Jane Ashford (20 page)

The pleasure of helping Marina choose some new dresses the next morning nearly drove Laura’s problems from her mind once more. The day started with a lively argument at the breakfast table with Marina insisting that she would not accept their generous offer of clothes, and Clarissa insisting that she must. Their disagreement ended with the purchase of several gowns.

They reached home in time for a light luncheon of cold meat and fruit, and then all three ladies went upstairs to change for the balloon ascension.

Laura heard Eliot come in as she dressed; he moved about in his bedchamber talking to someone. As Mary brushed out her black curls and arranged them about her face, she listened to the muffled noises. So he really would come with them. She had not precisely doubted this. He had said he was coming, and he always performed what he promised, but still she was surprised. It was not at all the sort of party he liked.

Mary finished with her hair, and Laura stood to look at herself in the long mirror on the front of the wardrobe. She had chosen a simple dress of pale green muslin. She looked thinner, as well as paler, than when she had come to London, and her eyes seemed large for her face. She picked up a paisley shawl and started downstairs to wait for the others.

Eliot was already in the drawing room when she walked in. He looked at her rather closely, she thought.

Sighing, she compared his unchanged appearance with her own. In his immaculate dark blue coat and buff pantaloons, Eliot looked the same modish Londoner who had been so annoyed when the snowstorm trapped them in the inn. His dark hawk-like face and sharp gray eyes had not changed at all. Her eyes met his, and the unfocused regret she had been feeling was suddenly clear and sharp. Something seemed to catch in her chest, and a sensation that was not exactly pain went through her. Everything seemed horrible at that moment. Eliot had showed he had begun to care for her a little, but her foolhardiness would wreck that small beginning. Lost in these thoughts, she had nearly forgotten her surroundings, but she was suddenly aroused by an exclamation.

“My God, what’s wrong? Are you ill?” said Eliot.

“What?”

“Your face… I have never seen such a look.” He was frowning at her, puzzled and concerned. “I can hardly describe it. Your eyes seemed to grow enormous all at once, and you looked the picture of despair. Tell me, Laura, what is wrong? What has happened to you?”

She opened her mouth, then shut it. There would be no such concern in his voice if he knew about the two thousand pounds. She looked down at the floor and murmured, “Truly I am quite all right.”

His frown did not lift, but Clarissa and Marina came in, just then, and the party set off. Eliot commented on the overcast sky, and Laura agreed that it would be unpleasant should it rain with everyone in open carriages. “Perhaps we will find that the event has been canceled,” he added hopefully. “They cannot go up in a storm, of course.”

Eliot’s tone drew a small smile from Laura. “I do not understand why you said you would accompany us,” she answered. “I know you do not care for such things, and we might just as well have gone with my cousin. But it is your own doing, after all, so it is too bad of you to complain.”

He bowed his head. “You are quite right, Laura. It is positively mean-spirited of me to repine. Still I hope that it does rain, so that I can show you how well I shall bear it.”

Laura laughed, the worries of the morning receding a bit in the face of this absurdity. “Well I do not. The pleasure of observing your fortitude would be greatly dampened by a ruined bonnet.”

Her husband chuckled. “Don’t you know that puns are the lowest form of wit, my dear? Addison despised them.”

Laura shrugged airily. “He was not obliged to work with the subject of balloon ascensions.”

“A definite hit. I acknowledge it,” he replied. “Had he been forced to do so, or indeed even to attend such an event, I daresay all his wit would have deserted him forthwith.”

Laura shook her head, smiling. “My cousin is a marvel in this at least. His mere proximity makes you utterly absurd.”

“Is it not strange? I have remarked it myself, but I cannot explain it. Can it be, perhaps, an unconscious effort to leaven his lumpishness by excessive levity? Yes. I think I have hit upon the answer.”

“You are right,” laughed Laura. “And this also explains why I never see this mood in you otherwise.”

