“I remember everything about you and every word you have ever said to me, but I do not recall our having embarked upon a project of moving a sofa before - or engaging in a discussion about the best place to put it.”
“Well, of course we have not. I have never lived in a house where the furniture was so oddly disposed. Why do you not have it placed more harmoniously?”
“Probably because nothing seems harmonious just at present and the odd, random way everything sits in here suits my mood. Would you like it better if it were – if it looked a little more like a home than a furniture emporium? I can send for Oliphant if you like and get him to make his nephew move everything around.”
“No, I would hate it!”
“Why?”
“Because if it looked like a home it would break my heart to imagine you here all alone.”
“Why? I rather got the impression that you were indifferent to me.”
“Of course I am not!” she exclaimed, defending herself quite as much against his sarcastic tone as against the accusation.
“Do you tell me you still love me?” he asked accusingly.
When she did not answer, he said, “I thought not. Tell me, did your heart change when you saw my face or when you decided to marry my brother?”
“When I saw you,” she said after another long pause.
“Just so.”
“But …”
“What? Are you going to try to find a spurious reason to explain why, as soon as you saw my face, you were so overcome with disgust that you could barely make it out of the room before you cast up your accounts?”
“No; I was going to try to explain that, although what has happened to your face did shock me – and was probably the reason why I – why I had to run out of the room – I don’t think it is the entire cause of what I can only describe as – as a sort of lowering revelation – as though I had woken from a dream and found that, after all, I am not a princess in a fairy tale and you are not a hero come to rescue me. We are just two people who have, perhaps, not a great deal in common after all.”
He stood very still for so long that she began to be afraid of what he would do when the curious rigour which seemed to have afflicted him passed, but at last he said quietly, “I have lost my looks and you have fallen out of love with me. It is not to be wondered at, I suppose. In truth I don’t think we ever had anything in common except a physical attraction which was once strong enough to flatten everything in its path. Now that has evaporated, there is nothing left.”
She watched him as he bent again towards the sofa, his movements awkward and weak like an old man’s until, his temper flaring, he threw down the cane and pushed more vigorously. The sofa began to move faster until, coming to the edge of the carpet, it gained speed, shot across the remaining space and banged into the wall beneath the window.
Lord Archibald, who for the last few feet, had been not so much pushing as following it, fell to his knees.
“Are you hurt?” she cried when he uttered a strangled cry of pain.
“Of course I am!” he snapped. “I’ve fallen on my bad knee and wrenched my damaged arm.”
“Can you get up?”
“I expect so. Why don’t you sit down since I’ve been to so much trouble to move the cursed thing?”
“You’re in the way!”
“Can you not bear to be within an inch of me? Sit down, for God’s sake! Your weight ought to anchor it in position so that I will not be forced to follow it around the room on my knees.”
She did as she was bid, squeezing herself in beside him.
“You should not have attempted to move it.”
“I know that,” he admitted. “I wanted to show you I was not completely useless but have only succeeded in proving that I am.”
“I really do not see,” she said, “that an ability to move a sofa without falling over is one that you should be particularly concerned about.”
“No? But it is my ability to do a whole lot of things which has cost me your love so that, to my mind, it is all of a piece.”
“I thought you were convinced it was your lost looks,” she said, becoming a little petulant for, while he seemed determined to castigate himself for his weakness, she felt he was also criticising her for her attempt to explain her vanished love.
He tried to rise but the sofa was low, and he had only one arm with which to lever himself upright.
She took hold of his wrist where it emerged from the sling and attempted to pull him up.
“Ow!” he exclaimed, colour flooding his face. “That hurt!”
“I am sorry.” Her tone was noticeably at variance with the words. “I was trying to help.”
“It’s to be hoped you never feel inspired to hinder then.”
“Would you like me to fetch your cane which you threw down when you lost your temper?” she asked, adopting a spuriously sweet manner.
“No, not until I have managed to get off my knees. If you get up, the sofa will probably set off round the room again.”
“Shall I get it now?” she asked when he had struggled to his feet before sitting down beside her.
“No. Let us sit here together for a moment while we attempt to understand one another. Shall I begin by telling you how I feel?”
When she nodded wordlessly, he went on, “When my brother ‘rescued’ you, I went to London to drown my sorrow and anger with a combination of drink and gaming. I did not, just so that you know, engage in any dealings with any sort of woman, loose or otherwise.
“The next thing was that my father bought me a commission, egged on, I believe, by my brother, and I was despatched almost immediately to the army and very shortly thereafter to the Peninsula. The camaraderie in the regiment, together with the paucity of time on one’s own, precludes much opportunity to wallow in misery. I suppose it was the best thing for me. I wrote to you every day until Bussaco, but I did not receive a single reply. I was not sure whether that was because you were thankful you had been rescued or whether it was because your father lost no time in marrying you to someone else. Indeed, there were moments when I feared he might have beaten you to death. I know I said just now that I was ignorant of how cruel he could be, but I did have a pretty good idea of his hasty temper.
