Aurora

by Joan Smith

  “Yes, more than once,” Rorie answered, not telling the number.

  “He is very concerned about behaving properly, doing the right thing. He would want to show you respect, because of family.”

  Rorie began to wonder how he ever found a minute to pursue his claim to Raiker Hall. It was a highly unsatis­factory visit, leaving Rorie drained and doubtful of her lover’s constancy. He had not behaved properly at all, despite several mentions that he would like to. What he was doing was making up to all the girls, as hard as he could. He wrote no letter, despite saying he would do so. Malone, who had audited Lady Alice’s visit from behind a chair, took to dropping a setdown every time she opened her mouth. At least she did it when they were alone. “When the cat’s astray he’s bound to play,” she would say cryptically, and peer at her victim for a reaction. “He’s using you to be rid of Sally McBain. I wonder who he’s found to be rid of you.”

  When morning of the third day came and still he had not returned, Malone began saying he must be having a good success with the woman he’d gone to call on, and she’d get the backhouse boy to chip her off some ice to make up cold compresses for the eyes. She did hate to see a girl with red eyes. The only saving note was that the two of them were alone. Marnie was a good deal absent. She went frequently to Berrigan’s home to see what it would require in the way of improvement before she would move in. She was so wrapped up in her own concerns that she took little note of Rorie ’s decline.

  It was just past noon of the third day, and there was some fear the cold compresses would be required, when he came back, big with news. Malone took up her post behind the chair, which caused Kenelm to suggest a drive, in spite of a brisk wind and gray skies, presaging a storm.

  “Rutley’s alive,” he said, the minute they were beyond Malone’s ears. “At least I think he is. He was alive well past the time that body in my uniform was buried, in any case. Nel had a note from him, just one, in America. She showed it to me. Had it right out in the parlour, which gave me a good idea Clare had been there before me. It was dated five years ago, and in it he complained of conditions there, spoke of coming home as soon as he could save up the money. Five years—he is likely back long ago, but I am convinced the mother hasn’t heard of him since. She sounded genuinely worried.”

  “You don’t actually know Clare was there, though?”

  “I am morally certain of it. The Rutleys in the village confirmed she had been back to them, enquiring of Nel’s name and address. She didn’t know the husband’s name at all, so we can eliminate him from the case. Nel wouldn’t be likely to have a five-year-old note on the mantel if she hadn’t had reason to show it very recently.”

  “What about the husband? What was he like?”

  “He’s the one I’m worried about. As shrewd as a horse dealer, which he is, incidentally. I think he married Nel only because Papa gave her a settlement. He hinted they could use more. There is no love lost between the two of them, but if Clare was there, she has bought their silence. He said nothing. I finally asked outright, and he denied it, but with a very guilty look. I’m glad I went. I don’t know exactly what she’s up to, but I was right in thinking it had to do with Nel and Horace. She’s trying to find Horace—that must be it. The thing to do now is to keep a sharp eye on Clare, follow her if she goes to London or elsewhere again. If she leaves, it is to get hold of Horace, that’s certain. The husband may have told her something. I don’t actually believe he did. I don’t think he knows, or the information would have been for sale.”

  “Surely what she wants at this time is to keep Horace well out of sight.”

  “Yes, and she’d be more sure of doing it if she knew where he was. If he is floating at loose ends, he might make an untimely appearance in the village and her story is shown to be false. He can read, and it has been in the papers that I am back. They made a big thing of it in the London papers. There were some articles in the Observer when I was there. The next thing we have to discover is the identity of the gent in the grave.”

  “Wilkins could tell you nothing?”

  “Nothing helpful. He gave me some names, but they are both very much alive. Neither one fits the remains that wears my uniform either. Someone who wasn’t missed or spoken of locally as missing. An outsider, in other words. He’ll be hard to trace. I’m tempted to have a go at Clare. She apparently thought it worth her while to challenge me, but she must know now after the questioning and all that I mean to have my rightful place. And with Horace alive to worry her, she might be happy to come to terms. She can no longer twist me round her thumb, if that is what she was counting on.”

