Chapter 16 #2
“Barrett’s spa? Hope you like iron in yer water,” the coachman called back, but he turned the horses and led them across the small wooden bridge to the pump room nestled in its river meadow in a small bower of trees.
Nothing so grand as Thompson’s spa, or the designs Dante was drawing up for Lord Sherborne’s spa, but the number of other carriages and the people strolling about with their parasols and hats against the sun said their late afternoon visit would not lack for company.
The strong smells of earth and metal made Cerys’s stomach turn over. How long would he allow her to ponder before Dante wanted an answer? And what would she say?
She knew what she wanted to say. Her answer crept around her throat like a fur stole warming her neck, whispering in her ear. She’d known what she wanted to say to him the moment he asked. Then again when he kissed her.
But she was afraid to be hurt. She was afraid he loved a thought of her, a dream he’d created, and he didn’t know the real Cerys Evans at all.
Tryphenie made a face as she sipped the water drawn for her by the attendant behind the wooden counter. The tumblers held the ochre trace of drinks past. “That’s iron in the water, all right.”
“It’s more sparkly than Mr. Thompson’s,” Dot said, sniffing. “But for heaven’s sake, don’t tell him that. I’ve never met a more competitive man.”
“There is five times more iron in the well here than in the waters at Tunbridge.” A well-dressed young man who had been inspecting the pipes joined their group without preamble.
“May I?” He sniffed Rhoda’s glass without waiting for her assent, unconcerned with any notions of etiquette, or that he lacked a proper introduction.
“The sulphuric acid is discoverable, of course, without the aid of chemistry,” he proclaimed. “But the carbonic acid gas is what contributes that sparkling, lively quality. There is not as much in this water as you will find in the Pouhon spring in Spa, but all the same—”
“Yes, yes, nothing compares to the Ardennes. Winston, don’t be a bore.”
A merry voice broke in, and Cerys recognized the young woman she had passed days earlier on her walk down High Street, the girl who had seemed to take note of Cerys. The other smiled, cordial and charming.
“You will not recall meeting me, Miss Evans, it was two Seasons ago. But I am Miss Wade, and this is my brother, Winston.”
“I am a chemist.” Winston held up a beaker filled with yellowish brown sediment clinging to the bottom and a layer of water sparkling atop. “Fothergill inspected the water here some twenty years ago, and I decided to conduct a new analysis to see how our results compare.”
Miss Wade looked around the group, taking their measure the way well-born young ladies were trained to do.
“London,” she said to Cerys, though her smile faltered at the edges.
“Lady Penrydd held a ball. It was quite a crush, I remember—the Marchioness of Waringford was there. And Louisa Brunton, though she was already Lady Craven at the time?”
“Of course I remember you, Miss Wade.” Though she didn’t; so many of those balls and parties in London were a remote blur in Cerys’s mind. “Louisa Brunton was my inspiration for Beatrice,” she explained to Mame.
Mame’s eyebrows rose. “You’ve spoken of London, but not the balls and the high and mighty ladies.”
“Oh, Miss Evans has many high friends, do you not? Lady Baeccon has simply gone on and on about you.”
“You are acquainted with Lady Baeccon?” Cerys froze with the tumbler half-lifted to her lips, nose stinging from the odor.
“I would not claim to know her well,” Miss Wade hurried to say.
“But I met her about, and she seems to have taken something of a fancy to me. Of course your name came up in discussion—everyone is talking about your Hamlet. And when I said I had made your acquaintance in London, her ladyship was ever so insistent to know everything I could tell her about you.”
Miss Wade smiled charmingly. “It is very presumptuous of me, I know, but I did feel we struck it off well. As long as you don’t hold my brother against me.” They all watched as Winston took her tumbler from Tryphenie, all but stuck his nose in it, then returned her drink.
“There are some of us here,” Mame remarked, “who also want to hear everything you know of our Cerys. And all the fine people she knows.”
“No one of great import,” Cerys lied. It was not as though she’d tried to hide anything from Dorsey’s group.
She’d simply never needed to discuss her past; none of them did.
Cerys had wanted to free herself from everything that once defined her.
The goal was to discover who she was all on her own, when she could be a girl of her own fashioning.
She’d discovered she was the same old Cerys. But she’d grown and changed a great deal in the past two years, and the things she’d always thought she wanted—excitement, travel, novelty, the admiration of an audience—were those still the things she wanted now?
