“Yes, do go, Mr Gage,” Louisa said, her tone level but her smile somewhat forced. “You will find me behind the suit of armour whenever Pamela has finished with you.”
He laughed a little, as she no doubt expected, but Viola said in bewildered tones, “Behind the suit of armour, Mrs Middlehope?”
“Just my little joke, Miss Gage.”
Seething, Laurence allowed himself to be led to Lady Mountsea where he wasted twenty minutes translating the Latin and then explaining the meaning of it to her ladyship, who looked thoroughly bemused. When he at last had an opportunity to look around, he could not see Louisa at all.
The day proceeded in the usual fashion. There was an archery competition on the lawn, a wooden boat sailing competition on the lake for the children, and the usual fencing display on the terrace. He had seen it all before and could not summon interest in any of it. Occasionally he caught glimpses of Louisa, once with the children down by the lake, and later in a corner of the terrace, her shawl clutched around her, looking lost and miserable in the crowd watching the fencing, but he could not squeeze through the throng to reach her. It was almost a relief when the dressing bell sounded and he could stop pretending to enjoy himself and retreat to his room for a brief reprieve before dinner.
The Manor was a vast building with a central block and two large wings, spread over three main floors, but he knew his way around it, the back stairs and secret ways that may be found in any house of such a size and antiquity. There was a servants’ ante-room where boards were set up listing the rooms where each guest was accommodated. He checked, as he always did, where the children were, and Viola, in case of an emergency. Somehow, he could not resist looking for Louisa’s name on the list, and smiling when he found it. He might not be able to spend as much time with her as he would like, but it was still a comfort to know that she was under the same roof as he was, and imagine her looking out over the lawns towards the sunken garden and the shrubbery beyond. He had no need to question why it was a comfort. She was his friend, and he was happy in that friendship, and if he sometimes thought wistfully of that long, warm kiss before the fire in her study, it meant nothing at all. Louisa was no more than a friend.
Everyone gathered in the Armoury before dinner, a long, echoing room not conducive to quiet conversation. Only half the guests were gathered there when he arrived but already the noise was enough to give anyone the headache. A slow cruise around the room told him that she was not there, so he stationed himself near the door where she was most likely to enter. The squire sank this promising scheme by drawing him into a circle of other landowners to discuss the question of pheasant. Laurence was as happy as anyone to shoot pheasant, and to eat it, too, but he really wanted to talk to Louisa and it was hard to hide his impatience.
At last she came, and he could not help smiling as he saw the stunning gown she wore. She was not an ostentatious dresser, but so elegant and always stylish. He knew nothing about fashion, but to him she was the most modish woman in the room. He made his excuses to the gentlemen and set off determinedly towards her, only to find Viola in his way.
“Laurence!” she said brightly. “Do come and talk to Mr Pritchard. He is very keen to renew his acquaintance with you.”
It was too much. “Not now, Vi,” he snapped, only to be taken aback by the hurt in her eyes. “Oh… well… of course.”
When he looked again, Louisa had disappeared.
Dinner was as fraught as any he could remember. Everyone else seemed to be relaxed and merry, but he felt as tightly wound as a clock spring. Louisa was across the table from him, near enough for him to see every slight change of expression on her face, but not near enough to talk to her. And both of them were well within earshot of Lady Mountsea, who was talking volubly about her husband’s unexpected elevation to the peerage.
“Such a fraud I feel to be a Lady, for the title should never have come to Thomas at all. It should have been his brother of course, and then dear Louisa would have been Lady Mountsea. But there, it was not to be. Such a tragedy for them both, not to have a son and I feel for Louisa deeply, I assure you. I have seen how much it distresses her to be around children, which is why she ran away from Roseacre, despite all my attempts to make her stay, but she bears her grief nobly and makes no complaint. Not that I wish her to suffer in silence, for that is what family is for, do you not agree, Squire? We should comfort each other in our darkest hours, but there, Louisa likes to keep her feelings inside and you would not know, no one would guess, just how much she has had to bear.”