***

They arrived at the site of the balloon ascension in good time. Indeed the earl had gotten them there before almost any other spectators, and they had a wide choice of good viewing spots. In the center of the area, a group of men stood around an expanse of red fabric, evidently discussing the apparatus and the weather, if their gestures and long looks at the sky could be so interpreted.

“Capital!” said the earl, when the curricle pulled up beside his vehicle. “They have not yet started filling the gas bag. We shall see everything.” And he launched into an explanation of what the men would do next and why. Since he interspersed this with a repetition of many of his remarks from the previous day’s explanation of balloons, his listeners soon allowed their attention to wander. Only Marina seemed to follow the earl’s lecture, and her occasional questions constituted the only conversation for nearly a quarter of an hour. Finally Eliot interrupted the earl with, “I believe they have decided to fill the balloon.”

Their host looked up. In his enthusiasm he had nearly forgotten the balloon. “They have indeed,” he agreed. “Very sharp of you, Mr. Crenshaw.”

Eliot raised one eyebrow and smiled. Laura, looking over the field, did not think the crowd as large as expected. The overcast sky and thickening clouds were perhaps responsible.

“Yes, I think it will rain later,” said Eliot when he saw his wife gazing upward. “Let us hope that it will not be until this evening. But it appears to me that it will come on sooner.”

“Oh there is Anne Rundgate,” exclaimed Clarissa, as if startled, and when the others followed her gaze, she flushed a little.

Laura saw Anne some way down the row of carriages. She was sitting in a high perch phaeton with a young officer, and though Laura could see his scarlet coat, she was not close enough to recognize his features.

“The balloon is full,” exclaimed the earl, breaking into her thoughts.

Laura drew in her breath. The thing was much larger than it had appeared when lying on the ground. It towered above them, red with a blue stripe about the middle and oddly beautiful. Men scurried about the bottom, adjusting ropes and checking the apparatus. Two stood well away from it, gazing anxiously into the sky. “It’s really rather splendid, isn’t it?” said Laura.

Eliot inclined his head.

Another quarter of an hour passed, and still the men bustled about the balloon without showing any signs of raising it. The crowd chatted and flirted unconcernedly. Laura shifted in her seat. “I wonder that they do not begin.”

“They are trying to persuade themselves that the weather is good enough to go up,” said Eliot. “But it will surely rain.” And indeed, even as he said this, the first few drops spattered the dusty ground beside the curricle. “Ah,” he added, “this is timely. You see, I was right.”

They exchanged a smile, and he tightened his hold on the reins. “We had best try to make our way out before it becomes a rout,” he said.

“I have no objection,” Laura replied. “Let us just make sure that the earl goes also.”

Eliot communicated their intention to their host and was met with loud objections. “A few drops only,” scoffed the earl. “It will stop in a moment. These men will not allow a few drops of rain to put an end to their flight. They have filled the bag, after all.”

“I cannot agree,” answered Eliot. “In fact I believe the chief balloonist is already telling his henchmen that it is impossible.” The man who seemed in charge of the event had indeed called the others to him and was telling them something.

“Nonsense. He is undoubtedly explaining the procedures of raising the balloon. It is a quarter past three. You cannot be so poor-spirited as to leave now.”

But Eliot merely began to maneuver the curricle out of the press of vehicles around them. The drops were coming faster now, and Laura could feel them striking her through the thin fabric of her shawl. All over the field carriages were beginning to back away and depart.

“Do let us go,” said Clarissa, holding up her shawl to shield her bonnet. “Oh now it is truly raining.”

Suddenly the drizzle became a downpour. Eliot wasted no more time but quickly turned the curricle and began to thread his way through the maze of vehicles behind them. It was a measure of his skill that they managed to do this with some speed. All around them carriages nearly collided and drivers shouted at one another to get out of the way. Looking back, Laura saw that the earl had not yet been able to turn his unfamiliar team. The landaulet was wheel to wheel with a phaeton, and the earl was having words with the young sprig of fashion who drove it. Clarissa had risen and was trying to take the reins from the earl, who jerked them away indignantly. Just before she lost sight of them, Laura saw a wet bedraggled figure go running up to the earl’s carriage and pull at Clarissa’s sleeve.

