by Balogh, Mary
She had deliberately not asked herself why.
It felt very strange not to be with her mother. Not to be watching her every moment to make sure she was comfortable and warm and not in need of a shawl or a fan or a cup of tea. Not to be a shadow whom no one really saw except her mother, who was more often than not irritated with her for constantly fussing. Why did she do it, then? Because she needed to be needed by someone? It felt wonderful to be free of all that. The whole of today—well, the rest of the morning and the afternoon anyway—stretched ahead of her with nothing further to do except watch eight young people who really would not need any watching at all and enjoy the beauties of Kew Gardens, which she had not seen for ages. And on a perfect day, with scarcely a cloud in the sky or a breath of wind.
A whole afternoon to spend in Charles’s company. And she was not going to feel self-conscious about it or fearful that he would find her dull, though he surely would. For he had asked her. She had not even thought of volunteering her services. She was going to enjoy herself, though she was feeling somewhat apprehensive about the end of the journey and the pairing up that would happen as soon as the men had dismounted and the ladies had stepped down from the carriage. She was perhaps the only one who knew exactly with whom she would be paired.
She was going to enjoy herself anyway. And if he thought he was going to throw her onto the defensive as he had done last evening, then he was going to have a rude awakening. She did not owe Charles Sawyer an explanation for anything she had done with her life. If anyone owed an explanation, it was he. Though that was not quite right. She, after all, was the one who had broken off both their romance and their acquaintance—because she would not have been able to carry on with the latter without the former. She had dismissed him and thus set him free to do and to be whatever he wished. He had done just that. But she would not even think of the past for the rest of today.
“This is going to be such fun,” Miss Keithley said. “It is the first time I have been out without Mama since we came to London.”
“But if you think your mama is a strict chaperon,” Matilda said, “wait until you discover what I am. Dragons may appear mild in contrast. You may well beg your mother to accompany you everywhere you go for the rest of the Season.”
A renewed burst of happy giggles greeted her dire warning and she smiled.
And then stopped smiling.
They had arrived.
Four
Bertrand Lamarr and Boris Wayne wanted to go straight to the Chinese pagoda and climb to the top.
“Two hundred and fifty-three stairs,” Boris said, “winding around the center.”
“And spectacular views from each story,” Bertrand added.
“Are there really golden dragons on the roofs?” Miss Rigg asked. But she wanted to go first to the orangery because it had been recommended by a cousin.
“But it is said to be too dark inside for the fruit to flourish,” Miss Keithley told her.
“I want to see some of the temples,” her brother said. “We missed them when we came last year because everyone else wanted to see the pagoda.”
Lady Estelle Lamarr wanted to see Kew Palace, and Lady Jessica Archer would prefer the Queen’s Cottage.
“All the royals used to have picnics in the gardens there when they were children,” she said. “Queen Charlotte used to arrange them.”
“It is such a beautiful day,” Adrian said, “and the gardens are so well laid out and so full of varied trees and plants and green expanses of grass that I would be content just to stroll about without any particular destination, seeing what is to be seen as we come to it.”
Everyone had expressed a preference almost before Charles had handed Matilda down from the carriage and turned it over with all the horses to the care of the grooms and the coachman.
“I daresay we can spend at least a couple of hours here,” he said, “before feeling the need to seek out a late luncheon or early tea, whichever seems appropriate when the time comes. There will be a chance to see everything and even just to relax and look about us and enjoy the sunshine. Lady Matilda, you are the only one who has not voiced an opinion. With what shall we start?”
“Me?” she said, spreading a hand over her bosom. Charles guessed that her preferences were not often consulted. “Well, I do not mind.”
“The pagoda, Aunt Matilda,” Boris said, grinning at her.
“The Queen’s Cottage.”
“The temples.”
“The orangery.”
“Kew Palace.”
They all clamored to be heard, and there was much laughter interspersed with the raised voices. Ambrose Keithley was elbowing Bertrand Lamarr in the ribs for some unknown reason and was being elbowed back. Miss Keithley had raised her parasol and set it spinning behind her head. Adrian was pretending the poke of it had caught him in the eye as he clapped both hands over it. Matilda held up a staying hand, and miraculously order was restored.
“You all have a great deal of pent-up energy,” she said. “It needs to be used. Two hundred and fifty-three stairs, did you say, Boris? Perfect. We will begin with the pagoda. Besides, I want to see those dragons even if they are only gilded wood and not solid gold.”
“But you have to climb to the top, Aunt Matilda,” her nephew said, waggling his eyebrows at her.
“Was there any question of my not doing so?” she asked. “Of course I will be climbing to the top. Let us go. I did not agree to chaperon you all just in order to stand here procrastinating for the rest of the day.”
And they all paired up and moved off along a wide grassy avenue in the direction of the pagoda, which was clearly visible from most parts of the park. Charles offered Matilda his arm. She looked smart and prim, her manner brisk. Yet there was about her a suggestion of exuberance that one did not see when she was playing the part of aging spinster daughter tending her mother’s needs. He had been a bit afraid that the journey here in a carriage filled with flighty, giggling young ladies would sap her of all energy and patience. The opposite seemed to have happened.
