The Abandoned Bride (2 page)

His last customer lay still, slumped across his table, as the landlord heard the coach clatter away into the night. But long moments passed before he crossed the room to help his young patron to his feet and to his bed. For he stood and looked out toward the door for a very long while as though still seeing that white and dazed face as he had last seen it. He remembered the alabaster features, the bright, light tendrils of hair escaping from her hood, no lighter in hue than the carven cheeks, the wide eyes blind with shock as she had walked to the door. So he would remember her always, whenever sorrow touched his own life, and her face would come to him unbidden, as his personal symbol of living grief.

May 1815

₂

The sun had burned off the early morning mists and now the spring day had grown so slumberous and warm that the young woman had to interrupt her walk to take off her light shawl. But as she put her package
d
own to do so and paused to lean against a wooden rail fence, she admitted that she was glad of an excuse to linger. It was true that she had been given a half day off to complete her errands. It was further true that her employer was so lenient, especially these days, that she could have delayed her return for hours and not heard a word of censure upon her return. But her conscience had always been her ste
rn
master and so she had not dawdled for a moment this morning.

She had posted her letters promptly once she had arrived in town. She had purchased her odds and ends without lingering, she had not even loitered to gossip with Mrs. Ames at the sundries store, and that good woman’s expression had clearly shown that she would have been delighted for a chance for a good chat-up. No, she had been swift and sure in all her transactions, for she had known that she needn’t have wasted time walking to town, she could have easily requested and gotten the use of the rig. But she had wanted a chance to stroll alone through the bright morning, she had needed the opportunity to say her own silent farewell to this countryside, and if she had taken extra time from her employer’s purse for one extravagance, she could not, in all conscience, have taken more moments for others.

Now she leaned against the wo
rn
fence rail and looked out upon a sea of yellow fields and breathed deep the fragrance of the blossoms and thought: this, this she would miss as much as any other thing about the home she was about to leave forever. Her employer thought it a foolishness, and the local people hid their smiles at her preference. For hadn’t they roses here in the North? And wasn’t the hard-won spring this year filled with laburnum, lilac, and daffodil? And if a person fancied wild flowers, why poets had always sung the merits of the gillyflowers and marsh cups and violets. But mustard fields? One might as well admire a turnip over a tulip. Mrs. Bryce’s gove
rn
ess-companion might be a very nice sort of young female, but what sort of person could prefer a working field in spring to a carefully tended garden?

Mrs. Bryce’s
governess
-companion could, and did. She stood at the fence rail and saw the radiant yellow of the fields shouting back at the sunlight and thought that she had never seen such beauty. Most of the susceptible gentlemen in the district would have disagreed if they had seen her there, for the light hues of her hair made the mustard blossoms seem garish by comparison. Miss Hastings’ tresses were, the smithy vowed, the color of the palest ale, and he knew no finer compliment, while Mr. Fisher, grocer and secret poet, thought that they more nearly resembled moonlight upon gold.

But her hair alone would not cause such rhapsodizing from those usually taciturn fellows. No, it was Miss Hastings in her entirety that did. Everything about her enticed her admirers—the contrast between her light, almost ice-blue eyes with their darker lashes and brows set beneath her high clear white brow, her straight little nose, her plump and generous pink mouth, her slender but surprisingly generous form, her grace, her modulated voice. Indeed, Mrs. Ames for all her kindness, often complained that a person could become ill listening to the local lads discussing Miss Hastings’ charms.

Still, for all their admiration, the fellows never discussed the subject with Miss Hastings herself. For she was, after all, a
lady. Well, not actually a lady, they had to admit, for she had no title or high birth, and was really only a paid
governess
-
companion. But there was that in her voice and her attitude which placed her above them. She was pleasant to a neighbor and friendly to a fellow; but there was a distance she maintained, a coolness no sane male could ignore if ever a conversation became too personal. They could no more pay court to such a composed young woman than they could stand and gaze in rapture for half the morning at a field of mustard flowers as she was doing now.

But Miss Hastings was not merely appreciating the scenery, she was instead trying to imprint it all on her memory so that she could then take it with her wherever she might chance to go from here. She would leave soon, she knew. However much she might not wish to depart, the letter had been posted and the deed had been set in motion. It had been a pleasant situation, working for such an undemanding mistress in such a beautiful locale. But for the embarrassing attentions of a certain very young fellow, she might have been very glad to stay at it until she had reached an age for retirement. She might have been very angry at the lad, just as she had been at others of his sex who had caused her to lose other-positions, but she could not even harbor a grudge against him. For she loved him. And, she thought, he could hardly have known better, for after all, he had only been in existence upon the planet for a scan
t
sixteen months.

