Chapter 10 A Rehearsal And A Kiss
Jamie felt unaccountably nervous. He had, in truth, been increasingly out of sorts the whole way from Staineybank.
A good fire and an excellent claret had mellowed him somewhat, and a bath and a change of clothes had made him more comfortable, yet he was still nervous. Terrified, if the truth were told.
At first, dinner went well, for the hotel cooks were excellent and the wine cellar even better. Jamie served and Georgie talked and they both ate and drank, and he thought perhaps his silence would pass unnoticed.
But then Georgie said, “You’re very subdued, Jamie. Having second thoughts about this marriage?”
“No! Oh, no, not in the slightest, no. But… this is the point of no return,” he said, trying to will himself to calmness and not quite succeeding.
“Tomorrow we will arrive at Oxford, and must present ourselves in a state of… exhilaration, shall we say, sufficient to account for wanting to rush out and obtain a licence to marry immediately. I… well, it seems to me that we should prepare ourselves.”
“I am prepared,” she said with a gentle smile. “Aren’t you?”
“Yes! Of course… in mind, certainly, but what I mean is, I think perhaps we ought to rehearse what we will say.”
“I see. I suppose we will say that we discovered a mutual affection and so we decided to marry,” she said, tilting her head to one side. “Is that the sort of thing you mean?”
“Not exactly. It seems to me… I hope this will not seem presumptuous, but… I feel… Oh dear, this is so awkward.”
She chuckled. “Oh, Jamie! Surely we have passed the point of awkwardness? Aren’t we friends?”
“Oh yes, I hope so.”
“Then tell me what troubles you.”
He sighed. “I think we should say and do exactly those things we would have said and done if our story were true. Then, if either of us is asked how it all came about, we will have a ready answer and we will both have the same answer. If you understand me.”
“You mean that you should declare your secret passion for me? And then I declare mine for you?”
“Yes. The exact words, so that if the Merrington ladies should say to you, ‘How did he declare himself?’, you will be able to answer without hesitation. Nothing could be more ticklish than to be obliged to invent something on the spot, and there is the risk that we will be asked separately and—”
“Yes, yes, I see just what you mean,” she said. “Very well. You’d better go first, then.”
He coughed self-consciously. “I am… not terribly good at speeches, so I wrote something down. Do you mind?”
“Not at all. I am all admiration for your forethought. Very well. Let us suppose that we have eaten well and you have drunk a little too well, and are buoyed up by good claret and finding yourself alone with me. What then will you say?”
He pulled out the half sheet of paper, and, clearing his throat, began to read.
‘Mrs Hastings… Georgie… I can be silent no longer. You must allow me to tell you that these last few weeks have brought me to the greatest admiration for your ladylike manners, your sterling character and your most attractive person. I have—”
“I think I should make some response at this point, don’t you? Something to the effect of ‘La, Mr Hammond, this is most unexpected.’ Although perhaps I shouldn’t say ‘La’. That sounds affected, doesn’t it?”
Jamie felt laughter bubbling up. “A little. Let us agree that you express surprise. I shall continue, then. ‘I have come to appreciate your many good qualities, and to think of you as the one person who embodies all my ideals of womanhood.’ That is quite felicitously worded, is it not?”
“Oh, very much so. I think I would be silent with astonishment at this point.”
“Is it so astonishing?” he said, surprised.
“That anyone sees me as an ideal of anything? It is positively astounding.”
“I think you underestimate yourself,” he said, amused. “If I were asked to choose one woman to marry from all the ladies at Staineybank, you would be my first choice every time.”
“Really? When Lily and Rowena are diamonds of the first water, Lady Juliet is an aristocrat and the Merrington sisters are such entertaining characters? I am such a drab, ordinary and downright uninteresting person by comparison.”
He removed his spectacles, frowning as he pondered how to explain it.
“Ordinary… yes, you are that, in a way, but also quite extraordinary. There are women like you the length and breadth of England, sensible, hard-working, unpretentious, just getting on with life. Celebrating with quiet restraint when things go well, and not complaining when they go wrong. As constant and steady as the evening star, and just as reliable. What could be better suited to a man like me, who epitomises ordinariness himself?”
