Chapter 27
Chapter Twenty-Seven
He rode in through the gate at a little after two in the afternoon, on a horse that was lathered to the shoulders. He was not in much better condition.
He had set out at first light and stopped only once to water the horse. He had not stopped to eat. He had told himself he would eat when he got home.
The groom came running as he swung down from the saddle. “Your Grace! We did not—”
“No. I have come ahead of my letter. See to him, will you, George? Walk him well before you water him. He has been generous with me.”
“Yes, Your Grace.”
William crossed the yard, pulling off his gloves and calling for Mrs. Alderton before he was quite through the door. She appeared with the faint, startled dignity of a housekeeper who had not been given notice.
“Your Grace. Welcome home. I was not aware—”
“No. I apologize. Where is Her Grace?”
“In the morning room, I believe.”
“Very good. Thank you.”
“Your Grace… Shall I have something sent up?”
“In a little while. Thank you, Mrs. Alderton.”
He gave her his hat, his gloves, and his riding coat and did not wait to see them taken.
He went down the hall in his shirtsleeves and his traveling coat, aware that he probably smelled of horse and road and that his hair was sticking up in several directions, and entirely unable to care about any of it.
He had twenty-six miles of resolution behind him; he was going to use them while they still held.
He turned the corner into the short passage that led to the morning room… and almost collided with his daughter.
“Papa!”
“Felicity. Forgive me, I did not see you.”
“Papa, you are home!”
Home.
“Yes, I am home. Is Anne in the—”
“She is in the morning room. Papa. Oh, Papa, you must go in at once. You must go in this instant!”
“I am going in this instant, my dear. I only—”
“This instant, Papa!”
She had taken him by the wrist. She had a rather firmer grip than he had previously realized.
She was marching him up the passage in the manner of a small constable conducting a suspect. For three steps, he allowed himself to be marched. Then, the absurdity of it overtook him, and he began to laugh quietly.
“Felicity, I assure you I was already going. You’re behaving like a Bow Street Runner.”
“You were going too slowly for someone who spends so much time fencing.”
“My apologies.”
She stopped at the door and put her hand on the knob, then looked up at him with a very serious expression. “Papa, you must not come out until you have fixed it.”
“Felicity…”
“Fixed it, Papa.”
“I will do my best.”
“That is not the same as fixing it.”
“No,” he conceded. “No, it is not. I shall fix it, Felicity. I give you my word.”
“Very well.” She opened the door and pushed him, with quite unnecessary force, through it.
Before it swung shut behind him, he saw Anne looking up from the little writing desk by the window with an expression of mild astonishment. And Celia…
Where had Celia come from?
Suddenly, the small girl sprang out from behind the open door as though she had been lying in ambush. She slipped past him into the passage and pulled the door closed with both her small hands and a remarkably loud grunt.
The door clicked shut. A pause ensued. Then, from the other side of the door, came a small, decisive scraping sound, like that of a key being turned in a lock.
“Felicity?” William called.
“Yes, Papa,” Felicity said through the wood, her voice perfectly composed. “Celia and I have conferred. We think you will do better without the option of leaving.”
“Felicity, open this door.”
“No, Papa,” she said, her voice polite but firm.
“Felicity,” he warned.
“We shall bring you tea in due course,” she replied, and Celia giggled.
“Felicity Redmond.”
“We love you very much, Papa. Celia says she loves you, too.”
“I did not!” Celia yelled out.
“Yes, you did!” Felicity countered.
“All right, I suppose I did,” Celia sighed.
“Please fix it,” Felicity pleaded once more.
Small footsteps retreated rapidly down the passage, followed a moment later by the distant sound of Celia’s laugh. It was unsuppressed, triumphant, and somewhere near the foot of the stairs.
William stood at the door. He did not turn around at first. He briefly pressed his forehead against the wood, acutely aware that he was smiling at the absurdity of it all.
“Anne,” he said, still without turning.
“William.”
“It seems I have been kidnapped by our children.”
“So I see.”
“I wish to state, merely for the record, that I was already going to come into this room. Any moment now. Voluntarily. There was no requirement for such measures.”
“William.”
“Yes?”
“Turn round.”
He turned round.
Anne had risen from the writing desk. She was standing with one hand resting lightly on the edge, as though she needed to hold on to something.
She was wearing a gown of pale sprigged muslin that he had not seen before.
