a top hat which I have not seen before. He is not as perfectly turned out as Mr. Garland, I note. A little too much shirtsleeve peeps below the cuff of his coat, and his cravat is askew, as though once tightly knotted but soon tugged loose. There are dark curls about his face and his walk is a lope. My heart melts. He is exactly how a man should be.

He stops a little way short of the house and I smile. No, it's here, Henry, I telegraph him mentally. But I don't think he has the wrong place, for he is looking directly at Hades House. Perhaps he is put off by its somber appearance? From this angle I can just see his face and to my dismay he does not look happy. His expression is not that of a man about to call on the woman he . . . well, what was I expecting? But it is not even that of a man about to visit a friend. I have never seen Henry look grim before. He takes off his hat and scratches his head so that all his curls stand up on end, then he jams the hat back on as though he would be happy to break it.

A dreadful thought occurs to me. I do not want to entertain it, but what if he is not coming here to continue our friendship? What if he has come to tell me that it is at an end? It must be the ball—he has heard the talk from the ball and now he wants to tell me that he cannot continue an acquaintance with a woman of such a reputation. Shame washes through me . . . but I can explain! He will say what he needs to say and I will put him right and we will laugh about it . . .

But he is walking away! After a long moment of looking at Hades House, he has spun on his heel and returns smartly in the direction from which he came. My face crumples in horror. At long last he is here, within sight, and I am not even to talk to him? I cannot bear it!

I fly from my room and down the long spiral stairs. I run along the long, echoing hall and heave open the front door, forgetting the curl papers still in my hair. I run into the street just in time to see Henry's tall figure disappearing around the corner. I race after him, as quickly as my wide blue skirts permit, feeling every stone and crack in the pavement through my fine slippers. I don't care. All I can think of is to see Henry, to tell him that whatever he is thinking about me is wrong and see his face break into that easy, melting smile once more.

When I get to the end of the street, he is gone. I cannot see him anywhere on the hill. Other streets cross it to right and left and I look down two or three of them to no avail. People are staring at me. Henry could be anywhere.

Cowed by hurt at the nearness of the thing, I slink back like a dog. Mr. Garland's phaeton is at the door. Unable to bear the thought of his seeing me now, I run upstairs and tear the papers from my hair. Then I sink onto my bed and cry and cry.

I stumble through a numbness of days. I should not quite be able to believe that Henry Mead, who was so kind to me in London and so frank and confiding with me only days ago in Bath, could have come so close to calling yet decided against it. I should not believe it but that I saw it happen with my own eyes. I shed tears over it more than once, but they do not change anything.

By the Friday I am shocked to realize that I have spent a great many more hours in Quentin Garland's company than in Henry's, although I persist in thinking of Henry as a friend and Mr. Garland as an acquaintance. In point of fact, Henry is conspicuously absent, having clearly decided
against
being a friend, whilst I could, as Mrs. Riverthorpe has so bluntly pointed out, marry someone like Mr. Garland if I chose to play up my fortune and my new connections. If I decided to stay.

This life, this fashionable existence of dinners and dances and card parties, still does not feel like the right life for me. And yet I am in it and one day leads to the next without fail. Existence takes on its own validation, and I am weary of looking beyond the surface of things, always looking beyond. I do not have Aurelia's love of the far horizon. I want, still, to settle down, albeit on my own terms.

Is Mr. Garland someone with whom I could live on my own terms? Why do I even ask myself that question? Because he is here, I suppose, and he is handsome and attentive and intelligent and everything that is admirable in a man. And it is clear that he is paying court to me now, even in my naïveté I can see that. I am excessively flattered and long to write to Madeleine and Priscilla about it. But I still must not. I have written to their father, as I promised, so that he knows I am safe and well. I cling to my hope that the trail is to end here in less than a fortnight and then I will be free to do, be, communicate whatever I will. Besides, although I know the girls would delight in the gossip, my heart would not quite be in it.

Mr. Garland remains as he ever was: cool, elegant, and so perfect. So
other
. Perhaps that is the way of fascination between the sexes. When we ride together, I notice how his long body sways minutely with the jolting of the carriage, a fluid ability to move as one with the world. When we conduct polite conversation in the drawing room at Hades House, I notice how the light gleams on his smooth, golden side-whiskers. When he holds a door for me or passes me a glass, I observe his pale, clean gloves and his pastel sleeves.

What is it about him that intrigues me so? It cannot be merely that he is handsome—surely I am not so shallow? It is not as though I have never seen a fine gentleman before, not after living at Hatville. Unlike Mrs. Riverthorpe, I do not find him dull; to me his company is intelligent and gracious. Being always with him at social events enhances my sense of inclusion; it facilitates the illusion that that there is no gossip about my mysterious arrival in the heart of society—that I am amongst friends. Certainly he has shown no censure of my outrageous hostess, shabby origins, or mysterious background. He has never made reference to the confrontations at either ball, never made me feel unworthy or unwanted. I begin to shed my sense of formal restraint with him and to take pleasure, at last, in his company.