“I also wrote regularly to my mother and Frederick. I did ask Frederick several times if he knew aught of you; he simply said that my connexion with you was at an end as Hankham was never likely to consider me a suitable match and that I should, in short, forget you.
“I was badly wounded at Bussaco, as you know. Directly before the battle I had been billeted with a Portuguese family with whom I enjoyed a close friendship. After the battle, it was they who found me, I understand after conducting an exhaustive search of the battlefield when I did not return home in the evening. I did not know this until much later because, when they pulled me out from beneath a pile of dead soldiers and horses, I was unconscious. They took me home with them and the mother and daughter took care of me for nearly two years. It is difficult to believe I was ill for so long; at first, I was barely conscious and gather I went in and out of almost continuous fevers for some time. They engaged a friend of theirs, a surgeon, to do what he could, and it is to his skill that I owe my life and my relative ability to move around and do things for myself. During the time I was with them, I learned to speak their language and we spent many hours talking. I daresay I bored them rigid with my constant descriptions of the woman I loved. I told them we had tried to elope and – well, I told them the whole story – and they, the mother and daughter, reassured me that all would be well in the end and they were certain we would one day be married and live happily ever after.
“Of course it turns out they were wrong, but perhaps they knew that all along and were simply trying to give me the will to live.
“Eventually I was well enough to leave and make my way back to the army, and finally home, where I learned that my father had died soon after I was wounded, and Frederick was enga
ged to be married to the woman I loved.”
Chapter 15
When Letty and Lord Archibald left the dining room, the Earl steered the conversation towards what he no doubt hoped would be an unexceptionable topic: the various places of note in the neighbourhood which he hoped to show his fiancée and her chaperone.
Aspasia readily fell in with this plan, expressing interest in visiting the coast where William the Conqueror had come ashore nearly seven hundred and fifty years before, the spot where it was believed King Harold had been killed and the cliffs along the coast where there was a fine view almost as far as France.
The Countess embarked upon her usual practice of finding fault with everything her stepson said, suggesting at one point that a visit to the cliff was inadvisable since it would be only too easy for him to push one or another of the party over the edge.
“Are you in the habit of disposing of your guests in such a summary fashion?” Aspasia asked, attempting to lighten the atmosphere which, as soon as the Countess opened her mouth, was plunged into the usual mixture of ill-temper and high anxiety.
“I have not so far found it necessary,” he replied, matching her mood. “They have all left of their own accord, although it is true that some have stayed an excessive length of time so that I have found myself almost driven to despair. I promise I am not, contrary to Mama’s conviction, either a villain or a madman – at least not one given to assassination of my guests, even irritating ones who have outstayed their welcome. In any event, if one were to find oneself in a position where swift disposal was necessary, there would be no need to arrange an outing to the cliff because there is a perfectly serviceable oubliette.”
“You know that, do you, that it is serviceable?”
“I imagine so although, again, I have to confess I have not put it to the test. I will show it to you if you like. Archibald and I used to play there as children; we found a way to get in without having to plunge down from the top, a method of entry which is, after all, designed to have a fatal effect and which, even as schoolboys, we eschewed. I imagine my ancestors used it from time to time but these days one cannot employ such methods without questions being asked.”
“I wonder if my husband might have found his way in there?”
“Not so far as I know, but I suppose it is possible that he tried to sell something at the door and was either pushed in by Crabb or fell in by accident. Had he no family that you know of? No siblings, parents, aunts, uncles, cousins or anybody at all who might be wondering what has become of him? As I told you earlier, I have a neighbour with a similar name, who might be related – a Colonel Mott-Ripley. I will invite him to visit if he is in England, which of course frequently he is not.”
“I suppose there must, somewhere in the world, be someone related to him who might be interested in his fate but, no, so far as I know there is no one who has been searching for him. This Colonel Mott-Ripley – is he in the same regiment as Lord Archibald?”
“No. I believe him to be in the infantry. I have met him once or twice and own that I did not like him – or his wife – and I don’t suppose they took to me either. She is inclined to be encroaching and would, I don’t doubt, jump at the chance to take tea with us one afternoon.”
“She is excessively vulgar,” the Countess, who had not spoken for some time, put in. “A large woman with a puce face who talks incessantly about her children. They have a surprisingly pretty daughter who must be about eighteen now. Well, in point of fact, I suppose he must have been quite handsome when he was young, but he too has developed a disagreeably purple complexion and has not kept his figure, which I always think is a sign of a want of character.”
“Oh dear,” Aspasia said, beginning to laugh. “I daresay they have eyed your son for the daughter.”
“Which one? As a matter of fact, I think they’d settle for either. Perhaps that’s the direction in which we should be looking for poor Archibald. She is pretty and I own he does not seem to appreciate Miss Pottinger’s sterling qualities.”
