Chapter Twenty-Seven
A specyall good lover and she hys owne swettynge.
He must have read it in her expression, for he leaned even closer, half rising in his chair and tucking a booted leg under him to do so. Coaxingly he extended an arm across the mahogany surface. “Will you at least hold my hand while I say the rest? For encouragement, you know.”
“Stop that!” she cried, slapping at the proffered item as if it were a wingless beetle (a grub) crawling across the desk to her. “You had better say whatever you have left to say, before Philip decides we have offended his clerical sensibilities long enough and bursts through the door.”
“Heartless,” he muttered with a mock sigh. “Very well. Where was I?”
“Your parents separated and each took one of you.”
“Right. Years passed in this way. Years and years. Until this very summer, in fact, when at last my mother glimpsed Reginald again in Weymouth. I had grown to look very much like him, as you might have seen, so she recognized him at once.”
“Did you know, then, that he had been found?”
“My mother was in the habit of writing to me frequently,” he said dryly. “Therefore I should have guessed she did more than glimpse him, when a month passed without a subsequent letter. I can only say I must have been…distracted by more interesting developments.”
His gaze fell to her lips, and, to Frances’ embarrassment, her grip on the blotter caused the small tear in the paper to expand noisily into a fissure.
One corner of his mouth lifted, but to her equal relief and disappointment, he went on.
“When I left Iffley with them, I learned two things: one, my brother was unwell with little hope of recovery; and, two, my mother had seized upon him as a hostage to get from my father what she wanted, a certain lodge in my father’s possession. ”
“But—was she not glad to see him again?”
He made a dismissive gesture. “I’m sure she was, in her way, but she did not hesitate to use him for her purposes.”
“And you?” Frances could not help but ask. “Were you glad to see him?”
He gave her a long look, and she saw the regret buried deeply.
“If you were to ask anyone of my acquaintance, they would tell you I rarely spoke of my family, other than to say they were the primary reason I thought I would never marry. And so I might have gone on, had I never met you or seen…another way families could be. As it was…I was glad to see Reginald again—and my father—but it was a pleasure so mixed with pain I could not say which was uppermost.”
Frances’ throat felt tight, and then she did wish she had given him her hand. But she tried to look her sympathy—tried with all her heart. And she loved him all the better for how he shared himself with her now.
“So that is where I have been,” he grimaced. “At Hepworth Lodge outside Kettering in Northamptonshire. Where, to my family’s credit, some attempts at reconciliation were made before Reginald’s death.”
“I rejoice to hear of it,” she said ardently. “Indeed I do.”
His mouth twisted in a mirthless chuckle. “Yes. My father welcomed me as the returning prodigal. Though—can I be considered a true prodigal son if I did not leave of my own accord but was rather spirited away, when I was too young to have a say in the matter?”
After a pause he shrugged. “Whatever the case, he has taken me to his bosom, declared his pride in me, made me his heir, and so forth. His renewed attachment has come at a cost, however. For in return my mother now in jealousy disowns me, accuses me of disloyalty after all this time and all she has done and sacrificed for me, et cetera, et cetera, and has cut me off without a shilling.”
“Oh, no!” breathed Frances. “Oh, dear. Thank goodness you have your fellowship, Mr. Hearne, and that you live modestly.”
He gave her a sidelong look. “I did have hopes of marrying, though.”
Considering him warily, Frances decided, if this was a trap, she had no intention of setting her foot in it. “It seems such hopes will have to be put aside now,” she told him, with what briskness she could muster. “Because you can’t afford to. Too bad.”
“Heartless,” he said again, before going on.
“I thought of taking orders, then, to remedy my situation. Both the vicar and his curate at Hyrnetoft (my father’s estate) are, if not at death’s door, at least a good way up the path to it, but when I made the suggestion to my father, he vetoed it at once. ”
“Oh,” said Frances again, hoping her disappointment was not obvious. This Mr. Hearne, Senior, did not sound any more winsome a parent than Mrs. Hearne had been.
“Yes. Alas,” he said with assumed regret, staring at the fire he had built. “But then I thought to myself, ‘I will consult Miss Barstow on the matter, she being not only discerning, but also clever.’ Therefore here I am. Clever, discerning Miss Barstow, what would you recommend in my quandary?”
