Never Call It Love (5 page)

Picking
up her embroidery, Mrs. Montlow said with a
sigh, "I suppose I should be
thankful that you too don't find the country dull. Perhaps if you could not see
Donald almost every day, you would find it so."

Elizabeth
smiled, and picked up her book, a copy of Fielding's
Tom Jones.
Donald
had given it to her two days ago, just before he left to visit his uncle in
Bath. "Perhaps you're right, Mother."

She
could not remember a time when Donald Weymouth had not been an important part
of her life. The Weymouths, whose land adjoined that of the Montlows, were not
an "old" family. Of yeoman stock, they had only in the past two
generations been considered gentry. (But then, as Donald had once said to her
with his winning smile, "It's odd that we should speak of old families. If
every human being is descended from Adam and Eve, then all families are equally
old.")

Like
the Montlows, the Weymouths were far from rich. But Donald, two years older
than Elizabeth, and educated for the church, had an assured future. A
well-to-do and childless brother of Mrs. Weymouth's controlled the living in
the local parish. As soon as the present vicar retired, the post would be
Donald's.

Unlike
many of England's hard-drinking, fox-hunting parsons, Donald was prepared to
take his vocation seriously. Perhaps a little too seriously. He read, and
discussed with Elizabeth the works of Calvin and other Dissenters. But then, as
he once said to her, probably he was just sowing his "intellectual wild
oats." In time he would find no difficulty in abiding by the tenets of the
Church of England.

As
soon as he became vicar, they would announce their engagement Not long
afterward, his church salary would be supplemented by Elizabeth's inheritance
and one from Donald's uncle. There would be more than enough money to keep
themselves and their children and Elizabeth's mother in comfort As for
Christopher's future, no one
need worry about that. He would have not only this
country estate and the house in town. With his looks and charm and ancient
though untitled name, with the influential friendships he was making at Oxford,
he could go about as far in the world as he liked, either by means of some high
political appointment or by marriage to some great heiress.

She
realized that both she and Donald, too, might be able to make more
"advantageous" marriages elsewhere. But to them their union would
offer every advantage worth having—shared tastes for books and riding and
country life in general, and a warm, serene love with roots in their
childhoods.

Mrs.
Montlow said, "Are you sure we couldn't have at least a small orchestra
for Christopher's Christmas party? A violin and a flute, as well as the
spinet?"

Elizabeth
laughed. "All right I'll see if it can be managed."

Several
seconds passed in silence. Then Mary Hawkins, the cook who had come to the
Hedges as an upstairs maid the year before Elizabeth's birth, spoke from the
doorway. "Could I see you in the kitchen for a moment, miss?"

Elizabeth
felt a stab of anxiety. The woman's face was pale, and her voice held scarcely
controlled tension. "Of course," Elizabeth said quickly.

Neither
of them spoke until they had gone down the hall to the large and very clean
kitchen, with its rows of copper pans gleaming in the light of the tallow lamp,
and supper's chicken browning on the fireplace spit

"What
is it, Hawkins?"

"Mr.
Tabor was just here. He brought Sunday's joint." Henry Tabor was the
village butcher.

"And?"

"There's
a story in the village that the house in town
was broke into last night by...
by some young persons."

"Our
house?" Hawkins nodded. "Was much stolen?"

"As
to that, I don't know, miss. But, oh, miss! There was a woman, a young
girl."

"Girl?
What girl?"

"I
don't know. But she's dead, miss. She jumped out a window, or they pushed her.
She was found in the area-way, dead and naked."

Shocked
and sickened, Elizabeth said, "My mother must not learn of this, not until
I've decided how to break the news to her."

Mary
Hawkins' broad, lined face looked reproachful. "Can you believe I would
say anything to upset the dear lady?"

"I
know you wouldn't. After supper I'll tell her myself."

She
moved back along the hall. Thank God there were no longer young housemaids to
whisper excitedly among themselves and thus betray to Mrs. Montlow that
something was being kept from her. These days, household tasks other than
cooking were performed by Elizabeth herself, with the help of a charwoman from
the village twice a week.

Mrs.
Montlow looked up as Elizabeth appeared in the sitting-room doorway. "What
is it? Black beetles again?"

"No.
Hawkins was afraid the butcher had overcharged
for Sunday's joint of mutton.
But I put it on the kitchen scale, and it weighs exactly what he'd told
her." Lest her mother have time to realize that Mary Hawkins herself could
have weighed the joint, Elizabeth added swiftly, "I think I will take a
short walk. I feel the need of exercise." Always she found that she could
think better out-of-doors.

"But
it will be dark soon! And it may rain. I'm sure I heard thunder a few minutes
ago."

"I
won't stay out long."

She
went upstairs to the big comer room at the rear of the house that had been hers
ever since she outgrew the nursery. As she took down her warmest cloak from the
clothespress, she glanced out the window. Between the tall ilex hedges that
gave the house its name, a gravel path meandered among flowerbeds back to the
carriage house. The flowerbeds were empty now except for bare rose bushes and
withered stalks of last summer's marigolds and flox and daisies. In the old
days those dead plants would long since have been cleared away. But there was
no gardener now, only Elizabeth herself to tend the flowerbeds. Busy indoors,
she often neglected the garden.

I
must at least dig up the dahlia roots, Elizabeth thought, and then realized
that she was trying to postpone consideration of something far more unpleasant
than a neglected garden.

Leaving
the house by the front door, she went along a brick walk between rows of dwarf
boxwood that needed pruning, through a white wooden gate in the front hedge,
and then down a short path. When she reached the narrow road that led, over
rising ground, toward the village, she turned to her left.