It was as much as Laurence could do to keep a still tongue in his head and not slap the silly woman into silence. Poor Louisa could only sit and suffer, but he saw the distress in her face, and she ate nothing at all. As soon as the dinner was over and the guests began to drift out of the Great Hall, he watched her slip silently away.
It was too much to hope that her disappearance would pass unnoticed.
“Where’s Louisa?” Pamela said, her shrill voice cutting across the chatter. “Where is she hiding? She’s always running away, the naughty creature.”
Laurence held his breath, willing her to let it go.
“I daresay she will be back before long,” Susannah said evenly. “Shall we go through to the gallery? The musicians will be starting up very soon.”
“She slipped out a few minutes ago and she is not in the retiring room,” Viola said worriedly. “She looked very peaky, I thought. Quite pale.”
Laurence closed his eyes in dismay. Now they were in the suds!
“I must go and find her,” Pamela said. “She often gets like this in company, and I have to jolly her back into spirits. I know where her room is.”
Impossible to stand idly by! “I think the noise may have been too much for her,” he said. “She is used to a quiet life, after all. A few minutes of solitude will set her to rights, I am sure.”
“Solitude?” Pamela said, in disbelieving tones. “That’s the last thing she needs. She has too much liking for solitude altogether. It’s positively unhealthy. Company is the very best cure for melancholia.”
“But it need not be your company, Lady Mountsea,” he said, his temper holding by the merest thread. “Anyone may attend Mrs Middlehope, but as the principal lady here tonight, I believe your duty is to the dance.”
“I shall send someone to enquire if there is anything she needs,” Susannah said soothingly. “Do go up to the gallery, Lady Mountsea, then everyone will follow your lead.”
“Oh, very well,” she said, inching towards the stairs, “but I do think it too bad of Louisa, to be causing us worry like this. Slipping away without a word, as well. It is all of a piece with her entire manner since her husband died, and I do sincerely pity her, for she must feel it so desperately, having no children of her own, but she has become quite wild and erratic. Positively eccentric, if you ask me. Settling so far from her family, too. Two hundred miles away! It is too far.”
“Apparently not far enough,” Laurence snapped.
She stopped, looking at him in puzzlement. “Whatever can you mean, Mr Gage?”
He could not stop himself as the words poured out. “I mean that perhaps being two hundred miles from Roseacre was one of the advantages of Shropshire. She came here because she wanted to leave her family behind, and who can blame her? Not I!”
With that, he spun on his heel and pushed through the mass of astonished onlookers, past the grand staircase and down the dimly lit corridor. There was a set of smaller stairs further on, so he went up and then up again. He knew where her room was, and if she was not there… well, he would go and get drunk alone.
He tapped on the door.
“Who is it?” she called out sharply.
“Chambermaid,” he called back.
The door opened to her laughing face. “Thank God! I was terrified it might be Pamela. Do you know anywhere else I can hide, where she cannot find me?”
“I can find a secluded room with a supply of brandy.”
“That sounds perfect.”
“Not quite, for it will have me in it, bent on getting as drunk as a wheelbarrow.”
“Then let us get drunk together,” she said smiling so warmly that he could feel the knot of anger in his belly loosening just a fraction.
He took her back down two floors again, and into a small, untidy room used by the squire and his steward to conduct business. It was neglected and dusty, the furniture dilapidated cast-offs from smarter rooms, but there were candles and a fire ready to be lit, and a sideboard bearing an array of interesting decanters. He identified the brandy and poured them each a generous measure, then sat beside her on the worn sofa.
“I would have murdered her, you know,” Louisa said conversationally. “If I had stayed a moment longer in that room, with Pamela droning on and on and on about how I bore my grief so well, and the other ladies looking pityingly at me, I should certainly have strangled her with my bare hands.”
“You would not have needed to,” he said curtly. “I should have done it for you. Insufferable woman! The only reason to pity you is because you have such a damnable bird-witted imbecile of a sister-in-law.” He was too angry to sit still, so he got up and paced about the small room, back and forth, back and forth, like some kind of caged beast. “I was abominably rude to her, you know. After you left, when she started wondering where you were and was all set to go haring after you, I told her that you came here to get away from her and her miserable family, and that two hundred miles of distance between you was not nearly enough.”
