Elisabeth Kidd (17 page)

“And what is that?”

“I should like to live at Carling. I have decided that I do not wish to marry—anyone—and will be perfectly happy to spend the rest of my days there. You know, as Papa did, that it is my favorite house—apart from this one, of course.”

“Not an extravagant desire, I suppose,” Fletcher said dryly. “At least you do not wish to spend the rest of your days touring the East or living in a villa on Capri or heaven knows what else.”

Sabina smiled at that. “You know I have never taken extravagant notions like that.”

“No, but I am given to understand that a female in your position might behave in an extraordinarily—well, never mind. I should know you well enough to know you are not that kind of female. You would at least engage a companion, I trust.”

Sabina held her breath. “Fletcher, do you mean—are you saying that I
could
live at Carling?”

He tried to look important and magnanimous at the same time, but the smile would not stay suppressed. “I have discussed the matter with Mr. Quigley,” he told her gently, “and although it appears we cannot raise your allowance, if it is not beneath your pride, we could contrive to pay the expenses of keeping up the house so that your income would be for your personal use only.”

Her hopes rose still more, until he added, “Of course, there is one thing you must do….”

Sabina’s heart sank again. “What is that?”

“You must at least nominally fulfill the conditions of the will by asking Captain Ashton to marry you. I will, of course, approach him first and make him understand that you do not wish him actually to accept; I should not think it would make any difference to him. I’m sorry, but I’m afraid his asking you and your refusing will not suffice. I know it is a difficult thing to expect, but I daresay you need not approach him personally at all. An exchange of letters….”

Sabina shuddered. She had thought the scene in the spinney was the greatest humiliation she had ever suffered, but she saw now that it could have been much worse.

“I have already asked and been refused,” she said.

Fletcher raised his brows in astonishment. “But—how did this come about?”

Sabina briefly described her encounter with Robert in terms that her brother might find some sympathy with, bringing her account to an end before the tears she felt welling up inside her overflowed.

“So you see,” she said, taking a deep breath, “that condition has been met.”

Fletcher was thoughtful for a moment. Then he put his arms around his sister and held her while her tears finally spilled over.

“I’m so sorry, dear. It must have been difficult in the extreme to have to lower yourself so.”

Sabina said nothing, muffling her sobs in Fletcher’s waistcoat. He was generally highly intolerant of hysterics in anyone, and despite her agitation, she could not help being grateful to him for his sympathy today.

“Thank you, Fletcher,” she said, pushing herself away from him. “I do beg your pardon. I seem to burst into tears at the least kindness lately. It is too mawkish of me.”

“Not at all—only natural. You have always been more tenderhearted than you cared to let on, and I would not like to see you changed, even by an emotional crisis such as this has doubtless been. I am only glad I can relieve it some measure.”

He looked down at her consideringly, then kissed her cheek and said, “I shall leave you now. When you are feeling more composed, come and see me again and we will begin arrangements for your move to Carling.”

“Thank you, Fletcher,” Sabina said and kissed his cheek. He left the room, saying he would see that she was not disturbed. She sank into the sofa and, putting her head back on the comforting old cushions, breathed a sigh of relief.

She was free! She need not have put herself through that awful scene with Robert Ashton. She did not have to marry him after all.

She wondered why she did not feel more joyful.

* * * *

Henry had watched Sabina leave the dining room, going to her meeting with Fletcher much as Joan might have faced the stake, then turned to his wife for guidance.

“We must do something,” Dulcie said determinedly, having also noted Sabina’s departure, which had set her forehead in a frown. “We cannot let poor Sabina fret herself into illness and unhappiness.”

Henry gently smoothed the lines from his wife’s brow with his finger. “Unfortunately, it seems that everything we have done thus far has only made matters worse.”

“That is because we have tried too hard to spare Sabina’s feelings. We must be bold. Let us call a family meeting. Lewis and Georgie should be back shortly.”

