The Wood Nymph

by Mary Balogh

  She was invited to attend the theater with him, his sister, and her betrothed a week after the Hetherington ball, a week during which she had driven with him twice and received visits from him on two other occasions. Lady Melissa was also invited to attend in order to even the numbers with a young cousin of Lord Harding’s. However, it was Helen who actually did go. She showed almost the only animation she had displayed since their arrival in London when she heard of the good fortune of her sisters.

  “You are going to see The School for Scandal?” she said when Emily introduced the topic over tea in the drawing room one afternoon. “Oh, Emmy, I would give my right arm to be in your shoes. I have read the play, you know, and it is enormously witty. I wonder if it will be well-acted. Oh, I do wish I could see it myself.”

  Melissa pulled a face. “You would not be so eager if you knew what company you would be in, Helen,” she said. “Lord Harding, Miss Lane, and Sir Rupert Davies are quite distinguished company, of course, but Mr. Simms! He must be a head shorter than I am, and so thin and youthful-looking that I shall be positively embarrassed to be seen with him.”

  “Oh, Melly!” Helen retorted. “What possible difference can it make who your companion is to be when you will be watching a play? You will hardly even be called upon to converse with him.”

  “Then do you go with him,” Melissa said crossly. “You would be a more suitable companion anyway, Helen. I am sure the two of you are more of an age, and you probably would not be taller than he.”

  “Oh, may I, Emmy, do you think?” Helen asked, turning to her eldest sister eagerly. “I promise to be impeccably well-behaved and to smile until my face splits in two.”

  Emily replaced her cup in its saucer and placed both on the table in front of her. “I really do not see why you cannot take Melissa’s place,” she said. “Lord Harding asked only that my sister accompany us tomorrow evening. You really must keep that promise, though, Helen.”

  “Oh, I shall,” Helen cried. “I shall be so intent on the play that I shall not have a chance to get into any kind of trouble, Emmy.”

  “Well,” her sister said doubtfully, “you must remember that a visit to the theater is a social occasion too. You are not expected to have your attention so glued to the stage that you totally ignore your companions.”

  “I shall be very civil to Mr. What’s-his-name, never fear,” Helen assured her sister.

  On the following evening Helen was still excited. She had never seen a play performed before. She could only imagine how delightful the experience would be. She took extra pains with her appearance, insisting on a plain satin gown of royal blue, which made her look a great deal less pasty than did the pastel shades favored by her mother. She had Matty tightly braid her hair and wrap it around the back of her head. It was a new style for her, but it would certainly tame those wisps of hair that always succeeded in working their way free of loose curls or ringlets. She thought the braids quite becoming when she examined herself in the glass. A pale face, which had lost its youthful bloom, looked back at her, but she was not concerned with dazzling anyone.

  Lord Harding had brought his cousin with him in the carriage. They were to meet his sister and her betrothed at the theater. Melissa had been quite right. Mr. Timothy Simms was a very small man and thin into the bargain. Although he was apparently very young, his fair hair was thinning. He seemed to be trying to disguise its sparsity by combing it straight up at the sides and piled in the center. His shirt points were so high and so stiff that Helen feared he was in danger of scratching his eyeballs with them. But she was not at all perturbed by the thought of having to spend the evening in his company. She smiled dazzlingly at him and unknowingly enslaved him from the first moment.

  She gazed about her in frank wonder when they entered Lord Harding’s box at the theater. She did not know what she had expected, but it was certainly not this.

  “It is more like a ballroom than a theater,” she said wide-eyed to Mr. Simms, who was solicitously placing a chair for her close to the balcony. “Look at those chandeliers and all the velvet in the boxes.”

  “It is quite a magnificent place, is it not?” he agreed.

  “And the people!” she continued. “Do they always dress like this, sir, to watch a play?”

  Mr. Simms smiled indulgently and placed his own chair as close to Helen’s as he decently could. “But of course,” he said. “Attending the theater is a fashionable activity, Lady Helen. No one wishes to be seen to disadvantage by other members of the ton.”

