An Eccentric Engagement

by Donna Lea Simpson

  The birds chirped gaily and the blue sky arched over them in cerulean perfection, but Sorrow clung to Bert, feeling a dark cloud had descended over her enjoyment of the day. Lord Newton had been the one element of her new marriage she was not looking forward to. He would be her second father, but a less fatherly man she had never met. Poor Bert.

  “Well, out with it.”

  “Father, it has come to my attention . . .” He stopped.

  “Spit it out!”

  “You offended Mrs. Liston,” he said, the words tumbling out of his mouth. “You . . . you, uh, said inappropriate things.”

  Bert’s palms were wet with sweat, Sorrow realized.

  The viscount’s face turned red and a vein bulged in his forehead. “I did no such thing! Who has told such monstrous lies?”

  “Well, Mrs. Liston said that you offered . . . uh, offered her carte blanche—”

  “Did she also tell you that I only did so after she kissed me in a most provocative way? I will thank you, Bertram and Miss Marchand—by the way, Bertram, this is highly inappropriate to be speaking of these things in front of your fiancée—to stay out of what does not concern you, or at least to get the story correct. If I had not had encouragement, I would never have made such a suggestion to Mrs. Liston. I would suggest to you that the widow is thinking to blackmail me into marriage.”

  “That is outrageous, Lord Newton. I think you should apologize for even saying such a thing.” Sorrow looked to Bert, but he was looking down at his feet and frowning. “Bert?”

  “It could be a misunderstanding, Sorrow.”

  “No, it couldn’t!” Sorrow pulled away from Bert.

  “But it could,” Bert said, turning to her and trying to grasp her hands back in his. “I don’t say that Mrs. Liston was trying to trap Father into marriage, but she could have misunderstood, or he could have . . .” Helplessly, Bert turned from his fiancée to his father and back again. Both were staring at him. Neither was willing to give an inch, or admit there might have been a misunderstanding. Who to believe, though? He had known Mrs. Liston for only a week or so, his father a lifetime. If there was one thing his father was, it was scrupulously truthful and with an exquisite sense of fairness.

  Usually.

  “I did not misunderstand,” the viscount said, his whole body rigid with outrage, his voice choked with rage. “How can one misunderstand a kiss such as I have described?”

  “Mrs. Liston didn’t invite his insulting offer,” Sorrow said, crossing her arms over her chest. “And when she said no, he repeated the offer and would not leave her alone.”

  Bert felt, in that moment, as though his future was hanging in the balance. He stared at his father, and in that second realized that much of what he had believed of his father over the years might be open to interpretation. He had always seen his father’s confrontations from that man’s perspective, highly colored by his own viewpoint. Lord Newton was reckoned to have a hasty temper, and Bert knew, from personal experience, that his father was not good at understanding an opposing point of view. He was often led by his own desires to believe that others thought or felt as he did and was continually surprised and appalled when they didn’t.

  Sorrow, on the other hand, had an exquisite sense of justice, though she was not blind to human weakness. Who should he believe? Who should he support? Even apart from the justice of the case, to whom did his allegiance now belong?

  He took Sorrow’s hand, a new gladness and confidence singing through his veins. He and his wife would be partners in life, there to weather whatever storms life should assault them with. “I think, Father, that you have an apology to make to the widow. You have offended her, whether you know it or not, and whether you intended to or not.”

  Lord Newton appeared puzzled. He glanced down at their joined hands and then at his son’s face. He shook his head, turned, and walked away. But then he stopped, turned and stared at them again. Silent for a long minute, his handsome face reflected bafflement, then decision. “Perhaps I have misunderstood,” he said stiffly.

  Chapter 9

  There was still one more thing to be said, though. “We will bring Mrs. Liston here and you’ll apologize,” Bert said.

  “I will apologize to her privately, Bertram, and not with you listening.”

  Bert gazed down at Sorrow and she nodded.

  “We’ll go and get her, sir,” she said, squeezing Bert’s hand. They returned to the house.

  “I would have insisted that he do so in front of us,” Bert said as they entered.

