Two in the Bush

by Judith Hale Everett

  “To be sure, Mama!” Lenora cried with a beaming smile. “He is so droll! I hardly thought, when we first met him, that with all his gravity he could have such a perfect sense of the ridiculous. But I wouldn’t change him for the world!” She looked up at her mother, suddenly conscious. “Would you, Mama?”

  Mrs. Breckinridge transferred her attention to the knots on the front of her dressing gown. “I don’t fancy I would, dearest,” she said quietly.

  Lenora bounced on the bed. “Oh, Mama! I knew it! He is perfect, is he not?” The murmured response merely encouraged her to give full vent to her raptures. “I vow I nearly fainted when he burst through the window—no, I do not think I would have fainted—rather, I nearly clapped my hands! It was so exciting, and so romantic for, you know, Mama, that I had no notion you had brought him, so I thought he had come all on his own, following his heart, and only just in time!” She tucked her knees up under her chin. “I am certain he would have knocked Lord Montrose down, if I had not noticed the candlestick and had the happy notion of doing it for him, and of course, you saved yourself by stepping out of the way, so Sir Joshua need not have come at all, though I would not have had him stay away for the world! Oh, Mama! What an adventure!” And she threw herself back onto her pillows with an ecstatic sigh.

  Mrs. Breckinridge had forced herself to listen to this effusion with a smile, which valiantly persevered as she kissed her daughter goodnight and tucked her up into bed as though she were still a babe in the nursery. But the smile vanished completely as she closed Lenora’s door and walked slowly into her own bedchamber, sitting mechanically at the vanity to gaze past her reflection in the large gilt mirror.

  If she had met Sir Joshua when she was in London for her one and only season, would she have fallen in love with him then? He would have been still in his salad days, being three or four years her senior, and very likely may have been an entirely different man than he was now. Assuredly, she was an entirely different woman now than she had been then. Both had endured pain and heartache, and loss, though of different kinds. He had loved his wife and mourned her death, and still revered her memory and the memory of the years they had spent together. Genevieve had also loved her husband—had taken infatuation for love, at least—but it had worn off as the years had passed and his character, which she had discovered to be weak and selfish, had further deteriorated, and she had been made to regret her choice until the news of his death had come as a blessed release from an early Purgatory. No, she was not the same Genevieve Wainsley whom Sir Joshua would have met at Almack’s, flirting up a storm with all her beaux, with her eyes firmly fixed on the prize of the season. Sir Joshua should not have had a chance with her, but she as equally may not have had a chance with him.

  As she yet had no chance with him. Sighing, she picked up the brush and pulled it through her hair, having sent Sanford to bed, unequal tonight to her cosseting. She went about the business of going to bed with a detached awareness—loosening the ties of her dressing gown, laying it over the back of a chair, and pulling back the covers of her bed to slip under them and settle her head onto the soft pillow—as if she were separated from her body. It must be that she was exhausted after the trials and triumphs of this night, and of all the weeks leading up to it, but even as she closed her eyes and bid her limbs relax, she knew sleep would not come, for the trial was not ended. She faced the most daunting and painful task of her life, but she knew now, without a doubt, that seeing it to fruition was as necessary to Lenora’s happiness as it was disastrous to her own. As a mother, she must steel herself to keep her own desires firmly behind the needs of her child.

  So, when she woke late the next morning, Mrs. Breckinridge dressed and presented herself in the breakfast room with a very fair semblance of a cheery countenance and her usual lively chatter. Lady Cammerby was shocked and amazed at the tale Lenora told of the night’s events, and her mother interpolated such vivid details that none could suspect it pained her to do so. When Lady Cammerby had exclaimed her last, and the ladies had retired to the saloon, Mrs. Breckinridge evinced no dismay when the first of their morning callers was announced to be Sir Joshua, but seated herself purposefully in an armchair, to leave the remainder of the sofa beside Lenora free for her suitor.

