The Chadwick Ring (18 page)

“Of course, sir,” Bysshe said, his brown eyes veiled. “Anything you say, sir.”

Ginevra followed this exchange with some confusion, aware of undercurrents she could not explain, and it was not until much later that she recalled from her diverse reading at Bryant House that Hippolytus had been the son of the mythical hero Theseus, and his affair with his father’s wife Phaedra had led ultimately to the destruction of all three of them.

Bysshe’s birthday present reminded Ginevra of Houri, the little chestnut mare the marquess had given her, and she began riding lessons under the supervision of one of the grooms, venturing out in the early morning when traffic was still light and the only pedestrians were bucket-laden housewives hurrying to the public standpipes to draw their daily water before the crowds built up. But even this pleasurable new activity could not lessen the fatigue and depression that had settled over her.

Her mood was not eased by the letter she received from her father, his first communication with her since her wedding day. In it he expressed conventional wishes for her continued health and happiness; then he announced without further preamble that he was closing up Bryant House and travelling to Italy. He had always had a desire to see the Continent, he said, and now that the wars were over and he no longer had a daughter to contend with, he could journey where he wished. Ginevra read his crabbed handwriting with resentment. Her anger and hurt came not from her father’s curt dismissal of her from his life—she had always known that to him she was no more than a pale and annoying replica of his dead wife—but rather from the cavalier fashion in which he abandoned his tenants to the dubious supervision of a steward, a stranger. When Ginevra remembered the shameless way in which Sir Charles had used the welfare of his staff as a lever with which to force her into marriage with the marquess, she screwed the letter into a knot and flung it furiously into the empty fireplace.

Ginevra was still staring blindly at the wadded paper when she heard a knock on her sitting-room door. She glanced up just as Emma glided silently into the room, her pretty face unusually solemn. Ginevra asked worriedly, “Emma, is something wrong?”

The older woman smiled gravely. “No, not ... not really, my lady. I wondered if I might have a word with you, that’s all.”

Something about her quiet voice sent a tremor of apprehension through Ginevra’s slim body. She gestured to the chair opposite her. “Perhaps you’d better sit down.” “No, thank you, my lady.”

Ginevra snapped impatiently, “Confound it, Emma, I’ve told you before, I don’t like you to be so formal with me! Why do you persist?”

Emma’s green eyes lit up now with genuine amusement. She said dryly, “I do it because I enjoy it. It pleases me to know that the little girl I raised has grown to be a great, noble lady.”

Matching Emma’s tone, Ginevra said, “Well, in that case, this great, noble lady is ordering you to sit down.” She watched her friend curtsy with exaggerated deference before sinking into the proffered chair. When she was settled, Ginevra asked frankly, “Well, now, Emma, what’s troubling you?”

After a moment’s hesitation Emma said slowly, “Miss Ginevra, I would like permission to leave your service.”

Ginevra gaped, speechless. At last she choked, “My God, what are you saying?”

“I want to leave your service,” Emma repeated.

“But why?” Ginevra cried. “Have I offended you in some way? Oh, Emma, I’m sorry. You know I wouldn’t—”

“No,” Emma silenced her, “it’s nothing you’ve done! You’ve been the kindest, most considerate mistress anyone could wish, as dear to me as my own child.”

“Come, now, you’re not that much older than I am,” Ginevra chided.

“Near enough. I was nineteen when I came into your household, somewhat older than is usual for girls entering service, but then I...” Her voice faltered. “I had had different plans for my future.”

“You were betrothed,” Ginevra prompted.

Emma nodded. “Days before the wedding my Harry made a delivery of leather goods to the port at Bristol, and while he was there he was grabbed by the press gangs. When word came back to the tanner, his master, who was a good man, the two of us rushed to town, his master to see if he could buy Harry back out of the Navy, to plead with the captain at least to let us be wed before they set sail. But by the time we reached the port, the fleet was gone, already on its way to Spain.” She winced, her face bleak, and it occurred to Ginevra that for the first time she was seeing through the impassive mask that Emma had always worn. Emma’s voice sounded low and desolate as she said, “I was glad Harry was in Nelson’s fleet; they say no one on the admiral’s ships was ever flogged. I comforted myself with that thought after Harry died at Trafalgar.” She paused. “The victory celebrations were just beginning—I could hear the fireworks—the night lost the babe I had been carrying.”