  “And will everyone quieten down when the play begins?” Helen asked. “There is such a noise now that I can scarcely hear myself think.”

  He smiled. “A great deal depends on the quality of the acting,” he said. “People will listen if there is something worthwhile to listen to.”

  “And they will carry on talking otherwise?” she asked incredulously. “How unspeakably rude!”

  Mr. Simms laughed outright. “You are delightfully idealistic, Lady Helen,” he said. “Most people do not come to the theater for the primary purpose of watching a play, you know.”

  But at that moment the performance began and there was no further chance for conversation. Helen was enthralled from the outset. Mr. Sheridan’s wit positively sparkled through the expert performance of the actors. She could not have said afterward if the audience had quietened down or not. She forgot there was an audience. She was alone in the theater, carried body and soul into the world of the drama. It was quite bewildering at the end of the act to discover that there was to be an intermission before the play resumed. Helen blinked and looked around her, disoriented for a moment.

  Lord Harding rose and held out a hand to Emily. “May I escort you to the box of my aunt, Lady Downing? She has asked that I present you to her,” he said.

  They left the box, followed closely by Lord Harding’s sister and Sir Rupert Davies. Helen had no intention of moving. Had she got up from her seat and moved out of sight of the stage, the spell would be broken. She waited impatiently for the play to resume. She found it harder to converse with Mr. Simms than she had before. She looked around when someone entered the box, expecting to see one of their party returned. But it was William Mainwaring who was standing there looking at her.

  “Good evening, Lady Helen,” he said gravely, bowing formally. “I trust you are enjoying the play?”

  Helen gaped and suddenly became very conscious of Mr. Simms beside her. “Thank you, sir,” she said. “Yes, indeed, I am. May I present Mr. Timothy Simms? Mr. Simms, Mr. William Mainwaring.”

  The two men exchanged bows and polite greetings. And all three of them conducted a stiff and labored conversation for the few minutes that ensued before Lord Harding’s group returned. Mr. Mainwaring exchanged civilities with the newcomers and took his leave. But before he did so, he turned to Helen again and addressed her quietly, but for all to hear.

  “May I call on you tomorrow, ma’am,” he asked, “and take you driving in the park?”

  Helen bit down hard on her lower lip. Just in time she remembered where she was and who her audience was. And she had promised Emmy so faithfully to be on her best behavior.. She could not make a scene. And he must have known it.

  “Thank you, sir,” she was forced to reply meekly. “That would be very pleasant.”

  And that was the end of the play, as far as Helen was concerned. She might as well not have been there at all, she reflected later, for all that she saw or heard. She could see them out of the corner of her eye the whole time: William, the Marquess and Marchioness of Hetherington, and a slightly older couple, in a box almost directly opposite the one in which she sat. She could not imagine how she had not noticed them there before. They must have come late and she had been so engrossed in the play that she had not witnessed their arrival.

  Why, in the name of all that was wonderful, had he decided to pay a call on her during the intermission? Had her rejection of the week before not been plain enough? And why would he want
to challenge her rejection, anyway? Surely he had offered for her only out of a sense of social duty. It should have been a vast relief to him to find that he need not marry her after all. Yet not only had he felt somehow obliged to call on her this evening, but he had also maneuvered her into accepting a more private meeting with him the following day.

  She did not wish to go driving with him. She did not wish to see him ever again; she certainly did not want to be close to him or to be in the position of having to converse with him. What did they have to say to each other? Even apart from her dislike of him and the contempt that each must feel for the other, it would be acutely embarrassing to be alone and yet on public display with the man with whom she had been so intimate just a few months before. Even during those very uncomfortable minutes when he had been involved with her and Mr. Simms in an absurdly formal conversation, she had had alarming flashes of memory of him kissing her, touching her, his face close to hers, dreamy with passion.

