Songbird

by Bell, Julia

  “But have you never received a proposal of marriage since your husband’s demise?”

  I grinned with amusement. “Oh, a few.”

  Eloise patted my hand. “There’s plenty of time for Isabelle to settle down again. No need to rush things.”

  I smiled in her direction and then glanced at Karl. But he kept his eyes on his cards.

  He cleared his throat. “Perhaps Mrs Asquith has no desire to marry again,” he ventured casually.

  His wife bristled. “Nonsense! Every woman should have a husband.”

  “I haven’t one,” said Eloise, smiling.

  “But Mrs Asquith is only young. And she should have many more children, brothers and sisters for her little boy. When a husband dies, there’s no need for the widow to bury her heart with him.”

  I closed my eyes briefly, finding it difficult to hide my emotions. “I haven’t buried my heart, my lady,” I whispered.

  Karl seemed busy studying his hand but then he raised his eyes and saw the pain in my face.

  “We ought to change the subject, my love. You’ll make Mrs Asquith feel uncomfortable.”

  Her ladyship shrugged. “It’s not right for a woman to live alone.”

  “But I don’t live alone,” I said, trying to sound nonchalant.

  “You share a home with others?” asked the viscountess.

  I nodded. “My sister-in-law and one other lady who has become a good friend over the years.”

  “Your sister-in-law? Would that be your late husband’s sister?”

  I was finding Lady Shelbrook too inquisitive. “Yes,” I murmured.

  “But still no man in the house. Your son is surrounded by women only.”

  “He’s used to it.”

  “We will have to find you a husband. It’s only right,” insisted the viscountess. “You shouldn’t be bringing up a son alone.”

  I tried to control my temper. Why did people think I needed a husband? “I’ve managed this long. I can’t see why I shouldn’t continue as I am.”

  We played quietly for a few minutes, concentrating on the game.

  Eloise picked up a card from the pile and then threw down another. “Isabelle was widowed very young, only eighteen,” she mused. I watched her in horror. “And married less than twelve months. Expecting your son when the disaster happened, weren’t you, my dear?” She grimaced. “Poor girl lost her father and husband in the same terrible mining accident. What did you say your husband did for a living?”

  I stopped playing. I couldn’t play.

  “He was a mineralogist,” I said, my heart beating faster.

  Karl suspended his action of throwing a card onto the table.

  “To think, her husband never lived to see their little boy,” Eloise sighed. “It’s so sad.”

  Karl frowned and then looked up and stared intently at me. I tried to avert my gaze but his vivid blue-green eyes mesmerised me. I could read his thoughts. He was remembering our conversation that rainy day when I had escaped into the art gallery and my description of the terrible scene at the pit-head. The desperate wait for the rescue party to bring up the trapped men.

  He licked dry lips and his face turned pale in the light from the candles. “You were the daughter and the wife,” he murmured.

  I dropped my cards on the table and slowly rose to my feet. I felt queasy. Karl immediately stood also, assuming that I was now leaving the table. Eloise and the viscountess watched me with puzzlement spread across their faces.

  “I think I’d…better retire. I feel so…tired…and sick,” I murmured.

  A fleeting look of concern passed across Karl’s face as I turned to go. The room began to spin. I heard Eloise’s cry of alarm as I stumbled forward and then the hard polished floor came up to meet me.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  I didn’t know what time it was when I awoke, but I felt it was very late. I was lying on my bed in my petticoat, a soft blanket tucked round me. Then I saw Lady Waltham and Eloise talking together by the side of the dressing table.

  Her ladyship saw my head turn in their direction and gave a cry of relief. “Oh, she’s back with us at last!”

  They came rushing over to the bedside.

  “She hasn’t a temperature,” said Eloise, feeling my face.

  Lady Waltham clutched her hands dramatically to her breast. “Are you sure? She looks so pallid. Let’s just pray it isn’t something dreadful like scarlet fever or meningitis.”

  “She only fainted,” said Eloise, sighing with exasperation. “There’s no need to call out the undertaker just yet.”

