Lady of Lincoln (8 page)

They talked very little as they went, her father merely commenting briefly on the balminess of the evening. Emily was glad of this, for she was feeling unaccountably nervous about the forthcoming occasion. She was glad that her father had not said anything about what she was wearing. Her confidence in her improved appearance was diminishing with every step. By the time they reached the front door of the Trimmers’ house,
the yellow of her shawl, which had seemed earlier to give a welcome touch of colour, had become to her mind unforgivably garish and bold, whilst her new hairstyle seemed rather blowsy.

None of those who greeted them seemed at all struck by what now seemed to Emily to be the blatant vulgarity of her
appearance
. On the contrary, Sir Gareth, who was dressed very
stylishly
in cream knee breeches with a black coat and blue
waistcoat
, with dazzling white linen, greeted them both politely, saying, ‘You look charming this evening, Miss Whittaker. Do you not agree, sir?’

He had turned politely to Emily’s father, who looked at his daughter in some surprise. ‘Yes indeed,’ he agreed, in a tone of rather puzzled dawning awareness. It was the first time that Emily could remember his making any kind of complimentary remark about her attire. But then, she reflected, he could hardly do otherwise when Sir Gareth had applied to him for
corroboration
.

Mr Trimmer also came forward to greet them, and Mrs Trimmer, wearing a high-waisted gown in a fresh shade of green decorated with tiny yellow flowers around the hem and the edges of the sleeves, managed to look both fashionable and modest.

It seemed as if they would be a very small party indeed, until the door opened to admit Mrs Cummings with her daughter Jennifer, to be followed very shortly afterwards by Dr Boyle.

Mrs Cummings was resplendent in a rich shade of plum, and Jennifer looked absolutely ravishing in snowy white muslin. Emily noticed that, unsurprisingly, Sir Gareth’s eyes were drawn immediately to the younger woman. She could not blame him. Jennifer’s slender figure was shown to great
advantage
in the flimsy fabric, and her young face glowed with health. Suddenly, Emily felt dull and old.

‘Your patients have no need of you tonight, then,’ the baronet remarked to the doctor, after they had exchanged greetings.

‘No, they all seem to be remarkably well at present,’ the doctor replied. ‘I have left a message with my housekeeper, so that if an emergency occurs, I can be found easily.’

‘Then let us trust no one will fall ill suddenly and deprive us of your company,’ Sir Gareth responded politely. ‘But do not let me keep you from the other guests.’ The doctor bowed, and turned to approach Emily, who looked up and smiled. She looked happy, but not as happy as she had immediately after her arrival, the baronet decided, before turning to speak to Mrs Cummings and her daughter, who were hovering nearby.

‘I wonder, were you in London for the season, Sir Gareth?’ the older lady asked him.

‘I was,’ he replied, with a slight bow.

‘Was it very exciting?’ Miss Cummings asked him, her eyes shining. ‘How I long to go to London!’

‘I am very sure you do,’ he responded, smiling politely. ‘Are there plans for you to attend in the future?’

‘I am to take her next year,’ Mrs Cummings answered, in a tone which suggested that the baronet ought to be gratified by this information. ‘We were to have gone this spring, but my friend Lady Gresham, who is Jennifer’s godmother, and is to act as our hostess, suffered a bereavement in March, so it was quite inappropriate for us to stay with her.’

‘Ah yes, I recall, the dowager Lady Gresham passed away,’ Sir Gareth replied. ‘And so you have had to wait, Miss Cummings. I hope you did not find it too trying?’

‘She was naturally a little disappointed, Sir Gareth,’ Mrs Cummings put in, before Jennifer could say anything. ‘But she did not make a fuss about it. She has the best nature of any girl I have met, although I do say so myself.’

‘I am pleased to hear it,’ replied the baronet politely. ‘Are you an only child, Miss Cummings?’

Again, Jennifer’s mother answered for her. ‘Yes indeed, she is my only child, and my great solace, for since Mr Cummings passed away, there has only been Jennifer and myself.’