Thus it was that an hour later, the family—excepting Sabina, of course, and Fletcher—met in Lewis’s room to decide their sister’s future. Lewis rolled his chair next to the sofa, where Georgina took up a position beside him. Dulcie sat in a straight-backed chair, and Henry stood behind her. Randolph, who had unexpectedly returned to the Hall with the family letters he had found waiting at the village posting inn along with his own, was reluctantly inveigled into joining the gathering.

“We can scarcely decide her life for her,” he said now, when Henry put it in those terms, intending to be jocular but apparently not succeeding. “She would never forgive us—even if she went along with whatever hare-brained scheme we might come up with to trick her into going along.”

“I hope we have learnt our lesson about attempting to trick her,” Dulcie said, and Henry nodded.

“What do you mean, Dulcie dear?” Alicia asked.

Henry realized suddenly that Dulcie had not meant to say that. Or had she, even unconsciously, wanted to talk about Sabina more openly and so let fall something that would allow her to do so? The others were as yet unaware of Sabina’s adventure on the canal and of her true relationship with Robert Ashton. Dulcie looked up at her husband questioningly.

“I think you had better tell them,” he advised, aware that he was bound to make a mull of it if he tried.

And so Dulcie told Sabina’s family that her accident had in fact occurred at the canal and that she had been rescued by Captain Ashton, who was fortuitously nearby at the time, and stayed with a lockkeeper’s family who treated her kindly.

“I
knew
she hadn’t really gone to Missenhurst,” Lewis exclaimed, thumping the arm of his chair with his fist, “but she wouldn’t tell me where she really was.”

“Please do not let on that you know now,” Dulcie begged, leaning forward to clutch Lewis’s arm. “I’m sure Sabina knows that it would have to come out sooner or later, if only through a slip of the tongue such I made tonight. But give her time to adjust to having her secret made known.”

“But Dulcie, dear,” Alicia asked, “Why did Captain Ashton not bring her home immediately?”

Dulcie explained about Sabina’s apparent loss of memory, but did not, Henry noticed, come right out and say she had been pretending. Rather, she hurried on to explain, “She did not recognize Captain Ashton, which I suppose was no real test since she had not seen him since—well, I don’t know that they had ever met before that.”

“They did,” Lewis put in. “Sabina doesn’t remember, but it was Robert Ashton who rescued me when I had
my
fall into the canal. Or at any rate, it was he who drove me to Dr. Abbott’s surgery. I got it out of Abbott later, but Ashton had asked him not to tell Sabina his name, so I never mentioned it either. Now I wish I had.”

There was a brief silence as everyone digested this. Then apparently coming to the same conclusion at the same time, they all spoke at once.

“Dulcie, why has this all been kept such a mystery?”

“If Ashton saved her life, why is she angry with him?”

“Is he willing to marry her?”

“Why won’t she marry him?”

“She’s more than likely just being stubborn again.”

“It seems to me that he has behaved as well as anyone could, given Sabina’s stubbornness.”

“Quite right. I think we’ve all misjudged the man.”

Dulcie answered these questions as well as she could without breaking Sabina’s trust entirely and speculating aloud on her true feelings and her grievance against Robert Ashton.

“Henry and I believe that she does not despise Robert as much as she lets on, whatever her feelings about his family. That is why we are asking for your suggestions for bringing her to see reason—and to see that her happiness may even lie with this marriage. Even if she does not give in to your father’s wish that she marry Captain Ashton, you must all agree that we cannot let things go on as they are. Surely, it would be better for all concerned to make peace with the Ashtons.”

As no one volunteered any further suggestions, Dulcie went on, “I would go so far as to say she is in a fair way to being in love with Robert, although I beg you—you in particular, Lewis—not to question her on that head. Unless—has anyone heard her say anything at all that might give us a hint?”

When this question was likewise met with only the shaking of some heads, and Randolph leaned negligently against a far wall, apparently hoping not to be noticed, Dulcie grew impatient. “Well, say something, won’t you? For example, do you think a change of scene would help Sabina see things in a new light? It’s a pity she can’t spend the coming season in London, but she won’t be out of black gloves yet by September. Still, she did remind me that she had never been there. Perhaps she regrets that.”

