Chapter Five
Phillip came awake with a familiar dread, the years-ago horror of the gunshot reverberating in all corners of his mind. His finger on the trigger and Oliver falling, Gretel by his side, her face flushed, her eyes aglow, and the words she had uttered ones that could never be taken back.
Sitting up and leaning over, he tried to find the breath that he had lost, tried to piece himself together, tried to stop the trembling.
Shaking his head hard, he got out of bed, opening the curtains to let in some light. A half-moon at least. He bathed in the glow with relief, feeling his heartbeat slow, feeling that scene in the Elmsworth library fade.
The cry of a small child in a room along the corridor was welcomed. There was other life here, fragile but real. He longed for a further wail but there was only silence.
His brother, his wife and their two sons had arrived at the town house in the late afternoon, their eldest son having broken his arm and Esther wanting it to be seen by the Elmsworth physician in town.
Phillip liked that he could hear even in the middle of the night some sound of life, which promised comfort.
He wondered where the little girl was, the one with the doll.
He searched his memory for a name. Juliette.
‘Wherefore art thou, Juliette?’ he whispered to himself, his small attempt at humour another ease.
He would not sleep again now. Two o’clock. A long way until dawn and no chance of wandering the house, as was his usual habit, with his brother’s family close.
Placing his open palm on the coldness of the glass, he watched the shadow of condensation grow around it in an outline of himself as he tried to recall the scent of Wilhelmina St Claire.
Flowers. Gardenias and violets. He had always been good at recognising scents.
Other things were there too. Cinnamon and a touch of mint.
Did she concoct her own perfume? Gretel had favoured bergamot and musk, heavier aromas, the suggestion of odours much more defined than the ones Mrs St Claire preferred.
Occasionally even now, he would walk through the London town house and imagine faint tinges of his wife’s scent in the quieter corners of the place. Sometimes he gulped in the recall of her and other times he held his breath until he was sure she had gone.
He remembered back to the first time he had met Gretel and how at the end of the evening at the Westinghouse ball she had placed her dainty hand on his sleeve as they walked alone on a greenery-filled balcony and poured her heart out to him.
‘You make me feel so very at home in your company, my lord, a safe harbour if you will, a place to rest.’
These unforgettable words had been like a marvellous gift to him, for he’d never truly had a home before and certainly not one that was safe. With her beauty, softness and her smile he’d felt his future sealed; it had been such an easy choice and such a quick certainty.
It was only later that he’d understood that Gretel was like a fragile hothouse flower who needed more care and tenderness to survive than any man would ever be able to give her.
The wail from the baby sounded for a second time, muffled by someone rising to comfort him. Esther, he thought, her night punctured by the infant’s restlessness. He wondered if his own mother had ever got up for him or had he been fobbed off to the help?
If he had a son, he would want the child to experience so much more love than he’d been raised on. He swore then, softly. He would not marry again. He would produce no heir for Elmsworth. He would die without issue and the estate would revert to Oliver and his progeny.
Shaking his head again, Phillip thought back to his encounter with Wilhelmina St Claire.
He had never enjoyed a ride as much before with such wide breadths of conversation.
He frowned because such a thought was a betrayal to his wife, but there it was, admitted.
He liked the way Wilhelmina laughed and the way she teased him.
She had told him in no uncertain terms that she would never marry again and that she was not looking for a husband. But there was something between them that was different; something that made his heart beat faster and gave parts of his body a life he had not felt possible for years.
Lord. His fingers threaded through his hair and he swore roundly. She was making him into a man he did not recognise, a man who wanted things that could not come true.
Esther’s first cousin, Miss Arabella Montague, arrived at the town house in the early afternoon in the company of her brother, Theodore Montague, and his new wife, Stella, and on seeing her Phillip understood why his sister-in-law had arranged this meeting.
One glance at Oliver’s face confirmed his suspicions.
They wanted him to find a wife. They wanted him to have what they had.
A nest. Wilhelmina’s words rolled around in his head as he was introduced.
‘I am so very pleased to meet you, Lord Elmsworth, for the tales of your travels in America have fuelled in me a desire to follow in your footsteps.’