  I raised myself up on one elbow. “Please don’t fuss. I’m feeling perfectly well now.”

  Eloise pressed me down on the pillow. “You stay where you are until the doctor arrives.”

  I felt appalled that they should have gone to so much trouble. “I don’t need a doctor! You shouldn’t have called him out so late and in such cold weather.”

  Her ladyship shook her head. “My husband wouldn’t have it any other way. He feels responsible for you while you’re under his roof. You must let us take care of you.”

  I lay back and stared into the flames of the fire. In all honesty, I felt relaxed and very comfortable. I wanted to stay where I was, but then I remembered Danny.

  “He’s fast asleep,” laughed Eloise in answer to my concerns. “He’s snuggled under that wonderful quilt of his and is quite oblivious to the goings-on in this room.”

  The doctor arrived fifteen minutes later and his quiet, gentle manner put me at ease.

  “Is there anything you need to tell me, Mrs Asquith? Any obvious reason why you should faint?” His small, blue eyes studied me over his pince-nez.

  I understood his question. “I’m not with child, if that’s what you think,” I whispered, trying not to smile.

  He leaned forward and pulled down my lower eyelids. “I can see straight away that you’re quite anaemic.” He looked at my nails. “And your health has suffered somewhat because of it.” He took his stethoscope from his bag and listened to my heart and then I sat up while he listened to my lungs. “But your heart’s sound and your lungs are clear.”

  “Is that why I’ve been feeling so tired lately?”

  He nodded slowly. “You would have had no energy with chronic anaemia.”

  “But it is only anaemia, Doctor and nothing more serious?” I asked casually.

  “Anaemia mustn’t be taken lightly,” he admonished me. “It must be treated.”

  I gave a weary sigh. “I know. I must eat plenty of vegetables and meat, especially liver! As much as I can force down my throat.”

  He gave a pleasant chuckle. “Sounds like you’ve been treated for it before. Yes, that’s what you must eat and if you can stomach it, steak cooked very lightly. It seems to me young lady, that you’ve been overdoing your social engagements, so I want you to take more rest.”

  I watched him fold away his stethoscope and place it carefully in his bag. As I wondered if he had owned it since his student days, I thought over what he had just said. How amusing that he assumed I had been overdoing it with my social engagements. No, Doctor, I felt like saying. Mr Andrew Perry and Covent Garden leave me no time for a social life. They make me sing three hours a night, six nights a week.

  “Yes, Doctor,” I said flatly.

  “Spend more time at home by your own fireside until your health improves.”

  Lady Waltham and Eloise had remained in the room during the examination, her ladyship spending the entire time with her hand over her mouth, waiting for some frightful diagnosis.

  Eloise remained smiling and calm, expecting nothing untoward. “She’ll get plenty of rest while she’s here,” she said firmly.

  Lady Waltham nodded in agreement. “Oh, certainly! We will follow your orders to the letter. Plenty of rest and good food.”

  He left a few minutes later.

  “Would you like me to help you dress for bed?” asked Eloise.

  I shook my head
. “No, I think I’ll lie here quietly for another few minutes and then I’ll sort myself out. What time is it?”

  She looked at her watch. “Twelve-fifteen. Your swooning fit broke up the party somewhat. Everyone’s retired, except my nephew and oh yes, Lord Shelbrook who was quite worried about you.”

  “Was he?” I said amazed.

  “Indeed. It was he who carried you up here. In fact it was his swift reflexes that saved you from hitting the floor.”

  “My husband insisted on calling the physician,” said Lady Waltham, not wanting to be surpassed in naming her hero of the hour. “Mrs Asquith’s health is of great importance to him.”

  I looked up at the two women standing over me and smiled. “Now you must go to bed too. It’s very late.”

  Her ladyship tried to stifle a yawn. “I must say I’m quite tired.” She wagged her finger at me. “Tomorrow you must stay in bed and Nelly will bring you your breakfast. You mustn’t get up until you feel perfectly well.”