Her
mother had been right about the corning rain. In the west, black clouds were
massed below the gray overcast Now and then lightning flickered, followed by a
growl of
thunder. Above the empty brown fields, rooks hovered, cawing in that excited
way that always presages a storm. Knowing that she could not stay out long,
Elizabeth climbed the slope at a quickened pace.

A
girl. A girl naked and dead, or at least dying, in the areaway of the Montlow
town house. Why had she, the moment she heard of the girl, thought of
Christopher?

She
hated herself for it. It was monstrous that she should think, even for a
moment, that her little brother... And it was illogical, too. Christopher was
at Oxford, watched over by dons and proctors and by the porter in the gate
lodge of his particular college. And even if by some strange circumstance he
had been in London last night, he and the "young persons" would not
have had to break into the house. As befitted someone approaching man's estate,
he had been supplied with keys to both the Hedges and the London house before
he enrolled at Oxford.

And
yet she kept thinking of the hanged kitten and of the engraving she had found
on the floor of her brother's clothespress.

She
had reached level ground now. She walked on, past fields that were part of
Montlow lands, dimly aware that the last of the dull light was going and that
the thunder had grown louder. Just why did she feel this shrinking reluctance
to tell her mother? True, the news would be a shock. But when a bailiff arrived
to notify them officially of the break-in, Mrs. Montlow need not even see him.
Elizabeth would take care of that, and also, if necessary, go to London to
assay whatever damage had been done to the house and its furnishings.

Would
she also be asked to try to identify the girl, or had someone already done
that? She fervently hoped someone had.

The
girl. Christopher and the kitten.

Only
half an hour ago she had been thinking of how
she and Donald, in a violent
world made up of the ruthless rich and the hopeless, often criminal poor, would
live out their lives somewhere in between, in a little oasis of warmth and
peace. Now she had a sense of some cruel force gathering itself to shatter that
modest dream....

The
first large drops of rain struck the hood of her cloak. With a start, she
realized that it was almost completely dark. What was more, she had walked
farther than she had intended to. Turning, she hurried back toward the Hedges
in its cup of low hills.

Before
she had gone more than a few yards, the storm was upon her, blotting out what
remained of the light, drenching her with rain. Lightning flashed, giving her
an eerie glimpse of the rain-darkened road and the empty fields stretching away
beyond their low stone walls. The bolt had grounded somewhere nearby, because
only a split second later she heard the deafening thunderclap. Despite the mud
now weighting her shoes and the hem of her cloak, she broke into a half-run.

Another
flash, lighting up the trunk and leafless branches of an oak a few yards ahead
at the roadside. When the almost simultaneous roll of thunder died away, she
heard another sound, a muffled clop of hooves. Somewhere in the darkness behind
her, a horse and rider were approaching at a gallop.

Probably
it was just some farmer, hurrying on one errand or another to the village a few
miles the other side of the Hedges. But in these perilous times, with hundreds
of highwaymen roaming about to rob stagecoaches and lone travelers, hoofbeats
by night were an ominous sound even on country roads such as this one. Heart
hammering, she moved even faster. She must be close to that oak tree now. Yes,
she could see it, a deeper dark against the darkness. She moved to its far side
and stood motionless against the thick trunk. Mount and rider were so close
now that she
could hear not only hooves but also the jingle of a bridle.

Perhaps
the horse caught her scent. She heard a frightened whinny. Then lightning
flashed. She had a glimpse of a rearing gray horse and a dark-clothed rider
bathed in blue-white radiance. For a frightened instant she thought the rider
must surely see her. But apparently he was too absorbed in trying to control
his mount to even glance at the roadside.

Darkness
swallowed up horse and rider. She heard the horse whinny again, and the man
say, "Stop it, you bloody fool." Then he rode past. His face, shadowed
by his tricorne hat, had been invisible to her. But there had been something
familiar about the set of the broad shoulders beneath the enveloping cloak, and
something familiar about his voice. She waited until she could no longer hear
the beat of hooves. Then she moved out into the road.

The
storm proved to be as brief as it had been violent. Before she had gone more
than a few yards, the rain dwindled. Finally it ceased. A full moon, still
thinly veiled, sent a diffused radiance over the muddy road and the drenched
fields. She looked back and saw, in the now cloudless strip of sky above the
western horizon, the planet Venus shining like a miniature second moon.

She
had gone through the gate in the tall hedge and was hurrying up the walk when
Mrs. Montlow opened the front door. "Drenched to the skin! Elizabeth, I
will never understand you. How is it that a clever girl can behave like a
backward child?"

"I'm
sorry," Elizabeth said, moving past her mother into the house. "I
know it's almost time for supper. I'll go right upstairs and change my
clothes."

***

Two
hours later the Montlow women again sat in the small side parlor, Mrs. Montlow
with her embroidery, Elizabeth pretending to read. She had not wanted to upset
her mother at
the supper table. But soon now she would have to lay her book aside and break
the news.

A
tapping against the glass doors that led onto the terrace. Elizabeth's head
jerked up. Mrs. Montlow said, half-delighted, half-alarmed, "Why, it's
Christopher!"

For
a moment Elizabeth sat rigid, staring at the slender cloaked figure, the
troubled, angelically handsome face in its frame of pale hair. Too late, she
thought. Too late now to prepare her mother—although to prepare her for what,
Elizabeth could not have said. Aware that her mother was getting to her feet,
she too stood up, crossed the room, and unlatched the glass doors.

"Liza!"
Then: "Please, Mama! Please sit down again."

Obediently,
Mrs. Montlow sank back into her chair. Christopher's tricorne hat dropped from
his hand to the floor. Then he crossed to his mother, fell to his knees, and
buried his head in her lap. "Oh, Mama! Forgive me!"