James glared at Charles as he left the room but held his speech and set himself to his breakfast.
The journey, a distance that would have scarce taken two hours to cover in clear weather, was long and tedious, for the cold was penetrating and the persistent fog cut off all signs of daylight. Elaine thought the blackness was even more dense than it had been the night before, and it was considerably more eerie to be traveling through the dark when she knew it to be the middle of the day. Her eyes, too, were stinging even worse than they had the night before and it felt as if the air she breathed in was piercing her lungs. She felt that there must be some harsh chemical suspended in the fog, which seemed to cling to her clothing and her hair.
James, Lord Derring and Tibley all three took turns riding before the chaise, holding one of the two oil lanterns high, eyes peering into the thick fog. The hours were filled with tension, not only from the strain of traveling without any clear vision, but from the pent up emotions felt by every member of the small company but Tibley, who managed to retain his usual matter of fact and cheerful disposition.
No conversation was possible, for whenever James was in the Chaise with her, Elaine felt inhibited by the presence also of either Lord Derring or Tibley, and when James was out riding in front, she could think of nothing at all that she wanted to say to either Lord Derring or Tibley. Just once she spoke, when Lord Derring and James were both with her. “There is only one way I can see to make things right. No one must see me when we return. We must somehow make people believe that I have been in the house the whole time. If only Anne has had the presence of mind to consult Mary Hastings, we may still come about. Mary will know what to do, for she’s saved me from scrapes often enough before, when we were both small and she was just a housemaid. You must go in without me and send her word through Anne. Then if there is anyone to notice, you can tell any story you like about your adventures in this fog. No one at Lynnfield is likely to pay much mind to what two young gentlemen take it into their heads to do, but should they show any curiosity, they will be easily distracted by tales of your getting lost, for nothing like this black fog has happened here in my lifetime.”
It was well after dinner time when they finally came up the drive to Lynnfield. While Tibley took the chaise to the stables and took care of the horses, Elaine went silently around to the back of the house and waited, shivering, in the shadows by two tall terrace windows on Lynnwood’s West Wing. The two gentlemen went to the front door and in less than ten minutes, the terrace windows were opened and her own Mary Hastings was there.
“There, there, my dear. It’s all right now. You’re home safe,” she murmured as Elaine flew into her arms. “Come quietly now.” And the two women went together up the dust covered staircase at the far end of the West Wing and along the long hallway to the main house where Anne was waiting for them in Elaine’s bedroom.
In no time at all her clothes were stripped from her and she was thrust into her nightgown and tucked into her own feather bed. “Oh Laney, we were so frightened,” Anne whispered. “Last night after our cousin left to search for you, we waited and waited. Papa told me the Captain said that Lord Derring must have run off with you for your fortune. I was so frightened that some accident had befallen you, but Mary thought otherwise. She said she didn’t trust Lord Derring much, but she thought he could handle his horses. Well I didn’t know what to think, but Mary knew just what to do. She went and talked to Papa and then sent word down to the kitchen that you had returned on foot after a walk into the village and only wanted some warm chocolate brought up to your bed. I hid in here and made some coughing noises while she met the maid at the door and took the chocolate, saying that your case was perhaps infectious and that she would serve you herself. We emptied the cup and sent it back down later, and have done the same with every meal since. Everyone thinks you have caught a chill and are not to be disturbed. Even Libby does not know you have not been here all the time, and I’m afraid she’s quite cross with me for keeping her at bay. Only Mary and I have come into the room. And Papa knows of course. I must go to him soon, for I only had time to tell him you were returned before coming here now. Oh Elaine, dearest, what shall I tell Papa? Did – did Lord Derring interfere with you?”
“No, my dear, I came to no harm, though indeed I was most uncomfortable and worried and very, very angry. It is only thanks to you and Mary that my reputation is intact. Do go quickly and tell Papa that I am yet a maid, and that he must not spoil things by making a scene with Lord Derring. Indeed, if he did so, it would only start the servants talking and cause a scandal and spoil all your careful work. If you wish, once you have eased Papa’s mind, you can come back again and I will tell you everything, for you have proven your mettle this night and this day, little sister, and indeed I am deeply grateful to you as I am to my dear Mary. ”
Anne was gone some little time, during which Mary rubbed warm oil onto Elaine’s back, which was tense and into her hands and feet which were cold. She brought a damp cloth to wipe the grime of the fog from her face and took a brush and untangled her hair, all the time humming an old lullaby under her breath. Gradually Elaine relaxed under her ministrations, and when Anne returned, it was to find her sister fast asleep.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN: In which Love remains Obscured in the Fog.
When Elaine awoke, she found that a whole day and more had passed, but that neither of their two visitors had succeeded in leaving. The fog remained thick around the house and indeed throughout the neighborhood and beyond. Anne reported that both gentlemen had made their separate departures for London on schedule, both expressing their regrets at going without taking a formal leave of their hostess. But then both had returned within a few hours of their departure, finding the fog on the road to London even blacker and thicker than what they had encountered here.
