An Eccentric Engagement

by Donna Lea Simpson

  “Father!” Bert roared and glared at him, clenched fists at his sides. If he ever felt like hitting his father, it was in that moment. “Hear me, and hear me well. You will say nothing to Sorrow, nor to her parents.” His voice trembled, but he took a gulp of air and steadied himself. “And you will leave this house and not come back until the day before the wedding. Plead some emergency or something, but I will not have you speaking to my fiancée the way you just have been speaking of her.”

  “How dare you speak to me in that manner? I’ll . . . I’ll—”

  “You’ll what?”

  Lord Newton’s face was a portrait of indecision, his eyes narrowed. “I won’t go. And unless you wish to enlighten the Marchands as to our subject this half hour, I don’t think they’ll see me ejected from their home when my son is marrying their daughter.”

  “You have to leave! I won’t have Sorrow subjected to your venom.”

  “Bertram, it is not venom. And I wouldn’t be rude to the girl. It’s not her fault, after all. This is as much for her sake as it is for yours. I should have done more research before I pointed her out to you. But just listen, she will not be happy in London nor at Newton Castle, not once it is known—”

  “Father, we won’t be living either in London or at Newton Castle. Have you forgotten? Upon marriage, Hambelden Manor is mine. We’ll live there.”

  There was silence in the library for a long few minutes. Bert could see that his father had indeed forgotten about his receipt, upon marriage, of his inheritance from his mother’s parents. He could do nothing about it. It was one of the reasons Bert had been looking forward to marriage.

  “You will defy me in this, I suppose.”

  “Don’t think of it as defiance, for that means that I should listen to you but won’t. In this case, Father, I think I’m in the right and you are wrong.”

  “But the Marchands . . . our family name . . .”

  “They neither sought the alliance nor planned it. Remember, it was all our doing; you first pointed Sorrow out to me, and I courted her and asked her to marry me.”

  “Her odd name ought to have informed me there was something not quite right about the family.”

  “So, will you be leaving?”

  “No.”

  “Then you must behave in a proper manner to Sorrow, her parents and the inhabitants of this household.”

  “I am who I am, Bertram,” Lord Newton said, with the first glint of humor in his eyes that Bert had seen in a long time. “Have I ever, in your opinion, behaved in a proper manner? I think we define the word differently.”

  Against his conscience, Bert smiled, but then sobered immediately. “I’m serious, though, Father. I will not have you embarrassing me with any rudeness toward folks the Marchands consider their family.”

  “Fam . . . does that mean they will be coming to . . .” Lord Newton stopped talking. He shook his head. “I promise to behave in a proper manner, Bertram. But I will not leave. How would it look if I did?”

  Hearing something in his father’s voice that he didn’t like, Bertram nonetheless knew his father enough to know that he would do as he said, to the letter. He examined the words for any subterfuge, any loophole that could be used to justify bad behavior, but gave up finally. He would have to handle what happened when it happened. Perhaps his father would be as good as his word, but he couldn’t help feeling that Lord Newton was not completely done with any interference.

  “Let’s join the others, then,” Bert said. “The family gathers before dinner for a cup of tea, and it is a chance for you to meet some of the others.”

  • • •

  Sorrow, in the act of handing a cup of tea to Margaret, watched Bert and Lord Newton come into the parlor. From the expression on both of their faces, she would guess it had not been a pacific meeting, and in fact Margaret said she had overheard shouting when she passed the library.

  In London Lord Newton had been very polite to her, if chilly in his behavior. Since that seemed to be his perpetual demeanor, though, she didn’t take it personally.

  Bert crossed to her immediately, nodded a polite greeting to Margaret, and took Sorrow’s hand. “May I speak to you privately?”

  Margaret curtseyed and moved away, considerately.

  “I can’t leave the tea table, Bert, but sit by me here and talk to me.”

