by Joan Wolf
“His lordship said the same thing to me yesterday,” Nicky said in the same brittle little voice as before.
I was silent, trying to decipher what it was that I heard in that voice.
“Are you still angry with me for not telling you before?” I asked.
“No. I can understand that you could not break your word to your sister, Mama. I’m not angry.”
It was true that he didn’t sound angry. He had been angry yesterday, but not today.
I was frustrated as well as baffled. I wanted to put my arms around him and hold him against me and tell him that I loved him, but I sensed very clearly that he had put up a wall that he did not want me to breach.
We rode for perhaps an hour in intermittent silence, with either one or the other of us pointing out a particularly interesting sight on either side of the road. Finally, out of desperation to talk to him about a personal topic, I asked, “Did his lordship discuss your…er…sisters with you yesterday?”
I was going to have a very difficult time thinking of Harriet’s children as Nicky’s sisters.
Nicky’s skin looked almost translucent in the light from the window. The shuttered blue eyes, which had always been as clear as glass to me, had shadows under them.
“Yes,” Nicky answered. “He explained to me that I had an obligation to Maria, Frances, and Jane. And to the new baby as well. His lordship and I are going to discuss it more fully in the future, but he thinks I should give them the property at Merion. He says we should not turn our backs upon them and leave them dependent upon Mr. Cole.”
I frowned. “Why should you do that when their grandfather is perfectly capable of supporting them?”
Nicky replied carefully, “His lordship said it has something to do with recognizing them and making them respectable. After all, it was not Lady Devane’s fault that my father married her when he should not have.”
I didn’t have any reply, and we drove for perhaps another half an hour in silence.
Finally I could stand it no longer and I turned to my son. “Nicky, what is the matter?” I cried. “You are treating me as if I were some distant aunt whom you see but once a year and whom you do not very much like! I don’t care who gave birth to you, I’m still your mother! I don’t love you one little bit less than I did last week, when you knew nothing of this at all! And I don’t see why you should love me any less either!”
He turned to look at me. “Have you really loved me, Mama, or have I just been your responsibility—the way his lordship says Maria, Frances, and Jane are going to be my responsibility?”
I looked at him in stunned astonishment. His face was white as paper and the skin around his eyes looked bruised. But at last I understood what he was thinking.
I said matter-of-factly, “I am going to kill Raoul. Positively, I am going to kill him.”
Nicky’s eyes widened. “W-what do you mean, Mama?”
“I mean that he has pumped you full of all these noble sentiments about your duty to those who need your protection, and now you think that this is the way I have always regarded you.” I gave him a piercing look. “Am I right?”
His eyes dropped away from mine and he plucked nervously at the knee of his breeches.
“I suppose so, Mama.”
I said in a moderated tone, “Well, let me tell you something that might surprise you, Nicky. I am not a nobleman and my feelings in no way, shape, or form resemble those described to you so movingly by the Earl of Savile.”
“You don’t have to yell, Mama,” Nicky said. “I am sitting right next to you.”
“I have taken care of you for all these years because I love you,” I shouted. “You have been the greatest joy in my whole life. I would die for you. How can you possibly think that I could have found you a burden?”
Nicky’s haggard face lit with a slow smile that was at the same time radiant and a little shy. “I love you too, Mama,” he said.
“Oh, sweetheart…” I enveloped him in my arms and hugged him so tightly that I was probably in danger of cutting off his air supply. But his return embrace was equally tight.
“It doesn’t matter that you didn’t tell me. Mama,” he said breathlessly from somewhere in the region of my shoulder. “His lordship explained to me how terrible it is to be baseborn, so I understand why you did not want that to happen to me.”
“Oh, Nicky,” I said. Tears were running down my face and I pressed my cheek against the silky hair on the top of his head. I sniffled.
“Mama,” Nicky said warningly, “you’re not crying, are you?”
“No. I never cry.”
“You’re crying into my hair!”
I laughed unsteadily and let him pull away from me. I fumbled in my reticule for a handkerchief.
Once I had blown my nose, we were able to settle down for a question-and-answer session that helped to clear the air between us even more. He wanted to know about Deborah, of course, and I talked a great deal about our childhood together and about her deep, abiding goodness.
Finally we came to the question that Raoul had posed to me the day before. “But, Mama, if she had married Lord Devane, then why didn’t she tell you? Why did she let Lord Devane marry Maria’s mother if she knew it was wrong?”
I reached over and picked up his hand. I said soberly, “When Deborah ran away to me, and your father didn’t come after her, I think he broke her heart. I don’t think she wanted you to go to him, Nicky. I think she wanted you to be with me because she knew that I would love you better.” I sighed. “Perhaps she would have changed her mind once you were born and she realized that she would be depriving you of your rightful place in the world, but she died two days after you were born, Nicky. There wasn’t time.”
There was a long silence as we listened to the sound of the wheels as they rolled along the road.
Finally Nicky said in a tight little voice, “My father doesn’t sound like he was a very nice person.”
“He wasn’t bad, sweetheart,” I said quickly. “He was just weak.”
“He did bad things,” Nicky said.
