by Jane Ashford
The contradictions made her uneasy, and she did not feel the least at home in Ivydene so far. And to add to her discomfort, Lord Alan seemed to have withdrawn from her again, after those hopeful moments on the road. He had hardly spoken to her since they arrived, and his expression remained coldly noncommittal. Perhaps he was just waiting for an opportunity to go and leave her in the care of Daniel Bolton, Ariel thought nervously. Her father’s name didn’t even sound familiar yet.
Well, she wasn’t going to be left, or kept, or anything but what she decided to do, she told herself fiercely. But it was growing harder and harder to maintain a pleasant, interested facade with all this happening around her.
“I explore the past,” her father said later as they sat in his workroom watching the sun sink behind the orchard. “Glastonbury is an ancient place. There was an abbey here seven hundred years ago, and our family has lived here as long.”
“Family.” Ariel had never heard the word used in reference to herself.
He smiled. “Your ancestors came over with the Normans. And one of those adventurers married the Saxon mistress of Ivydene, so the bloodline goes back even farther. Some member of the family has always occupied the place.”
“Seven hundred years,” Ariel marveled. She couldn’t comprehend it. In the blink of an eye, she had changed from being a woman with no heritage to one with a vast line of ancestors behind her. It made her giddy, as if she had spun too fast in a circle and upset her sense of balance.
* * *
In the stable yard outside, Alan was speaking to one of the men who had come with them, and who had been surveying the house and grounds. “A prosperous country estate,” he was told. “I didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. Could be a bit better kept up. There are very few servants. Stableman says the man’s some kind of scholar. Hasn’t traveled for years.”
“Umm,” said Alan.
“None of the horses here would get him anywhere,” the man added. “Two spavined nags and a lame hunter.”
To himself, Alan acknowledged that this was probably a waste of time. Daniel Bolton was no doubt just what he appeared to be—a slightly eccentric country landholder immersed in his studies. By rights, he should have admired such a man, Alan thought. So few of his class cared anything for books or ideas. He should welcome him as a comrade in the pursuit of knowledge. But for some reason, he felt only resentment and restlessness.
He would have rather enjoyed discovering something disreputable about Bolton, Alan realized. Ariel seemed to be accepting anything he said at face value and hanging on his every word. She might have shown a bit more wariness, he thought resentfully. The man was a total stranger, no matter how much he resembled her.
Alan’s mouth set in a hard line. It didn’t matter, he concluded. He intended to be careful and wary enough for all of them.
* * *
On her second afternoon in Somerset, Ariel and her father walked in the soft sunshine up the small rise at the end of the garden, past the flowers near the house and the ranks of fragrant herbs. A path led into the trees and they followed it upward.
It was a rare, golden summer day, brilliantly warm. The hum of bees and birdsong surrounded them, and the air was heavy with the scent of growing things. “It’s so beautiful here,” said Ariel.
“I’m glad you think so,” he replied.
The path kept on rising up the wooded hillside, and they walked in the shadows of leaves. It finally ended at a clearing—a semicircle of trees that overlooked the entire valley. Within it were scattered piles of stones, the remains of a building.
“What was it?” Ariel asked.
“It used to be a small chapel. It’s left from the times before King Henry VIII abolished the great abbey at Glastonbury and all its satellites,” her father told her. “The countryside hereabouts is dotted with such remains.”
Ariel went to examine the half walls of stone and the remnants of the slate floor. “Oh, look,” she said, pointing to a great hawk circling above the hill. Its wings were spread wide to catch the mild breeze. Its beak and feathers gleamed in the sunlight. Despite the distance, she thought she could see its fierce yellow eye intent on its prey.
“Hunting,” said her father. “She’ll be after mice or small birds for her hatchlings. Feeding a nest full of half-grown hawks is quite a labor.”
Like taking care of a child, Ariel thought. “Why did you never write me, or try to see me?” she couldn’t help but ask. “No matter what Bess said, weren’t you…even…curious?”
He turned to look down at her, his face partly shaded by the trees. “I was more than curious,” he answered. “But you see, I didn’t realize that Bess had told you nothing about me. It simply didn’t occur to me that she would cut us off so completely, or that she would allow the world to believe she had a…a fatherless child. I suppose I didn’t understand her very well.”
Ariel wondered if anyone had.
“I thought you knew who I was and where I lived,” he added. “Indeed, I wondered, as time passed, why you did not write to me.”
“I was a child,” she protested.
He nodded. “I know. You’re right. It was my place and my responsibility to contact you. It should have been my great pleasure to do so.” He shook his head, and the patches of light and darkness shifted across his face. “I held on to my resentments long past the time when I should have let them go,” he continued sadly. “I let my disappointments and anger at Bess live far beyond their time. And as a result, I lost you. I deserved that punishment, but you most certainly did not. I can only hope that you will let me make it up to you now, and in the future.”
Ariel didn’t know what to say. She wanted to agree, but it wasn’t simple or easy to forget years of absence. “I hope we can,” she said, not knowing herself exactly what she referred to.
