The Frost Fair (22 page)

After dinner, she sat with the ladies for as long as she could bear and then, excusing herself by explaining that she'd not seen her aunt since early in the day, made her escape. On the way to the stairs she noticed a light glowing beneath the library door. It meant that Geoffrey still sat over his papers. With an impulsive recklessness, she tapped on the door and burst in. “I know you're busy, Geoffrey,” she said defensively, “but I must talk to you. I shall only keep you a moment or two.”

He passed a hand over his brow and stood up. “Come in, Meg. I … I'm glad you've come. I've been wanting to speak to you, too.”

He led her to a chair close to the fire and busied himself with poking up the flames.

“I suppose you want to hear about the scheme I've devised in regard to Trixie, but—” Meg began.

“No, it's not that at all. Trixie hasn't been on my mind this evening.”

“Good, because she's not been on
my
mind either. I want to explain to you about that misunderstanding with Charles and Arthur.”

He straightened up, replaced the poker and sat down on the hearth, one booted foot stretched out before him. “There's no need to explain anything, Meg. It's not my affair. That's what I must explain to you. The very fact that you feel you
ought
to explain to me proves that I've permitted our … our
friendship
to get out of hand.”

Meg felt the blood drain from her face. He was about to say things she would not like to hear, and her mind raced about to find ways to forestall him. Her first instinct was to react in the usual way of a London flirt … to say something meaningless and coy, like “I don't know what you
mean
, sir,” or, in her own, more customary style, “La, sir, I
never
permit my friendships to get out of hand.” But somehow, in her relationship with Geoffrey, that sort of conversation had never been appropriate. “You're referring to … to what happened between us this afternoon,” she said helplessly.

“Yes. I feel I must apologize for my behavior. Our ride stirred up my blood … there was the view … the wind … Damnation, there really isn't any excuse, but you are so deucedly beautiful, you know …”

Meg felt suddenly encouraged.
This
sort of conversation was very familiar to her—she knew from long experience just how to deal with it. She leaned back in her chair and smiled. “Your behavior needs no apology, Geoffrey. I was not in the least offended.”

He looked back at her with knit brows. “I know that. But that's not the point. I think the afternoon … the feeling between us … misled you. I know it misled me. For a while it began to seem possible that we could …” He paused and turned to stare into the fire. “But you see, my dear, how one's true character reasserts itself. You assessed me well from the first. You remarked on how I seem to disparage the female sex. I suppose I did show signs of being a woman hater—a true mysogynist. You made me aware for the first time of this shortcoming in me. I've thought about your words many times since, and I believe you were right—”

“No, I wasn't. There's no hate in you for anyone. I see that now.”

“Yes, that's what made me believe you to be wrong, at first. But perhaps a mysogynist is not really a hater but one who's merely uncomfortable with women. That is what I've discovered about myself. I don't understand the way that females behave. I find myself disapproving of their words and their acts. I can't follow the convolutions of their thoughts or the twists in their ethical reasoning.”

“Are you thinking of your mother and sisters … or of me?” Meg asked frankly.

“Of all of you. You all never fail to leave me bewildered and confused.”

“But Geoffrey, in what way have
I
—?”

He stared at her. “Dash it, woman, you're the worst of the lot! Here you are, a lady of breeding, education, taste and refinement. You've been the head of a household, managed a fortune, and lived for all your years a life which Isabel tells me is a model of responsible, mature propriety. Yet I've seen you make all sorts of foolish decisions, take a number of reckless chances, embroil the people you meet in troublesome situations, get yourself betrothed to two men at once—”

“Stop, please!” Meg didn't know whether she should laugh or cry. “You make me sound like a veritable zany. There are perfectly logical explanations for every one of those mischances to which you refer.”

“Yes, I'm certain that there are, but—”

“And I was
not
betrothed to two men at once! That, of all my misconduct is what most bothers you, isn't it? I'm beginning to believe, Geoffrey Carrier, that you are merely saying all this to me in a fit of jealousy!”