“We always knew Cerys was a fine lady,” Rhoda said. “On account of her airs. She is always Lady Grace when we do The Provoked Husband.”
“Oh, she was quite the pet of Lord and Lady Penrydd.” Miss Wade turned to Rhoda eagerly. “I found her much admired in London.”
“Praised for my artless and rustic manner, I believe,” Cerys said. “I had not the polish to succeed among the ton. It was clear I was brought up in the country.”
She watched the faces of her friends, afraid to see them changing toward her. Everything she’d relied on seemed to be shifting so quickly; she couldn’t find firm ground beneath her feet.
“And that grand old abbey your parents have in Newport.” Miss Wade, for some reason, seemed determined to praise her.
“What a marvel it is! Winston and I visited last year. Our aunt is the most ardent admirer of Mr. Wordsworth and wanted to see his Tintern Abbey, and our guidebook on the picturesque said we must not miss St. Sefin’s of Newport.
I heard mention of Penrydd Castle and so mentioned that I knew you, and they could not ask me enough questions about how you went about in London, and whether I had seen you since. ”
The girl’s eyes twinkled. “Indeed, I was given a private tour, and I might have held in these very hands the fabulous medieval treasures that were discovered there.” She spread out her gloved hands, dainty palms up.
Cerys felt the smile curve her lips. “I recall that day. That discovery changed the fortunes of St. Sefin’s, of a certain.”
But so had her mother admitting she loved Evans and consenting to give him her hand in marriage.
Gwen’s meeting Penrydd, who’d once owned the place, changed all of their fortunes for the better.
Those two women offered proof that marriage could be a state of great felicity. When the man was devoted and true.
“Oh, there is her ladyship! I wondered where she had gone to. She’ll be ever so gratified that we found you.” Miss Wade brightened as she looked across the room. “Winston, do go bring Lady Baeccon—oh, never mind, she has seen us already.”
“Lady Baeccon is here?” The taste in Cerys’s mouth turned bitter. She did not want to see Bathsheba Baeccon, not when Cerys had so recently left the arms of the man who had once held and loved Bathsheba.
What if he did not love Cerys, could never love Cerys, the way he had once loved another? What if her ladyship had indeed broken his spirit and left him the bitter crust of a man? Could Cerys be happy spending her life with a shadow?
“Oh, she won’t make us leave yet, will she?” Winston exclaimed. “I have several more samples I would like to collect.”
“You came with her?” Cerys asked. She sounded like a mockingbird echoing sounds, no thoughts of its own.
“Yes, she brought her coach to town, which is terribly convenient as it can be such a trial to hire one. And our aunt is the hardiest soul, she would prefer to walk everywhere she can.” Miss Wade wrinkled her nose.
Her ladyship spotted them and was bearing down.
Bathsheba wore yet another ensemble taken directly from the latest fashion plate, a long pelisse of amber-colored velvet trimmed with what appeared to be Astracan fur, a lambswool from Persia.
Her sleeves had the pointy lace of Spanish cuffs and her Algerian helmet hat, more velvet trimmed with fur, gave her a vaguely martial appearance.
Her dark eyes glittered as she breached their circle.
“Miss Evans.” Her ladyship made no effort at polite greetings, indeed gave no acknowledgement of the others. “I have been learning much about you from your friend.”
“How delighted I am that Miss Wade would consider me a friend.” Cerys, at least, was determined to be polite. “I am surprised to find you here, Lady Baeccon, considering how very many spas there are to be found in Cheltenham, and it is not the most fashionable hour for taking the waters.”
“You went to Dante’s house today,” Bathsheba said. “They told us at Suffolk House where you had gone. The ones you had not included in your invitation.”
She delivered the words as an accusation, and Cerys found herself rising to the defense.
“Dante extended the invitation. Dorsey stayed behind with some of the men to spend the day making improvements to our stage, and Lady Diana had another obligation.” The obligation was not to be inconvenienced by the noise and fuss of house building, or by the mud and weather of a picnic, with a too-warm sun or a too-chill breeze.
“You spent the day with him.”
Ah, so that was the fly goading her. Cerys simply nodded and curled her hands around her tumbler, prepared to give nothing away.
“He’s made our Cerys an offer of marriage,” Dot said. She hated Bathsheba’s lofty attitude and was the first to rise to it.
Everyone in the circle froze in tableau, as if struck by the wrath leaping in Lady Baeccon’s eyes.
“He wants to marry you,” Bathsheba repeated, and was that hurt in her tone?