Her father smiled. “Hope is as much as we can manage just now,” he replied. “But it is a very…hopeful thing, isn’t it?”
Ariel returned his smile, relieved that he asked no more from her so soon.
“With that settled, may I ask you a father’s question, even though I have no real right?” he went on.
“What?” she wondered.
Daniel Bolton eyed this daughter who looked so like him, and yet was a complete mystery. Fortunately, he enjoyed mysteries. “I do not understand why you are traveling the countryside with a nobleman who is not related to you,” he said and noticed that her smile faded at the words. “Perhaps he was a friend of Bess’s?” The idea was unpleasant. He had never faced the near certainty that Bess had enjoyed male company during her life in London. The relief he felt when Ariel shook her head surprised him.
“He didn’t know her,” she said. “We met because of her ghost.”
“Her…?”
She told him the story of the haunting of Carlton House, and how she and Lord Alan had met in pursuit of the supposed phantom of her mother. “I helped him with the actors at the theater,” she finished, “and so he has helped me search for…my history.”
“Very charitable of him,” murmured Bolton. “Ariel, I know I have not been any kind of father to you, but—”
“Oh, you needn’t worry,” she interrupted. “I am a sort of responsibility, you see, and his sense of duty is very strong. He hopes, you should know, to leave me here in your ‘care.’”
Bolton was taken aback by the emotion in her tone. He examined his newfound daughter closely, making good use of his talent for observation, honed to brilliant keenness by years of study. “You would be most welcome to stay here,” he ventured. “I would be delighted to give you a home after my years of neglect.”
He watched as she blinked furiously and then bit her lower lip. She seemed touched by his offer, and yet far from satisfied with it.
“You should get acquainted with the neighborhood,” he tried, “since Ivydene will be yours one
day.”
This shocked her out of whatever feeling had been plaguing her. “Mine?”
“Of course. You are my only child.”
Ariel looked out over the broad valley that stretched below the chapel ruins, at the rows of apple trees on the other side. Daniel Bolton knew it was a gorgeous sight. But it did not seem to ease the tension he had noted in Ariel. “You need not be dependent on Lord Alan, or anyone,” he added, probing for what was distressing her.
“I can take care of myself!”
Her father felt an overwhelming impulse to make things right for her. It was a new feeling for him, and he wasn’t sure at first whether he liked it. He was not an interfering man—quite the opposite. He was barely acquainted with his neighbors. He did not inquire into the lives of his servants or tenants. He gave everyone leave to live as they chose, and took the same privilege for himself.
But this was different somehow. Not only was Ariel his child, but he owed her an extra measure of concern because of the years when he had selfishly left her to fend for herself. He couldn’t presume to dictate. But surely the gifts he had might be of some use.
First, however, he had to discover what was wrong. “It is gratifying to meet a young man who takes responsibility so seriously,” he ventured, feeling much as he did when he was extracting a delicate tincture from a combination of the herbs in his garden. One false move and…
“I am not his responsibility!” responded Ariel.
“Ah. But you are…friends, perhaps? When people work together toward a goal, they often become friends.”
“Yes,” she agreed baldly.
“It’s not as if you knew his family, of course,” her father probed, exploring the limits of the relationship Lord Alan Gresham had offered her.
“Oh, I am well acquainted with his brothers,” she told him. “And Hannah is their former nanny, so she is a kind of family, I suppose.”
“His brothers?” he echoed.
“Yes. I have been advising them.”
Bolton blinked. This mystery was more intriguing than he had imagined. “Advising them about what?” he asked.
“Well, I showed Lord Sebastian how to catch the attention of an heiress he wishes to marry. And I explained to Lord Highgrove how to manage his fiancée’s family.” She smiled slightly. “I’m not sure what I have done for Lord Robert, but he is certainly having some interesting experiences.”
“You must be very resourceful,” commented her father, bemused.
“It isn’t me,” she assured him. “It all comes from plays. I learned a great many plays, you know, growing up with Bess.”
“And so you tell them the story of a play, and they…”
“Do the same,” she finished. “It has worked quite well.”
“Amazing. And so life follows art. Are you advising Lord Alan as well?”
Ariel’s expression shifted at once. “No,” she said.
“He does not require any help in his romantic adventures?” he probed, testing the hypothesis that was forming in his mind.
“I have no idea,” she answered rather curtly.
“Ah,” he said again. “Well, as I told you, you are very welcome to remain here. If you like, I will tell Lord Alan he is free of his responsibility and may go.”
His daughter looked at him rather wildly.
“And I would be happy to escort you back to London myself, should you decide to go,” he added.
“We…we just arrived,” stammered Ariel.
“Of course.” He felt a little guilty enjoyment in the rapid play of expression over her face. He did like teasing out information, he thought, and confirming his theories.
“I…don’t… I shouldn’t wish Lord Alan to think that I did not appreciate the help he has given me,” she stammered.
