Lord Greywell's Dilemma (25 page)

“Tomorrow,” he said. “Don’t forget your shawl.”

Elspeth shuddered as she draped it around her shoulders and followed him from the room.

There was still some fading light in the sky, with splashes of purple and orange on the horizon. Greywell linked his arm with hers as they strolled down the gravel path. “We’re going to have to talk about Francis, Elspeth. No one with the slightest sensibility could have missed his reaction to you this afternoon. It was a great deal more difficult to judge your own response. I hadn’t thought you were so skilled at dissimulation.”

“I’ve learned a great deal while you were away,” she mumbled, her eyes on the toes of her white half boots.

“Yes,” he agreed, and was silent for a while. One of the dogs came to join them, rushing at Greywell with an abundance of enthusiasm, which was met with an absent pat on his head. The dog moved over to Elspeth, but she didn’t really notice and he continued to pad along at her side.

A circular stone bench surrounded a small fountain in the middle of the garden beyond the shrubbery, and he led her to it, waiting for her to seat herself before he settled beside her. He was trying to decide exactly how to put the matter when she blurted out a confession.

Elspeth had felt the tension mount as they walked, until it reached a point where she could not keep silent any longer. “I haven’t behaved properly while you’ve been away, David. I didn’t really think about how it would appear to you. I’m so sorry, but . . . Francis came to visit me, and he read me his poetry, and he . . . well, he seemed to understand me. He didn’t disapprove of anything I did or said or believed. We’re . . . spiritually attuned, you might say.”

“I see.” Greywell carefully brushed some dog hairs off his pantaloons and scowled at the dog, which was pawing at his boots. “What you’re telling me is that you think you love him, is that right, Elspeth?”

Never in her wildest dreams had she imagined having this conversation with him. She should have, of course, but it had never really occurred to her that she would have to account for her behavior. Her romance with Francis had been as ethereal in concept as Greywell was solid beside her. It seemed, right now, not so ethereal as tawdry, and she was at a loss to justify any part of it, even to herself. Especially when she realized how close she and Francis had come to making it a physical as well as a spiritual bonding.

“I . . . I suppose I love him,” she said.

Greywell sighed. Elspeth read unsuspected depths into that sigh. For the first time she thought what it would be like to be in his position: his first wife had died giving birth to his child, and his second wife had just announced that she loved another man. She sat unmoving, miserable, wanting very much to cry.

“Did you . . . consummate your ‘spiritual’ relationship?”

“Oh, no!” she cried, unable to admit how close she had come. “No, I promise you we didn’t. I swear it!”

Carefully masking the relief he felt, he said, “And what do you propose we do about your affection for Francis? Had you given any thought to that?”

His tone was not sarcastic, but pleasantly neutral, as though she might truly have some solution to an insoluble problem. “Why, nothing, of course! I had told him, before you returned, that we couldn’t see each other any more. It has ended, all that.”

Greywell was wise enough not to ask what “all that” consisted of. He presumed it had been Elspeth’s prudery which had prevented any lovemaking between them, and not some other cause. It was easy enough to imagine her, as she had been when he met her, developing a sanctified kind of love for the poet Francis, which she would never have contemplated acting on in a physical way.

And he could even picture Francis doting on that kind of admiration, since it was so much in keeping with the aesthetic imagery in his poems. An unfulfilled love would probably be just what he expected of his life. It wasn’t the first time he had conceived an unrequited love; Greywell could remember Francis’ infatuation with a Russian princess a few years ago. The woman had never even known he was alive.

The silence that had developed between them was making Elspeth nervous. She felt there was a great deal more she should say, or explain, but she couldn’t quite think how to do it. There were Greywell’s feelings to consider, and she herself felt too confused to voice half the unformed thoughts that swam through her head. If he wanted to send her away, how could she bear to be parted from Andrew? And where could he send her? Sir Edward certainly wouldn’t want her back at Lyndhurst. She had become very fond of Ashfield. Leaving it would be impossible.

She cleared her throat in the heavy quiet. “If you’ll forgive me this once I promise I’ll behave as you would wish me to. I don’t think anyone knew of my . . . attachment to Francis. He did come to visit more than was perfectly acceptable, perhaps, but no one commented upon it.”

