I’ll never thank you for this, Catherine thought.
****
“You spoke with her?” William mumbled sleepily.
“Yes,” Sarah replied, settling again into her pillow.
“That’s good. Bad for the lungs.”
“Um-hum.” She stared up at the darkness as if she could see through the bed canopy into heaven. William’s not a brawler, Father, she prayed, hoping God would understand. And I wouldn’t put it past Lord Holt to challenge him to a duel.
She only wished she had not agreed to keep it from her father. Lord Holt could read railway timetables as well as the next scoundrel, and Cambridge was not that far.
But you gave her your word, Sarah reminded herself, as her husband’s deep breathing melded into faint snores beside her. And Catherine gave hers. Her cousin had always been trustworthy before. Still, she added to her prayer, Please protect her from that evil man.
****
Candlelight flickered upon the smooth black surface of the telephone as Catherine picked up the earpiece. “Please connect me with Lord Holt’s residence on Belgrave Square.”
“One moment, please,” came the operator’s tinny voice.
Catherine turned away from the mouthpiece long enough to blow her nose into a handkerchief, fearing any minute the parlor door would open. Finally came the sound of ringing; once, twice . . . eight times before a sleep-filled, though dignified, male voice answered, “This is the residence of Lord Holt and Mr. and Mrs. Godfrey.”
“Forgive me for the late hour,” she said thickly. “But I must speak with Lord Holt.”
The voice at the other end sharpened. “Madame, you have been warned repeatedly not to telephone here again.”
“But I’ve never—”
After the click the line went dead.
She forced herself to go down to breakfast the following morning because her absence at the table, combined with leaving so abruptly, would arouse suspicions. She could not have anyone asking too many questions, lest Sarah allow something to slip. Besides, somewhere inside the stone in her chest, there was still love for her family. It would be indecent to just up and leave.
“All you all right, dear?” Aunt Naomi asked when Catherine entered the dining room.
“Yes, thank you. Just a little trouble sleeping.” Catherine kissed her cheek and took a plate from the sideboard, where Uncle Daniel was dishing buttered eggs onto one of the children’s plates. He gave her a concerned smile and forked some bacon onto her plate. She knew she looked a wreck; her eyes felt as if her lids were made of sandpaper.
“I’ll be returning to Girton this morning,” she said as she carried her plate to the table. “I really need to take advantage of the study groups before term begins.”
“It’s probably best,” Aunt Naomi said, not looking as surprised as Catherine had thought she would, “to become reacclimated to the school environment before lectures begin.”
“But we were going to take a walk this morning,” Bethia said. “And you won’t be able to say good-bye to William.”
“Catherine needs to go back, Bethia.” Sarah did not look up from spreading marmalade on Danny’s toast. “I’ll tell William for her.”
Though there was disappointment in her blue eyes, Bethia said, “I’ll miss you, Catherine.”
“And I’ll miss you, Bethia,” Catherine said. She swallowed. “All of you.” Which was true. It was just that there was one person she would miss far more.
“Will you come see us again soon?”
“As soon as I can,” Catherine replied and sent Sarah a hopeful glance.
This time Sarah looked back, and said with a firmness wrapped in a soothing tone that would escape the others’ ears. “Yes, we’ll all miss you, Catherine. The months until Christmas vacation will seem forever.”
It was her cousin’s way of saying that she would be welcome back. But not until later, when she hoped Sidney would no longer be an issue. Catherine nodded and wondered how anyone who had felt love, as Sarah had, would not feel pity for her plight.
“You really don’t have to see me off,” she told Uncle Daniel after farewells were all said, and Stanley held open the door to the coach out in the carriage drive.
“Oh, but Bethia and I enjoy the outings,” Uncle Daniel replied with a hand lightly upon his daughter’s shoulder.