He gave her a sardonic laugh. “Oh, not a fit, girl. A rage. I've been suffering from a murderous jealousy ever since I first realized the place that pair of park-saunterers had in your life. But you see, it's the way of the male of the species to try to overcome such irrational indulgences, not to wallow in them. And we men certainly don't permit those feelings to get the better of our judgment or to affect the decisions we must make. So you mustn't think that my jealousy is in any way responsible for what I must tell you.”

“It's the way of women, too, to try to overcome irrationality. We don't
all
wallow in our emotions, you know. So don't take that superior tone with me, Geoffrey Carrier, for I won't have it! As for what you ‘must' tell me, I'm not at all sure I want to hear it.”

“I'm afraid you'll have to, Meg,” he said with a return to his earlier, ominous tone. “I can't let you go on in the belief that … that what passed between us this afternoon can continue. For you, it may have been just another of your many flirts—I'm too unaccustomed to the ways of London society to be sure—but for me it was frighteningly close to … to being a commitment I cannot make.”

“I see.” Now it was out. Now he'd said it in so many words. She stared at him for a moment, feeling strangely numb. It was like a cut on the thumb that one knows is there but can't for a moment feel. Only after the blood starts to flow does one begin to feel the throb of pain. “Would it make any difference to you if … if I said that this afternoon was
not
just another of my … flirts?”

He threw her a quick, piercing look and lowered his head. “It would be something I should be very gratified to hear, I admit … but it couldn't change anything. I'm meant for the bachelor life, I'm afraid. Married life is something I seem to have no stomach for. The fact is that I'm too cowardly.”

Meg sat silent, unmoving. There was not a thing she could think of to say … he'd left nothing
for
her to say. Even the explanation of Charles' and Arthur's visit—an explanation she'd been bursting to make!—would be pointless now. There was nothing to do but to exit gracefully. That, at least, was something she could carry off without failing. She'd failed at everything else she'd tried in this house. Was it only a few days ago that she'd expected to be able to return to London carrying his heart in her pocket like a trophy? True, it was a goal she'd promptly lost interest in … but she'd never expected to end by leaving
her
heart as a trophy for
him
.

She got up from her chair, hoping that the trembling of her knees would not be apparent in her step.
Could it be
, she wondered,
that Charles and Arthur had felt this way when I rejected them this afternoon?
Were the Fates taking a malicious retribution? Charles and Arthur had taken their dismissal quite courageously—Charles had made a well-wishing speech and Arthur a quip. She could certainly do as well. When she reached the door, she turned back to him. He was still seated on the hearth, staring at her with a frozen, unreadable expression. “You needn't look so grim about it, Geoffrey,” she said lightly. “It was only a game after all.”

But when she'd closed the library door behind her, her step became unsteady and her throat burned. There had been so many times in the past when she'd rejected suitors, yet she'd never dreamed that they might have suffered like this. Now the shoe was on the other foot, and it pinched dreadfully. Why had she never before been capable of understanding that the pinch of a little rejection could cause such agonizing pain?

Chapter Sixteen

A long night provided neither rest nor comfort, and the events of the following day only underlined the dilemma of Meg's situation. Geoffrey, evidently adamant in his determination to keep himself unentangled, removed himself completely from the society of the household. Even when Isabel made her first venture out of bed—and the whole family, Dr. Fraser and most of the household staff were on hand to cheer her as she came down the stairs for afternoon tea—Geoffrey was conspicuous by his absence. Meg came face-to-face with him only once during that endless day—when she'd returned from a lonely ride and encountered him on the stairs—and he, although unimpeachably polite, made it clear from the cool dispatch with which he excused himself and passed her by that the chasm between intimacy and estrangement was wide indeed and would not be easily bridged again.

It was a completely unbearable situation in which to find herself, and the only way to ease it was to leave this house as soon as possible—the very next day, if she could manage it. The only deterrent to the plan was her aunt's condition. Although still weak, Isabel was no longer feverish and had spent part of the day downstairs. If the doctor felt that the trip would not unduly affect her health, and if the fine weather held, there was every reason to hope that they could take their leave of Knight's Haven at last.