‘You will have to tell me what you find to do in Lincoln for entertainment, Miss Cummings,’ said Sir Gareth, resolving that this gambit would be his last attempt to get Jennifer to answer for herself.

Fortunately, at this moment Mrs Cummings had found her attention claimed by Mrs Trimmer. ‘Well, I shall try,’ Jennifer replied, ‘but there isn’t a great deal to do, really. London must be far more exciting.’

Sir Gareth smiled wryly. ‘Ah, but for me, you see, Lincoln has all the advantage of novelty. For you, London is a new place, but since next season will be my twentieth, you must excuse me if I do not get very excited about it.’

Miss Cummings’s eyes opened very wide. ‘Your
twentieth
?’ she exclaimed. ‘Why, you must be—’ She stopped abruptly, blushing profusely.

‘Very old,’ he completed for her with a twinkle. ‘Yes, I am,’ he agreed. ‘But pray don’t tell anyone.’

Jennifer laughed out loud, drawing a look from her mama that was half approval, because she and the baronet were getting along so well, and half reproof, because such conduct was a little unladylike.

Dr Boyle, who had been enquiring of Emily about her
grandfather’s
health, turned to look at the young lady in question. ‘How very lovely she looks tonight,’ he remarked in tones of heartfelt admiration. ‘She looks exactly like a fairy. Does she not, Miss Whittaker?’

‘Exactly,’ agreed Emily in a colourless tone. The doctor had shown no sign of noticing her new shawl and the different manner in which she had dressed her hair. If marriage to him meant continually hearing his praises of other ladies while garnering none for herself, it would be a bleak business indeed.

Sir Gareth turned away from his conversation with Miss Cummings and, as he did so, he noticed Emily Whittaker. A little while ago, she had looked happy and animated. Now, it seemed as if all the light had gone out of her face. He wondered why, and
all at once felt an urge to kick whoever was responsible for the change in her expression. He hoped that it might be Dr Boyle.

It was very soon after this that dinner was announced. Mrs Trimmer took her brother’s arm, whilst her husband escorted Mrs Cummings, leaving Emily to follow with the doctor, with Canon Whittaker escorting Jennifer in the rear. At table, Sir Gareth was placed on his sister’s right, and Emily, to her surprise, found herself on Mrs Trimmer’s left, with Dr Boyle sitting on the other side of her. Sir Gareth had Jennifer sitting next to him on his other side, a fact that pleased that young lady’s mother greatly, whilst Mr Trimmer had Mrs Cummings on one side and Canon Whittaker on the other. Because the company was small in number, Mrs Trimmer announced that talking across the table was allowed, and they proved to be quite a cheerful party. Whilst Emily’s father chatted with Jennifer in a kindly, indulgent style, Emily found herself engaged in cheerful banter with Mrs Trimmer and her brother.

‘He is the most infuriating man,’ Mrs Trimmer was saying to Emily. ‘In fact, he always has been. Do you know, I quite depended upon him to introduce me to all his friends when I first came out, but do you think that he did?’

‘I would guess that he did not, from what you have just said,’ Emily ventured, looking at brother and sister with something like envy. Again, she regretted that she had never had the opportunity to take part in this kind of lively exchange.

‘You are quite correct. He did not. He came to my ball, danced his duty dances with me, disappeared into the card room, and then retired to his club. Would you believe it?’

‘Miss Whittaker, this is most unfair. You are only hearing half the story,’ Sir Gareth protested in his deep tones. ‘Imagine, if you will, a group of young women, all of them in their first season, all following me around, egged on by Aurelia, if you please. “Oh, my brother will take you here, my brother will take you there”,’ he cried, in a falsetto voice. Then he
continued
in his normal tone, ‘If I wanted to escape, the only place
that I
could
go where I could be sure that they would not pursue me was my club!’