At King’s Cross Station, they did not leave her side. Though still shaken by last night’s attempt, she longed to steal away to the stationmaster’s office and ask to use the telephone. Hopefully Sidney would answer this time, or at least a sympathetic servant. But when she excused herself for the ladies’ comfort room, Bethia asked to go too, and so she had no choice but to take her along. She had given Sidney advance notice when the Sunday picnic interfered with their plans, and on the afternoon it had rained, he had naturally figured out that she would not be able to meet him. But this time would he worry that they had been discovered? Or that she was angry over his remark about the Irishmen?
You can wire him when you get there, she told herself as the train panted out of the station. But that would not be until noon. If only there were telephones in Cambridge! She could only hope a wire would reach him before he set out for Hampstead. She stared out the window, willing the train to go faster, tormented by a mental picture of Sidney frowning at his watch at their table at the Suburban and Hampstead Hotel.
“She’s still peeved over that remark I made about the Irishmen,” he was muttering to himself. “If she can’t be more forgiving than that, perhaps I shouldn’t waste my time with her.”
With Michaelmas Term still three weeks away, only one other person shared her first-class carriage—a young blond-haired man, obviously a student. He held open a book, but many times Catherine sensed his eyes upon her. Eventually he cleared his throat and gave her a bashful smile. “Are you enrolled at one of the women’s colleges, Miss?”
“Yes, Girton.” She sent him a smile bland enough to convey the message that she was not interested, before turning again to the window. He did not disturb her again.
At Cambridge station she went into the telegraph office. “I’d like to send a wire to London, please.”
“Very well, Miss.” The man behind the desk held his pencil over a sheet of paper. “What would you like it to say?”
What she would have liked to have said was that Sarah had told her everything, and while the news was disturbing, she had confidence that Sidney had a good heart and would live his life differently if by some miracle he could go back in time, and that she hoped they would still see each other even though she would not be allowed to return to London until Christmas, and would he please write.
But one did not pour out one’s heart to a telegraph operator waiting expectantly on the other side of the desk, especially when one was on the verge of tears. And so she shortened the message considerably.
“Sent back to Girton, Miss?” The operator asked.
“Yes. Please.”
****
“No, Miss Rayborn, you’ve received no telegram since you asked an hour ago,” Miss Bernard said to Catherine after lunch on Monday. “Rest assured, I will personally deliver it to you when it arrives.”
“Thank you,” Catherine told her sheepishly and walked down the corridor again. He’s received your wire by now, Catherine thought. Surely he understands it wasn’t my doing.
She only wished she had not chided him over his statement about the Irishmen. Yes, it was wrong of him to say what he did, but she could have put that to him in a milder way. Their last conversation had traveled through her mind over and over for the past two nights. She dissected every word she could recall, every look that had passed between them, to figure out if something else could be the reason why she hadn’t received a reply.
She sent her plea upward, her first heartfelt prayer since she asked God to ease Grandfather Lorimer’s suffering. Make him answer my telegram, Father, please. I’ll do anything you want, be anything you want, but pleas
e let me hear from Sidney.
Twenty-Five
“I’m afraid it’s going to set in for a while,” Mr. Babington, manager of the Bank of England, said over the cards fanned out in his long fingers.
As if on cue, the four men at the commerce table in the Brookes’ Club glanced toward the nearest window. Mid-October rain ran down the glass in sheets and blurred the images of pedestrians dashing by with umbrellas.
“I’m glad I came by coach instead of carriage,” Sidney said, pleased that the ten of hearts just dealt him gave him a three-card straight flush.
“Then you’ll be a good fellow and give me a lift?” Sir Ronald asked. “I sent my coachman back for Lady Hill so that she could take the children to visit her mother. I planned to hire a cab, but . . .”
“But you’ll do no such thing,” Sidney told him.
“Neither of you has to worry over the rain.” Mr. Preddy, author of two acclaimed texts on architectural design, frowned at the cards in his hand. “It’ll be dry as the Sahara out there by the time we finish, if you continue to chatter on as if we’re at Sunday tea.”