Mary Hastings told her that Tibley had tried to mend what appeared to be a serious breach between the two gentlemen, but though he had twice intervened in time to prevent their falling into an open and noisy quarrel which would have scandalized the servants’ quarters, their intercourse had remained hostile, cold and unflinchingly correct.
Thus forewarned, Elaine made her toilette and went downstairs to face the gentlemen. She sent Edgar to find them and summon them into the library. They entered separately and nodded stiffly to one another before taking seats at the table across from Elaine. She took a long black look at them before speaking.
“I can’t remember when I’ve seen a sorrier looking pair than you two Friday faced nobcocks!” she began. “Really, one would think you were both plotting my ruination, judging from your disgraceful behavior. I can well understand why the both of you tried to slip out of here without so much as making me your adieus.”
She looked at the Viscount. “Really Lord Derring, it does you little good to appear in such an exquisitely tied neck cloth when the face above it is so pale and haggard looking. If you don’t take care you will lose your pretty looks and then how will you win your heiress for Challon? And as for you, Cousin James, with your black rageful looks, it would do you no harm at all to remember what your nanny surely must have told you, that if you don’t take care, your eyebrows may stay locked in that position, dooming you to frown for all of your days.”
“And just how did you know my nanny told me that nonsense?” James asked, his eyebrows raising in amused inquiry.
“That’s much better.” Elaine assured him. “All nannies tell such farradiddles when their charges are behaving abominably, which, judging by your behavior this past day, I’m convinced you must have often done.”
“Well of all the unhandsome things to say, when it is your honor I am defending from this, this ravisher!”
“I do not consider that my honor, as you call it, requires defending at this moment. And as the ravisher you are referring to is not only an abominably ineffective one, but also your own lifelong friend whom you introduced into this household of your own free choice, it escapes my understanding
why you will persist in being so extremely disagreeable whenever he is present.”
“Well, it seems to me that he has no business being present. How he can have the gall to stay under your father’s roof after the stunt he pulled positively amazes me.”
“I believe this black fog has something to do with that, as it has to do with your own continued presence here. There could be no other reason, for I’m sure I most heartily wish the both of you elsewhere. Come now, can you not put this behind you?”
“No I can not!” James replied hotly.
“And so the two of you will come to fisticuffs and risk a scandal? I warn you, you’ll get no thanks from me for that.”
“I’ll not fight him,” Lord Derring interjected, “for I know I am in the wrong.”
“Coward! I’ll make you fight me.”
“I’ll not defend myself. I have no right.”
“Really, that is quite enough!” Elaine interrupted them. “Is this how you settled your arguments when you were boys?”
“Occasionally,” the Captain admitted. “I cannot think now why we did not fight more often, for he was always a reprehensible villain.”
“Well, you will not fight one another here at Lynnfield. I will not have it. Now tell me what we must do to mend this friendship, for there is nothing that will induce me to tolerate this churlish behavior.”
“There can be no mending, for it was a false friendship!” James protested. “I know that he has lied to me.”
“Well I certainly know how that feels!” Elaine retorted. She turned to the Viscount. “And you, My Lord? What have you to say for yourself?”
“I say that I will leave this house this instant if that is your wish.”
“And come to some harm in this fog? I’ve no reason to be over fond of you sir, but I’d prefer not to have your death on my hands.”
“No one ever died of the fog.”
“Perhaps not, but many a person has died of overturning their carriage into a ditch, which most likely you would do before you’d gone half a mile. No you are stuck here, the two of you, and so I am to have you both on my hands until the fog lifts. But I give you fair warning, gentlemen, I will not tolerate incivility in this house. You will converse with one another in a courteous manner while you are here. And I expect that it is necessary for me to add that the icy tones with which you have thus far been addressing each other fall far short of my notion of civility.”
“I would do anything to please you, Miss Howard!” the Viscount exclaimed. “Indeed I know this situation, my very presence, must be intolerable for you. I know that I can never make enough amends to you for what I have done. All I ask now is to serve you.”
“You ask a good deal too much, My Lord. I don’t want your service. Rather I would prefer that you become what it appears you have not yet been, a true, and truthful, friend to the Captain.”
“Well I will, and indeed I have tried to explain to him, but he will not hear me out.”
“I should think explanations rather fruitless. Perhaps an honest confession?”
“I want no confession from him!” James protested. “It will be all lies and excuses.”
“Forgive me, my Cousin, but I have, quite recently, felt very much the same way, and yet I heard you out. Will you not do as much for your childhood friend? You have many long years of friendship behind you. Is that not worth some effort on your part?”
“And if he lies?”
“He will not do so. Is that not right, My Lord? You have asked to do me a service. I ask you to be truthful to your friend. Do not embellish or excuse yourself but give him straight pound dealing. Nothing less than complete candor will do. The exact truth in this case is not at all pretty, but it is not nearly so terrible as his conjectures. Answer every question he has plainly, speaking the facts only. Can you give me your assurance that you will do this?”
Lord Derring looked at his friend. “Yes, I do assure you that I will be truthful.”
