Timepiece (4 page)

“Since my nephew has recently attained his majority,” Mrs. Wilton said, “his uncle and I thought it time he favor us with a proper visit. He is to inherit, you know.” Indeed, that was something everyone knew, all three parts of it, for Mrs. Wilton had mentioned it in every conversation for six months. “We are paying calls throughout the neighborhood. It is only right that my nephew becomes acquainted with my neighbors, since they will one day be
his
neighbors.”

Which meant, Elizabeth interpreted, that Mrs. Wilton and her nephew were making the rounds of every family who had a daughter approaching marriageable age, to decide if there were any worthy of being offered an alliance with the House of Wilton.

From her corner, Elizabeth’s aunt spoke with her usual grimness. “Are you finding your visit to the country congenial, Mr. Wilton, after the dissipations of Town?”

“Indeed yes, Miss Barton,” Charles Wilton assured her. “I am finding the company in Hartwich even more charming than I remember from my boyhood visits.” He looked significantly at Elizabeth as he spoke, and she kept herself from rolling her eyes by an extreme force of will. Two floors above nestled a mysterious pocket watch in a plush velvet bag. For that matter, outside the window birds chirped and a soft breeze blew. And here she was trapped in a drawing room without even the consolation of interesting conversation.

“That is very kind of you to say, sir,” she said. Her mother looked at her sharply.

“But—if I may ask, Miss Elizabeth—why do I have the good fortune to meet you here? Why is a lovely young lady such as yourself not making her curtsy to Society?”

“I am not yet of an age to do so, Mr. Wilton,” Elizabeth replied, keeping her eyes cast down. Let him strike her off his list as too young, and then he could go about interviewing other eligible young ladies and she could go back to the pocket watch.

“My daughter is only just seventeen, sir,” her mother explained. “We did think of this year’s Season, but next year, her cousin Lily will be of an age to join us, and it will be merry indeed for the girls to have each other’s companionship. Unless, of course...” Mrs. Barton trailed off innocently, and Elizabeth gritted her teeth.

The conversation chirped along around her, and she returned her thoughts to the pocket watch, trying to construct from memory what the picture on the fourth face had been. A dark street, overlaid with fog...and within the fog, a shape moving...what sort of shape? Something quite large, she thought, and—

“Miss Elizabeth?”

Elizabeth jerked herself back to the drawing room and lifted her eyes to Charles Wilton’s. “I beg your pardon, sir?”

“I said, it must be very quiet here for a jolly young girl such as yourself. Town will make your head spin next year.”

“Indeed, sir, I am certain it will,” Elizabeth said. Her mother cleared her throat.

“Only, I suppose, if you are fond of diversions,” Mr. Wilton went on, a little uncertainly. “Perhaps you are one of those studious young ladies who do not care for dancing...?” He glanced toward Elizabeth’s aunt, obviously a studious old lady who did not care for dancing.

“Elizabeth? Studious?” Her mother laughed. “Oh, but that is a very good joke, sir. She is a most lively girl indeed, and likes nothing better than to dance.
Do you not,
Elizabeth?”

Elizabeth said, “Indeed, sir, I do enjoy a dance.”

“Perhaps I can prevail upon my aunt and uncle to give a ball,” Charles Wilton said, leaning toward her, “and perhaps you will consent to dance with me upon that occasion?”

“I would be most happy to, sir.” Elizabeth shifted to avoid the tickle of his breath on her neck. “It is very kind of you.” During her campaign to convince her mother to delay her entrance into Society one final year—and she was still rather surprised Mrs. Barton had fallen for the argument that Elizabeth wished to wait for Lily; Elizabeth and Lily were not so great friends as all that—she had thought of the reprieve as representing twelve additional months of freedom. It had not occurred to her that her mother would not wait for a triviality such as her presentation in London to commence a search for an eligible young man. But Mrs. Barton was not one to deny herself any of the fun accorded to a mamma with a marriageable daughter, and Elizabeth had therefore spent many tedious mornings since her seventeenth birthday trapped in a drawing room with some coxcomb or another. Now, nodding her head without listening to the anecdote Mr. Wilton was telling, she had to repress a shudder at the idea of an entire Season
surrounded
by men like him. And
then
what? Decades upon decades of drawing rooms and embroidery stretched out before her.

