To Loveand To Cherish

  4 December

  I’ve been thinking of the night when Geoffrey and I first met. Springtime; a house party in Surrey; the hostess a Mrs. Wade or Ware, some starving artist’s patroness, I think. By the second day I was bored to utter distraction. I knew no one, and Papa, who was on the scent of somebody’s wife by then, had forgotten I existed.

  I noticed Geoffrey before he noticed me—or so I thought. As it turned out, that wasn’t the case. Years later he told me that his friend Symington had pointed me out to him earlier. He already knew about Papa’s inheritance, of course; indeed, that was why he got Symington to wangle him an invitation. I was immediately intrigued because he didn’t look remotely like an artist to me. He looked like a man of action. His clothes were fashionable, not deliberately scruffy, and he looked healthy and well fed. And sharp-eyed, focused, not dreamy. That was seductive to me—a man with energy and physical strength, an actor instead of an observer. When he caught my eye and smiled, it didn’t feel like flirting; it felt like sympathizing. Two kindred spirits swimming toward each other in a sea of dullness and inanity Oh, foolish, foolish girl.

  I can’t remember what he first said to me; something well planned and perfect, I’m sure. What I remember is his impatience with (contempt for, I was to learn) all the other guests at this house party. He said funny, sarcastic things about them, to my guilty delight. He took it for granted that I was not one of them—oh, no, I was like him, a bemused outsider; our superior common sense saved us from the excesses of these limp, dismal aesthetes. And always there was the sexual implication underlying everything—that he was more of a man than these men would ever be. This I had no trouble believing. I was twenty years old and ripe for it.

  I wanted him, but that isn’t why I married him. He said he loved me. I’ve forgiven him for everything else, but that lie is the one thing I cannot pardon. Even now.

  5 December

  Restless, keyed up. I think I could go out now, get out of this house. I’ve been a recluse long enough, seeing no one but Christy—and only once, briefly, because he insisted. I wish he would come now. I could send a note—no. Better not. Oh, but if only he would come. Now that I’ve thought of it, I can think of nothing else.

  6 December

  I don’t know what I feel, what I think. Is this an end or a beginning? I am at loose ends, as the saying goes. It’s apt, for I feel untangled, unwrapped. Unglued. If I’ve been freed, I don’t know from what, or for what. Especially for what.

  7 December

  I have money but no home.

  So say the solicitors, three of them, who came from Tavistock this morning to tell me, very politely, of my fate. I’m to have two thousand pounds a year, interest on the principal sum I’m left from the estate, for as long as I live, regardless of my situation (remarriage, that means; a laughably unlikely event). But Lynton Great Hall is now the property of Sebastian Verlaine, and I am advised to seek domestic accommodation elsewhere as soon as conveniently possible.

  The very thought makes me so tired, I can barely hold up this pen in my hand. I’ve fantasized for years that if I had money and independence, I would go to live in Ravenna. I know I was happy there as a child. Could I be happy there again? Perhaps. But I’m so tired. I simply can’t bear the thought of moving.

  8 December

  I don’t have to move. Not immediately, at any rate. A reprieve has come in the form of a letter from Sebastian Verlaine, the new Viscount D’Aubrey. The lawyers notified him of his cousin’s death a few days before he was to set sail for France, where he means to begin a “sojourn,” as he calls it, that will last, at the very least, half a year. “Do not disturb yourself on my account,” he writes. “Upon my return is soon enough to begin thinking about your removal from Lynton Hall; and even then, I daresay I shall have no pressing need to dislodge you if it should chance you’ve procured no suitable accommodations yet. I’m perfectly comfortable in my London digs and wouldn’t dream of turning you out until you’re quite ready to be evicted.”

  He sounds languorous and sophisticated, which fits with what little I can recall Geoffrey telling me about him; but elsewhere in the letter he writes sincerely, even movingly, of his sympathy for my loss. He makes no hypocritical claim of missing Geoffrey, whom I gather he barely knew—indeed, I don’t think they liked each other very much—but he sounds perfectly earnest when he offers his condolences to me. He’s piqued my curiosity; I wish I could remember what Geoffrey told me of him. My impression is of decadence; and yet that hardly squares with the tone of this letter. I recall that there’s money somewhere—and perhaps that’s it. Perhaps the reason for the new lord’s admirable magnanimity is as simple as the fact that he can afford to be magnanimous.