She stared at him, horrified. “You did not! Tell me you are joking, Laurence.”
“Utterly serious and I meant every word of it, too.”
“Good God! What did she say?”
“I have no idea, and have not the least interest in knowing. I came to find you… and the brandy.”
“Well! I daresay she will not understand the insult, and if she does, she will assume you were speaking in jest. She is remarkably thick-skinned, you know, and cannot imagine that she is not wanted. We must hope she did not understand it, anyway.”
“Why should you care? If she takes umbrage and goes off in a huff, then good riddance.”
“Heavens, Laurence, whatever has got into you? You have been as cross as a bear all day, but this is beyond anything. You are the kindest of men at heart. This is not like you.”
“I am tired of being kind,” he said, refilling his brandy glass. “I am utterly sick of being thoughtful and unselfish and never saying what I truly think, never doing what I want to do. It feels like being caught up in a spider’s web, all wrapped up so tightly that I can barely breathe and I want to be free of it, to be myself and not this façade of a gentleman.”
She put down her glass and crossed the room until she was close enough to lay a hand on his brow. “Are you feverish? You are not at all yourself.”
“There is nothing wrong with me,” he said shortly.
“But something has put you into this strange mood. Will you not tell me what it is? Perhaps talking about it will help a little, for I hate to see you so out of frame.”
He hesitated, but why should she not know the worst? “I read the rest of Catherine’s diaries.”
“Oh! Something bad?”
“She betrayed me!” he said, aware that he was on the verge of hysteria, yet quite unable to moderate his tone. “I thought she was perfect, fool that I was, but she betrayed me. She had a lover, Louisa, my own brother, and I never had the slightest idea. I cannot even be sure if that last child was truly mine. God, how I hate her! I wish I had never met her. All those years of tiptoeing around her, considering her delicate feelings, never telling her what I felt, what I wanted. Well, no more. I shall do whatever I want from now on.”
And he knew exactly what he wanted at that moment. He drank the last drops of brandy, set down the glass and swept her into his arms. “What I want is to be your lover, Louisa. Let me come to your room tonight. That is what you want, too, is it not? I know it is. Let us be together and damnation to the world.”
Pulling her even tighter into his arms, he kissed her hungrily. Probably he was bruising her lips but he did not care. He kissed her and kissed her until very gradually it dawned on him that she was less than receptive. A great deal less than the last time they had kissed.
He released her abruptly, and to his astonishment, she pushed him so hard that he staggered and almost fell.
“How dare you!” she hissed, her eyes shooting fire at him. “How dare you try to use me as some kind of revenge against your dead wife.”
“You wanted this!” he said, astonished. “It was your idea, Louisa, so why are you coy all of a sudden?”
“Yes, I wanted it, but not like this, in anger and pain and grief, as some way of assuaging your own misery. Besides, you talked me out of it, remember? All that business with drainpipes and how it would hurt your sister, and you were right, absolutely right. So you cannot now decide that, yes, you would like us to be lovers, thank you very much, just because you want it. It has to be mutual, Laurence. We both have to want it, and I do not, not any more. I thought you were my friend, and now I see that you are no friend at all.”
And so saying, she turned and ran from the room.
23: The Sunken Garden
Louisa ran blindly, hardly knowing where she was. She came to a wide staircase leading up, but as soon as she reached the turn she realised her mistake, for the sounds of music and laughter drifted down to her. She must be close to the long gallery where the dancing was going on.
Irresolute, she paused.
“Hoy, there!” a man’s voice called down from above. “Why are you not dancing, Mrs Middlehope? Come along, it is a reel, my favourite. You must dance with me, I insist.”
A reel! How could she smile and jig about and make any pretence of enjoying herself after that altercation with Laurence? Her friend, her true friend, or so she had thought, to turn on her in that way! All she wanted was to run away and hide until her anger had simmered down.
