by Martha Keyes
He needed to forget Miss Renwick as soon as he possibly could.
But he found himself scanning her face, trying to store up the memory of her eyes, the color of blue at dusk; her lips, the color of the pink peonies which had taken over his flower beds; her hair, the color of sweet honey.
“We will never forget your kindness,” she said. She turned on her heel and ascended the carriage steps as Lawrence looked on in a daze.
He stood, rooted to the spot as he watched the carriage pull away, John’s face looking at him through one of the windows.
* * *
“Left already?” Mr. Adley said, incredulous. “But the boy has a broken arm.”
Lawrence said nothing, pouring himself a glass of ale—the only drink they had left in the house. He should have asked Mr. Jeffers for more brandy and wine when he was in town.
Mr. Adley continued, “But Miss Renwick had said only yesterday that they would likely remain through Saturday.”
“But she left,” Mr. Bower said in his practical voice. “Deb’s just said that.”
Lawrence set down his glass with more violence than he intended. “What does it matter to you? You seemed anxious enough for them to go.”
Mr. Bower looked up at the clanking noise, and Mr. Adley pursed his lips before saying calmly. “I didn’t think you would actually let Miss Renwick leave without making your intentions known.”
Lawrence felt his mouth becoming dry. “What intentions?”
Mr. Adley threw up his hands. “Doing it much too brown, Deb! It’s plain as a pikestaff you’re half-mad for the girl.”
“After only a few days of knowing her?” Lawrence said impatiently.
Bower was regarding him with a contemplative gaze. “Easy. Only took one breakfast with her for Adley and I to know which way the wind was blowing.”
Lawrence clenched his jaw. The last thing he needed was for his friends to join ranks with his parents in convincing him to marry a responsible, respectable woman. He had assumed he would have their support. To hear them second-guess his decision irritated him beyond measure.
“Ah,” he said. “I see what this is.” He looked back and forth between his friends. “You’ve tired of my company and wish to rid yourselves of me by encouraging me to marry.”
Mr. Adley slammed his hands down on the table. “Take a damper, Deb! Do you think Bower and I would be here if we had half a chance with someone like Miss Renwick? I didn’t take you for such a slow top.” He shook his head, stood, and walked out of the room.
Lawrence stood still, his jaw working. The anxious feeling he had been stifling underneath all his rationalization began to loom larger. He had always thought he knew his friends well—that they had no desire to marry; that they only wished to live out their lives with full stomachs, a bottomless supply of spirits, and entertainment to pass the time. Surely Mr. Adley hadn’t meant what he said about wishing to marry.
“Something to say, Deb.” Bower’s voice cut through his thoughts.
Lawrence’s brows flicked up as he noted that Bower was standing, both hands on the table, as he looked at Lawrence with a clear gaze.
“Seems you’ve spent your life feeling under the thumb of your father. If you only do what you know he won’t like, and you don’t do what he will like, well—” he raised up his shoulders in a drawn out shrug “—I don’t see that you’ve really come out from under his thumb. Time to figure out what you want for yourself.”
He looked at Lawrence a moment more as if he had more to say. “That’s all,” he said. He followed after Mr. Adley, patting Lawrence on the shoulder on the way out.
He had meant to talk to his friends about leaving Holywell House before his parents’ arrival. But he instead sat dazedly on the wingback chair, bringing his fingers to his head and rubbing his temples. Bower’s words were oddly reminiscent of what Miss Renwick had said before John’s disappearance.
“I discovered that it served me better to think of my duties as opportunities rather than burdens.”
He shook his head rapidly, trying to rid his mind of her image. The thought of embracing duty was foreign to him. He had been fighting it for years. But why? He had been so worried that he would fail; that his parents would be disappointed in him. But where had his fighting and fear led him? To a house in a state of disrepair, the woman he loved departed, and no prospect of any future to speak of.
He stood. It was time for change.
Chapter 12
Eleanor was quiet for almost the entire ride home. John had much to say about their time at Holywell House and, more particularly, about Lawrie and when he might come visit. She began to feel as though she had the beginnings of a headache.
The roads were nearly dry, but the recent rain and equipages which had ridden over the wet dirt made for a jarring ride. Twice she had to stifle the impulse to tell John not to mention Lawrie’s name again.
But mercifully, just as she thought she was at the end of her patience, John began to quiet down, his head soon slumping over onto the side of the chaise. How he could sleep with such jolting, she had no idea, but she would gladly accept the happy development.
With nothing to occupy her but her thoughts, she found herself fighting off fleeting memories of the past few blissful days at Holywell House. Images of meeting laughing eyes with Mr. Debenham countless times as John said and did outrageous things; tumbling into his arms as she attempted to “walk the plank;” the moment when they found themselves shoulder to shoulder on the bed in the Neverland room.
But the memories always ended with the controlled but angry expression Mr. Debenham had worn when he had found her in the garden.
She turned her head to look out the window at the pink-tinged sky and the sun setting on the horizon. Just as she had supposed, their time at Holywell House would soon become a distant memory, one so surreal that she would surely begin to doubt that it had happened at all.
