The Indiscretion (36 page)

Amazed at herself, she opened the door and walked out: She felt
fine. She felt good.

*

The
day was beautiful, she realized, as she walked the mile home up the drive. It
was still early enough to get in some practice.

Then, upstairs in her room, as she gathered her equipment, it
occurred to her: Why did a baby have to be bad? A baby. She was going to have a
baby. Babies were lovely. One of her own would be delightful. Her mother might
collapse of shame, of course, but even that, when she thought about it, wasn't
all that terrible. Let her. Her father would be sad, but only for her. If
she
wasn't sad about it, why—

She wasn't. Why did a baby have to be terrible? She'd already
decided she wasn't marrying Lord Fancy Choice, a great relief. Now she would
either marry Sam because he could prove a loving mate, or not marry him because
he couldn't – it was entirely out of her hands.

Perhaps they'd be lovers, she thought. Difficult lovers. He would
visit periodically, chase her around the house, bounce the baby on his knee,
then leave – because they couldn't work out their differences beyond this.

In any event, she'd already determined she'd go her own way.
Goodness, did this ever put the seal to it. But never mind. She had money and
property of her own – the discussion this afternoon, if nothing else, had
pointed that out. Of course, a lot of people would shun her as her belly grew.
But her family would still love her. Her friends would stand by her, surely.
And wouldn't a pregnancy, sans husband, determine once and for all who her
friends were?

It frightened her a little to test these notions. She didn't
expect the testing to be easy or smooth. But neither did it have to be so
onerous as she and everyone else were making it. No one could make her ashamed
without her permission. She wasn't going to hide anymore, not the fact that
she'd slept with the man she loved, nor the fact that she was carrying his
child, not her faults nor her strengths. She was just going to be who she was
and let others think as they would. Enough.

She came down through the house, out the terrace and through the
garden, heading toward her targets: and knew suddenly that sense of power,
control over her life, she'd known on the moor. There it was, blowing through
her like a wind. It was back. It was hers. She came out onto the archery range
for the first time in almost a week, feeling better than she had in ages – free
and capable. She was capable of finding happiness, if not in every moment, then
in spans of it, an unending pursuit and succession of it.

Like arrows. From quiver to target,
thwh-h-whip
. Then again,
thwh-h-whip
.
And again … out into the air. Like flying. Repeating, repeating the short
flight, always aiming toward gold. Sometimes hitting it.

24

Wickedness
is a myth invented by good people to account for the curious attractiveness of
others.

Chameleon
, December 1894

A
t dusk, as
Lydia
entered the
house, she stumbled onto an unusual sight. Clive had his arm at a doorway,
where he had Rose trapped behind the servants' stairwell.

"What are you doing?"
Lydia
asked.

He jumped, then let out a sigh of relief. "Oh, you." He
quirked an eyebrow. "Something is up, and no one is telling me anything,
so I'm pestering Rose."

"I didn't tell him." Rose stood on tiptoe to call over
his arm. It was the longest sentence she'd uttered in days – while the way she
phrased her brand of loyalty implicated there was something to tell.

"Thank you,"
Lydia
told her.
"Let her go, Clive." He did, and Rose skittered away, spooked by the
whole business.

As
Lydia
watched her
go, she thought, I've told the wrong person. Rose might very well never get
over my transgression.

She looked at her brother there by the stairwell. "Clive,"
she said, "I'm pregnant, and Sam is the father."

He didn't blink. He shrugged, in fact. "I'd supposed as much,
what with all the flurry. Congratulations."

"I'm not marrying him."

"Ah. Well. That will be sticky, but you'll get by." As
if a brilliant solution, he offered, "You can live at Castle Wiles
forever, even after I inherit it. And I'll give you a jolly good allowance,
whatever you think is right. There you go." He smiled.

She laughed, then hugged him. "I have the house in
London
. I'd probably
live there. I like
London
." In
fact, it was a great anomaly for all of them, mother, father, brother, and
sister, to have been out in the country together for so long. "But thank
you."

"I'll visit then. A lot. I'll walk the baby."

"You're—" She met his eyes fondly. "You're a
crackerjack, Clive," she said. "A humdinger."

"A what?"

She shook her head – never mind – smiling. Oh, but he was, he
truly was.

He held her for a few minutes, patting her back. She felt so happy
suddenly. Amazing. She felt good for no better reason than someone knew who she
was – and loved her, accepted her, someone she herself loved so much.

