Chapter 15 #2
“It is not quite what you think,” she said.
“And what is it that I think?” Claudia asked, her look keen.
“Viscount Whitleaf and I became friends,” Susanna explained.
“I had no illusions that we were more than that, and absolutely no wish that we be more. He is amiable, Claudia, and very kind—he showed his kindness in all sorts of ways. It was sad to have to say good-bye to him at the end of the holiday. Frances feared I had fallen in love with him. Perhaps she still fears it. But she is wrong. It was lovely to see him again today and dance with him again, but…Well, but nothing. I will never see him again, and I am content that it be so. I will not lose any sleep over him.”
She smiled—and sloshed her tea into her saucer. She set the cup down in haste until such time as her hands had stopped shaking.
Good heavens! Oh, gracious heavens. She would be weeping next—as she had the night after the assembly when Frances came to her room. How utterly mortifying.
“Is it not a shame,” Claudia said with a sigh after a short silence, “that we cannot just turn off our woman’s need to love and nurture and be loved in return, or at least draw enough satisfaction from lavishing those instincts upon our pupils and fellow teachers and women friends?
One ought not to have to feel the need for a man and all he can offer by way of physical as well as emotional satisfaction when the chances of finding a suitable mate and making a satisfactory marriage are slim to none. ”
Susanna had never before heard Claudia talk about her need for a man—her physical need. It was all too easy to assume that she did not feel such needs. She was over thirty years old. She had been an adult when Susanna first came to the school. And all that time she had been without a man.
“I was able to offer you the relative security of a teaching position when you grew up,” Claudia said. “I was not, alas, able to find you a husband despite your beauty and vitality and intelligence.”
“Oh, Claudia,” Susanna said, setting her cup and saucer down on the table beside her, “you have done so very much for me. And I am not in love with Viscount Whitleaf—or anyone else.”
Claudia sighed again.
“Of course you are not,” she said briskly. “Come, it is time we went to bed even though it is still not very late, is it? It has been a long and busy and emotional day, though, and I feel like a limp rag. And I have promised to take study hall tomorrow evening on top of everything else.”
“I will be conducting a rehearsal for the Christmas play,” Susanna said, “or I would do it for you.”
Life would go on, she told herself a few minutes later as she shut her bedroom door behind her. She had survived the end of August. She would survive today.
At least there would be much to occupy her mind tomorrow and in the coming days.
And at least there were pleasant memories of today to add to the ones from the summer. She was glad he had come to ask her if she was with child. He would not have abandoned her to her fate if she had been. She knew that as clearly as if he had said so.
He was still a man she could like and even…
Well, yes, of course she still loved him too.
It would be foolish to deny it.
She would survive the admission. She had survived it in August, and she would survive it now. But she did wonder wistfully when an unfed love died. It did not last forever, surely? She fervently hoped not.
She looked forward to the day when she could bring out the memories and derive only a sort of nostalgic pleasure from them.
That day had not yet come.
Not by a long way.
Peter did not go with Lauren and Kit when they left for Alvesley Park the following morning even though both of them assured him that he would be very welcome and their children begged him to come.
He was going to set out for London a little later in the day, he told them—he had some business to attend to there.
The business consisted of keeping his eye out for a new team of horses to buy, though, truth to tell, there was nothing wrong with his chestnuts.
He also needed to visit his clubs, notably White’s, to discover who was still in town and who was new in town and what the latest news and gossip might be—though those particular pursuits could hardly be described as business.
Really, of course, he had no pressing reason for going anywhere in the world, except home. But there was still a while before Christmas, and he had decided not to go before then.
His mother was going to transform his dining room into a lavender monstrosity—she had mentioned the color in her last letter—as a complement to the drawing room.
But she was going to leave it until after Christmas since they were expecting guests—she had used the plural pronoun.
Christmas would be soon enough, then, to stop such a disaster from happening. A lavender dining room, for God’s sake!
Would she start on the library next?
She had invited the Flynn-Posys for Christmas, Lady Flynn-Posy being one of her dearest friends from their come-out year.
Peter might recall the name, she had written.
He did not. They were going to bring with them their son, a delightful young man who was up at Oxford, and—inevitably—their daughter, an accomplished young lady of considerable beauty, who was to make her official come-out in the spring.
Miss Flynn-Posy and her arsenal would have to be faced, he had decided. He would hide from his mother’s loving interference in his life no longer.
He would not go home yet, though.
But what was he to do with himself in the meanwhile? He waved Lauren and Kit and the children on their way from the Royal York Hotel and then, ten minutes later, the Earl and Countess of Redfield and returned aimlessly to his room to stare gloomily at his bags, all neatly packed by his valet.
An hour after that he wandered downstairs and was in time to wave the Duke and Duchess of Bewcastle and Mrs. Thompson, the duchess’s mother, on their way home. Miss Thompson was to remain in Bath for a few days, but not at the hotel, it seemed.
“My mother thought it really not quite the thing even though I bade farewell to my twenties a few years ago,” she explained to Peter as they both looked toward the corner around which the carriage had just disappeared.