  Cynical, Christy calls me. If he only knew the half.

  9 December

  I can’t make out what I am; I don’t know myself anymore. I go for long periods in a state of depression, and then for no reason I rise out of it into something I can only call euphoria. Both moods are unnatural, and apparently beyond my control.

  It seems that, without Geoffrey, I don’t know who I am. For good or ill, he defined me: I was his wife, bound to him by our mutual bitterness and disillusion. What am I now? Christy says I can be anything, not knowing that, for me, that translates into nothing at all. Freedom is vastly overrated. It hasn’t released me, it’s paralyzed me.

  I thought I was used to loneliness. I’d made it my lover, my best friend. But I shall die if I don’t speak to someone today.

  P.M.—Christy came. I could almost believe in the efficacy of prayer, since I’d been thinking of him all day. We talked easily about Geoffrey, and more frankly than we ever have before. I kept remembering the time, right after he told me Geoffrey was dead, when he held me in his arms and let me cry. I kept thinking about how that had felt. Sometimes I lost the thread of our conversation while I thought of that. I suppose you could say I was distracted.

  The best part was when, after a while, we stopped talking about Geoffrey and actually spoke of other things. Like two ordinary people, friends, conversing on everyday topics, casual things, making little jokes, interrupting each other. This was enormously satisfying to me. I think I’m beginning to wake up. Could it be? The possibility that there may be life after Geoffrey tantalizes me. I don’t dread this night, and I’m positively looking forward to tomorrow.

  This can’t last. Can it?

  XII

  DECEMBER LAY MUTE and gray over the quiet woods and the gaunt, naked fields. Christy tramped the muddy lane between village and Hall with no companions but a lone thrush, puffed up for warmth in the hedgerow, and one gray fox trotting across a tawny cornfield in the distance. At the last rise before the lane dipped and then flattened out in front of the manor house, he paused, searching through the somber brake of beech trees for a glimpse of the Wyck. A silver ribbon of water twinkled in the chill sunlight, and a dark-clad figure—still before; he’d thought it was a sapling—moved, halted, and moved again along the bank, toward the bridge. It was Anne.

  Then the brake thickened and she passed out of sight. But her eloquent image stayed in his mind’s eye, dark and lonely, the picture of solitary grief. Christy looked down at the clutch of rusty, scentless chrysanthemums in his hand, the last living things—just barely—in the Weedies’ garden; he’d snatched them on his way past their cottage, deeming it a mercy killing. Now they made him ashamed. He was courting a woman whose husband had been dead for exactly four weeks. Mumbling to himself, he flung the scraggly bouquet in the dirt and started down the hill.

  Anne saw him from the bridge. She’d been staring down at the sluggish, leaf-clogged stream, leaning on her forearms over the stone ledge of the arch. When she looked up, the change in her pale, expressive face from melancholy to glad made Christy’s heart twist—made him wish he had his flowers back. While she waited for him, she smoothed her coat collar and gave her skirts
a discreet shake; the idea that she was smartening herself up for his benefit struck him at first as incredible, then miraculous. By the time he reached her, he felt like laughing. But he pulled himself together and said good afternoon to her without unseemly enthusiasm; and in the manner of old friends, they turned to lean against the cold stone and peer down at the river together, elbows touching.

  “How have you been, Anne?” he asked, having not seen her in four days.

  “I’ve been better, Christy. Much better. I think I’m starting to come round.” Sometimes she reassured him just to sidestep the question, but this time she said it as if she meant it. “Have you been all right?”

  “Yes, I’ve been fine. Busy, but quite well.” They talked about a keen winter coming, and Christmas, and a little about church business, and then Christy came to the ostensible point of his visit. “I wanted to ask you something, and you must be completely honest when you answer, not allow me or your sense of duty to influence you in any way.”