“He was afraid of his own father, you see. That was at the root of much of his bad behavior. He was afraid of his father.” I was still holding Nicky’s hand. “He tried to make reparation to you, you know.”
Nicky looked up at me. “What is reparation, Mama?”
“Reparation means to make amends, to give a person compensation for a wrong one has done them,” I clarified.
A faint frown indented Nicky’s brow. “What kind of reparation did he make?”
“He left you twenty thousand pounds in his will, Nicky,” I said. “Somehow he found out about you, and he left you money. In fact, that is why his lordship first came to Deepcote—he came to bring me to the reading of your father’s will. So you see, he did not forget about you completely.”
Nicky said, “I’m glad my mother didn’t send me to live with him, Mama. I’m glad she gave me to you.”
I put my arms around him and held him against me once more. “I’m glad too, sweetheart.”
“Don’t start crying again,” he warned.
“I won’t.”
A huge yawn bisected his face. The emotional upheaval of the last few days must have been exhausting for him. “Why don’t you take a little nap,” I suggested. “We won’t be stopping for another hour.”
“All right,” he said, and snuggled his head against my shoulder in exactly the same way as he had done since he was an infant. I almost did start crying again.
In precisely one and a half minutes he was asleep. I sat and held him and told myself that I should be perfectly happy, that at least I still had Nicky to live for.
* * * *
Just driving through the village of Hatfield brought back memories that were a bittersweet mixture of pain and joy. On one hand, Deborah and I had never been made to feel welcome there, and that had been painful. On the other hand, I had met Tommy there and had known all the sweetness and glory that went with
first love.
One of these days I would visit our old haunts, I promised myself. They would bring Tommy back to me, and a visit by Tommy would always be welcome in my heart.
Nicky, of course, had a million questions, and I had to point out to him all the local shops and the houses of all the village bigwigs.
“Where does Aunt Margaret live?” he wanted to know.
“Her house is not on the main street. I will take you to visit her in a day or so, and you will be able to meet her,” I promised.
I had not had a chance to write to Aunt Margaret before leaving Savile Castle, and I wanted an opportunity to write from Devane Hall to explain what had happened before I landed on her doorstep with Nicky in tow.
Our arrival at Devane Hall went quite smoothly. From the expression that I had seen on the face of the young steward Raoul had sent ahead of us, I had suspected that it would.
He had looked determined enough to prepare a medieval castle for the arrival of the king and all of his immense entourage.
The Macintoshes had arrived earlier in the day and Mr. Macintosh had already taken over in the kitchen. Mrs. Macintosh came to greet us, at the last minute holding back from coming into the marble-floored front hall and looking a little shy.
Nicky spotted her, however. “Mrs. Macintosh!” he shouted, and raced across the green marble floor to land in her open arms.
“Master Nicky! It’s that grand to see you, laddie,” she said, beaming all over her highly colored face. She held him away from her so that she could look at him. “Ach, but no, I must call ye ‘my lord’ now, mustn’t I?”
“Don’t you dare,” Nicky said. He looked around. “Where is Mr. Macintosh? In the kitchen? Where is it? I want to see him.”
“Here I am, laddie,” came a deep Scottish voice from the doorway leading to the back of the house. Mr. Macintosh came in, leaning heavily on his cane, and was greeted by Nicky in the same fashion as his wife had been.
I had followed Nicky over to Mrs. Macintosh and now she turned her attention to me. “How are ye, lassie?” Her shrewd eyes looked me up and down. “Ye’re too thin,” she pronounced. “Didn’t they feed you in that castle place?”
“The food was awful,” I confided. “Everything was drowned in sauce.”
“Well, Macintosh is doing a roast chicken for dinner tonight,” she said, “with an oyster soup to start.” She turned and called out to her husband, “Come and look at this lass, Macintosh. She’s naught but skin and bones.”
After the Macintoshes had finished with their analysis of my physical condition, and after the rest of the servants had been greeted and introduced to Nicky and me, we went upstairs to the bedrooms, which the housekeeper, a woman named Mrs. Miller, had assigned to us.
Mrs. Miller had given me the apartment that should have belonged to the baron and his wife, an apartment that consisted of one large bedroom and two adjoining dressing rooms. I thought of objecting, but then I thought that Nicky certainly did not want to occupy such a large apartment and that it was silly to leave it empty until he was old enough to use it. I decided I might as well keep it for a while.
Nicky did not want to occupy the nursery by himself and I agreed. I was still a little uneasy about his safety and I asked if he wanted to sleep in one of the dressing rooms that adjoined my bedroom.
I saw him struggle with his decision. He wanted to sleep in the dressing room, of course, but he knew from his time at Savile that boys were not expected to be so dependent on their mothers.
“What do you think I should do, Mama?” he asked cautiously.
“You must do whatever you feel comfortable with, sweetheart. If you don’t want to sleep in the dressing room, we’ll put you in the room next to Mr. Barrett. And his lordship has sent along one of the Bow Street runners. We can have him sit outside your door.”
In the end, that is what Nicky decided to do.
