by Wilma Counts
Three weeks, Quintin. Enjoy them while you can. Don’t waste time and energy on what could have been or might have been. After all, that was what she wanted, too.
CHAPTER 5
In the next two weeks, Miss Waverly visited the usual tourist attractions in the city of Bath—always on the arm of Lieutenant Quintin, for he proved to be as good as his word in acting as her guide. The two were invariably in an open carriage, a crowded public place, or accompanied by others—Sydney’s cousins, the lieutenant’s fellow soldiers, or a combination thereof, along with other young men and women. But just as often, the two might be seen in company somewhat separated from others, engaging in private conversation, though the gossips found little to criticize in their behavior.
A keen observer, or a particularly snide one, might have pointed out that the lieutenant was always quick to seek Miss Waverly’s company in the tea rooms or at a ball, and that he was a more frequent caller at the Carstairs home on Queen Square than he had been before her arrival in Bath. If the observer were especially astute, he or—more likely—she would see how their eyes lit with pleasure on seeing each other. He—or she—might observe innocent touches occurring more often than one might expect and glances that suggested shared opinions and amusements.
For her part, Sydney welcomed his company. As they became better acquainted, she found him an easy companion. Their “pact” kept the relationship casual, free, on the surface at least, of the usual extremes of tension between a young man and a young woman attracted to each other. They argued vehemently, albeit amicably, about the relative merits of two modern landscape painters. Mr. Constable’s scenes of the English countryside pleased Lieutenant Quintin, while Sydney praised Mr. Turner’s experiments with light. They were equally strong in considering the place of women in public life. Here, their disagreements were just as vehement, but considerably less amicable.
Lieutenant Quintin and Ensign Harrelson, calling at the Carstairs home one afternoon, were invited to stay for tea. As befitted the modest home of a navy widow, the drawing room sported furniture chosen for comfort rather than showy style. Sydney found the colors—maroon, mauve, and gray—relaxing. The Carstairses and their guests occupied two couches and two upholstered chairs arranged around a low table on which was a large tray with tea paraphernalia. The conversation had turned to stories of school-day escapades and Lieutenant Quintin casually mentioned having studied Greek during his days as a university student at Oxford.
“Oh, how I envy you that opportunity,” Sydney said wistfully.
“To study Greek?”
“To go to university.”
“Why? University is no place for women.”
“Why not?” she challenged.
“Because there is simply no need for females to have such training. Men are the ones destined to play the major roles on the world stage.”
“That is largely because men refuse to recognize the talents and abilities of half the human race,” Sydney said.
“Uh-oh. You’re in for it now,” Herbert said to Quintin.
Quintin merely glanced at Herbert and went on in what Sydney perceived as a condescending tone. “Come now, Miss Waverly. You cannot possibly believe women as capable as men in—say—statecraft.”
“Why not? History tells us one of our greatest monarchs was a woman named Elizabeth.”
“But she was an anomaly,” Quintin said.
“Only because women are generally not allowed to realize their potential.”
“I suppose you would also have women donning uniforms and fighting wars.”
“Why not?” she said again. “Boadicea led an English army to defeat the Romans. Joan of Arc was rather successful.”
Others in the room observed this exchange with a good deal of interest, though Aunt Harriet looked as if she would like to change the subject as she pointedly passed around a plate of tarts and offered refills of tea.
Lieutenant Quintin, however, seemed reluctant to let the subject drop. “Your examples, Miss Waverly, are from ancient history and have little relevance to modern times.”
“He has you there, Sydney,” Herbert said, biting into a lemon tart.
“Perhaps the men of our time are less enlightened than those of former times,” Sydney said and they all laughed.
Celia then deftly turned the discussion to the musical selections on the program for a concert they would all attend that evening.
When the Carstairs party arrived at the concert that night, the audience buzzed with news from London. Perhaps a hundred people already were seated in padded straight-back chairs and another hundred milled about. Gas lamps in wall sconces provided soft light. Over the noise of a small orchestra warming up and tuning instruments, the atmosphere was charged as people shared the news: Two members of the House of Lords had been involved in a duel.
“A duel?” Sydney asked, taking a seat next to Lieutenant Quintin who, with Pelham and Harrelson, had arrived earlier and saved places for their friends. She felt that now familiar thrill of just being near him, but tried to ignore it as she said, “Whatever in the world was so important as to result in a duel?”
“Lord Ackerman took offense when Lord Feldson criticized a bill Ackerman had proposed to continue the government’s oppression on the Catholic question.”
“They dueled over a religious issue?”
“Yes. Apparently an ongoing dispute.”
“I hope they are both all right.”
“Ackerman is. He’s a skilled marksman. Feldson had never fired a pistol before.”
She stared at him. “Good heavens! But he agreed to a duel. So—”
“Feldson was wounded in the thigh. Guess he’ll join Pelham and me in the ranks of cane-bearers.”
“Men!” she muttered. “What a childish and dangerous way to settle a dispute. Women would be far more likely to discuss the issue.”
He laughed. “You never give up, do you?”
Pelham offered, “However, there might be more to this dispute. Rumor has it that Feldson had a—uh—liaison with Ackerman’s wife.”
