The Temporary Wife/A Promise of Spring (37 page)

“It was mine,” Ethel admitted. “But I know it was what Martin wanted, Grace, and Papa too, though they would never have said so in a thousand years. I know both of them rather well after almost twenty years of marriage.”

With her brother Grace did not talk a great deal. They never had had a close relationship. Martin was five years her senior. He had always been a rather slow, plodding boy, who worked with dogged perseverance to be worthy of being his father’s oldest child. And he had watched his younger sister, willful, heedless, frequently disobedient, engrossing all their father’s love, though she made no effort whatsoever to ingratiate herself with him.

They had despised each other, even hated each other through most of their life. Or had they? Had they not always watched each other for the smallest sign that the other would be willing to be loved? Grace wondered now. It was strange to be back, to be involved again in the emotions she had thought long dead, and yet to be able to see her family more objectively than she had ever done, and her own part in it.

“I have seen the new enclosures and the land that was drained five or six years ago,” she said to her brother one day after driving out with Ethel and Peregrine. “And Ethel says that the estate is prospering more than ever, Martin. You have worked hard.”

He looked at her sharply as if to detect some sarcasm.
“Yes, I have,” he said. “Papa has lost interest in the land these last few years, you know. And there was no one but me to see to things.”

“You have done well,” she said, and reached out to touch his hand lightly with her fingertips. She and Martin had never touched each other often.

He withdrew his hand uneasily but looked at her. “The news of your marriage took us by surprise,” he said. “Are you happy, Grace?”

“Yes,” she said. “Yes, I am.”

“He is younger than you,” he said rather jerkily.

“Yes,” she said. “Ten years younger.”

“Ten?” He looked away from her in some embarrassment. “Well, as long as you are happy.”

“Yes,” she said.

Lord Pawley did not come out of his rooms very often. But Grace made a point of visiting him there twice each day, alone in the mornings, with Peregrine later in the day.

“You have come home, then,” he said to her almost every morning.

“Yes, Father,” she said. “I have come home. For a visit.”

“Did he suffer?” he asked abruptly on one occasion. “Was it instant?”

“Yes,” she said. “It was instant, the doctor said.” She hesitated. “His neck was broken when the bull tossed him. He is remembered as a great hero in Abbotsford, you know. He saved the life of the son of one of the Earl of Amberley’s laborers.”

Her father grunted. “Young fool,” he said after an interval.

“He would like that description,” Grace said gently. “Paul liked to be a fool. A fool for Christ, as his namesake said in the Bible.”

Her father grunted again and said nothing more.

“You have changed,” he said on another occasion.

“Have I, Father?” she asked. “I am ten years older.”

He looked at her broodingly. “You have learned what I should have taught you when you were growing up, I daresay,” he surprised her by saying. “I spoiled you. Gave you no training at all. It was all my fault. Everything that happened.”

“No,” she said. “That is not true. No one is ever entirely to blame for what happens to another. I was an adult. I had a mind and intelligence of my own. I made my own choices, my own mistakes. I blame no one else. And I do not even like the words
mistakes
and
blame
. Because they imply that Jeremy was all wrong. And he was not wrong. He was my son. Despite his death, I would not have my life any different from the way it has been. Perhaps that is something I have learned in ten years. Everything that happens in life happens for a purpose. I would not be the person I am if there had not been Jeremy. And I would not wish to be different even if I could be.”

Her father continued to watch her broodingly, though he clearly had nothing more to say. She left him after a few minutes, hesitating a moment before deciding not to stoop down to kiss his head. She had not touched him since her return home.

H
ER NIECE WAS
inclined to be friendly with the aunt she remembered as something of a favorite, probably, Grace thought, because she had spent more time with the children than any of the other adults during the four years of Jeremy’s life. And Priscilla was clearly charmed by Peregrine’s good looks and by his easy humor and teasing. She introduced her two special friends to him, and the three girls, giggling, dragged him off walking with them on more than one occasion, pretending to quarrel
over how they were to divide his two arms among the three of them.

