Chapter Nine
“He is too small to be a proper horse,” Sophy announced, with the deep suspicion of a child offered something she wanted too much to trust.
“He is precisely as large as he intends to be,” Elias said. “It is the only honest size for anyone. A great many creatures are too small for their opinions. This one appears to keep his in proportion.”
“What is he called?” Sophy asked the pony rather than the man.
“That is for you to decide. He came without a name.”
Sophy studied the small, sturdy animal over the stable door. The pony regarded her in return with the mild patience of a creature accustomed to being inspected by children and confident of surviving it.
“Ruth thinks he should be called Bishop,” Sophy reported, “because he is fat and grey and disapproves of everything.”
“Ruth has a gift for naming things. Bishop it is.”
“Will he let me ride him today?”
“You may sit upon him at a walk, with me holding the leading rein. Proper riding comes later, when the two of you have learnt what to expect of one another.”
“I am trustworthy.”
“I am sure you are. Bishop may require proof.”
Sophy bent to whisper something into the pony’s grey ear. Bishop endured the confidence with the resignation of the truly patient.
The mews behind Harwood House smelled of clean straw, leather, and the particular sweetness of a well-kept stable. A thin, bright sun had come up over the roofs, the first clear morning in nearly a fortnight.
Victoria stood at the edge of the yard with her shawl drawn close and watched the tall man and the small girl conduct the grave ceremony of a first pony as though nothing in the world were more pressing.
Something in her chest had begun to loosen, and she was wary of where it might go if left unchecked.
“You are quiet, Mama,” Sophy called. “Are you cross about Bishop?”
“I am not cross about Bishop. I am wondering who is to teach you to ride him. I have not sat a horse in ten years and do not intend to begin again by falling before an audience.”
“I shall teach her,” Elias said. “I am not an exceptional horseman, but I care rather more that she remains safe than that she looks elegant.”
He lifted Sophy onto the stable door, keeping one hand at her back until she was steady, then withdrew it.
“There is something I wished to ask you,” he said to Victoria.
He walked with her a little way along the rail while Sophy continued her negotiations with Bishop.
“How are you bearing all this?”
The question was simple enough, and therefore difficult to evade.
“I am perfectly well,” she said.
They both heard the falseness of it. Elias did not challenge her.
The wind lifted a loose strand of hair across her cheek. He raised one hand as though to move it, then checked the gesture before it reached her.
The unfinished movement unsettled her more than the touch might have done.
“Then I shall accept the answer you have chosen to give.” He stepped back. “Come and admire the pony.”
Victoria managed the rest of the morning. She admired the pony, and praised the name, and watched Sophy make two slow circuits of the yard, Elias walking beside her with one hand near enough to steady her, but never resting upon her unless it was needed.
By evening, she had almost persuaded herself that the unfinished gesture in the yard had meant nothing.
Pruett, who had dressed her through nine years of marriage and knew every variety of silence she possessed, was less easily persuaded.
“Hold still, if you please, my lady.” She worked the tangles from Victoria’s hair with patient firmness. “You have been restless since you came upstairs.”
“I am tired.”
“No doubt.”
Pruett met her eyes briefly in the glass, then returned to the comb.
“I saw Miss Sophy upon the pony this morning. She looked very happy.”
“She was.”
“And his lordship seemed in no haste to be anywhere else.”
“He was being kind to a child, Pruett. It need not signify more than that.”
“No, my lady.”
The agreement came too readily. Victoria looked down at her hands.
After a moment, Pruett added, “I also saw him raise his hand towards you and think better of it.”
“You observe too much.”
“It is part of my work.”
“It was nothing.”
“Perhaps.”
Pruett divided Victoria’s hair and began arranging it for the night.
“A gentleman may behave properly without deserving particular notice for it,” Victoria said.
“Certainly.”
“And a woman may be grateful without making a greater matter of the feeling.”
“She may.”
Victoria turned from the glass. “You are being unusually agreeable.”
“I thought you might prefer to reach your own conclusion.”
That silenced her.
Pruett’s expression softened slightly.
“I do not presume to tell you what you feel, my lady. I only know that you no longer watch his lordship as though every kindness must conceal a demand.”
“That is not fondness.”
“No. But neither is it fear.”
Victoria lowered her eyes again.
For several moments, there was only the sound of the comb passing through her hair.
“I do not know how to want a thing without preparing to lose it,” she said at last. The admission came quietly, before she could shape it into something safer. “Every time I have allowed myself to want anything, I have learnt the cost afterwards.”
Pruett’s hands slowed in Victoria’s hair.
“I knew the late Sir Gerald well enough,” she said carefully. “I know what he taught you to expect. I cannot promise that another gentleman will never disappoint you, but you are suffering the disappointment already, my lady, before it has come.”
“Kindness at the beginning proves nothing. Gerald was careful once. He asked before he presumed, until one day he no longer did, and I could not have said when the difference began.”
“No,” Pruett agreed. “Kindness alone proves very little.”
Victoria looked at her.
“But six weeks may show whether a gentleman behaves kindly only when he is observed,” Pruett continued. “His lordship appears to take the same care when no gratitude is offered him. That is not proof of everything, but it is evidence of something.”
The distinction was too reasonable to dismiss.
“You think me foolish.”
“I think you cautious, my lady. You have had cause to be.” Pruett resumed her work. “Only take care that caution remains a servant and does not become a gaoler.”
Victoria gave her a dry look in the glass. “That is remarkably philosophical for a woman holding a comb.”
“I find a comb improves most arguments. The other person is obliged to sit still.”
Despite herself, the corner of Victoria’s mouth moved.
Pruett finished the last of the tangles and smoothed her hair into place.
“I am not advising you to trust him blindly,” she said. “Watch him. Only do not watch solely for the moment he disappoints you. You may miss everything that comes before it.”
Pruett gathered the discarded pins and stepped away.
“There. You are finished, my lady.”
Later, after speaking with Mrs Whitlock about the following day’s arrangements, Victoria returned upstairs. As she passed Sophy’s room, she found Elias standing in the doorway. He had not entered, but remained near the open doorway, looking in.
Sophy lay asleep with Ruth beneath her chin, worn out by the morning’s excitement.
“She made four circuits before luncheon,” Elias said softly. “The last two with very little assistance, though I should not tell her so until tomorrow. She may grow frightened retroactively, which is the worst kind.”
“She was very proud of herself.”
“She had cause.”
He looked back into the room.
“She fell once upon the straw and climbed up again before I could reach her. I have seldom admired anyone more.”
Victoria watched him for a moment.
“You need not remain in the passage.”
His gaze returned to hers. “No?”
“You may go in. She would not object.”
Something in his expression altered, though he made no immediate move towards the threshold.
“I meant only to say good night.”
“Then say it.”
He entered quietly and drew the coverlet higher over Sophy’s shoulder, careful not to disturb her. It was an ordinary gesture, almost nothing, yet Victoria felt its weight.
When he returned to the doorway, he stopped at the distance he always kept.
“Thank you,” he said.
“For admitting you to a nursery?”
“For knowing that I wished to be admitted.”
The answer reached further than she was prepared to acknowledge.
“Good night, Elias.”
“Good night, Victoria.”
She returned to her room and closed the door, but did not lock it.
She told herself that the key lay too far across the room and that she was tired.
For the night, she allowed the explanation to remain unexamined.