  Sir Joshua properly came to her first, greeting her warmly with a kiss to her hand and a glimmer in his eyes that belied the ardor he carried with him. He went next to Lenora, who jumped up to take both his hands and lead him to sit beside her, to receive her renewed transports over his heroism. These he politely disclaimed, glancing with embarrassed amusement to Mrs. Breckinridge from time to time, but she detected pride in his eyes as well, as though he was pleased at how his efforts had succeeded. She merely kept at her stitchery, as any good chaperone would do, and smiled, though as the interview wore on, this proved more difficult to do.

  Luckily, the visit was interrupted at last by the arrival of Elvira, on the arm of Mr. Ginsham who, after the terrors of the day before, had determined that his dear one must never be unattended by himself—at least as often as could be contrived. This stricture she was only too happy to abide, and their two voices were added to Lenora’s in recounting the events of the previous evening all over again, while Sir Joshua and Mrs. Breckinridge looked indulgently on.

  At one point, the gentlemen rose to refresh themselves at the sideboard and became engaged in low-voiced discussion of their part outside the villain’s window, and Mrs. Breckinridge, rigorously determined against attending to their conversation, naturally heard it all.

  “It was all I could do to keep you from rushing into the room then and there,” Ginsham exclaimed in an under voice, “which you must own would have been cork-brained in the extreme!”

  “You saw what he was doing!” returned Sir Joshua, clenching his jaw. “That he should be even in the same room with her was enough to make my blood boil.”

  “But at the crucial moment, sir! All would’ve been undone if you’d burst in right then!”

  “I'd have gotten the job done,” declared Sir Joshua, tossing off his drink.

  Ginsham snorted and refilled his companion’s glass. “You would have planted him a facer, and knocked him into a table with all sorts of glassware on it, alerting the servants immediately! That would’ve gotten it done, alright! We’d have been ripe for the magistrate, just as Mrs. Breckinridge told us.” He cast a respectful glance her way. “As it was, she played him devilishly clever, and got the girls without any interference from us frippery fellows, by gad!

  “I own it worked, but I’ll stand by it that we could have done it ourselves.” Sir Joshua took another drink and stared grimly at the wall. “She had no business involving herself in such danger.”

  Feeling justly served for her weakness in eavesdropping, Mrs. Breckinridge withdrew her attention from them, becoming quite intent upon her stitchery while her brain fumbled over the ramifications of what she had overheard, but she soon abandoned any attempts at reconciling herself either to what had been said, or to he who had said it. She had been made aware what were his sentiments toward her during their outing to Vauxhall, and any energy she allowed herself to spend in feeling pained that they were unchanged would be wasted. With this lowering conviction, she tried to become absorbed in her sewing, but it held neither consolation nor interest for her, so her attention presently became transferred to the young ladies, who had huddled together on the sofa, quite within earshot.

  “I felt a foreboding the day we met him, Lenora,” insisted Elvira, “when he declared he admired you.”

  “That you did not!” cried Lenora. “You thought it as romantic as I did, and positively encouraged me to think him agreeable!”

  Elvira blushed, but rallied, saying, “So I did, and I was right, for isn’t that exactly what a villain does—deceives his chosen victim with flattery and attention?”

  Lenora was obliged to agree with this assertion, but pointed out that
Elvira had had no notion of Lord Montrose’s being evil when she thought him romantic.

  “At least I thought his manner suspicious at Hookham’s,” protested Elvira. “I distinctly recall saying so at the time. His coming up to us in so familiar a manner quite disturbed me.”

  “Your perturbation expressed itself most unsuitably, then, for I recall you flirting with him.” Elvira disclaimed but Lenora pressed her, insisting, “You thought him charming!”

  Sputtering a little, Elvira owned to it, saying, “So I did, for what else could I think? I could not be wiser than the rest of my sex, who take a gentleman at his word.”

  “Of course not, dearest,” Lenora said in a conciliating tone. “You are no wiser than I, nor Emily or Adeline or Camilla, but you are a deal braver.”

  “You do not mean it,” said Elvira, coloring again and lowering her eyes. “I thought my heart would stop when that horrid man put his knife to my side, and when I awoke in the hackney coach and we discovered ourselves to be in the countryside, en route to an unknown destination,” she pressed a distressed hand to her bosom at the memory, “my blood ran cold.”