She looked at his arm before slipping her hand through it, then glanced up at him. “I have not climbed to the top of the pagoda since—” She closed her eyes briefly before turning her head away. She did not complete the sentence.
Since they had done it together when they were twenty?
“Neither have I,” he said.
He had been to Kew a number of times since then, of course. He had even been close to the pagoda. He had been urged a few times to climb it but had always declined. He had never really asked himself why. Was it fanciful to imagine now that it was because he had once climbed it with Lady Matilda Westcott?
“It was a day much like today,” he said.
“Yes,” she said softly. And then, a little more firmly, “Was it? I cannot remember.”
They walked behind the young people, who were, as she had observed, full of high spirits. They were in pairs, but they were chattering as a group.
“Have you forgotten, Matilda?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said.
“We were in a group like this,” he said. “I believe there were six of us, not counting the parents of one of the young ladies—I cannot recall who. But they were not your parents. They were a little more indulgent. Your brother was one of our number.”
“I have forgotten,” she said.
“Whoever those parents were,” he said, “they did not climb higher than the second story. They remained there while the rest of us wound our way to the top. The others did not remain there long. They went clattering back down the stairs almost immediately, leaving the two of us to enjoy the view.”
“I will take your word for it,” she said. “I have no interest in the distant past. I am here now. It is a beautiful day, and I want to enjoy everything as it is.”
“Very well,” he said, briefly covering her hand on his arm.
He had kissed her, surrounded by carved wood and vast sky and green expanses below.
It had not been their first kiss, but it was the first one that could be prolonged. He had told her, his mouth against hers, that he loved her. And she had told him after he had kissed her that she loved him.
They were words he had not spoken to any other woman. He had grown up fast after Matilda and had abandoned such immature, sentimental drivel.
Her mouth now, he saw when he glanced at her face, was set in a prim line.
“We will enjoy everything as it is now, then,” he said. “Were you driven to near insanity on the journey here?”
He was startled by her sudden smile and the twinkle in her eye as she looked back at him.
“Not at all,” she said. “What a delight young people are, Charles.”
“Giggling?” he said. “And chattering?”
“Well,” she said, “I giggled and chattered right along with them.” She looked self-conscious suddenly and turned her head away, hiding her face behind the brim of her bonnet. “Why not? It seemed the best form of self-defense.”
Matilda! Ah, Matilda. What had her parents done to her? Or was that unfair? If Barbara or Jane had wanted to marry a young man as wild as he had been at the age of twenty, would he have given his consent? He knew he would not. But would he also have forbidden them all future contact with that young man? Would they have obeyed him without question if he had?
Ought he to have waited? If he had given up his wild ways and approached her the following year, would he have been able to persuade her to change her mind? And her father his? And her mother hers?
“Why did you not marry, Matilda?” he asked.
Her head turned sharply back toward him. “I never wanted to,” she said.
“You wanted to marry me,” he reminded her.
“I was young,” she said. “And foolish.”
Even now, ridiculously, it stung.
“You never loved anyone else?” he asked her.
“No.” She frowned.
“Was it that you never wanted to marry?” he asked her. “Or was it that you never found a man to love?”
“Enough,” she said. “Please, Charles, enough.”
And he was a bit horrified to see that her eyes were rather bright, but not from the sunshine or the pleasure of the outing.
“I beg your pardon,” he said. “Forgive me.”
“And why should you care?” she asked him. “You fathered a son very soon after. And there were other women. Many of them. One could not help hearing about them. And you married a few years later and had children and grandchildren, all the while acquiring an ever worsening reputation as a rake among other things. Much you loved me, Charles. I will be forever thankful that my mother and father talked sense into me. My life as it has been is far better than it would have been if I had married you.”
Every word felt like a blow. And every word was true. Except four of them, spoken with biting sarcasm—much you loved me. Literally they were true, but she had not meant them literally.
He had loved her, but he had proved it in the worst possible way, by going completely to pieces after she would have nothing more to do with him. He could not even blame immaturity. His unsavory reputation had been well deserved for years and years.
“I am sorry,” he said. “I am so sorry.”
“We have arrived at the pagoda,” she said, and she smiled brightly at the young people, who had stopped walking and stood in a group to admire it from the outside.
“There are ten stories,” Miss Keithley said. “I counted them.”
“Impressive, Dorothea,” her brother said. “You can count that high.”
“I am not sure I will be able to step out onto any of those balconies,” Miss Rigg said, “if that is what they are called. Not on the higher stories anyway. They must be terrifying.”
Each story had a balcony outside it and a protruding roof above. But it was not necessary to step outside to appreciate the views. There were tall, round-topped windows all about each story.
“Take my arm,” Boris said to her. “I promise not to let you fall.”
“That is kind of you,” she said. “But will we be able to climb the stairs two abreast?”