  “My sense of duty?” She gave a skeptical laugh. “Tell me what it is, Christy; you’ve got my curiosity roused.”

  “There’s a tradition at Lynton that goes back for as long as I can remember, of opening the great hall on Christmas Day to the children of the village and their families. Edward hated it, but he always did it anyway, because he revered tradition—any tradition. He’d make a quick, formal speech to greet everyone and then disappear upstairs, never to be seen again.”

  “You want me to—”

  “I don’t want you to do anything. You’re in mourning; no one would think twice if you chose not to host the occasion. For that matter, there are probably some who would censure you if you did. All I’m—”

  “I want to do it,” she interrupted. “It’s just for the children, isn’t it? Then we must have it. And I expect you’re right, certain people will condemn me for not behaving like a proper grieving widow. But you know me well enough by now to guess how little that bothers me.”

  He smiled, thinking he did, indeed. Strictly speaking, she wasn’t even in mourning now, because the velvet dress he could see under her unbuttoned coat was a dark shade of russet, not black, and it even sported a white lace collar. Honoria Vanstone would be scandalized.

  “What’s it like?” she asked. “Tell me what I must do.”

  “It’s not at all elaborate. The children have usually rehearsed a Nativity play, and there’s some singing, a few gifts—just little trinkets Mrs. Fruit has bought and set the maids to wrapping beforehand.”

  “Is there food?”

  “There’s fruit punch and some cakes, I think—really nothing much. You mustn’t think it’s going to be a great deal of trouble.”

  “And it’s in the great hall? Heavens, how ever do they heat it?”

  “Not very adequately,” he admitted, thinking of the years when the children had had to leave their coats and hats on during the whole affair. Anne had her finger on her cheek and was gazing off into space. He asked her what she was thinking.

  “I’m thinking it sounds a little grim. And that it could be softened, or at least warmed up a bit without too much trouble.”

  “Are you really certain you want to get involved in this?”

  “Yes, I’m sure. I wouldn’t dream of canceling it. I’ll talk to Mrs. Fruit—try to, that is—” she smiled humorously, “and have her tell me what’s to be done. With Christmas less than two weeks away, we’ll have to start planning it immediately.”

  There was pink color in her cheeks and a light in her eyes that he hadn’t seen in a long time. Impulsively, he reached for her hand. “I’m glad you’re going to do it. It’ll be good for the children, but I think it’ll be even better for you.”

  “I’m glad you told me about it.” She smiled up at him, her face open and shadow-free for once. “Oh, Christy,” she said suddenly, “I forgot! Molly—the bay mare? She foaled last night. She’s a hunter; Geoffrey used to ride her before he bought the black.”

  “I know Molly.”

  “Do you want to see the foal? It’s a filly, and she’s gorgeous.”

  “Show me.”

  Collie Horrocks, Lynton Hall Farm’s head groom, was coming out of the stables just as Christy and Anne started to go in. He tipped his hat and told his mistress he was off to Swan’s smithy unless she needed him. Anne said no and asked him how the foal was doing.

  “She’s a right corker, m’lady,” he replied, puffing his chest out as if he’d sired the filly himself. “She’s doing quite brave, an’ ’er mum’s fine as well.”

  “How’s the black stallion, Collie?” asked Christy.

  “Now, ’e could do wi’ a run, Vicar, no mistake. I take ’im myself o’er the wolds when I’ve the time, but the lad could do wi’ more, like, for he’s turrible restless and pent up.”

  The massive old stone-and-mortar stable was only half full of horseflesh, the old viscount having been a frugal man; but he’d had a good eye, and so the animals he had bought or bred were uniformly first-rate stock. Christy walked with Anne down the straw-strewn passage between the immaculate stalls, bestowing a soft word or a pat on the nose on the curious heads that poked over the railings. Feeble December light crept in through the cobwebbed windows. The warm, close air felt good after the chill outside, and before they’d reached Molly’s stall Christy was taking off his greatcoat. He’d been in the Hall stables only once or twice since he and Geoffrey had been boys; it was comforting for some reason to see that nothing much had changed.