  “I know,” Sorrow said. “But there’s something here I don’t understand. Your father will keep his word, won’t he?”

  “He is absolutely unwavering when he makes a promise. I was surprised he acquiesced, and so easily.”

  “I know. As I say, there’s something here I don’t understand. Let me find her and talk to her first,” Sorrow said, leaving Bert in the hall and heading toward the stairs. She ran back, though, and gave him a kiss, shyly looking up and whispering, “I was proud of you out there,” then heading back to the stairs.

  Sorrow’s mother was just coming from Mr. Howard’s room. “Mama, where is Mrs. Liston?”

  “In her room, dear.” Mrs. Marchand caught her daughter by the shoulders. “Sorrow, we’ve hardly had a chance to talk since Bert and his father have arrived. Is everything going all right?”

  “Better. I wasn’t sure at first, Mama, but . . . but Bert is the one! He’s a good man.”

  “I know, dear. My only worry was that you expect so much! I was afraid you would reject him for being less than you expected and . . . oh, Sorrow, I do like him!”

  They shared a quick hug. It was one thing she would miss sorely, this daily confabulation, the constant reassurance of her loving family. But that was all a part of moving on, of growing and becoming a woman. She had to be grateful a man like Bert was to be her companion.

  As her mother disappeared down a turn in the hall, Sorrow moved in the opposite direction and found Harriet Liston’s room. She tapped, then obeyed the summons to enter.

  The lady was folding some clothes and placing them carefully in a trunk.

  “What are you doing?” Sorrow asked.

  The lady looked up and smiled. “Since your father has so very kindly procured my pension for me, I’ll be moving out. I am going to move back north to Durham, closer to where I grew up.”

  “But you don’t have anyone there.”

  “No, but my life is moving on now, just as yours is. I came here ill and broken and poor, and your father and mother have done so very much. I will never be able to repay them. Nor you!”

  Sorrow crossed the room and gave the woman a quick hug. “Yes, you will. You know all Father ever asks anyone who leaves is just to pass on the kindness somehow. No grand gestures, just kindness. It’s enough.”

  Harriet Liston hugged her close, seeming to not want to let go. When she did release her it was to stare at her and say, “I wish I had had a daughter like you. I wish my children had survived.”

  Sorrow knew her story, the miscarriages and the lone surviving child who had died within months of her husband. It was those events, so close to each other, that had finally cast her into such a pit of melancholy that she had been close to death herself, just from wasting away. She had been at Spirit Garden for almost two years now, and her health was now glowing, her spirit raised to hope and determination.

  Sitting down on her bed, Sorrow knew there was no response for the woman’s longing. She was not destined to have children, it seemed, and most of the time had learned to accept that. “Harriet, we spoke to Lord Newton.”

  She returned to her folding and said, “And what did he have to say?”

  “He said you kissed him, and that is where he got the idea you would acquiesce to becoming his mistress.”

  She was silent.

  “Did you kiss him?” Sorrow asked, trying to catch a glimpse of the woman’s expression.

  Straightening, Harr
iet defiantly said, “Yes, I did. We . . . he . . . we walked often in the garden, and it was the first time since my husband died that . . . that a man had paid attention to me. He was kind. I thought . . . I thought . . .” She looked down at the scarf in her hands and shook her head. “What a fool I’ve been! He is Lord Newton, a viscount, and I’m just a poor soldier’s widow. I should have known how he would interpret my complaisance.”

  “But you kissed him,” Sorrow insisted, trying to understand. “He says provocatively.”

  The woman sighed and laid the scarf in the trunk and closed the lid, carefully, quietly. She sat down on it and met Sorrow’s gaze. “No, not provocatively. I kissed him as a woman does who finds a man attractive and thinks he cares for her, too. I was mistaken.”

  Hearing the bitterness in the woman’s voice, Sorrow reached out and rubbed her shoulder. “I’m sorry. He will apologize, though. He’s waiting outside.”

