Her misery at not seeing him, though, and at having to put up with the indignity of being escorted and protected all day by Alfred, was as nothing to her misery when she did. For on the following Sunday, having successfully shaken off her dreary cousin for a while, she retired from church to take a stroll in the cold winter’s sun along the gravel walk, in company with her aunt. But no sooner had they emerged at the top of the walk than she caught sight of Mr Forster’s immaculate form way below her, sauntering in a leisurely manner, with a lady on his arm.
It was probably lucky that Mrs King was distracted just at that moment by the sight of a particularly ravishing fruit-basket with a gigantic brim, which was masquerading as a hat on top of a lady’s head. She failed to register Cecily’s startled gasp as Mr Forster came fleetingly into view, and by the time she had wrenched her gaze away from the delights of the fruit-basket the gentleman, together with his lady friend, had gone.
‘Well, of all things,’ she was saying admiringly, ‘what an… I cannot say that I’ve ever seen the likes of that before.’
It took just a second for Cecily to realise that her aunt was not talking about Mr Forster’s companion – who, indeed, from her swift manifestation half way down the hill, did appear to be a vision the like of which she had never seen before – but her relief at escaping her wondering astonishment was as nothing compared to her own mortification at what she had just seen. For despite the brevity of the lady’s appearance she had known in an instant who he was with. It was the self same person that he had so smilingly invited to dance at that miserable ball. So her suspicions were correct. Mr Forster had traded his allegiance. For whatever reason, just as she was growing attached to him, just as she was hoping to receive a violent profession of love from him, he had deserted her for some unknown reason in favour of somebody else.
No longer could Cecily appreciate the blueness of the sky, the brightness of the wintry yellow sun. For suddenly all she was aware of was the cold – the intense, biting cold from an easterly wind which penetrated her light pelisse as if it was not there, and the equally cutting cold that had somehow claimed her stomach for itself and held her tenaciously in its icy grip. She felt anxious - anguished – mystified - distressed. It was as if a terrifying monster – a monster made up of all her worst misdeeds and all of her fears, the monster that used to visit her in her sleep and frighten her half to death in the night – it was as if this terrifying monster had suddenly materialised before her and held her in its zealously malevolent grip. Whatever had she done to frighten him away? None of her previous conjectures had fully convinced her, but discounting them left a mystery in their wake. Whatever had she done to frighten him away? She really couldn’t think.
She was aware that she was shivering, and her aunt, suddenly feeling a shiver of her own, suggested that they should step on down the walkway and get themselves back in the warmth.
‘For I am sure that Alfred will be back by the time… my dear, or, if he is not, I daresay he will not be very long – he had a visit that he wished to make, I recall, or, rather, his father wished him to make with him, though it would not take more than a moment…. I hope we shall get back before we freeze half to death… I fear most particularly exposure to a chill. Perhaps we should take some honey… or some stewed quaker… I really must set my mind to finding a new fur… there was quite a pretty one in Goodes’ – fox, I think, or maybe… – quite a good colour, though dear Mrs Springfield had one quite similar and… Perhaps he may read out loud to us before we go to the fete.’
Cecily cast her aunt a dull, wintry smile. The thought of Alfred’s deathly reading skills – for his articulation allowed for no variation in pace, tone or mood and sounded precisely the same whatever he was reading, whether tragic, comic, serious or light – was not exactly calculated to make her feel any better. But at least it would give her an excuse to be quiet for a while. She should focus on her embroidery and pretend to listen to him, while all the while submitting to the secret misery that Mr Forster had truly quitted the field.
Chapter 18
The reading – no better than Cecily had feared but thankfully quite short-lived – was duly survived and later that afternoon Cecily accompanied her cousin, uncle and aunt to a fete at the Sydney Hotel. It was in celebration of a local dignitary’s birthday, and the great and the good of the city were intent on gathering together to commemorate the occasion in style.
