Cry of the Peacock (41 page)

He was beginning to sicken of occupation, and found himself contemplating all activity with the aloofness of a prisoner awaiting ransom.

The word struck like a bell at close proximity.
Ransom.
'To redeem or rescue. It was David’s name. To think that her first thoughts upon ever seeing David were in the vein of a savior. She could not think of him that way again, though. He was good and honorable. He was decent and true. And he would be true to Katherine. He must, or be a gentleman no longer. He was not her Deronda, not her savior. Who might be? The gentleman who had come to her rescue in Hyde Park? What was his name? Hargrave, wasn’t it? He was brave enough, certainly, though his services were not entirely necessary. In fact the novelty of his heroics lay in his readiness to offer them, and in his readiness to recognize when her own capabilities were sufficient. It was so much more than Ruskin had ever been willing to do.

Would Mr. Hargave be at this party? It was but a few days away. She certainly had reason enough to improve the acquaintance. What might she make of it, after all?

The door opened quietly and Becky entered. Something appeared to be troubling her.

“What is it?” Abbie asked her.

“If you please, miss. Mr. David wishes to speak with you.”

Abbie’s heart gave a little start and she rebuked herself once more. “Yes, of course,” she said. “I can go to him now, if he wishes.”

“Yes, miss,” Becky said. “He says it is quite important. He’s waiting in the study.”

Abbie arose, checked her reflection in the mirror and left her room.

The door to the study was open, and she could see David leaning against the desk. He looked up at her and welcomed her with a smile seemingly sincere, even if it did not reach his eyes. He appeared to have something very heavy weighing upon him. Abbie dismissed Becky and entered. It was only then that she realized he was not alone. Sir Nicholas was present as well, and looking very serious.

“Sir,” she said to him.

He was suddenly all affability. “My dear! Thank you for coming. Is your head better? Are you well?”

“I’m well, sir, but yes, my head is still hurting just a bit.”

“You were not hurt today. Lady Crawford has sent for the doctor, I believe.”

“No, not hurt at all,” she said and felt a bit confused. “There’s no need for a doctor. It’s been a trying day, is all. A trying week, actually, and I’m not resting as well as I’d like, but there is nothing wrong with me, truly.”

“Yes, of course,” he said, “You cannot blame us for worrying, now can you?”

“No, sir. I suppose not.” She smiled again and hoped to relieve the tension she felt, even with Sir Nicholas’ kind looks and words.

She turned to David, who was staring hard at the floor. His sobriety frightened her.

“Sit, will you?” Sir Nicholas said, and gestured toward a chair.

She did as she was bid and watched as he crossed the room to sit at the desk beside which his son still stood, and yet both gentlemen remained quite silent and meditative.

“You wished to speak to me, I believe,” she said to them both at once.

Sir Nicholas gestured in David’s direction. “David has some news to share with you, my dear.”

Her heart turned a little chill at this. What dark news had he to reveal? What shameful confession that could require so much ceremony?

“Well?” she prompted, when still he did not speak. Her fear was increasing with each moment they drew out the suspense. “What is this about? Won’t you tell me?”

At last David looked up from the floor and met her gaze directly. “It is hard to know where to begin,” he said with a breath of mirthless laughter.

“The beginning, I suppose, is always the best place.”

“Once upon a time, then,” he said in apparent frustration. Was he mocking her now? “it was decided that a certain young woman would marry a certain gentleman of her acquaintance.”

“Might I ask,” she said and felt her face grow very warm, “of whom you are speaking? Are you speaking of me? I’m afraid you must be very plain, Mr. Crawford.”

He hesitated a moment before answering, looking at her quite pointedly while he did. “I’m speaking of your mother, Miss Gray.”

“Oh. I see.”

“And my uncle.”

“Your uncle?”

He took a deep breath, glanced at his father, who nodded, and went on. “The two were engaged to marry, but, in the end, she did not wish to do it.”

“She married my father instead.”

“Yes.”

“And her family punished her for it.”

“There is somewhat more to it than that,” David answered.

For a moment she forgot that Sir Nicholas was there. It was just she and David talking. He telling her what she had always wished to know. She listening as though she had never expected the story to be told by any other.

“It was my grandfather’s wish that Whiteheath become a part of Holdaway. It was his expectation that with the marriage, it would be so. He was understandably disappointed when your mother changed her mind.”

“Perhaps your family’s wishes were not sufficient incentive to marry.”

He did not seem to expect this, and looked at her almost sharply. It was not her intention to offend him.

“Was not your uncle very disappointed?” he asked instead.

“I believe he was,” David answered. “He saved her letters, her photograph. They have been preserved with his mementos.”

“You have letters? Written by my mother?”

David nodded. “I consequently have reason to believe he was disappointed for different reasons than was my grandfather.”

“Yes, I see,” she said, but was prevented from asking further, for Sir Nicholas cleared his throat, urging David to go on, and to mind more closely what he said.

“Your uncle’s name?” Abbie asked him before he could continue.

“Ransom Crawford.”

She felt the tears prick and did not know why. She rubbed one hand with the other. It was not cold, she merely needed something to do with them. “Do go on,” she said at last.

“My grandfather, yet hoping for some resolution to the problem,” David said with seemingly great care, and with a glance at his father, who nodded encouragingly, “thought to remind them of a debt your family owed him.”

“A debt? What kind of debt?”

Sir Nicholas offered David a warning look.