  Molly and her foal were in the roomy loose box at the end of the long barn, separated from the other horses, even from Longfellow, the proud father, for the sake of quiet and calm. “Aren’t they beautiful?” Anne murmured, raising the wooden bolt softly and sidling inside with slow, soothing movements. The foal was nursing; Molly swiveled a wide eyeball at them and whickered a welcome. “Hullo, Moll,” Anne greeted her, running a hand down her sleek throat. “How are you, beautiful girl? How’s your lovely baby? Oh, God, Christy,” she whispered ecstatically, “have you ever?”

  He chuckled in sympathy; a day-old foal was surely one of God’s most beguiling creations. This one had her sire’s sorrel color and her dam’s white eye patch. “Collie’s got it straight: she’s a right corker,” he agreed, stroking the filly’s shoulder. “What have you named her?”

  “Collie calls her Patch.”

  “Oh, you can do better than that.”

  “Yes, it’s not very imaginative.” The leggy filly left off nursing long enough to examine them with her giant liquid eyes. “But since she’s not really mine, I don’t think I’ve the right to name her anything. I’m only visiting here now.”

  She said it lightly, her face serene, gaze steady on the spindly foal. Christy tried to echo her tone. “Have you thought about where you’ll go?”

  “No. Or I should say, not to any purpose.” She took off her wide-brimmed hat and ruffled her hair with the flat of her hand. “Do you want to see the stallion?” He nodded and followed her back out into the corridor.

  Devil’s quarters were almost as commodious as Molly’s birthing stall, as befitted an expensive thoroughbred racer. But the big stallion stamped about restlessly, the hide under his glossy coat fluttering with impatience. As Collie had said, he was “pent up” and raring to go. “Before he left, Geoffrey asked me to look after him,” Christy confessed, stroking the nervousness out of the black’s long, aristocratic neck. “I’ve been busy, but that’s no excuse. I’ll make time to ride him.”

  “You’ll have to call him Tandem, I guess,” said Anne. “That’s his Stud Book name, and it would never do for the minister to go flying about the countryside on the back of a horse named Devil.” He grunted in agreement and they smiled at each other.

  “Christy,” she said presently, her smile fading, “what really happened that day you and Geoffrey raced?”

  He glan
ced at her sharply. “What do you mean? I fell off my horse, I told you.”

  “But that’s not all of it. Come, you can tell me now—what difference does it make?” When he still hesitated, she added, “Believe me, there’s nothing you could tell me about Geoffrey that would shock me.”

  The stoicism in her face disturbed him. She dropped her head, pretending to examine the curry brush she’d picked up from a box in the corner. “Geoffrey forced my horse off the path,” he said slowly, “because we were about to overtake him.”

  Anne looked up, and her eyes were shocked but not surprised. “You could’ve been killed.”

  “Yes. Or Doncaster—my horse. I don’t understand it. When we were boys, he would never have done anything like that. Never.”

  “He changed.”

  “Why?”

  She shook her head and dropped the brush back into the box. Without speaking, she left the stallion’s stall and moved down the dusty passage toward the mare’s again.

  “What did you mean when you said nothing I could tell you about Geoffrey would shock you?” he pursued, taking off his jacket and throwing it on a low bench along the side of the stall. Anne had her back to him, leaning against Molly’s shoulder. The foal was curled up in a pile of hay, fast asleep. Christy went closer, until he stood at Anne’s back. Her head was bowed; he could see the skin of her neck, the gold strands in her pretty red hair. “Tell me,” he said quietly, and she started, not having realized he was so close. “Did he hurt you? Tell me, Anne.”

  “I’ll tell you one thing,” she said in a voice so low that he had to bend closer to hear. “A year ago he hit me and I fell down some steps. We were arguing—he lost control. I broke a bone in my wrist. He’s never—he never touched me again. That was the end of the violence.”

  Appalled, Christy reached for the hand she was resting on the mare’s withers. “This one?” She nodded, not turning around. He spanned the slim, pale-skinned joint with his fingers, squeezing the fragile bones lightly. “What else?” She shook her head. “Tell me.”