Today's Embrace (8 page)

His father, Rogan thought, irritated, was little better. The old frustrations welled up inside him. He loved his father, naturally. But not much could work him up except musty history!

Someone at Pall Mall must put pressure on Milner in Capetown to drop any plans for an invasion.

When would Evy return from her afternoon ride? He looked at the time. He quickly wrote her a note about where he would be and when he expected to return, then left Rookswood for London.

The summer leaves outside the medical-office window were red and gold. Evy finished dressing and was seated on the chair when the angular Dr. Tisdale entered with a benign smile.

“Well, dear Evy, you were right. You are going to have a baby. Congratulations! I'm certain this is happy news indeed for both you and Rogan.”

The smile on her face had felt glued there for the last half hour. At any other time the news would have thrilled her. Weighing heavily upon her mind now was how this pregnancy would affect her plans to go to South Africa. From her own viewpoint, nothing could change her mind except a bedridden state. But it was Rogan's view that worried her. What would he say?

Evy paused, her hand on the doorknob, and turned back.

“Dr. Tisdale, I'll ask that you please not mention this to anyone until I speak to Rogan.”

He drew himself up to look an inch taller, his professional countenance showing. “My dear Evy. As a doctor I never discuss the health of my patients with anyone except those immediately involved. I would not for any reason preclude your singular right and joy of informing Rogan that he's to become a father.”

She blushed. “No, of course you wouldn't, Dr. Tisdale. I suppose I'm a bit flustered over the news.”

His face mellowed into an understanding smile.

“Normal, my dear, quite normal. I saw you ride in on the horse. You be careful, now.”

She might have protested a bit about personal “news” getting out and about the village. After all, what of her spinal injury? Her health and treatment were freely known by all in Grimston Way. In fairness to Dr. Tisdale, however, he was not the physician who handled her injury. Rogan had searched and found Dr. Jackson, a specialist on Harley Street in London.

Evy left the doctor's cottage on Rook Lane and walked slowly, thoughtfully, to Main Street. She was thinking of doing a little personal shopping at Mildred's Haberdashery, when she saw Mrs. Tisdale coming her way with her normal rolling gate. Mrs. Tisdale saw her and called cheerily.

Evy sighed.

“Oh, Mrs. Tisdale, hello.” She smiled brightly as the woman walked up.

“Hello, my dear. Doing some shopping, are you? And where's that charming husband of yours hiding? My, I should think you would shop in London now … oh, did I see you leaving Alfred's office?” she asked of her husband, Dr. Tisdale.

“Uh—no, I—was just walking. Such a lovely afternoon, isn't it?”

Evy's conscience smote her. She saw the interest in Mrs. Tisdale's eyes sharpen.

“Rather a blanching afternoon, I thought. You do look chilled, dear. Your cheeks are pink … Well, ta ta, I've got to run. Take care, Evy.” She started off down the walk. “Oh …” She stopped and looked back, calling, “Isn't that Lady Elosia's coach?”

Evy looked down the street. It
was
. Mr. Bixby was coming out of the apothecary shop with a small package. He handed it inside to Rogan's aunt.

“Ah,” Mrs. Tisdale said, satisfied. “She's just the woman I need to see. Martha Osgood mentioned using some of Rookswood's chrysanthemums for the fall fete …” She stopped short again and looked at Evy with apology. “Oh. I could just as easily have asked you now that you're Mrs. Rogan Chantry, couldn't I? So difficult, you know. Thinking of you as the wife of our future squire. One just automatically thinks of Elosia.” And she hurried off down the street, hailing Bixby before he could drive away.

Evy entered the haberdashery, not wishing to talk to Lady Elosia until she could gather her emotions and wits together. Had Mrs. Tisdale suspected she wasn't telling the truth?

Evy stood tiredly in front of a row of buttons and pins but hardly saw them. She placed her palm to her aching head and momentarily closed her eyes.
Oh, Father, forgive me for lying like that to Mrs. Tisdale. It was wrong
.

She didn't know what was coming over her lately. She seemed to be lax in her devotions, too.
I'm doing things I'd never do at the rectory when Uncle Edmund and Aunt Grace were alive
.

A sudden longing for Aunt Grace poured over her. But what would she and Uncle Edmund say if they were alive to see how she was compromising?

Suddenly, Aunt Grace's concerned face came out of the past, as though from the rectory when Evy was a girl. “You worry me,” she often said. “You can be so careless in your behavior at times.” Evy had wondered back then what Grace alluded to, and when she grew older, Grace commented on her propensity for willfulness. “You must have gotten it
from your mother.” At the time, Evy naturally thought she spoke of Junia, Grace's sister.

Willful? Am I?

Evy had never thought so until more recently. With time and marriage and no ties to the rectory, there were moments when she felt a stubborn streak emerging from the shadows of her personality and coming to the forefront. Even Rogan had made casual reference to it. He had jested that he was to blame for bringing it out in her. “
I'm afraid I've taught you some habits Mrs. Havering would speak to me about if she were alive
,” he had said in Paris on their honeymoon.

Where had it come from? An emerging streak of willfulness could not be from Grace's sister Junia, whom Evy thought back then was her mother, but from the beautiful, willful Katie, of course.

Still, she wished Aunt Grace were here now. She could go to her and feel her motherly arms around her, sharing the joy and excitement of the news of carrying her and Rogan's baby. It would strengthen her to face the onslaught that was sure to come.

“Evy? Are you ill?”

