Simply Magic

by Mary Balogh

  “Enough!” he said. “I think you must be a very good teacher indeed, Susanna Osbourne. I have never done as much soul-searching as I have since I met you. I used to think I was a pretty cheerful, uncomplicated fellow. Now I feel rather as if I had been taken apart at the seams and stitched together again with some of my stuffing left out.”

  Despite herself her mouth quirked at the corners and drew up into a smile.

  “Then I am definitely not a good teacher,” she said. “But you are a good man, Peter. You are. It is just that…”

  He raised his eyebrows.

  “I am not only a woman,” she said. “I am a person. All women are persons. If we are weak and dependent upon men, it is because we have allowed men to mold us into those images. Perhaps it makes men feel good and strong to see us that way. And perhaps most women are happy to be seen thus. Perhaps society works reasonably well because both men and women are happy with the roles our society has given them to play. But I was thrown out on my own early in life. I will never say it was a good thing that happened to me, but I am grateful that circumstances have forced me to live outside the mold. I would rather be a complete person than just a woman even if I must be alone as a result.”

  “You do not need to be alone,” he said.

  “No.” She smiled at him. “You would marry me and support and protect me for the rest of my life. And so we move full circle. I am sorry, Peter. I did not mean to deliver such a pompous speech. I did not even know I believed those things until I heard them come out of my mouth. But I do believe them.”

  “It is as I thought, then,” he said, getting to his feet and handing her her bonnet. “You are happier without me. It is a humbling reality.”

  And she could not now contradict him, could she?

  She took her bonnet and busied herself with putting it back on and tying the ribbons beneath her chin.

  “Will you do one thing for me?” she asked him.

  “What?” he asked her.

  She looked into his eyes.

  “When you go home to Sidley Park for Christmas,” she said, “will you stay there? Make it your home and your life?” She was appalled suddenly by her presumption.

  “And marry Miss Flynn-Posy too?” His smile was crooked.

  “If you decide that you wish to marry her, yes,” she said. “Will you talk to your mother, Peter? Really talk?”

  “Throw my weight around? Lay down the law?” he said. “Leave misery in my wake?”

  “Tell her who you are,” she said. “Perhaps she has been so intent upon loving you all your life that really she does not know you at all. Perhaps- probably -she does not know your dreams.”

  She felt horribly embarrassed when he did not immediately reply. How dared she interfere in his life this way? Even when guiding and advising the girls at school about their various problems and about their futures, she was careful never to be as dogmatic as she had just been.

  “I am sorry,” she said, “I have no right-”

  “And will you do one last thing for me?” he asked her.

  Reality smote her like a fist to the stomach. One last thing. This time tomorrow he would be long gone. He would be only a memory and not even the purely happy one she had persuaded herself earlier in the afternoon he would be. The last several minutes had destroyed that possibility. She looked at him in inquiry.

  “Will you allow me to take you to meet Lady Markham and Edith?” he asked her.

  “Now?”she said.

  “Why not?” he asked her. “Lawrence Morley, Edith’s husband, has taken lodgings on Laura Place, only a stone’s throw away. I promised to call there before leaving Bath. And I promised Edith that I would ask you if she may call on you or if you will call on her.”

  She shook her head.

  “Do consider,” he said. “I do not know if it is my place to tell you this, but there really were letters, you know-to Lord Markham and to you.”

  There was a coldness about her head and in her nostrils.

  “Letters?” Somehow no sound came out with the word.

  “From your father.” He took one step closer and possessed himself of both her hands, which he held very tightly. “I have no idea if they were kept, Susanna, or what their contents were. But ought you not at least to see Lady Markham?”

  There had been letters-one of them for her.

  Her father had written her a letter!

  Disclosing what? What had the letter to Lord Markham disclosed?

  But as quickly as shock had come, panic followed on its heels.

  “It would be as well if they have been destroyed,” she said, pulling her hands free again and going back to the seat to rescue her gloves. “There is no point in trying to go back after all these years to rake up an old unhappiness that drove a man to his death.” She fumbled to pull on the gloves. “It can only cause more unhappiness for the living.”

  “Have you ever not been back there, Susanna?” he asked.

  He did not explain his meaning. He did not have to. Of course she had never let go of the past. How could she? Those things had happened and her suffering had been dreadful. The past was a part of her. But she had moved beyond it. She lived a life that was secure and meaningful and happy when compared to the lives of many thousands of other people. Nothing could be served by going back. It was too late.

  “William Osbourne wanted to be heard,” he said. “He had something to say.”

  “Then he should have said it,” she said, whirling about to face him, “to Lord Markham and to me. He said precious little to me in twelve years. He would not even talk about my mother, who was a yawning emptiness in my life. He might have spoken to me instead of killing himself. He might have loved me instead of seeking the comfort of death.”

  “You loved him,” he said softly.

  “ Of course I loved him.”

  “Then forgive him,” he said.

  “Why?” She was swiping angrily at the tears that were spilling from her eyes, her back toward him.

  “It is what love does,” he said.

  She laughed-a shaky, pathetic sound.

  “All the time,” he said. “ All the time.”