I have never been courted before. In our moments of private conversation, he tells me of his estate in Berkshire, his horses, his many investments. I am aware that he is telling me things that he believes will cause me to think favorably of him. I wonder that he should feel the need to bother, when he is so eminently admirable. I am not sure what it is meant to lead to, but I am only relieved that, overall, my time in Bath is passing less painfully than I might at first have imagined.

•  •  •

I am reflecting on this during one of Mrs. Riverthorpe's interminable card parties. We are seated in the drawing room, with the rich evening light falling pleasingly into the dusty interior. The guests are Mr. Garland; Mr. Pierpont, the former rower; Mrs. Manvers, of the Bath Temperance Association; and Mr. Gladsby, a fervent campaigner to suppress the education of the lower classes, whom he believes to be corrupt and anarchic to a man.

The conversation is accordingly surreal and I allow my mind to wander on the shafts of light. There it dances, alongside the motes of dust, towards Wednesday coming and Aurelia's impending letter. I have grown accustomed to Mrs. Riverthorpe's odd little ensembles. My early impression, that she selects her guests purely for maximum potential for tormenting them, has been confirmed by the lady herself as accurate.

My gaze drifts upwards to find Mr. Garland's eyes resting on me. He smiles as though he understands why I have mentally absented myself for a moment. Mrs. Manvers has been explaining the importance of building public libraries: they give the workingman with a taste for strong drink an alternative to a tavern as a place to relax after a hard day's work.

Mr. Gladsby responds swiftly that no member of “that class of person” can ever be prevailed upon to eschew the demon drink and that all they will do with a library is burn it.

Mrs. Manvers looks close to tears. Mrs. Riverthorpe chuckles silently to herself and Mr. Pierpont breaks in with a thinly veiled attempt to steer the boat onto a more favorable current:

“Back in 1803, on the Thames, near Henley, I achieved my greatest triumph when . . .”

At this interesting juncture Ambrose knocks and enters.

“Excuse me, ma'am,” she nods in her usual assured way to her employer. “Miss Snow, might I speak with you for a moment?”

I am astonished. “Why, of course! Excuse me, please, ladies, gentlemen. I hope I do not disturb your game.”

I lay my cards carefully facedown, though in truth it will make little difference; I never win. Mr. Garland wins almost every hand with a facility for cards that Mrs. Riverthorpe has pointed out a great many times. He told her once that he does not play to lose and she retorted that she knew it very well.

I step into the hall to join Ambrose.

“Apologies for calling you from the game, Miss Snow, only there is a gentleman waiting outside to see you.”

Breath is snatched from me. “Henry?”

Ambrose looks at a small card, which she then hands to me. “Yes. Henry Mead. So you do know him. Mrs. Riverthorpe would be happy for you to invite him in, miss.”

I can well imagine Mrs. Riverthorpe's delight if I lured poor unsuspecting Henry into that nest of vipers. But I want to see him alone. “Thank you, Ambrose, it won't take long. I shall go out to him.”

“Very good, Miss Snow.”

I run, actually
run
, the length of the hall, determined to catch Henry before he disappears again.

I am overjoyed that I am wearing my beautiful emerald-green dress, much despised by Mrs. Riverthorpe. Do not get ahead of yourself, I tell myself severely, he may only have come as a courtesy, to let you down in person. I do not believe it for a minute!

I must be calm, I tell myself, as I wrench open the ponderous door and burst onto the porch. A cream phaeton waits across the street, and Henry leaps out, all long legs and dark eyes. He runs across the street and, to my amazement, holds me by the arms and stares deep into my face.

“Amy! You are pleased to see me, I think.”

“Henry? Of course I am! Why should I not be? Where have you been? You said Saturday and I have been waiting and waiting—” I stop abruptly, realizing I have just given away any shred of dignity I might have hoped to maintain. But it seems to me that if there has been some misunderstanding we have wasted enough time.

He lets me go and does not look displeased at my outburst, quite the contrary. He takes my hand briefly, then lets that go as well. All in all he looks as though he does not know what to do with me. “I'm sorry, Amy,” he says at last, still very serious. “I had not imagined you would mind. But that is not the point, of course. I promised to come and I should have. I wanted to.”

“So why did you not?”

He rubs a hand over his face and grins at me, but it is not his usual spirited grin. “Foolish male pride. I did come, in point of fact, although not in the morning as I'd said. When we said good-bye outside the coffeehouse that day, I was so dismayed that you were slipping through my fingers all over again that I wasn't really thinking. I had promised Gus—Mr. Longacre, the friend who is kindly putting me up in Bath—that I would go to Bristol with him on Saturday morning to witness the signature of some important papers. I couldn't let him down, so I didn't come to see you until the afternoon.”