  The two women joined Bert in the hall and exited the house. Lord Newton was staring down at the stream below and at the willow that tossed in the light June breeze. He turned, hearing them crunch on the gravel, and his expression was one of confusion. As they approached, he said, “Mrs. Liston, I have an apology to make, but to do it properly, I would talk to you alone for a moment.”

  She glanced uncertainly back at Sorrow and Bert.

  “Father, perhaps you should apologize in front of us,” Bert said, noticing her discomfiture.

  “No, Mr. Carlyle, it’s all right,” Harriet Liston said, buoyed by his support. “His lordship can say whatever he wants, privately or publicly.” Her chin went up in defiance and she nodded when he took her arm. They strolled away, but not too far.

  Sorrow and Bert watched the pantomime. Lord Newton spoke for a long minute, and then Harriet Liston nodded and turned to walk away, but he grasped her elbow and made some sort of plea. She shook her head, but he insisted. She finally acquiesced and listened to him some more.

  “What do you think they’re talking about?” Sorrow asked.

  “I don’t know,” Bert said. “But . . . I’ve never seen my father so . . . I don’t know . . . involved. Impassioned.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It appears that he really cares what she thinks. I think he’s arguing his case, apologizing, but saying something more.”

  As they watched, Mrs. Liston shook her head, moved away from him, and then looked back, to say one more thing. Then she turned and headed back to the house, but by another route, as if she didn’t want to talk to anyone just then. Lord Newton, his expression grim, stomped toward them.

  “This household,” he said when he reached them, “is mad. Absolutely incorrigibly mad!” He stared at Bert. “If you marry this young woman, you will live exactly the same way, with dying people and invalids and lunatics. I do not understand how you can even consider it, but I will not stay and countenance you joining our old and dignified family name with this . . . with this lunacy!” With that he stomped away.

  The apology, it seemed, had not gone well.

  “Does he mean he’ll leave before the wedding?” Sorrow said, gazing up at her fiancé.

  “Maybe,” Bert said, grimly watching his father’s retreat. “But he will apologize yet again, this time to you, before he goes, or I won’t be speaking to him any time in the foreseeable future.”

  Bert stomped off after his father, leaving Sorrow staring after them. What had happened? How had her lovely wedding turned into this divisive, acrimonious, angry event?

  Chapter 10

  Sorrow paced in the garden. Things seemed to have gone from bad to worse, with her wedding set for the next day. Lord Newton, when Bert had demanded an apology, said he would rather leave than either apologize or be an inmate of such an impossible place for another minute. He was expected to leave that afternoon.

  Harriet Liston was staying for the wedding, she said, but could not be in the same room with Lord Newton, who had, apparently, apologized, but then tried to explain why he felt he was offering her a valuable boon by inviting her to become his mistress. He had made it sound, Harriet said, as if he was offering a chambermaid a spot in his household.

  Bert was moody and unhappy, and Sorrow didn’t know how to make it any better. Surely this was not the way to start a marriage. Her mother and father came up the garden walk toward her, arm in arm and with identical serious expressions on their faces.

  “Sorrow, is everything all right between you and young Bertram?” her father asked.

  The two flanked her and pulled her to them in a hug. She buried her face in her father’s neck. “Yes. No. Not exactly.”

  “Why don’t we sit down?” Sorrow’s mother said. “We haven’t had a chance for a family talk for a while.”

  They sat together on a bench in the garden, with gray clouds scudding overhead across the stormy sky. Rain threatened, and Sorrow felt as though the dismal weather was reflecting her own mood. She had thought everything would be so simple once she decided that Bertram Carlyle was the right man for her and he proposed. What else was there to worry over? But now it seemed that the mere act of becoming engaged had driven a wedge between Bert and his father. When she had tried to express her concern over that, Bertram had merely said that the wedge was always there, but he had never noticed it before. She wasn’t to worry, he said. It was Lord Newton’s problem, not hers.

  But she did worry. Harmony was a guiding principle in her own life, and how could one live harmoniously with such bad feeling, and especially when it was her very own wedding that was causing so much trouble?