Six months previously, when Miss Julia Hastings had taken up her position, young Toby had spent most of his days in his cot, in his room with Nurse: Because of that, even though the woman at the employment bureau had described her duties in her new position rather nebulously as
“...
a sort of companion to poor lonely young Mrs. Bryce, now that her husband’s fulfilling his commission at sea. In time you might work with her infant son as governess as well,” Julia had not paid too much attention to Toby.

In any event, Mrs. Bryce had taken up her time completely then. She was a pretty, silly little young-woman, a new wife, bored and lonely in the great house her seafaring husband had taken her to after their wedding. She had seized upon Julia’s company like a drowning man onto a drifting timber.

For months she had delighted in prattling to her new companion, detailing her humdrum past as though it were the stuff of epic saga. In fact, Julia came to hear the tale of her employer’s greatest triumph so often that at times she felt almost as if she herself had been at the great ball where the dashing Captain Bryce had first been smitten by his lady.

But there was nothing to dislike in her new employer, and a great deal to be thankful for. As the lady’s husband was a gallant captain in His Majesty’s Royal Navy and as the family was well-to-do, the Bryces lived graciously. But also, since they were only well-connected and not of the nobility, they did not attempt to live in great state. Julia remembered only too clearly how uncomfortable she had been during her very brief stay as c
o
mpanion to Lady Wycliffe’s daughter in London. That great lady’s airs and graces had been, however correct, eventually quite tiresome. Julia had been almost glad when Lord Wycliffe had made certain advances toward her, for then she had an excuse to leave that noble household and could do so without a backward look.

Best of all, being so wrapped in herself, Mrs. B
r
yce never listened too closely to anyone else’s conversation. Pleased with having been answered promptly each time she spoke, she seldom remembered that her companion never gave specific answers to her endless questions. She knew that Miss Hastings had been disappointed in love, and found that rather thrilling and romantic, where a more thoughtful and thorough gossip might not be content with only that crumb of information. But though she was thoughtless, she was never unkind. Julia had a pleasant room, she dined with her mistress, and she had a great deal of personal freedom, since her employer rose late and napped immediately after every meal.

It was because of that unoccupied time that Julia had come to know Master Toby so well. As soon as he had overcome the drunken seaman’s walk of a toddler, he had begun to run wild. Julia reasoned that he must take after his absent father whom she had never met, for as he grew older he exhibited a strong free spirit that quite exhausted his old nurse and startled his mama. Mrs. Bryce had evidently always pictured herself the mother of an infant who would sit placidly at her side, complementing her gown with all the decorative advantage of a lap dog, and was at a loss for what to do with the restless, pugnacious little man-child she had begotten.

So just as she had given her babe immediately to a wet
-
nurse’s breast and from thence quickly handed him to Nurse, she was now delighted to assign him to her youthful companion, who would hopefully tire him out so completely that he might rest easy upon her lap for the hour a day allotted him. She did not begrudge him her companion’s time, for in truth, after four months she could find little new to relate to Miss Hastings, and was glad to find some useful occupation for the young woman she was paying so handsomely.

Her new duties suited Julia, for she found Master Toby far more lively and intelligent a companion than his mama. And his merry ways eased some of her homesickness for her own younger brothers and sisters. It might have gone on thus, a peaceful existence for Julia: long days interspersed with the laughter of a child, long evenings sitting listening to her employer reminisce, with occasional treats such as conversing with the villagers and assisting when the neighbor ladies came to tea. But young Master Toby had inherited his father’s eye for a comely young woman, as well as his venturesome spirit.

The die had been cast the day Master Toby had struggled out of his mama’s arms to seek Julia’s embrace. The afternoon he had fallen in the morning room and pushed his mama away to run to her companion for solace had complicated the situation. But the day, only a week past, that he had spoken his first word had settled the matter. He could not have been expected to say “Papa,” so much as his mother might have wished to include that charming anecdote in a letter to her dearest husband, as he had not set eyes upon that gentleman since he had been able to sit up unaided. But he should
not
have uttered a clear, distinct “Jool-Ee-Ahh” either, when he was expected to cry “MaMa,” like any
other decent child. Definitely he ought not to have done so in the presence of the immediate social world, as personified by Mrs. Carew, Mrs. Templeton, and that social arbit
e
r, Miss Mundford, the schoolmaster’s sister, when they were come for tea.

“Does the lad say nothing else?” Miss Mundford had finally tittered as Toby, enthralled with his new talent, had gone on and on, chanting “Jool-Ee-Ahh” loudly and happily to the assembled company.