She remembered Mrs. Green’s obscure hint, but decided that didn’t qualify. “I think I’ve run Ashfield reasonably well, and I’ve tried not to interfere in the neighborhood. The neighbors have come to accept me, and oh, David, I’m so very fond of Andrew. Please don’t send me away!”

His brows shot up in surprise. “Send you away? For God’s sake, Elspeth, it never crossed my mind to send you away.”

It had, very briefly, occurred to him that their marriage might be annulled, since it hadn’t been consummated, so she could marry Francis. But that would be intolerable. No one would accept either of them in polite society in such a situation, and he didn’t think either of them would be willing to accept that kind of disgrace.

And there was Andrew. Most of all there was Andrew, who would not for a moment understand if his substitute mother were to disappear. No, there was nothing for it but to continue their marriage as they had originally intended.

“I would like to see you happy,” he said after a moment, touching a finger to her cheek, “but I don’t think sending you away would accomplish that. Andrew depends on you, as do other members of the household. I see no reason why we can’t go on very much as we intended when we originally married, save for your disappointment over Francis. You will find, in time, that such a wound heals, if you let it. That’s all I ask of you, Elspeth, that you let it mend. That you don’t dwell on it, in either guilt or nostalgia. That you let it go, so far as you’re able.”

“Oh, I will! I will,” she promised, fervent in her gratitude.

“Fine.” He rose from the circular bench, ending the discussion. “Shall we go back in?”

* * * *

The subject was never raised again. Elspeth was astonished at his seeming unconcern with the whole matter. She was appreciative, of course, that there was no evidence of his being annoyed with her, no sign of any moral repugnance or aversion. Greywell was surprisingly kind to her, treating her as if nothing out of the way had ever happened. He was, in fact, much more solicitous than he had been before he went away to Vienna. Each morning he greeted her with a smile and a pleasant query as to how she’d spent the night.

His smiles, she noticed, were quite charming. They seemed to radiate from hidden depths within him of which she knew nothing. And they had no hint of the dreamy quality of Francis’ smiles. But she didn’t think of Francis much, which astonished her. Greywell’s physical presence was much more real than the poet had ever been.

Elspeth took to studying her husband. When he was in the stableyard, in his shirtsleeves, she watched the strength and gentleness with which he handled the more obstreperous horses. In the nursery there was something of the same quality in the way he handled his son, waiting patiently for complete confidence to come, as it inevitably would. On Andrew’s birthday she insisted he be the one to present the rocking horse.

“It’s from both of us,” he said, ruefully winking at her over his son’s enchanted head.

“Your Papa chose it for you,” she insisted, but it made her feel wonderful when Andrew hugged each of them, his eyes shining with delight.

“He’s a natural rider,” Greywell said when his small son quickly mastered the unfamiliar toy. “But we’ll put pillows down if you think it’s necessary.

“I don’t suppose it is.”

And she watched him in the evenings, when he sat reading opposite her in the Saloon, his dark head bent over some leather-bound volume from the library. His concentration was so deep she often longed to ask him what it was he read, but she didn’t have the courage. Once, when he looked up and caught her looking at him, instead of working at the tambour frame she had set in front of her, he asked, “Can I get you a book, my dear? Your fingers must be stiff from all that handwork.”

What she had wished was that he would offer to read to her while she worked, but she merely smiled briefly and answered, “No, thank you. My fingers are fine. I’m hoping to finish this tonight.”

Most revealing of all, perhaps, were the social occasions. He had been away for a long time and felt he must invite all the neighbors to dine over the first weeks after his return. So every three or four days they had someone with them in the evenings— the Mardens, Abigail Waltham, the Treyfords (without Francis, who was visiting elsewhere), Dr. Wellow, Mr. Clevedon, the vicar. These occasions were exceedingly pleasant, except for one circumstance. Greywell answered their questions about Vienna and Waterloo.

And he had still never gone into any depth on either subject with her. It somehow hurt her feelings that he would open up to them when he wouldn’t to her. Naturally, he didn’t describe the grimmer aspects of the latter or the great frustrations of the former at a dinner party, nor did he really make ‘tales’ of either of them. Still, he told these people, relative strangers to her, a good deal more than he’d ever vouchsafed to her. Elspeth did not mention this to him. She played cards with a smiling face, and enjoyed the company of her neighbors, and said goodnight to him, when the time came, with polite, if distant, courtesy.