She cared about this young man a great deal, Bolton thought. It was obvious in her eyes and expression, in her distress at the idea of his leaving. What were Gresham’s sentiments in this matter? he wondered. He found that a father’s protective instincts came very naturally despite his long separation from his daughter. “Well, well,” he said. “You must decide. I stand ready to help you in any way I can.”
She frowned and bit her lower lip.
“Shall we go back?” he suggested and saw that she was grateful to agree.
* * *
They had reached the low stone wall around the herb garden behind the house when they heard the music. It floated on the soft air like a fairy melody, fading in and out with the vagrant breeze.
“Someone is playing the pianoforte,” said Bolton, surprised. “My mother used to play. She loved the instrument so much that I have kept it in tune for her sake. But who…?” Glancing at Ariel, he saw that she was frozen in place, her full lips slightly parted, her eyes wide. “Shall we go and see?” he asked.
“No! I mean…”
He watched her struggle for words. Another piece of the puzzle emerging, he thought, but an obscure one.
“We…we shouldn’t disturb…them,” she said. “I believe… I believe it is very annoying to be interrupted when you are playing.”
She didn’t want him going to see who was playing his pianoforte, he thought. And she was fairly certain who it was. That meant it had to be the glowering young lord she had brought with her. Fascinating. “We wouldn’t have to disturb them,” he couldn’t resist replying. “We might just look in.”
“No. I… I don’t think we should.”
She looked a bit frantic, and Bolton took pity on her, shrugging agreement. “I have some papers to look over,” he suggested experimentally.
The relief in her face was so obvious he almost laughed a little. He must stop teasing her, he thought. “I’ll be quite all right on my own,” she said. “I don’t wish to take you from your work.”
He let her go. But he would have been happy to give stiff odds that she was heading straight for the front parlor and the pianoforte.
He would have won those bets. Two minutes later, Ariel was standing outside that room, all her attention focused on the music that was pouring out of it.
It was beautiful. And it seemed to her full of passionate emotion, driven by will and need and desire. She could have listened for hours. But even more, she wanted to see the player. What did he look like when he produced this melody? What was in his face; how did he move? Yet if she opened the door, he would stop. She was certain of that. He must think they were still out walking. Soon, he would decide his time was up.
Silently, she slipped away from the door and out of the house into the garden once more. Following the wall around the corner, she counted two windows for the dining room. The next should be it. Ariel eased her way up to the next tall window and peered around the side. Yes; she could see the pianoforte across the room and Lord Alan leaning over the keys. Unfortunately, what she could see was his back.
She moved quietly around the corner of the house to the front wall, where another window gave the opposite view. This one was very close to him, though. Ariel crouched beneath the sill, and then cautiously raised her head to look over it.
She was barely three feet from Lord Alan, gazing upward into his face as his fingers moved over the keys. The golden afternoon light slanted across him, illuminating his entire figure. She could see every nuance of expression, every shift in those handsome features. He looked at once abstracted and intent—almost exalted. You might have called his face immobile, Ariel thought, if you didn’t notice the eyes. They burned with a controlled fire, a wild serenity, that was like nothing she had ever seen before. This was the sort of passion he had been talking about in front of Wells Cathedral, she thought. It burned in him, the force that guided his life. He was no cold, rational machine. His logic and systems served something far grander.
But was it reserved for science and music? she wondered, her hands gripping the wi
ndowsill. Were people excluded from that warmth? He had rejected the whole concept of love. Watching him, listening, she wished with all her heart that he was wrong about himself.
Abruptly Lord Alan’s head jerked, as if he had heard some sound from the rest of the house. At once, his hands lifted from the keys and the music stopped. Ariel dared to watch a moment longer as he gathered himself, his customary cool expression returning to his face. But when he started to rise, she ducked out of sight, not wanting to be caught. She sat there under the window, behind the shrubbery, for some time before making her way up to her room.
Eighteen
Daniel Bolton sought out Lord Alan in the early evening, when Ariel had gone upstairs to change for dinner. “I wanted to thank you for making such efforts on my daughter’s behalf,” he said.
Lord Alan bristled as if he had insulted him.
“You are very tenacious in this matter.”
“What I do is no concern of yours,” he snapped.
Their eyes locked. For a long moment, the air sang with tension. This was a formidable man, Bolton thought. But he had a strong will himself. “True,” he said. “But it is surprising, really, that you would spend so much time on Ariel’s affairs. I suppose you have little else to do.”
The younger man’s eyes flared. “I hold a fellowship at Oxford,” he snapped. “I am engaged in important scientific researches there.”
“Are you?” Impressed and interested despite himself, Bolton added, “What sort?”
“I am studying the nature of light,” came the curt reply.
“Really? After Goethe? Or perhaps Young?”
“You know Thomas Young’s work?” said Lord Alan, looking surprised.
“I was extremely interested in his theory of color vision.”
The younger man looked impressed. “I am continuing his experiments with refraction and dispersion,” he said, “but I intend to demonstrate definitively that light is by nature a wave, rather than a corpuscle.”