Evy turned swiftly to face the peering eyes of Mildred, the shopkeeper.

“Oh, I'm fine, Mildred. I … I was looking for some buttons … These are nice, I'll take them, please.”

The old woman hurried to write up the bill as Evy dug into her coin purse to pay for the buttons.

“And how is Mr. Rogan?” Mildred asked curiously.

“He's doing well. Thank you for asking,” Evy said as she handed Mildred a few coins.

“I'm so glad to hear that. I was worried.”

Evy looked up from her coin purse to meet the kindly but curious eyes staring at her. “Oh?” Evy asked carefully.

“You see, I saw him just a short time ago as I was returning from the house. I took luncheon today with Hiram. Mr. Rogan was running and nearly collided with me.”

“Oh, I am sorry!”

“No, no, dear, quite all right. He was profoundly apologetic. Said he must catch the train to London.”

“Oh?”

“He looked very angry—not about me, of course.”

“No, of course not …”

“He had the scowl of Scrooge, he did. Well, here's your buttons, Evy.”

“Um, yes, thank you. Good day, Mildred.”

Evy left the haberdashery. He'd gone to London. No doubt this was related to the talk in the library with Sir Lyle. He would have left her a note, but she was sure he would be back for dinner.

Evy drew her brows together as she walked to where her mare was tied in the shade of the big oak tree.
Mildred seems dreadfully curious about Rogan … making much of his anger, and probably now wondering why I didn't know that my own husband has just caught the train for London
.

Evy untied her mare and mounted, then rode slowly toward the winding road up the hill to Rookswood. She was deep in her spiritual wrestlings and did not hear the horse-drawn coach coming behind her until Mr. Bixby slowed down and maneuvered to one side of the tree-lined roadway. Lady Elosia leaned her head through the open window. Her large fancy black hat flapped untidily in the wind.

“There you are, dear girl!” her deep voice boomed. “Get down, do. Bixby!”

“Yes, madam.”

“Tie Evy's mare to the back of the coach. Hurry, girl. It looks like rain.”

Evy glanced up at the sky. Ominous dark clouds were streaming in from the north. She was in no mood to endure the criticism of Rogan's aunt. Still, there appeared no easy way out of the dilemma, as she rightfully respected Rogan's family.
I may be Mrs. Chantry, the future mistress of Rookswood, but to Lady Elosia I'll always be little Evy Varley from the vicarage
.

Evy climbed down from the saddle, handing the reins to Mr. Bixby,
the dignified elderly man who carried himself with the bearing of a general. She lowered her voice. “You've just come from the village, Mr.

Bixby?”

“Yes, miss—madam. Lady Elosia feared she was coming down with the autumn grippe and went to see Dr. Tisdale for tonic waters and bitters.”

Dr. Tisdale
. Evy's heart lurched. She glanced over at Lady Elosia, who was still looking out the coach window with a pale powdered face.

“She saw the doctor before or after she met Mrs. Tisdale, do you know?”

Was she mistaken, or was there a show of sympathy in his eyes?

“It was afterward, madam.”

This was the worst possible thing to happen. She couldn't explain the truth to Elosia before she told Rogan, she simply couldn't. It wasn't fitting. Had the doctor let it slip? He had said he wouldn't, but Evy did not underestimate the wiles of Mrs. Tisdale, or Lady Elosia, for that matter. Had Mrs. Tisdale roused her curiosity? Evy knew the questions Elosia would ask her in the coach should her curiosity be aroused. “
Ah? Expecting, girl? Hmm? So soon!
”

Mr. Bixby opened the door. Evy squared her shoulders and gazed up into the coach, where Lady Elosia was seated.

Into the lion's den.

Clouds, gray and drooping with rain, were swirling over Grimston Woods. The wind growled and chilled Evy with unfriendliness. She placed her foot on the step, and Mr. Bixby handed her up into the shiny black coach drawn by two Chantry horses of white and speckled gray.

As she entered the coach, taking the seat across from Lady Elosia, Evy spied her face, as unsmiling as the autumn weather, and noticed her age showed more than usual, though a generous sprinkling of corn-powder had been applied. Evy thought the powder didn't help. When a woman was older, her face should be painted more moderately, she thought. She liked Lady Elosia, and had even when a young girl, but there was no denying that she was an intimidating woman, even perhaps forbidding.

Large-boned and nearly six feet tall, Elosia was what Evy thought of as “ferociously elegant.” Today she wore a satiny black skirt and white blouse with leg-of-mutton sleeves with cuffs and collars trimmed with some kind of fur. She'd been lectured while growing up not to try to hide the fact of her height, but to show pride. She wore her shoulders thrown back with a challenge that dared comment and looked as though she used a backboard when sitting. Her hair was her crowning embellishment—an unusual gray-gold.

Lady Elosia had chosen not to marry. Rogan once spoke of a bittersweet romance that went afoul in her past. It was difficult for Evy to understand her motives, but it appeared Elosia found purpose for her
life by wielding authority, a miniature Queen Victoria over Grimston Way and Rookswood. She was, for all practical purposes, the real squire in the village, for her younger brother, Sir Lyle, had gladly yielded most matters over to her after the death of his wife.

And that, thought Evy, precipitated a situation in which she might be perceived as a dark moon rising. Evy was in line to be mistress of Rookswood when Rogan eventually became squire after the death of his father. Perhaps Elosia envisioned the authority entrusted to her to be headed toward the lamentable throes of decline.