They all stepped inside to find out, exuberant and chattering. They had not yet worked off much of their overabundance of energy, it seemed.
“I love the dragons,” Matilda said, looking up at the series of roofs. “They look as if they are made of gold.”
“Do you really want to go to the top?” Charles asked. “You are under no obligation.”
“Oh, but I am,” she said. “I was challenged by my nephew and accepted.”
“Is he in the habit of issuing challenges to you and grinning and waggling his eyebrows at you?” he asked.
“Oh good heavens, no,” she said. “He has always treated me with the utmost respect as his mother’s elder—considerably elder—sister. I believe he is enjoying teasing me.”
“And you are enjoying being teased,” he said.
“Yes.” She sighed. “Sometimes it is a little lonely being a staid maiden aunt.” But she colored rosily as she said it and looked as though she would dearly like to recall the words. No one really liked to admit to loneliness. And perhaps no woman liked to admit to being a maiden aunt, as though those two words described everything there was to know about her.
“You are not my aunt, fortunately,” he said. “You are Matilda.”
“Oh.” She looked at him a little uncertainly, her head tipped slightly to one side.
“Shall we go after the young people,” he asked, “and make sure none of them try hanging from the balcony rails by their fingertips? I would hate to fail during my first stint as a chaperon.”
“Oh goodness me, yes,” she said. “What a horrid thought. And it is just the sort of thing young men do to impress young ladies. Not hanging from the balcony rails, perhaps, but certainly over them. The mere thought of it gives me heart palpitations.”
They huffed and puffed their way up the stairs, winding about the interior middle of the pagoda, stopping only once, briefly, at the fifth level to look out through the windows while they caught their breath. Loud exclamations of wonder as well as the habitual laughter came from the floors above.
“Oh,” Matilda said, “I had forgotten how much higher a tall building seems from the inside than it looks from the outside. And we are only halfway up.”
“Are you sure you do not want to claim that you won half a challenge?” he asked her, almost hoping she would say yes. Sometimes one forgot that being fifty-six years old was a little different from being twenty.
For answer she turned and continued the climb. Coming up behind her, Charles admired beneath the pale blue of her dress the sway of her hips, still shapely though no longer youthful. And he admired the fact that she kept her spine straight and climbed steadily upward without slowing. By the time they came out on top, the young people were moving about the full circle of the room, looking out and exclaiming at the height and pointing out to one another all the landmarks they could see both within Kew Gardens and beyond.
“It is a bit like being up in a hot air balloon,” Adrian said, “except that there is more than empty air beneath our feet.”
“You have been up in a balloon?” Lady Estelle asked him.
“Yes,” he told her. “Last year. It was exhilarating and frankly terrifying. But I lived to tell the tale.”
“If I did not know differently,” Lady Jessica said, “I would swear this pagoda is swaying. Would someone please assure me that it is not?”
“I think it is,” Bertrand said, staggering and then grinning at her. “You had better hang on to me, Jessica, and stop me from falling.”
She tutted and slapped his arm.
And everyone was ready to go down and set out on another adventure.
“After coming all this way up,” Charles said, “I intend to stay awhile and admire the view at my leisure. My leisure is going to last at least ten minutes.”
“It takes that long
to recover your breath?” Mr. Sawyer asked, grinning rather cheekily.
“And that too,” his father admitted.
“But you do not all have to wait for us at the foot of the pagoda,” Matilda said. “We can do our duty quite adequately from up here. It makes a splendid watchtower. I daresay there is not a square inch of the Gardens that will be invisible to us.”
Mr. Keithley groaned aloud and clutched his chest.
There were lots of trees, of course, and a person could not see into them or under them from up here. But young people must be allowed some time alone together. And what could they get up to in ten minutes? Though of course it would take about that long again to get down from here, and then one would no longer be able to see to all corners of Kew, let alone into all the crannies. But—
“I trust you all to behave yourselves as young ladies and gentlemen ought,” she added in her severe Aunt Matilda voice. Not that she had ever been a severe aunt. She had never interfered with her brother and sisters or her in-laws concerning the ways they chose to deal with their children.
“That was very sly of you, Aunt Matilda,” Boris told her. “Now you have forced us to be good.”
“Not that we would ever dream of not being good,” Dorothea Keithley said as she followed Mr. Sawyer down the winding staircase. “Don’t look at me that way, Ambrose.”
“Do you have eyes in the back of your head?” her brother protested, offering his hand to Jessica to help her onto the top stair.
Soon they were all gone, clattering downward noisily and cheerfully.
“We will all gather outside the orangery in half an hour’s time,” Charles called down after them.
And Matilda was aware of the sound of wind all about the outside of the pagoda, and of nothing else. She stepped up to one window and gazed down upon trees and lawns and the red-bricked front of Kew Palace. She moved to the next window and saw temple follies among the trees and land stretching to infinity beyond the Gardens. She moved again and simply gazed. She was aware of the warmth of Charles’s right arm along her left, though they were not touching. She could smell his cologne.