CHAPTER 8 #3
“Don’t worry about what Miss Edwards says,” he told her. “You have ridden up with me before and always been perfectly safe, have you not? I will have a word with her after I bring you home, and she will be gone by tomorrow, I daresay. Just be polite to her until then. Will you?”
“I will, Papa,” she promised.
Claudia took her hand again before leaving. Despite the strange eyes, she could grow into something of a beauty if there was enough stimulation in her life to bring animation into her face even when her father was not with her—and if she was exposed to more fresh air and sunshine.
“I take it,” Claudia said after she had been helped up to the seat of the curricle again and they were on their way back to Grosvenor Square, the tiger up behind, “that you wish to send Lizzie to my school.”
“Is it possible?” he asked, his voice without any of its customary pleasant good humor. “Is anything possible for a blind child, Miss Martin? Help me, please. I love her so much it hurts.”
Joseph felt more than a little foolish.
Help me, please. I love her so much it hurts.
By the time he turned his curricle back into Hyde Park, Miss Martin had still said nothing in response.
They were the last words that had been spoken between them.
He felt the urge to spring his horses, to return her to Whitleaf’s house as soon as he possibly could, and to be very careful not to run into her again while she was still in London.
He was unaccustomed to baring his soul to others, even to his closest friends—except perhaps Neville.
She broke the silence once they had left the busy streets behind.
“I have been wishing,” she said, “that Anne Butler were still on my staff. She was always exceptionally good with girls who were in any way different from the norm. But I have just realized that all girls are different from the norm. In other words, the norm does not exist except in the minds of those who like tidy statistics.”
He did not know how to answer her. He did not know if she expected an answer.
“I am not sure I can help you, Lord Attingsborough,” she said.
“You will not take Lizzie, then?” he asked, his heart sinking with disappointment. “A blind child is uneducable?”
“I am quite sure Lizzie is capable of a great deal,” she said. “And the challenge would certainly be interesting from my point of view. I am just not sure school would be best for her, though. She appears to be very dependent.”
“Is that not all the more reason for her to go to school?” he asked.
And yet even as he argued the point his heart was breaking. How would Lizzie cope in a school setting, where she would have to fend for herself much of the time, where other girls might be unkind to her, where by the very nature of her handicap she would be excluded from all sorts of activities?
And how could he bear to let her go? She was just a child.
“She must be missing her mother terribly,” Miss Martin said. “Are you sure she should go away to school so soon after losing her? I take in abandoned children, Lord Attingsborough. They are often much damaged—perhaps always, in fact.”
Abandoned. Lizzie? Is that what he would be doing to her if he sent her to school? He sighed and drew the curricle to a halt. This particular part of the park was quiet and secluded.
“Shall we walk awhile?” he suggested.
He left the curricle and horses in the care of his tiger, who did not even try to hide his delight, and he walked beside Miss Martin along a narrow footpath, which wound its way through a copse of trees.
“Sonia was very young when I first employed her,” he told her.
“So was I, of course. She was a dancer—very lovely, very much in demand, very ambitious. She expected a life of glamour and wealth. She expected to bask in the admiration of a series of titled, powerful, wealthy men. She was a courtesan by choice, not necessity. She did not love me; I did not love her. Our arrangement had nothing to do with love.”
“No,” she said dryly, “I suppose it did not.”
“I would not even have kept her longer than two or three months, I suppose,” he said. “I was intent upon sowing some wild oats. But then along came Lizzie.”
“I daresay,” she said, “neither of you had even considered the possibility.”
“The young,” he said, “are often very ignorant and very foolish, Miss Martin, especially upon sexual matters.”
He looked down at her, supposing he was shocking her. This was not, after all, the sort of conversation with which he usually regaled the ears of ladies. But he felt he owed her an honest explanation.
“Yes,” she agreed, “they are.”
“Sonia did not particularly enjoy motherhood,” he said.
“She hated having a blind child. At first she wanted to put her into an asylum. But I would not allow it. And if I was to insist that she be a mother, then I had to take on the responsibility of being a father—not difficult right from the first moment. Never difficult. And so we remained together until her death, Sonia and I. She found her life irksome though I gave her almost everything money could buy—and my loyalty too. I hired the Smarts, who took some of the burdens of being a parent off her shoulders when I could not be at the house and have been like kindly grandparents to Lizzie. Sonia did not have much idea how to entertain or educate or train a blind girl, though she was never actively cruel. Of course Lizzie was inconsolable when she died. And of course she misses her. I do myself.”
“Lizzie needs a home more than a school,” Miss Martin said.
“She has a home,” he said sharply. But he knew what she meant.
“It is not enough, though, is it? After Sonia’s death I hired a companion for her.
There have been three others since then.
Miss Edwards is the latest. And this time I chose someone young and apparently sweet and eager to please.
I thought her very youth would be good for Lizzie.
But she is obviously not up to the task at all.
Neither were the other three. Where can I find someone to be with my daughter at home and give her all she needs?
The Smarts are too elderly to do it alone, and they are talking of retirement.
Would one of your pupils do it, Miss Martin?
It crossed my mind, I must confess, to offer the position to Miss Bains or Miss Wood if the employment for which they came here proved unsuitable. ”
They were about to step free of the copse of trees onto an open stretch of grass, where a number of people were strolling or sitting, enjoying the warm summer afternoon. They both stopped walking instead and stayed in the shade of an old oak tree, looking out into the bright sunshine.
“I do not know if any very young person would be up to the task,” Miss Martin said. “And in London of all places. That child needs air and exercise, Lord Attingsborough. She needs the countryside. She needs a mother.”
“Which is the one thing I can never give her,” he said, and he could see from the look in her eye that she understood that even his marriage could not provide Lizzie with a mother.
His daughter was illegitimate and must forever be kept apart from—and secret from—any legitimate family he might have in future.
Everything had been reasonably simple as long as Sonia was alive.
He had known, of course, that his daughter was living a less than ideal existence, but her basic needs had always been provided and she had always had a home and security and affection from the Smarts—oh, and from Sonia too—and love in abundance from him.
“Anxiety has become my constant companion since Sonia’s death, Miss Martin,” he said.
“I suppose it was there before that, but it is only since that I have faced the fact that Lizzie is growing up. A handicapped child can be pampered and protected and held on one’s lap and within the circle of one’s arms when she is very young.
But what is to become of her as an adult?
Will I be able to find her a husband who will be kind to her?
I can shower her with wealth, of course, but what of her inner being?
What will there be to sustain her or give her any happiness? What will happen to her when I die?”
Miss Martin set a hand on his arm, and he turned his head to look down at her, strangely comforted. Her intelligent gray eyes gazed steadily into his and without thinking he covered her hand with his own.
“Let me get to know Lizzie better, Lord Attingsborough,” she said. “And let me think about the possibility of her attending my school. May I see her again?”
He realized suddenly and in some embarrassment that his eyes had filled with tears. He blinked them away.
“Tomorrow?” he said. “At the same time?”
“If the weather is still fine, perhaps we can take her out,” she said, sliding her hand free of his arm. “Or are you reluctant to be seen with her?”
“We could take her for a picnic,” he suggested, “to Richmond Park or Kew Gardens.”
“I will leave that for you to decide,” she said. “Does anyone know about your daughter?”
“Neville,” he said. “The Earl of Kilbourne. He has met her and sometimes looks in on her when I am away, as I was in Bath recently. But basically a gentleman takes care of such matters himself. It is not something he talks about with his peers.”
“And does Miss Hunt know?” she asked.
“Good Lord, no!”
“And yet,” she said, “you are to marry her.”