Feeling a response to this information might be improper, Sydney was glad that the director chose just this moment to signal the first musical selection, a number by Handel.
Two days later, the same group met during the morning at the Pump Rooms. Zachary was feeling in especially good spirits, for he had just two hours earlier given up use of the cane. He still walked with a limp, but his mobility was improving rapidly. He had mixed feelings about that fact, for the sooner he mended, the sooner he would leave England again. Even as he dreaded what he knew he would face on the battlefront, he wanted to be there—in the thick of things. But damn! He had just met the most intriguing woman he had ever known!
He spotted Sydney at a large round table with Mrs. Carstairs and Herbert. He made a show of waving both hands at her and was delighted to see her eyes light up with pleasure.
“Show-off,” Pelham muttered in mock disgust at his side, for Ensign Pelham still required his cane.
They made their way through the crowded, brightly lit room. After an exchange of greetings, Sydney said, “Congratulations, Lieutenant Quintin, on abandoning your cane.”
“I am thinking of celebrating by building a bonfire and burning the infernal thing.”
“I ain’t burning mine,” Pelham said. “Saving it for when I get to be in my dotage.”
“The frugal one among us,” Zachary said.
At a signal from Mrs. Carstairs, a waiter brought more tea, and cups, along with a plate of sandwiches and assorted cakes and tarts.
“So where is the third member of your triumvirate?” Sydney asked.
“We encountered Miss Carstairs as we came in, and she insisted Harrelson take the waters with her. They will be along soon,” Zachary said, helping himself to an apple tart.
Herbert snorted. “I’m sure he will find the waters very tasty.”
Pelham laughed. “If Miss Carstairs offers it, Harrelson will treat i
t as nectar of the gods.”
“Now. Now,” Mrs. Carstairs admonished, then said, “I think I shall leave you young people to your banter. I promised to meet the Crowleys and I believe they are in the next room.”
As she stood, so did the three men. Herbert looked about the room and said, “Pelham, there’s Robert Hansen just come in. Now would be a good time to ask him about that black mare. Come, I’ll introduce you.”
When they had all gone, Zachary sat down and exchanged a rueful look with Sydney. “I think we have been deserted.”
“So we have. Alone in a crowded room,” she said with a laugh. She gestured at the plate of food. “But we shan’t starve on this desert island.”
Neither said anything for a few minutes, but Zachary noted that it was not an uncomfortable silence. Nor was it entirely silent. There was the hum of conversations at other tables and a single pianist played softly in the background. He liked that she was not one of those people who must fill every moment with idle chatter.
After a while, he said, “I want you to know that you sent me off to a circulating library this week.”
“I sent you—?”
“Yes. You. Or, I should say, the views you were espousing on women. I assumed they came at least in part from Mary Wollstonecraft’s famous essay on the rights of women. So I read it, though I did note that the essay is nearly twenty years old. Surely, she must have tempered her ideas later.”
“Something that is universally true is not tied to a given period of time,” she said, lifting her chin.
He grinned, relishing the sparkle in her eyes. “Universal? Does that mean men and women are absolutely equal?”
She leaned forward in her chair and sounded very earnest. “No, of course not. But she—and I—would argue that certain abilities and their related rights are or should be equal.”
“For example?”
“The ability to learn, the right to an education.”
“Do you not think the respective roles of a husband and wife require very different kinds of education? The role of housewife and mother do not require university training. Managing business and government does.”
“What if she wants to work in business or government? In our society—and I daresay in most societies—a man has options in what he may do with his life. A woman does not.”
“God—or Mother Nature—has fixed the roles of men and women in the human community,” he said firmly. “Besides, she has the protection of the husband she serves.” He lifted his cup to take a swallow of tea.
She arched an eyebrow. “He protects. She serves. Does that sound equal to you? Not to mention the moral restrictions to which she must adhere while he may go his merry way.”
He nearly choked on his tea. “Good grief. Do you mean what I think you mean?”
“If you perceive that I think husbands and wives should both respect the sanctity of their marriage vows, yes.”
“My dear Miss Waverly. Sydney, that is not the way of the world for much—some would say most—of society.”
“I know. And isn’t that sad?”
“Don’t you two look inordinately serious?”
Celia approached with Ensign Harrelson.
“Did you enjoy taking the waters?” Sydney asked, and Zachary thought she welcomed the interruption.
Harrelson made a face behind Celia’s back, but she turned in time to catch him and they all laughed at his chagrin.
The general conversation took a much lighter tone as Celia said, “Do watch for Mrs. Moseby. She is wearing a hat made with peacock feathers. I vow every time she turns her head, it’s like that creature in Greek mythology with all those eyes staring at you.”
“The Cyclops?” Harrelson offered.
Celia laughed. “No, no. Cyclops had only one eye. Even I know that.”
“You mean the hundred-eyed giant, Argus,” Sydney said.
“Yes! That’s the one.”
That afternoon, Zachary discovered yet another dimension to the character of this woman he was finding so intriguing, despite her bizarre ideas on the role of women. When an excursion to the Abbey was proposed, others begged off. Celia had a fitting at a dress shop; Herbert and Pelham had arranged to look at a horse; and Harrelson announced that he was not interested in some moldy old church.
