Barbara Metzger (10 page)

Her home, her family, her future, all gone with Digby Hines. Now here he was, sending her valentines! Martine wiped a treacherous tear from her eye and stroked the velvety petals of the rose. She should take it outside right now, before Mrs. Arbuthnot arose, before she had to watch it wither and die like her love had done at Digby’s betrayal.

Of course, she didn’t love Digby anymore. Why, she couldn’t recollect what he looked like, except for his fair hair and blue eyes. And what did an eighteen-year-old know of love anyway? she wondered now at twenty-two. Perhaps it was just infatuation, perhaps the thrill of a forbidden romance, perhaps merely an escape from her father’s rigid demands.

She hardly remembered Digby, but she did remember love. There in her solitary bed without even the cat to keep her warm, Martine recalled how it felt to be in love, believing one was loved in return. As sweet as the scent of the rose, it was, and as short-lived. But she did not take the flower back outside.

Sunday

My precious, how relieved I am not to find my flower left out in the cold, with my dreams. And now there are only five more days to be got through, although it still seems an eternity. Each day brings a new agony to me. I swore not to rush my fences, not to ask for your hand until Valentine’s Day, the perfect day for lovers, but now I live in fear that you’ll turn me down out of hand, that you’ve never forgiven me for leaving you. I find I’ve turned craven overnight, but I’d rather face another four years of French cannons than see the look you gave me that last day.

How can I explain? I loved you. You must believe me, for I have never stopped loving you. But I had nothing to offer, my dearest, only the most uncertain of futures. I couldn’t live on the outskirts of society like so many other men without fortunes, gambling to pay the rent, outrunning the bailiffs every few months. And I could not ask you to live that way. Nor could I face being supported by my wife’s income, whatever it was. Blame my pride for leaving you, not the depth of my affection.

I was determined to make a success of myself in the army, to prove my worth, but how could I ask you to follow the drum, such a tender bud that you were? And how could I marry you, knowing I was leaving, perhaps never to return? I could not, in good faith, so much as ask you to wait for me, not such a young and beautiful woman, so full of life. A soldier’s fate is too uncertain. At least I do not have that on my conscience.

I leave you this box of ribbons, paltry stuff, I know, except they might help to prove that I am not a coward, not entirely, anyway. Can you accept this token, and my poor excuses for whatever unhappiness I may have caused you?

Digby a soldier? Martine thought her memory must be faulty indeed. He’d been everything he said, when she met him in London at her come-out, a regular Bond Street beau. His shirt collars were up to his ears, and his debts were up to his eyeballs, but so were all the other young men’s. Digby was the most handsome, the most elegant, with the most practiced charm, she realized later. And she was the wealthiest heiress Out that Season.

Yes, she’d thought Digby a coward for not standing up to her father when the earl rejected his suit, and again, when Lord Halpen found them at that inn halfway to Gretna. Digby had cowered before her father’s wrath, and fled with his gold.

But here was a carved wooden box full of medals, ribbons and such, a hero’s horde. Martine lit a candle in her room, to spread them out on her bedstead as she reread that letter again and again. What did they represent? An act of valor, a battle won, an injury, a promotion? There were so many, he must have been in constant danger, trying to prove himself worthy of her. Oh, how she had misjudged him!

He must have taken her father’s money, she realized now, and bought himself a commission. She knew nothing of his ambition before that, Martine reasoned, because he would have been too proud to confess his dream, knowing he couldn’t afford it.

The woman she was now would have followed him to the ends of the earth, but he was right: the pampered debutante she was then could not have cooked hares over campfires or washed his uniforms. She would not have exchanged her gay London life for the squalor of a barracks, not by half. He was right, but not in leaving her, not in going away without an explanation, not in leaving her heart so bruised she could never love again.

Could she forgive him? Loyalty to king and country demanded it. Digby must have become one of England’s bravest soldiers, risking his life countless times. The least Martine could do was hear him out. She put the ribbons under her mattress, to think about what she should do.