“Is there any question of who’s holding a bad hand?” Sidney quipped, bringing chuckles from the other two and a wry smile from Mr. Preddy.
“How were the pheasants in Northamptonshire, Lord Holt?” Mr. Babington asked after drawing three cards a half hour later.
“I bagged five,” Sidney told him.
“You usually do better than that.”
“I was tied up with other business. A farmer I evicted last spring managed to scrape up enough money for a solicitor.” Sidney blamed the Agricultural Holdings Act of seven years ago, which protected tenant farmers from eviction without proper compensation. “If Parliament continues to chip away the landowners’ rights, we’ll be paying them rents.”
“Hear, hear,” said Sir Ronald.
Indeed the rain had let up by the time the game was finished—Mr. Preddy the unexpected winner. Still, Sidney steered Sir Ronald toward his coach outside the Club.
“Are you still seeing that actress?” Sir Ronald asked as they were carried toward Mayfair.
“No,” Sidney replied, pretending not to notice the question in Sir Ronald’s eyes. There were times he did not mind explaining himself, but Roseline was a sore subject. Not that his heart felt any pangs for her, but because he felt quite foolish for allowing her to plead her way back into his life after Catherine left. That arrangement had lasted less than a fortnight, simply because his first walking-out had left her so fearful of his doing it again that she clung to him like clematis to a wall.
Sir Ronald straightened in his seat. “Were you aware that Mrs. Marshall has returned from Hawaii?”
“Yes, I’ve heard.”
“She asked Lady Hill about you. She’s out of mourning now. You should consider paying her a call.”
Sidney feigned a shudder. “That nasal voice. It’s a wonder she has any nostrils at all.”
A grin spread across Sir Ronald’s bearded face. “She can afford to have others breathe for her. I’m told she reaped a tidy profit from the sale of Marshall’s sugar plantation.”
“No, thank you. My eardrums have served me well for twenty-eight years. I’ll not abuse them now.”
Husbands and wives were supposed to spend at least a little time together, Sidney thought. While the idea of adding to his wealth was always attractive, what good would it bring if he could not bear to be in the same room with his wife?
The thought of marriage brought to his mind’s eye a face more fair than Mrs. Marshall’s. Of late, he was beginning to wonder if he had made a huge mistake. His reason had seemed a valid one five weeks ago. The courtship was simply too inconvenient to maintain, what with her suddenly up at Girton and its barricade of rules against gentleman callers. And when she came home for vacations, he could expect again that she would not be able to absent herself too long from Cannonhall Road.
The brief reunion with Roseline, grouse hunts, cards at the Club, and spending more time at the Stock Exchange all helped keep his mind occupied. But as a moment ago, he found his thoughts more and more drifting toward her.
I wonder how her lectures are going, he thought, trying to imagine her taking notes, a little frown of concentration upon her pretty face. Did she finish The Iliad before Michaelmas Term?
“Lord Holt?”
He blinked at Sir Ronald, realized the coach had come to a halt in front of the Hill home on Charles Street. “Sorry,” he said with a sheepish grin. “Woolgathering.”
Sir Ronald smiled. “Would you care to come in for a drink?”
“No, thank you.” He was not in the mood to witness Sir Ronald’s domestic tranquillity today.
His newspapers were waiting for him in the morning room at home. He read through the Times, but ended up laying aside the half-finished Chronicle to stare at glowing coals in the fireplace. Loneliness gnawed at his insides.
You may possibly be the biggest imbecile in London, he told himself. He had enjoyed the affection of a decent young woman whose company was pleasing, and who gave not a whit about his money or title. He had held the potential for happiness in his grasp, and allowed it to slip through his fingers.
Was she terribly heartbroken? He had not even had the decency to reply to her wire. Perhaps she hated him now, and would want no more to do with him. Even as the thought passed through his mind, he knew that was not the case.