I slept fitfully in the big bed, the bed that I knew Raoul would expect to share with me when he came.
What would he do when I rejected him? For reject him I must. For Nicky’s sake, I had no other choice. Nor for my own sake, either, if the truth be told. I could not go on trusting to Aunt Margaret’s herbs forever. Nor could I continue to go against what I knew in my heart was morally correct.
I lay awake for hours, wishing uselessly, hopelessly, passionately, that a miracle would happen, that Raoul would smile at me, as only he could smile, and say, “Well then, marry me, Gail,” and everything would be wondrously all right.
But the reality was that Raoul was as high above me as Gervase’s comet, and I was planted firmly on the earth and could never hope to reach him.
* * * *
I finally fell asleep near dawn and didn’t wake until after ten.
A wonderful impression this would make on my new household, I thought with dismay, and quickly got dressed with the help of a stiff and silent young housemaid. I went along to the dining room, where I helped myself to a muffin and the coffee set out on the sideboard. Then I went in search of the kitchen, where I had a long chat with the Macintoshes, who told me everything that was happening at Highgate village.
It was close to noon when I decided that I needed some air and that I would go in search of Nicky, whom Mrs. Macintosh told me had been taken on a tour of the stables by Mr. Barrett.
I thought about Nicky as I strolled along the graveled path that led to the Devane stables, wondering what I was going to do to keep him entertained for the rest of the summer. Devane Hall was not the kind of small, understaffed, homelike place where Nicky had grown up. This was a much larger establishment, where all the work was done by servants, and I could see that a young boy—even if he was the owner—could be very lonely there.
The sleeping arrangements of the preceding night were just the first in a series of problems we were going to have to face now that Nicky’s rank had been so unexpectedly elevated.
He was probably going to have to go away to school.
My mind shied from the thought.
I can’t cope with the idea of sending Nicky away now, I thought a little desperately. Not now, when I am facing the loss of Raoul…
It hurt just to think his name.
I heard the sound of wheels on the gravel behind me and turned to see a phaeton approaching the stables from the direction of the front gate. I stared at the driver in stunned amazement. It was John Melville.
He stopped the phaeton and looked down into my face. “Good heavens, John,” I said. “I didn’t expect to see you.”
He gave me his pleasant smile. “I came to make certain that everything at Devane Hall was the way it should be. I told Raoul that he should have waited for me to return before sending you on.”
“Well, he sent that nice Mr. Barrett, you see,” I explained. “And truly, everything in the house seems to be in order.”
“Well, I am here to make certain that it is.” He glanced ahead, in the direction of the stables. “Are you going to the stables, Gail? May I give you a ride?”
I hesitated. I would have preferred to walk, actually, but John had put his brake on and was looking at me so expectantly that I smiled and put my booted foot on the stair and stepped up into the phaeton with him.
Chapter Twenty-seven
After we had rounded the curve in the path, John surprised me by veering off the drive to the stables and heading his phaeton toward the Devane Home Woods.
“Where are you going?” I asked sharply. “I thought we were going to the stables, John.”
“I need to talk to you, Gail,” he said. “I was so distraught when I learned that Raoul had sent you away from Savile that I came after you immediately. Please, you must give me a chance to talk to you.”
The urgency in his voice was unmistakable.
I was utterly confused. “Of course you may talk to me, but why can we not speak at the hall? Why is it necessary to carry me off into the woods?”
“You will see in a moment,” he said. “There is som
ething I must show you. It has to do with your sister and George.”
I couldn’t imagine what on earth John could have to show me, but I had to admit that my curiosity was piqued.
“What can it be?” I asked.
“Have patience, Gail. We will be there in a moment.”
A few minutes later John pulled up in a small clearing beside a small wooden footbridge that went across the little stream that ran through the woods. Unless there was an unusually large amount of rain, the stream was never deep. At this time of year it was only knee deep and in the spring it was perhaps as high as one’s waist.
“We get down here,” he said to me.
There was something about his manner that was beginning to make me feel slightly uneasy.
I said, “What is the reason for this, John? After all these years, what can be left in this place of Deborah and George? And what is the point of my seeing it anyway? Surely we know all we need to know about that sad relationship.”
John didn’t answer. He just wrapped his horses’ reins and climbed to the ground. He came around to my side of the phaeton and lifted his arms to me. “Come along, I’ll help you down.”
I shook off his assistance and slowly, warily, alighted from the phaeton.
What is the matter with me? I thought. Surely I can’t be afraid of John.’
But there was an expression in his brown eyes as he looked at me that I had never seen there before, and I found myself taking a step away from him, back in the direction of the pathway that led out of the woods. My heart began to beat swiftly.
He came after me with the speed of a cat, and before I quite knew what had happened, his hands were on my shoulders.
I pulled back sharply but he didn’t let go.
“Release me this instant!” I said indignantly.
He shook his head slowly. “I’m sorry, Gail. Believe me, I’m really sorry. But I simply can’t let you live. You’re too much of a threat to me, you see.” The look he gave me was bizarrely regretful. “I’m very much afraid that I’m going to have to kill you.”