Grace found that she spent very little time alone with her husband during the daytime. She was happy to see him occupied and in his usual good humor—she had been very afraid that he would be oppressed by the atmosphere of her home and by the old, still-unresolved quarrels. And she was glad that her time was taken up so agreeably with her relatives, even if they had still not conversed on any matters that really concerned their relationships and even though there was much awkwardness still among them.

But it was strange not to have Perry’s continual companionship, strange not to be alone with him for large segments of the day. She found herself, as she viewed Ethel’s garden with her, looking back with a great deal of nostalgia on the previous spring when she and Perry had worked side by side in their own garden, often for long hours. And she often thought with some longing of their quiet afternoons and evenings, sometimes both of them reading, sometimes just Perry doing so while she sewed.

But there were still the nights, she consoled herself. There was something especially comforting about having Perry sharing the room that had been hers until she was six-and-twenty years old. She had always loved to leave the curtains back at night so that she might see the garden on her walls picked out by the moonlight. She liked to see it still, her head against his arm, just the two of them silent together.

She often lay awake long after he slept—and had done so even when they were at home—but she never minded, never fretted over what might have been called insomnia. She very consciously enjoyed every moment of their closeness. It could not last forever. There would come the time when he would tire of her, when he would want
the greater freedom of a separate room. Kind as he was, the time would come, and she would let him slip away from her gradually so that he would not dream that she knew, that she was reluctant to accept the new arrangement.

Until that time came, she was happy to lie awake and enjoy the nights. And happier still when he woke, as he sometimes did, to turn to her with a sleepy smile and a gradually rekindled desire for her. He often apologized for troubling her when he took her for the second time in a night, and she would smile secretly to herself as she held him in her arms again.

A
T THE END
of the first week at Pangam Manor, there was only one thing Grace had not done that she fully intended to do. But the opportunity came finally when Martin had borne Perry off one afternoon to see something on the estate, Priscilla in tow, and Ethel had begged to be excused from any outdoor exertion as she had a headache. Grace assured her that she would leave her alone so that she would not feel obliged to make conversation. And she took herself off to the east end of the lake, where the private family burial ground was situated.

No one had objected to her having Jeremy buried there. No one had offered an opinion on the matter either way. But she had not wanted to have him put in the churchyard. The graves there were so close together, the tombs so elaborate. It was a place of death, heavy and black death. Jeremy was dead, of course. She had realized that. She had never, from the moment when Priscilla had come shrieking back from the lake with the news that Jeremy was drowned, been able to doubt the fact. But she had not wanted him in a place of death. She had wanted him in a place where he could become part of nature, part of the wild beauty of the universe.

There were no elaborate tombs in the family burial plot. Only neat headstones announcing essential information for the eyes of the living. And neatly mown grass and a neat wooden fence to keep out grazing animals.

The grass was short on Jeremy’s grave, as on the others, Grace saw at a glance, kneeling down on it and touching the marble headstone with its legend: “Jeremy Howard. Beloved son of Grace Howard. 1796–1800. R.I.P.”

Jeremy. She took her hand away from the cold stone and closed her eyes. Jeremy. A thin, wiry little boy. His father’s dark curls and dark eyes. Bright, eager eyes. Her own rather long, thin face. Small white baby teeth. A dimpled chin, another legacy from his father. A surprisingly low-pitched chuckle that could quickly give place to a shrieking laugh after a little tickling. Warm, soft clinging arms. A wet baby kiss. Wet, muddy hair and a dead face. She closed her eyes more tightly and clung to the grass on either side of her.

She was lying facedown on the grass when Peregrine found her half an hour later. He had guessed where she had gone when he had returned to the house with Martin to find Ethel sitting alone in a darkened parlor. He had been expecting it since their arrival. He asked directions to the graveyard of Martin, and declined his company, with thanks.

He stood at the fence watching her for a few minutes before climbing over it, ignoring the gate, and approaching her. She was not crying. He did not think she was sleeping, though she had not moved since she had first come into his sight.