Then Clive pushed her back, lifting a long finger, asked, "So
what have they said? Tell."

"They?"

"Mother and Father."

"They're shocked. I feel badly for them. I'm not what they
bargained for."

He rolled his eyes. "Oh, it's Mother. I mean, Father is all
right with things, but the old girl – it's just so awful to disappoint her. I
hate to disappoint her myself." He paused, frowned, then held out his
hands. "But sometimes there's no help for it. You see, the person I'm in
love with will drive her dotty also."

"Oh, Clive!"
Lydia
was so
surprised. "You're in love! Who?"

He grinned shyly. "In
London
. A big
secret." He looked delighted, full of joy, as he pronounced the name:
"Barnaby Winthrope."

"Barnaby? Barnaby's a man."

"Yes." He looked down, smiling sheepishly. "I am
well acquainted with the fact."

Lydia
put her hand
over her mouth, then laughed. They both did. They laughed for five minutes,
while hanging all over each other there in the corridor.

They were lucky, she thought.

She was lucky. She was strong and healthy with a baby inside her.
She had the resources to take care of it and herself, come what may. She had a
family who might take exception to her behavior, but they would never abandon
her – or trade her to the Indians or put anything important to her down a
latrine hole.

"We're lucky," she said again, this time aloud to Clive
as they were parting.

"I know," he said and kissed her head.

*

The
day before the Grand National, as
Lydia
was coming
downstairs, her father was going up, having gathered the morning's post.

As he came by her, he was taking a thick letter – pages – from its
envelope. He was so intent on it he didn't even see her as they passed. Then,
just above her in the middle of the staircase, he suddenly stopped, turned the
page, and just stood reading, a look of concern coming onto his face.

"What is it?"
Lydia
asked.

He startled, glancing down at her. "I – I'm not sure."
He frowned again at the sheets, peering, shaking his head, as if unable to
decipher the handwriting. Or perhaps what the handwriting had to say. When he
looked up from the pages again, his expression had changed from concern to
bewilderment. He told her, "Your mother has written me a letter."

25

Stout
arm, strong bow and steady, Union, Trueheart and Courtesy.

Official
motto

British
Grand National Archery Society

T
he Grand National Archery Meet was an annual all-comers event that
determined the best archer in
Britain
, male and
female – a competitive ideal as old as Robin Hood or William Tell. Archers
could be independent, though most were part of archery societies – in the
program Lydia Bedford-Browne was listed as a member of the Royal Thornewood
Foresters. The champion would be determined by points, though not exactly the
way Sam and Liddy had counted them. The calculation was a little confusing as
Sam heard it from people around him where he sat in the grandstand. The upshot,
though, seemed to be that the committee wanted to reward evenhanded skill – an
archer, for instance, who shot a lot of golds while also sometimes missing the
target entirely was less likely to be named champion than someone who hit reds
over and over. Thus, the highest gross score did not necessarily take the big
"cup," though there was also an award for this as well as for highest
number of hits and most central gold.

Thus, four levels of winning: the big one – the championship – and
the three areas of excellence – high score, high hits, best gold. That was it.
The
York
Herald
put a price of two hundred pounds
on the prizes, mostly in money, "cups" of various amounts. This
didn't count private purses – the queen herself offered twenty-five pounds to
the high score from her own Royal British Bowman. Nor did it include betting,
which Sam found, at least in his corner of the grandstand, to be fast and
furious all morning, even in rain. There was also a rule – explained to him as
an archer out on the field miraculously collected – that anyone who made three
golds at one "end" received a shilling from all participating archers
of the same sex. Thus, it was possible for an archer to leave the meet with
less money in his or her pocket, not more.

This year the committee had commandeered the Wyesmire Racecourse
for the event, where on a large plot of grassy ground, directly in front of a
grandstand, thirty targets, fifteen at each end of sixty yards, were currently
pitched. On the other side of this narrow stretch, at a distance opposite the
grandstand, was a spacious marquee tent, a covered bandstand to one side,
another smaller tent to the other. The tents were for the organizers and
participants of the event. The bandstand sported a soggy brass band at the
moment. They were just filing in after being rained out. As to the grounds
themselves, 195 archers had gathered to shoot, 108 of them women, and with the
rain clearing up, they were attracting a pretty good crowd.