“And you, Captain. Will you agree to hear him fully? I do not ask you to forgive, you understand. Only to listen.”
Captain Howard assented reluctantly.
“Then I will leave you both here alone. I expect to hear no reports from the servants of raised voices or loud disputes. Just a quiet conversation, which you will continue until you are both agreed that it is done.”
She closed the library door quietly and went straight to her father. He wept when he saw her. She crossed the room quickly to kneel beside his chair. He grabbed her hands in his and tried to kiss them and hold them against his wet cheeks all at the same time, all the while trying to speak and choking on his sobs. Carney came into the room to see what was the matter, but Elaine shook her head at him and he retreated with a small bow.
“Hush now, Papa. It is all right. You see that I am all better.” Elaine said, gently pulling her hands free and going to the door to make sure that Carney was indeed gone before closing it and returning to her father’s side.
She waited some minutes for him to collect himself, and then spoke again. “Anne told you, did she not, that I came to no harm?”
He nodded, then shook his head, then nodded again. Tears continued to slide from the corners of his eyes. She took her handkerchief and dabbed at his cheeks and then gave him back her hands.
He spoke at last, fumbling for words, and gasping for air. “That man, that…villain! That I should be the cause of his coming to this house. That he should be here still, and there is nothing I can do… Oh my darling, I was so afraid for you. And Hastings came and said I must say nothing, do nothing, but trust to the Captain. And to say you were ill. Not even Carney… And when Anne came and said you were returned to us, I cannot describe my emotions. I wanted to come to you, but Anne said I must not, for everyone thought you were contagious and of course I could not expose myself. I’m afraid I went to pieces then, and Carney had to put me to bed. He thought at first that you must have succumbed to your illness, and I told him, no, that it was relief that your fever had passed and that you were safe. At that at least was the truth, for indeed you were safe at last.”
Elaine allowed him to continue in this vein for a little while and after he had repeated himself several times, kissed his damp cheek and sat back.
“Was it very hard, my dear?” He asked then. “I kept thinking how frightened you must be.”
She gave a little laugh, and replied, “To tell you the truth, Papa, I was much too angry to be afraid. I do believe I was in much more real danger from that evil fog than I ever was from Lord Derring. He is a very poor sort of villain. Indeed he was more concerned about the fall of his neckcloth and the lint on his coat sleeves than he was about the fog that blocked our journey to Challon and put an end to his bacon-brained schemes.” She told him then about the look on the Viscount’s face when she had said that marriage to him would be repugnant to her, and about his strange conversion from ravisher to rescuer, and in the telling of her story, at last coaxed a reluctant chuckle from her father.
“I fear I’m too old and sick for this adventure,” he sighed at last. “You are a good, brave girl and deserve better than I have ever been able to give you. I will not be content until that villain is out of this house and away from Lynnfield, but you are right in saying that to send him away in this fog would cause comment that could only injure you. We must make no fuss. My dear, I need to rest now. Do not expect me at dinner tonight, nor indeed as long as that scoundrel is in this house.”
She called Carney and kissed her father once more before going up to join Anne and Libby, who were starting work on a new gown this morning. She invited Mary Hastings to join them and then, when they were all there together, told them about the events that had passed so that there would be no secrets left between the four ladies. There was much shock and indignation, and a little laughter, but in the end they agreed that Elaine had experienced a narrow escape and that to retaliate against the now contrite abductor would accomplish nothing more than to put her car
efully preserved reputation at risk.
Dinner, as it turned out, was almost an amicable affair, with conversation flowing freely on a variety of safe topics. If the two gentlemen in attendance were not exactly reconciled, Elaine could see that their strained intercourse was gradually relaxing into something more normal, and privately considered that their long habit of friendship would eventually prevail.
And so the week passed in a rather more cordial manner than it had begun, for that is how long the black fog persisted. It was January before travel could be comfortably accomplished, and by the following Tuesday the gentlemen were able to leave, the Viscount by carriage to Challon, and the Captain on horseback to London, bearing the talisman heart, a file filled with copies of the Howard letters describing the heart along with Elaine’s history of the discovery, and various letters of instruction addressed to Mr. Thompson.
Tibley accompanied the Captain until they had passed through the dangers of Finchley Common, and then he turned to take the road to Bath, where he would stop to see his ma before rejoining his regiment. “It’s America for me, no doubt,” he exclaimed philosophically, “now that Boney’s done for. It’s been a treat workin’ for you, Captain, and that’s the honest truth. I never saw such goin’s on in my life, and since it all ended up more or less happy, well I guess I can count it one of the best pranks I was ever a party to.”
Captain Howard laughed at this loose translation of Shakespeare, but after the two parted ways, he rode on into London with a mind that closely matched the dreary winter landscape. The roads were well traveled that day, despite the icy roads and soot-begrimed snow, as there were many whose urgent business had, like his, been much delayed by the terrible black fog, but James scarcely noticed his fellow travelers. He was acutely aware that he had embarked upon a new chapter of his life, and he could not pretend that he had thus far managed it creditably.
An Unmarried Lady Page 20