CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Actually composing a letter to his best friend proved quite difficult, and Lord Godmanchester remained closeted in his study for the best part of the following morning before he managed an epistle that he considered neither too depressing nor giving false hope.
In addition, he was at a loss as to how to gauge Elizabeth’s state of mind.
Helen had made her views clear to him, but he wondered how much his dear wife was inclined to the romantic, and merely wishing that a happy outcome could be achieved.
She believed what she said, but was it self-delusion?
Elizabeth’s misery was plain, but he had no solid reason to assume that a letter from Lucius would make things better even to the degree that she would face him, let alone cast herself into his arms, accept his offer and start ordering bride clothes.
Helen is blooming, and I am so glad that she agreed to return to the country.
Elizabeth also is better, in that her hand now gives her only slight discomfort, though it precludes her from riding as yet.
The local doctor, a sound man, is removing the stitches tomorrow.
However, she is clearly in very low spirits, and shows a very poor appetite.
Your name has not been mentioned in her presence, but my darling wife now thinks that this moratorium may come to an end, and has suggested that you might care to write to explain yourself at the week’s end.
In all truth, Lucius, I do not know how your missive will be received.
The workings of the female mind are a mystery unto me as to every other man, married or not.
Helen assures me that she thinks your situation far from hopeless, but whether that is feminine intuition or wishful thinking I do not know.
I can only say ‘nothing ventured, nothing gained’ and wish you the very best of good fortune.
I know that Helen will make every effort both to get Elizabeth to read it and to accede to seeing you here.
He then concluded by hoping that his friend had not been driven into Bedlam by the frustrations of having to bide his time in inactivity, and remained etc etc.
It was not, it had to be said, a long letter for so many hours’ work, but at least it had not been cast into the fireplace as its predecessors had been, and Lord Godmanchester sealed and franked it in a positive frame of mind.
329Sir Lucius Radstock was doing a fair impression of the caged beasts at the Royal Exchange, pacing up and down the drawing room until his mother took him to task.
‘For Heaven’s sake, do stand still or sit down, Lucius. You are giving me the headache.’
‘I am sorry, Mama. I was thinking.’
‘Surely you can think standing still?’
He sat upon the edge of a chair and leant forward, hands clasped together, resting his chin upon them. ‘I had a letter from Thornby.’
‘And?’
‘Giles suggests I wait until the end of the week before even writing to her.’
‘Is the young woman in some form of quarantine, then?’
‘From me, yes, it seems.’
‘Forgive me, but why should you still wish to press your suit upon a girl who seems to be doing her best to forget you walk the same earth?’
‘Because I happen to think we would be very happy together; because I do not know whether she wants to forget me or just thinks that she ought because I am a man, and, ergo, untrustworthy, and for which I fear I have inadvertently given her cause; and because I love her.’
‘You are sure, my son?’
‘As certain as I am of anything in this world. I never felt this way before, I admit. The “passions” of my youth were short, sharp and shallow. I do not just want her, Mama; I want to guard her from the world, make her happy, see her eyes light up with joy, dry her tears. Oh, everything.’
330‘It does seem a very comprehensive list.’ Lady Radstock paused. ‘And what if she will not have you, Lucius?’
‘I do not know, Mama, I truly do not know.’
Setting pen to paper actually proved one of the most difficult things Lucius Radstock had ever done.
There was so much that he wanted to say, needed to say, and yet it crowded his mind so much that making sense of it all, let alone conveying it in a way that would lead to Elizabeth Ashling agreeing to meet him face to face, seemed impossible.
Sheets of screwed-up paper littered his desk and tumbled on the floor like so many snowballs.
Several times the ink dried upon the nib as it was poised but not put to scribe the next phrase.
Even the salutation proved a trial. ‘Dear Miss Ashling’ might be correct, but to his mind he could as well have been requesting the settlement of a bill.
‘My dear Miss Ashling’ sounded better, but would she consider it presumptuous or patronising?