It was overcast but sunny presently. All morning, the men's
hundred yards had been a struggle, with rain eventually emptying out the
grandstand and sending archers under the tents. Till
noon
, they had
battled heavy showers and high winds that would come up at right angles to the
paths of the arrows, blowing them off course – even occasionally into wrong
targets.

By the time luncheon was over, however, the sky had cleared. The
wind had dropped to a stiff breeze, and the carriages began to return – the
fashionable set out on what stood a chance of becoming a nice summer day. There
was a murmur when the afternoon arrivals included the Viscount and Viscountess
Wendt and their son, the Baron Lorschester, that is to say, Clive, all of whom
climbed into the grandstand in a group that also comprised the Earl of
Boddington and the Marquess and Marchioness of Motmarche – both the viscount
and the marquess, Sam was told, had daughters competing, which relieved him,
because so far he hadn't seen Liddy. Among the people in the stand, "nob
spotting," as the man beside Sam called it, turned out to be a minor side
sport. Happily, the nobs didn't spot Sam. He preferred to bypass sociability
today, not that they were feeling too social toward him. They'd kicked him out
of their house. He was living in Crawthorne.

Then he spotted someone he thought he should talk to: Gwynevere
Pieters arrived with her parents. As they came up into the grandstand, Sam
excused himself between people and followed the Pieterses up till they took
their seats. There, he found just room enough to plunk himself down beside the
woman he'd courted two years, then jilted, twice.

She startled when she realized who it was who'd sat down next to
her, then she made one of her little moue-presses of her mouth, about to
object.

"Before you have me thrown down the grandstand here,"
Sam began, "let me say something, okay?" He went on quickly.
"I'm sorry I wasn't there for you like I promised. There were reasons, but
still you were right. I wasn't the groom – and I wouldn't have been the husband
– you needed."

She closed her mouth. A pretty mouth. Her whole face was really
pretty, in fact. Oval, symmetrical, nice eyes. Gwyn was a beautiful woman.

"But I think it was for the best, you know?" he
continued. "You're going to find someone just right for you." He
believed it, his sincerity in his voice.

She contemplated him still with vestiges of that frown in her
eyes, on her lips, then gave a quick nod and looked away, out onto the field.

"You all right?" he asked.

"Yes," she said, "I'm doing fine." Her voice
was musical. He remembered all the things he'd found attractive about her (not
the least of which was that every man in the grandstand kept glancing her way –
Gwyn was so pretty some days she could hurt your eyes). The thing was, though
he saw and heard all he'd liked and still found them attractive, he didn't want
her. Sort of like seeing a pretty, delicate little music box, enjoying its
sound and fanciness, but sort of liking it better at the store than needing it
for his own.

"I'm glad," he said and nodded. He smiled in her
direction, though she didn't see it. "That's real good." He felt real
good himself, in fact. Happy with himself, which was a rare enough occurrence
for Samuel J. Cody.

Then he got distracted because, finally, at the side of the field,
he spotted his favorite nob of all: Liddy. The second his eyes found her,
automatically he raised his hand, as if to wave, and forgot everything else
around him. Of course she didn't know to look. She was huddled with the rest at
the edge of a tent, her shooting glove off, her hand out, measuring the wind.
Oh, come on, he thought.
Die down, wind.
Drop off
completely.

At long last, with spectators shoulder to shoulder and chomping at
the bit to see something happen, the committee handed out the target tickets
for the women's competition. The field was wet – galoshes were the order of the
day – but the band took its positions on the opposite side of the archery
range. The bugles sounded, commanding the first set of lady archers to go to
their respective targets – each would shoot at two, standing beside one as she
shot at its far counterpart. Then the flagmaster waved his signal, and the
women's Grand National Archery Meeting was under way.

Fifteen ladies at a time all shot an "end" together,
three arrows – Sam kept asking the English people around him questions. At
first they were taken aback, but after a while every Englishman near him was
explaining. After an "end," the ladies crossed over the green, where
their scores were marked; then the archers turned and shot in the other
direction. They repeated this little procession till they shot a
"national": forty-eight arrows at sixty yards, twenty-four at fifty.
After which, a woman's champion would be declared.

It was a pretty sight, the ladies – though Liddy wasn't among the
first batch – in their crisp, colorful dresses, moving in a group up or down
the green, then arrows flitting, glancing white to and fro against a bank of
dark grass and green tents in the distance. When the shooting paused for the
next fifteen women, though, with Liddy coming out of the smaller side tent with
them, Sam couldn't stand it. He was too far away to see exactly what was
happening, too far from the action. Down there. That was where he needed to be.
He stood and made his way down the grandstand.

