Bedwyn: One Night For Love Part 16

Neville went to bed buoyed with some faint hope. He even slept in s.n.a.t.c.hes. But in the morning he could hear only the echo of Elizabeth's words perhaps never, and the sound of them drowned out hope.

They were all leaving together-Aunt Sadie and Uncle Webster with Wilma, Joe on horseback, Elizabeth with Lily. The terrace was crowded with people saying and hugging their farewells-even Gwen and Lauren had come up from the dower house for the purpose. Lily had her share of hugs, Neville noticed as he took his leave of everyone else; neither Lauren nor Gwen was dry-eyed after saying good-bye to her. She was wearing the pretty blue carriage dress that had recently been made for her-he had been very much afraid that she would refuse to take any of her new clothes.

He turned to her last, and he was aware of everyone else moving tactfully away, giving them a modic.u.m of privacy. He took her gloved right hand in both of his and looked into her eyes. They were huge and calm and clear of the tears that were flowing free among the others.

He reached for something to say to her but could think of nothing. She stared mutely at him. He raised her hand to his lips and kept it there for several moments while he closed his eyes. But when he looked back into her face, there was still nothing to say. No, that was not right. There was everything in the world to say but no words with which to say any of it. And so he said nothing.

Until she did.

"Neville." There was almost no sound, but her lips unmistakably formed his name.

Ah, G.o.d! How he had longed to hear her say his name again. She had spoken it yesterday afternoon. She was saying it now. But he felt as if his heart had been pierced by a sharp dagger.

"Lily," he whispered, his head bent close to hers. "Stay. Change your mind. Stay with me. We can make it work."

But she was shaking her head slowly.

"We cannot," she said. "We cannot. Th-that night. I am glad there was that night."

"Lily-"

But she tore her hand from his grasp and hurried toward the open door of Elizabeth's carriage. He watched in wretched despair as a footman handed her inside.

She took her seat beside Elizabeth and stared blankly at the cushions of the seat opposite. The footman put up the steps and closed the door. The carriage jerked slightly on its springs and was in motion.

Neville swallowed once, twice. He fought panic, the urge to lunge forward, to tear open the door, to drag her out into his arms and refuse ever to let her go.

He raised a hand in farewell, but she did not look back.

Perhaps never. The words echoed and reechoed in his brain.

Ah, my love. Once dreams were shattered, there could be no a.s.surance that they could ever be pieced together and dreamed again.

PART IV.

The Education of a Lady.

17.

"Amuse me, Lily," her new employer commanded her after the first hour of near silence and raw pain had pa.s.sed, "and answer some questions. You must answer truthfully-that is the one cardinal rule of what-ifs."

Lily turned a determinedly smiling face to her. She still did not know how she could possibly be a competent companion to Elizabeth, but she would try her very best.

"If you had the freedom and the means to do any one thing in the world you wished to do," Elizabeth asked, "what would it be?"

Go back to Neville. But that would be a nonsensical answer. She had the freedom to go back. He had begged her to stay. But going back to him would mean going back to Newbury Abbey too and all it involved. Lily thought hard. But the answer to the question, she found eventually, should have been obvious to her from the first moment.

"I would learn to read and write," she said. "Is that two things?"

"We will consider it one," Elizabeth said, clapping her hands. "What a delightful answer. I can see that you are not going to be a disappointment, Lily. Now something else. Perhaps we will gather five wishes altogether. Proceed."

Yes, there were other things to dream of, Lily thought. Nothing sufficient to replace the dream she had lost, of course, but perhaps enough to give life some purpose. These new dreams would probably prove unattainable, but then that was the nature of dreams. It was their very attraction. But probably was the all-important word. It allowed for hope.

"I would learn to play the pianoforte," she said with conviction, "and to know all there is to know about music."

"Now that is definitely more than one thing," Elizabeth protested, laughing. "But since I have made the rules of the game, I will allow its essential unity. Next?"

Lily glanced at Elizabeth, who looked both lovely and elegant in carriage clothes that were coordinated in colors of brown, bronze, and cream, and that were perfectly suited to her age and rank and figure and coloring.

"I would learn how to dress correctly and elegantly and perhaps even fashionably," she said.

"But you already look all those things in that particular ensemble, Lily," Elizabeth told her. "Pale blue is certainly a good color for you."

"You chose everything I am wearing," Lily reminded her, "except my shift and my shoes. I could do nothing alone-I would have no idea. To me a garment has always been something that is comfortable and decent and warm in winter or cool in summer."