Ginevra stared down at her hands and wove her fingers together. How, she wondered, had she lived alongside Emma for eleven years, considered her her closest friend, and yet had remained ignorant of the anguish, the pain the woman kept bottled inside her? She said simply, “I’m sorry. I had no idea.”

Emma shrugged. “It was a long time ago.” She regarded Ginevra with tender affection. “After I recovered from my ... my illness, the wife of Harry’s master heard that your mother was looking for a new nursery maid, and she sent me to her. Since then most of the joy in my life has come from watching you grow.”

Ginevra said slowly, “And now you want to leave me. Why?”

Emma met her gaze frankly. “You don’t need me anymore. You’re a grown woman, a lady of exalted rank. You require people who can serve you properly in your new position, who can advise you on fashion and etiquette. I am too much of the country, and I am no longer adequate for you.”

“But you know I don’t think of you as a maid. You’re my companion, my ... my friend.”

“Yes, I know that,” Emma cried, “but I also know it is impossible for me to remain in London!”

Ginevra’s eyes widened at the outburst. “Emma,” she asked thoughtfully, “is something bothering you? Some person, perhaps—some man? Has some man insulted you or ... or threatened you in any way?” She remembered the errands Emma ran daily for her, venturing out into the streets where no lone woman was ever entirely safe. “Dear God,” she choked, “has someone...?”

Emma shook her head fiercely. “No, I am unharmed.” She flashed a quick, wry smile. “There’s precious little these Town dandies could try that a country girl hasn’t learned to cope with very early from farmhands and stableboys.” Her expression darkened. “You are right, however, there is a man. Lately every time I go out I seem to encounter that physician, the one who cared for Lord Bysshe. At shops, at bookstores—it happens too often to be other than by design.”

“Jules Perrin?” Ginevra exclaimed. “How marvellous! I knew he liked you.”

Emma looked at her with horror. “It’s nothing to be pleased about.”

“But why not? I admire Dr. Perrin. He is a very kind and dedicated man. Any woman should be flattered by his attention.” She faltered. “His advances have been honorable, have they not?”

“Oh, yes,” Emma snapped sarcastically, “he has been everything that is proper and correct.”

“Then whatever is the problem?”

Emma’s green eyes flared. “He’s French!”

Ginevra stared, speechless, trying to interpret that cryptic remark. At last she shook her head and said, “I still don’t understand.”

“Maybe you would,” Emma declared with unconcealed bitterness, “if you had lost someone you loved in the war.”

Ginevra blushed. She thought of the doctor, a good man who carried profound scars from his own past. He and Emma had worked well together at Dowerwood. It all seemed so pointless, somehow. She suggested gently,, “Emma, the war is over.”

Slowly her friend shook her head. “Not for me, it isn’t.”

Ginevra took a deep breath, and the ache in her throat made her realize how tensely she had been holding herself. She murmured, “I see. Then there’s nothing more to be said, is there?” She unbraided her fingers painfully and watched the blood seep back into the whitened knuckles. She said much more lightly than she felt, “In that case, what do you wish to do? You’re a freeborn Englishwoman, you do not need my permission to leave me or London, but obviously I am not going to dismiss you out of hand. What plans have you made? If you wish to remain in service, I can give you excellent references. If you prefer some independent enterprise, your options are somewhat limited, but I shall—”

“I want to start a school,” Emma said. When Ginevra looked puzzled, Emma continued fervently, “I want to go back to Surrey and provide a place where children like Mrs. Harrison’s Jamie can learn to read and write and cipher. Town children who really desire it always have access to some form of education—even those who work in the factories can go to the new Sunday schools—but there is little available for the boys and girls in outlying districts. Times are hard for everyone now, and without at least the rudiments of learning, these children can hope for nothing better than a marginal existence on the farms or sixteen hours a day minding looms in the woolen mills.”