  Her fiancés gaze followed his father’s perambulation of the room, she noticed. What was wrong between them? In London they had seemed to be at least polite to each other, but there was a tension here, like a wire pulled taut between them.

  He took her hand in his and squeezed it. Just then Mr. William shuffled into the room and took a cup from the table, holding it out for Sorrow to fill. She did so and he ambled away to find a chair out of sight of the others in the room. Sorrow’s mother and father were engaging Lord Newton in conversation, but the viscount stared at Mr. William with an odd look on his handsome face.

  Sorrow turned back to her husband-to-be, though, and examined his eyes. “What’s wrong, Bert? You seem overset.”

  “Sorrow,” he said, turning to her. “If my father says or does anything to upset you, I want you to tell me.”

  Alarmed, she examined his expression, still searching his eyes to try to understand his worry. They were dark gray now, and his brows were drawn down, shadowing their depths. “What did you and your father talk about? Is anything wrong? Is your father all right?”

  Bert laughed, a short, bitter bark of sound that drew attention. He turned away from the others and said, “He’s fine, he’s just being his usual impossible self.”

  “What does that mean?”

  Shaking his head, Bert didn’t answer.

  Sorrow watched Lord Newton. He appeared to be acting perfectly polite, but his gaze kept returning to Mr. William, who shrank from the piercing gaze of the viscount. That changed the moment Mrs. Liston entered.

  Sorrow happened to be staring at Lord Newton and so saw him start, and his attention rivet. She glanced over and saw Mrs. Liston sweep in gracefully. She greeted Mr. William kindly, embraced Margaret, who gravitated to Mrs. Liston, often, as to a second mother, and then made her way to the Marchands.

  Sorrow turned and said to Bert, “Do you see your fa . . .” She didn’t finish because he clearly had seen his father.

  Lord Newton became a different man. He bowed before Mrs. Liston and his expression brightened from wintry to warmer, more like Bertram’s. Sorrow could see the resemblance between father and son now. In pantomime, from across the room, it appeared almost like a dance. He bowed, then he took the lady’s hand and kissed the air about an inch above it as introductions were performed. He then set himself to be charming with an almost physical zeal.

  “Apparently it takes an attractive woman to enter to make my father behave in a civil manner,” Bert said dryly.

  “He appears much more than civil,” Sorrow said with a giggle.

  Margaret approached them and Sorrow tugged at her sleeve. “What are they saying?”

  “Lord Newton was talking about some people he knows in London, but then Mrs. Liston came in and he just stopped in mid-word! It was the funniest thing!” She darted a glance at Bert and stuttered back into speech. “N-not that he was f-funny.”

  “Don’t worry, Miss Margaret,” Bertram said kindly. “You may smile at his behavior all you like, for I have never seen the like, either. It is . . . interesting.”

  Sorrow nodded and chimed in, “Fascinating!”

  Chapter 7

  Bertram had expected a miserable few days. He had expected disaster. He had expected every minute of every day that his father would say some horrible thing to disgust, disturb or dismay the Marchands or their guests. But none of it had come to pass, and this moment, on a brilliant June day sitting in the garden on a stone bench, surreptitiously holding hands with Sorrow while his father walked with Mrs. Liston, Bert felt an absurd fount of happiness well up in his heart.

  “Billy’s dragon is ta
king wing,” he said, pointing with their jointly clasped hands at young Billy tending to his topiary.

  Sorrow rubbed shoulders with him and smiled. She laid her cheek against his arm. “Bert, what would you do . . . I mean, if our child was born like Billy, what would you do?”

  His stomach clutched. Was this some kind of test? He knew the story now, that Billy’s mother, disgusted by her child’s condition, had sent him away, though his father wanted to keep him home. There was money enough in the family to take care of him, it was just that his mother could not look at him without crying and she was afraid what their neighbors and relatives would think if they kept him at home. The Marchands hoped, eventually, that the family would take him back.