Mr. Wilton paused, looking at her with eyes like a good-humored dog. Elizabeth inferred it was time to make some reply. “How diverting, sir,” she said.

“I am glad you think so!” Mr. Wilton leaned forward. “That’s nothing compared to what happened to a man I know out in Surrey...”

Elizabeth had a sudden savage wish that she had been born to a family of good breeding but no fortune, so she might be “reduced” to marrying a second or third son, a soldier who would whisk her off to foreign places. To the East Indies, say—or the West Indies, she wasn’t particular. But her thirty thousand pounds restrained her as effectively as a butterfly in a net, and Charles Wilton laid out before her all the details concerning his friend’s recent purchase of a horse.

“And what do you think of that, Miss Elizabeth?”

“Very droll indeed, sir.”

Perhaps when she did enter Society next year—if she got that far, if she could dodge the advances of her mamma’s parade for that long—she might contrive to entangle herself with such a young officer. It could not be very hard to do; she had read of such things in novels. Or to be precise, she had not read them herself. It was one unladylike habit her mother did not need to worry over. Her elder cousin Mirabelle had read them out loud, and Elizabeth and Lily had listened. It had been, Elizabeth thought, preferable to attempting
conversation
with Mirabelle. Hearing all the novels meant she knew how the story went. A young lady goes to London for her first Season and is swept off her feet by a dashing young man, but he proves faithless or disreputable or both, and sometimes the young lady is ruined. Or sometimes she merely makes an “unfortunate alliance.” Elizabeth thought an unfortunate alliance a perfectly acceptable price to pay for the chance to see something more of the world than the walled-in gardens of fine houses.

“Elizabeth,”
her aunt said in a freezing whisper, “Mrs. Wilton asked you a question.”

Elizabeth started. “Oh, I beg your pardon. I...I cannot think what is causing my mind to wander so. It must be the heat, or perhaps I am coming over poorly...”

No one in the room was fooled. Well, Charles Wilton, perhaps; Elizabeth sensed it wouldn’t take much to fool him. But her mother and aunt knew she never took ill, and Mrs. Wilton’s lips pursed as she repeated, “I wondered if you would join your mother and your aunt when they take tea with me on Friday.”

“Thank you, ma’am, I should be most happy to.” Elizabeth attempted to give the impression of enthusiasm, but there was not much that could be done to repair the tatters of the visit. Elizabeth was of two minds on that. She was in many ways relieved to have Mrs. Wilton taking her departure, and if she had shaken off Mr. Wilton’s interest, so much the better. But as she took note of the agitation on her mother’s face and the anger in her aunt’s eyes, she became abruptly uncertain if the victory won over the Wiltons was worth the punishment she was sure to catch once they were gone.

Her aunt waited only until the sound of the closing outer door proclaimed the Wiltons to be out of earshot. “Your manners, Miss Elizabeth Barton, do no credit to your family.”

“I am sorry, ma’am,” Elizabeth replied as evenly as she could. “I am unaccountably distracted today.”

“A fine day you have picked for it,” her mother exclaimed. “Before Mrs. Wilton, of all people! She is a force to be reckoned with in this neighborhood, as you very well know! She pays us the compliment of bringing her nephew to meet you—and he is to inherit, Elizabeth, you know that! You could hardly find any better match! Here close to home, too! But no, you must go and be sulky and probably you have put him off for all time!”

Elizabeth devoutly hoped so. She wished her mother would have done with the scolding and move on to the punishment, so that she could escape to her room.

“I never heard of such an inconsiderate girl! You have no regard for my feelings at all!”

“I do beg your pardon, mamma,” Elizabeth said, steadily still. “I did not mean to insult you. Or Mrs. Wilton, for that matter. I find my mind wandering today. Perhaps I had better lie down before dinner...”

“I am certain your time could be more usefully occupied,” her aunt said crisply. “In such a way as might train it to keep attention where attention belongs. Sit with me, Elizabeth, and read to me while I wind yarn. That will be much better for you than lazing about your bedchamber.” She resumed her seat, took up Hannah More’s
Practical Piety,
and held it out. “Now, miss.”