She half hoped, half feared, to see Mr Forster there, for she didn’t know whether he would be on his own, and whether they should speak to each other if he were. So it was with some feeling of trepidation that she clasped her cousin’s arm as they approached the entrance to the hotel and stepped through its arched portico into a beautiful, well-lit hall.
She tried to set her concerns aside, however, as she preceded her aunt and uncle into the grand reception room at the front of the building. She had never been into the Sydney Hotel before and, though she had not previously thought about it, she had not really known quite what to expect. She looked around with a mild but growing interest. Everything looked extremely grand, from the velvet-covered Adam-style dining chairs and delicate round tables to the rich, burgundy velvet curtains which were just then festooned most elegantly around the splendidly arched windows overlooking the road.
‘How beautiful it all is, Alfred,’ she whispered, as they found a table and accepted some sandwiches from a somewhat obsequious waiter in a liveried jacket. ‘I must say I am rather surprised. Why, it reminds me most strongly of your parlour back at Ascot House. Do you not think so, Alfred – those curtains are draped in exactly the self same way?’
Alfred looked at them. Cecily could see that he wouldn’t have been able to describe the curtains at Ascot House were his life to depend on it. But he nodded dutifully at her and agreed that they probably were.
Cecily continued her perusal of the reception room, though she was examining the people rather more than her environment. She recognised many of them – some speaking acquaintance, others mere nodding acquaintance, none of them meaning anything particular to her at all. A few of them came up to speak to her. She exchanged some pleasantries – ‘Yes, exceedingly cold – I understand that snow is expected again in the north’ – ‘Yes, the orchestra is most fine. I particularly enjoy listening to the waltzes, though I have never yet dared to perform one for myself’ – ‘It is of very great concern. I understand the Prince to be in contact with Mr Perceval on a daily basis’ – but the absence of the one person whom she most desperately wanted to see (but only if he were to come smilingly upon her and whisk her quite away) made everything – and everybody – else appear pedestrian and dull. Even poor Alfred noticed it.
‘Are you quite well, Cess?’ he asked at last, after a further nervous scan of the room. His interjection made her start. Her mind had been a distant world away. She knocked her pastry quite onto her lap. She flicked the crumbs away in irritation.
‘No, not really, Alfred. I am suffering most awfully from the headache this afternoon. I fear the cold must have affected it.’
‘I hope you have not caught something nasty, my dear. I did warn you of the cold before you set out for church. You should have dressed more warmly, in your furs. I thought you might suffer. Do you wish me to escort you home?’
She looked across at him gratefully. She realised that, yes, above everything else (bar one) the thing that she wanted at just that moment was to escape from the noise and chatter and get herself back home.
‘Thank you,’ she said, with a faint smile. ‘I should like that very much.’
They retrieved their outside things – Cecily her sable cloak and muff, Captain King his greatcoat, beaver and umbrella, which he insisted on holding, much to Cecily’s embarrassed but wry amusement, in the same way as a rifle – and stepped out briskly into the cold winter air. The evening had drawn in by now but the front of the hotel was lit up brightly, its own oil lamps supplemented every now and then by the flaring lights of carriage
s as they dropped their passengers and made their way to the stables round the back. Captain King drew her hand dutifully under his arm as they waited together to cross the road. Cecily looked straight ahead, determined to prevent her eyes from straying towards the house almost directly across from where they stood, in Sydney Place. Had she not done so she might just have perceived the shadowy figure of a handsome young gentleman, standing morosely at an upstairs window, watching their progress as they eventually passed out of sight.
Chapter 19
‘How is your headache now, Cess?’ asked Captain King. They were sitting together in the drawing room, warming themselves by the golden glow of the fire. ‘Is there anything I can do to alleviate it?’
Cecily had started to settle down at last, seduced by the comfort of the chair and the warmth of the dancing flames.