  “I believe it did, dearest,” said her friend, “for you sat so straight and still that I fancied you to be in a fit.”

  “But you were not afraid, Lenora,” said Elvira, raising her eyes admiringly to her face.

  “Perhaps the shock made me braver than I otherwise would have been,” admitted Lenora. “It was not the least bit romantic.”

  “No, but it was! To be carried off by force—”

  “We were handed most tenderly into a comfortable hackney!”

  Elvira revised her approach. “The romance was in the deception, Lenora,” she said, edging nearer her friend and looking intently up from under her brows. “You must see that our trusting him so implicitly was our undoing, for if we had suspected aught before he had us in the coach, his plan would have been vain. He played his part of the evil Duke perfectly.”

  Pursing her lips, Lenora allowed that Lord Montrose was as vile a villain as ever there was, but insisted he had no notion of how an abduction should be carried off, and expressing severe disappointment in the state of the house, and the suite of rooms accorded them.

  “Perhaps they weren’t in a proper state of decay, or even of disuse, as they might have been, Lenora,” reflected Elvira, moved by honesty to consider this assertion, “but the servants were positively eerie in their attentiveness, and they did lock us in.”

  “After serving us with a hot supper and warming pans in the bed!” cried Lenora, disgusted. “Not a ghost or a chain or a dim corridor to be seen, and no drafts to snuff our candles.” She huffed, shaking her head. “I’ll never believe in romance again, Elvira. It does not exist but in novels.”

  “Never say so, Lenora!” her friend implored her. “What of our valiant rescuers? When they burst through the window, I thought I’d die! I could think of nothing but that dear Ginsham had come to rescue me, and then your mother freed herself and you knocked Lord Montrose over the head, and my head was in such a whirl that I nearly fainted!”

  “Which would have been excessively unfortunate,” observed Lenora drily, “Mr. Ginsham being across the room at that moment, so you’d have only fallen onto the floor.” Sustaining a look of dislike from her friend, Lenora redeemed herself by continuing, “But you ended very sensibly in his arms, which I must say was terribly satisfying to witness. I can’t conceive of even Mr. Barnabus having exhibited more heroism than your Mr. Ginsham.”

  Elvira sat up straight at that, blinking at her friend. “Mr. Barnabus? Oh, my. I have not thought of him this age.” She looked down at her hands. “Oh, dear Lenora, I do believe you were right in warning me against letting my fancy carry me away. I was almost blinded by it, so much so that I nearly relinquished my one true hope of happiness.” She cast an adoring glance Mr. Ginsham’s way. “I could never meet with a more perfect match than Mr. Ginsham.” Somehow tearing her eyes from her beloved, she laid a hand on Lenora’s arm. “I relinquish all rights to Mr. Barnabus’s heart, my dearest friend. I should have done so long ago. He is, and has always been, rightfully yours.”

  “Oh!” cried Lenora, astonished by her friend’s misplaced generosity. “Your feelings are most noble, but I cannot pretend to a place in Mr. Barnabus’s affections.” She lowered her voice confidentially. “I must agree with you that romance lives in certain men, Elvira, but I believe it to be of a superior kind than that in the pages of a book.” She cast a significant glance at Sir Joshua as she spoke.

  Her mother, catching the look, swiftly lowered her own gaze back to the work in her hands. It was the ugliest work she had done in all her life. The stitches were uneven, and the fabric puckering. It would have to be picked out, and she could not but feel the afternoon to have been wasted.

  But it was not to be an entire waste, it seemed, for Sir Joshua, apparently tiring of the topic upon which the young people were so intent, came to Mrs. Breckinridge’s side and bowed to take her hand.

  “I will take my leave of you, ma’am, but I wonder if I may have the honor of a few words with you tomorrow, in private.”

  Her mouth went dry and her hand trembled in his as their gazes met. Such ardent purpose in his eyes—it smote her to the heart. He would ask to pay his addresses to Lenora, he would ask for her daughter’s hand, and how could she bear it? Oh, that the meeting could be postponed, even another day—but no, she must not attempt it. Her resolution wavered even now, and would only weaken with time.