There was no escape to be had. Elizabeth, longing to be anywhere else, resumed her seat in the hard chair and opened the book. Her aunt took up a skein of gray yarn and began to wind it. Bees droned against the window.

And
this
was her other option. Either she married some handsome featherhead like Charles Wilton and spent her days making insipid conversation as the mistress of his house, or she declined all suitors until Society deemed her “on the shelf” and thereafter wound yarn year upon year. She fixed her mind on the thought of the disreputable and dashing young officer and resolved to borrow Mirabelle’s novels at the first opportunity, so that she would be well versed in the techniques used to secure such a man when the opportunity presented itself. It was the only escape route she could discern.

Her aunt allowed her to cease reading only when it became time for dinner. Elizabeth followed her to the dining room with downcast eyes and an outward show of meekness, and sat down to endure the interminable courses and still more maddening conversation—the latter mostly conducted mostly by her mother and her aunt, with her father occasionally interjecting comments that showed him to have not been listening. Elizabeth managed to keep her tongue in check until the chairs were at last pushed back and the family made ready to remove to the drawing room. Then, taking care to speak politely, she announced her intention of enjoying the remainder of the day out of doors.

Her aunt sniffed. “Mind you keep to the path, Elizabeth, and do not run about. You’ll disgrace us all if Mrs. Carrington or Lady Anderson sees you with mud on your ankles and your face red like a farmgirl’s. Really, John—” She turned to her brother. “—I do not see why the girl should be permitted to run wild like this. There is no need for her to be gypsying over the countryside; she ought to take her exercise nearer home. When I was a girl, a turn in the garden was enough for me, as you very well know, and I never stayed out of doors above half an hour. I would be ashamed to tan my skin in the sun and wind—” Elizabeth backed through the door before either of her parents could command her to restrict her movements to the garden, ran upstairs to snatch her bonnet and reticule and the pocket watch in its bag, and escaped for the orchard.

Hartwich, Kent, June 17, 1815

On the other side of the orchard, conversation over port had thus far dwelt exclusively upon hunting and the business of estate management. Understandable enough, William Carrington thought, as the three participants other than himself—which was to say, the three participants who were indeed participating—consisted of an elderly gentleman with an extensive estate, a middle-aged gentleman with a great love of hunting and an extensive estate, and a young gentlemen with a great love of hunting who would someday inherit an extensive estate. William had little to contribute on either topic, for he was not himself in line to inherit anything, and he had never been overly fond of the hunt even before he lost the use of his right arm. In any case, there was room in his thoughts for only one subject. He kept waiting for his father, his brother, or his brother-in-law to broach it, but they did not. Apparently, it did not interest them.

Or perhaps they avoided the word “Belgium” deliberately, out of some misplaced sense of delicacy. If that were the case, he ought to introduce the topic himself; but he couldn’t be sure, and moreover, he rather thought he had made enough of a fool of himself for one day. He had pounced upon his brother-in-law almost before Sir Henry had descended from his carriage to ask if there were news in the London papers from the Continent. There was not—or at least, no news more recent than that which had already filtered into Kent—and Sir Henry had raised his eyebrows at William’s urgency.

“Well.” William’s father set aside his napkin, setting aside with it the problem of roof repair upon which he had been expounding. “Perhaps we ought to join the ladies, hey?” He scraped back his chair, and his son George and son-in-law Henry followed suit. William trailed behind them across the passageway and to the drawing room.

He entered to hear his sister Caroline’s voice raised in a complaint. “And the Duchess is giving a ball! Has given it, by now, for that notice in the paper was many days old. I really do not see why I should not have accompanied Christopher to Belgium. I should have enjoyed myself greatly with all the other officers’ wives.”

“Will you have some coffee, William?” Mary cut in, rather obviously passing over her father and her husband to distract William’s mind from the subject of Belgium. She held the coffee cup toward his right hand, and he reached without comment to take it with his left. Mary flushed and looked away.

