An Affair of the Heart (26 page)

“It gives the impression you think of Ellie as a
thing,”
Rex charged. He marveled that this wonderful insight had somehow occurred to him, and added, “Just a thing, like a horse or a carriage. Something to
use.”

“That is the second time today you have accused me of using people,” Clay fired up. “I can assure you I have not used
my wife
as a
thing.”

“You’ve used her bad anyway, or she wouldn’t have left you. I begin to regret I ever called you to come and get her this morning. Tell me truthfully, now, Clay, why did she go? I won’t tell a soul, but I feel it’s my fault she married you, for it was me put the notion into your head.”

“I don’t know,” Clay said, and clamped his jaws shut.

“Seems hard you didn’t even get her a diamond ring, Clay, with all the jewels you’ve got locked up in a box somewhere. Everyone knows it. Shows a lack of respect, of interest in Ellie.” He waited for some response, but the locked jaws didn’t budge an iota. “I think she’s hurt. Thinks you don’t care for her a jot. If that’s the case, you shouldn’t have married her.” Rex was sure this would bring some response, possibly even physical, but still Clay stood with his mouth shut and his tongue between his teeth.

“Didn’t even sign your letters ‘Love’ or anything, after all the warm stuff you scribbled off to the
Rose.”

At last he got his response. “My w—Ellie doesn’t know what I wrote to Rose, and how does it come that you know what I wrote to Ellie?”

“She told me, this morning. Bawling her eyes out, too. She’s jealous of the Rose, Clay. If you ever hope to get this marriage off the ground, you’re going to have to explain to her you’re all through with the Rose. Even if you don’t love Ellie, you owe it to her—”

“Of course I love her. Why do you think I’m half distracted with worry! Rex, I can see you’ve made some sort of a botch of this morning.”

“I made a botch of it! Well, if that don’t beat the Dutch! You’re the one made a botch of it. Seems to me something happened last night! You did something stupid, Clay. Don’t know what it was, maybe it’s none of my business, but
something
turned her sour between the time she married you and this morning, when she came limping into the hotel. You didn’t—you didn’t
beat
her, did you? She denied it, but then she would, I suppose, for the disgrace of it. It’s been preying on my mind, thinking I led that poor girl on to marry a beater. She was limping something awful when she came in, which is why I mention the beating.”

“No, she cut her foot on a broken wine glass. The limp, Rex, surely it was not at all pronounced. I was hardly aware of it.”

“Daresay
you
was hardly looking.
It was very noticeable. Who smashed the glass?”

“That was an accident.” Clay waved it away with a fluttering hand.

“Drunk, was you?”

“Certainly not.”

“ ‘Cause if you
was,
daresay you might have got carried away and pounced on her. Scare the wits out of a shy girl like Ellie.”

“No, there was nothing like that.”

“You must have been foxed, Clay. What she said— well, there was no other way of reading it, though, of course, she couldn’t come right out and say what she meant. Said, though, that—well, I don’t remember word for word, but said you proved you didn’t love her. Yes, and you was talking about Rose in your sleep, too. Should think
anyone’d
know better than that.”

“But we weren’t even in the same room,” Clay said, and immediately the words were out he realized the chasm at whose brink he hovered.

“Eh?” A sapient blue eye was fixed on him.

“I mean, for
sleeping—
and if you tell a single soul, I’ll break your face,” he added, plunging with two feet into the abyss.

“Well, if you ain’t a slow top. The Marquis of Claymore!”
Rex went off into uncontrollable whoops of laughter, till the tears were trickling down his face. Between gasps for breath he exploded, “Separate rooms ... said you didn’t love her... no wonder ... gudgeon ... and
I
thought you’d
pounced.”

“Stop laughing like a hyena and get out of here.”

“Didn’t even creep up like a pussycat.” Again he was off into chuckles.

“That’s a lie! If you breathe one word of this, Homberly, I’ll call you out.”

“The fellow doth protest too much, methinks.”

“Shakespeare! You’re quoting Shakespeare at me,” Clay said, incredulous. “I don’t believe it. At a time like this. My best friend, sitting there quoting Shakespeare at me while I am in the worst toil of my life.”