‘My heart bleeds for you, Gareth,’ retorted his sister,
unimpressed
. ‘So handsome, so wealthy, so sought after.’

‘No, Sister dear,’ he corrected her. ‘I’m not handsome. Take it from one who looks in the mirror every day.’

‘Nonsense,’ Aurelia declared. ‘Of course you are handsome. Is he not, Emily?’

Emily stared at them both, horrified, blushing furiously. All at once she recalled the moment when they had stood on the threshold of her house and she had said ‘magnificent’ whilst looking straight up at him. She had considered Sir Gareth to be the most attractive man that she had ever seen, from the moment that she had first set eyes on him. It was one thing to think it, however, quite another to speak it. ‘I … I …’

‘Perhaps Miss Whittaker has higher standards than yours, Aurelia,’ Sir Gareth suggested.

At that moment, Emily’s attention was claimed by Dr Boyle, and when she next spoke with Mrs Trimmer, she found that Sir Gareth’s attention had been claimed by Jennifer Cummings.

‘Do forgive me, my dear,’ Mrs Trimmer said in an undertone. ‘I did not mean to embarrass you.’

‘I was a little embarrassed,’ Emily confessed, ‘but it is only that I am not used to this kind of jesting.’

‘I think that you would have been had your brother lived,’ the other lady replied.

‘Yes, perhaps,’ Emily agreed. ‘But he died when I was only eight, and he had been away at school for much of the time. I did not really know him.’ She sighed. ‘I just wish that someone could tell me what he was really like.’

‘I can.’ While Emily had been speaking, Sir Gareth’s
conversation
with Jennifer had ceased and that young lady had had her attention claimed again by Canon Whittaker.

Emily turned her head to look at him. ‘Can you really?’ she asked.

‘Certainly. Don’t you recall that I said that we were at school together?’

‘Oh yes, yes,’ Emily agreed hastily. ‘But schools are large places. I imagine that one could be in the same school as a person and never really know him.’

‘Yes, that is true, but I
did
know Patrick very well indeed,’ Sir Gareth told her.

‘What was he like?’ Emily asked him.

Sir Gareth looked across at the eager face, and suddenly thought how very appealing she looked. ‘I cannot tell you here,’ he said. ‘Would you do me the honour of escorting me around the cathedral tomorrow? I could tell you about him then.’

‘Yes, of course,’ Emily answered, trying not to sound too excited.

‘One thing I
will
tell you now,’ he remarked, ‘is that he was alive.’ She looked a little puzzled and he added impatiently, ‘What I mean is that he wasn’t a plaster saint’ – here he directed a swift glance in her father’s direction – ‘but that he was really alive.’

As Emily and her father were walking home, her father said to her, ‘I had a most illuminating discussion with Sir Gareth about Patrick tonight.’

‘Did you, Papa?’ Emily asked him, recalling what the baronet had said.

‘Yes, I did,’ her father replied. ‘He was a fine scholar,
apparently
. “Everything came to him so easily”. Those were his very words. And he used his skills to help those less gifted. How proud we would have been, would we not, Emily?’

‘Yes indeed, Papa,’ Emily replied, thinking that this was the longest conversation that she and her father had had about Patrick since his death.

After her father had gone to bed, Emily slipped back
downstairs
and went into the drawing-room where the portrait of her brother hung over the fireplace. It looked just the same as it had always done.

He was really alive, Sir Gareth had said. What had he meant?

B
efore they had left the Trimmers’ the previous evening, Sir Gareth had suggested in an undertone that they should meet in the cathedral the following morning at ten o’clock, and Emily had nodded her assent. The secrecy had seemed a good idea. Had her father been aware of their meeting, he would almost certainly have decided to join them so that he could find out more about Patrick. Had Mrs Cummings heard about the expedition, she might have tried to get her daughter included. As it was, they would be able to talk uninterrupted.