  She moistened her lips and forced herself to smile graciously. “Of course, Sir Joshua. I am at leisure tomorrow afternoon. Does that suit?”

  “Perfectly.” He kissed her hand, his gaze holding hers all the while. “Until tomorrow.”

  She watched him leave, only recalled from her frantically scattered reflections by a movement in the corner of her eye. Lenora was watching her with eyes brimful of joy.

  The young people’s chatter resumed and, excusing herself, Mrs. Breckinridge gathered up her work basket and went up to her room, prey to such dramatic yearnings as that she should fall victim to a sudden heart attack, or should be instantaneously rendered invisible. But an hour passed without any of these desires being fulfilled, and as she had no wish to excite Amelia’s—or anyone’s—curiosity or solicitude, she was forced to dress for dinner, resigned to play the part of delighted mama, until the forthcoming event broke her heart.

  It was not to be supposed that with such perturbed spirits Genevieve would enjoy a night’s repose. She tossed and turned on her pillow, first with guilt at her inability to feel joy for her daughter’s upcoming felicity, and then with deep mortification at the feelings she had been too weak to banish from her breast forever. She gained no comfort from the knowledge that Sir Joshua knew nothing of her infatuation, for this assurance merely opened a new set of heart-burnings which turned upon the anguished question of whether the outcome might have been different had she made her attachment known to him. Could he have returned her affection, had he been made aware of hers? Or had his eyes been only for Lenora from the start?

  No matter the convolutions of her thoughts, they returned again and again to her duty: it was clear that her desires must give way before her daughter’s. Genevieve had had her day, had made her choice of husband, and had chosen poorly, and lived to regret and repair what she could. Lenora, she told herself, firmly and repeatedly, must be allowed to make her own choice, and if hers was a hundred million times better than Genevieve’s, what more could a mother ask?

  Unfortunately, these assertions, coupled with increasing fatigue, had such an irritating effect that her inner voice quickly became recalcitrant, and her last reflections, before tumbling into troubled sleep, were far from resigned. She awoke cross, and no amount of self-chastisement could bring her to immolate herself upon the altar of motherhood without the air of a martyr. Possessed of just enough reason
to accept the necessity of remaining solitary for a while yet, she took her breakfast in bed, but made a pitiful repast, only sipping at her chocolate while glaring at the opposite wall in a brown study.

  She had done with sacrifice, of herself, her hopes, her dreams. Her entire life had been a sacrifice thus far. Lenora was young yet, she could find another man, a younger man, who would suit her just as well. Indeed, better! For the more she reflected on her daughter’s and Sir Joshua’s separate personalities, the greater the disparity she found between them, and the greater reason to keep them apart. As her thoughts turned, Lenora speedily dwindled into a fragile, trusting creature, while Sir Joshua quickly became a monster of inhumanity, whose very gaze must wither his chosen bride’s self-esteem. From thence, it was only a step to reasoning that in refusing Sir Joshua’s solicitation for Lenora’s hand, Genevieve would be preserving her daughter’s life.

  She did not turn her head when Sanford entered, and did not answer the first or second request for her orders, and when that faithful retainer touched her on the arm, she jerked back to herself so violently that the chocolate spattered onto her night dress. All at once, the spell was broken, and the idiocy of her musings struck her with uncompromising force. Uttering an oath that Bertram had been fond of using, Genevieve thrust the tray at Sanford and got up.

  “There is little use in my remaining in bed now,” she said petulantly, removing the stained garment and throwing it onto the floor. “I wished to wallow in self-pity, not in squalor.”

  Sanford eyed her narrowly, but kept her concerns as tight as her prim mouth as she helped her mistress to dress, not in the requested habit suitable for an execution, but in a pale-hued muslin morning dress that served to soften the drawn look on her mistress’s face. Casting many a wary glance at the stormy reflection in the mirror, she brushed and styled her mistress’s hair and placed a becoming lace cap over the curls, then curtseyed and asked if there was anything else Mistress required.