  “Did she use to?” Aurora asked, her heart plunging.

  “Lord yes. I was putty in her hands. I had never seen anyone so beautiful and sophisticated—worldly. She was like a creature from some rarefied atmosphere to me. Well, a green boy of sixteen who had had no doings with anything but country girls. And Papa’s wife. There is nothing like unattainability to make a lady more desirable. The feeling of sin and damnation that hung around her was irresistible. No, I shouldn’t say that. You’ll think me worse than I was. I resisted, coveting her every second of the day. What a fool I was! Things are different now, however,” he said in a cold voice. “I know what she is now.”

  “Did you love her?” Rorie asked.

  “Madly. An apt word—I was insane, infatuated, and too inexperienced to recognize her for the well-dressed trollop she was. I’ve met many of her sort since. You must think me an utter ass, but I was a child, and she played with me, my feelings. She is an unconscionable woman.”

  “She’s still attractive,” Rorie mentioned unhappily.

  “Not to me! I find her physically repellent. Oh, I know she has kept her looks well. Objectively I know it, but there is too much between us now. However, she is Papa’s widow and my stepmother, whatever else she is, and I ought perhaps to give her the opportunity to unburden herself. It would save a deal of bother and disgrace, very likely. Best to wrap the family laundry up in clean linen when it is possible. She is a woman. It is a man’s instinct to protect a woman in trouble.”

  ‘‘She won’t even see you.”

  “She’ll see me, if she’s approached in the right way,” he said confidently. “I haven’t had the stomach for it till now. Now I begin to feel I have enough of a grasp of the situation to deal with her. You haven’t seen her during my absence? She doesn’t know about us?”

  Rorie was feeling there was nothing to know, except that he had made a fool of her. He had not written the promised letter, nor ever asked for her answer, ready now for several days. “No, Lady Alice called, but not Clare.”

  “Sally called? What did she want? She was not pleased with my leaving.”

  “Just a social call.”

  “Hanley with her?” he asked, with what could not possibly be jealousy, though she tried to imagine it was.

  “No.”

  They were soon back in front of the Dower House. “No point in going in with Malone to clock me. I didn’t write you, by the way.”

  “I noticed.”

  “I started to, but realized the futility of it. I would be home before my letter, to tell you in person how much I missed you. Very much,” he said, with a searching look into her eyes, and an intimate smile. But that was all the affection she had from him before he was off again, to call on his beautiful stepmother, with whom he used to be madly in love.

  For two days nothing more was seen of him. Rorie remembered his asking whether Clare knew about them, and assumed he stayed away from her to lull his step­mother’s fears. And why should he do that, unless he was carrying on a flirtation with Clare? Marnie, busy with her own plans, didn’t notice his absence, but of course she did notice when she saw him drive quite openly into the village with the dowager Lady Raiker, and she was furious.

  “He’s back after her!” she said, coming in from a drive with Mr. Berrigan, her eyes flashing with anger. “Driving with Clare beside him in his curri
cle, and he has left Dougall’s house. Has taken a suite at the inn, to be closer to her no doubt. Or more likely Lord Dougall kicked him out. It is said in the village he has been twice at Raiker Hall. Oh, it is scandalous! John is furious.”

  “It has nothing to do with John,” Rorie said, trying to trust her lover, trying not to be angry and jealous, but it was a very large order.

  “Nothing to do with John! Indeed it has. Raiker is my brother-in-law, the same name. To see him courting his stepmother—for that is exactly the impression left in the village—is infamous. And they had Charlie with them.”

  “The brute!” Malone said. “Oh, the unnatural man. He’ll be his little half brother’s stepfather, and his mother’s husband. He’ll be his own father is what he’ll be! It must be illegal!”

  “Of course it is. He can never marry her,” Marnie said. “And after he came here telling us he hated her. But he always liked her. And he liked me pretty well too, I can tell you. We are not to see him again. John says we are absolutely not to let him in if he calls.”

