by Sara Seale
“Lucy!” he called softly.
She spun round and he could see her small breasts rise in the quick little breath she took, and then something in the way he stood waiting for her, in the invitation of his outstretched hands, perhaps, must have banished her uncertainty, for she dropped her sandals on the grass and ran across the lawn and straight into his arms.
“You can have your good morning kiss now,” he said, bending his head to hers.
“I don’t t-take any of it back,” she stammered rather incoherently. “I do love you ... and I wasn’t lightheaded and—and you’ll have to put up with it, I’m afraid...”
“I hoped you weren’t lightheaded,” he retorted, “but your declaration being all mixed up with braggarty worms and garters, was a little difficult to know.”
She slid her hands to his shoulders and looked up into his dark, suddenly tender face.
“I promised I would never let it become an embarrassment, and I won’t,” she said, and his eyes held a look of honest perplexity.
“But, my darling child, how could such a thing become an embarrassment?” he demanded. “Don’t you suppose I have my feelings, too?”
“But you—but you—” she began, starting to stammer again, and he gave her a gentle shake.
“You don’t imagine you have a monopoly in that direction do you?” he said. “Why do you suppose I was so upset by that business over Paul—went out of my way to hurt you and misunderstand things that should have been plain to an idiot? My blessed, credulous little baa-lamb, I was hoist with my own petard. I fell in love with you.”
It seemed to Lucy that she must be still dreaming through that long night while the lamplight etched shadows on his face as he brought her comfort and gave her hope.
“When?” she said foolishly, because she could think of nothing more sensible to say.
“When? I’ve no idea. The night you so innocently offered what I thought was a sacrifice for my pleasure, perhaps—no, before that or I wouldn’t have reacted so violently. Maybe it was after the hospital do when you stood there in that bridal gown of yours and sang ‘So white, so soft, so sweet is she’ ... I don’t know, Lucy. Does it matter?”
“No,” she said, then a sudden realization of the needless suffering she had endured of late made her add in disgust: “Men! How could I know a thing like that by magic?”
His eyes were humble.
“You couldn’t,” he said. “I think, perhaps, I hardly knew it myself—but yesterday—when I saw you holding up that boy, and knowing that you thought he was all that mattered to me, I knew what I had done to you. Forgive me Lucy, if you can, for being so blind...” He raised her hands to his lips and stood there a moment, his black head bent over them, and the tears filled her eyes.
“Don’t ... don’t, my darling,” she whispered. “I can’t bear to see you humble...”
“You’ve had little occasion to see that side of me, I’m afraid,” he said with something of his old dryness, and she put a finger against his lips.
“No more remorse—it doesn’t become you,” she said, and he kissed her on the nose and told her to have more respect for his grey hairs. He was, she realized with wonder and a flood of tenderness, as shy and uncertain as she.
He began to walk her back along the terrace to the house. The flags were warm under her bare feet, his arm about her a firm encircling promise.
“Gaston has some champagne ready for us in the library,” Bart said as they reached the front door. “Our wedding day wasn’t much of a celebration, was it?”
She remembered that first evening, and herself, sitting in solitary state at the head of the vast mahogany table, a bride in the eyes of the world, but to herself and to her husband just little Lucy Lamb with no rights of her own...
She swung on one of the fluted pillars of the porch while he waited for her to go into the house with him, and he paused, content to watch the grace of her slender body, the soft-falling hair which hid her face as she made her request.
“Bart—will you something for me that you didn’t think of then? Will you carry me over the threshold?” she asked, and his smile was amused and infinitely tender as he picked her up in his arms and earned her into the house.
On the lawn, the red sandals lay, forgotten, a bright splash of colour, wilting and curling in the sun. Abel found them a long time later, and brought them in.
THE END