  Examining his own heart, Bert wondered if, before meeting the Marchands and listening to his future father-in-law, he would immediately have answered that he would expect to send Billy to some family to care for him. It was what society considered correct behavior, certainly. But did it serve? Billy’s family was missing out on the company of a wonderful, intelligent, bright young lad because they could not bear the fact that he was born with no legs. Who lost most by such behavior?

  “Bert?” Sorrow said, gazing up at him.

  “I would hold him close and never let him go,” Bert said, not recognizing his own voice, it was so clogged and quivering with emotion. There was silence from Sorrow, but when he met her gaze it was to see her eyes shining with tears.

  “Sorrow?”

  “Oh, Bert, I . . . I love you!”

  Like an arrow, his heart was pierced as surely as any legendary Cupid could have shot. He wished they were alone. He fervently wished they were already married, and he couldn’t believe that a state he had only wished for to gain independence of wealth he now looked forward to for much deeper reasons. He trembled. He wanted to take Sorrow into his arms, but they were in the garden, and it would shock many, mostly his father.

  However . . . he pulled her into his arms anyway and kissed her on the mouth. Let his father be shocked. This perfect moment would never come again, and he would spend it as he wished.

  • • •

  Later in the day Sorrow, never forgetting her duties of the heart, sat by Miss Chandler’s bed and stroked her frothy white hair back from her brow. But her mind wandered and she remembered with delicious clarity the moment of realization; she had said it, had told him. She loved Bertram Carlyle completely and devotedly. That he had not responded in kind had caused a moment of fear, but she was determined not to let anything darken her happiness. Someday he would love her and someday he would tell her so.

  The door pushed open and Mrs. Liston poked her head in. “May I come in, Sorrow?”

  “Certainly! I was just talking to Miss Chandler.”

  The woman slipped in and sat down in the chair by Sorrow’s. “I don’t think she can hear you, dear.”

  “I know she doesn’t perhaps understand, but I do think she hears my voice and that it soothes her.”

  When there was no response, Sorrow glanced over at the older woman. She was disturbed about something, that much was clear. But what brought her to Sorrow was not clear.

  “What is it, ma’am?”

  Mrs. Liston said, “Won’t you call me Harriet? We have known each other quite long enough, I think.”

  Sorrow nodded, and waited. Harriet Liston looked down at her hands, folded on her lap, and bit her lip, frowning. It must be something to do with either her, Bert or Lord Newton, Sorrow thought, for there to be such indecision on the woman’s face.

  “Is something wrong, ma’am? Harriet?”

  She looked up, then, her blue eyes troubled. Sorrow knew that Harriet Liston was just a few years younger than her own mother, but though trouble had plagued her, she had the clear eyes and smooth skin of a younger woman. She had, since coming to the Marchands sick, poor and alone, recovered much of her youthful glow, but at that moment her complexion was pale instead of rosy, its normal hue.

  “I don’t want to cause trouble,” she said.

  Sorrow’s stomach knotted. Nothing that started with those words could be good. Irrationally, she blamed the perfection of her earlier mood for the brewing storm, because nothing so perfect as her happiness could last. “Tell me what’s wrong,” she said, mustering what courage she could.

  “I don’t know Mr. Carlyle well enough to speak to him, and I suppose I shouldn’t trouble you, so close to your wedding.” She stopped.

  “Harriet,” Sorrow said, taking her hand and holding it in both of hers, “tell me what’s troubling you.”

  “It’s Lord Newton. He seemed so gentlemanly at first, and he spoke to me with such consideration . . . but he has . . .” Her mouth worked and she trailed to a stop again.

  “What has he done?”

  “He won’t believe me. He won’t leave me alone. He has asked me to . . . oh, I’m so ashamed!” Harriet Liston looked down at her hand in Sorrow’s and said, in a low tone, “I hope I can say this to you. It’s shocking, but I’m not sure who else to tell. He has asked me to be his mistress. I said no, but he thought I was being coy, and now he just says . . . he just says I will come to him.”