Lewis snorted contemptuously. “Not our Sabina. She has always been most content the closer she is to home. Until now, at any rate, and the current situation has little to do with place.”

“Can we suggest some new activity to occupy her mind?” Henry ventured. “Charitable work, or a new pastime? She told me only recently in fact that she was sorry she never learnt to draw, and I can’t even interest her in a hand of cards these days.”

“That is the most idiotic suggestion I have heard thus far,” Randolph said in disgust, moving back into the light. “She still has Carling—at least in the same way Great-Aunt Mary did. I expect she will be spending more time there in future. If we can persuade Fletcher to allow her to make some improvements to bring it more in accord with her own tastes, perhaps that will keep her occupied.”

There was another awkward pause then. At last, Georgina, who had been listening in silence, spoke up.

“I know you said, Dulcie, that you did not wish to—I believe the word was
trick
—Sabina again, but it seems to me that you are treading far too carefully around her feelings. For myself, I think she would
like
us to do something definite—something
bold
, you said, something she perhaps cannot bring herself to do for herself to further her relationship with Captain Ashton.”

“We can scarcely propose to him on her behalf,” Randolph remarked unhelpfully.

“But we do not know his feelings,” Georgina said. “At least, I do not. Does anyone know him better?”

She looked directly at Dulcie who, after the question had hung in the air for a moment, confessed, “Well, I suppose I do. We have—spoken from time to time.”

“About Sabina?” Lewis asked, his interest piqued.

“Yes.”

“And?” Randolph demanded. “
Does
he want to marry her?”

“Yes.”

Henry jumped in here to save his wife from further questioning. “I think we can safely say that Robert will go along with any reasonable scheme we may concoct.”

“Well, why did you not say this in the first place?” Lewis asked querulously.

“Perhaps there is some way to bring her to see Robert Ashton in a more favorable light,” Alicia ventured.

Dulcie and Henry exchanged glances, and it was Henry who remarked that he was quite certain Sabina was not set against Captain Ashton personally.

“Then what, pray, is the difficulty?”

“She feels it would be—disloyal to the family to marry an Ashton.”

No one responded to this at once, since the rivalry between the two earls had been part of their lives for so long that they no longer questioned it. Forced to do so, neither a compelling reason to abandon the quarrel nor a willingness to appear weak in the eyes of the other family appealed to any of them, even though each of them was now prepared to admit that Robert Ashton was not such a bad sort after all.

Georgina, however, harbored no such prejudices. “I
do
know about The Quarrel, and if you want my opinion of
that
, it is a great deal of stuff and nonsense! What’s more, I believe it is partly your fault—all of you Bromleys—that Sabina is in this—this hobble. If you love her, you
ought
to do something to get her out of it!”

“Your father
did
make his will as he did with the express purpose of resolving The Quarrel,” Dulcie, as another outsider in the group, reminded them.

“So he did,” said Lewis. “Georgie, you are perfectly in the right—if unflattering to family tradition. Dulcie, I’m sorry, but I fear the rest of us have forgotten our part in putting Sabina into this fix in the first place. Should we then make some overture to the Ashtons—a peace offering of some sort?”

“They wouldn’t accept it,” Randolph said. “Why should they? There is nothing in it for them.”

“We might at least extend some gesture of good will,” Alicia said. “A dinner party, perhaps?”

The others glanced around, looking for approval of the others, but Alicia, the acknowledged mistress of the social life of Bromleigh Hall, was already caught up in her own plan.

“It would of necessity be a small party,” she said consideringly, “since we cannot be entertaining on a grand scale as yet. I may be able to convince them on that head, emphasizing that it will be only the two families and there will be no cards or musical entertainment offered—unless, of course, we can contrive to make them feel sufficiently welcome to linger for a time after dinner.”

“We must leave that up to them, I think,” Dulcie offered.

“Naturally,” Alicia agreed complaisantly. “I will say only that we are simply attempting to carry out Father’s wish that we become a little—friendlier with our neighbors.”

“So long as they understand that we are not conceding any blame or fault,” Randolph stipulated.