‘It’s a good deal better now, thank you, Alfred. The peace and quiet has done it a lot of good. But perhaps you could ask for a glass of elderberry wine for me? I should like that very much’ – and then, as Alfred undertook his commission with alacrity - ‘Thank you, Alfred – you are always very kind.’
It was odd, but just as Cecily was starting to succumb to the warmth and comfort of the drawing room, Captain King was starting to seem increasingly twitchy. He took up a newspaper and dropped it again on the floor. He nibbled at a finger religiously. He requested a glass of wine for himself but then recalled the servant and changed his mind again. He tugged his handkerchief from out of a pocket. Some coins had become caught up in it. They rolled about noisily on the floor. She glanced at him for a moment. He was looking a little self conscious and more than a little – well, perturbed.
‘You know that I would do anything for you, Cess,’ he said, apparently aware of her gaze. He was sounding bashful, and had reddened a little to a singularly unbecoming shade of pink. ‘I am always pleased when you ask me to help you out.’
Oh. Oh dear! With a horrified jolt, and with her stomach churning, Cecily suddenly realised that Alfred was plucking up the courage to speak to her. Oh no! How embarrassing. She had half feared that he might. His speedy appearance in Bath should have warned her. He never normally took any leave.
‘And I am always most grateful,’ she assured him, hurriedly. Perhaps even at this late stage she might be able to prevent him. ‘After all, you are almost like a brother to me – as close to a brother as ever anyone can be, and I am like your sister. We are fond of each other, Alfred, are we not? We are concerned for each other’s welfare, and happiness. It is a great comfort to me to know it. I should not wish it to be any other way.’
Alfred gave her a quick glance. She pretended not to have noticed his wince when she compared him to a brother.
‘The two years must be nigh on up by now,’ he said, hastily. It was quite obvious to Cecily that now he had plucked up the courage to speak to her he was quite determined to carry on. ‘The two years that you asked for when we sat with our parents in a room very similar to this one – when they told us how happy it would make them to see us as husband and wife. I can see you still – new from school – in all your new things – visiting Bath for the first time. And our parents beside us – all of them agreed - all of them wanting us to make a match of it as soon as you gave your consent.’
Cecily was inwardly cringing.
‘I remember it well. I was so happy and excited to be visiting Bath for the very first time. And your mother and mine, sitting together, looking so very much alike – your father standing with mine by the fireside – all looking so hopefully at us – and how young I felt, how totally unprepared for marriage – for marriage to anyone, not just to you. I was only seventeen. I was really still a child. I wanted to live a little – to look about me, broaden my horizons, before I settled down. And then see what happened. Firstly my mother dies, and then my dear papa. And in some ways not only did my horizons not broaden, they actually narrowed. I still feel that I know nothing of the world, nothing at all of life, despite all the changes of the intervening years.’
‘And yet you have taken every opportunity to travel – you have removed with us to Surrey, spent some weeks in Hungerford as well as here in Bath. You are nineteen years old – you must think of yourself entirely as a woman by now? What more is it you are looking for, Cess? Is there something I can help you with to satisfy your needs?’
Cecily shook her head sadly. Hungerford and Bath? Hungerford and Bath. It summed it all up, really. It showed how far apart his ideas were from her own. She wanted to go to London, to visit the lakes and the dales, perhaps go to Brighton for the summer – and all he could think of was Hungerford, and Bath. And at that moment she heartily wished that she had found the courage on that momentous evening two years ago to say out loud what she had known even then. She had known even then that she could never marry Alfred, that she could never be his bride – known absolutely and completely that he was not the man for her. She was wishing above everything that she had found the courage to say so when the opportunity had first been there. But she had not found the courage. She was seventeen years old. Her father was an earl. He was used to being obeyed. Everybody supported – nay, wished for – a marriage between the two of them. It would keep her money within the family. It would be a most unexceptionable match. How could she possibly have voiced her opposition then, in the face of all that hope? It had been as much as she could manage, to gain this short delay.
‘I do not think so, Alfred,’ she said, hesitantly. ‘It is something I have to work through on my own.’