"Very well, then." Elizabeth smiled. "It is number three. And numbers four and five? Do you have no wish to travel or to acquire expensive possessions?"

"I have traveled all my life," Lily said. "I have dreamed of staying in one place long enough for it to feel like home. And possessions ..." She shrugged. What else would she choose to make this list complete? She would read and write and learn about music. She would play the pianoforte and dress well and elegantly. She would ...

"I would like to be able to figure," Lily said. "Not just on my fingers or in my head, but-oh, but as Mrs. Ailsham and the countess do in the household books. They showed them to me one morning. They could both make sense of what was written there and they could use the figures to know what had been happening at the abbey and to plan what would happen. I wish I could do that. I wish I could keep books and know how to run something as big and important as Newbury Abbey."

"And your last wish, Lily?"

"I have always been comfortable with other people," she said after thinking for a while longer. "All kinds of people, even the officers when they were a part of the regiment. But I do not feel comfortable with your kind of people. I would like to learn ... how to behave, how to converse, how to do what is expected of me. I would like to learn the manners of your cla.s.s. Not because I aspire to belong to it, but because-oh, I do not know quite why. Because I admire you, perhaps. Because I respect the countess."

Elizabeth said nothing for a while. "I am not sure I should consider your wishes as five, Lily," she said at last. "Really they are all one-the desire for knowledge and the education of a lady. One might add painting and needlework and dancing and the knowledge of languages, perhaps, but they would really be included in one or other of the five things for which you have wished. Do you paint or dance or know any languages other than English? I know that you can darn and mend but not embroider."

"I can speak Hindi and Spanish," Lily said. "We used to dance country dances. I have never painted."

But their conversation was interrupted at that point by the carriage's turning into the cobbled yard of a posting inn for a change of horses. It was amazing to Lily to realize that after the first hour her mind had been pleasantly occupied. She had been almost enjoying herself. And it was all Elizabeth's doing-she had set herself to take her companion's mind off the wretched misery of that parting.

The Duke of Anburey had bespoken a private parlor at the inn, and the six of them dined together. Lady Wilma was ecstatic at the prospect of going at last to London, where the Season would already be in progress. Her conversation was all of b.a.l.l.s and routs and theaters and court presentations and Vauxhall and Almack's. It was dizzying to Lily, who forced herself to eat at least a small meal and made no attempt to partic.i.p.ate in anything that was being said even when Joseph suggested that the discomforts of their journey were probably nothing compared with those of the sort of traveling she had done in the Peninsula. She smiled vaguely at him even as she realized that, like Elizabeth, he was trying to divert her mind from what weighed it down like a ton of lead.

She kept wondering what he was doing at that precise moment.

Elizabeth resumed their interrupted conversation after Joseph had handed them back into the carriage and they were on their way again.

"Well, Lily," she said, patting her briskly on the knee, "I can see that the next month or two with you are going to be interesting indeed. Did I use the word fun yesterday? The coming months are certainly going to be fun-yes, it is quite the right word. We, my dear, with the help of all the best instructors I can hire, are going to transform you into a lady, with a lady's education and accomplishments-all within a month or two or ten. Obviously some things will take longer than others. What do you say?"

Lily said nothing for several moments. They had been playing a game of what-if, had they not? "No," she said, frowning. "Oh, no. Teachers would have to be paid salaries."

"And the best teachers would have to be paid high salaries." Elizabeth was smiling. "Lily, my dear, I am almost indecently wealthy."

"But you cannot spend any of it on me," Lily said, aghast. "I am your servant."

"Well, yes," Elizabeth agreed. "For your pride's sake I will concede that point, Lily. But servants, you know, have to earn their salaries. And how do they do that? By obeying their employers, by catering to their every whim. I am one of the most fortunate of women, you know, for any number of reasons. But having everything-almost everything-one could possibly need can have its disadvantages, especially when one is a woman. There is a certain boredom with which to contend. I cannot tell you when I last had fun. Overseeing your education will be that, Lily. You must not deny me, not when you have confessed that it is what you want more than almost anything else in this world."

It had not been a game, Lily realized suddenly. And she had not been hired to serve-at least, not in any conventional sense. Elizabeth had intended this all along. She had intended to amuse herself and delight Lily by making a lady out of her.

It would be impossible.

It would not!

It would be glorious and wonderful. She could learn to read. She would be able to read books. She would be able to fill a room with music-with her very own fingers. She would be able ... Oh, there were too many dazzling possibilities crowding her mind.

