Flowers From The Storm (69 page)

I always loved you.

Elias Little had fetched Papa back. It was not thought advisable for Maddy to go on the journey or be brought into contact in any way with the world she had left. She submitted herself to the wisdom of Meeting, living retired with the Littles in Kensington until the sublease of the Chelsea house should fall in and she and Papa could return home, for it was conspicuously apparent that they would never be welcome with Cousin Edward again now that he’d finally been released from his ignominious imprisonment.

Her father was very subdued. In earlier days, Maddy would have thought he was unwell, he was so quiet, but she knew it was the havoc she had made of his life and her own that oppressed him. He did not even speak much to Elias; almost as if they were somehow set at odds after a lifetime of fraternity. When the solicitor came to consult upon a nullification of the marriage, it was Elias and Constance who sat with her through the ordeal of explanation. Papa did not even enter the room.

The most difficult part was that she could not do as Jervaulx’s brothers-in-law had wished and say that the marriage had not been consummated. The case must rest upon the irregularity of the marriage itself and the fact that neither side would contest a nullification. Maddy was aware that letters were sent and attorneys advised, but she saw none of them. Elias and the elders directed the worldly business; she had only one task—to write her letter of condemnation of her actions.

It was the most difficult thing she had ever done in her life. She had not wept; since the moment she had left Belgrave Square, she had not—but when she sat down with pen and paper, everything went to a blur and she could not even see to write. She had attempted it several times, waiting until she felt herself more steady, closeting herself in the late afternoon, rising early in the morning—she even went to write it straight from the silent hours of mid-week meeting for worship, and drenched the paper with the most copious tears of all.

At dinner that night, Elias carved the roast. “I was visited by the solicitor today,” he said, lifting a piece of meat onto Maddy’s plate before he passed it back to her. “He has received firm word that the Duke of Jervaulx does not desire to lay any obstacle in the way of canceling the error.”

That was how they spoke of it, as “the error.” Maddy looked down at the food on her plate. No one said anything else. She picked up the old steel cutlery with its white horn handles and pushed a bite of meat onto her fork. But she could not eat it.

The plain life, the simple waiting upon silence and God— she fit into it so easily again, helping Constance with the washing, attending worship, accompanying the older woman on her visits to the sick and the troubled. Everything was simple: it was right to rise early, work hard, speak little; wrong to be lazy, dishonest, creaturely. Wrong to think about him.

She felt at home, and yet remote from home. She did not miss the servants, the carriages, the gilt and rich furnishings— she did not even miss the pretty dresses, when she thought of how ill she became them compared to the bright-plumed ladies who had danced in Belgrave Square.

She only missed one thing, and that was a part of her soul left behind.

In strange irrational moments, she would suddenly find herself imagining that she ought to help him to button his waistcoat, that he would want her to write out his letters— things he hadn’t even needed done for him since her arm had healed. She heard footsteps on the stairs and her head lifted—but they were never brisk enough, impatient enough. She pressed her fingers over the filigree ring—a small stolen treasure, her one theft. She walked the hedgerows and stopped and hugged her arms around herself, her face turned upward to the winter sunset and to him—as if he were there, as if she could feel him again, just once again.

But he did not desire to lay any obstacle in the way. She took the bite of roast and made herself swallow.

He had needed her, and now he did not. For a little while, their lives had crossed in time and place, and gone apart again. He was the Duke of Jervaulx. She was a scandal in her Meeting. She attended under a cloud of censure, one of them and yet not, her name an item of public interest in the newspapers, causing bitter humiliation to the Society.

She was grateful that Elias and Constance and some other weighty Friends spoke on her behalf, testifying how she had been in fallacy but had turned from it, and would walk henceforth in the Light again. And everyone awaited her letter of self-condemnation. It was not a thing said aloud, but if the words she wrote were strong enough, if it showed a real and absolute longing to clear Truth, Friends might be convinced to relent in their disfavor and receive her wholly again into the Society.

“How does thy work proceed, John?” Constance asked Papa.

He rubbed his chin. “Slowly. It goes slowly in these latter days.”

Maddy said, “Thou hast not wished me to transcribe for thee.”

“I’m not certain that I intend to publish the paper.”

She turned toward him. “Not publish it?”

“Maddy girl,” he said quietly, “thou knowest that all the credit is not mine to claim.”

“Not all, but—” She stopped.

“Shall I publish with his name connected? I had not thought thou wouldst like it.” He smiled his sweet, sad smile. “And to tell truth, I have come across a complication in the proof that is beyond my ability alone.”

She bent her head over her plate. It was not fair. Papa had spent so long and worked so hard. It should not come to naught because of her mistakes.

“Wilt thou have some of this savoy, John?” Constance changed the subject, helping Papa to the dish.

“Friend Gill brought it to us this morning. He says that the sea-kale has come into the market, at a shilling and sixpence the basket.”

“I wish he’ll find us some asparagus,” Elias said. “Or grow it, alongside those flowers of his.”

Constance made a little smile. “Archimedea must ask him. He will do it for her.”

“Now, Constance,” Elias reproved her gently. “Thou art beforehand.”

Constance, unrepentant, put some of the savoy onto Maddy’s plate. “It will all be settled happily,” she said. “I feel in my heart that it will.”

“Hast thou continued to write thy paper, Archimedea?” Elias asked.

“Yes,” she said, stirring the savoy aimlessly on her plate, cutting it across, and across again. “I am not finished.”

“We will pray together tonight,” he said. “Perhaps that will help guide thee.”

“Yes,” Maddy said.

The error would be repaired. He did not wish to put any obstacle in the way of it.