“Sorry.” Rex sobered up immediately at the seriousness of the charge. “No offense. Didn’t know it was Shakespeare. Heard St. Ives say it t’other night. Thought it had a pretty grand ring to it. Might have known it wasn’t his own.” Unfortunately, he again fell into titters.

“You’d better go, Rex. I’m setting out for Wanderley’s place in Sussex right away.”

“I’m off to Bath then. Tell you what, Clay, you won’t find Ellie at home. Know that as well as I’m standing here. I’ll keep an eye out along the way to Bath. Inquire at the toll gates if your carriage has been through. Won’t seem anything odd in that, for anyone who recognizes me will know we’re close as peas in a pod. If I discover Ellie’s gone that way, I’ll let you know. Where should I direct a message?”

Clay listened with some interest to this opinion. Not that Rex had so much as a suspicion of a brain, but he
did
know Ellie pretty well. “You can send word here. If she’s not at her home, I’ll come back here, I guess.”

“All right then. If I hear anything at all I’ll write to you here.”

“Yes, thanks
.
”

“Sorry about—you know—all that laughing and Shakespeare and so on. Fair floored me, though, to think of you being so slow.” His only absolution was a snort and a sheepish look from his friend. Rallied by these, Rex said, “Say, Clay, why don’t you come along to Bath with me? Just like old times. We might race—”

“Rex, be sensible. I can’t go racing with you.”

“No, no. Forgot. Your wife, of course. Well, I’m off then. Happy hunting and all that.” He went to the door, chuckling into his collar stealthily. “Pussycat by Jove, Marquis of Claymore. Clunch.”

Mrs. Meecham accosted Claymore as he was gathering up what he needed for his trip, and inquired whether he wouldn’t have a bite before leaving.

“No, I am in a great hurry,” he said. It was well past noon, though, and he was suddenly aware of violent pangs of hunger from his long fast

“You have to eat,” she pointed out. “Might save yourself time if you did it here. There’s cold meat ready and some soup.”

“Well, if it’s ready,” Clay allowed, and was taken to the breakfast room, while Mrs. Meecham poured consoling words regarding “keeping up his strength” over his head, and hot coffee into his cup. At last, his body fed with food and his mind with worries, he left for Sussex.

Chapter Sixteen

He wasted the rest of that day in a fruitless trip to Sussex, was forced to stay overnight at an inn to rest his horses, and arrived back in London the next day around noon, no further ahead than when he had left. She was with none of her relatives, neither the Siderows, the Tamesons, nor her own mother. She must have gone to Bath after all with the Homberlys, as Rex had suggested. Wait to hear from Rex then. He waited the remainder of that day and the whole interminable night with no word from Rex. By morning he could wait no longer, but had his curricle hitched up to go to Bath himself.

He kept a spare team stabled at Reading, so he was at least sure of good horses for the remainder of the trip. He made it without hindrance to Gay Street, where Mrs. Homberly annually rented lodgings for eight weeks, then found he hadn’t the heart to face yet another batch of people and lie again. He headed to the York Inn, but realized he was likely to meet a dozen people he knew there, and drove around instead to the Pelican, a respectable place, but not quite of the first stare. He dispatched his valet, who did not take well to becoming a general factotum, with a note to Gay Street. It was while he was refreshing himself with a bottle in his suite that Rex came in.

“What in the world are you doing
here
?” he asked. “She ain’t here, nor hasn’t come this way, for I’ve asked everyone. Slyly, of course. Very slyly.”

So great was his shock that Clay didn’t even take him up on this ominous addendum. “What do you mean, she’s not here?” he asked, turning a shade paler.

“Told you I’d drop you a line if I heard anything. Well, I didn’t. Hear anything, I mean, or drop a line either, far as that goes. So why are you here?”

“She must be here.”

“No,
she ain’t.”

“But she is not at her father’s either.”

“Told you she wouldn’t go there.”

“You said she would be here.”

“Well, what I said was if she hadn’t gone to your mama, she might be here.”

“She is most certainly not there.”

“Certainly not here either,”
Rex advised, and flopped into a chair, from where he could reach the bottle and a glass, both of which he put to use without further ado.

Clay began beating a tattoo on his knee with his closed fist. “She is ill,” he said. “Got an infection in that cut. That is what must have happened.” He closed his lips and frowned...

