The Regency (121 page)

‘
We must make sure that she never knows we were other
wise,' James said ruefully. 'Poor Mathilde!’

Héloïse rested her head on his chest again. 'Sophie will be delighted. She will say all the things Mathilde longs to hear.
And I suppose Fanny will be glad,' she added, but with
hesitation.

‘
Of course she will,' James said defensively. 'Why shouldn't
she be?’

*

Edward caught up with Mathilde in the hall, where she was
lighting her candle to go up to bed. He had followed her from
the room with no clear idea of what he meant to say, knowing
only that something must be said, and that he had behaved
churlishly in not offering her his congratulations.

She looked up as he reached her, and regarded him enquir
ingly, but with a faint apprehension which touched him, and
filled him with a sudden rush of natural, warm affection.
‘Mathilde, my dear,' he began, and then stopped. He had
been about to apologise, but it suddenly seemed presump
tuous to suppose an apology necessary. He had asked her to
release him; she had done so. He had urged her to find another; she had done so. What more was there to say?
Except that he loved her very much, and he needed suddenly to tell her so in some way which would not burden her with
embarrassment or guilt. 'I am so very happy for you,' he said
at last.

‘
Are you, Cousin Edward?' she said — not with hostility,
but simply wanting to be sure.

‘
Can you doubt it? I want you to be happy — that's what I
have always wanted.'

‘
But do you like him? Do you think I am right to accept
him?' It occurred to her that to Edward alone had she
revealed, long ago, her reasons for not wishing to marry John
Skelwith the first time he had courted her. He would think
she was now accepting her suitor for purely mercenary
reasons. Perhaps he might even think that she loved him,
Edward, still, and was quite callously seeking a material
advantage in accepting John Skelwith. 'I do —
care
for him,
you know,' she added anxiously.

Edward smiled. 'I'm sure you do. He is a very likeable,
worthy young man, and evidently much attracted to you. To
resume his addresses to you after so long shews him to be
constant. I think you have every chance of being happy with
him, and
I
sincerely wish you so.’

But all this was only words, he thought impatiently. The
complexity of loving her and wishing her well and being glad
for her and wanting her for himself was such that any
attempted explanation was bound to sound insincere. Touch
was better, more truthful. He reached for her hand, at the
same instant as she put down the candle she was holding and
reached out for his.

He took both her hands in his and now the smile they
exchanged was without restraint, the smile of two dear and
loving friends. He took her in his arms for the last time, and
she accepted his embrace and remembered all the times she
had found comfort there, and felt tears in her eyes, of regret
for the past and gladness for the future, of compassion and
affection.

‘We shall always be friends, shan't we?' she said against his shoulder.

Edward felt one last pang, that had things been different,
she would have been wholly his. He pressed her close just
once, and then released her.

‘Of course. Always,' he said.

She picked up her candle and with a shy smile went away, climbing the stairs to bed. He watched her go with a sense of loss which had nothing to do with her actions or feelings. He
had lost something of himself. He was an old man, and love
had come too late for him, and he had not had the courage to
seize it and commit himself to it, to take the chance when it
was offered. It would not be offered again. Now she would
marry Skelwith (of all people! And who knew what compli
cations might arise in the future?) But it was not that Skelwith
had won her, it was that he had let her go, and with her had
let go some vital part of himself — not quite hope, but some
thing like it.

She climbed the stairs, holding the candle before her, and he watched in silence as the golden flame receded upwards,
bending and wavering with her movement, throwing her
shadow longer and longer, until at last it turned the corner
and left him and the hall below in darkness.

*

The month flew past. Three days before Mathilde's wedding-
day, the family was gathered in the evening in the drawing-
room. The weather had turned very cold the last couple of
days, and the hills were powdered with snow, putting Héloïse
in an apprehension for her flower-garden, where a number of
species had been lured by the mild winter into budding early.

There was a silence in the room, broken only by the ticking
of the clock, the cracking and spitting of the fire, and the soft
sound of the piano, where Sophie was touching odd notes
almost at random, while she dreamed of ball gowns and
handsome young men. She was to come out this Season: as
soon as Mathilde's wedding was over, Héloïse was to take her
to London, and she was to be launched with Cousin Rosamund
from Aunt Lucy's house. She had heard again and again,
and never tired of, Fanny's stories about her come-out,
and she was looking forward to her own beyond measure. Of course, she was no Miss Morland of Morland Place. She was
not even pretty. But she had not lacked admirers. People
liked her, and wanted to talk to her, and at the parties she
had been to this last year, where members of the opposite sex
were present, it had been around her that they had clustered,
rather than around the pretty Miss Laxton or the witty Miss
Greaves.