As Emily prepared to slip out of the house after her father had retired to his study, it suddenly occurred that she was bent upon an assignation. I am meeting a man in secret, she thought, and all at once felt like some kind of
femme fatale
. Then she caught sight of herself in her prim bonnet and gown and instantly revised her opinion. No one seeing her would ever make such a judgement.

Normally, if she was simply visiting the cathedral for her own personal reasons, she would enter by the small entrance known as the Richard door. On this occasion, however, because the building was unfamiliar to Sir Gareth, and because he would be approaching it from the other end, she decided to enter by the west door.

Once inside, she found as always that her eyes were drawn upwards by the soaring pillars, and from there to the windows,
which, on this bright sunny day, filtered the light through on to the stone, painting it with blue and red.

‘Glorious,’ said a deep voice behind her, making her jump, and she turned, a startled expression on her face. ‘I beg your pardon; I didn’t mean to alarm you,’ said Sir Gareth, smiling.

Her heart gave a little lurch at the sight of him, but this she sternly repressed. However attractive she might find him – and she had to admit that she did – he was destined for someone more like Miss Cummings. His sister had made that clear. She, Emily, could not possibly be the heroine of any romance in which this man featured as the hero.

‘Not alarmed; surprised, merely,’ she replied, her calm tone at variance with her inner turmoil.

He inclined his head. ‘I am looking forward to hearing about the cathedral from one who knows and loves it,’ he said.

Her expression softened. ‘I will be happy to tell you all that I can,’ she replied. ‘In my turn, however, I am hoping to hear about my brother from one who was his friend.’

‘And I, too, will be happy to tell you all that I can,’ answered Sir Gareth. ‘Let us stroll about the cathedral and as we go, you can tell me about the things that we see and I can tell you about the things that I remember.’

‘All right,’ Emily replied. ‘Shall we walk up the south side first?’

‘By all means,’ he answered. ‘I have a very strong desire to stand in one of the places where the sunlight falls through the windows.’

‘I have always liked doing that,’ Emily admitted, as they moved towards the pillar on the south side that was presently bathed in coloured light. ‘When I was small, I used to think that it was magic, but when I told Papa, he was angry with me, for even mentioning such a word as magic in connection with a place like this.’

‘That rather depends what you mean by magic,’ the baronet remarked, as he stood in the light, looking up and wrinkling his
brow as he observed the path of the sun through the window. ‘If you’re thinking of witches and warlocks and such, then I would say he was right. If, on the other hand, you are thinking of something special and beautiful and just a little mysterious, then I would have thought that this was the very place to find it.’

‘I’m sure that that must have been what I meant at the time,’ Emily exclaimed, looking up at him. ‘How clever of you!’

He looked down and saw the glow on her face that resulted partly from the effect of the sunlight, and partly from the joy of being understood. Her hazel eyes sparkled, and the neat brown hair that peeped from beneath her unfashionable bonnet seemed touched with flashes of gold. All of a sudden, he found himself wondering why the deuce the canon’s pretty daughter was still unmarried.

For her part, Emily found her eyes locked with his; her gaze dropped to his mouth and the shocking nature of her thoughts caused her to gasp, turn away and say, ‘This way, sir! I really must … must show you the … the bishop’s eye!’

She hurried off, leaving the baronet to follow after her. In fact, she got so far ahead of him that she had turned into the south transept long before he had reached it, and stood there breathing rather fast for a moment or two, her hand on her heart.

What on earth had she been thinking of? Bad enough that her thoughts should have been so wicked; for as she had looked up at the baronet’s well-shaped, generous mouth, she had wondered for a moment or two what it might be like to have his lips pressed to hers. How much more magical that place would have been had he done such a thing! She had swiftly repressed that shocking thought. But what had she done after that but treat Mrs Trimmer’s brother to a piece of childish
rudeness
by running off in another direction? Now, thanks to her inability to keep her unruly imagination in order, he was
probably
lost in the cathedral.