There was a new dream.

"What are you thinking?" Elizabeth asked.

"I will be able-when I leave you, that is," Lily said, "to find employment as a shop a.s.sistant or perhaps even as-as a governess." It was a dizzying prospect. She would acquire knowledge and then she would be able to pa.s.s it on to others.

"Of course," Elizabeth said. "Or perhaps you will marry, Lily. I intend to take you with me to meet the ton before the Season is over. It is one of the duties of a companion, you know. But you will be more than a companion-you will be a friend and a partic.i.p.ant in the social functions we will attend."

Lily sat back in her seat. "Oh, no," she said. "No, no, that would be impossible. I am not a lady."

"Very true," Elizabeth agreed. "And the beau monde is very high in the instep about such matters as birth and connections. Behaving like a lady does not, with the highest sticklers, make one into a lady. But there are exceptions to most rules. Remember if you will, Lily, how famous you are. Your story-your arrival in the middle of Neville and Lauren's wedding, his announcement that you were the wife he had long thought dead, his account of your wedding and apparent death-will still be the sensation of London. The rest of the story-the discovery that your marriage is not valid after all, your refusal to make it valid by going through another nuptial service with the Earl of Kilbourne-will set the ton on its ears. They will be in a frenzy to meet you, even to catch a glimpse of you. When it is known that you are living with me, invitations will pour in. But we will keep everyone waiting for a while. When you do appear, Lily, you will take London by storm. In addition to the story, you see, there are your natural beauty and grace and charm. And by the time you appear, we will have added the refinement of genteel manners and fashionable appearance. I daresay you could marry a duke if you wished-and if there were a suitable one available." She laughed softly. She was clearly enjoying herself.

"I cannot ever marry," Lily said, ignoring the rest of the frightening-and undeniably exciting-picture Elizabeth had just painted for her. She smoothed her hands over the gloves that lay in her lap.

"Why not?" The question was quietly asked, but it demanded an answer.

Lily was quiet for a long time. Because I am already married. Because I love him. Because I have lain with him and given him, not only my body, but all that is myself. Because ... Because, because.

"I cannot," she said at last. "You must know the reason."

"Yes, my dear." Elizabeth reached along the seat and squeezed one of her hands. "It would be trite for me to a.s.sure you that time will heal. I have never experienced anything nearly as intense as what you have suffered and are suffering, and so I cannot know for sure that such wounds as yours will ever heal. But you are a woman of great fort.i.tude and strength of character, Lily. I am sure I am correct in that judgment. You will live, my dear. You will not merely drag on an existence. I will give you the benefit of my resources and connections, but I will not be doing anything of substance for you. You will do that for yourself. I have every confidence in you."

Lily was not sure it was well placed. Her spirits, which the game-turned-reality had sent soaring with the excitement of new dreams, were flagging again. With every pa.s.sing hedgerow and milepost more distance was being set between her and him, and it was a distance that could never again be closed. She was not sure at that precise moment that she wanted even to drag on an existence, let alone make the effort to live.

"Thank you," she said.

"Tell me." Elizabeth spoke again after they had traveled some distance in silence. "What happened to you, Lily, during all those months when Neville thought you dead?"

Lily swallowed. "The truth?" she said.

"It has occurred to me," Elizabeth said, "that the French would have informed the British if they had held an officer's wife captive for any length of time. They might have made a very favorable exchange with one or more of their own officers held by the British. That is not what happened, is it?"

"No," Lily said.

"Lily," Elizabeth said before she could say more, "although I believe you are not going to allow me to forget that you are my employee, I would have you know that you will always be at liberty to guard your privacy from me. You are under no compulsion to tell me anything. But you grew up among men, my dear. Perhaps you have not known the joy of having a friend of your own s.e.x, one who can share your perspective on events and experience."

Lily told her everything, all the painful, sordid, humiliating details she had withheld from Neville that day in the cottage, her head back against the cushions, her eyes closed. By the time she had finished, her hand was in Elizabeth's firm clasp again. Her touch was strangely comforting-a woman's touch signifying a woman's sympathy. Elizabeth would understand what it would be like to be a captive, to have one's freedom taken away, and then, as a final indignity, to have one's very body invaded and used for the pleasure of one's captor. Another woman would understand the monumental inner battle that had had to be waged every single day and night to cling to that something at the core of herself that was herself, that gave her ident.i.ty and dignity. That something that even a rapist-even, perhaps, a murderer-could not take away from her.