Ginevra considered. She thought about little Jamie, who had been so inquisitive and eager to learn. Now that the party had left Dowerwood, she wondered if he would retain any of what she had taught him. His grandmother was barely literate. Her mind turned to Queenshaven, to the tenants and their families whom she had visited. Without education, what future awaited them in a world where one minister had declared of the agrarian poor: “They don’t live; they just don’t die.”

“You would accept girls as well as boys?” Ginevra asked with concern. “Not all schools do, even nowadays.”

“Of course,” Emma agreed, smiling as she watched Ginevra’s enthusiasm grow. “Otherwise how will they hope to achieve the ideal of ‘the educated mother in equal union with the educated male’?”

Ginevra blinked. “I didn’t know you had read Mary Wollstonecraft.”

Emma’s mouth quirked. “How else do you surmise a copy of her book came to be in the Bryant House library?”

When Ginevra tendered the suggestion to Lord Chadwick at one of their infrequent meetings at the breakfast table, he expressed surprise at Emma’s departure but accepted Ginevra’s casual explanation that her friend was unhappy in London. When she asked about setting up a small school for the tenant children, her enthusiasm bubbled up, and he favored her with one of his rare smiles. He said the idea sounded sensible and she was free to handle the matter as she wished. Ginevra might have enjoyed his approval more had she not suspected he was simply humoring her whims.

After that events proceeded apace, and almost before Ginevra realized, she was waving good-bye to Emma, who was journeying by coach to Dowerwood, there to make her home in the caretaker’s cottage with Mrs. Harrison while she set about her project. When the vehicle disappeared into the London traffic, Ginevra returned to the house and made her way up the long staircase, her steps as leaden as her heart. First my father, now Emma, she thought.

When she reached the top of the steps, she gazed at her reflection in the mirror over the console table. She saw an attractive young woman in an elegantly fashionable day dress, her hair styled
a la
Psyche with amber combs. The tawny eyes that stared back at her had a maturity and sophistication that had not been there a dozen weeks before. She frowned judiciously. Emma was right: she didn’t need her anymore. She was growing up, and while she would always love her friend dearly, the time had come to put nursery maids aside.

Resolutely she walked back to her room. She needed to discuss with her new maid just what she ought to wear to Lady Thorndike’s card party.

Susan, the new maid, was meticulous but slow, and her slowness, plus the unusual amount of traffic on the long drive between Mayfair and Greenwich, conspired to delay Ginevra and Chadwick’s arrival at Thorndike Place almost an hour beyond what they had intended. Their hostess greeted them warmly. She laughed at Chadwick with the ease of long acquaintance, expressed her sorrow that Bysshe had been unable to come, and took Ginevra’s hand the instant she had been relieved of her pale blue silk evening cloak. “Come, my dear,” Jane Thorndike gushed, “I know you must need some refreshment
after that
ridiculous drive. Everyone says we were mad to build so far out of town, but my husband is an avid astronomer, and he insisted that we live near the observatory. Personally, I sometimes suspect he wanted to discourage the charity cases I sponsor from imposing further on us.” She directed Ginevra toward the dining room, where, she could see through the archway, tables laden with all sorts of summer delicacies waited upon the guests’ pleasure. Lady Thorndike exclaimed with self-deprecating humor, “Enough food to feed a needy family for months. My little card party seems to have grown beyond all recognition! So many people anxious to meet you, my dear ...” As if to give proof to her words, guests began to crowd around, and in the welter of introductions that followed, Ginevra lost track of her husband.

An hour later she sought refuge in a curtained alcove just off the salon where the Thorndikes’ teenage children and their friends were romping through a series of country dances, accompanied by a string trio. Before she pulled the drapery shut, she watched them wistfully. In years she was very close to those lighthearted youngsters who frolicked, giddy as butterflies. She sank onto the love seat that filled the cubbyhole. Sometimes she thought she had never been young.