Lady Hathaway's House Party (4 page)

A curt note to Mr. Sangster written in a weak moment under the pretext of inquiring whether he might be in the process of becoming a father received an equally curt reply. There was to be no issue from the marriage. Nothing more. The house of Avondale could dwindle to dust so far as her ladyship was concerned. But this injustice was not to be borne much longer. She must be made to come back, and his lordship was becoming highly impatient with the brief missives of Mr. Edward Sangster. If Belle had no intention of coming to London, then he must swallow his pride and go after her. Sooner or later this unfinished business must be terminated.

The termination Avondale had in mind was not divorce—there had never been a divorce in the family. What he envisioned was not actually a termination but a new beginning. Long and solitary considerations of that brief marriage had given rise to a few sprouts of uncertainty as to his perfection. It was a hard thing to admit, and had taken quite a few months, but as he sat at home at Belwood looking out the window to the bleak winter countryside, he conceded that there might have been just a little something in his own conduct that put her off. He really had not treated her quite so well as he ought to have. She surely did not expect him to go on
courting
his wife, but the shift from premarital to postmarital behavior might have been less abrupt.

He had been generous with his money, but of his actual time she had not had so much. Not so much as a bride might have expected possibly, a bride from the country in any case. It was possible that Belle didn’t realize married people were laughed at if they went jauntering arm-in-arm to every do together. A modern, society bride was given much freedom to go her own way; she didn’t have a husband looking over her shoulder at every turn, to see she behaved herself. Ladies like to go shopping and play loo and have a few harmless flirts on the side, to be in style. They would have been a laughingstock if he had carried on after marriage as he had before. It wasn’t done . . . yet he had wanted to do it.

It had annoyed him no end to see her go off without him, and he often let some trace of his annoyance slip out too, some snide remark about a bonnet or a gown, when it was her going off without him that really bothered him. So he went off to Brook’s to play cards, or to the boxing parlor to take his ill humor out on Jackson, or to the House of Lords to catch up on what was going on in the world of politics, and she went off with her own friends. He had seen to it she had all kinds of friends. She never asked him to change his plans—not once. He had at least never gone off and abandoned her for any length of time. She had accompanied him to the two house parties attended that month. They had been the best part of that wretched marriage, really.

He had thought she would hate it at Crockett Hall, but she had begun looking rather peaky that third week of their marriage, and a weekend away from the hurly-burly of London seemed advisable. There at a quiet party without a single dashing buck to amuse her, she had been happier than at any other time. Just the two of them, the only young couple there, going off together for rides and walks and sitting around in the evening playing cards, or reading by the fire while the oldsters played whist. He remembered the second evening they were there, and again as on the first the hostess had set up the card tables. He had been afraid Belle might think he was showing her a pretty flat time.

“Perhaps we should go back to London,” he suggested.

“Are you bored?” she asked wistfully. He had thought she must be.

“I daresay we would be better amused than watching the old folks play cards in any case.”

“We came here to rest,” she reminded him, and took up her book with apparent contentment. Cowper she had been reading—poems by Cowper, and he had laughed at her for liking such maudlin stuff. To show her how sophisticated he was, and how well he read French, he had picked up Voltaire’s
Candide.
They had passed a restful evening together by the fire, reading sometimes silently, and occasionally aloud to each other when they came across a particularly good passage. They had retired early together, an unusual event in their social lives, one of the happier recollections of that unhappy month.

At Crockett that weekend Avondale had had some hopes that once they went to Belwood, his wife would be happier. The rural life appealed to her. She had run through the fields like a gypsy, or a colt, her dress billowing behind her, and he could hardly catch her. She had seemed like a very young girl that weekend, a
happy
girl. It had been a mistake not to go directly to Belwood for a honeymoon; he was convinced of it now.

But she had gone to London for the season, her first, and he had not wished to deprive her of any part of it. Plenty of time for rusticating afterward. But there hadn’t been any conjugal rusticating in any case. He had gone to Belwood alone, to face the servants and neighbors, eager to meet his bride, with the shamefaced story that she was visiting her father. There she continued to visit, and doubtless would continue to visit till he went and fetched her.