So will you do anything about it? he asked himself.
****
“I fear I’ll regret not throwing this one in the fireplace,” Peggy said at Catherine’s sitting room door after morning lectures on Wednesday, the twenty-sixth of October.
Catherine held her breath and stared at the envelope in her friend’s hand. She had stopped checking the chimneypiece in the Reading Room two weeks or so into her return. The day-after-day disappointment was just too overwhelming. Peggy, Milly, or sometimes one of the other sophomores had fallen into the habit of handing her mail to her in the corridor or dropping it by her room.
“Who . . . ?”
“It’s from Belgrave Square,” Peggy sighed. “That’s all I know. And just when you were starting to act normal again.”
Normal? Catherine thought, reaching for the envelope. Stuffing herself at the dining table—and between meals—so that her clothes were starting to wear tight? Racking her brains every night, trying to figure out what it was she did or said that had displeased him?
At least her studies had improved, for concentrating upon lectures and texts gave her respite from the other tormenting thoughts. She had even finished The Iliad.
“Thank you, Peggy.”
Peggy nodded doubtfully and left. Catherine held the letter and paced the floor for a moment, willing it to be good news. When she felt strong enough, she sank into her upholstered chair and opened the envelope.
Dear Miss Rayborn,
I address you so because I do not know if I have the right to “Catherine” any longer. Your telegram caused me much distress, as I realized you could have only been sent away so abruptly for one reason, that our meetings were discovered.
I can only imagine what has been told you about me. And it grieves me to confess that much of what you have heard is probably true. While I wish I had been allowed the opportunity to hear those charges against me, how can I blame your family for wishing to protect you?
For weeks I have determined to absent myself from your life completely, in the hope that one day you would meet a man worthy of you. However noble that may seem, there was also an element of cowardliness. How could I ever face you again, knowing that you are aware of my shameful past?
With those stated, why do I write now? Selfishness, Miss Rayborn. I cannot pretend otherwise. I long to see you again. And I have begun to allow myself to hope that you have not completely blotted me from your heart. Else, why would you have sent me the telegram, when you could have just ignored me?
The letter went on to ask if she would possi
bly consider meeting him on the following Sunday afternoon at the home of a relation in Chesterton.
I have persuaded my aunt, a Mrs. Fry, to call for you under the guise of a family friend. If you do not wish to see me, please simply post her a letter at the address below and she will not call.
A half hour later, Catherine was standing just outside the open doorway to Miss Bernard’s office. Eventually the headmistress looked up.
“Come in, Miss Rayborn,” she said, blotting her pen.
Catherine advanced to the desk, arranged her face into a benign expression, and forced herself to meet the eyes staring up at her. “Pardon me for disturbing you, Miss Bernard. A Mrs. Fry, a friend of my family, has written inviting me to spend Sunday afternoon with her in Chesterton. After church, of course.”
“Will she call for you here herself?”
“Yes.”
“Very well.”
“Oh, thank you!” she gushed before thinking.
Miss Bernard smiled. “She must be a particularly good friend. Why hasn’t she called before?”
A fraction of a second passed. “She suffered ill health.”
“Then I’m glad she has recovered,” the headmistress said, clearly not noticing the hesitation. She dipped her pen in her inkwell. “Will that be all, Miss Rayborn?”
“Yes, thank you.”
It’s the only way, Catherine reminded herself on the way back down the corridor. But the thought was not as consoling as it should have been. When she was ten and told a schoolmistress at Saint Anne School for Girls in Malta that a composition she had forgotten to complete was carried off by the wind near a window, her punishment was to write a hundred times Sir Walter Scott’s quotation—Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive.
They had been merely words those years ago. She understood them now.
Forgive me, Father, she asked, but her prayer had a hollowness to it. She knew, and God knew, that if she sincerely wished for forgiveness, she would be turning to head again for the schoolmistress’s office.
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