  I had had enough of following orders while I was carrying my daughter. The last thing I wanted was to be under instruction again.

  “Thank you, my lady. But if I feel well in the morning, I’d much prefer to come down to breakfast. I don’t want to be regarded as an invalid.”

  Eloise gave a low chuckle. “Mrs Asquith is certainly not made of the same stuff as Lady Shelbrook.” She also yawned behind her hand. “I think I’ll just pop downstairs and tell the gentlemen that you are all right and there’s no need for any concern.”

  I was glad when they closed the door quietly behind them.

  I lay on my back and watched the flames of the fire and then I noticed my evening dress hanging on a hanger on the wardrobe door. After a few minutes more I swung my legs over the edge of the mattress and tentatively got to my feet. To my relief, there was no dizziness or sickness. I crossed over to the dressing table and sat down. So, I was anaemic and probably rundown. No wonder I always felt tired. I would have to start looking after myself.

  I loosened my hair from the pins and tugged the brush through the knots that had formed while my head had lain on the pillows. I counted the brushstrokes until I reached one hundred and then lay the brush next to my jewellery box. Suddenly, I realised something important was missing. I searched around the room, looking through the drawers, under the bed and in the wardrobe. But it was nowhere to be seen. Then I knew where the lost item was, back in the drawing room where I had been playing cards.

  I pulled my dressing gown over my petticoat and after taking a quick look at Danny and assuring myself he was fast asleep, I lit a small oil lamp that was kept on a shelf in my room and stepped out into the corridor. I walked swiftly through the darkened house trying to ignore the shadows that seemed to leap out at me from every silent and forbidding corner.

  I reached the drawing room door and turned the handle. In moments I was in the large room that hours before had been filled with light, warmth and the laughter of people enjoying themselves. Now it was deserted, the small gaming tables returned to their places in the cupboard. Only the fire and my small lamp gave me light. It wasn’t enough. It was difficult searching under chairs, occasional tables, drinks’ cabinet, when everything was cast into shadow.

  “Is this what you’re looking for?”

  His voice from the armchair beside the fire made me jump. He rose from his seat and took a few steps towards me. In his hand he held the fan I had been searching for.

  I breathed a sigh of relief. “Oh, you found it.” I placed the small oil lamp on the mantelpiece. “Danny saved up his allowance and bought it for my last birthday. I couldn’t bear to part with it.” I smiled as I took it from him and spread it out in front of me, examining again the different types of ships painted in watercolour.

  “It was under our card table. You must have dropped it when you fainted. How are you feeling now?”

  “Oh, much better, thank you. I feel such a fool doing something like that.” He didn’t answer and I started babbling. “The doctor said I’m overtired. I’ve probably been working too hard.” I stopped and gave a nervous cough.

  His eyes narrowed as he studied me. “You think you’re working too hard?”

  “I must be overdoing it,” I laughed.

  He didn’t laugh with me. “You still work for a living?”

  “Yes, I do,” I answered truthfully.

  “Am I to understand that you still teach music?” He moved closer. “Dear Lord! I thought you were joking when you said you charged the going rate for music lessons.” I didn’t answer. “But the money you received for Emily…?”

  “I invested it and …used it…for other things.”

  “What other things?”

  I turned away from him. “That’s not your concern,” I said curtly. Why did he insist on prying into my life? A strained silence fell between us. I glanced at the clock as it chimed one. “You’re up very late.”

  “Yes I am, but I often don’t go upstairs until after midnight,” he murmured. His face was solemn, the dancing flames of the fire tiny pinpoints of light in his eyes. “I don’t seem to need a lot of sleep.”

  “You’re very fortunate.”

  I turned to go, but he caught my arm. “I want to apologise.”

  “What for?”

  “I totally misread your situation. It never entered my head that you might have been married when you had your son. You seemed so young when first we met.”

  “I fell in love at a tender age,” I smiled mistily.

  He took my hand and turned it over, pressing his lips into the palm. “Please forgive me, Isabelle. I was a bigoted idiot.”