In a surprisingly short time, considering the general confusion, they were on their way home at a spanking pace. The rain had completely soaked Laura’s shawl and thin dress and had ruined her bonnet. She could feel droplets running down her neck. In the breeze of their movement, this dampness was unpleasantly cool, and before they reached Mayfair, she was shivering. Eliot saw this in a side glance. “It is not far now,” he said encouragingly.

They reached the house soon after. Eliot pulled up at the door and told her to get down. “Change immediately into something dry,” he said.

“But what about you?”

“I mean to do the same as soon as I have taken the horses around to the stables.”

Laura climbed down and hurried into the house. Mary exclaimed when she saw her. “La, ma’am,” she said, “you’re soaked through, and your gown is a proper mess.” She began to unbutton it in back. “You must change out of these wet things or you’ll catch a chill. I’ll light the fire as soon as I’ve helped you out of this.”

Laura’s teeth were chattering. “Oh do it first,” she said. “I can undress, but I am already chilled to the bone, I think. Odd, it is not really cold outside.”

“It’s the damp as does it, ma’am,” said Mary wisely, busying herself at the hearth. “I’ll have this going in a trice.”

In a short time Laura was wrapped in a dressing gown and seated before the fire, a towel wrapped around her wet hair. Mary had gone down to the kitchen to order her a pot of tea. With a sigh Laura stretched out her legs to the heat. This was much better. She pulled off the towel and began to rub her curls dry. Her black hair fell about her shoulders and face.

She heard the door open. “Oh Mary,” she said in a muffled voice, “is the tea here already? How wonderful. It is just what I need. Has Clarissa returned?”

“Not yet,” answered a male voice, and Laura threw back her hair to see her husband standing in the doorway. She came to her feet. “I beg your pardon,” he added, “I wanted to see if you were all right.” He was still in his wet garments, and they dripped a little on the carpet.

Very conscious of her bare feet, tumbled curls, and thin wrapper, Laura said, “I am perfectly all right now.” She stole a glance at him from under her lashes. “Mary made a fire,” she added, then fell silent, annoyed at the fatuity of this statement.

“Good,” he said. He was looking at her with an expression that sent the blood rushing to her cheeks, and for a moment there was silence. Then he moved out of the doorway. “I must change also.” And with that he shut the door and was gone.

Laura had had two cups of tea and dressed again before she heard sounds below that indicated the rest of the party had returned. Hurriedly pinning her hair into a knot, she went downstairs, arriving in the hall in time to greet a very wet and annoyed Clarissa. Marina and Anne Rundgate followed her into the house. All of them were soaked. “Where is the earl?” she asked. “He must come in and get dry.”

Clarissa tossed her head. “He has gone back to his lodgings,” she answered curtly. “What a ham-handed driver!”

Marina was trying not to smile, and Anne looked frightened. Laura looked at Clarissa’s smoldering eyes and stubborn mouth and said merely, “You must all go upstairs and change at once. You’re drenched.”

“Oh yes,” agreed Anne softly.

The three of them started up the stairs, but Clarissa turned before she was halfway up. “I may as well tell you that I have quarreled with our cousin, Laura. I doubt we will see him here again. But I do not care because he is an utter toad and the worst judge of horseflesh I have ever seen.” Then she turned and disappeared up the stairs.

An hour later the four ladies sat in the drawing room around the tea tray. The rain had become a driving storm, and a fire and hot cups of tea formed a pleasant contrast to the wind and water outside the windows. Clarissa and Anne Rundgate talked quietly on the sofa before the hearth, contentedly eating buttered muffins, and Laura and Marina sat in armchairs close together at the side.

“I did not yet hear how Anne came to be with you?” Laura said to Marina quietly. She did not want to attract Clarissa’s attention.

