Love Engineered (27 page)

“Then speak plainly sir,” she whispered breathlessly.

“I love you.”

Her eyes widened. “You love me?”

“Yes, I love you with all my heart.”

“But I do not understand. How?”

“How?” he gave a small laugh. “How could I not? How could any man who knows you fail to love you?”

“Oh, do not tell me you love me. We both know that nothing could come of it; you couldn't live a life with me. You would waste away here. You're meant for better, higher things. You're a man of the future and I'm stuck in the past, however much I try not to be.”

She tore her hands away, stood up and placed herself by the window, exactly where he had stood a few moments before, looking out across the lawn.

“Louise please, do not remember what I said that day. I was the biggest fool in England. I was blind. Blind to the finest woman in the country. If you will not have me, then I will be alone forever, for no woman could ever match you. Did you not know why I went looking for the child? It was for you, not for Marie or her parents or some vain attempt at reparation. I'm selfish to those I care about, I'm loyal only to those I love. And I love you more than I have loved any other person. Hopelessly and desperately.”

She said nothing and didn't move. This wasn't the response he was expecting. It was all going wrong. He grew more desperate. Then he suddenly remembered her other objection. “Louise,” he pleaded again. “How can you begin to think that marrying you would waste me away? I'm nothing without you. Please –”

At this, she slowly turned around to face him, her face full of the deepest anguish and hope.

He walked over to her and said nervously, “I know you still love me. What should hinder two people who love each other as we do?”

“Is my love for you that obvious?” She spoke in a lowered, ashamed tone.

“No,” he said smiling into her face. “You hid it well, too well. But I shall tell you how I know you love me still, if you promise to marry me.”

“I do not care how you know, but I shall accept all the same if you think you could stand to share your life with me.”

She flew into his arms, and they held each other for some moments, until he pulled her away just enough so that he could gently kiss her. She yielded readily.

The next few minutes of tender words and kisses were interrupted only by the arrival of Louise's previously expected guest. Mrs Rothers was kindly asked and graciously agreed to postpone their poetry discussion in the light of an unexpected matter of business that had arisen. After dispatching her safely home in one of the Glazebrook carriages, Louise quickly returned to the library to find Charles.

“I almost forgot. I have an engagement ring for you.” He took her hand and placed a simple gold band inset with a diamond and two rubies on her finger.

“It's beautiful.”

“No,” he shook his head. “It's not nearly fine enough for you. But it was my mother's. She bequeathed it to me in the hope that one day I would turn my mind to marriage. I believe she would be very happy you are the one to own it. According to Jane, she greatly favoured a match between us.” He bent his head and gave the ring a lingering kiss.

“Yes, I believe she did. I'm now interested to know how you learned I still loved you and how you were so sure of my response to your proposal that you brought a ring with you! Tell me how you knew, if I hid it so well.”

“But I gave you a clue earlier,” he said.

She thought for a moment, but nothing was forthcoming. Finally he said, “It was Mrs Francis.”

“Lucy? What is she to do with it?”

After he related all the conversation from the day before, she retorted, “Then I owe much to dear Lucy and her imprudence in recounting a private conversation. I shall not trust her in the future.”

“Don't be angry at her. She was a little thoughtless, but I shall forever be grateful to her for it.”

“I hate to think how my happiness depends on her thoughtlessness, as well as the luck which placed Mr Francis in that London street at the same time as you.”

“I believe, given time, we would have come to an understanding eventually. I love you too much, and especially after I watched most attentively for the announcement in The Times of your engagement to Lord Philip.”

“Most attentively?”

“Yes. I feared, dreaded reading it. It was torture, but I had every reason to believe you would marry him.”

“No!” she cried. “Lucy recounted my words well, but how could you possibly think I felt anything other than friendship towards Philip? Besides, he is my cousin!”

“He was always with you. You always sought his companionship and support. He is your cousin; he is respected and wealthy. There are so many reasons why it would make a good match.”