"Thank you," they said simultaneously after a short silence. They both laughed, though not with amus.e.m.e.nt.

"You know, Lily," Elizabeth told her, "men have the ridiculous notion that one must maintain a stiff upper lip through all the worst disasters of their lives. Women are not so foolish. It is quite all right to cry, my dear."

Lily cried. She sobbed until she thought the pain must tear her in two. She wept, her face in Elizabeth's lap while the older woman smoothed a hand over her hair and murmured nonsense that Lily did not even hear.

Finally Lily straightened up, dried her eyes, blew her nose, and apologized for the damp patch on Elizabeth's skirt. She laughed shakily. "You will think twice," she said, "before inviting me to cry again."

"Does Neville know?" Elizabeth asked.

"The basic facts," Lily said. "Not the details."

"Ah," Elizabeth said. "Good girl. Now. Let us look ahead, shall we, and plan? Lily, my dear, we are going to have fun, fun, fun."

They both laughed again.

Neville waited for one month.

He tried to resume his normal life. Except that normal life since his return from the Peninsular Wars had included his very close friendship with his sister and his cousin and his gradual, inevitable courtship of Lauren.

The friendship was strained. He did not want to deceive Lauren into believing that he might resume his courtship of her-and she clearly did not wish to give the impression that she expected it. Gwen was just plain uncomfortable. As Lauren herself had said at dinner the evening before Lily's departure, nothing would ever be the same again.

Yet obviously it was expected that he and Lauren would marry. Neighbors who called at the abbey on any flimsy excuse and who issued more than usually frequent invitations to dinners, card parties, informal dances, and picnics were too well bred to mention the subject openly, but there were all sorts of covert and ingenious ways of hinting and of digging for information.

Might they expect the return of Baron Galton, Miss Edgeworth's grandpapa, to Newbury any time soon? Lady Leigh asked one day. Such a distinguished gentleman!

Was the Countess of Kilbourne planning to return her place of residence to the dower house? Miss Amelia Taylor wished to know. She asked only because it would not be at all the thing for her and her sister to call at the abbey one day to find only his lordship in residence. She blushed at the very idea.

Was his lordship still planning a journey to the Lakes this year? Sir Cuthbert Leigh wondered. His cousin's inlaws had just returned from there and p.r.o.nounced it a remarkably picturesque and genteel destination.

His lordship must be finding Newbury Abbey rather large and lonely with his sister and his cousin no longer living there, Mrs. Cannadine informed him.

Had his lordship quite recovered from his little upset? Mrs. Beckford, the vicar's wife, asked him in the sort of hushed, sympathetic tones her husband used at deathbeds. She and the reverend were hoping-the hope was accompanied by an arch look that ill became her-that everything would soon be put to rights again.

It was not just the neighbors. The countess too urged a return to the original plan.

"I liked Lily, Neville," she a.s.sured him when they were breakfasting together a week after Lily had left. "Despite myself I liked her. She has a sweet, unaffected charm. I was prepared to give her my affection and support for the rest of my life. And I know you were fond of her and have found the past week difficult. You are my son and I know that about you-and my heart has ached for you."

"But?" He smiled at her rather ruefully.

"But she is not your wife," she reminded him, "and does not wish to be. Lauren has been intended for you from infancy. You know each other well; you have a real fondness for each other; you have an equality of mind and education. She would fit into my role here without any painful period of adjustment. She would give stability to your life and children to the nursery. I long for grandchildren, Neville. You would not understand, perhaps, the disappointment I felt when Gwendoline miscarried as a result of her accident-as well as grief for her. But I stray from the main point. You had decided to marry Lauren. You were happy with the decision. You were literally at the altar awaiting her. Put the turmoil of the past few weeks behind you and pick up the threads of your life where you left them off. For everyone's sake."

He reached across the table and took one of her hands in both his own. "I am truly sorry, Mama," he said. "But no." He tried to think of an explanation that would make sense to her, but he knew that none would. And he could not bare his heart even to his mother. "Let us all give it time," he added lamely.

It seemed that his life these days was made up of waiting, giving himself time. He waited longer than a week for an answer to the letter he had written to regimental headquarters the morning of Lily's departure. But at last it came-he had half expected the problem to be far more difficult, if not impossible, to solve. He had not posted the letter but had sent it, with specific verbal instructions, with his valet, who had once been his batman, a burly, rather morose man who had always served his master's interests well by refusing to budge an inch in the course of duty. The answer gave Neville something to do-and an excuse for leaving the abbey, which had become oppressive to him.