That evening, when Dr. Fraser made his evening call on his patient, Meg came into Isabel's bedroom to ask him what he thought of her plan. “We've been here for almost a fortnight,” she explained, “and that's been far too great a burden on the Carriers' hospitality. Besides, Aunt Bel and I yearn for our own surroundings, our own bedrooms, our own lives. I'm sure that Aunt Bel will agree that her recovery will be quickened by finding herself in her own home.”

Isabel and the doctor exchanged surprised looks. “But … tomorrow?” Isabel asked, her voice breathless. “Isn't that a bit too sudden?”

“Perhaps, my love, but if you're well enough, don't you think the sooner we go the better?”

“Well, I … suppose so,” Isabel answered, her fingers clenching nervously at the coverlet, “if … er … Dr. Fraser thinks it's all right for me to go.”

Dr. Fraser was glowering at Isabel with unusual ferocity. “Ye wish me t' tell the lass ye need anither week o' recovery, is that it? Pawky female, what good would
that
do? Ha'e ye no the courage t' tell her the truth?”

Meg looked from one to the other in stupefaction. “What truth?”

Her aunt was glowering back at the Scotsman. “Donald MacPherson Fraser, you are a yatterin' gowk! I
told
you I couldn't—”

“Are you still sick, Aunt Bel? Is that it?”

Dr. Fraser ignored Meg's interruption and continued to frown down at Isabel in impatient disapproval. “Y're sufferin' from simple cowardice!” he accused. “Ye wish me t' tell her y're too ill t' travel, is that it? And then, next week t' tell her
more
o' the same? Is it a liar ye wish t' make o' me? Woman, I winna lie fer you or anyone!”

Meg could make no sense of the doctor's words. She wondered if rejection in love could make a person lose her reason. “What are you talking about, Dr. Fraser?”

“Don't pay any attention to the man, Meg,” Isabel said, hitching about on the pillows to show the doctor her back. “He's just being nonsensical.”

“Oho! Michty
me
! Nonsensical, am I? So ye'll be runnin' off fer
home
tomorra, then, will ye? Is that what yer sayin'?”

Isabel cast a troubled look at him over her shoulder. “Well, if you say I'm well enough …”

“Aye! Out o' doot!” he shouted, his hands waving about wildly. “Yer braw! Yald! Healthy as a horse! Go, then!”

Meg could only stare at him in stunned bafflement. Isabel looked from one to the other in an agony of indecision and then, without warning, cast herself into the pillows, buried her face and burst into sobs.

“Aunt Bel! Dr. Fraser, what
is
this?” Meg cried, dumbfounded and alarmed.

Dr. Fraser, his expression softening, gazed down at the sobbing woman for a moment in hesitation. Then, pulling off his
pince-nez
and pocketing it carefully, he sat down on the bed and took the weeping Isabel into his arms. “Wheesht, me bonnie, wheesht! It winna be so dreadful t' tell the lass.”

“Oh, Donald,” Isabel sobbed into his shoulder, “I'm too old for this sort of scene.”

Meg could think of nothing but that her aunt was dying. “What sort of scene is she talking about?” she asked, shaken. “Tell me!”

The doctor looked up at Meg over Isabel's shoulder. “It ain't fer
me
t' tell ye, lass. 'Tis yer aunt who should be makin' the explanations.”

“Th-there's n-nothing to explain,” Isabel sniffed, lifting her head, pulling a handkerchief from the doctor's pocket unceremoniously and blowing her nose into it. “There, that's b-better. I'm s-sorry I lost my c-composure.”

“But you
must
explain, Aunt Bel,” Meg insisted. “You can't expect me to ignore—”

“You must ignore it. The doctor says I'm well—healthy as a horse, in fact—so there's nothing further to be said. We shall leave t-tomorrow, just as you wish.”

“Nothin' further to be said?” the doctor asked, jumping to his feet. “
That's
yer decision, is it?”

Isabel seemed to sag. “I've already warned you this might happen,” she said to him. “I can't leave her now, completely alone as she is. When she marries, well, then we can—”