She seemed to sense his presence. She turned her head, though she did not look up.

“Do you want to be alone, Grace?” he asked. “Would you prefer that I went away?”

There was no response.

“I shall wait for you over by the trees, out of sight, shall I?” he asked, stooping down and laying a light hand on her head. She was not wearing a hat.

She shook her head. “Don’t go.” Her voice was muffled by her arms, on which her face rested.

He sat on the ground cross-legged beside her, his hand still on her head, and waited for her. She moved eventually and sat beside him. She did not look up.

“I don’t know who it was who dragged me away from here after the funeral,” she said. “I cannot remember if it was Martin or Paul. It was not my father, because he did not come. But someone took me away, very much against my will. And I did not come again. Not until now. It was terrible to leave him all alone here. He was only four years old.”

He took her hand and held it in a firm clasp.

She laid her head on his shoulder. “I loved him, Perry,” she said. “For four years he was my life. No, for five. I loved him every moment I carried him.”

“I know,” he said. “You must not feel guilty, dear.”

“Do I?” she said. “Do I feel guilty? For letting someone else care for him when I should have been with him? But he was an independent little lad. He wanted to be with his older cousins. A mere mother was a nuisance when they were there to be played with.”

“For having him,” he said. “You feel guilty for having him, Grace. Don’t. It is never wrong to give life, dear. And love.”

“Isn’t it?” she said. “That is a dangerous moral statement, Perry. It is not wrong to bear a bastard?”

“Don’t use that word,” he said. “Don’t punish yourself with it. Children die every day, Grace. It is no judgment of God on the parents when they do. Your son was one of the fortunates of this world. He was dearly loved from the moment of his conception to the moment of his death. Not all children are so loved, not even those born
in wedlock. Forgive yourself, dear. If you committed a sin, you have also atoned for it a thousandfold. And you have suffered for it. Let him rest in peace now. And let yourself live in peace.”

Grace sat for many minutes with her eyes closed, her head resting on her husband’s shoulder. She was letting Jeremy go again and wishing and wishing one thing. She was wishing that Perry had been his father.

Perry, who had been twelve years old when Jeremy was born! She sat up and smiled wearily at him.

“I am ready to go now,” she said. “Thank you for coming, Perry. It must have been a dreary afternoon for you. And thank you for your words. I am not sure I can quite accept them. It is far easier to forgive others than oneself, you know. But thank you. Paul would have disagreed with you. Paul forgave me and never mentioned my sin to me after we left here. But his very silence told me that he thought it a very great sin, nevertheless.”

“Yes.” He smiled as he got to his feet and pulled her to hers. “Paul and I disagreed most noisily on the nature of sin. You were oppressed by his forgiveness, weren’t you? You were so very quiet and withdrawn during those years, Grace. You need not fear my forgiveness. You gave love—to a man and to a child. I can only honor you for doing so, dear, and feel sad for the pain that those loves still cause you.”

What had she ever done to deserve Perry? Grace wondered as he drew her arm through his and began to walk back with her to her father’s house. But she could not forgive herself for all that. She never would, despite what she had said to her father. Jeremy would not have drowned if she had not lain with Gareth.

A
FEW OF HER FORMER ACQUAINTANCES CALLED
upon Grace during the first week. She returned some of those calls with Ethel and Peregrine and sometimes Priscilla. But she had not expected the invitation to attend a dinner and evening party at the home of Viscount Sandersford. Gareth’s father had ignored her very existence after his son had gone away. He had never acknowledged his grandson by any sign whatsoever.

“Perhaps the invitation is really for you and Martin and Priscilla,” Grace said uneasily to Ethel when the latter told her of the card that had arrived that morning. “Perhaps he does not know that I am here. Or perhaps he does not recognize my name and believes himself to be inviting two unknown guests.”

“No,” Ethel said, looking at her sister-in-law briefly but searchingly, “he specifically named you in the invitation. I can refuse for all of us if you would prefer it, Grace. We are not on intimate terms with him ourselves, as you may imagine.”