Janet Quin-Harkin
Authors: Fools Gold
Libby gave a half sob, half laugh and wrapped her arms around Gabe’s neck, bringing her lips up hungrily to meet his. They stood there together, not moving, arms wrapped tightly around each other, lips locked together, for what seemed like an eternity. Then, reluctantly, they broke apart.
“That kiss will certainly last me a lifetime, Mrs. Hugh Grenville,” Gabe said shakily.
That night Libby lay awake, looking up at the stars through the filigree of leaves and branches. Her body ached with longing. To be kissed and held in such strong arms, to be desired so intensely, was almost more than she could bear.
CHAPTER 1
O
N
T
HURSDAY
, 18
TH
April, 1849, Hugh Grenville ran away from home. Put like that it sounds more the act of a little boy than a husband, but those were the words Libby Grenville wrote in her diary that evening:
Today Hugh ran away
.
Libby had known as soon as the letter arrived that something was wrong. She had been sitting at her vanity mirror, in her third-floor bedroom at her parents’ Boston brownstone, trying to coax a stubborn curl around her finger when she saw her husband come into the room with a letter in his hand. In her mirror she watched him glance at the writing on the envelope, tear it open, read it silently, grimace, and then stuff it hurriedly into his pocket.
“Who’s it from?” she asked.
“It doesn’t matter,” Hugh said, glancing toward the half-open door. “It’s not important.”
“It obviously is,” Libby insisted. “A mistress you don’t want me to know about?”
“Hardly,” Hugh said, flushing again as Libby laughed. “It’s from my brother if you really must know.”
“In England?”
“In England.”
“But you never hear from your family in England.”
“I just have,” Hugh said.
“And?”
“I’ll tell you about it later, Libby.”
“You’re being annoying!” Libby said, getting up and coming over to him. “Why can’t you tell me?”
“Because one can never finish a sentence in this house without . . .”
“Cooee, children!” Libby’s mother’s voice floated up the stairs ahead of her heavy footsteps.
Hugh looked at Libby triumphantly. “See, what did I tell you?” he whispered. “She missed her calling. She’d have been the best news hound in Boston if she’d gone to work for the
Globe
.”
“Hugh!” Libby warned, putting her finger to her lips as the feet reached the doorway.
“Are you there, children?” the high voice called and Libby’s mother, Harriet Parsons, came in without waiting for an answer. Earlier in life she might have looked like Libby. She still had the same delicate cream complexion and traces of the same stunning red in her graying hair, but she had become chubby with years of too much sitting and too many cream cakes and she held onto the doorframe, gasping for breath.
“Since you saw us go up after breakfast and the only exit is down the fire escape, you must have known the answer,” Hugh said with a grin at Libby.
Libby’s mother looked around the room, as if checking whether any piece of furniture had been moved during the night, then focussed her gaze on Hugh and Libby. “Oh look at you, you’re not even ready,” she said in exasperation.
“For what?” Hugh asked.
“I reminded you at dinner last night that we were to be lunching with the Robertsons. I’ve already sent for the carriage and you don’t have your bonnet on, Libby.”
“Oh, tragedy. Libby Grenville has been spotted running around bonnetless!” Hugh exclaimed dramatically. Libby gave him a warning look. “Just coming, Mother,” she said.
“If you’ll excuse me, Mother Parsons, I think I’ll pass up the Robertsons,” Hugh said. “I’m not in the mood for festive gatherings.”
“Katherine Robertson will be devastated.” Libby looked up at him with a grin as she tied her bonnet over her auburn curls, then followed her mother out the door, the letter already forgotten.
“I do wish you could do something about Hugh,” Libby’s mother commented as the carriage set off, clattering over the cobblestones. “He can’t just keep turning down invitations like this. And the Robertsons too. So useful, seeing that Mr. Robertson’s cousin runs that magazine . . . what’s it called?”
“Mother, it’s a penny dreadful. You’re not suggesting Hugh could write for that?”
“At least it pays good money,” Mrs. Parsons said, smoothing her dress over her large stomach. “I wouldn’t have thought Hugh wanted to depend on us forever.”
“He doesn’t,” Libby said, frowning out at the dark Boston buildings, “but he’s a poet, not a hack writer. Poets often take time to become well-known.”
“Then maybe the time has come for him to think of some other form of employment as well, as your father suggested. Your father has come up with some excellent suggestions and, of course, he has many connections in the business world. . . .”
“Mother, can you see Hugh in the business world?” Libby exclaimed, half laughing. “He’d forget which office he worked in, or he’d see a rainbow and stare at it for hours while the work piled up on his desk. He wasn’t made for business, Mother. He’s not like Father and he never will be.”
“That has become painfully obvious, I’m afraid. Your father despairs of him.”
“If I remember correctly, Father was pretty impressed with him at the beginning, just like the rest of us.”
“Everyone said in those days that he showed promise,” Mrs. Parsons snapped. “How were we to know? Your father doesn’t know one end of a sonnet from another.”