She hurried back around the corner at exactly the same moment as Sir Gareth had reached it, and she bumped into him, causing him to catch hold of her by her elbows, as he laughed down at her. ‘My my, you do seem to be in a hurry today,’ he exclaimed, as he released her. ‘I do hope I’m not detaining you from anything.’

‘No, no, not at all,’ Emily replied, flustered because she had almost ended up in his arms.

‘So what is this bishop’s eye that you were going to show me?’ he asked her, looking round. ‘I take it that it is an
architectural
feature of the cathedral, and not one of the two that are to be found in the bishop’s head?’

She laughed at that. ‘The bishop’s eye is the round window immediately above us,’ she told him. ‘Although, to be truthful, the dean’s eye is seen better from here.’ She pointed to the round window set high up at the end of the opposite transept.

‘That is very fine,’ he remarked. ‘Which do you prefer?’

Her face took on a thoughtful look which, he decided, was strangely becoming. ‘I know that I am in a minority, but I prefer the bishop’s eye,’ she told him. ‘It is true that the window does not have any pictures, but the tracery is so very beautiful.’

They both considered the windows in silence for a time, then the baronet said, ‘Your brother was never afraid of holding a position adhered to by the minority.’

‘Oh yes, you were going to tell me about him,’ Emily said eagerly.

‘Yes, I was, wasn’t I?’ he agreed. ‘Shall we go and sit down somewhere?’

She led him into a side chapel known as the works chantry, that opened out from the south transept, and sat down beneath a brass plaque on one of the stone seats by the wall.

‘Patrick and I were the same age,’ the baronet said, when they were both settled.

‘Oh. So you are—’ Emily stopped abruptly.

‘I’m forty; yes,’ Sir Gareth agreed with a smile. ‘Had you
been wondering, Miss Whittaker?’

‘No, certainly not,’ she replied defensively, and, it must be confessed, not entirely truthfully. ‘Do go on.’

‘We met at Eton, and soon became friends. We always stuck together, looking after each other; defending each other if anyone tried to act the bully. In fact, it very soon became known that to attack one of us was to attack both. We even acquired a shared nickname – Thunder and Lightning.’

‘Which was which?’ Emily asked curiously.

‘Oh, I was Thunder; bigger, darker. Patrick was lightning; bright, quick, with flashes of brilliance.’

‘I didn’t realize that you knew him so well,’ Emily responded. ‘Although you did tell Papa some things that pleased him very much last night.

He smiled ruefully. ‘Everything I told him was true, but I held a few things back. Patrick certainly was a fine scholar, and he did use his gifts to help those less fortunate.’

‘How did he do that?’ Emily asked curiously.

‘Well, he let me copy his work occasionally.’

Emily stifled a giggle. ‘No, Papa would not have approved of that,’ she agreed.

‘I thought not. Though to tell the truth, he was looked up to by the other boys. He was very kind to the younger ones. Not all of the older boys were. Some of them liked the power that they had through age and superior strength, and used it to intimidate others. He never did.’

‘Papa would have liked that.’

‘Yes, but as for the rest, I didn’t want to tell him a lot of lies, and nothing that he said to me the other night gave me the impression that he would relish the recounting of schoolboy pranks.’

‘He might not,’ Emily agreed, ‘but I would. What did you do, Sir Gareth? The two of you, together, I mean.’

The baronet laughed. He told her many stories of the
camaraderie
that had existed between himself and the canon’s son,
making her laugh as well. Then, eventually, in carefully
unemotional
tones, he told her about that fateful day when, with some other friends, they had gone down to the river to go boating. A child had fallen into the river and Patrick had been the one to jump in and try to save her.

‘They both got into difficulties,’ Sir Gareth said, in a calm tone that masked the distress that he still felt at this particular memory. ‘I jumped in after them, but it was no good. I dived and dived …’ He paused and collected himself. ‘Even now, I find it difficult to believe that he has gone; all that brightness, that life, that promise.’ Again he paused. ‘Now that you have heard how close we were, you must wonder why I did not come to the funeral, or even make contact with you. The truth of the matter is that having tried to save them, I then succumbed to a fever which laid me low for some time, and after that, well, I suppose I was just not brave enough. I think I wanted to blot what had happened from my mind.’