‘But you do not need to be alone, you know. I do not want you to feel alone. I – well, you know of the esteem in which I hold you, Cecily. It has not changed since our parents first put the idea into our heads two years ago. I was happy to marry you right then, and I still want to marry you today. I was hoping that the delay that you asked for – the two years that you asked for in order to make up your mind – well, I thought they would be long enough. I was hoping that you could grow to love me, Cess. I really would like you to agree to be my bride.’
Alfred was still sitting stiffly in the chair opposite hers. He had not even thought to rise up, to kneel before her, to grasp her by the hand. His profession of – well, she wasn’t quite sure whether it was love, exactly, though she had long known of his fondness for her – but affection – regard, maybe – well, whatever it was, he had professed it in so deathly dull a manner – so steady a tone, with no hint of passion or desire for her at all, that, had she not been listening as carefully as (luckily) she was, she could easily have assumed that he was ordering himself some tea.
‘You know how fond of you I am, Alfred,’ she assured him desperately, as he patiently awaited her response. ‘How fond of you, and how much I admire and respect you. You are a fine man, an upstanding man. You will always do what’s right. Oh, how I wish – I really do wish that I could do what you want of me – be what you want me to be - that I could make you and my aunt and uncle so very, very happy by agreeing to be your bride. But I’m sorry. I’m most dreadfully sorry, Alfred, but I really can not do it. I love you as a brother, as I’ve always done. I do not love you as… as a wife should love a husband - and I know I never shall. We would never make each other as happy as we deserve. You would always be wanting something more of me that I just know I couldn’t give you, and I should feel a fraud, a failure, a monster in return. You deserve something better than that, cousin. I know that I can never be your wife.’
The servant brought the wine for her and retreated back to the hall. Cecily was aware of the darkness of the room, lit only by the faint glimmer of a couple of candles on the mantel, and the orange glow of the fire as the coal settled itself into fearsome caverns in the grate. A clock was ticking, steadily nearby – tick-tock, tick-tock – as the seconds and minutes passed by. The clatter of hooves and the rumble of a carriage in the roadway outside only seemed to emphasise the stillness in the dark, quiet room. She could feel the warmth in front of her and the draught from the
door behind. She shivered a little and pulled a shawl more tightly around her shoulders. She could see Alfred, sitting across from her, head bowed. He was quivering. He was very, very slightly quivering. She glanced at him again. Then she realised, with a shock, that he was crying. Alfred was crying! She had never seen Alfred – any gentleman – cry before. Even her father had retired, dry-eyed, solemn but dignified, to his room on the death of her mama. The depth of the emotion quite frightened her. She had told him that she was sorry – sorry that she could not be his wife. Yes, she had been sorry - but now she realised, to her shame, that she had been sorry for herself in having to deliver the message as much as for him in receiving it. She looked down again and bit her lip. She had been quite mistaken as to the nature of his regard for her – its nature, and its depth. To inspire such love in another individual – to be responsible, however reluctantly, however blamelessly, for another person’s misery or happiness – to be able, with just one word, to set in train a pattern of events that might affect them both for a lifetime – what a solemn undertaking she realised that to be. And though she knew that she had made the right decision – that she no more loved him as a husband now than she had on that evening two long years before – she could only wish with all her heart that things were different - very different – and that she could tell him that he actually had some hope. Poor Alfred – such a dear, good man, a man that she was genuinely most fond of. She wished above everything that she could only say ‘yes’. But she couldn’t. She knew that she couldn’t, and that, even if she’d felt that she could it would have been a terribly grave mistake for her to have made. She looked at him again, cringing. She desperately wanted to comfort him, to take him in her arms and give him a friendly hug. He looked as very much alone as she was. And yet she knew that she couldn’t comfort him, that it would be wrong to go to him and hug him and rekindle all his hope. He would have to bear his misery on his own. She knew in her heart of hearts that there was nothing that she could do.
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