  If he just knew. If he just knew.

  “Very well.” She spun around to face him. “Let us go, then. Take me to them. Let us ask about the letters-and their contents. But know in advance, Lord Whitleaf, that it may be a Pandora’s box that will be opened, that once it is open it will be impossible to close it again.”

  “But this does not concern me, ” he said. “I believe it is something you need to do for yourself. The letters may not even still exist, Susanna, and yours may never have been opened before it was destroyed. It is just that I think you ought to meet Lady Markham and Edith again. You need to give them a chance-the chance you believe your father denied you.”

  She stared at him and then nodded curtly.

  “Let us go, then,” she said.

  “ If we can find our way out of this maze,” he said, his eyes suddenly softening into a smile.

  “Now I really, really wish we could be lost here forever,” she told him, smiling ruefully despite herself.

  “Me too,” he agreed. “We should have gone and built a cabin on the top of Mount Snowdon when we had a chance, Susanna.”

  He offered her his arm and she took it.

  19

  It seemed to Peter as they approached Laura Place, the diamond-shaped street at the bridge end of Great Pulteney Street, that this was the damnedest time to discover that he was not in love with Susanna Osbourne after all.

  He loved her instead.

  And there was a world of difference between the two types of love.

  He loved her, yet much of the time she disliked him and even despised him.

  If there was a God, then that deity must be a joker indeed. At the risk of appearing vain in his own eyes, he would have to say that almost every other young lady he had ever met-and he had met a large number just in the five years since reachin
g his majority-both liked and admired him and would even be prepared to love him if he set himself to wooing them.

  He was going to leave Bath early tomorrow morning, and nothing was going to stop him this time. He could hardly wait to be on his way, in fact. If he had not committed himself to this afternoon call, he would start his journey now, this afternoon.

  They had walked all the way from Sydney Gardens in silence.

  “This is the house,” he said at last after keeping his eyes on the numbers. And he stepped up to the door and rapped the knocker against it.

  He would have taken Susanna’s arm again, knowing how nervous she must be feeling, how reluctant she was to make this call, but he did not do so. His mother and his sisters had overprotected him, and it seemed that without realizing it he had learned to do the same with other people-especially the woman he loved. She did not want his support or protection. She did not need them either, dash it.

  The ladies had just returned from shopping, the manservant who opened the door informed them. He would see if they were receiving visitors. He glanced at the card Peter handed him and raised his eyebrows before turning away.

  Two minutes later, they were being ushered into a small drawing room abovestairs, and Edith was introducing a thin, fair-haired, bespectacled young man to Peter as Lawrence Morley, her husband. Then she turned to Susanna, two spots of color high in her cheeks.

  “You are Susanna,” she said. “Oh, of course you are. I could not mistake that hair or those eyes anywhere. You have grown up but really you have not changed at all. I was convinced it was you in the Abbey with Peter last evening.” She stretched out both her hands. “Oh, just look at you. Lawrence, dearest, this is the Susanna Osbourne we were telling you about at breakfast.”

  Susanna hesitated before placing her hands in Edith’s, but then Edith pulled her into a tight hug.

  Lady Markham, meanwhile, was standing quietly farther back in the room. She had nodded to Peter, but now her eyes were fixed upon Susanna.

  “All these years,” she said when Edith stepped back, her eyes shining with unshed tears, “I have feared that you were dead, Susanna.”

  “No,” Susanna said, “I did not die.”

  “Miss Osbourne, Lord Whitleaf,” Mr. Morley said, “do come and have a seat closer to the fire. You must have walked here-I have not heard a carriage in the street.”

  “We have been strolling in Sydney Gardens,” Peter explained as they all sat. “It is a beautiful day.”

  “For November, yes,” Morley agreed, “though it is a little nippy even so, I daresay. You were dressed warmly, I trust, Miss Osbourne? You left your outdoor garments downstairs?”

  “I did, sir.” She smiled. “My cloak and gloves are warm enough for even the coldest day.”

  “You were wise to wear them today, then,” he said. “Edith sees sunshine and wants to step outside even before the servants have ascertained that it is warm enough and that no strong wind is blowing and no dark clouds are looming. I daresay the Abbey was drafty last evening, but she would insist upon going to the concert. I was relieved that my mama-in-law went with her to insist that she keep her cloak about her shoulders. Edith is recovering from a recent confinement, as you may know.”

  “No, I did not,” Susanna said, looking at Edith. “How lovely for you.”

  “We have a son,” Edith said with a smile. “He is quite adorable, is he not, dearest? He looks like his papa.”

  Polite chatter followed while a tea tray was carried in and Lady Markham poured and handed around the cups and saucers and offered them all a slice of fruitcake.

  “Susanna,” Edith said at last, “do you live in Bath? Where is your house?”

  “I teach and live at Miss Martin’s School for Girls on Daniel Street,” Susanna said. “I teach writing and penmanship and games among other things.”

  “Games?” Morley said. “I hope nothing too strenuous, Miss Osbourne. Vigorous exercise is unhealthy for young ladies, I have heard, and I readily believe it. I daresay they would be better employed with a needle or a paintbrush. Vigorous games are excluded from most academies for young lades, and rightly so.”