  “I should say so, the abominable corruptor!” Malone agreed. “Oh, this is worse than the Bible. Solomon and Glocamorra is nothing to it. I’ve never heard the likes. It’ll be an infamy throughout the land, and the sooner you change your name the better, my girl,” she advised Marnie.

  Rorie listened, silent, and began to perceive that Kenelm’s behaviour was indeed seriously at fault. Even if he was only buttering Clare up to see what he could discover, the scandal he would cause was serious. It was ill-judged of him to do it.

  “It is an outrage!” Marnie agreed. “And you may be sure Lady Alice won’t stand still for it. He has lost her, such an eligible match in every way. Why is he doing this? Has he run mad completely?”

  “You must see he is trying to get Clare to accept him,” Rorie said. “She has been the stumbling block all along to his inheritance. For her to be seen with him in the village must mean she has given up opposing his claim.”

  “No such a thing,” Marnie contradicted. “I wouldn’t mind if that were it. She is not giving up her opposition. And what is she up to, to befriend him when she says he is not Kenelm? Her behaviour is even more bizarre than his, but she never could resist a handsome man, and hasn’t had one for a long time.”

  “She’s been man-hungry for a year,” Malone told them. “Ever since Bernard’s death she’s been trying to act half decent, to give the devil her dues. But if she must break off her celibating, it’s a shame and a pity she had to choose him to do it with.”

  “And to do it in public,” Marnie added, sighing.

  “If Charlie was with them, I can’t think it was so horrid as you say,” Rorie tried.

  “Corrupting that young innocent is the worst of it all,” Malone corrected her. “And never mind trying to defend the heathen. That’s what comes of him going off to India. He’s worse than a warlock. I wouldn’t be a bit surprised to hear he’s turned into a full-fledged Hindustani. He’ll be worshipping holy cows and refusing to eat a bite of beef the next thing we hear. Bernard would turn over in his grave if he were alive to hear of it,” she finished off, too excited to find any inconsistency in this opinion.

  “Charles is his half brother. It is only natural he should want to see him,” Rorie tried again.

  “He didn’t have to see her with him,” Marnie pointed out. “I can’t think what Clare is up to.”

  “Hedging her bets,” Malone decided. “If Kenelm does win—and I suppose he will, for he’s Raiker even if he is a rake along with it—she’s got him in her pocket, set up for life. It’ll be her ends up in Gypperfield’s mansion, mark my words if it ain’t.”

  “That’s what she’s up to!” Marnie exclaimed, and her pique knew no bounds. That John had forbidden her the Gypperfield mansion was a bitter pill, made palatable only by her marriage, but if Clare were to get it, even a marriage was not sufficient to coat the pill.

  “They’re a fine pair is all I’ve got to say,” Malone declared, then went on at once to say a deal more in the same vein, as did Lady Raiker. Rorie was wilted with it all, and went above-stairs alone.

  Kenelm had told her he meant to see Clare, but she had not foreseen his doing it so publicly or so often. Nor had she foreseen how little she trusted him. She felt a strong suspicion that if he befriended Clare for his own ends, he enjoyed doing it. And of course she was curious to know how far the befriending went. “Courting” was the word used by Marnie. But then he was said to be courting Lady Alice, too, and he did not love her in the least. He admitted quite shamelessly he was using her and her father’s prestige.

  He used everyone—Marnie to bolster his claim, Millie to discover information. Had he used herself too? She had let him into the house to search it, had helped him. Yes, it was only after he discovered that she alone continued on terms with Clare that he had showed any partiality for her, that he had kissed her, and spoken of soulmates. The same word he used with Alice. He never had followed up on his question of whether she had found her soulmate. Hadn’t even written her as he had said he would. Never had made any public gesture or announce­ment of his relationship with her. He was as wicked as they said, and she shouldn’t see him if he called. She wouldn’t see him. She had that much self-respect. And if she met him in the village she would cut him dead.

