Beguiled (11 page)

§

THE CARRIAGE rolled down the long tree-lined
drive leaving
Petherham
Manor. Clara sat back against
holstered seat fixed her eyes on the passing countryside, fiercely determined
to put this chapter of her life behind her. This was her opportunity to gather
her wits and strength to face the curious and the critical. There would be
questions and assumptions made about her character but Clara was unafraid. She
wasn’t afraid of their judgments or of being shunned; they had done that before
and she’d survived. She would survive this time too.

Thinking about London society and her place
in it took her mind off from Branson. Was she wrong to leave him? Grace was his
wife; she needed Branson more than Clara did and she had the prior claim. There
was no question in Clara’s mind that choosing her own comfort and security over
that of a shattered woman’s would be reprehensible.

She remembered the look in his eyes as they
parted; a look of farewell that struck her now as strangely final. Surely, she
would see him again. He was in business with Edgar. He was still her cousin.
There would be occasions when they would meet—dinners, balls, accompanied by
Edgar, where she was likely to encounter Branson.

But the look he gave her suggested the
opposite.

She closed her eyes and allowed her mind to
drift. And then half in a dream, half in a vision, Clara saw Grace standing in
the chapel. She was wearing a black dress, widow’s weeds, her blonde hair hung
loose and long down to her back. Her blue eyes snapped open and she fixed her
mad stare on Clara.

She bolted upright in the coach, filled with
a sense of foreboding and a sickening feeling of loss. Clara knew better than
to ignore the premonition. She thrust her head out the window of the carriage.

“Stop!
Turn around! If you please, sir, turn around!”

“Turn around, miss?” The driver pulled on
the reins and the horses slowed to a stop. “What is it? Are you ill?”

“I-I forgot something of great importance. I
will make it worth your while, only you must turn around and take me to
Windemere
Hall.”

Turning the team to pull the carriage in the
opposite direction was no easy matter. It took longer than Clara anticipated.
The more fuss and bother, creaking and groaning of the carriage pulling this
way and that, the adjustment of the harness and the straps, the more anxious she
became that something was truly wrong. She could feel it in her bones. Something
had happened to Branson.

“Hurry!
Is there nothing you can do to go faster?”

“Miss, it is no small matter to turn a team
of horses and a carriage of this weight. I have to take care the wheels do not
come off.”

“Stop then. Hold. I know a shortcut through
the forest; I shall walk. It is too difficult for the horses and the carriage
in any case. Thank you, sir. I will walk from here.”

CLARA LEAPT from the carriage and ran back
along the road in the direction of
Windemere
, keeping
an eye out for the old road to the chapel.

It opened to her left, ablaze with fall colour.
Crimson and golden leaves showered over the path crunching under her feet as
she ran. There was a stitch in her side and she gasped for breath but panic
drove her on until she came to the fallen log.

She was close, recalling her sad beginning
to this journey that had led her to Branson. There was no time for regret or
recrimination—the feeling that something was wrong grew stronger with every
step.
A premonition of disaster or death.

She clambered over the log and raced on
until she came to the meadow and saw the chapel directly ahead. Voices were
raised inside. Branson and Grace were in the throes of an argument. She could
have wept with relief.

Thank
God, he was alive he was still alive!

She burst into the chapel, her chest
heaving, her hair and skirts in disarray. Her eyes felt like they were starting
out of her head. She knew she looked like a wild woman once again, bolting out
of the forest.

They were standing in a tense posture at the
altar. Grace was wearing the red dress from seven years ago, old-fashioned and
out of style now, it hung loose on her thin frame. The bonnet that had mysteriously
disappeared from the room next Clara’s was on Grace’s head. The young woman
snapped her blue insane gaze in Clara’s direction. A smile poisoned her lips
when she bared her teeth.

“What has happened?” Clara took a cautious
step toward them. “Grace, are you all right?”

Her laugh was low and the hair rose on the
back of Clara’s neck. “I am glad you are here, Miss Hamilton. Branson and I are
to be joined in holy wedlock ... for eternity.”

Clara gazed at her with mounting horror.
Then she saw the pistol in Grace’s hand that was pointed at Branson’s chest.

“I found him here,” Grace sneered. “The
pistol is his. Do know what he intended to do? Shall I tell her, darling, the
substance of your brave plan? My husband planned to kill himself here in this
chapel. Spray his blood all over the altar where we were married and leave me a
condemned woman, sentenced to an asylum or the gallows.”