  She would merely have to be sick the next day or she would have to think of some other excuse not to keep the appointment. But of course, it would not work. Emily had heard her consent quite positively and quite freely to drive with Mr. Mainwaring. And Emily would tell Mama. And Mama would make her go. Mama’s hopes of a wedding for her youngest daughter would be instantly revived. Was that what he hoped for? Did he really wish to marry her?

  Helen had the uncomfortable feeling that William Mainwaring might prove to be a troublesome adversary.

  * * *

  William Mainwaring was feeling decidedly nervous as he guided his curricle through the busy traffic of the London streets on his way to Charles Street. For a week he had been looking for her wherever he went, hoping that somehow he could arrange to talk to her, to give her a better impression of himself than he had done hitherto. He had racked his brains for a method of approach. But then, when he had seen her the evening before at the theater, he felt as if he had been taken by surprise. He had been as jittery as a boy with his first infatuation.

  He had agreed at the last minute to accompany Robert and Elizabeth and their mutual friends, the Prossers, to the theater. He had not wanted to go at first, feeling that his presence as a fifth member of the party would be awkward. But all four of them had persuaded him over dinner that they really desired his company. They had been almost late, arriving only minutes before the performance began. And he had been looking forward to the play. He always enjoyed a sparkling eighteenth-century farce. He had seen Nell immediately, seated in the box opposite and talking animatedly to a young man he had not seen before.

  The first act had been completely lost on him. He had hardly glanced at the stage but had looked across at her almost the whole time. There was no danger that she would turn and see his interest. She was as utterly absorbed in the play as she had been with the water when he first saw her or with the sky on the second occasion. She leaned forward over the edge of the box, both arms on the velvet armrest before her. She had looked beautiful to him again. Her hair was drawn back and made her look younger and more fragile. And her face had had that dreamy yet eager look that had attracted him during the summer. He had felt a rush of tenderness for her. He longed to be sitting beside her so that she would turn to him and share with him her enthusiasm.

  The intermission between acts had been more than half over by the time he had made up his mind to go and speak to her. She was so obviously enjoying herself. Did he have the right to spoil her evening? Her reaction to him both during Robert’s ball and on the following morning had suggested that she would not welcome a visit from him now. Yet if he did not go, he might not see her again for days or even weeks. Elizabeth had finally caused him to make up his mind.

  “Have you seen your neighbors across from us?” she had asked. “I am so happy to see that they have made new acquaintances. They felt like strangers and outsiders when they first arrived, I think.”

  “Yes, I noticed them earlier,” Mainwaring had replied, “and was about to pay my respects, in fact.”

  “Oh, William,” she had said, laying a hand lightly on his arm, “perhaps you should wait until Lady Emily returns to the box. Only that horrid little girl is there at present.”

  He had smiled. “Lady Helen is really not such a horror once one gets to know her,” he had said.

  “If you ask me,” Robert had added, grinning, “allowing you to go, William, is like allowing a Christian into the lions’ den. We shall watch from here and come to pick up your remains if it seems necessary.”

  So he had gone and had found himself almost totally tongue-tied. He could not have said afterward what they had talked about. He did know that he had felt an unreasonable jealousy of Mr. Timony Simms, with whom she had seemed to be conversing quite happily before his arrival. He had noticed when they stood that they were almost of a height, and they had both looked youthful and shy. Perhaps he was too old for her, too dull, to different in every way.

  He had not meant to trick Nell. When Harding had returned with his companions, he had prepared to leave, but he had had a last-minute panicked feeling that if he left then he would never have the change to talk to her again. So he had turned to her, in the hearing of them all, and asked her to drive with him this afternoon. Of course, it had been a wicked thing to do. He had asked civilly, and she had almost no choice but to agree or make an unpleasant scene. But he had not meant to do it; he had not planned it beforehand.