  She pulled his unsubstantial billet doux from its hiding place between the leaves of the book, read it one last time and consigned it to the flames, as he had asked her to in the first place. He didn’t want any evidence of his philandering. He needn’t worry. There’d be no evidence, including red eyes.

  * * *

  Chapter 15

  The next day word came to the Dower House that Kenelm had not been to Raiker Hall that day, but had been in the village again with Lady Alice. He was not giving up that helpful connection, and apparently Sally had not quite given up on him either. Another message was also received, this one in writing holding an invitation to a party at Lord Dougall’s two nights hence. Marnie received it and sent a reply back with Dougall’s footman accepting for her sister and herself. Of course, Kenelm would be there—that was inevitable, as Lady Alice was still after him. This, howev­er, was no reason why the ladies should miss one of the better parties of the season.

  Along with their Irish mentor, they laid plans for their reception of Raiker. “I mean to cut him quite openly and publicly,” Marnie said with relish. “I shan’t say so much as good evening to him, and I hope you will do the same, Rorie .”

  “I wouldn’t satisfy him,” Rorie answered. “I shall say, ‘Good evening, Lord Raiker,’ and not another word.”

  “Maybe that would be better,” Marnie said, considering this alternative. “Malone, which is more degrading—not to speak at all, or to address him very coolly as Lord Raiker?” ­This important matter was given deep thought, with Malone’s head resting on her bosom while a frown fur­rowed her brow. What she desired was to say nothing, and still call him Lord Raiker very coolly, but as this was impossible, she decided on total silence, and was voted down by her rebellious charges. They agreed on “Good evening, Lord Raiker,” and spent a few minutes practicing up the chilliest tone possible in which to deliver their slight. They would say not a word throughout dinner if it fell out that one of them drew him for a partner. They would refuse to stand up with him to dance if he asked, and would remain deaf to any questions or speeches he might put to them. They looked forward to a marvelously interesting evening.

  Rorie hadn’t realized losing a beau could be so entertaining. Her entertainment was of course heightened by the hope that he would override all her ill manners and ill humour and force his attentions on her in some dark and private spot. She quite expected it, but was less certain that in some corner of his heart he still harboured a regard for her when she chanced to see him that afternoon while gathering flowers in the meadow. She thought the gypsies were gone. Nothing had been seen of them for a few days, and she wandered close to the woods, not actually e
ntering.

  She didn’t have to. Through the trees she saw a red dress, and recognized it for Ghizlaine’s. She had seen her once in the village, and would have recognized her in any case from having observed her with Kenelm. She was with him again. They were not embracing quite so passionately this time, but sat together on a fallen tree. Kenelm has his arm around her shoulder, patting it tenderly, while her head rested on his chest. The familiarity of it was worse than a kiss—and the woman was married, too! He would draw the line at nothing.

  Rorie was so angry she was nearly sick with it. She went home at once, and that evening Kenelm came to call on her. Not Marnie, but herself he asked for when he came. She sent down a message that she had a headache, and after listening to Marnie and Malone deride “the gall of the creature” for an hour, she had. But still her hopes were high for the party the next evening. He hadn’t quite forgotten her. While making up to Clare and Lady Alice and the gypsy, he had at least come to call on herself, for what it was worth.

  Both the ladies dressed with particular care for Dougall’s party the next evening. They wished to be outfitted in the highest kick of fashion to insult Lord Raiker. Marnie wore a blue gown and her sister went in her finest cream, with dark-blue velvet ribbons. Their eyes glittered with ex­citement, and their colour was high.

  “Mind you don’t let the heathen be making up to you,” was Malone’s parting shot. She had Mimi at the doorway with her, to give her a glimpse of her mama in her party splendour. Each lady thought the warning was directed at herself, and both replied in reassuring tones that indeed they would not.

  Before ever the carriage got a mile down the road they had a new topic to discuss. Clare’s brougham pulled out of the drive of Raiker Hall just as they approached it, headed in the direction of Dougall’s place. The girls looked a question at each other. “She can’t be going there,” Marnie said.