Chapter 22
The following morning found Aurelia in a state of expectation which she would frown upon in any other woman.
It was not, she told herself, that she was eager for Owen’s visit.
It was only that his letter had left certain matters unsettled, and she wished to answer them with the seriousness they deserved.
The distinction was a fine one, but Aurelia had long been accustomed to surviving upon fine distinctions.
Unfortunately, Clara was not disposed to allow her any dignity in the matter.
“Oh, that gown,” she cried, clasping her hands as Aurelia turned from the glass. “Yes, that is the one. Not too fine, but very becoming. Lord Westbridge will think you look exactly as a heroine ought to look when escorted to a gallery.”
“A heroine who has had the good sense to choose brown silk,” Aurelia replied.
“Brown silk may be very romantic when worn by the right person.”
“Then I pity the decline of standards in romance.”
Clara laughed and spun once about the room. “You may speak as dryly as you please, but I know you are pleased. You have been smiling at nothing all morning.”
Aurelia bent to fasten her glove, chiefly to hide her face. “I was thinking of something amusing.”
“Yes … Lord Westbridge.”
Aurelia frowned. “Clara.”
“Well, Captain Harrow says he is a very grave man, and grave men are always most interesting when they begin to be less grave. I think you are improving him.”
“Oh?” Aurelia resisted the temptation to smile. “I was not aware he had been entrusted to me for correction.”
“No, only for courtship,” Clara corrected with wicked innocence.
Aurelia ought to have rebuked her. Instead, she laughed, and the sound surprised her by its lightness.
There had been a time, not very long ago, when preparing for an outing in London had felt like arming herself for inspection.
Every ribbon, every glove, every word she might later speak had seemed liable to become evidence against her.
That morning, though caution remained, something else had entered the ritual. Anticipation moved through her quietly, like sunlight crossing a floor.
When Owen was announced about fifteen minutes later, Aurelia descended with more composure than she felt. He was standing in the drawing room beside Captain Harrow, with his hat in one hand. His dark coat was severe enough to make every softer thing in the room appear frivolous.
Yet when his gaze met hers, the severity altered. It didn’t vanish, for he was not a man easily transformed. But something warmed in his expression, and Aurelia felt the effect of it with a foolish quickening of the heart.
“Miss Finch,” he greeted her, bowing.
“My lord.”
The exchange was nothing. Two words each, spoken before witnesses. Yet it seemed to Aurelia that their letters stood invisibly between them, altering every formality until it carried more meaning than civility alone could bear.
Clara and Captain Harrow were soon in lively conversation, and by the time the party set out, it had arranged itself as it so often did: the younger pair ahead, with their happiness barely contained by propriety, and Aurelia with Owen a little behind, near enough to serve as chaperone and far enough to permit conversation.
The gallery of their choice was the British Institution on Pall Mall, which smelled faintly of varnish, dust, and damp wool from the cloaks of visitors. Light fell from tall windows in pale sheets, touching gilt frames, marble busts, and polished floors worn by generations of careful steps.
Voices moved softly beneath the ceiling. No one laughed loudly there. Even the most frivolous seemed subdued before so many painted faces and solemn landscapes.
For some time, they spoke of ordinary things: Clara’s delight in the outing and Captain Harrow’s inability to admire anything silently.
But Aurelia was conscious, beneath every light remark, of the question Owen had put to her in his last letter: whether she wished to continue and whether the danger had grown too great.
At last, before a quiet landscape of a road curving into evening trees, she spoke. “You asked whether I wished to stop.”
He turned to her at once. “I did.”
“I have considered it.”
His expression remained composed, but she saw the attention sharpen in his eyes. “And?”
“And I cannot stop.”
He said nothing, which gave her courage.
“I do not say that without understanding what may follow. General Langley’s warning was not empty, and I know very well that Charlotte watches me. I know, too, that Clara may suffer from any renewed whisper attached to my name. That knowledge troubles me more than I can easily express.”
Her fingers tightened around the handle of her reticule.
“But my mother’s life was broken by this.
My father died with questions still in his hands and no answers granted to him.