She remembered him at that last moment—she would never forget him—sly confidence, brilliance and command; stars and infinity, a world beyond reach.
A bon chat, bon rat
, below the phoenix rising.

Self-possessed, audacious, sanguinary in his revenge. Like the good cat, lazy and playful, powerful and unforgiving, he turned the table and bedeviled his tormentors—tossed them in jail, almost let them free, withdrew and renewed allegations, had them up to face a grand jury before he liberated them again at his whim. Poor Cousin Edward, Maddy thought, would never be the same plump secure rat again.

He was the Duke of Jervaulx. He had lovers. He’d defeated his affliction by his own strength.

You
come
, he had said to her, so many times. She could almost hear his voice.

But it slipped away from her even in imagination, the one last thread that tied her to another life. She would write her paper. It was time.

With Elias and Constance after supper, she sat in the austere parlor and listened to the elder’s deep resonant voice in prayer. She heard all the things that she should write. Afterwards, she wrote them, without tears.

Christian sat with the post, flipping invitations one by one into the fire. He paused at a letter from Scotland and set it aside. He sat looking at it unopened on the desk. Then he broke the seal and read it.

He rose, and went upstairs.

In the yellow room, a cradle had the warmest spot, carefully screened from the grate. Jilly glanced up from it. “Oh, Your Grace—she’s just woke up and all ready to see you.”

He nodded. The girl curtsied and left, quietly closing the door behind her.

Christian did not go up to the crib. Instead he leaned against the bed, watching from a little distance.

Diana had not noticed him: she lay on her back, kicking at her long linen shirt and playing with her feet.

She now had a white embroidered cap and tiny beribboned slippers, collars and bibs, a silver rattle, a soft ivory brush and comb—all the proper equipment, he was informed by Jilly and the various females in the house.

“Little girl,” he said softly.

She turned at the sound of his voice, something that she’d only just learned to do. The bewildered frown creased her forehead as she looked for the source.

Christian walked to the top of the crib. She began to smile before he got there, breaking into frenzied batting with her arms and legs when he leaned over her upside down. She squealed with delight when he rubbed his nose against hers. Her fists banged his cheek and jaw. He twitched his head and made a sound each time she hit him, a game she seemed to find rousing.

He pulled back and stood over her, offering his forefingers. She grabbed them immediately, arching her head back to look at him.

“Cold in Scotland?” he asked her.

She puckered up her forehead quizzically.

“Warm clothes,” he promised. “I’ll send. Dresses. Money. Some pretty things.”

Toys for her birthday. He wondered if they would give them to her. He would not be able to write her or hear of her. They made that clear. He was to pay for her support, confidentially, and do nothing that would cause the family further embarrassment.

It was the best thing, of course. The best thing for her.

To stand aside, silent, as he was standing aside for the nullification of his marriage. That too, the best thing. He seemed to have become something of an embarrassment to everyone.

He pulled his fingers from the baby’s grip and went to the door. She turned her head, following his motion. The little pucker of uncertain worry clouded her face.

The best thing.

He looked back at her in dumb despair and silently closed the door.

Twelfth Night came and went, with no cake or games. He found reasons to put off sending Diana: the holiday, the weather, the need for a few more warm clothes. She had a wardrobe that any femme fatale might envy, created by her own modiste, the cook’s sister’s cousin, in consultation with Cook and Jilly.

Calvin had contributed a length of embroidered muslin that had somehow leaped into his basket while he was ordering the spring liveries. Durham brought blue ribbons, to match her eyes.

Christian drove slowly down Oxford Street at night and made the carriage wait on him as he walked among the gaslights, buying shawls and wool and velvet. He did not want her to be cold. Above all, he did not want her to be cold.

When it became obvious even to him that no infant could possibly make use of so many clothes at once, Jilly packed the lengths of fabric away in a trunk. Christian thought he ought to look into arranging for a post-chaise and escort for the journey north, and didn’t find the opportunity.

On a day in January, Calvin brought an unkempt boy into the library, where he stood chafing at his fingerless mittens while the butler said solemnly, “A Young Person, Your Grace, from the Lancasterian School, to speak to you.”

“Please sir,” the boy said, before Christian had done more than lift his eyebrows. “I’m a monitor at the school. Friend Timms teaches us arithmetic. I’m to say from him that—” He closed his eyes to recite. “ ”I would ask a moment of thy time to scrutinize a problem. May I come to thee?“” The boy opened his eyes. “And if the duke says no, then I’m to beg pardon for Friend Timms and go right away, and if the duke says yes, he may come, then I’m to tell him that Friend Timms teaches on Fourth Day—that’s Wednesday, sir—and Friend Timms can call after that in Belgrave Square at two; that’s the only time he can come alone, and the duke will know why. And that’s all, sir.” He let go of a breath, relaxing his hands.

Christian had been doing nothing, just sitting and watching the blank wall of the garden court. Inside him, a small bittersweet spark came alive.

“You go the coach house,” he said to the boy. “Look at the carriage. Remember it. Wednesday, at two o’clock… it waits near the school. You find. You take Mr. Timms to it… so it brings to me.”

“Yes, sir!” The boy bobbed his head.

Christian felt nervous as a girl as Calvin ushered Timms into the library and got him settled. “You’re well?” he asked, standing back aloof when the butler departed.

Under the low brim of his beaver hat, Timms turned toward the sound of Christian’s voice. “I am well in body,” he said evenly.

Christian could not tell if there was accusation in his tone. He worked the fingers of his right hand. The room seemed to grow heavy with silence.

“And Maddy?” he asked, very low.

Her father smiled faintly and shook his head. “I do not know.”