“I’m surprised at you, Mama,” Stonegate said. “I thought you despised the Mott-Ripleys.”
“I do. He is not an agreeable man; he looks as though he has an irascible nature although I daresay he has been quite useful in the army. He has risen almost meteorically for a man who is not in point of fact quite a gentleman. I don’t know where they made their money because they seem to have plenty; in any event, they splash it around a good deal; perhaps she brought it as there is not much else to recommend her. The wife is, frankly, ill-bred but the girl is charming: lively and, I hear, soft-hearted.” Her ladyship did not sound as if she admired either of these attributes but sought to say something which, while generally considered positive, managed at the same time to reinforce the impression of low breeding.
“Have they any other children?” Aspasia asked. She could not help being amused by the Countess’s spiteful description of the Mott-Ripleys and was relieved that the older woman was exercising her wit at an unknown family’s expense rather than wounding her own.
“Oh, goodness, yes, legions of them,” the Countess replied. “But don’t ask me to describe them for, once she starts, I find my mind wandering. In any event, she will tell you about them ad nauseam.”
“I do not suppose he is from the same branch of the family,” Aspasia said. “I believe Ripley is quite a common name.”
“Just so,” the Countess said. “And then there is the additional ‘Mott’. I find myself wondering whether that is spurious – tacked on to make him seem more distinguished.”
“Perhaps I should write to him,” Aspasia suggested diffidently. “From what you’ve both said, I feel it would be something of an imposition for you to invite him to meet me.”
“Oh, I shall plead indisposition and keep to my own Tower,” the Countess said, “but I daresay Frederick will enjoy depressing their pretensions.”
“I could not do so with half your style,” the Earl told her. “Mrs Ripley will want you to be there so that she can see a master at work.”
“I am afraid I might feel quite sorry for them if you were too unkind,” Aspasia said.
“Oh, no, I am convinced you will not. They are not sympathetic characters, either of them, and, though you may think I am not either, I can assure you I am a positive saint in comparison. Very well; I begin almost to look forward to it. We must, I think, insist on the pretty daughter coming and do our best to present her to Archibald. Her soft heart will no doubt lead her to take pity on him as soon as she sets eyes upon him.”
“Would you really encourage such a match?” Stonegate asked.
“Why not if they have enough money?”
“They live quite close,” the Earl said, “and if she were to become Lady Archibald I am afraid you would have no peace from her mama. She would be coming to call every day.”
The Countess burst into laughter. “That’s where the oubliette might come in useful.”
This neat conclusion to the discussion made everyone laugh.
Pleased with her success, the Countess turned to Aspasia and said, “She is an abominable woman, but I suspect he is worse. I own I feel some sympathy for any woman married to a man with a hasty temper, although of course I cannot be certain he has such a thing – it is only that the cast of his countenance indicates it. I daresay you have experience of such a thing, Mrs Ripley.”
Aspasia opened her mouth to argue and shut it again.
The Countess, observing this, nodded sagely and said, “I should think it most likely your husband ran off with another woman.”
“As a matter of fact I am fairly certain he did not although I would suppose it likely that, if he is still alive, he will have taken up with one by this time,” Aspasia replied.
“What makes you so sure he didn’t do what most of ‘em do?” the Countess asked derisively.
“He had not been sneaking off at odd times of the day or night, had not – to my knowledge – either received or written any letters of
a sentimental type, and had no interest – at the time – in other women.”
“You cannot know that,” her ladyship opined with a pitying look. “Although I suppose it is not beyond the bounds of possibility that he was not much interested in you either. Some men have very little time for women and only take a wife for practical purposes; unfortunately, those that do are easily seduced away from their wives. Oh, I know you are very pretty – and were probably quite ravishing when you were younger – but it is a mistake many good-looking women make to assume that, on that account, their husbands will remain faithful.”
“It is not on that account that I think it unlikely,” Aspasia retorted, growing annoyed and driven to defend her view in spite of knowing it would be wiser to maintain a dignified silence. “He did not like me, much less love me,” she went on. “But I am in no doubt that I was a source of continuing interest to him for he would not leave me alone and was excessively exacting.”
“Oh, I see,” the Countess said, interpreting this explanation with no difficulty. “It seems that I was right when I said he looked as though he had a hasty temper. I take it he hit you.”
“Once or twice,” Aspasia admitted. “I think it was his fear that he would hurt me that made him determine to put a safe distance between us.”
“I see,” the Countess repeated with a sly look. “So it’s your belief he left from the best of all possible motives: to protect you from his temper. What a gentleman! And has he provided for you ever since? Made sure that you were not in want?”
“No, although he has not tried to turn me out of the house. He knew that I had a competence of my own so that I am certain he did not think I would starve.”
“A competence?” the Countess asked. “Is that a modest way of referring to a fortune which may have added considerably to whatever other attractions you possessed? Has he drawn upon these funds since his disappearance?”
Letitia Or The Convalescent Heart Page 13