“That leaves you and me to uphold the group’s aesthetic interests,” Zachary quipped to Sydney.
“I am sure we will prove equal to the task,” she said. “My father would never forgive my not visiting the Abbey.”
Out on the street, he offered his arm, which she readily took. He delighted in even this slight physical connection with her. The day being overcast, but not yet threatening rain, they took a long, circuitous route to the Abbey Church which, in fact, was not far from the Pump Rooms. Zachary hoped she relished their just being together as much as he did.
They chatted amiably about Bath history, making up personalities for Roman generals whose troops must have ousted the earliest natives to commandeer this spot and build the elaborate system of hot and cold baths. In the piazza in front of the Abbey, they found street vendors and musicians vying with each other for sightseers’ attention. Zachary and Sydney admired the stone angels climbing Jacob’s ladder on the exterior, then moved within to appreciate the serene quietness of the interior.
They took an equally circuitous route as Zachary escorted her home to Queen Square. Traffic on the streets was rather heavy as people ventured forth to see and be seen. Hearing a sudden shout, Zachary and Sydney turned to behold a horrifying scene that he thought seemed to pass before them in almost suspended motion.
A small yapping dog dashed under the clashing feet of a team. Right behind the dog was a little boy of four or five years screaming, “No! Scotty! No!” The driver sawed at the reins. The horses neighed and reared. The child fell and lay prone on the cobblestones, apparently clipped by a horse’s hoof. The carriage came to a wobbling standstill.
The driver shouted, “Oh, my God! They come outa nowhere.”
A woman’s querulous voice called from within the vehicle, “What on earth—?”
Instantly, Sydney was kneeling over the child’s body, dangerously close to the team’s prancing hooves. The little dog took a stand at the boy’s head, wagging its tail. Zachary sprang to grab at the harness of a lead horse’s head to try to calm the team.
Oblivious to gathering onlookers, Sydney put her head to the boy’s dirty, threadbare, and torn shirt over a pitifully thin chest.
“He’s alive,” she announced. She gently felt along his arms and legs. “Not broken.” She carefully felt along his head and pulled back to see blood on her glove. “We need a doctor,” she shouted at the crowd even as she took the child into her arms.
Zachary turned his hold on the team over to a bystander and joined Sydney, taking the child from her arms into his own.
A woman wearing a shabby man’s coat over a thin cotton dress pushed through the crowd, screaming, “Tommy! Tommy! My son!” As she came closer to reach for him, she said, “Oh, my God! Oh, my God! He’s bleeding.”
Sydney grasped the shoulders of the nearly hysterical woman. “He’s all right. He has a cut on his head. He was knocked unconscious.” She shook the woman’s shoulders. “Do you understand me?”
Slowly the woman focused her gaze on Sydney and nodded. Sydney released her and Zachary placed the boy in his mother’s arms just as the doctor arrived. Having taken in the state of the clothing of both the mother and child, Zachary pulled a card from his pocket.
“Send me your bill, doctor.”
“Thank you, sir.”
The crowd parted, then closed around the departing trio of mother, son, and doctor. Several voices spoke at once.
The driver of the vehicle: “’Twasn’t my fault. Happened in a flash, did.”
His passenger: “Come along, John. I am late already.”
A male bystander: “Quick thinking there, soldier.”
A female bystander: “Oh
, miss. Your clothes. Them stains will never come out.”
Zachary saw Sydney look down at the light green pelisse she wore over a light cotton dress, the flowery print of which bore the same shade of green. There was blood on her chest, a sleeve, and her gloves, as well as street dirt on the hem of her dress. Zachary had thought earlier of how that shade of green intensified the gray-green of her eyes. Her bonnet had been knocked askew. He thought she had never looked lovelier.
He noted movement at her feet.
“Oh. The puppy.” She reached to pick it up, thus getting even more street filth on her garments.
“Here. I’ll take it,” a young woman in the crowd said. “Tommy will be lost without that mutt.”
Sydney turned it over, straightened her bonnet, and she and Zachary finally managed to extricate themselves from the group. Zachary felt her hand on his arm trembling in the aftermath. He put his other hand on hers.
“Do you always go around rescuing street urchins and puppies?” he teased.
“No-no.” She quickly regained control of herself. “This was my first street urchin. My second puppy.”
“You were quite heroic there. You may well have saved that little boy’s life.”
She smiled up at him. “You were not so bad yourself. I daresay you may have saved both that child and me.”
He merely patted her hand as they walked on, but he stored the incident away as providing more insight to the enigma of Miss Sydney Waverly.
CHAPTER 6
Zachary was finding it harder and harder to adhere to the rules of the pact he and Sydney had made. She fascinated him as no other woman ever had. He responded as he supposed any virile male would to her physical attributes: shining light brown hair that his fingers itched to touch, eyes that seemed truly to be “windows of the soul,” a smile that dazzled, and a figure that was both trim and enticing. But what really intrigued him were her quick wit, her readiness to smile or laugh, her lack of hesitation in responding to ideas.