A Certain Magic (25 page)

“Good Lord,” he said. “Do we know that many people?” 

“We do not wish to give offense by omitting anyone,” she said.

“Ah, of course,” he said. “You have not forgotten the sweep who cleaned my chimneys last summer, have you, Cassandra? He will be ferociously wrathful if we forget him.” He grinned at her.

“How foolish you can be,” she said. “It has been hard work to draw up the list, has it not, Mama? It is certainly no joke.”

“I do beg your pardon, my dear,” he said, making her a bow. “If it pleases you to have four hundred guests at our wedding, then proceed. I am sure there is no one I would wish to add to the list.”

“I have not included Mrs. Penhallow,” she said. “She has gone home to Bath, has she not, and would be unlikely to return for the wedding. Doubtless she would not wish to be reminded of her own widowhood, anyway. It is a pity for her sake that she is not a few years younger. Perhaps she would be able to find herself another husband if she were. But gentlemen do not like their brides to be beyond the age of twenty, do they?”

“You have done the right thing,” Piers said. “Mrs. Penhallow would not be interested in returning for our wedding.”  

“Well, then,” she said, “I must get ready to drive with Sir Clayton, sir. He was very insistent and I did have this afternoon free. You may escort Mama and me to Lady Audley’s concert this evening.”

“Thank you,” he said. “I shall look forward to it.” He did not know whether to laugh or rage as he drove away in his curricle ten minutes later. And he did not know whether he would take her over his knee the day after their wedding and give her a thorough walloping—it was almost a shame that he did not believe in wife beating—or give her the freedom she clearly desired and enjoy the greater freedom he would have as a result.

It was also something of a shame that he did not believe in marital infidelity—by either the husband or the wife. He really did not think he could tolerate his wife’s lovers—and he had a strong premonition that they would be plural—calling at his house to take her driving in the park and on to their particular lovers’ nest. 

No, of course, he would not be able to take the easy and in some ways the most desirable course. He must gird his loins for the battle of a lifetime with his future wife.

***

Alice stayed away for three months. She was fortunate enough to find just what she was looking for: a cottage that had belonged to two sisters, until one of them had died and the other had moved away to live with a married brother. The cottage was for rent. It was situated at the edge of a village only a few miles from the one Alice had had in mind. It was almost within sight of the sea.

She hired a maid and a cook from the village and settled to a life of quiet domesticity. She made friends with the rector’s wife and the local squire’s family. But she was not expected to participate in all the social life of the neighborhood, being apparently a lady in deep mourning.

She had kept her own name. If she should decide that this was where she wished to settle for the rest of her life, she had thought at first, then this was where her child would grow up. She would not wish to complicate his life by giving him a false name.

She thought about her future and about her child’s during endless walks along the cliffs and on the beach. Whatever happened, wherever she finally settled, she would tell the child the truth from the start. She would not tell anyone else. She would try at least to ensure that he was given a normal childhood, without the label of illegitimacy. But he must know that she had never been married to his father, and the sooner she told him, the better.

Whether she would also tell him who his father was, she had not decided even at the end of the three months. He would have the right to know, of course, but she hated the thought of his going to find his father when he was old enough to do so. It would be far better if Piers never knew. He would have his own family to concern himself with. And she certainly did not want him to feel obliged to find her out at that future date to make some sort of atonement.

No atonement was needed. She had had her night of love and had never regretted it, and she had been left with a priceless gift for a lifetime. At the end of the three months she was still waiting for the panic and the guilt to replace the elation. But as the signs of her pregnancy became more definite, she could only feel more deeply the warm gladness she had felt on that first morning.

Now it was even better. The morning nausea had stopped promptly at the end of the second month.

She was content where she was. She liked the thought of bringing up her child in that particular part of the world. Indeed, she would have been quite happy never to have to go back, to sever the ties with her past without any further effort. But there was a home in Bath to be sold and servants to be helped to other positions. There were possessions to be brought to Devonshire or otherwise disposed of. There were arrangements to be made about the house in London. There were a thousand other pieces of business to do.