“I have already given my recommendation,” she answered curtly. “Go back to your chambers and your tutoring at Christ Church and live quietly. Eventually, inevitably, your father must go the way of all flesh, and then you will inherit and may do as you please—if you aren’t too overcome with grief.”
“Is that sarcasm I detect, Miss Barstow? Never mind. Your counsel is sound, in any event, given how little you know of the subjects. It will be a long road, however, if I follow it, and I myself will likely be old and doddering before its conclusion. For my father, unlike poor Reginald, enjoys robust health and bids fair to live to a hundred.”
“How lovely for him.”
The wood in the fireplace gave a loud pop, tossing an ember onto the hearth which Mr. Hearne idly rose and nudged back with the toe of his boot before setting the fire screen and resuming his seat.
Tapping his fingers musingly on the desk another minute he said, “No, I’m sorry, but it won’t do.
How easy it is, for those not involved, to resign themselves to the unhappiness of others, don’t you think?
But being myself that unhappy ‘other,’ it looks like I had better devise an alternative solution.
” He turned his head so quickly that he caught her frowning at him.
“What would you say, Miss Barstow, if I were to offer for an heiress? Someone loaded down with all the treasure I am lacking?”
Her bosom swelled in unspoken vexation. What was he about, saying such things? Had she really thought, only a few minutes earlier, that he loved her and meant to propose again?
You fool, Frances.
No. It was as Mrs. Dere had warned: perseverare è diabolico. To persist is diabolical. He wanted everyone, including her, to forgive him for amusing himself at their expense this summer, only to do it again once he regained their trust!
“You hesitate,” he said, still watching her carefully. “Does that mean you disapprove of me marrying an heiress?”
Her eyes narrowed. “I’d say, Mr. Hearne, you must please yourself.”
“There now. I like the sound of that.”
And before she could register it, he was up and around the desk, falling to one knee beside her.
“Miss Frances Barstow, glorious, clever, kind, delightful Miss Barstow, will you marry me?”
“What are you doing, sir?” she cried, springing up clumsily from her chair. It rocked with her action and struck him, but he only fended it off and then pushed it under the desk.
“I’m proposing to you, Miss Barstow, for the second time.”
“But you just said you were going to marry an heiress!”
“And so I am, I pray. I speak metaphorically. Did I not just say (and prove) how impoverished I am in family to love, and how rich you are?”
“But—but—”
“I come to you with nothing but two parents who dislike each other heartily and who used their sons as pawns between them. Two parents who will probably treat any bride I choose in the same manner and only like or dislike her to spite the other. And on these two unpredictable creatures my wife and I would be wholly reliant for income.”
“It—doesn’t sound very promising, does it?”
“Don’t look like that, Miss Barstow, I implore you!”
“How can I look otherwise, Mr. Hearne, when I cannot be certain to what degree you are jesting or in earnest?”
“I have just told you fully the wretchedness of my family life, which I have never spoken of to any other person living, and you doubt me?”
Biting her lip, she scrutinized him, and he blew out a breath, rubbing a hand over his face to wipe away whatever displeasing expression she might be finding there.
“Let me begin again, Miss Barstow, leaving my family aside.” Shifting, he switched knees and clasped his hands together.
“Dear Miss Barstow, almost from our first acquaintance I regretted not meeting you under other circumstances, when I might have been without pretense and fully myself. I had no thoughts of marriage, as I have explained, but I simply liked you. I liked your frankness, your eager enjoyment of things, the way I could make you blush if I teased you. I liked your unconscious assurance, a product of having been always a beloved member of your family and community.”
He hesitated here, appealingly, but she could not—would not—have spoken for the world.
Switching knees again, he continued softly, “I don’t know when it became something more, but it clearly had, somewhere along the way.
My first inkling, perhaps, was hearing a marriage proposal come out of my mouth, whole and entire, when I had not planned on saying anything of the kind.
Add to this my annoyance with your attempts to flirt with my friends—I beg your pardon, but if you will allow me to finish, Miss Barstow.
I recognize these attempts took place during your unreformed-coquette stage of development—but suffice to say, my vexation confirmed what I had begun to suspect.
In short, that I had fallen in love with you. ”
“Oh, Mr. Hearne!” said Frances, hardly knowing whether she wanted to laugh at his teasing or to cry with joy.