  His expression softened my temper. “I chose to let you think I was unmarried. That was my doing not yours.”

  “Why did you do that?”

  “Because I wanted to keep my identity a secret too. I thought it better to revert to my maiden name and remove my wedding ring.”

  He paused for a moment and then his voice was low, his words coming slowly. “It wasn’t just that, was it?” His arm slipped round me and he drew me closer. “You didn’t want to drag your husband’s name into what you were doing.” Now it was my turn to be stunned into silence. “You thought it was wrong to sell a child and you couldn’t bear to do it under your married name. For love of your husband you had to let his name go.”

  I stared at him in disbelief. He had struck home and tears started to well up.

  “I…never could work out if…it was right…or wrong. I thought you were…doing the right thing. You were doing it for your wife. But me…”

  “Why did you want the money?” he whispered.

  “Please don’t ask,” I gasped, the pain starting to get the better of me.

  He ignored me. “Was it for someone you loved? Someone in trouble?” he asked gently.

  I shook my head. “No, the money was for me. I needed it purely for selfish reasons.”

  I couldn’t stop the tears that were coursing down my cheeks. I tried to wipe them away with the back of my hand, but they just kept on coming. I looked at him and suddenly I was in his arms. His embrace was warm and tender and I leaned my head against his shoulder, giving vent to my torn emotions. I knew it was wrong; terribly wrong, but I needed the comfort and I didn’t want it to stop.

  “All I wanted was a child for my wife,” he said softly. “But I never imagined the feelings that would be stirred up.”

  “Neither did I.”

  “And I never anticipated the complications afterwards.” I looked up at him and sniffed. He smiled and pulled out a handkerchief from his pocket. “I think you’d better use this.”

  I took it from him and wiped my eyes and nose. I thrust it in the pocket of my dressing gown, so I could return it clean.

  “What complications?”

  He gave a long sigh. “Angelique was delighted when you were pregnant and I was happy for her. And she remained happy until Emily was about a year old. Then she found a child far too much to cope with, even with
a nanny to care for the child.” He pursed his lips. “Of course, I should have realised it. My wife’s health has always been delicate. But I was being selfish too. I didn’t want a child just for her but for myself too.”

  “I’ve seen what a wonderful father you are,” I smiled. Although I was enjoying his nearness, my mind was becoming clearer, my emotions calmer and I was aware that I shouldn’t be in such close proximity to him. I tried to ease myself away, but he seemed reluctant to let me go. “When I first talked to Emily, I had no idea she was my daughter. I find that so strange.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Because something should have told me who she was. Some maternal instinct.”

  He chuckled. “I think you’re asking too much of your maternal instincts.”

  I sighed. “Yes, you’re right. I refused to allow myself any maternal feelings for Emily, so I suppose my instincts were non-existent.”

  “I remember the day she was born. We…I was there, you know. I decided to make an excuse and crept upstairs. I was outside the door when she was born and I heard her first cry. It was all I could do to hold back the tears.”

  “You shouldn’t have done that. You caused yourself unnecessary pain.”

  “Oh, my sweet Isabelle, I care nothing for that. I shall always remember that moment.” He caressed my cheek. “And then later on that day, I tried to see you and Mrs Holland caught me and sent me away. She was so angry I thought she would put me on bread and milk for the next week.”

  I smiled bitterly. “I certainly never realised how involved we would become.”

  “I think Mrs Holland did.”

  I looked at him. “Why do you think that?”

  “She often warned me not to get emotionally entangled. To remember what we had agreed and stick to it.”

  “A business arrangement,” I nodded.

  “Yes and at first that’s exactly what I did. But then I found you so…delightful, so interesting to be with that I wanted more. There were times when I actually forgot what we were there for.”

  The clock struck one-thirty. “I must go to bed. It’s so late,” I said wearily.

  He turned me round so that I faced him, his hands on my shoulders. He glanced briefly at the fire and then his eyes swept over me.