Marina looked uneasy. “I was wondering whether I should bring up the subject.” She frowned and looked at the carpet. “I am your guest, and you have been amazingly kind to me; I do not wish to interfere. But when Miss Rundgate came up to the carriage, she said, ‘My mother is here, Clarissa! You must help me. I told her I was with you.’ And then, I beg your pardon if I am offending you, then Clarissa said, ‘Has she seen you?’ and when Miss Rundgate answered no, she told her to get into the carriage.” She watched Laura’s frowning face closely. “As I said, I am sure it is no more than a misunderstanding, but I do not think that Clarissa, that is…” She trailed off in confusion.

“I am not at all certain you are right,” said Laura grimly. “But thank you for telling me. You were very right to do so.”

Marina started to speak, then thought better of it.

At this moment Mr. Dunham came into the room and approached Laura. He held out two envelopes. “Pardon me, ma’am, these arrived this morning, but they were carelessly placed beneath a vase, and I just now came across them again. I’m sorry for the delay.”

Laura took them reluctantly. She looked up to find Clarissa watching her and put the envelopes in her pocket.

At six the chaise was called for to take Anne Rundgate home, and after seeing her off, Clarissa and Marina went up to dress for dinner. Laura made as if to follow them, then slipped into the library. Eliot was also changing, so the library should be a private retreat.

Once there she shut the door and walked over to the desk. Pulling the two letters from her pocket, she smoothed out the creases and opened the fatter of them. This at least could not be a note from Mr. Allenby; it was by far too large. She pulled the packet out, and then stood frozen, staring at it. It contained all the vowels she had signed on that awful night of the card party. Or at least, she amended to herself, far more than she could remember signing; it must be the lot. Shaking her head, she looked them over, calculating quickly. Yes, these came to just over two thousand pounds. It was all of them.

On the bottom of the pile, she found one of Mr. Allenby’s visiting cards. There was no other note, but on the back of the card, he had scrawled, “Touché.” She read it aloud softly. What can he mean? she wondered. There was no other explanation for the amazing return of the vowels. She sank down in the desk chair, frowning. Clearly Mr. Allenby had not been suddenly overcome with compassion. He was not that sort of man. Someone had paid them. But who?

Still frowning, Laura slit open the other envelope. Inside was a short note, unsigned. It was in the same hand as the mysterious communication which had urged her to put off her appointment with Mr. Allenby, and it said only, “All is well.” Laura read it over repeatedly without discovering the slightest clue to the writer’s identity.

She sat at the desk for a long time, staring at the two missives, and trying to think how this thing could have come about, but she was completely at a loss. Someone who had been at the card party might have known of her debts and taken pity on her, a thought which made her flush. But why this secrecy? She would be pleased to pay back her benefactor as soon as she could. Why not come forward? Mr. Allenby must know who it was, and he was not a man to keep a secret.

With this thought, her frown returned. Why had Mr. Allenby not mentioned her benefactor when returning the notes? Surely he would make something of such charity, something scandalous, if possible. This almost assured her that her mysterious patron was not a man. Who then?

Laura clasped her hands tightly together. It frustrated her almost beyond bearing not to have any idea who had helped her. Her eyes wandered restlessly over the desk top, to be suddenly arrested at the sight of a slim envelope lying near the inkwell. She must have overlooked it twenty times since she had sat down, but now she really noticed it. There was something familiar about the writing. Picking it up, she looked more closely, and as she did so, a whiff of perfume reached her. Yes, it was the same. It was a note from Vera Allenby to her husband. Evidently their relationship was continuing.

Laura looked up, chewing her lip. The letter was opened. It must have been delivered this morning or during the day, as Eliot had already seen it. Could it have any connection with the return of her vowels? It would, of course, be wrong to read Eliot’s mail. But when a man openly received billets-doux from his mistress and left them lying about on his desk where his wife or anyone else might pick them up, did he not forfeit some of this consideration? Knowing that in her anger and frustration she was rationalizing, Laura nevertheless pulled the sheet of paper from the envelope.