Martine had never been ready for church so early before. Her hair was neatly combed under her lace cap, and her black wool gown was freshly pressed, twice. She spent the opening hymn searching for him through the pews of the little church, her eyes seeking any fair-haired man, in case she hadn’t recognized him on the first glance. There were no soldiers in uniform, no well-muscled, weathered gentlemen, no strangers whatsoever. Mrs. Arbuthnot pinched her arm and hissed at Martine to stop acting like a long-necked goose. Martine had to be content with adding his name to her prayers, thanking God for his safe return.

That night when she called George in after his last foray, Martine left a token of her own outside the door. She should return the ribbons, she told herself, and not get involved. No, she should return the ribbons and add a ha’penny, to show what she thought of him for leaving her for her father’s money. He’d been bought off, for goodness’ sake! Instead she carefully placed one of her old hair ribbons from when she wore colors next to the front step. The pretty blue ribbon with pink roses embroidered on it would seem to have been dropped by accident, or windblown there, in case he didn’t come.

Then she had to pry it out of George’s claws. “It’s not a toy, confound you.” She shrugged and tied the
bow to the door knocker. She’d be up with George long before Mrs. Arbuthnot saw this evidence of her depravity.

Monday

What noble forgiveness, my precious. Thank you from the bottom of my aching, anxious heart. I could only think of buying you these bonbons, in return for your sweet generosity of spirit.

Martine opened the parcel she’d found on the stoop that morning, along with the letter. The box contained chocolate bonbons, sugared walnuts, pink marzipan hearts with iced flowers on top. Such delicacies hadn’t come Martine’s way in ages. She popped one in her mouth. Chocolates before breakfast; now, wasn’t that decadent! Mrs. Arbuthnot would have apoplexy. Martine had another candy, then returned to the letter.

But I prayed you could forgive me, being so warm and loving. You are what we were fighting for in Spain, you know,
cara mia.
And you are what I dreamt of day and night, in those wretched tents and blood-soaked fields. I think the image of you was all that kept me sane amid the horrors of war. I wrote to you almost every day, you know. No, how could you, for I never mailed the letters. I couldn’t, when I didn’t know if I was ever to return, or if I’d come back less of a man, maimed beyond recognition like so many of my fellows. But I did write, whenever there was a pause in the
shooting, when we were back at headquarters, when I was recuperating in the hospital tent from my, thankfully, minor wounds. I told you a hundred times that I should not have left, that I should have stood by you no matter what, that war was a fool’s gamble. I was such a green youth. I didn’t know what I held until it was lost. Youth lasts but moments on a battlefield, and now I have come back, all of me in working order, to claim what should have been mine.

There are only four more days to suffer through until Valentine’s Day. I can do it, hold to my resolve, sweeting, because you deserve the most romantic valentine I can conjure.

Martine dabbed at her eyes with the corner of her bedsheet and ate another bonbon. That dear man. How proud she was of him, her hero, and how guilty she felt for having to struggle to remember the tone of his voice or the smell of his cologne. She hadn’t thought of him in months, and then only for the what-might-have-been, not the who it might have been with. She hadn’t read the war news for his name on casualty lists or recommendations. She hadn’t prayed for his safe delivery. Instead she’d cursed his very existence, as the self-serving villain who ruined her and deserted her.

“Oh, my love, can you ever forgive me?” Martine sobbed. But obviously he had; he was sending her letters and flowers and promises. And candy. She sat up and wiped her eyes. What was she going to do with the candy? Pigs would fly before she shared them with Mrs. Arbuthnot, even if Martine could explain them away as a Valentine treat she’d purchased. If she left them here, Bess would find them, or George. There was nothing for it but to eat the candies, every last one of them.

“You ain’t coming down with something, are you, gel?” Mrs. Arbuthnot demanded over lunch.

“No, ma’am. I’m just not very hungry today.”

“Well, eat anyway. I can’t abide finicky chits, you know, so don’t you go putting on airs.”