If Greywell noticed her reaction, he gave no sign. Far from avoiding her society, he sought her out almost every day to suggest a ride. And while they rode, they talked on any number of subjects—farming, the weather, the harvest, the horses, Andrew, the household staff, the local people and politics. He was perfectly willing to give her his opinions on each of these issues, and not above seeking hers. Sometimes, just to see if she could shake him out of his careless equanimity, Elspeth expressed some outrageous opinion. He would laugh and squeeze her arm affectionately, or laughingly scold her for teasing him. Which may, in actuality, have been why she did it in the first place.

It may also have been the reason she frequently suggested they descend from their horses, the fact that he held her as she climbed down. His hands felt so strong at her sides. Occasionally she even allowed her bonnet to become disarranged, because he would retie it under her chin, his fingers so casually adept as they brushed her skin. He never suggested that they lie side by side in the sun-baked meadow or on the dappled ground of the wooded areas. They sat uneasily, not quite looking at one another, and he would often tell of his ancestors, or of some ancient happening in the village, but seldom of his boyhood years.

Impatient, discouraged, Elspeth would eventually climb to her feet and say she was ready to continue their ride. What else was there to do if he wouldn’t speak of anything personal? Had he shared all that information with Caroline, and now felt it a betrayal to confide in her?

Greywell would regard her turned back, stiff with indignation, as a decidedly good sign. His wife, in spite of her protestation of loving Francis Treyford, seemed to him to have entirely forgotten the poet in an astonishingly short time. Of course, he knew it might be an act she resorted to in order to convince him of her good faith, but he didn’t think Elspeth quite so consummate an actress. No, he felt almost sure her irritation with him was an indication of her wish to have him be more open with her, and he could only count that as a victory. Women in the throes of love weren’t particularly interested in acquiring close friendships with other people, in his experience. Lovers tended to seal themselves off from the rest of the world, not seek to include it in their special emotional hideaway.

This increasing tension she felt was confusing to Elspeth, and set her nerves a little on edge. One morning she found herself in the Miniature Room, looking at the tiny portrait of Caroline. She had intended, while Greywell was away, to commission a painter to do a full portrait from it, as a gift to him on his return. He could have kept it in his study, so she wouldn’t necessarily have to come across it in the course of her daily route.

He had never invited her into his study, and she could think of no possible reason for interrupting him there. Now the thought of a full portrait of his late wife hanging where his eyes would meet it constantly gave her a sinking feeling. But it might be the best thing to do. After all, Andrew should have a picture of his mother to remind him, and Greywell might appreciate the gesture, coming as it did after her own lack of consideration for him. She had just replaced the miniature on the wall when Greywell himself entered the room.

He was surprised to find her there, and immediately thought her presence had something to do with the snuffboxes. It never occurred to him she might be studying his first wife’s miniature. He had himself come to look at it, because he found his memory of her already dimming and he wanted to refresh it, if for his son’s sake as much as his own. Absently he straightened the miniature on the wall before he turned his gaze to Elspeth. “Are you still worried about the snuffboxes? Did you want me to put them somewhere else?”

She had no intention of telling him why she was there. “No, no, I’ve become quite fascinated by them. Would you . . . tell me a little about them?”

His expression was quizzical, but affectionate. “I never thought I’d see the day,” he said with a laugh. Selecting one of the oblong boxes with a rural landscape, he held it out to her. “This one is from the York House factory. The plant at Battersea lasted only three years before Jansson went bankrupt in 1756. Henry Delamain managed the plant, and John Brooks was the designer and engraver. This is one of the best of the English enamels with transfer-printed decoration. They cover an engraved copperplate with printer’s ink that will sink into the engraved lines and can be wiped off the remaining surface. Then a piece of paper is placed on the copperplate and pressed with a hand roller, and the inked lines are transferred to the paper. Next the paper is fitted to the enameled surface to be decorated and placed in a muffle kiln until the design has again been transferred and fused on the enamel. The paper burns away.”