  “You teach, ” Lady Markham said before Susanna could reply-and while Peter was still entertaining amused memories of her rowing and flushed and laughing in the boat races at Barclay Court. “However did that come about, Susanna?”

  “I went to London,” she explained, “and registered at an employment agency. But I was fortunate enough to be singled out and sent as a charity pupil to Miss Martin’s school here. I was a pupil until I was eighteen, and then I was offered a position as junior teacher.”

  “You went to London,” Lady Markham said. “But how did you get there, Susanna? You were a child. And we checked all the stagecoach stops for miles in every direction.”

  “I went into my father’s room,” Susanna said. “There was some money there in a box on his dressing table, and I took it, as I supposed it was mine. There was a valise too, big enough to hold most of my things but small enough for me to carry. I walked and begged rides for most of the way. There was not enough money to be squandered on transportation.”

  “It is to be hoped, Miss Osbourne,” Morley said, “that you did not sit on hay, as so many travelers do when they do not ride in carriages or on the stagecoach. Hay is often damp even when it feels dry.”

  “I do not believe I ever did sit on hay, sir,” she said.

  “Oh, Susanna,” Lady Markham said, setting her cup and saucer down on her empty plate, “ why did you leave as you did, without a word to anyone? Of course, you were dreadfully upset, poor child, but I fully expected that you would turn to us for comfort. We were almost like a family to you-or so I thought.”

  Peter noticed that Susanna had taken only one bite out of her piece of cake. He noticed too that her cheeks were paler than usual despite all the fresh air she had been out in for the last couple of hours.

  “As you just observed, ma’am,” she said, “I was very upset and I was just a child. Who knows why I fled as I did? No one would let me see my father and so I could not quite believe that he really was dead. And then I heard that he was not going to be allowed burial inside the churchyard and I knew that he was dead. I-”

  “The church must be firm on such matters of principle,” Morley said, “regrettable as-”

  “Dearest,” Edith said, interrupting, “I am very much afraid that Jamie might have awoken and will be wanting one of us even though Nurse is with him.”

  He jumped to his feet. “I shall go to him immediately,” he said, “if you will excuse me, Miss Osbourne, Lord Whitleaf, Mama-in-law. But I am sure you all will excuse the natural anxieties of a new father.”

  “Thank you, Lawrence,” Edith said. “You are very good.”

  Had the circumstances been different, Peter would doubtless have been vastly diverted by the fussy but seemingly good-hearted Morley and by the relationship between him and Edith, who looked as if she might be genuinely fond of him. But Peter was feeling Susanna’s distress-and that of his lifelong neighbors too.

  “Markham would not let you-or even me-see your papa,” Lady Markham said after Morley had closed the door behind him, “because…well…”

  “I understand,” Susanna said. “He shot himself in the head. But he was all I had in the world, and I was not allowed to go near him. And then there was to be the indignity of his funeral. I suppose I wanted to put as much distance between all of it and myself as I possibly could.”

  “You did not even say good-bye to me, ” Edith said. “First there was all the dreadful upset in the house and I was not allowed to leave my room even to go as far as the nursery. And then, when I sent Nurse to fetch you, she could not find you. And then nobody could find you. Oh, I am sorry.” She leaned back in her chair. “Your suffering was obviously many, many times worse than mine. And you were only twelve. You appeared very grown-up to my eleven-year-old eyes, but you were incapable of making any mature decisions. I just wis
h-ah, never mind. I am so happy to see you again and to know that life has worked out well for you. You are actually a teacher in a girls’ school. I am quite sure you must be a good teacher.”

  Incredibly, the conversation turned to that subject as they debated the advantages and disadvantages of sending girls to school rather than having them educated at home.

  They were not going to probe any more deeply into Susanna’s reasons for running away, Peter thought, and she was not going to elaborate. And they were not going to mention the letters William Osbourne had left behind-and she was not going to ask.

  It seemed strange to him that she did not want to know more about them, that she was not frantic to discover what her father had had to say in the last hour or so of his life, when he had known he was about to end it. In Sydney Gardens, after the first moment when she had looked as if she were about to faint, she had spoken of Pandora’s box and appeared quite reluctant to pursue the matter.

  In some ways perhaps it was understandable. All these years she had believed that her father died without leaving any clue to his motive or feelings, without saying good-bye to her or making provision for her. Now she knew that he had left something behind. But there was certainly something to be said for the old proverb about letting sleeping dogs lie, especially when eleven years had passed.

  The moment for any meaningful truth to be spoken seemed almost to have passed now too. They had all settled, it seemed, into the polite and amiable conversation typical of any afternoon call.

  He supposed he ought not to interfere further. He had half bullied Susanna into coming here. He had kept his promise to Edith. All three ladies would perhaps now be satisfied, Lady Markham and Edith in knowing that she was alive and well and happily settled, Susanna in knowing that they had not hated her or abandoned her without an effort to find her. If her running away and Lady Markham’s overheard words had not been quite satisfactorily explained, well, perhaps they were all content never to dig deeper.

  He ought not to interfere. None of this was any of his business.