“No, ma’am. In fact, my mind has been distracted. I have been thinking of putting off my blacks. It has been four years, and I am sick of these dreary, depressing rags.”

“Twenty-two years I’ve been in mourning for Mr. Arbuthnot. It shows respect. For you, it shows your respectability.”

Martine put down her napkin. “Our neighbors know me for a decent, proper widow. There is no need to keep up this charade.”

“No!” Mrs. Arbuthnot hissed, making sure Bess had returned to the kitchen. “You’ll keep on pretending to be a devoted, grieving widow all your days, gel. Keep you from tossing your bonnet over the windmill again.” She went back to her mutton.

Martine could feel her cheeks grow warm, but she insisted: “Mrs. Arbuthnot, if I wished to toss my bonnet, it would not matter what color it was, black or red with purple ostrich feathers. I have saved some of my housekeeping money, and I am going to purchase material for a new gown this afternoon.”

“I shall write to the earl immediately after lunch!”

“And say what, that I am sinking into a life of sin because I wish a new gown?” Martine sat up straighter. “Go ahead. But be sure to ask yourself where your next meal is coming from, after he cuts me off without a farthing.” She stared pointedly at the mounds of food on Mrs. Arbuthnot’s plate, then rose from the table. “Forgive me, I find I am not feeling quite the thing after all.”

She was feeling just fine when she walked to the village shops that afternoon. Even Miss Fletcher at the Emporium noticed the roses in her cheeks, the sunshine in her smile, the bounce in her step. “It’s a man, I wager,” she whispered to her sister while Martine inspected the bolts of cloth.

“And about time, too, I swear.”

The sisters were so pleased for the gracious young widow who’d added so much to their little community that they wrapped a few bits and scraps of ribbon and lace along with the rose velvet dress length Martine chose, in case she wanted to make a valentine for her sweetheart. Martine thought she just might.

Meantime she purchased a bunch of dried rosemary with her hoarded pennies. For a new recipe she wanted to try, she told the Fletcher sisters and Mrs. Arbuthnot, who intercepted Martine in the hall before she could make her way upstairs with her parcels.

“Can’t taste any rosemary in this chicken,” the old woman complained at dinner.

“Perhaps I didn’t use enough.” And perhaps she didn’t use any, preferring to braid the rosemary into a small heart-shaped wreath she’d hidden in the bushes. Rosemary was for remembrance; everyone knew that.

After the meal Martine cut and pinned her new gown while Mrs. Arbuthnot muttered dire warnings about the wages of sin. At nine o’clock, Martine went to the kitchen to make their tea. Mrs. Arbuthnot had hers with a tot of rum every night, to help her sleep, she said. She never seemed to have any problems with that, declaring it bedtime as soon as the tea things were put away. So Martine put on her cape and put out the cat. She stayed outside, the door partly open so she could find her wreath, then find a place where Digby would notice it, but not think it was a decoration for the door. Then she stayed out, wondering if he was near, trying to feel his presence.

“What maggot have you got in your brainbox now, missy?” Mrs. Arbuthnot shouted from the parlor. “Leaving the door open and standing outside in the middle of winter!”

“Someone in the village today said a storm was coming. I’m just trying to see if it feels like snow.”

It didn’t. It felt like springtime in her heart.

Tuesday

Martine was up before George. Considering that she’d stayed up half the night basting the gown—and looking out her bedroom window—that was quite a feat. She hadn’t got much sewing done, and she hadn’t seen or heard a thing, so she couldn’t sleep for hours even when she blew out the candles, wondering if he was coming back at all.

He had come, though. The wreath was gone, and in its place were two packages tied in silver paper, atop a sealed letter. She opened the letter first.

I
remember, my precious darling. I never forgot. Three more days, and we can share the memories and make new ones.

I want to buy you the sun and the stars, but I cannot, so I had to be content with these trifles for now. The combs are from Spain, for I thought of you so often there, and how your silky hair would look in the señoritas’ style. And the book is because you deserve sonnets written to your beauty, but I am just a soldier, not a poet.