No doubt John would insist on speaking of it for some time to come. But inevitably, in his childlike predisposition to find novel things to focus attention on, he would speak of Lawrie less and less until his name was all but forgotten.
* * *
The first few days at Watton Place in Attleborough were full of family and settling in. Eleanor’s father had noted John’s splinted arm with an anxious glance at Eleanor when they first arrived. She smiled at him to reassure him that all was well, and she noted how his shoulders seemed to relax.
Her father seemed happier at Watton Place than she had seen him in quite some time. He was often silent as the siblings enjoyed their customary banter at mealtimes, but, now and then he would join in the laughter with his own soft chuckles—something Eleanor hadn’t witnessed since her mother’s passing. Whatever sadness she herself might have to endure from all that had come from moving to Watton Place, her father’s growing peace was surely a cost well worth it.
She found herself equally desirous and hesitant to join her siblings at every opportunity. When they were together, she wasn’t plagued with memories. But she also longed for solitude—for time to explore the happiness she had felt just a few days before. Would she spend the rest of her life trying to recapture those feelings?
Three weeks after their arrival at Watton Place, Eleanor sat in the parlor, working on a particularly difficult sampler, when her father walked in. The lines on his face were beginning to deepen, and his figure was beginning to widen, but Eleanor preferred it to the gauntness which had been prevalent on his face for so long.
“I have received an invitation,” he said, holding a refolded letter in his hand, “to go for a short visit to a friend of mine. He makes it clear that he would welcome any of the family who is able to come. I thought we would all go, if you are agreeable?”
Eleanor paused before answering. She liked their new home at Watton Place. It was green and lush and the home itself not long-since redecorated. But so much of the house had somehow become connected with Mr. Debenham in her mind and heart. Her first
impressions had occurred at her lowest point, when she was feeling everything most intensely since leaving Holywell House.
It was a few days before she realized why her father’s recovery would have suddenly begun to quicken now that he was in a new place, away from all the memories of the home he had shared with Eleanor’s mother.
Eleanor recognized, though, that her options for a future expanded with every day that her father’s recovery progressed. He would continue to rely on her less and less, and John seemed to have taken quickly to the tutor of his new friends at the nearby parsonage. Eleanor’s father hoped that the man would agree to tutor John as well.
“Yes, I think I should like a short escape,” Eleanor said to her father with a smile.
He returned the smile, coming to kiss her on top of her head. “Let us plan to leave Wednesday, then.” He turned to leave the room again.
“Father?” she said, the sampler shaking slightly in her hands.
He looked at her with an expectant brow.
She took in a breath, saying, “I think I should like to go to London when the Season begins. Perhaps Aunt Margaret would still be willing to take me under her wing.” She had been thinking on the possibility for a week, knowing that a come-out would be her greatest chance to make a match.
Was there love like she had felt for Mr. Debenham waiting in London? It seemed doubtful to her, but what other choice did she have?
She needed to move forward, to take charge of the future as much as she could. Otherwise she would end up as a spinster, hanging upon her father’s sleeve with only the prospect of poverty when he died.
Her father smiled softly, looking at her through slightly narrowed eyes. “Let us talk on that when we’ve returned.”
She nodded, content to let him consider the proposal. Surely he would see the wisdom in it if given the time to study the matter out.
* * *
Wednesday morning dawned sunny, with only wisps of cloud floating near the horizon. Her father had insisted on an early departure, so it was just after breakfast that the family climbed into the two carriages, leaving Watton Place behind.
Eleanor hadn’t any idea which direction they would be traveling, only that it would be a few hours’ ride before they arrived. She was content to be somewhere new, to be free of everything that reminded her of Mr. Debenham. Wherever they were going, perhaps it would be what she needed to steel herself and accept what never would be, embracing what still could be.
John sat across from her, and they were playing clapping games to distract John from his constant question: “How much longer do we have?”
John stopped and perked his ears up as the sound of the carriage wheels meeting a pebbled drive. Eleanor raised her brows and smiled at him as the carriage ambled on, finally coming to a stop.
“It’s Holywell House!” John cried.
Eleanor froze. He must be mistaken. There were undoubtedly dozens of estates with a similar exterior to that of Holywell House. She looked out the carriage window, and her heart stopped.
It was Holywell House.
And yet it wasn’t. Gone was the ivy-covered façade, the weeds poking up from the pebbled courtyard. The overgrowth which had flanked the sides of the house was gone, now groomed and manicured. The fields which lay to the west of the house were recently harvested and tilled.
The carriage door opened, and John hopped down with Anne right behind him.
“Lawrie!” he called in exultation.
Eleanor stilled again, not daring to descend from the carriage. This must be a mistake. Her father had never mentioned whose estate they would be visiting. Why had she never thought to ask? Because she could never have fathomed that it would be Mr. Debenham he had been in communication with—a gentleman she was certain her father had no acquaintance with. Her father came to the open carriage door, looking inside with a smile.
“Why don’t you come out, Nell dear?” he said, extending his hand to assist her down.