Twenty-five miles to Amesbury. Should he go? The impulse was strong. It was the beginning of May—the time of their courtship and marriage. A little more than twelve months ago he had never heard of Belle Anderson. What a happy man he had been, without realizing it. Why could he not have married any of the dozens—hundreds—of women of his own sort and class that had been presented to him? Why must he be different and marry a gauche, shy girl that turned into a damned marble statue the minute you got her home?

But once he had set eyes on her, he knew he would never marry anyone else. She wasn’t extraordinarily beautiful, except to him. Not breath-stoppingly beautiful, with the classical, perfect features of fiction. She had brown hair that looked reddish-gold in the sunlight, and brown eyes that were flecked with yellow in the same light. In the shade of candleglow she looked different, like a brunette, though she really had a golden glow to her in the bright of day. His golden girl he used to think of her at the high tide of his infatuation, and still thought of her as he sat alone at Belwood, looking out on the sullen winter landscape. And in any light she had a sweet, soft smile, or had till he married her. She had awkward, coltish movements of the limbs, more noticeable in the drawing room than outdoors. On horseback she was perfect, moved easily with the animal, and was more graceful than any other girl he knew. She had long-fingered hands, “unbecomingly brown” he had told her in jest.

Belle wasn’t as careful of the sun as she ought to be. She had a russet complexion when she came to town, but it was soon faded to the more stylish white, and her little smattering of freckles had either faded or been covered with rice powder. He had complimented her on these improvements, but as they had been accompanied by the change of behavior as well, his mind had long since adjusted to preferring her more highly colored, even sprinkled with a few brown spots across the bridge of her nose.

Yes, he much preferred his warm, alive country Belle to the automaton she had grown into during one season in London. It was her natural exuberance that had attracted him so strongly at Stepson’s ball. When he first stood up with her for a dance she had been quiet, but before its end he had been in love. She had laughed and talked him into it, with her gauche questions, her gawking around at the fops and dandies, and asking him in a voice squeaking with disbelief if he
really
kept horses stabled on four different routes. She had been vastly impressed with his high style of living. During the courtship he regaled her with various extravagant follies of the ton, and she had laughed and jeered at it all, but had been pretty impressed all the same.

Impressed enough to marry him. How quickly she had become blasé. Toward the end, nothing impressed her. Of course he didn’t encourage her to rattle on, acting the dowd in front of his friends. Well enough for one’s girl friend to be a little naive, but one’s wife must behave with more propriety. Must not laugh and call the waltz debauched, nor snicker if a gentleman chanced to be carrying a bouquet of posies, nor run in Hyde Park to chase a squirrel. She must behave with some semblance of propriety, but dammit, she didn’t have to turn into an ice statue.

He arose and decided to go to Easthill to see her. Twenty-five miles—he’d be there by five o’clock. This stopped him a minute, and when he took the reins of his curricle between his fingers, he still didn’t know where he was going, but five o’clock was an awkward hour to arrive at a country home. They’d be preparing for dinner. He knew the Andersons kept country hours. To come unannounced at such an hour would be unsettling to a small household. The picture of the map darted into his head. He was at Eastleigh, at the bottom of an upside-down triangle, with Ashbourne at its upper right tip, and Easthill at its upper left. He’d go on to Ashbourne and spend the night there, explain to Kay why he was leaving, and ride over to Easthill in the morning. It was hardly farther from Ashbourne than from here—under thirty miles. Yes, morning would be better. He turned right onto the road and went along to Ashbourne at a fast clip, with a little feeling of peace that at last he was getting on with the business of getting his wife back.

Chapter Four

In the garden at Ashbourne, Belle knew the time had come to face the crowd in Kay’s saloon. It couldn’t be put off any longer, and the longer she waited the harder it became. “We’d better go,” she said to Mr. Henderson, and began patting her hair, smoothing down her gown and making sure she presented the best appearance possible. “Do I look all right?” she asked, turning around in a circle to be checked for torn hems, curls fallen loose or other unacceptable marks of her rusticity.