“But he is my friend as well as my cousin. I trust him and love him as family, nothing else. There are a hundred men I would marry before Philip. He would make an abominable husband. For me, anyway.”

“I don't understand, what about the last time I saw you in London? I entered your home and saw you holding hands and later he put his arm around you. I couldn't bear to see it.”

“You were jealous? Was that why you were so cold and distant that day?”

“Yes,” he acknowledged.

“I'm all amazement. I hadn't the smallest idea you were jealous.” She studied his face. “How could I love Philip when you're in the world?”

“I can hardly believe how well you treated me after how badly I treated you.”

“Because you didn't love me back, didn't mean I would stop loving you, or wish you ill. In fact, it was the opposite. I knew I wasn't good enough for you.”

“Don't say that! Never say that again. It's I who am not worthy of you, all goodness that you are.”

“But how did you start to love me? Though it pains me to remember, you hated me so much before.”

“It happened gradually. I didn't realise my feelings were love at first. Then when Risinger interfered . . . ” he sighed. “I believe I knew I loved you when I saw your workroom that day in the rain. I knew I had misjudged you in every way, not only in believing the wicked words spoken against you. It grew from there very quickly.”

“I destroyed the workroom. The day after you all dined here I couldn't bear the shame of my inadequate education. I was embarrassed. I still am, in a way.” She bowed her head.

“Embarrassed? Why?”

“I have tried to dismiss Mr Boyd's words, but they were spoken so honestly. He truly believed that it was a child's room. I couldn't bear it.”

She fought back tears.

“But why be embarrassed about an honest interest, and the wish to further your education? Did you destroy everything?”

“Yes. No. I mean, I burnt all the journals and broke many other things. I didn't go in there for a long time, but eventually I cleared it up. I still use it now, though I have not read the journal for a long time. That is why I had not read your bridge article.”

He touched her face and murmured, “Oh Louise,” then recollecting something else, he said, “Did the equipment and books I sent help?”

“You sent them?”

“Yes.”

“I thought they were from Mr Boyd. For a fleeting moment I thought they may have been from you, but I believed he sent them as an apology.”

Many further hours that day were spent in similar discussion. They quickly established that they both wished to marry without delay. Too much time had been wasted already. In the early evening they walked out and she showed him the lake, the fields beyond the gardens and the beautiful scenery she so loved. He showed little interest in anything other than his companion.

As they walked back to the house, he commented, “You are quiet.”

“I was trying to remember the last time I was this happy,” she said.

“When was that?”

“I have never been this happy,” she replied.

Charles stayed a week in Devon. His strict sensibilities wouldn't allow him to stay as a guest in her house without a chaperone, so he put up at the local inn.

As word spread of the engagement, the landlord transferred Mr Lucas to his best room. Custom increased; everyone it seemed wanted to see first hand what sort of man the future master of Glazebrook was and possibly catch a glimpse of him. Many were disappointed, because he spent most of his time at his future home.

Louise travelled back to London with him, under the excuse that she needed to visit her dressmaker for her wedding gown. Although their courtship in London was short, every day was delightful. She especially enjoyed his attentions at evening engagements, when he would approach her as soon as she arrived and tenderly kiss her hand. He would stay determinedly at her side, except when an unkind friend parted them, and he would always see her safely home afterwards.

Jane was ecstatic when she learnt of the news. She couldn't have wished for a better sister, but when she next met her brother, she chastened him for keeping his feelings towards Louise such a secret.

“If I had known of your love, I could have helped you both on the way to happiness,” she said.

“That is what I was afraid of,” he replied.

The wedding was the occasion of the year. They married in the chapel at Glazebrook and Louise was declared a vision in her cream silk gown and lace trim. “Never was there a more beautiful bride,” Lord Philip said, as he waited to escort her to the chapel. “If I could find a woman with half your sense then perhaps I could one day be persuaded into matrimony.”