And if she must go, she decided finally, then she should go without further delay. For in another month’s time, perhaps sooner, her condition would be becoming obvious to other people, too. She would hate to put Andrea and her other friends in the awkward position of noticing and pretending not to do so, of wondering who the father was. Andrea would guess, of course.

She would go now, much as she dreaded the thought. If she worked hard, she could complete all her business in one week. Then she could come back and forget and be forgotten. She could begin her new life in earnest.

She returned to Bath late in August.

***

Those months for Piers were neither so tranquil nor so uneventful. He was soon caught up in the whirl of the second half of the Season by the necessity of taking his betrothed about whenever no other favored gentleman was taking his place.

Mr. Bosley had the marriage contract drawn up, he declared genially, but had forgotten it at his office one afternoon when Piers called at the house. A few days later he had noticed a minor clause that had been copied wrongly and would need a little rewriting. It would be ready within a couple more days. 

Piers waited for his chance to have a talk with Cassandra. It was not easy, when very little of her time was free for her fiancé and almost none of that was private time. But they must talk, he had decided. It would not be fair to wait until after the wedding before making clear to her that he expected—and would demand—a wife who would be faithful to him in both fact and appearance, that he expected a wife who would be mistress of Westhaven and a mother to his children.

He would have to explain, of course, that he would be willing to give her pleasure, too, by taking her to London for the Season or to one of the spas for the summer months. He was prepared to give. But a marriage could not succeed on all giving, whoever was the giver. She must also be prepared to give. He must make that clear to her.

And all the time he worried about Alice. She had not been leading too busy a life in Bath. Allie was not a vaporish female. She had been sick, not tired on that morning when she had not come to the Pump Room. And she had refused to come there the following morning, though it was his last. Why? Because she had feared—or known—that she would be sick again?

For two mornings in a row?

God! 

He never did have his talk with Cassandra, after all. He arrived at Russell Square one afternoon to take her to Madame Tussaud’s to find Bosley alone in his drawing room, rubbing his hands together in apparent embarrassment. Cassandra, it seemed, had eloped that very morning with Sir Clayton Lansing, the naughty puss.

“I should cut her off without a penny,” Bosley said. He shook his head. “But such is young love, and such is an uncle’s fondness, sir, that she will doubtless succeed in wrapping me about her little finger again when she returns a married lady.”

Piers clasped his hands behind his back and pursed his lips. He concentrated on not showing any outward signs of amusement. It would be inappropriate at the moment. Lansing and young love? Cassandra and love? Bosley being wrapped about anyone’s little finger? It was all vastly diverting. He looked forward to telling Alice all about it.

But that thought sobered him in earnest.

“It is a good thing under the circumstances, my dear sir,” Bosley was saying, “that the marriage contract has not been signed. You might have taken me for my fortune if you had been an unscrupulous man.” He laughed heartily.

Well, Piers thought, if this was a stage, he could be every bit as good an actor as Bosley, and probably better. He could scarcely be worse. He delivered what he considered an affecting speech of disappointment and took his sober leave.

His mother did not seem greatly affected by his news, “Good,” she said. “Next time, Piers, perhaps you will have the wisdom to choose someone closer to your own age, and someone with your interests and vastly more sense than you.”

”I think I would prefer that there not be a next time, Mama,” he said, kissing her cheek as he took his leave of her.

“Nonsense!” she said. “The lady for you is probably under your very nose, Piers. Besides, I was foolish enough to have no other children but you. You are my only hope for grandchildren.”

Piers was on his way to Westhaven Park two days later, though he decided at the last moment to go to Bath first. Just to let Allie know. Not for any other reason. He must not conceive any hopes that he knew in advance were totally unrealistic. But he would call just to let her know. She would be glad for him.

He need not stay longer than one night.

Besides, there was something he needed to check on for his own peace of mind.