He was sitting looking down at his hands which were clasped between his knees. To his great surprise, he saw one of Miss Whittaker’s hands reach out and grasp his. ‘You were only a boy yourself,’ she said. ‘It’s not surprising that you could not bring yourself to come, but you have come now, and I am glad that you have told me about Patrick. You are right. He was alive; really alive. I have tended to think of him as being like a figure in one of these stained-glass windows. Now, I feel as if I knew him. Thank you.’

He turned slightly to face her, took hold of the hand that she had placed over his, and raised it to his lips.

A sound of footsteps on the stone flags broke the spell, and they both got to their feet. ‘That stone seat is dam – decidedly cold,’ the baronet remarked, recollecting his surroundings just in time.

‘But very convenient,’ Emily responded. ‘Have you never heard the saying, “let the weakest go to the wall”? That’s so that they would have somewhere to sit down.’

‘Is that what it means?’ Sir Gareth exclaimed. ‘I never knew.’

Further up the south side of the cathedral they came to a tomb underneath an archway, which Emily pointed out to her companion. ‘This is the tomb of Katherine Swynford,’ she said. ‘She was—’

‘The mistress, then wife, of John of Gaunt,’ Sir Gareth put in. ‘You see, I didn’t rely on Patrick for all my answers. The tomb is very plain: surprisingly so.’

‘There should have been brasses on there but they were taken at the time of Oliver Cromwell,’ Emily told him.

They strolled on into the Angel choir where stood another, more ornate tomb, with shields of arms at the base. ‘This is very fine,’ remarked Sir Gareth, crouching down to take a closer look at some of the markings. Emily, observing him, suddenly realized that she was looking, not at the tomb, which she knew well anyway, but at how the breeches he was wearing did
nothing
to hide the powerful muscles in his thighs.

Horrified by the increasingly depraved nature of her
imaginings
, she exclaimed, ‘The imp! I … must tell you about the imp. Have you had him pointed out to you? Lots of people cannot find him for ages and ages …’

The baronet rose easily to his feet, dusting off his hands, and caught hold of her by the elbow. ‘What is it?’ he asked her, wrinkling his brow. ‘You seem to be very jittery today, and I’m blessed if I can think what I might have done to make you so.’

‘It’s … it’s just hearing about Patrick, I suppose,’ she gasped, desperate for something to say, and finding that she had hit upon part of the reason why she was so unsettled. ‘You have made me realize what I have missed.’ She paused then went on more slowly, ‘When I hear you and Mrs Trimmer talking together, I wonder whether Patrick and I might have teased one another in the same way.’

‘Almost certainly, I would have thought.’ He looked at her for a few moments, as if trying to take her measure. Eventually he said to her, ‘There is one other thing that I want to tell you
about Patrick, but it’s something that I could never, ever tell your father, for I think it would distress him even more than hearing about childish tricks.’

‘What is it?’ Emily asked him apprehensively.

‘He didn’t want to enter the church.’

Emily gave a tiny gasp. She was so used to hearing that Patrick was almost a candidate for canonization that this
revelation
came as something of a shock. So surprised was she that she almost missed the baronet’s next few words. ‘Oh, he knew how much his father planned for it, and he was dreading
disappointing
him, but he felt that that life was not for him at all.’

‘What did he want to do?’ Emily asked him curiously.

‘He wanted to be a soldier. He was trying to nerve himself up to come and ask your father to purchase his colours. So the next time you look at his portrait, Miss Whittaker, imagine him not in clerical bands but in the red and gold mess dress that he so much desired. No doubt, had he been spared, he’d have been itching to fight the French! Now tell me about the Lincoln imp, and in particular how to find the elusive little fellow.’