“An old gambling debt, I believe. He meant no more by the reminder, however, than to encourage your mother to reconsider her responsibilities to her family, and to my uncle, to whom she had given her promise.” He hesitated, as if trying to make a point. “Unfortunately, word got around, and to the wrong people. It was a large debt, though it might have been forgiven, would have been had the marriage taken place. Your mother had made her decision. She would not budge.” It was not a judgment. Hardly that. And he had said it as if he almost admired her for it. But she reconsidered her impression with the next words. “The family—your mother’s family—was already highly encumbered. Word of this debt to my grandfather reached those to whom your mother’s family were more recently indebted. The debts were called in. There was no money to pay. The house went up for sale.”

“And my mother was blamed for the embarrassment she had caused.”

“It was her decision that ruined them.”

“She chose her own happiness.”

David’s eyebrows raised slightly and he nodded.

“And she suffered the consequences,” Sir Nicholas said, recalling her once more to the fact that he was present. Why was he present? Why could this moment not be between her and David alone? What was the point Sir Nicholas wished to make?

“She was happy,” Abbie reminded them.

“Or so she led you to believe.”

David tossed his father a disapproving look. It was ignored and he turned back to Abbie. “It was not she alone who suffered the consequences. You have suffered them too. As has your sister. My family has not wholly escaped the consequences of what, by their own hand, was done.”

“Your grandfather felt remorse? I’m glad of that.”

“He did. He made certain attempts to make restitution.”

“Did he? I take it they were ineffective.”

“That is yet to be determined,” Sir Nicholas said and looked at her very pointedly.

Abbie turned her attention back to David. She wanted the explanation to come from him. He stood from the desk and pulled a chair up to sit opposite to her, his back, still, to his father. Sir Nicholas looked slightly concerned, but said nothing, only leaned forward to listen more closely.

“There is a will, Miss Gray,” David said. It was a moment before he continued, and not without some prodding. All the while he looked at her as if he were both honored to be the one to share this news, and completely ashamed of it.

“A will?”

He blinked and nodded. “In it, you are named.”

“Me?” Her heart was beating a little faster now.

“As means of making restitution, and in a way that would ease the consequences of my grandfather’s actions, you, Miss Gray, were named to inherit a great deal. Whiteheath is to be yours. There is a trust, in which a sizeable fortune has accumulated, funded by several railway ventures, the City and South London among them.”

“The Opening Ceremony?”

“Our day in Lambeth was to show you what you might be a part of.”

Our day
? Had it been
their
day truly? She and David and the trains, and Benderby and…

“It was to show you what, in part, might be yours. They will make you a very wealthy woman one day. Or might.”

“Might?”

“Of course there are conditions,” David said with a flinch of a smile. “There always are.” He looked down at his hands, twisting the ring he wore around and around on his little finger.

“Will you tell me what they are?” she asked quietly and of him alone.

He raised his gaze once more to hers. “You must make a suitable—”

“You must marry my son, Miss Gray.”

David’s eyes closed.

Did Sir Nicholas mean David? Her heart lept and her stomach knotted.

“You must marry Ruskin,” Sir Nicholas clarified.

Of course it was Ruskin. What had she been thinking? She felt a tear slip down her cheek. Of course this explained everything, why they should want her, why Ruskin, the heir, should ever consider her.

“You can have it, sir,” Abbie said. “I do not want it. I didn’t come to you in the hopes of benefitting in such a way.”

She looked to David, who stood as well. If he still held any doubt in her, she wished him to know this one thing. He was looking at her already, a look in his eyes of pride and of pain.

Sir Nicholas was standing now, too, and leaning hard against his death with both hands. He appeared almost angry. “It is a will, Arabella, not a whim or a fancy. If you do not accept it, if you do not marry Ruskin, you ruin us all, do you understand?”

She was not sure she did. She was not sure she wished to.

“Do you have no feelings, whatever, for my son?”

She hesitated to answer this, and glanced, once more, at David.

“Do you not, can you not, return Ruskin’s regard?” Sir Nicholas demanded of her.

“I do recognize the honor it is, sir, but I do not love him. I’m not sure I can.”

“Can you not find it in you to put away your selfishness and do what you know you must?”

She had determined, if they must press her for some answer, then that answer must be no. How was she to say no to this? The weight of the world was on her shoulders. She had not the strength to support it. She had not the will to shrug it off.

“Do you have any idea what it costs to maintain those lands, to pay the taxes on them? Of course it isn’t just the land, as David said. There is much more, Arabella. Much, much more, and it all might be yours. Or you might cast us all to the wolves. It is up to you. I hope you do not mean to repay us for all we have done, for all we have been prepared to do for you, in so ungrateful a way as your mother did.”

“So do I,” she said, and could say no more.

Sir Nicholas was apparently fuming, but, at the moment, was keeping his temper in check.

David was watching her still.

“You will not accept Ruskin?” Sir Nicholas asked.

“I did not say I didn’t, or couldn’t. To make a decision of such importance as this, I simply need more time.”

“Well, I wish I could say you have it. But now, after all these years, we find ourselves in a situation not entirely dissimilar to the Fairbournes. If we are not released from it soon, Arabella, if we are not able to pay our debts…debts that for you alone we have incurred…then I don’t know what will happen. You have a duty, my dear, to restore honor to your family, and to show the gratitude that has so long been wanting.”

“I do not mean to be ungrateful, sir.”

“Then put away your selfish pride and accept him! You cannot mean to ruin us?”