Learning to Waltz (32 page)

Evan made the obligatory noises of sympathy. Carlington was dressed not for grief but for riding, in breeches that needed a good brushing, a well-worn blue coat, and a handkerchief knotted around his throat. Leaning negligently against a table, he could have been one of his grooms. But he had Deborah’s eyes.

“I am here in some sort as your mother’s representative.”

“Ha! Where’d she get the money to hire a ‘representative’? Running scared, is she?”

“Would you allow yourself to be charged with murder, Mr. Carlington, without making a reasonable effort to avoid it?” Evan exercised his tension by strolling around the room, hands clasped behind his back. “What makes you think that frail old woman is capable of such a thing?”

“Doesn’t take any particular strength to cut partway through a strip of beat-up old leather.”

“I doubt she could even hobble as far as the stable. Tell me, when did you last inspect your saddles for safety?” Evan asked.

“There are grooms to do that,” Carlington spat, his chin jutting belligerently.

“Mm. Quite a succession of them, I hear. And was your father careful about such things?”

Carlington looked mulish. Evan stopped his perambulations and confronted him. “It seems to me two reasonable men should be able to reach a reasonable agreement in this matter.”

“I suppose you’re bound to tell me.”

Evan smiled. Couldn’t expect the man to give in happily. “Let it go, man.” He infused as much persuasion into his voice as he could muster.

Predictably, it wasn’t enough.

There was some bluster, and then some negotiation, and finally Evan walked back into Lydford. His pockets were lighter, but so were his steps.

Evening found Evan back at Greenwood Hall, peering out the window of Deborah’s old bedchamber at the moors, just a darker blackness beneath the night sky.

All he could see in the glass were the candles that had lit his way to the third story and the ghost of his own face. He shivered. The fireplace had been boarded up many years ago, by the looks of it, and there would have been no fire laid for him in any case. Mrs. Carlington herself had received an embarrassingly cool greeting from her own servants, and he received none at all.

The same surly fellow who had admitted him earlier in the day—the butler, for want of a more suitable term—had let them in, though grudgingly. A housemaid greeted Mrs. Maddox with some affection and showed a proper respect for Mrs. Carlington, dropping a small curtsy as she took her cloak and bonnet. She offered her assistance with their packing, as well, but was whisked away by the new housekeeper. Mr. Carlington might not be a generous or congenial master, but the staff could expect nothing at all from his mother.

A half crown—ostentatiously bitten to assure its authenticity—persuaded the butler to retrieve a dusty old trunk from the attics. Evan guessed it had come to Lydford with Mrs. Carlington upon her marriage.

He wondered how well she had known her new husband, what hopes she’d had for the future. Judging by his son, who was said to resemble him closely, Mr. Carlington must have been a fine looking young man. He would have turned on whatever charm he possessed in courting his chosen bride. He might have seemed to be all a young woman could want. And he’d had hopes too, no doubt. Evan’s imagination failed to construct a scenario to explain how so many things had gone so wrong.

Young Robert Carlington had stayed away from the inquest and was absent from the house this evening, as he had promised Evan. “I don’t want to see her, that’s sure. And I ain’t worried about her stealing anything ’cause there’s nothing left that’s worth sixpence.” He seemed disgruntled about this but also sorrowful. If the place were not so far gone to wrack, Evan would have liked to think he just might care enough to put things to rights.

He seldom spent an evening at home in any case, according to Mrs. Carlington. “What’s to keep a young man in a gloomy place like this? His father wasn’t here either, more often than not, and if he was, they’d just fight about one thing or another. And he certainly took no pleasure in my company. Nor I in his,” she added hastily. “It suited me best when they were both out of the house.”

She spoke quietly as she and Mrs. Maddox set about their packing. There was pitifully little of it as far as Evan could see. Her bedchamber was bare and shabby, with a narrow bed, threadbare curtains, and not even the comfort of a rug on the floor.