  “Sorrow, you don’t have to marry on Friday,” her mother said. “You don’t have to marry at all if it is a worry to you.”

  “But I want to marry Bert,” Sorrow said. “And I want his father to approve. Bert says it doesn’t matter, but I think it does.”

  “However, my dear, the problem is really between Lord Newton and his son,” her father said. “I don’t think it has anything to do with you, or even with us and how we live. I think Lord Newton has been shocked at how young Bertram has matured. Perhaps he didn’t realize until now that his son is a grown man and will no longer be under his thumb.”

  “I just don’t want my wedding to be marred by unpleasantness. It’s supposed to be the happiest day of my life.”

  “Then you have a decision to make, my dear,” her mother said, laying a kiss on her brow. “You must decide whether you will go ahead or if this is all too hurtful, and then you must tell Bertram he either solves his differences with his father or the wedding is canceled. We love you and want you to be happy, but it is your wedding, after all.”

  “I know. I want to think about it, and then I want to talk to Bert about it.”

  “That’s wise,” her father said, standing and pulling his wife to her feet. “Whatever you decide, we will support.”

  “I’m a fortunate girl. The things I heard from other girls in London . . . I came back to Spirit Garden knowing what a lucky girl I am. Most parents would not behave as you, you know?”

  “Maybe not, but they should, if they love their daughters,” her father said. He took his wife’s arm and they strolled away. “Just tell us in time to let the vicar know,” he said over his shoulder.

  • • •

  It was later in the day and Sorrow still didn’t know what to do. The day had turned sunny, the sun burning off the gloom to reveal another brilliant June day. She was not alone, for one of the footmen had carried old Mr. Howard out to enjoy the sunshine, that being one of the pleasurable sensations that he craved.

  She held his hand and he squeezed it every once in a while, his weathered face turned up to the sun, his almost sightless eyes closed. When he had first come to them he was still able to speak, though now he was wordless. But not, she knew, without feeling and hearing. She talked to him often.

  “What am I going to do, Mr. Howard? You’ve seen how wonderful Bertram is. He’s everything I hoped for and feared never to find. But his father .
. . he’s going to make Bert miserable.”

  The old man squeezed her hand.

  “I know. I’m marrying Bert, not his father. But I want them to be friends. And I want Lord Newton to approve of me for his son. I’m afraid he doesn’t now.”

  She looked up from Mr. Howard’s face just then and saw the viscount striding toward her. Her companion squeezed her hand more firmly and she clung to it, drawing strength from the old man’s love. Lord Newton stopped before her, cast one irritated glance at the old man in his Bath chair, and then glared at Sorrow.

  “Walk with me, Miss Marchand.”

  “Whatever you wish to say to me can be said in front of Mr. Howard.” The old man squeezed her hand.

  The viscount cast a disgusted look at her companion. “This won’t take long. When I first saw you, I thought you would do for Bertram. You are not too young, nor is your family of the first stare. Bertram needed a lady with a little more sense than some of the young girls in London. I thought you were that one.”

  Sorrow didn’t feel the need to say anything. The viscount’s implication was clear: he had been wrong about some things, among them Sorrow’s good sense.

  The viscount paced on the flagstone pathway, not even seeming to see the lovely garden, nor feel the sweet warmth of the sun. “But I was not apprised of many things concerning your background and your family. I have been sorely misled. I did not know you are only an adopted daughter to the Marchands and not their real daughter.”

  Ire bit into Sorrow, but she pushed it back. She drew her hand away from Mr. Howard, not wanting to communicate her anger to her old friend. Lord Newton’s opinion did not mean a thing to her, she tried to tell herself.

  “Nor did I know of this utter chaos that the Marchands choose to live in!” He waved his hands around, encompassing the house and the garden and by implication all the members. He stopped and glared down at her. “How can you live like this? And how can you . . . how can you . . .” He waved a hand at Mr. Howard. “I will not countenance this marriage, nor will I attend the wedding. I’m leaving. I will never understand how you can live in this disorder and deal with such people.”