“Maybe he’d still show promise if he had a little more freedom,” Libby said. “It’s not easy living in another person’s house, you know.”
“If you didn’t live with us, you’d starve,” Mrs. Parsons said shortly. “I don’t need to remind you of that, do I?”
“You remind me of it constantly, Mother,” Libby said angrily. She stared out across the park, her face turned away from her mother’s.
“Libby, darling child, I didn’t mean to upset you,” Mrs. Parsons placed her pudgy hand over her daughter’s. “I just want my little girl to be happy!”
“I’m happy enough, Mother,” Libby said, taking her hand away, “or I would be if you’d realize that I’m twenty-five years old and I’m not your little girl anymore.”
“Don’t be angry with me, Libby,” her mother said, putting her lace handkerchief up to her face as if she were about to start crying. “It’s only because you mean more than the whole world to us that we want the best for you. We want to see you successfully set up in your own household with a good future for our grandchildren, but it doesn’t seem that Hugh’s even trying. . . .”
“I know, Mother,” Libby said, patting her mother’s hand idly. “But it’s hard for him. It will all work out, I expect. He realizes he can’t go on trying to succeed as a poet forever.”
The tall brownstones were left behind as the carriage moved towards a more spacious part of town where brick mansions stood back from the streets among manicured gardens. Libby’s mother sighed again. “If only you’d married Roger Kemp instead. He worshipped you, you know, and now look where he is.” She waved at one of the mansions. “Or Edward Knotts. The Knotts are so proud of him. His law practice is really thriving, they say.”
“They were both boring, Mother,” Libby said.
“You always were so stubborn, Libby. You always thought you knew best. Remember what Miss Dan-ford used to say about you?”
“She said I’d come to a bad end,” Libby said with a laugh. Miss Danford had been her first governess, very strict and humorless. She had been hired to shape Libby into a future queen of Boston society. Libby had refused to be shaped. In the battle of wills that had lasted two years, Libby emerged the winner and Miss Danford left, a broken woman.
Libby smiled to herself at the memory of Miss Danford, peering at her through pince-nez and wagging a finger. “Mark my words young woman, you’ll come to a bad end,” she said. On that occasion Libby had insisted on crossing a stream via a dead branch. The branch had tipped Libby into the swift current and she had to be dragged to safety.
“And you still haven’t learned, have you?” her mother asked sadly.
“I don’t suppose I ever will, Mother,” Libby said.
The carriage turned into a gravel driveway and soon everyone was embracing on the terrace.
“Libby, I must say you’re looking wonderful,” Mrs. Robertson gushed. “So youthful. One would never imagine you were a mother of two little girls. I know Katherine envies your figure. She’s had such a hard time getting hers back after Oswald was born.”
Libby grinned to herself. “Poor dear Katherine,” she said.
Mrs. Robertson took her arm and steered her through to the conservatory where lunch tables had been set up amid the plants.
“Of course, Oswald was such a big baby,” she went on. “Over ten pounds they say. Katherine and Roger are so delighted to have a son. I expect Hugh would like your next one to be a boy, since he has such an aristocratic English name to carry on. Where is dear Hugh?”
“He’s working on a new poem. He sends his apologies,” Libby’s mother said quickly.
“So creative,” Mrs. Robertson said. “You must tell us where we can buy his poems. I’d love to impress my guests by showing them that I actually know a living poet. Everyone seems to think they are all dead.”
Libby laughed dutifully, but she looked around the room, feeling trapped by Mrs. Robertson’s clawlike hand on her arm. How was it that Hugh always managed to get out of these boring things and she was stuck with them? she wondered resentfully. Because she felt it was her duty to go, and because it was better than staying home.
She glanced out through the long windows to the smooth green lawns beyond. This can’t be all there is to life, she thought. There has to be more. This is all so petty, so boring.
Katherine entered at that moment, carrying baby Oswald, who was duly admired and cooed over.
“Where’s Hugh?” she asked as Libby kissed somewhere near her cheek.
“Working,” Libby said. “He sends apologies.”
Katherine handed over the baby to an elderly aunt and slipped her arm through Libby’s. “Let’s take a stroll through the gardens before lunch, shall we?” she asked. “We hardly get to see each other these days with all these domestic things to worry about. It’s hard to remember how carefree we used to be.”
Libby allowed herself to be led, out through the French doors and down the neat flagstone path between beds of spring flowers. Lilacs were blooming and horse-chestnut candles decorated the big shade trees, wafting sweet scents across the garden. It was very pleasant and civilized. Libby smiled at Katherine. It always used to amuse her that both sets of parents assumed they were best friends. They had never been; they had been best rivals at best, best archenemies at worst, but in the polite society they moved in, their duels always had to be carefully veiled as conversations.
“Look at you with your tiny little waist,” Katherine said. “I’m having such a time getting my figure back after Oswald. Of course, he was such a big baby. I can’t wait to get pregnant again, can you? At least then one has a perfect excuse for not wearing those horrid corsets.”