“Well!” she said, her eyes round. “You have now made me a prettier speech than the one you wrote… although that was indeed felicitously worded, but I think I like the second one better. ‘Steady as the evening star’… I like that. It is better than mere beauty, I think, which fades with time.”
“Oh, but you have that, too,” he said. “It is not the sort of beauty that turns men’s heads whenever a woman walks down the street, but that would be wearing, I think.
Yours is more of a glow that lights up your face when you are excited or amused or pleased about something.
And your hair, of course. You have the most glorious hair. ”
He reached across the table to touch a strand which had worked its way loose.
She blushed and lowered her eyes. “So Henry always said. He liked to touch it… to wind it round his fingers.”
“He had excellent taste then, your Henry.”
She blushed more deeply. “We shouldn’t talk about Henry. He’s dead and gone, and… and my life will be… different now.”
He licked his lips, feeling his stomach churning again, but some things needed to be said.
“Georgie… I know this is difficult for you, but I should not like you to feel you cannot mention him. He made you very happy, and that is a wonderful thing for you to remember. I have no intention of trying to dislodge him from your memory or your heart, so please talk about him whenever you wish. And if you have mementos of your life together, I want you to keep them openly, not hidden away. Do you understand?”
She nodded, still not looking him in the eye.
“You need not tell me anything private, of course,” he went on, “but I should love it if you share other memories of him. On special days — his birthday, or your wedding anniversary, say — I should be very happy to celebrate it just as you have always done. And it would please me if you continue to wear his wedding ring after we are married.”
She looked up then, her eyes filled with laughter. “That would be a sensible economy.”
“I did not mean— Oh! You are teasing me.”
“A little, yes. I don’t mind keeping his ring, but I thought you might mind it.”
“I have no wish to… to sweep him out of your life as if he never existed,” he said.
“You’re very good. I don’t have many mementos of him,” she said quietly. “His clothes were all sold, he left his watch and fobs to a cousin, and he never wrote me any letters. All I have is this.”
She opened her reticule and pulled out a miniature, a man’s silhouette in a delicate gold frame.
“It’s not very good, but it’s all I have left of him now.”
Jamie examined it closely, seeing only the outline of a man with a larger than average nose. “I cannot speak to the likeness, but it is beautifully set. This frame is exquisite.”
“It is pretty, isn’t it? My uncle had them made for us as a wedding gift.”
“Them? So there is a companion miniature of you?”
“There was, once, but Henry must have lost it for it was not amongst his things when he died. It was a better likeness, too.”
“Your uncle… is he still alive?”
She shook her head, real sadness in her expression.
“Poor Uncle Claud! No, he died very soon after our wedding. He was not even well enough to give me away, and Mr Clark had to do it instead. Henry had vast numbers of aunts, uncles and cousins in Northamptonshire, but none of them bothered to come to the wedding, and Northampton is not so far from Oxford, is it? But they were never a close family.”
He placed the miniature carefully back in her hand. “Fifty miles or so. Maybe sixty. Is that where he came from? Or was he an Oxford man?”
“He only moved to Oxford when his widowed mother died. He lived with his wealthy aunt, who promised to leave him her fortune. I suppose I should go to see her, to tell her that I’ll be marrying again.
She never liked me, so she’ll be glad to see the back of me, I’m sure.
Well, I think we’ve probably said enough to rustle up a believable story about our marriage, so if you don’t mind, I think I’ll head for bed, and fortify myself for another day on the road. ”
“I shall fortify myself first with a glass or two of brandy, I think,” Jamie said, and was pleased when she smiled in response.
“How appropriate.”
It felt like a private joke. But when she rose and made for the door, he intercepted her.
“Georgie… you have been very alone, I think. No parents, no relations apart from your uncle, and an aunt of Henry’s who was not someone you could depend on.”
“I had friends,” she said. “Rowena, my neighbours, people from church…”
“But that is not like family,” he said softly. “Family is so important… but I shall be your family now.”
He took her face in his hands, and because his heart was full and he wanted her to understand that he meant every word, he leaned forward and kissed her gently.
“I will take good care of you,” he whispered, and kissed her again.
And she smiled up at him. “Thank you, Jamie.”
Then she was gone, and he was left to muse on the strangely unsettling prospect of being married, and how his life was about to change in ways he could not begin to fathom.
***