We have lived for years beneath a cloud made by other people’s cowardice, and I cannot, now that I have come so near the edge of truth, consent to step back merely because those same people wish me frightened. ”
His face softened with a gravity that was almost tenderness.
“Aurelia …”
The use of her Christian name was so quiet, so unplanned, that neither of them seemed prepared for it. He stopped at once, his jaw tightening as though he had committed some breach beyond repair. But Aurelia did not correct him. The omission hung between them, delicate and dangerous.
“My life has already been altered by their silence,” she continued, though her voice was not quite as steady as before. “So has my mother’s. If I leave the matter now, I do not think peace will follow, only regret.”
For a moment, he seemed unable to answer. Then he said, low enough that no passer-by could hear. “I admire your courage.”
Aurelia looked down, absurdly moved.
“I am not certain it is courage. It may be obstinacy.”
“I have known both in men,” he assured her. “They are not so often confused as the obstinate like to suppose.”
She smiled despite herself. “Then I must hope I have chosen the better quality.”
“You have.”
His certainty touched her more deeply than praise. Praise could be scattered by politeness, while certainty required conviction.
They moved on, and gradually the heaviness of the conversation gave way to something easier.
Paintings invited disagreement, and disagreement with Owen proved surprisingly pleasurable.
He admired force, movement, the difficult dignity of human action captured at its highest pitch.
She preferred atmosphere, truth of light, the suggestion of feeling in a field, a river, a clouded sky.
“You would have every painting behave like a confession,” she spoke after he had praised a dramatic battle scene for the third time.
“And you would have every painting behave like a secret.”
“A secret may be truer than a declaration.”
“A declaration may be braver.”
“Not if it declares falsely,” she countered.
He looked at her then with sudden amusement. “You argue like a barrister.”
“And you judge like a general.”
He frowned. “I hope not.”
The words were simple, but something shadowed them. Aurelia’s smile faded. She followed his gaze to the next painting, before which several visitors had paused in sober admiration.
The Death of General Wolfe.
Even before she knew the title, she felt the gravity of it. The dying officer lay pale and noble at the center, surrounded by men arranged in attitudes of grief, reverence, and solemn devotion. It was a battlefield transformed into theater, death rendered graceful, with sacrifice framed in light.
Owen had gone very still. Aurelia watched him rather than the painting.
She saw the change come over him, which wasn’t visible enough to attract notice, but clear to her.
His shoulders remained straight, but his eyes had withdrawn from the room.
He was no longer standing in a London gallery with her.
He had gone somewhere else, somewhere louder, darker, and far less clean than the painted scene before them.
“It is much admired,” she said softly.
“Yes,” he nodded without looking at her.
“Do … you admire it?”
He was silent so long she thought he might not answer.
Then, she heard him. “As a painting, perhaps.”
“And as a truth?”
His mouth tightened. “No.”
The single word held more than speech.
Aurelia turned back to the canvas. “It shows grief.”
“It shows grief arranged for comfort.”
She looked at him.
He spoke without taking his eyes from the painting. “No man dies so conveniently for composition. No field waits for nobility to arrange itself. There is mud, noise, terror, confusion. Men call for water, for mothers, for God, for no one at all. Some are brave. Some are not. Most are merely young.”
Aurelia felt her throat tighten.
“And yet,” he continued more quietly, “this is what people prefer … a noble death, a clean sacrifice, something that may be hung upon a wall and admired after dinner.”
His voice did not break. That almost made it worse.
Aurelia had no comfort adequate to such a confession. Words seemed suddenly poor things, too easily polished, too much like the painting itself. Without thinking, she placed her gloved hand upon his arm. He looked down at it.
Only then did she realize what she had done.
She ought to have withdrawn immediately.
They were in public. Their courtship was false, whatever society believed and whatever her own foolish heart had begun to find in it.
Yet she did not move. Beneath her fingers, she felt the firmness of his sleeve, the warmth of him, the slightest tension held in check by discipline.
“I am sorry,” she whispered.
His gaze lifted to hers. “For what?”
“For what you have seen.”
Something in his face altered then. It was not quite a smile, though it held gratitude. Nor was it quite sorrow, though sorrow lay beneath it. He looked at her as if she had reached him from a great distance and he had not known, until that moment, how far away he had been.