Louise laughed at him. “I still believe you will fall in love with someone who will not return your sentiments.”

Rather than be fashionably late arriving at the chapel, Louise was a few minutes early. She could not wait a moment longer to be married to her beloved Charles. She anxiously looked to the front of the church to find her nervous, fiancé smiling back at her.

After the ceremony, Louise placed her bouquet on her father's grave. “See, I chose wisely, father,” she whispered.

Six months into the marriage, the dependents at Glazebrook were satisfied that nothing had really changed. The head cook was a little happier, since Charles’s presence each night at dinner meant that her mistress was always wanting to vary her menu.

At first, Charles was a little overwhelmed by the constant visitors wishing the newly married couple well. As time went on, however, his wife would make excuses for him being absent at such visits due to his engineering commitments, which he pursued whenever possible in her restored workroom.

Jane and her husband were frequent visitors, and eventually so were Edward and his wife. Charles watched Louise revel in the novelty of family life, truly enjoying every moment with her brother and sister, nieces and nephews, who in the fullness of time became close companions to their own children, the heirs to Glazebrook.

And, as well as offering gardens and fields aplenty for family gatherings, the estate and house were large enough to provide times of peace and solitude, especially for a man and a woman who had found a deep and binding love against the odds.

Extract from English Standard Encyclopedia, first published 1967, this edition 1999.

See also: Lucas, Louise; Adams, Robert

Famous Victorian engineer, he lacked the drive for fame sought by other engineers such as Brunel, but completed a great many projects, most of which still stand today. He is considered one of the best engineers of his time.

His early works include the bridge over the Tamar, which he completed after winning a hard fought competition; a massive extension to Bristol docks; and a railway tunnel under the Pennines

between Saddleworth and Slaithwaite.

Later works include huge improvements to coal and tin mine engineering. He is credited with saving the lives of thousands of miners and vastly improving their working conditions.

He married Louise Thomas in 1856 and was awarded an honorary knighthood in 1878 for services to engineering. A devoted family man to his wife and four children, he spent most of his working life on projects close to his home in Devon.

He is most famous for his joint ventures with 'Robert Adams', including a viaduct in North Cornwall, a bridge over the Thames and the Bristol Sewerage System. He caused sensation within the engineering world (and beyond) in 1899, when shortly after his wife's death, he revealed that Robert Adams was actually his wife, Lady Louise Lucas.

See also: Lucas, Sir Charles; Adams, Robert

Wife of the famous Victorian engineer Sir Charles Lucas. Little is known about her except that in 1899, shortly after her death, she was revealed as the engineer 'Robert Adams' who co-designed a number of important projects, including a viaduct in Newquay, Cornwall; the Southridge Bridge across the Thames; and the Bristol Sewerage System (famous for its improvements on the London system) with her husband Sir Charles Lucas.

It is believed that after their marriage in 1856, Charles Lucas educated his wife in engineering at home and they began working together around 1865, although some more recent research has shown she may have started contributing ideas to his work much earlier.

It was her own wish that her identity as Robert Adams was kept a secret until after her death, as she believed that the world wasn't yet ready to accept a female engineer.

She published several research papers in the Engineering Journal under her pseudonym, and it was in that publication that her husband revealed her identity as Robert Adams in December 1899. He said of her in the article, “Finally she has the recognition she deserves,” and “When I started teaching her, she learnt quickly. There was very little she didn't understand. Her real passion was in chemical engineering, but my own knowledge in that area wasn't sufficient for her to actively work in that arena. We had to work secretly, and only a few family members knew of her achievements. She accompanied me often to the work sites on the pretext that she was an enthusiastic amateur. If anyone ever guessed she was Robert Adams, I never heard of it.”

The revelation caused several newspapers to run stories about it and there was a flurry of panic when some MP's and public officials questioned the sturdiness of her engineering work. However, any questions over her work were quickly quashed by established engineers of the day who declared her work to be of the highest standard.