  He was on his way to call for her. He did not know what his reception would be. Perhaps she would have found some excuse for not going out with him. She would almost certainly be angry or sullen. And he did not know what he would talk about, how he would broach the subject that he wished to discuss with her. He wanted to explain to her why he had left her without a word in the summer, and he wanted to explain that he had decided to offer for her even before he knew her identity. But would she give him the chance? And would he find the right words even if she did?

  One of his questions was answered as soon as he entered the house on Charles Street. The butler showed him immediately to the drawing room, where the countess and her two elder daughters were entertaining Lord Harding and Mr. Simms. Helen entered the room almost before he had a chance to greet everyone, wearing a russet velvet pelisse and brown bonnet trimmed with orange ribbons. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes bright.

  Lord Harding and Mr. Simms got to their feet. The latter made her an elegant bow. “Lady Helen,” he said, “I hoped to see you this afternoon. Will you be at Lady Kirsten’s musical evening tomorrow? I hope to see you there—and your sisters, of course.”

  “I have been looking forward to it, sir,” she replied. “Lady Kirsten always succeeds in engaging artists of superior talent, I have heard.”

  Helen turned determinedly to Mainwaring. “Good afternoon, sir,” she said brightly. “I am ready for our drive, as you see.”

  He bowed and stood aside for her to precede him from the room.

  It was every bit as dreadful as he had expected. She was not angry and she was not sullen. But she was so determinedly bright that he soon despaired of ever breaking through her mask. She smiled constantly and sat bolt upright on the seat beside him.

  “You look very pretty, Nell,” he said. “Just like the autumn.”

  “Thank you, sir,” she replied. “I considered that the outfit would be suitable for the season.”

  “Are you warm enough?” he asked. “There is a blanket that I can spread across your lap if you need it.”

  “Gracious no,” she said with a bright little laugh. “It is a glorious day, sir, quite warm for the time of year. Look, there is not a cloud in the sky, and the sun is still quite high.”

  “Do you enjoy driving in London?” he asked. “It is not any match for the open countryside, is it?”

  “Oh, but very much more interesting,” she said. “One has only to look around to see all kinds and classes of humanity. And driving in the park is a most exhilarating experience. One can see in one afternoon a
lmost everyone who is anyone, and one can learn a great deal about the latest fashions. The countryside has nothing to compare with such excitement, sir.”

  Mainwaring was silent for a while. Indeed, turning into the park without colliding with any other vehicle took his whole concentration. It was the fashionable hour, and the day was unusually suited to an outing.

  “How are you enjoying London, Nell?” he asked when he could relax his attention again. He turned and looked at her flushed face beneath the brim of her bonnet. “Do you enjoy all the social activities and the extra company?”

  “It must be every girl’s dream, sir, to spend some months in London,” she said, “and to participate in the social whirl. How else are we to find eligible husbands and to remain in touch with the important events in life?”

  “But I am not asking every girl, Nell,” he said quietly. “I am asking you.”

  She looked across at him haughtily. “And what makes you think that I am any different from the others?” she asked.

  “Nell,” he said, “not so long ago we could talk to each other, you and I. We could share thoughts and feelings. You were not a brittle little city girl then. Can you not talk to me now?”

  “I am a different person entirely from the girl I was then,” she said, looking away from him out over the grass and the trees beyond the traffic of carriages, horses, and pedestrians. “I have grown up, sir, and I find it boring in the extreme to be reminded of that time.”

  “I am sorry,” he said. “I liked the other Nell.”

  And after that exchange, he found, they really had nothing to say to each other. There was so much he wanted to say. He did not for a moment believe that she had really changed so much in such a short time. But he was not adept with words. He was not accomplished at communicating with people. If only he had been Robert Denning at that moment, he thought. Robert would have known exactly how to keep his good humor and how to get her talking. There would not be this almost unbearable tension. What would Robert do right now? What would he say to break down the barriers between them? He tried desperately to answer his own questions. But it was as it always had been with him. The more he tried to think of what to say, the more he found himself tongue-tied.