Mary was Lady Anderson, wife of Sir Henry Anderson, and Caroline was Mrs. Palmer, wife of Lieutenant Christopher Palmer. Before William Carrington and Christopher Palmer had been brothers-in-law, they had been brother officers; but the Lieutenant had returned with their regiment to the Continent when Bonaparte escaped from exile, and William, who had left the Peninsula with his right arm dangling as limply as the sleeve that encased it, had not.

There was no hope of discussing openly the happenings on the Continent with Caroline in the room, for she was in delicate condition and must not be upset with worry over her husband. William therefore took his coffee cup over to the window and out of the circle of conversation. His father’s estate spread before him, green and golden-brown against the dark blue sky.

He tried to focus his attention on the richness of those colors. On the taste of real coffee, sweetened with cream. On the smell of earth wafting through the open window. On the soft-voiced conversation behind him, concerning the everyday trivialities of country life. Under the brass-hot Spanish sun, he had dreamed about this. He had wanted nothing but to make it back to this. He ought now to devote at least a portion of his attention to this, rather than allowing his thoughts to always wander back to the warfront.

But perhaps he could be forgiven for considering the warfront the only matter of any real importance. Napoleon had burst the bonds of his prison. The monster who had cast a shadow across William’s childhood was once again on the march. When news of his escape had reached the shores of Britain back in early spring, William had only just surfaced from his latest relapse, and to his fever-drenched mind it seemed to him inevitable that Bonaparte should have escaped. Bonaparte was like nothing so much as one of those menacing dark things out of a country tale, the sort that haunted the wood and followed in your footsteps and could not be killed...A few days later, William had shaken his head sternly at himself for even entertaining such nonsense, but supposed it was an understandable delusion for a man in the grip of fever. After all, he could literally not remember a time when Bonaparte’s name had not stood for everything Britain must fear.

William had been only two years old when Napoleon seized power in France, and he remembered his boyhood as being conducted to the beat of the war drums on the Continent. Napoleon had gobbled France, Italy, Germany, and the Hapsburg Empire; stripped lands from Prussian and Austrian control; waged a bloody invasion in Spain; and left at last only Britain standing fast against him, alone and with the knowledge that the tyrant schemed to cross the water and hang the tricolored flag on Buckingham Palace as well. William had always known that Napoleon plotted the destruction of England; and William had always known that at sixteen, he would enter the Army and help bring about the madman’s downfall.

Well, he had entered the Army. But he had not seen so very much combat on the Peninsula before receiving the wound that ruined his right arm and his military career, and though Napoleon had indeed been defeated not long after, William had not been present to aid in the defeat. Worse, Britain’s victory had not lasted even a year, and Napoleon now again held France in the palm of his hand. He had marched into Paris three months ago without firing a single shot. Without
needing
to fire a shot, because not one Frenchman lifted a hand in opposition. Since then, he had reassembled most of the force that had allowed him to conquer Europe before.

William tightened his left hand around the coffee cup, then forced himself to relax it. He would have clenched his right hand instead had the muscles been willing to obey him. His scarlet-coated brothers, and their Dutch and Prussian allies, would face Bonaparte’s fanatic French in a drawn battle sometime soon. Sometime very soon—the cannons might be firing even now. But William Carrington, worn and weak from his winter’s illness, strength gone forever from his right arm, could do nothing but sip coffee in a drawing room and beg his London brother-in-law for news.

The ladies behind him had moved on from balls in Belgium to social matters nearer home. “Charles Wilton has come to visit at last?” Lady Anderson said. “I do hope to catch a glimpse of him at some Assembly or another. I declare I had begun to doubt his existence, all these years we have heard of him and never seen his face.”

“Mrs. Wilton pledged to bring him to call one morning this week,” Mrs. Carrington said. “We must be content to wait our turn, of course. With all my daughters so advantageously married, there is not so much to interest him here as there might be elsewhere.” William could not see her, but he could tell from her voice that she was smiling first upon Mary, then upon Caroline, and then at the portrait of Frances.

“Has he been long in the neighborhood?” Mary asked.

“He only arrived yesterday,” Mrs. Carrington said. “Today his aunt took him to call upon the Bartons at Westerfield.”