“It is too late for that, Grace,” said
Branson. “You’ve done your worst. I would take you with to Hell with me, and
gladly, but I could not bring myself to commit murder.”

“But I can.” Grace giggled. “Your lover has
arrived just in time. You can watch
her
die. Then I shall kill myself and
you
will be the one left alone!”

Grace lifted the gun, pivoted on one foot,
aimed and fired in Clara’s direction.

With a roar, Branson lunged between Clara and
Grace. The bullet ripped through the shoulder of his jacket, rocketed through
the air and lodged in Clara’s chest.

Grace screamed when Branson fell to the
floor. A look of terror on her face, Grace threw the gun to the floor and ran
from the chapel.

THE BULLET lodged in her chest, splitting
her with searing, terrible pain. Clara fell to the ground, clutching her belly
as though to protect her unborn child. There was pain but it had a strange,
disconnected quality from her larger fear for the child.

She heard Branson screaming and she wondered
why he sounded so frightened. Then he was bending over her prone body, shouting
her name. Clara gazed at his tortured face that was twisted with grief,
astonished by the depth of his distress.

She tried to smile, to reassure him that she
was quite well. She would have lifted her hand to his face were it not for the
pain. If she lay still, the agony subsided to a degree that was bearable. And
then she floated away to the bright Down that blinded her at first with its
light and colour, and that was nicer still. Pulled along in perfect peace, Clara
wandered further away from the earth to a misty full moon and beyond that to
wondrous warmth and light.

It was beautiful. She was coming home.

And then there was a good deal of commotion
that flowed around and over her. Branson would not leave her side. His voice
was in her ear, his hand stroking her forehead and she felt she could not leave
until he was at peace. She tried to comfort him but he could not hear her.

“I cannot love if you leave me, Clara. You
must come back to me. If I loved you better, I would face this with Christian
forbearance, but I love myself more. The doctor and Vicar
Wimbley
have said you are in pain and staying for my sake, and I must let you go.”

His voice twisted with hideous grief. “I
will
not
. I want you to fight even though
it pains you to do so! I want you here with me—I need you. I want you to come
back for my sake and mine alone. I love you. I love you. Come back. Come back. Please
Clara. You must come back to me, my darling, darling Clara.”

His tears were so quiet, his cries and
pleading could not be heard by anyone in the room. Those in attendance assumed
Branson Hamilton was saying good-bye to his cousin.

Only Clara knew the truth. She could see him
and could hear every word. She was in the place between life and death. She did
not understand, yet she understood everything. There was no pain, as if the
weight of living had been lifted from her. She was in a place that was not
known by intellect, but clarity, as though knowledge of all things was rooted
in her soul and coming to flower.

“I will hold you forever in my heart,” she
sighed.

Branson bent his ear to her lips. “What,
dearest? What did you say? Oh God!” he cried brokenly.
“No, no,
no—oh God—
no
!”

She was lying in something wet and warm.
With every beat of her heart, the pool got larger. Clara was very cold. In her
final moments of life, she sought Branson’s face and eyes and held him in her
thoughts as she had not held him when she had the chance.

He shouted her name over and over again. The
cold had passed and she was warm again. Clara smiled at the life waiting for
her beyond and she rose up to meet it.

Above her body, above the heads of those
bending over her flesh, frantically trying to keep her alive, Clara heard him
speak.

“Don’t leave me. You must not leave me here
alone. Please, please. I love you. I love you.”

And then she heard nothing and could see
nothing. The blackness was a void like the beginning of time and she knew she
was dead.

§

THEY SEARCHED for Grace Leeds through the
night and it wasn’t until early the next morning that she was found by Corporal
Jack
Denby
floating face down in the lake.

Her red dress was spilled about her body like a pool of
blood.

When the soldier told Edgar about it, he knew the scene
immediately. Clara’s premonition was not of what
had
been, but of what was to come. He would never speak to Arthur
again for his role in the tragedy, but Edgar was greatly relieved to learn that
his father was not a rapist.

§

SHE HOVERED for many days between life and
death. Just as she was about to slip away, his voice would call her back. He
spoke to her about a baby. An infant who needed her but Clara could not recall
having a child.

Branson was relentless. He would not let her go until
eventually she began to experience excruciating pain and nightmares. It was
horrible, she was so frightened. But his voice was in her ear, comforting her,
encouraging her, urging her to come back.

He would not leave her. Branson never let her go. He was so
good ... he made her so happy ... so very happy....