“Father,” she said, her voice cracking. She cleared her throat as she extended her hand. “I don’t understand.”
“You will,” he said, taking her hand in his and helping her down.
She looked up hesitantly and saw Mr. Debenham, crouched down next to Anne whose paws danced and whose tail wagged furiously as he pet her. He rose to a standing position, a grin plastered on his face, and his eyes turned to Eleanor. She swallowed, and his smile flickered before softening.
He walked toward Eleanor and her father, exchanging a hearty handshake with the latter who said, “I believe you two have much to discuss. We shall leave you to it.” He squeezed Eleanor’s hand and then walked away toward the line of servants ready to bring in the valises and portmanteaux from the carriages.
Eleanor watched her father walk off, unprepared to meet Mr. Debenham’s gaze. She knew an impulse to cry out to her father, telling him not to go. What did he expect her to say to Mr. Debenham? And how did they even come to be there?
“Miss Renwick,” he said, his voice quieter than usual. “Would you care to take a walk with me through the gardens?”
Eleanor looked up at him, the memory of a pile of weeds and the harsh words that had come along with them. Why would she wish to return to such a place? But his arm was extended, and she took it, feeling it was easier than to speak her thoughts. She felt bemused by the whole situation, and she wished her father would have explained it all to her so that she didn’t have to choose between guessing and asking Mr. Debenham.
They turned the corner, and Eleanor was momentarily distracted from her thoughts by the small slice of the gardens she could see from the side of the house. More came into view as they approached. All the hedges had been pruned and the flower beds weeded so that they burst with color: greens, reds, pinks, yellows, and whites. The long pool had been emptied and then filled with fresh water and then topped with lilypads.
“Oh my,” she said. She saw Mr. Debenham look at her from the corner of her eye, and she chanced a glance up at him. He was looking down at her with a warmth she had never before encountered. Her cheeks began to burn, and she reached for something to say. “You have been very busy.”
He let out a large sigh. “You have no idea. But Farmer Foster’s help has likely halved my own trouble.”
“He has been helping you?” she said, gratified to know that Mr. Debenham’s relationship with the kind man should be continuing on so well.
Mr. Debenham nodded. “I’ve hired him on as my bailiff and let go the steward my father hired. Foster is well able to do the work I need him for. And much more qualified.”
She smiled, and they came to the bench she had once sat on. No longer was there room only for one, and Mr. Debenham sat down beside her, keeping her arm in his. Eleanor stared at the pool in front of them, her eyes glazing over. Did he really mean to leave her wondering about how her family had come to be at Holywell House?
She needed to understand—her heart was too ready to open itself to Mr. Debenham, whether she gave it permission or not; too ready to accept that it had found its way back to what it wanted.
“What am I doing here?” she blurted out, still looking at the flowers. “What is my family doing here?”
“I wrote to your father, introducing myself, and I asked him to come here. To bring you.” He looked at her, and she returned his glance, meeting his eyes squarely for the first time. There was something different about them; something older and more certain. She didn’t want to look away until she understood it.
“Why?” she asked plainly.
“I needed to apologize,” he said, staring out at the rear of the house and then surveying the grounds which were visible from the low-hedged gardens. “I should have explained things to you—I shouldn’t have let you go.” He raised his shoulders up and drew in a breath. “I have been fighting against my father for years, trying to establish my own life, to relieve myself of the suffocating obligation I’ve felt at his hands. That is why Holywell House was in such a pitif
ul state. I couldn’t bring myself to do what he expected me to do.”
He paused a moment, looking at her. “And then you came. Which leads me to the second reason I asked your father to bring you all this way. I want to thank you.”
Eleanor felt her stomach drop. He brought her all this way to thank her?
“Someone I know taught me not to listen to such dull stuff,” she said, her mouth turning up in a small smile.
He chuckled. “He sounds like a dashed fool. I think I will ignore his questionable advice.” He turned toward her, and his smile faded, replaced with the soft look that she had seen him wear in the courtyard upon seeing her. He took her hand from his arm and placed it between his own hands. She felt her heart beat erratically.
He shook his head. “You can’t know all the good that our fateful encounter has brought into my life. You showed me in a few short days how to live a more meaningful, joyful existence; how to free myself of the burden I had chosen—of feeling oppressed, I believe you phrased it. Your words and your friendship helped me to a place in mere days that I thought never to arrive at: a reconciliation with my parents.”
Eleanor raised her brows, and he nodded toward the house. “They are staying under the same roof as I am, and not one of us has raised a voice or stalked out of a room—a miracle in and of itself—believe me.”
She smiled weakly but turned her head away, pulling her hand from his. “Surely you realize that none of that is my doing. But even if it had been, I assure you that a letter would have sufficed.”
“You’ve interrupted me,” Mr. Debenham said with a half-smile. “I wasn’t finished thanking you. And I assure you that a letter would not have sufficed for all of the things I wish to say.” He smiled at her in a way that made her heart skip and then beat double time.
“As I was saying,” he said in mock severity, his eyes twinkling at her, “my impromptu trip into town was the most important decision I’ve ever made. It brought me to you.”