“Better him than me,” George muttered, suddenly close beside William. “From all I hear of that young dandy, he’ll find something to like in Elizabeth Barton’s impertinence, and perhaps then her mother will cease foisting the chit on the rest of us. You’d think she was some cottager’s brat, the way she romps about.”

“Does she?” William said without much interest. He had only recently grown well enough to be dragged into company, and he could not remember Elizabeth Barton doing anything so very noteworthy at last week’s Assembly. “I hadn’t noticed.”

 “Well, you haven’t been obliged to dance with her, now have you? Pretty enough, I grant you, but I assure you the elegance goes no deeper than her skin.” There was a pause. “Thirty thousand pounds, of course,” George added, in an overly hearty tone. “There is that.” He appeared to have belatedly remembered that he ought to be encouraging his brother to meet young ladies.

William tried to clench his right hand again, but of course could not manage it. The fingers would curl a little, but most of their dexterity was gone. He had not been obliged to dance with Elizabeth Barton or anyone else because he could not manipulate his right arm sufficiently to dance a quadrille.

There was in any case no point in clenching anything, for George was right. George would inherit the estate and Thomas had the family living. The girls were all provided for. And a soldier unable to soldier...had best find an heiress to marry. All three of his sisters had offered to have him visit their establishments, that he might meet new young ladies at their local Assemblies. Mary had indeed spent the entirety of dinner insisting that he come along when she and Henry and the children departed Hartwich after their annual visit. William found himself unable to imagine an heiress willing to marry a third son without a profession, an easy jesting manner, or the ability to lead her onto a dance floor, but he also found himself lacking the energy to make much of an argument. He had made noncommittal replies instead, until Mary mercifully dropped the subject.

He was now saved from answering George by their mother’s voice proposing a game of cards. The party commenced a debate concerning the merits of lanterloo versus speculation, and William excused himself.

He ended up wandering through the orchard more because he had picked a direction at random than because he found within himself any great interest in apple trees. He ought to be interested, he thought. It was the finest sort of summer day; he ought therefore to be charmed by the cloudless sky and the scent of grass and earth. He tried to summon the appropriate feelings of appreciation, but they would not come. It was as though there were swaths of gauze bandage layered between himself and the rest of the world, making it impossible for anything of that world to actually touch him.

After a while he stopped trying, and gave in to the images that never ceased to haunt his mind’s eye: dust and blinding sun and troops drawn into formation. British troops might be formed into ranks even now. They might be facing the French across a Belgian battlefield even now. The cannon might be booming even now...He was so far lost in thoughts of Spain and Belgium that the white streak at the corner of his vision startled him badly, and he jumped to face it.

It proved to be nothing more alarming than Elizabeth Barton flying down the hillside, skirt held up above her knees with both hands, bonnet hanging by its strings down her back and curls streaming out behind her, reticule looped over her wrist and swinging from side to side. Well then, William thought, perhaps the ballroom elegance was indeed only skin-deep. He smiled at the sight—then stopped, surprised at the odd feel of that expression upon his lips. He couldn’t remember the last time he had smiled out of genuine amusement rather than politeness. The swaths of gauze seemed to shift slightly, allowing an instant’s gust of wind to touch his skin.  

He watched Elizabeth skid to a stop, plump herself down on a fallen tree, jump up again, shake a shawl from her shoulders, and spread it out underneath her before resuming her seat. She loosened the strings of her reticule and pulled out a man’s pocket watch, and the swaths dropped back into place. A love token? Most likely. William sighed to himself and turned away.

A branch snapped under his foot, and Elizabeth’s head came up like a deer’s. “William!” Then she colored. “I mean, Ensign Carrington.”

He had been intending to lift his hat and walk on, but this greeting startled him so much that he answered without considering the demands of proper manners. “William, if you like. It was ‘William’ and ‘Elizabeth’ before I left.”

Now why had he said that? It was true in one sense—they had indeed called each other “William” and “Elizabeth” once—but that had been before he left for Eton, not before he left for the Continent. Quite a long time ago, back when childhood manners were still acceptable. They had not had much occasion to see each other since, so what on earth had possessed him—? Any other young lady would have been offended at his presumption.