CHAPTER FOUR #2
Jack’s full attention returned to his surroundings when he reached the lane leading to the village of Tuddwell.
It was still deeply rutted from winter inclemencies, and narrow enough to ensure that no road hazard could be bypassed by the most skilful driver living.
The dimension and extent of the tree root that must have caused his downfall, combined with its location on a blind curve, afforded him a perverse satisfaction.
Only someone intimately acquainted with the area could have negotiated the lane that night without coming to grief, and that only by keeping his horses to a walk.
Buoyed up by the knowledge that he’d been as much unlucky as inept, Jack reined in Atlas and surveyed his surroundings.
It proved a pleasant exercise. A hedgerow of hawthorn just coming into bud separated two ploughed fields on one side of the lane while a fence ran along the other.
The culprit in the accident was a regal chestnut tree, its massive trunk gracing a fenced area of lawn and prepared flower beds, but the undulating fence indicated the presence of roots that would not be confined inside the lawn.
Jack spotted a gate that he assumed was the entrance to Wellstead Farm.
Huckston must have brought him out by another entrance in the carriage, because this was clearly a walkway.
Hoping Mrs. Marsh would not object to Atlas walking through her garden, he went inside, leaning down to latch the gate behind him.
He didn’t have far to go, he discovered, as the path angled sharply beyond the chestnut tree, revealing the front of the house facing the lane.
Had he approached from the village he’d have seen it before reaching the fateful curve.
Jack liked what he saw. The Marsh house was built of honey-coloured stone, foursquare and well proportioned with no pretensions to architectural elegance.
It stood in friendly proximity to various efficient-looking outbuildings that were as neat as the house.
No missing roof tiles or leaning fences marred the spruce image of Wellstead Farm.
The late Mr. Marsh had obviously employed a capable farm manager; there was an air of prosperity about the property that was reassuring.
Jack rode up to the front entrance and dismounted, holding Atlas’s reins as he plied the knocker, disturbing the dreamlike quiet that wrapped the property on this early spring afternoon. He’d heard faint sounds emanating from the chicken yard earlier but had not as yet glimpsed another human.
After a lengthy interval while Jack stood gazing back toward the portion of the equally quiet lane visible from the entrance, the door was opened by the butler who, he thought irrelevantly, had the aspect of one interrupted in mid-nap as he hastily finished buttoning his coat.
“Good afternoon, Burns. Do you remember me?”
“Indeed I do, Lord Hastings, and may I compliment you on your return to health?”
“That you may, Burns, thank you. Are the ladies at home?”
“I regret, sir, that Mrs. Marsh and Miss Laura are away at present.”
“Oh? What time are they expected back?” Perhaps he’d have a meal at the inn outside the village while he waited.
“The date of their return is not fixed, sir, but they plan to be away for upwards of two months,” Burns replied, remarking Lord Hastings’ crestfallen expression through lowered lids.
“You mean they are really away … from the area?” Jack repeated, striving to regroup mentally.
“Where have they gone?” At the butler’s hesitation, he produced a smile that he hoped exuded confidence.
“Surely Mrs. Marsh would not object to your apprising such an old friend of her destination?” he wheedled.
It might be overstating the case to describe Burns’ manner as indulgent, but there was a hint of the avuncular in his voice as he replied, “The ladies are in London at present, staying with Mrs. Marsh’s brother, Sir Oswald Albright.”
“And Sir Oswald’s address in London?”
“Sir Oswald resides in Mount Street, sir.”
“Burns, you’re a trump,” declared a beaming Jack, pressing a douceur into the butler’s hand, which he pumped heartily. “A small thank-you for your kind attentions when I was injured. Good day to you.”
Jack scarcely heard Burns’ dignified adieu, as he was already mounting Atlas, who had stood patiently through the brief conversation. “Good fellow,” Jack said, addressing his faithful steed and patting his neck affectionately.
His keen disappointment at finding the ladies from home was rapidly rebounding to elation as Jack trotted toward Tuddwell and a meal before proceeding to London.
There was ample time — perhaps a surfeit of time — on the solitary ride to town in which to analyse the events of the day and contemplate the promise of the future.
The results of his lengthy cogitations were not entirely comfortable for one not much inclined toward introspection in the ordinary way.
It was not without some reluctance that he accepted that his disappointment at not finding the Marsh women at home was somewhat excessive in a man who had convinced himself of the spontaneity of this unannounced visit to Wellstead Farm.
The previously unadmitted truth was that it had been his fixed intention to meet Laura Marsh again from the moment of his sudden departure from her home without a farewell.
His mother’s unvoiced disinclination to prolong an acquaintance with a family who, though genteel, were not socially active in the neighbourhood, had dissuaded him from raising the issue while he was recovering, but with nothing to occupy his mind, his thoughts had become homing pigeons, flying inevitably to the girl whose memory image was part real and part dream.
Confusion still clouded the days immediately following his fall.
Laura Marsh was real, but he knew not how much of his memory of her was real and how much might be the product of a series of dreams he could no longer recall in detail.
The mystery would not be cleared up today, and he must continue to possess his soul in patience.
On the other hand, the news that Laura and her mother were visiting London was most promising indeed.
Sir Oswald Albright was unknown to him, but the title and his residence in Mayfair would indicate that Mrs. Marsh had a connection to the polite world, however tenuous, which should appease his mother’s fears of a mésalliance.
As the word alliance bounced around in his head, Jack swiftly backtracked mentally.
A mother’s thoughts might swing to alliances at her son’s mere mention of a girl’s name, but his own intentions were more narrowly focused.
He simply wished to see Laura Marsh again when in possession of all his faculties, in order to assess the accuracy of his memory. The future could take care of itself.
Jack whiled away the tedium of a solitary ride to London by alternately whistling march airs and speculating idly on the reaction of Laura Marsh to an unexpected visitor to her uncle’s London house.
The Marsh women had spent the first half-hour of their journey compulsively comparing mental lists of those items now deemed essential to their comfort and wellbeing in London that might inadvertently have been left behind.
“Sukie, did you remember to pack the eau-de-nil silk scarf that we unearthed from that dark brown trunk in the attic?” Mrs. Marsh cast an anxious eye on the little housemaid who had been promoted to the position of abigail to both ladies for the duration of their stay in the city.
When the maid had reassured her on this point, she continued, “Not that I have the least idea of what to wear it with today. But that was my favourite scarf during my own come-out so many years ago,” she mused, more to herself than her traveling companions, “and yet, barely had the notion of going to London become a possibility when I instantly recalled it languishing away in that old trunk I brought from home when I was married.” She fell silent, her face settling into the lines of faint melancholy and regret that reflections on her marriage inevitably produced.
“It might set off a gown of ivory or straw or champagne, especially if you were to dye some gloves or shoes to match it,” Laura offered in an attempt to derail such thoughts.
Her mother brightened. “Yes, perhaps we might do that. The dress it matched is long gone, of course, not to mention being twenty years out of date, but I could never bear to part with the scarf. I was wearing it the night I met —” She broke off abruptly.
Laura exclaimed, “Oh dear, I have forgotten to bring my journal with me. I always record daily events in that journal — or nearly always,” she amended, babbling away to cover her mother’s embarrassment at what almost surely would have been a mention of the man she had once loved.
“Let me buy you a new journal, my dear, solely for recording your impressions and activities during this first visit to London,” Mrs. Marsh said, directing an affectionate look at her daughter.
“Thank you, Mama, I should like that.”