Chapter 16

“A COUSIN of Web’s in Yorkshire.” Piers frowned. 

“On his mother’s side,” Andrea explained to him. “They were very close, she said, but the cousin and his family have been traveling for the past year. Now they are home, and they want Alice with them for the summer, and even longer than that, apparently.” 

Piers continued to frown at the floor in front of his feet. 

“I thought she would write,” Andrea said. “Though of course she still may do so. She has been gone for only a month.”

“I shall go there,” he said, getting to his feet in sudden decision.

“Yorkshire is rather a large part of the country to wander over,” she said. “Do you know where to go?”

“I went there once with Web when we were young sprigs on our way to seek adventure in Scotland, “ he said. He grinned at her. “I shall tell Allie it is time she wrote to her friends.”

Andrea returned his smile. “Perhaps she will return with you,” she said. “Perhaps she will be in time to attend your wedding.” 

“Why did you not merely ask without roundaboutation?” he said, winking at her before turning toward the door. “There is to be no wedding, ma’am. The lady cried off in order to elope with an acquaintance of yours—Sir Clayton Lansing. Ah, something about young love, I believe. There is no stopping it, apparently.”

“Oh.” Andrea clasped her hands to her bosom and watched his retreating back. “I love it. And where is Clifford when I most need him? I shall burst if I do not find someone within the hour with whom to share this delightful
on dit
. I shall not pretend to commiserate with you, sir.”

”Thank you,” he said.

The next morning, Piers left early for the long journey to Yorkshire, though he knew that he was on a wild goose chase. There was indeed a cousin in Yorkshire, a reclusive misogynist who had greeted Web and him coldly and offered them neither a meal nor a bed for the night. They had laughed about it for the rest of their journey through Scotland.

And Allie had gone there? If she had, she must have gone without an invitation and doubtless would not have been welcomed. And yet after a month she had not come home again. He was as sure as he could be that there were no other relatives in Yorkshire, certainly none to whom Web had been close.

Yet if she had not gone there, where had she gone? And why? Or if she had gone there without an invitation, why had she done so? And where had she gone after she had been turned away, as she surely would have been?

He feared that he knew the answers to some of his questions.

God! Allie! Why had she not told him?

The most foolish of all his questions. Of course she would not have told him.

But where was she? England was rather a large country to search, not to mention the possibilities of Wales, Scotland, and Ireland, and perhaps even France and the Continent, he thought in somewhat of a panic when he discovered a week later that indeed she was not with the cousin in Yorkshire, and had not been there at all.

Cavendish Square? Portman Square? But no, she would not go to London. Bruce’s home in the country? No, her brother would be the last person, she would turn to under almost any circumstance, certainly the particular one he imagined she was in. 

There was only one hopeful sign. She had left her house in Bath open and functioning, with all the servants. Surely she must come back at sometime if only to settle her affairs. He could only hope it would be soon. Surely she would not stay away for the full nine months and then return alone, as if from Yorkshire. Would she?

Surely she would not do that. No, Allie would not do that.

He spent the following two months moving restlessly back and forth between Westhaven Park and Bath, with one brief journey to London to instruct his man of business to call regularly at Cavendish Square just on the chance that she would go there.

He happened to be at Westhaven Park when a short letter arrived from Andrea Potter to say that Alice was back and planning to leave again within a week in order to make her permanent home with her husband’s cousins in Yorkshire.

The following day he took his usual suite of rooms at the York House hotel.

***

It was strange that she had not wanted to come back, Alice thought, but that now she had, she felt reluctant to return to her seaside cottage. Perhaps it had something to do with the fact that it was late summer and the days were unusually sunny and warm. Or with the fact that she had established this home after leaving Chandlos and built up a circle of friends whose acquaintance she valued. Or with the fact that her home in Bath was filled with furnishings and possessions that had been with her during her marriage and before, and everything could not go with her to Devonshire. Or with the fact that Piers had been with her in Bath and the place was filled with memories of him.