“And Christine agreed with her. So did the duke, though he did not say a word. He did not have to. I have never known anyone whose silence is so eloquent. He is a formidable brother-in-law, Lord Whitleaf.” Her eyes twinkled with merriment.
“And so you are to stay with Lady Potford?” Peter asked.
“Yes,” she said. “I must still be hedged about by chaperones, it seems. It is most provoking.”
“May I convey you and your baggage to her house?” Peter asked.
“Oh, that is remarkably good of you,” she said, “but my bags have already gone. The duke arranged to have them sent over. He would have sent me with them, I daresay, if I had not told Christine quite firmly that I intend to walk.”
“She lives not far away?” he asked.
“On Great Pulteney Street,” she said. “It is a fair distance, but I shall enjoy stretching my legs, especially in this lovely sunshine. The house is quite close to Miss Martin’s school on Daniel Street.
I promised to call there today or tomorrow.
Miss Martin needs a new teacher, and I am thinking of applying for the position. ”
“Indeed?” Peter said. “May I escort you to Great Pulteney Street, ma’am?”
“And delay your own departure?” she said. “You are too kind, Lord Whitleaf. I really do not need an escort or a chaperone on the streets of Bath.”
“But perhaps,” he said, bowing to her and grinning, “I would be delighted to postpone my departure until tomorrow, ma’am, rather than forgo the pleasure of your company and Lady Potford’s.
And I would like to see the school where Miss Osbourne teaches—we struck up an acquaintance during the summer when we were staying with friends in the same neighborhood. ”
“Ah, Miss Osbourne, yes,” she said, laughing. “I did not fail to notice how remarkably lovely she is. Very well, then, Lord Whitleaf. Since you feel such a burning desire for my company, I shall not deprive you of it. Shall we meet downstairs here in half an hour’s time?”
“We shall,” he said, bowing to her.
And so, instead of setting out for London within the hour, as he had intended, Peter found himself walking through Bath with Miss Thompson on his arm.
They walked past the Pump Room and Bath Abbey and along by the river in the direction of the Pulteney Bridge.
They crossed the bridge and made their way past Laura Place and along Great Pulteney Street until they came to Lady Potford’s.
They conversed every step of the way, and Peter found himself genuinely enjoying her company and laughing with her over several absurdities she pointed out.
At the same time he wondered about the wisdom of what he was doing—or rather, the wisdom of what he planned to do after calling at Lady Potford’s.
Was he really going to accompany Miss Thompson to the school?
For what purpose, pray? He had learned what he needed to know from Susanna yesterday.
He had enjoyed a pleasant half hour dancing and talking with her, and they had said good-bye.
There was really nothing whatsoever left to say, was there?
But dash it all, he still liked her. He still wanted a friendship with her.
And, if the bald truth were told, he probably felt a little more than just liking for her.
Which uncomfortable—and only barely admitted—fact was all the more reason for bowing to Miss Thompson at the doorway of the house on Great Pulteney Street, returning to his hotel with alacrity, and putting as much distance between himself and Miss Martin’s School for Girls in Bath as daylight and the speed of his traveling carriage would allow.
But when Lady Potford’s butler opened the door to their knock, he found himself stepping over the threshold.
And a little more than half an hour later, after taking coffee in the drawing room and making himself agreeable to Lady Potford, who was feeling rather down after having waved her houseguests on their way earlier, he found himself escorting Miss Thompson again on the short walk to the end of the street and around the corner onto Sydney Place and almost immediately around onto Sutton Street.
The turn onto Daniel Street was not far away.
And so here he was, he thought as he stepped up to the school and rapped the knocker against the door, unable even to change his mind at the last moment and hurry away. Miss Thompson was standing solidly just behind him and would think it odd in the extreme if he suddenly bolted.
What the devil was she going to think? She being Susanna Osbourne, of course.
An elderly, pinch-faced porter opened the door and glared at Peter with unconcealed suspicion. His black coat, shiny with age, looked almost as elderly as he.
The dragon guarding the maidens, perhaps?
“Miss Thompson and Viscount Whitleaf to call upon Miss Martin,” he said.
The man looked beyond Peter’s shoulder, and his demeanor grew marginally less hostile.
“Miss Martin is expecting you, ma’am,” he said, ignoring Peter, “though she is in the middle of a class at the moment.”
“Do not disturb her, then,” Miss Thompson said. “I shall wait until she is free.”
Ah, reprieve! Peter thought. He had the perfect excuse for bowing her over the threshold and going on his way—I shall wait, she had said. Not we.
Instead, he stood back to allow her to precede him inside and then stepped in after her.
If ever he came fully to understand himself, he thought ruefully, the world would surely stop spinning on its axis and then they would all be in trouble.
He was standing in a dark, narrow hallway.
Instantly he could hear the distant hum of girls’ voices chanting something in unison.
He had stepped into the world of Susanna Osbourne, he realized, breathing in the mingled odors of furniture polish and ink and cabbage and an indefinable something that would have told him he was in a school even if he had not already known it.