The women did not need his help and probably did not want him watching as they worked. Little as Deborah’s mother would miss this place, it must still be a bitter leave-taking. And he knew she was far from comfortable with his plan for her immediate future. When he asked to see Deborah’s room, Mrs. Maddox found a branch of candles in Mr. Carlington’s dressing room and gladly sent him off up the stairs.

Deborah’s little chamber was even more desolate than her mother’s. A bank of shelving had been built all along one wall, and there perforce it remained. Otherwise there were no furnishings but a small bed with a concave mattress, covered with a wool blanket that showed evidence of moths.

No rug softened the floor, no curtains graced the window—it was a small miracle they hadn’t boarded up the window as they had the fireplace. A poorly-executed sampler hung on the wall, and Evan smiled to think of Deborah hidden away up here, doing something so normal as sewing a sampler. Little enough of her life had been normal; how in God’s name had she occupied her time?

Something bothered him about the room…  Well, many things bothered him. It was no wonder that the girl growing to adulthood in this arid place should be reserved, fearful, and slow to laugh. The wonder was that she had grown to be curious about the world, to be kind, to care for a child. She bore little resemblance to the woman he’d imagined he would love, but he loved her nonetheless and wouldn’t want her to be different—except happier. He definitely wanted her to be happier. And he wanted the chance to make her so.

Uneven steps approached down the corridor and interrupted his thoughts. He felt jealous of this place, resenting Mrs. Carlington’s intrusion.

“You’ve finished your packing?” It came out more curtly than he intended.

“I left Maddox folding a few last things. I just wanted to come up here and see…” She made a circuit of the room, much as he had done. Her finger checked a shelf for dust, and he realized that was what had seemed incongruous. It was far too clean for an abandoned room. The rest of the house was clean enough, but that was a matter of doing one’s duty. If this old woman had kept this room spotless, it had been out of love.

She would see Deborah again soon enough. In the meantime
she
needed to say her good-byes far more than
he
needed whatever it was he was looking for here.

His irritation evaporated. “Shall I leave you alone?”

“No, stay. If you don’t mind.” She continued to hobble along the shelves. Heaven knew there was little enough to see. Evan thought her memory must be placing things where they had been ten, twenty years before.

Mrs. Carlington reached the window. “She used to sit here for hours.”

He wanted to know so much more. “Reading?”

“Some. Mostly dreaming, I think. When she was small, she would tell me—oh, whole stories about people who lived in the clouds. With unicorns, and birds that came to eat out of her hand, and foxes that would roll over to have their bellies rubbed, like a dog. All gentle goodness, poor dear.” She gazed out of the window into the darkness. “Later, I think she couldn’t pretend anymore. At any rate, she stopped talking about it.”

“Natural enough as a girl grows up, I imagine.”

She shrugged. “And no sisters to talk to, or friends. Just the birds. For years she would put breadcrumbs on the windowsill for them.”

“And they came?”

“Sometimes. They’d always fly away if anyone else came into the room. I think she liked to keep them to herself in any event. Something no one else had, and no one could take away from her.” She turned toward him. “Does she still like birds?”

“I don’t know. It’s not something we’ve talked about. But she has a couple of prints on her walls and a natural history.” The book had been in deplorable condition; he suspected the framed prints were merely pages that had come loose from their binding.

“My sister taught her some science—birds and all sorts of animals. And—oh, many things, I don’t know what.” She bent awkwardly to lift up the window seat, revealing a storage space underneath. From it she pulled a basket covered with what looked like a child’s dress. Crossing to the bed, she sat down, and Evan joined her, the basket between them.

With reverence, Mrs. Carlington lifted the little gown. Even this, Evan noted, was quite free of dust. It had been protected inside its hiding place, of course, but he suspected nonetheless that Deborah’s mother had been through this same ritual fairly recently.

“Her treasures,” she murmured.

There was little enough of it. A bird’s nest and a few desiccated feathers, a mended china figurine of a sparrow, a broken piece of china painted with tiny flowers, a small doll sewn from muslin and wearing a faded blue gown. Below these a pair of knitted booties, a scrap of lace and another of velvet ribbon, a small geode and a handful of other stones, and a coin slipped inside a fraying fabric pouch. Only this last was of any possible value; it looked very old and was made, surely, of gold.

