Never Call It Love (24 page)

When
the meal ended, Colin announced abruptly that he had work to do, and went back
to his office. Elizabeth and the other two men—she with coffee, they with
glasses of port—settled down before the library fire. At ten, pleading
tiredness after a long day's ride, Donald went upstairs.

Alone
with Patrick, Elizabeth said, "Thank you for being so... amiable this
evening."

He
shrugged. "Why shouldn't I be? The man's a guest. And he seems a good
sort, for a parson." He looked at her sardonically. "What did you
expect the barbaric Patrick Stanford to do? Slip poison into his soup?"

"No,
of course not. Nevertheless, I wanted to thank
you." She placed her
coffeecup on the small table beside her chair, rose, and said good night.

Apparently
Patrick felt he had fulfilled his duties as a host, because when Elizabeth
awoke the next morning, she learned from Rose that he and his brother had
ridden off right after an early breakfast. Elizabeth did not mind—far from
it—and certainly Donald did not seem to. With rain beating against the windows,
they browsed through the books in the library and talked endlessly of that
village north of London and of people they had known all their lives. After
their midday meal, which they ate seated companionably close at one corner of
the long table, they returned to the library for more talk of home.

Around
three o'clock the rain slackened, then ceased. Elizabeth said reluctantly,
"Do you want one of the hunters saddled for you?"

"When
you cannot ride with me? Of course not."

She
hesitated. "In the past few weeks, I've been driving about in an old farm
cart. It is not a stylish vehicle. But then, there would not be many people to
see us in the lanes around here...."

"My
dear Elizabeth, I wouldn't care if our route lay through Piccadilly
Circus."

Half
an hour later, with Donald driving the ancient dapple gray, the tall-wheeled
cart lumbered down a narrow lane. Gypsy was with them. At first, deprived of
his usual place beside Elizabeth on the seat, he made sounds of displeasure
deep in his throat. Now, though, he had settled down in the bed of the cart.
With the sky clear of clouds, the sun shone as warmly as it had any day in
midsummer. But everywhere there were signs of autumn's approach. Leaves of oaks
and maples had turned a duller green. Fringed gentians blossomed at roadsides.
In the orchards, apples lay thick upon the ground, with bumblebees, half-drunk
on fermenting fruit, making languid circles above them.

The
cart turned off onto a still narrower track that led across uncultivated,
gently rolling land to a bluff above the sea. There they stopped and looked out
across sparkling blue water. About half a mile away two square-rigged ships,
sails spread to the breeze, moved southward. Elizabeth could see the dark round
circles of their gun ports. She asked, "Ours?"

Donald
nodded. "They are trying to keep French warships and privateers out of the
Irish channel. Poor England!"

Elizabeth
knew what he meant. When the American rebels had sent the English reeling back
at the Battle of Saratoga, King Louis of France had seen his opportunity. Since
then he had been waging sea warfare on the already weakened English wherever he
could—off Gibraltar, along the coast of India, and among the Caribbean islands.

Elizabeth
asked, "Will he lose the American colonies
?"

"I
fear so. Edmund Burke is right, you know. If King George and his ministers
wanted to retain the colonies, they should have adopted milder policies years
ago." After a moment he went on, "But right now I find it hard to be
concerned with such matters. Elizabeth, are you happy?"

Afraid
to look at him, but keenly aware of his hand loosely holding the reins, and of
his thigh only inches from her own on the wooden seat, she said nothing.

"Aren't
you going to answer me?"

She
forced the words out. "I am reasonably content." Then, swiftly:
"You must not ask such questions. You know you must not. Let me... let me
just enjoy being with you for these few hours. Otherwise I shall be sorry I
asked you to come here."

After
a while he said quietly, "Very well." For a minute or so they looked
at the patrolling warships. On a different tack now, the vessels were veering
westward
toward the Atlantic. Then he said, "I must leave by ten tomorrow."

"I
know. If... if it is possible, I would like to accompany you in the cart for a
mile or so."

"I
hope you can."

He
did not ask what might keep her from doing so. Apparently he realized that such
a plan would become impossible if Patrick Stanford chose to be present to speed
the parting guest.

"We
must go back now," Elizabeth said.

He
sat motionless for several seconds. Then he backed the cart and turned it
toward Stanford Hall.

Patrick
was absent from the supper table that night, but Colin was there. Apparently he
regretted his strange outburst of hostility the previous evening, because his
manner no longer was challenging. The three of them talked easily about Dr.
Johnson's dictionary, and Sheridan's play,
The School for Scandal,
a
performance of which Donald had seen in Dublin. After the meal they moved into
the library for port and coffee and more talk. Elizabeth took an almost
feverish pleasure in every moment. And yet, despite her enjoyment, the words
"the last time" kept sounding in her mind like a dirge. Probably this
was the last time she would see firelight playing over Donald's light brown
hair and sensitive face, the last time she would hear his warm voice speaking.

She
lay awake for hours that night. Thus she was still asleep when Rose came in
with morning tea. Hearing the rattle of the cup in its saucer, Elizabeth came
instantly awake. She sat up in bed.

"Has
Mr. Weymouth had breakfast?"

Rose
settled the tray across Elizabeth's lap. "He is having it now, milady. I
took a tray to his room ten minutes ago."

"And
Sir Patrick? Did he return last night?"

Elizabeth's
question had not specified where her
husband might have returned from. But
Rose knew that her mistress must realize that probably he was at Wetherly. And
a crying shame it was, too, that he should be spending his nights with that
highborn trollop. "No, milady. Sir Patrick is not here."

"Will
you have someone tell Joseph that I would like to have him hitch up the cart
for me?"