“No reason to go thinking that,” his friend reassured him. “No saying she got one of them terrible infections. Though, of course, there’s no place likelier than a foot to get one in, what with having to put on an old sock, and walk on it and all. And it was certainly a terrible cut; the poor soul could hardly stand up when I last saw her. Still, that’s not to say she did get an infection like my old Uncle Harry. Ever tell you about him? Let a little scratch go—on his foot, just like Ellie—and before a week was out, it had puffed up like a balloon, right up past the ankle. They thought they’d have to cut it off, the foot, but he was too scared, so he just let it go on swelling. Can’t say I blame him.”

Claymore, visibly shaken, listened in horror to this recital. “Well, what happened?” he asked sharply.

“Nothing. It went down after a while. He lived for a couple of years, and even got around a little with the help of a stick. Never could stand the pressure of a boot on it again, though. Had a kind of a loose sock thing made up out of a cowhide, so he could go out in the winter, so you needn’t worry she’s
died,
or anything of that sort.”

“No, she can’t be dead,” Clay agreed. This lugubrious possibility went beyond the worst he had envisioned thus far.

“I’ll tell you what,”
Rex said suddenly, and from the settling on his features of his wise look, Clay came to attention, trying manfully to cast off the mental image of his bride, laid out on a slab with her foot inflated like a balloon.

“What is it?”

“Just remembered, you have
the gift.”

“Yes, I have it right here,” Clay replied, patting the pocket where he had stowed the diamond ring for safe keeping.

“What, in your pocket?”
Rex asked, startled.

“Yes, I am carrying it on me for safety’s sake.”

“I thought you’d keep it in your head.”

“My head?” Clay asked, dumbfounded. “Where, stuck through my nose, or wound through my hair perhaps?”

“Inside your head, of course.”

“I take it the gift we are discussing is not the diamond ring.”

“No, did you finally break down and take one out of your box?”

“I bought her a new one.” He took it out and showed it to Rex. “It’s bigger than Wanda’s,” he could not resist adding.

“Very nice. Couldn’t bear to part with one of the heirlooms, eh? Shouldn’t let yourself get so attached to them bits of glass and metal, Clay. They’re only things. The gift I meant, though, was a different one. Don’t you remember, the first time we went to Wanderleys, you said you had the gift, and could hear your love calling to you, so you knew which room she was in? And you was right, too, only it was Ellie that was calling, and not Wanda, as we thought at the time.”

“Have you taken leave of your senses?”

“No, but I think you have. Remember distinctly you heard Ellie calling to you over the miles, or maybe it was feet. Anyway, you said you had the gift. And you have, for it worked. Well, thing to do, use the gift. Have a chat with it and find out where she is.”

“I haven’t the least idea what you are talking about. I never heard anything so stupid in my life.”

“Thought so at the time, but it worked. No denying it was Ellie that was calling you, for she came to the window right away, and started hollering down to us to shut up.”

“Did she?” Claymore asked, and rather thought he did recall some such event. The idea of the gift, however, was disdained. Upon repeated urgings from
Rex he did at last lie down, close his eyes and concentrate, but his gift refused to give him the least help, now that he needed it

“You want my advice,” Rex said, “go home. Got to be there. No place else she could be.”

“Home to the Hall you mean?”

“Yes, got to be there.”

“But if she ain’t there, Rex—and really, you know, I don’t think she would go and tackle Mama all alone— well, where am I? All I have done is give my mother a club to hold over my head. You know how it would please her for me to have made a muddle of the whole thing. I’d never hear the end of if nor would Ellie.”

Rex began to shift uncomfortably in his chair, fearing he would be chosen as the intermediary. This excellent idea did not, in fact, occur to Claymore till
Rex began wriggling. The movement was a signal that his guest was uncomfortable, and before many moments went by, Clay knew why, and wondered that it had not occurred to him sooner.

“I suppose you wouldn’t...” Clay began coaxingly.

“Rather not,” Rex replied promptly. “Thing is, don’t think your mama has much of an opinion of me.”

“No, really, she often—mentioned you.”

“Might’s well go yourself. Save time. Mean to say, if she
is
there, I have to go, and come back, and then you set out and go. It’s forty miles one way. That’s what—a hundred and twenty miles—when forty will do it if you just buck up and go yourself.”