“She should’ve taken that with her when she went,” said Mrs. Maddox from the doorway. “’Twas meant to bring her luck. It’s from the old Lydford Mint.”

At some level Evan had heard her footsteps in the hallway, but he’d been so absorbed in Deborah’s “treasures” that her voice startled him. Mrs. Carlington spoke calmly, however. “I think she’s found her luck now. But you might as well take it to her, Mr. Haverfield. The rest of this is just junk.”

“We’ll take it along, nevertheless,” said Evan. “Julian might like to see it.”

Besides, he himself wanted to unpack these pitiful mementos as Mrs. Carlington had done, to hold each piece in his hand and let his imagination conjure what it would.

The only vehicle available for hire on short notice was a cumbersome old beast with, Evan suspected, no springs at all. It would have served well enough for luggage, but the idea that he and Mrs. Carlington might need a separate conveyance for their luggage was laughable. He was damned if he’d pay what the innkeep was asking. Argument was getting him nowhere—certainly not to Exeter.

The room was far less crowded than it had been the previous evening, and Geoffrey Radnor, again engaged with his friends, evidently overheard Evan’s travails. He stood up and walked over.

“Are you leaving us so soon, sir? I couldn’t help but hear—I need to get over to Exeter myself. Could you stand some company? We could take my phaeton or just ride. Got a couple of good mounts in my stable could use a good run.”

Evan smiled at this patently spur-of-the-moment idea, but shook his head and explained his need for a chaise. It would be public knowledge soon enough that he was absconding with the source of Lydford’s excitement. Almost, he could feel sorry for the townsfolk. Though all seemed agreed that “poor Mrs. C” was more victim than culprit, there was no question that a trial would be more fun than a cowardly retreat. In any case, Radnor was not about to give up so easily.

“Why, then, we’ll take m’father’s carriage. It’ll be a far sight more comfortable for Mrs. C than that piece of rubbish Pidgeon’s trying to rent you. Though ours probably ain’t what you’re used to, either. And you and I can still ride. I’ll show you some of the sights off the road, and we’ll still beat the carriage to Exeter by hours.”

This wasn’t a perfect plan, either. Evan was still sore from his previous ride—Lord, was it just yesterday?—and it seemed rude to leave Mrs. Carlington alone all day in the carriage. But it was better than the alternative.

Radnor’s papa was conveniently to hand at a table across the room and, clearly approving of Evan’s errand despite the blighting effect it would have on the neighborhood’s entertainment, granted permission and assisted as arrangements were finalized.

The morning of departure brought a setback—it was raining. Compared with a rollicking ride across the moors, young Radnor understandably found the prospect of a long carriage ride in company with an old lady pretty dull. But his father had committed the carriage, with or without his son, and a couple of days in Exeter out from under the parental eye was a boon not to be turned down.

Evan worried that Radnor’s presence would make Mrs. Carlington uncomfortable. He talked with Radnor about horses for the first hour, while she looked quietly out the window. Radnor then began to pester Evan with questions about London, quite in the manner of a child.

Mrs. Carlington relaxed and even posed a few queries of her own.

After that Radnor launched into a description of the activities he expected to pursue in Exeter, complaining good-naturedly about all the little commissions imposed upon him by his mama. “I ask you, ma’am, would
you
trust me to match this ribbon? ‘Raspberry,’ she says, ‘not cherry or burgundy.’ They’re all just
red
to me!”

Deborah’s mother actually laughed at this, though she seemed rather shocked to hear such a sound coming out of her own mouth, and suggested that he might do best to leave the matter in the hands of the milliner.

By the time they reached Exeter, she was no longer inclined to laughter. Indeed, she seemed quite uncomfortable. She never complained, but she leaned heavily on his arm as they walked from the carriage into the White Hart, her face pinched and pale. Radnor happily shared dinner with Evan in his private parlor, but Mrs. Carlington retired to her room.