Mathilde, Héloïse and Miss Rosedale were sitting around
the large circular table. Héloïse and Miss Rosedale were sewing
flounces on the hem of Mathilde's wedding-gown, while
Mathilde embroidered flowers on the yoke of a silk night
gown. Once or twice her mind had strayed to a contemplation of the first occasion on which she would wear the nightgown,
and she had surprised herself into blushes. She couldn't
imagine what was going to happen. She knew about horses
and sheep and chickens, of course, but her imagination
baulked at applying that knowledge to human beings. She
was only glad that it was going to be John Skelwith who was
with her that night, for she thought it was likely to be deeply
embarrassing. He was so kind, and such a friend
_,
she caught
herself sometimes thinking absurdly that she could not have
endured facing it with anyone but him.

James was reading the paper in the chair at one side of the
fire, and dozing a little. The fire was very warm, and he had
eaten a large dinner, and had read the paper once already that day. He had taken recently to wearing spectacles for
reading, and when he dozed, they slipped down to the end of
his nose. Héloïse looked across at him from time to time, and
smiled affectionately, thinking how much more she loved him
when he looked absurd and vulnerable.

Fanny, sitting in the chair to the other side of the fire, also
looked across at him, and felt irritated. If he wants to sleep,
why doesn't he go to bed? she thought. And if he wants to
read, why doesn't he move away from the fire? She hated him
to look silly, as he did when his spectacles slipped. She felt it
reflected on her when her father looked silly. She had a great
deal to vex her at the moment. She had quarrelled fiercely
again that day with Edward — who was sitting with his back
pointedly to her, playing chess with Father Aislaby — and felt
all the frustration of not being able to have her own way on
her own estate.

Then also she was now beginning her seventh month of
pregnancy, and she was getting large and uncomfortable. She
missed her husband dreadfully, and was fretting because he
had not written for a fortnight. His last letter was in her
pocket, and she had re-read it so often she knew it almost by
heart. He was enjoying himself — well, she wouldn't want
him not to, but he ought to be as miserable without her as she
was without him. He
said
he missed her, of course — but then
in the next paragraph he was talking about a certain Lady Ballantyre, who was amusing and witty, and lodging, too
conveniently, in the same street.

And then, to cap it all, she had eaten too much, or too fast,
at dinner, and she had indigestion. Perhaps it was the lobster cutlets, she thought. Or perhaps that bitter sauce on the duck
had been too rich. But she was uncomfortable, unhappy, and
bored, and she wanted to snap at everyone. Thank heaven all
the fuss over Mathilde's wedding would soon be over, and
there would be one person fewer to eat her out of house and
home. Edys Cowey — who had become quite friendly now that
she was Mrs Percival Bolter, and who was a stinging gossip
— had told her something rather intriguing about John
Skelwith after church last Sunday, and though she was not
sure if she believed it, it was interesting to speculate. She
knew her father had been wild in his youth, though to look at
him now, she thought disgustedly, as his head fell forward
and his spectacles slithered down like something scuttling for freedom, you would never think it. Mind you, to look at John
Skelwith's mother, you wouldn't think anyone could ever
have fancied her. She was a little touched in the upper works
now, so Edys said. She had certainly glared at the whole
Morland party like a madwoman, and refused to answer any
thing anyone said to her.

Mathilde was being married at St Edward's, not in the
chapel. Fanny had put her foot down about that — though
Madame had said soothingly that she had never meant
Mathilde's wedding to be held in the chapel anyway. Madame
had also insisted on paying for everything out of her own
pocket, which was as it should be, and Fanny, on that under
standing, had agreed that the wedding-party could come to
Morland Place afterwards for the wedding-breakfast.

There had been some fun when that was announced, for
Mrs Percy Bolter said that old Mary Skelwith had utterly
refused to set foot in Morland Place, and frightened her son
nearly into fits about it. He was such a
stick,
Fanny thought.
Just right for Mathilde — she was lucky to get him, with
that
hair and those freckles. Still, Fanny had to admit that he did the right thing on that occasion — told his mother she could
either go to the breakfast and behave herself, or go straight
home from the church. Mrs Skelwith had said she would go
straight home, so John was apparently going to give out at the
last minute that she'd been taken ill — not very ill, just too ill
to go to the breakfast. And they'd do very well without her,
Fanny thought.