It did have the advantage of being true, for she was very dear to him.
He only wished he might scribe ‘My darling Elizabeth’, but this made him gloomier than ever, for surely he would never now have that right.
He sighed, putting down the pen and running his hand through his ordered locks.
If he made a mull of this, everything was at an end, and it was so very difficult.
He took a deep breath, and picked up the pen once more.
My dear Miss Ashling,
I entreat you to read this, and not simply discard it in your understandable wrath.
I am left unable to 331give you the truth by any other means, and a true explanation is both what you deserve and what I cannot bear that you do not possess.
You have become aware of certain facts in a manner that has left you believing them to be a total betrayal of your trust, your friendship, and even malicious in intent. I swear to you that …
He stopped. How could he swear he had never intended any such thing, when he recalled what he had felt at that moment of stupid peevishness? How bitterly he regretted that transient thought. He took a fresh sheet and began again.
… I value your trust and friendship. Indeed, I can only assure you that your happiness has become paramount with me, and I would not do anything to jeopardise it.
The bare facts that you threw at me are true.
I cannot deny either, and in the matter of the mare see no reason why I should wish to do so, since I did not conceal my purchase to deceive you, but so that you would not feel in any way obliged to me.
However, I was indeed the man who gave you the name ‘the Unassailable’, but unintentionally so, though you may not believe it.
It was half-uttered and retracted in a moment of annoyance, and I did not think it was overheard.
You cannot know how bitterly I have regretted it.
You had just danced with me, that evening when I thought I had assisted you by sending off young Escott.
I had, in my masculine 332arrogance, expected some small degree of thanks, and your response was frosty.
I recalled the first words I had ever heard you utter, that you would ‘grant men nothing’, and it was fatally easy to see you as one of those women with a natural antipathy to the male sex.
I did not think to consider that there might be a good reason for such an attitude.
In that one foolish, and, I fear, unforgivable, moment I did, yes, think it would serve you aright if you had to hold more gentlemen at arm’s length.
I am ashamed to admit it, but I have said you deserve the truth.
I knew my error about you so very soon afterwards, from the first time I saw you in the park, mounted upon that awful hired hack.
You were a different person, a real person, not just a wooden ‘doll’.
It was too late, even then, to quash the title ‘the Unassailable’, but I made every effort to prevent your name being bandied about.
That it led to men of the stamp of Easby ‘pursuing’ you is something that I accept may be beyond your forgiveness, since I cannot forgive myself.
My actions, when I came upon the extent of his impertinence towards you, were entirely spontaneous, and those of a gentleman, though the murderous anger would have been less had you not been so precious to me.
The other accusation is that I used subterfuge to provide you with a mount.
Of this I am not, and will not, be ashamed.
You have viewed it as an attempt to deceive you, use you in some way, but you are completely mistaken.
I bought the grey mare 333because I was so appalled at a true horsewoman being forced to ride such an animal as had been provided for you, and then also because I knew I had done you a great disservice, and providing you with a horse that might give you pleasure might, though anonymous, atone in some way for my ‘sin’.
The world at large would not accept such a gift as permissible so subterfuge was my sole recourse.
Since you were not to know of my action, it was clearly not intended to make you think the better of me.
Lady Jersey’s party haunts me. I had such hopes, such honourable hopes, and they were dashed in an instant by your disgust and anger. I was not thinking, and compounded my folly by letting my feelings dictate my words, making you an offer that was so abhorrent that it led to your injury.
His mind was suddenly flooded with the remembrance of her in his arms. At the time it had been a practical act, but now he recalled the lightness of her weight, the touch of her hair brushing his cheek as her head lay against his shoulder. His throat tightened.
My cause is surely lost. Even aspiring to your mildest regard is ambitious.
Yet I have to tell you that I have never felt for any woman what I feel for you, and that the life that seemed perfectly contented is now revealed as empty because I know you cannot bring yourself to be part of it, Elizabeth.
Forgive the intemperate words; you have to know the truth of me.