‘A bold proposal.’
He wondered how she would get there and who she would go with.
‘I can see in your expression that you think that I will not manage this, my lord.’ Her eyes were the colour of cornflowers and her lips turned up. A woman who was used to the adulation of men, he surmised, and expected it.
‘I am not quite as timid as other girls here in England are required to be. My beleaguered father would attest to that.’ Her laugh was practised and he smiled back because she probably was waiting for such a reaction and because humour defused the exasperation he was beginning to feel.
With care he glanced at his watch. Three-thirty.
How long before he could plead another engagement and leave?
‘America is a big place, Miss Montague, and one where as a foreigner it might be easy to misunderstand the lay of the land.’ If she was being honest about her will to travel she would need to be warned of difficulties.
‘Oh, I am sure she would not be travelling alone, Phillip.’ This interjection came from Esther. ‘Her father for one would never countenance such a journey.’
Arabella shook her head with a rueful exasperation at her cousin’s words.
‘And it is such a shame that this should be the case, given men can travel in any way they please and as far as their heart’s content whilst women can venture nowhere at all alone.
What of you, my lord, will you ever return to America? ’
‘I doubt it. The estate keeps me busy here and years on the road have dulled my quest for more travel.’
‘I think I should be the exact opposite. I think once I start on such a journey I should never wish to leave it.’
‘A perpetual traveller?’
‘Well, you may question my motives but I assure you what I say is the truth.’
Phillip could see that Arabella Montague was disappointed with him, disappointed with his answers and his lack of interest. Esther was also looking at him with puzzlement.
This is me now, he felt like saying. I am numb to all beauty in the world. Unexpectedly he thought of Gretel and wished she were here. At least his wife knew his demons.
Oliver’s observation changed things again. ‘The world is a big place, Arabella, and I am sure there are many wonderful sights for you to safely enjoy.’
Miss Montague was quick to reply.
‘Exactly, and I have a great ambition to go to see as much as I can before I am very much older.’
Phillip raised his glass, even as he wondered how old she was. She looked impossibly young. ‘Then I wish you well on your quest. My thirst for such things is past but yours is just beginning.’ He could hear the hollowness of such words.
‘Mrs Wilhelmina St Claire said much the same thing to me at the Wilsons’ ball the other night,’ Theodore Montague countered. ‘Not about travel so much but about life.’
Esther looked puzzled. ‘That does not sound like Mrs St Claire at all. She is usually far more…daring.’
‘Perhaps a woman who invites discourse and debate into her salons needs to relax into caution sometimes?’ Arabella Montague’s brother uttered this almost as a question, though Oliver interrupted him.
‘Since arriving in London Mrs St Claire has become a force in her own right, so I imagine she has little time for such excessive introspection.’
‘And yet Society prefers women to be…less forceful, does it not?’ There was censure in the words.
‘This is exactly what I am talking about, Theo. It is just so unfair and unreasonable.’ Arabella Montague sounded cross.
‘Rules are there as a protection, dear sister, especially for the fairer sex, as there are so many ways you can be hurt.’
Esther now took up the cause. ‘I am afraid, Theodore, that I have to agree with Arabella, which is why the actions of women such as Mrs St Claire are so valuable.’ Although his sister-in-law smiled, her words held an undercurrent of steel. ‘It’s a changing world and women are leading the charge.’
‘“…we know what we are, but know not what we may be.”’ Phillip’s voice was soft.
‘You read Shakespeare?’ Esther asked this with wonder.
‘Gretel did and often. I think she read me every play the Bard ever wrote and great parts of it I can recite at obscure times like this,’ he returned.
‘Which is quite a gift, I should imagine.’
Her unusual eyes twinkled as if she was laughing at him. But he could not take umbrage, for there was an energy about Esther that was catching. Arabella and her party, on the other hand, were watching them all as if they could barely understand a word said.
Like a play, each character caught by their own realities and experiences. He wished the wonder in his sister-in-law and the naive innocence of Arabella Montague were still there inside of him, but they were long gone.