Before she could move, the man flew down to the half-landing and grabbed her hand. “Do come! You must!”
“No… I cannot…”
She could not even remember his name. But he began to tug her along, up the last few steps and through an ante-room into the gallery. The light was dazzling, so many candles flickering, jewelled aigrettes and bracelets sparkling and the ladies’ skirts swirling in a maelstrom of shimmering silk. The air was heavy with perfume and sweat, and loud voices brayed in her ear as her companion led her inexorably through the crowds and onto the floor.
And she danced. At first, her feet and arms moved instinctively, driven by the hypnotic pace of the music, but gradually her anger fell away and she began to enjoy herself. Perhaps it is impossible to feel anything but pleasure in a Scotch reel, or perhaps the physical exertion drove out any other consideration, but by the end of the set she could smile with genuine feeling and agree with her partner — Mr Jeffrey Rycroft, she remembered — that the exercise had been refreshing.
She danced one more set, but by then she had had enough. Creeping into the supper room, she filled a plate and a glass, and slipped behind the screen to the service stairs. Having got her bearings now, she made her way swiftly to her own room and closed the door behind her with relief. The dreadful day was over.
~~~~~
Louisa slept late, but she was still up before Marie arrived with her washing water and morning chocolate. No doubt there was turmoil below stairs with a house full of guests, the servants jockeying for supplies for their masters and mistresses, and the kitchen unable to cope. There was no rush, however, for it was Sunday, a day of leisure for the adult guests. Breakfast at ten, followed by divine service in the chapel at noon. In the afternoon, the children were to perform tableaux of religious scenes in the armoury, which conveniently provided everyone with entertainment, yet of a nature fitted to the Sabbath. Then another grand dinner, followed by readings from the Bible by t
hose of a dramatic bent.
As she lay in bed, mulling over the day’s events and wondering whether she could yet manage to leave her warm blankets, there was a slight scratching noise by the door. When she went to look, there was a note pushed under the door from outside. Smiling, knowing who it must be from, she unfolded it.
‘My dear friend, for such it is my fervent hope that I may once again call you in the future, may I offer you my deepest and most heartfelt apologies for my despicable behaviour towards you last night? I am the lowest worm crawling on the face of the earth, and if you should choose to shun me hereafter, it will be no more than I deserve. I know myself to be unworthy of your friendship, yet it is most precious to me, and to lose it for ever would grieve me beyond telling. This paper is an inadequate vehicle to convey the depths of my remorse. Forgiveness is too much to hope for, but if you would be so gracious as to hear my regrets in person, I shall be in the sunken garden at nine. Yours in desolation, Laurence Gage.’
Poor Laurence! So much abject despair, when her anger had long since abated. When Marie arrived, therefore, she drank her chocolate quickly and hastened into her outdoor clothes.
‘Sortez-vous, madame? Il fait froid aujourd’hui.’ Are you going out? It is cold today.
Louisa frowned, grasping at a word she understood. “Cold? You have a cold?”
Marie giggled. ‘Non, madame. Dehors.’ She pointed through the window. ‘Froid.’
“Ah! Cold outside. I am well wrapped up against the chill.”
‘Il faud marcher vite.’ She pretended to run on the spot. ‘Comprenez vous?’ You must walk quickly. You understand?
‘Oui. Je comprenez… comprends… I think,” Louisa said. “I shall try not to get too cold.”
She used the service stairs again, just in case any other guests were also up early. She had to ask a housemaid to direct her to an outside door, and from there to the sunken garden, which was in a part of the grounds she had not previously seen. After one wrong turn, she soon found the avenue of pleached limes which led her to a gap in a high yew hedge. There beyond it was the sunken garden, with a round courtyard in the centre boasting a sundial, surrounded by several levels of terraced flowerbeds. It was a little oasis of colour in the unrelieved green of this part of the garden. Clusters of crocus, daffodils, tulips and anemones jostled each other in a riot of colours and shapes and sizes, with no regard to order or harmony. It was delightful.
Stranger at the Dower House (Strangers Book 1) Page 23