It took a little
Texas
finagling to
turn his grandstand ticket into a marquee pass – Sam told the man who
questioned him he was Liddy's coach. The damn fellow actually went out to ask
her. She looked up from the sideline – she hadn't taken the field yet – and
over at him as she said something to the man, then she turned away, strapping
on her arm brace. She must have said yes, because the fellow let him in.

The tents had chairs and tables set up under them, with water,
cider-cup, tea, coffee, the like: rest and refreshments for archers and others
connected with the sporting event. It turned out, though, that the tent wasn't
close enough. Sam left it to watch Liddy from an area in danger enough of
catching an arrow that the judges kept making him step back. He stood as close
as they'd let him to the range.

He laughed out loud when her first three shots, her first end,
were all gold. Every woman had to give her a shilling, which she took very
sweetly. She had two little pouches affixed to a belt at her waist, weighed
down now with roughly fifty shillings each. The pouches matched her hat, which
had a feather pinned at the side into where the brim was bent to the crown. Ah,
Liddy.

Her second end brought a white, a red, and a "pin-hole"
– which turned out to be good, very good: a dead-center gold, a contender for
best shot of the women's meet. It was marked on her target. Sam's heart
thrilled for her. She was going to win. She'd just begun, of course, but he
felt it in his bones. She was the best out there. The calmest, the most
skilled, the prettiest, the smartest—

He looked down at his boots, daydreaming. She'd win. She'd be so
happy that when he showed her what he'd brought her, she'd want it. He'd say he
loved her – he figured that's what he'd messed up before. They'd celebrate.
When he looked up again, she'd shot two more ends, neither of them quite as
good as her opening, but still competing well.

And so it went, Sam watching, afraid to breathe one minute,
wool-gathering the next, fueled up on elation and expectation mixed with a
generous amount of anxiety. Sure enough, the sixty-yard shoot finished with
Liddy as high score, though another lady, by one, had most hits. In terms of
round points, they were tied.

As the targets were set to fifty yards, she came in but was all
business. She said to him as she walked under the tent to get water, "I
need more arrows. They're over there." She pointed, then smiled faintly
and added, "Coach."

He brought her a handful, turning her around and putting them into
her quiver himself.

"Thank you," she said.

"My pleasure."

"And can you take my galoshes? The field is dryer now."

"Absolutely."

She chucked them off,
clonk,
clonk
, then said, "Oh, and here." She emptied more than a hundred
shillings into one of the galoshes, leaving her waist pouches empty again.

Sam stuck her overshoes in a corner, then turned around: She was
gone.

He spotted her salmon-pink dress, its shimmer as she strolled out
into the sun again, her bow at her shoulder. Gone. He worried he'd made a mess
of a good opportunity. No more messes, he thought. That was why, when she
glanced back at him, out of desperation he mouthed the words, "I love
you."

She stared a minute, stopping, then mouthed back, "I love
you, too," and moved off. She went onto the field like a woman who had no
new information. Nothing had changed.

He blinked. Doggone
. I love
you
wasn't it. Or else he'd said it wrong. He hadn't made it very fancy or
anything. All right, Sam, admit it, he told himself. You didn't even say it out
loud. He stood there frowning and scratching his head. Darn her anyway, why did
she have to make it so difficult?

Liddy shot her first three arrows at fifty yards – and collected
another shilling from every woman – then started across the green toward the
target. As she passed the bandstand, the band trumpeting some awful brass piece
as the ladies marched, she let her eyes slide toward him. Their gazes caught.

"What?" he mouthed and held out his hands. "What
you do want from me?" He made a face.

She looked away, smiling, as if he hadn't been meant to see her
watching him, then she glanced back. It was that funny cat-and-mouse game of
glances she could do that he liked so much. In the end, her gaze lit on him and
held. Holding his attention, she pivoted, her sheening dress, golden-pink,
swishing as she turned around. She walked backward toward the targets. Dang
woman. Then she did something he hadn't seen since the moor: She stuck her tongue
out at him. It caught him so off guard, his jaw opened and stayed there.

Then he laughed. He couldn't tell if she was angry or not; he
didn't know what she wanted. Worse, he wasn't sure what he felt. Where, the
second before, he'd been working his way toward
annoyed
, he was suddenly charmed. Darn her anyway.