That very evening after her son had uttered his disastrous first word, Mrs. Bryce began to display a marked aversion to her companion. Instead of sitting before the fire with Julia, merrily dissecting the appearance, intelligence, and condition of each of her visitors of that afternoon as she usually would have done, Mrs. Bryce only stitched a bit and said nothing. Occasionally
,
however, she would dart little glances at her companion as though she had never seen her before and wished to have a look at her without seeming to do so. It was not long before she complained, in a very artificial manner, that the smoke from the fire disturbed her eyes and so she was off to bed. The morning did not bring her to the breakfast table and the afternoon found her so engrossed in her luncheon that she had not a word to spare. When Toby was brought down for his afternoon visit, and when he endured Mama’s hug and then quickly threw himself upon his favorite and sat in her lap and tried to undo her bound-up hair so that he might run his pudgy fingers through it, the look upon Mrs. Bryce’s face chilled Julia. It was that evening that she made her suggestion.

She tentatively offered to leave Mrs. Bryce’s employ. And was shocked when her offer was swiftly accepted.

But it was inevitable from the moment that young Toby had made known his preference. Mrs. Bryce was, like many other self-centered persons, a very vain creature. Although she had seen Julia only as a charming companion in the past, now, suddenly, she saw her as a cunning rival. It might well have occurred in any case. If her husband had returned from the sea and chanced to pass a pleasant word with Miss Hastings, the same jealousy would have resulted. For whether the object of her affections were two and thirty years of age, or six and ten months of age, Mrs. Bryce would brook no competition.

Still, another young woman might have waited upon events, giving Mrs. Bryce time to think her feelings through, giving young Toby time to learn another, less threatening word. But Julia feared rejection as she feared nothing else in the world, and sensing rejection, she had to be the one to cut the ties first.

She spoke some confused faradiddle about her homesickness. Because she was so sick at heart, she was not the cool, composed young woman she usually was. She mentioned her difficulty in adjusting to the rural life, she murmured some foolish things about her dual duties tiring her, she even, in her extremity of embarrassment, invented the difficulty a young woman such as herself had in meeting and attaching any eligible gentlemen in her present situation. It was all so unlike her, so badly done, that her employer should have been able to see through it in a moment, and perhaps Julia wished that she would. For with all her resolve, Miss Hastings was only a very young woman still, and at twenty years of age she might be forgiven for making a noble gesture ineptly in the secret hopes that it would be seen as such and refused. But when she spoke the words, new position
...
the look of relief and gratification upon her employer’s face confirmed her deepest fears. Then Julia had no choice but to make suggestion into concrete reality.

Of course, once the decision she most desired had been made without her interference, Mrs. Bryce felt the pangs of guilt. Perhaps she reviewed Miss Hastings’ speech in her own mind later, when the immediate pleasure of it had faded. Perhaps she remembered that Julia had never seemed to be interested in any eligible male in the vicinity and had even refused to consider any invitations to possible f
u
ture meetings with likely junior officers of the fleet on that happy day when Captain Bryce returned at last. Perhaps she wondered at why a girl who had seemed so content and pleased at her lot in life should suddenly be struck with the blue megrims and want to leave instantly. Or perhaps, just perhaps, there was some hope for Mrs. Bryce, and she understood just why the offer had been made and was ashamed of her own easily-read emotions.

Whatever the cause, Mrs. Bryce seemed determined to kill Julia with kindness now that she was seeking a new position. Her letter of reference was so effusive that Julia feared no one in his right mind would believe it, or if he did, would wish to hire on such a paragon of virtue who, if the letter were to be believed, belonged on an altar rather than in a paying position. Since the morning that Julia had sent her request for a new situation to the redoubtable Misses Parkinson, Employment Counselors of London, Mrs. Bryce had been showering her with little gifts to take with her when she left: trinkets and handkerchiefs, a garnet brooch, a jet pendant, floral paperweights, and enameled thimbles, all, as she said, “to remember us by.” The small pile of guilt offerings grew on her nightstand by the day, and she heartily wished she could go before she had to pack an extra bag just to contain them. And then, in a blinding reversal, as if it were felt that last days would not matter, or as if her employer were punishing herself, Toby had been thrust into Julia’s care so often that she had no time for herself at all and fell into bed each night feeling wearied unto death
.

This morning, she had requested some time off from her duties to go to the village to see if any replies to her letters had come for her. She did not really believe the Misses Parkinson could have sent a reply so swiftly, or that she could not have waited for the post to be delivered if they had, but she had needed a space to be alone. Now, with the sun increasing in strength, promising summer and stealing away resolve as that vagabond season always did, Julia left off gazing at the sea of yellow before her. For she
had
gotten some letters she wanted to read before she returned to the house. And in truth, she could stare at the scenery forever and it would not be long enough, yet it was quite enough as well, since the first look had enshrined it in her mind’s eye forever.