Voice
expressionless, Rose said, "Yes, milady." Like the other servants,
Rose did not enjoy seeing her beautiful ladyship drive around in that old cart
like some tenant farmer's wife. But then, everyone knew that women in the
family way often took strange notions.

Shortly
after ten, with Donald keeping his mount reined to a walk beside her, Elizabeth
drove the cart through the courtyard gates, across the field, and along the
narrow lane that led through oaks and alders. When they emerged from the grove,
they turned onto the road leading to Waterford. Overhead, sullen gray clouds
promised rain before long.

They
spoke little. Once Elizabeth said, "Be sure to tell my mother you found me
well," and Donald answered, "I will." After that, they moved in
silence down the road, past isolated cottages, past fields where men and women
dug the now ripe potatoes with long-handled forks. When they had gone a hundred
yards or so beyond a gap in the low line of hills, Elizabeth drew on the reins
and brought the dapple gray to a halt.

"I
had best turn back now."

They
looked at each other through the gray light. "Elizabeth..." he said
in a harsh, shaken voice. "Elizabeth."

"Please!
Just go." Then, to her horror, she began to cry.

Swiftly
he dismounted. He tied his horse's rein to one of the cart's corner posts.
Then, reaching up, he aided her
clumsy, tear-blinded descent to the road. He took
her face in his hands and kissed her lips with desperate hunger.

"Don't
go back there. Come with me. There's a fairly large town ten miles ahead. Maybe
I can hire a hackney coach for the rest of the way to Waterford."

"Donald,
Donald! You know I can't."

After
a moment he said in a flat voice, "Yes, I know." She was another
man's wife. In less than three months she would bear that man's child. "I
know," he repeated. He tried to smile. "But you see, my darling, I
love you so very much."

Since
the chances were overwhelming that they would never see each other again, she
let herself say it. "And I love you. I'll love you until the day I die.
Help me back into the cart now. And then go. Don't look back at me. Just
go."

Face
very white, he kissed her again. Then he helped her onto the high wooden seat.
He untied his mount's reins, swung into the saddle. As she had asked, he rode
away without looking back.

She
watched him until he disappeared around a bend in the road. She backed the
cart, turned it. Then her hands, jerking the reins spasmodically, brought Toby
to a halt.

On
the hillside about a hundred yards ahead, Patrick sat astride his rangy black
hunter. His very immobility told her that he had been there for at least
several minutes. There was no chance in the world that he had not seen her in
Donald's arms. For several seconds she and Patrick stared across the distance
that separated them. Then he whirled the hunter and disappeared over the crest
of the hill.

She
sat there for several more seconds, heart thudding with dread, before she
started driving through the gray light toward Stanford Hall and the infuriated
man she would find awaiting her there.

As
she drove through the courtyard gates, young Joseph came hurrying around the
corner of the house to take charge of the dapple gray. Then the massive front
doors opened, and Clarence came down the steps and helped her to the
cobblestones. Heart pounding now with not only dread but also a growing
defiance, she went into the house.

As
she had expected to, she saw Patrick standing just beyond the library's
doorway. Without waiting for him to speak, she swept past him into the room,
head held high. He closed the doors and then turned toward her. For several
seconds his infuriated gaze locked with her defiant one. Then he said,
"Well, madam?"

She
didn't answer.

His
rage fueled by her silence, he said, "Is this the way you repay trust and
generosity? I let you ask that parson fellow here, even though I knew you might
be making sheep's eyes at each other. I welcomed him as best I knew how."
His voice gathered fury. "And then today I see you making a public
spectacle of yourselves—"

"Scarcely
a spectacle, since there was no one to see us."

"I
saw
you! And others may have, too. I warned you, Elizabeth. I warned you that I
would not let you make a fool of me."

She
could no longer keep her bitterness in
check. "Whereas you are free to
behave just as you please with Moira Ashley."

His
voice turned cold. "You were the one who set forth the terms upon which we
were married. You wrote that you would have no objection if—"

"Yes!
I wrote that because I was desperate. And I was desperate because you
had—"

"Stop
that! God knows that whatever I did, I had provocation for it. Besides, that is
all in the past."

"Is
it?" she said furiously. "Is it? You dare to tell me it is all in the
past, when I stand here carrying the child you..."

Rage
closed her throat. Trembling all over, she moved toward the doors and then spun
around to face him again. "But there is one thing you cannot do to me. I
love Donald. And the only way you can stop my loving him is to kill me."

Blood
rushed to his face, making it even darker. "By God, madam, if you don't
watch both your behavior and your tongue, I may take up that challenge."

She
wrenched the doors open and at an awkward run moved through the gloomy light
toward the stairs. Blinded by tears, she started to climb. Halfway up, her toe
caught on the rounded edge of a riser, and she fell heavily forward.

For
a moment she just lay there, half-stunned. Then pain seized her like a giant
hand. Dimly aware of what was happening, she screamed, not only from the pain
but a foreknowledge of loss and sorrow. The giant hand relaxed, then squeezed
again.

Patrick
was beside her now. She heard him say, "Oh, my God, my God!" Then:
"Colin! Tell Padric to ride to the village as fast as he can and bring
back the midwife."

He
lifted her in his arms and carried her on up the stairs.

She
came awake, to see afternoon sunlight lying on the beautiful old carpet. What
day was it? The same day that she had fallen on the stairs? No, there had been
an interval of blazing candlelight. Faces had looked down at her through that
light as she lay racked with pain. Patrick's face, and Mrs. Corcoran's, and the
face of a middle-aged woman who must have been the village midwife.