Clara reached out her hand and a strong masculine grip took
hers and pressed it to his lips. There was a sharp intake of breath, a rush of
noise and then high excitement in the room. Voices were raised in jubilation.

Clara opened her eyes at the sound and found
his face. His indigo eyes met hers.

“Thank you,” he said. Tears streamed down
his face. “Thank you.”

§

“
TELL ME about your family,”
she said weakly. She was reclining on the couch he had set up in the solarium
where she might enjoy the arrival of spring. “The family you had before you
came to live with Leonard Hamilton.”

Her convalescence had dragged on through the winter, during
which time Branson refused to leave her side. For his pains, she plagued him
daily to tell her stories about himself.

He stretched out beside her and smoothed her hair from her
eyes. The babe moved in her womb, growing with a tenacity that made Clara think
of their love. She was due to give birth in June. She snuggled under Branson’s
arm and against his chest.

“It is not a happy story, my love. My mother married young.
Tobias Reilly died on a whaling ship when I was three years old. She married
her second husband, Mr.
Caine
, a year later. He was a
whaler alongside my father with a son from a previous marriage. She endured six
years of marriage to him.

“One night, after Mr.
Caine
had
drunk most of his wages, he got free with his fists and started beating me. My
mother was finally able to summon the courage to leave him. We fled Cornwall and
arrived in London, destitute. Ida was clever with a needle and had an artist’s
eye. She sold her wedding band to buy some scraps of fabric and began designing
ladies hats that she sold in Covent Garden. Little by little, she put away
enough to set up a small shop. One day, a fine lady came through the door and
placed a substantial order. Mother was up all night for weeks. The order was
her chance to get out of poverty and she would not allow anything to prevent
her from succeeding.”

“She taught you well. It seems you inherited
your business sense from your mother I did wonder.”

“Did you?” He grinned. “Perhaps I was just a
brilliant Oxford graduate.”

“Perhaps.
But unlikely.
Finish your story. What
happened then?”

“When I was twelve, Mother received word
from my stepbrother that Mr.
Caine
was dead. He had
drowned at sea. Mother talked of sending for Tanner but then she met Mr.
Leonard Hamilton and he could not be asked to take on the rearing of two boys
not his own.”

“What became of him?”

“I don’t know. As I said we hadn’t spoken
since the night my mother and I ran away. He saw us leave. He was watching from
the upstairs window. Tanner was thirteen years of age. I thought him grown up
and able to take care of himself. I suppose my mother thought the same. We left
him. We had to save ourselves. I don’t know what became of him.”

§

THE MOMENT Clara was strong enough, Mrs.
Brockville wasted no time in securing the vicar and consulting with Portia
Hamilton on the wedding arrangements. Her most challenging task was to fit a
wedding dress for a bride who was seven months pregnant.

Vicar
Wimbley
was gratified to
hear that Master Hamilton meant to keep his promise and the ceremony would be a
lavish affair held in the parish church proper. Attendance was sure to be high.
A grand reception at
Windemere
Hall would follow the
ceremony and its master had graciously extended an invitation to everyone to
join them in the celebration. The mood in the church on their wedding day was
jubilant despite the newly-turned grave in
Windemere
cemetery.
The
lady could not be buried in consecrated
ground due to the nature of her death.

The death of Grace Leeds was duly noted in
the Parish Records as
Mrs. Grace Reilly,
death by drowning on the Fifteenth of October, 1867.
As tragic as the
lady’s death was, the vicar could be forgiven for feeling a shiver of relief
when he wrote the entry down. His good deed in forging a marriage date for
Clara and Branson in
advance
of the
event could have led to charges of bigamy. It was certainly a strange course of
events that had brought them to this day.

God
works in mysterious ways, His wonders to perform,
thought
Wimbley
with a shiver as recalled the other
near disaster. Clara Hamilton was with child. Branson Hamilton was about to
become a father and his previous wife had only just passed away!

By the grace of God, the newest Hamilton and
future master of
Windemere
Hall would not be born a
bastard.

This was good news, but Vicar
Wimbley
did not believe in counting God’s blessings
exclusively without also taking into account the negatives; namely, Mr.
Hamilton’s grievous error in hiding his mad wife away, instead of valiantly
seeking help for her. Piers Leeds had been settled with an allowance and given
stern instructions to leave England by the county magistrate. And Mr. Quince
was given a Christian burial.

These thoughts moved through Vicar
Wimbley’s
mind as he gave his sermon and the happy couple
recited their vows. Theirs had not been a perfect beginning, but seldom had
Wimbley
presided over a more satisfying ending.