Her hair was pinned rather less neatly than usual, and there was a streak of ink along the edge of her left thumb.
She is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen in my life.
“You have ridden from Merrivale’s,” she said.
“Yes,” he said, squaring his shoulders back as if he’d do it again.
“Today. This morning.”
“Yes,” he said, running a hand through his hair.
“William, it is twenty-six miles,” she emphasized, her green eyes growing bright.
“I am aware.”
“You look… Well…”
“I am aware of that as well.”
“You should sit down.”
“In a moment. Anne, listen to me. I—”
“William…”
“I have ridden twenty-six miles in order to say this. Please. Just let me—”
“William!” Her voice cut across his. Not loudly, but with a particular small steadiness that stopped him mid-sentence.
“Before you say anything, there is something I must tell you. And I must tell it to you first. Because I am afraid that otherwise, I shall not say it at all, and I have been… I have been practicing saying it, William, for three days, and I should like to use the practice before it deserts me.”
He was silent for a moment.
“Very well,” he relented.
“Sit down, please. You are swaying.”
“I am not swaying.”
“You are swaying very slightly. Sit down.”
He sat on the little settee near the window.
She took a deep breath, let it out, and then declared, “I am not with child.”
He did not quite understand the sentence at first. He heard it. The words registered in the correct order, but they did not immediately arrange themselves into a meaning.
“Anne?”
“I am not. It came five mornings ago. Four. I-I have rather lost count of the days, William, but it came, and I am not with child.”
“I see.”
“And I should have told you immediately. I know I should have. But I did not. I could not find the… I did not know how to come to you and say it, because…”
“Anne.”
“… because I had said what I said to you that day, and I had seen your face when I said it, and after that, I did not know how to stop you in a corridor and say it was nothing, as though nothing at all had—”
“It is all right.”
“—passed between us in saying it. And the longer I did not say it, the more impossible it became to say it. I have been a coward, William. I have been a thorough coward, and I am sorry. I am most profoundly sorry.”
“Sit down, darling.”
“I do not wish to sit. If I sit, I shall stop.”
“Very well.”
She drew another deep breath. Her hand on the desk had gone white at the knuckles.
William did not move. He understood entirely that he was not to move at this moment.
“I must tell you,” she said, “about my mother.”
“Anne, you do not need to. I do not wish for you to revisit such painful memories. I know some of the story.”
“Yes, you know some of it, but you do not know all of it. I have never told anyone all of it. I am going to tell you now, William, because I find that I cannot do this without telling you. I should like to do it only this once, if you will bear with me.”
“I will bear with you. Always.”
“Thank you.”
For a moment, she looked out the window. She did not seem to see the garden. Her eyes had glazed over, as if she were looking at something a great many years away, across a great deal of distance. Then, quite steadily, she began speaking.
“I was eleven. Did you know that? Eleven when my mother went into labor with Celia. It was a stormy night. I remember the thunder. I remember the rain on the long windows of the house in Hertfordshire. I remember it got into my bones, William. It truly did, and it has stayed in them ever since. I cannot hear a hard rain on a window without being eleven again.”
“Anne.”
“No, let me. I have never said any of this to anyone. Let me. I need this.”
“All right,” he said softly.
“I sat on the floor of the corridor. Outside her door. My back against the wall. I remember it was a yellow paper. I can see it now, small roses on a trellis, and I counted the chimes of the long-case clock. I counted every one of them. I counted them as though counting correctly would make her come out of that room alive.”
“How long?”
“Sixteen hours. A little over. I counted them.”
“Christ.”
“She screamed, William. For most of it, she was just screaming. Before that night, I had not known that a person could scream for so long without stopping.”
“That is awful,” he sighed.
“A maid rushed past me carrying a basin. I will not tell you what was in it. I will only say that when I remember that night, I remember the basin before I remember almost anything else.”
She drew a breath.
“And then, at last… Oh, at last, William, there was a cry—a very thin one. And I thought, Oh, it is done. She is alive, and she has a little girl. I sat there for a few minutes longer, and I was happy. I was. For those few minutes, I was happy.”
“What happened next?”
“The doctor came out in his shirtsleeves. He sat down beside me on the floor. He did not try to rise again. A doctor does not sit down on a floor beside a girl unless the news is what it was.”
“Oh, Anne…”