“Good thing you asked. Here, you’ve got a button undone,” Arnold said, and began struggling to close a pearl button no bigger than a cherrystone. He turned as a foot falling on the crushed-shell walk leading from the stable distracted him.

Belle turned with him to see over the top of the yew hedge a black head, unhatted, striding along. It could be Oliver, she thought, but there was no panic. She had learned long since that every black head she met and every tall, straight man ahead of her on the street was not her husband. A hundred times she had ducked into a doorway of a shop in Amesbury, thinking she saw Oliver coming toward her. This time she knew he was not coming, and looked with only mild interest to see who else was coming to the house party.

“Do me up,” she commanded Arnold, and he resumed his buttoning. He still had his hands on her when the black-haired gentleman made the turn around the hedge, to take the shortcut into the house by the garden. Belle had thought he would go on around to the front. She looked, and her eyes widened. Her bottom lip also fell a fraction of an inch, and she said, “Oh!” and executed a half-turn to clutch at Mr. Henderson’s sleeve for dear life. It was impossible. He
couldn’t
be here!

Avondale stopped in his tracks. Unlike his wife’s, his jaw did not drop. It clenched into a perfectly square angle and he stood staring. No sound escaped his closed lips, because he knew perfectly well he was seeing a mirage. After thinking of Belle for the two-hour trip, he was imagining he was seeing her, as he had so often imagined in the past, looking out the windows of Belwood. He had often thought he saw her, when a cloud caused a shadow on the ground, or when he saw from the corner of his eye a movement outside.

He waited for the picture to clear, to see if he recognized the lady standing before him at all. But the necessary shift in outline did not occur. The vision remained Belle Anderson. Not the Duchess of Avondale, but Belle Anderson. The girl he had met and fallen in love with a year ago. Same hair, glinting golden in the setting sun, same yellow-flecked eyes, the same tinted skin and freckled nose. Some speech was called for, preferably some action too, as he came to realize he was standing frozen in midstep.

“Hello, Belle,” he managed to get out, the voice not quite hollow.

He did better than the young lady, who said, as her skin blanched noticeably, “Oliver, what are
you
doing here?” The white face then turned quite a shocking shade of pink.

The most discommoded of the three was Mr. Henderson, who felt extremely guilty indeed to be caught doing up the duchess’ gown in the garden. He shifted his feet, making a loudish noise as the shells scraped beneath them.

“Avondale,” he said, bowing slightly.

Avondale flickered a dark glance at him, nodding his head. He felt such a strong urge to violence he was afraid of himself. To see Belle,
his wife,
flirting in the garden with another man, having him help her with her gown, as though he were her husband! Not to see her for ten months, and his first glimpse of her to be
this.
It was almost too much to accept.

His whole faculties were shaken. He had seen that damned puppy before, but was unclear where, and had not an idea who he might be. He had a very good idea, however, that he hated him, and soon had the idea as well that he was going to knock him down.

Henderson observed the murderous flash in the newcomer’s eyes, and said quietly, “I’ll just run along, Belle.” His escape was hampered by her hand grasping at his arm as though she were drowning.

“I’ll go with you,” she said. Turning to Avondale she added, “We were just about to go inside. Really.” Oh, why had she said
really,
as though it were a lie!

“I haven’t answered your question,” Oliver said. Then he reached out, plucked her hand from Henderson’s coat sleeve and added to Henderson, “I’ll see you later, Mr. . . .”

An introduction was a wonderful relief to the tension, and Belle rushed in. “You remember Mr. Henderson. Lady Hathaway’s cousin.”

“Her husband’s cousin,” Arnold corrected. “Avondale’s her cousin. I ain’t related to Avondale.” And here she had thought she had done so well to get out the introduction.

“Henderson,” Avondale repeated, as though he were storing up the name for some terrible retribution, as indeed he was. He placed Belle’s hand through the crook of his arm and turned away from Henderson. “You were kind enough to inquire—in a voice of doom, I might add—what I am doing here.”