  Sorrow, fury building in her heart, said, “I’ll take care of it. He won’t bother you again, I promise it.”

  “Please, Sorrow, I don’t want this to cause any trouble between you and your young man,” Harriet said.

  That concern caused her one moment of trepidation, but then a gladness filled her heart. She knew better now. She knew she could trust the man she loved. “No,” she said, “it won’t. Bert will know the right thing to do.”

  Chapter 8

  Bert and Sorrow, standing together in the garden, awaited Lord Newton, who had promised to join them. Nuzzling her hair, Bert held Sorrow close, not even releasing her when Mr. William ambled past on his way to his preferred daily work of weeding the perennial hedge along the driveway. The old man smiled shyly at them and then bumbled away, meandering out the gate and down the drive to where he had left off the day before.

  “Who is he?” Bert asked. “He dresses like a gardener but takes part in the family meals.”

  “When he is here, he’s just a man who likes to garden. When he is outside these walls he’s a great politician, some have even said a future prime minister. If I told you his last name, you would recognize it.”

  “But—”

  Sorrow whispered the name in his ear and he gazed down at her.

  “Really?” Bert stared after the fellow. “But he is known as an impassioned speaker, a crusader, some have said, for poverty reform. Even my father respects him, and that is saying much. Why would Father not recognize him here?”

  “He looks different, Papa says, in his gardener clothing, and his demeanor is changed. He just finds the strain of his work too much sometimes. Once, a couple of years ago, he . . . I don’t know how to say it . . . he forgot who he was and wandered away. His valet followed him and then contacted Papa’s valet, who was an acquaintance, to ask if Mama and Papa could help. They brought him here and he recovered. But they have found since that if he can just get away at the end of parliament for a month or two—they put it about that he is at his estate working—then he can manage the terrible pressure of his work and perhaps do some good in parliament.”

  Bert held Sorrow close and mused on the intricacies of life and people. How many times had he seen someone in distress, or heard of a friend in trouble and done nothing? “I begin to think the world is an awful place, Sorrow, if so many people are in trouble or in pain. What do we do about them all?”

  Sorrow reached up and kissed his chin. “Bert, the truth is we can never help everyone. If you begin to think of how many people are in need, it will stop you from even trying because it seems so overwhelming. We can only help where we can. But the secret to it all is, it spreads from here. Years ago Papa helped a young man in need, and when he was able that man started an orphanage for climbing boys in London. Papa often says that man has helped
more than he ever has, but that’s how it works. You drop a pebble in the pond and the rings spread out and become bigger as they go.”

  “But does it always work? Aren’t there some people who just can’t be helped?”

  “Of course. There has been sadness on occasion, and failures, but Papa says he just tries. Trying means that inevitably sometimes one fails. It’s the way of life.”

  “I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to do what your father does, Sorrow. What if—”

  She put one finger over his mouth. “Shush. Whatever comes has to come from the heart. You’ll know when the time comes. I have faith in you, Bertram Carlyle, great faith.”

  Faith. She had faith in him? He didn’t think anyone had ever said or thought that before, including himself. He just hoped he never disappointed her.

  Lord Newton strode out of the door and spotted them together. Brows furrowed into two horizontal slashes, he stomped over to them. Sorrow felt a momentary qualm. This was her father-in-law-to-be. What could she say to him about his behavior?

  “Father,” Bert said, his voice calm. He kept his arm around Sorrow’s shoulders.

  “What do you mean by asking me to come outside to talk like this?”

  “It was the only way we could ensure we would not be overheard,” Bert said. “Let’s walk.”

  “No.”

  “All right.”

  Bert took a deep breath and Sorrow looked up at him. He could not be enjoying this moment, but from the second she told him of the viscount’s behavior to Mrs. Liston, he had insisted that he would be the one to talk to his father. He didn’t want Sorrow there at all, but she said, quite rightly, that since Mrs. Liston had come to her, she should be there to hear what was said and affirm it.