Vera’s note was brief. She merely asked Eliot to visit her that evening, as she had some intriguing news for him. Laura put a hand to the side of her throat when she read this. What news did she mean? Did it involve Laura’s debts? As she considered the matter, she realized that this would be a perfect way to use such information if one wished to see her ruined, as she was by now convinced that the Allenbys did, both of them. Perhaps, after all, some compassionate gentleman had taken pity on her. But if Eliot was told that he had paid her debts, would he ever believe that the man was a stranger?

Laura jumped up and looked about her wildly. What could she do? How could she stop this meeting? Now that there was some chance of their marriage succeeding, it was critical that Eliot not believe she had become involved with some other man. Then, suddenly, she remembered that Eliot was going to be home this evening and even had suggested that perhaps they would all see a play. She sat down again, an overwhelming relief filling her. He was not going to Vera; he had chosen to ignore her invitation. Perhaps… something stronger than relief rose in Laura as she thought this, and a hopeful smile lit her features. Might Eliot prefer to be with his wife?

Laura sat in a happy daze for some minutes. When she roused herself and glanced at the clock, she started. It was nearly dinnertime, and she had not even begun to change. She stood and started toward the door, then gasped and returned hurriedly to the desk. She picked up her vowels and the envelopes and was putting Vera Allenby’s note back in its original place when the door to the library opened abruptly. Laura whirled, thinking to see Eliot, but Mr. Dunham stood there. He did not look particularly surprised. “Pardon me, ma’am,” he said. “I did not realize you were using the library.” He made as if to retreat.

“I was just leaving,” blurted Laura, and gathering up her papers, she started out.

He held the door for her. As she walked across the hall, he said, “Oh, Mrs. Crenshaw, I nearly forgot.”

Laura turned. “Yes?”

“Mr. Crenshaw asked me to inform you that he would not, after all, be home to dinner. Some pressing engagement intervened.” Mr. Dunham’s expression was bland, but Laura fancied she saw some emotion lurking beneath his ever-correct exterior.

She drew herself up. “I see. Thank you,” she replied evenly, and turned back to the stairs.

As she climbed, however, a mist obscured the steps, and she almost tripped more than once. It was wonderful to reach her bedchamber and to find it empty, and she sank down in the armchair and shut her eyes. He was going to Vera; she had been a fool to think otherwise, and she burst into tears.

It was several minutes before Laura could control herself. She was very grateful that no one came in during that time. When she finally stopped crying and wiped her eyes, sniffing, she faced the fact that she had known now for some time.

She was in love with her husband.

She did not know when or precisely how it had happened, but she had come to love Eliot dearly. This was why it was so imperative that he not find out about her debts or think her involved with someone else, and this was why she had felt so elated when she thought he was not going to Vera Allenby. A wave of jealousy and something very like hatred washed over her at the thought of this woman. Laura had never had a chance against her, entrenched as she was even before the marriage, and now, perhaps even at this minute, Mrs. Allenby would tell Eliot everything and Laura would lose him forever.

For a wild moment Laura considered going to the Allenbys’ house to stop this meeting, but she thought better of it almost immediately. Her other like efforts had ended in disaster, and she had no wish to repeat them. No doubt Vera Allenby would be able to keep her out, or even to hand her over to Jack. She would never see Eliot, and he would not even know she was there.

Laura stared into the fire. Her debts had been paid somehow, but she was in no better case than before. For the thing that mattered to her more than money or honor or anything else, her husband’s love, was out of her reach. Tears rolled down her cheeks once again, but this time she blinked them back resolutely. Crying was not going to solve anything, and she was expected at dinner in less than ten minutes.

Laura rose. She picked up the packet of vowels and the mysterious note and put them in the fire. She watched until they were completely burned, then went to the washstand and bathed her hot eyes. Mechanically, she ran a comb through her hair. She did not look very well, she thought as she gazed into the dressing table mirror, but what did it matter? Eliot would not be there to see her.