by Mary Balogh
He interfered nevertheless.
“I was telling Miss Osbourne a short while ago, ma’am,” he said into a momentary lull in the conversation, “about the letters discovered inside a ledger in Mr. Osbourne’s desk after his death.”
Three pairs of eyes turned upon him in something that looked like reproach. Then Susanna closed hers briefly.
“Yes,” Lady Markham said. “There were two, one addressed to Markham and one to Susanna.”
“What did he say?” Susanna asked, her voice terribly strained. “Did he explain why he did it?”
“I believe he did,” Lady Markham said while Edith set down her plate. “It was addressed to Lord Markham, you must understand, Susanna, not to me. I- we -will always remember your father with respect and even affection. He was a good and efficient secretary.”
“But you did see the letter?” Susanna asked.
“Yes,” Lady Markham admitted, “I believe I did.”
“What did it say?” Susanna asked. “Please tell me.”
Something struck Peter suddenly and he got to his feet.
“Perhaps,” he said, “you would all prefer it if I were not here since this has nothing whatsoever to do with me, has it? Shall I leave the room? May I wait for Miss Osbourne-”
But Lady Markham had raised one staying hand and he sat again.
“No,” she said, her voice sounding weary. “There is no need to go. There was something in your father’s past, Susanna, something that had remained hidden for years but had finally come to light. Things were becoming ugly for him. He thought shame would be brought down upon you and himself and upon Markham for having employed him and housed him. He thought, I suppose, that he would be dismissed in disgrace and would have no further means of support for himself and a young daughter. He could see no other way out but to do what he did. That is all I remember. It was very tragic, but nothing can be done now to change the unfortunate outcome.”
It all seemed a little thin and evasive to Peter. I believe I did. That is all I remember. Would not every word of a suicide note be seared on the brain of anyone who had read it-especially when the man had lived and worked and shot himself in one’s own home?
“And my letter?” Susanna asked softly.
“To my knowledge it was not opened,” Lady Markham said.
“Was it destroyed?” Susanna asked.
“I do not know.” Lady Markham blinked rapidly. “I cannot imagine Markham burning it, but I do not know.”
“Perhaps Theo knows, Mama,” Edith suggested. “Oh, surely it is still in existence.”
“It is probably as well if it is not,” Susanna said. She got to her feet, and Peter rose too. “If my father did anything so very wrong before I was born, it seems to me that he atoned for it with a life of hard work and loyal service to Sir Charles. I do not want to know what it was he did. I do not want to know who…Oh, it does not matter. I would rather leave him in peace. I do thank you both for receiving me and for the tea, but I must go now. I have been away from the school for a whole afternoon and must not neglect my duties any longer.”
“Susanna,” Edith said, jumping up too, “do call on us again. Perhaps we can go walking together or shopping. Perhaps-”
“No,” Susanna said. “My teaching duties occupy me almost all day every day, Edith, and there is the Christmas concert coming up to keep me even busier. I had last evening off and this afternoon. I have used up my quota of free time for quite a while. I…You have your husband and son now to occupy your life. We move in different worlds. It would be best to leave it that way.”
Edith folded her hands at her waist. She looked hurt.
“I shall write to you,” she said. “I daresay you will be able to find a few spare minutes in which to read a letter.”
“Thank you.” Susanna gave her a tight smile.
“This has been a pleasure,” Lady Markham said. “You will never know, Susanna, how many times over the years I have lain awake wondering what happened to you, wondering if you were alive or dead and if we could have done anything more at the time to find you. I am delighted that you came. You will see her safely back to Miss Martin’s school, Whitleaf?”
“I will, ma’am,” he said, bowing.
But it seemed to him as they stepped out onto the street a few minutes later that the visit had not settled a great deal. Perhaps it did not have to, though. Susanna seemed not to want to find out exactly what had happened eleven years ago and why. Perhaps the comfort of knowing that her father had written to her was enough. It would not be enough for him, but that was not the point, was it?
And at least the visit had given pleasure to Lady Markham and Edith and had perhaps persuaded Susanna that she had not been the unwanted burden she had thought she was.
“Are you glad you came?” he asked, drawing her arm through his.
She turned her head to look at him briefly.
“Yes,” she said. “I would have been afraid to set foot beyond the school doors for fear of running into them. Now I have come face-to-face with them and discovered that they are just people and just as I remember them. Edith is pretty, is she not? I hope she will be happy with Mr. Morley.”
“Even though you never could be?” He chuckled.
“But I was not asked to be, was I?” She laughed too.
It was good to hear her laugh again.
And so the end had come. She might have been celebrating her betrothal now. Instead she was about to say good-bye.
By her own choice.
Susanna knew as they walked along Great Pulteney Street in silence and turned onto Sydney Place that memories of her visit to Lady Markham and Edith would return to haunt her for some time to come, along with her decision not to press on with inquiries into the contents of her father’s letter to Sir Charles Markham or into the possible continued existence of the letter he had written her.
But she could not think of any of that now.
Her heart was heavy. She felt that with every step she took she trod on it, increasing her pain.
Yet at the beginning of the afternoon she had been so hopeful that it could all end cheerfully and amicably. The fact that she loved him was of little significance. Given the circumstances of her life, it would have been strange indeed if she had not fallen in love with him. She would recover. How could she not? A happy marriage between them would be impossible for all sorts of reasons, and she would rather lose him altogether and forever than have an unhappy marriage with him.
But, oh, at the moment it was very hard to think such sensible thoughts. In an hour’s time she would think them, perhaps. Tonight she would think them, and next week, and next month. But now…
“I shall be making an early start for London in the morning,” he said as they turned onto Sutton Street and the school came into sight.
“Yes,” she said. “There cannot be much to keep a visitor in Bath, especially at this time of year.”
“I have spent a pleasant few days here, though,” he said.
“I am glad.”
They spoke to each other like cheerful, polite strangers.
“It has been good to see you again,” he said.
“Yes.”
“Perhaps,” he said, “we will meet again sometime.”
“Yes, that would be pleasant.”
Their footsteps slowed and then stopped altogether before they turned onto Daniel Street.
“Susanna,” he said, his hand covering hers on his arm, though he did not turn his head to look down at her. “I want you to know before I leave that I do care for you. I know you do not like me half the time or approve of me the other half, but I do care. I think we were friends once. I think in many ways we still are. But when we became more than friends on that one afternoon, it really was more. I was not just a lustful man taking advantage of being alone with an innocent woman. I cared for you. I know you do not want me or need me. I know you are happy with the life you have. But I think perhaps in some way you have cared too,
and I wanted you to know that…Well. Was there ever a more muddled monologue, and just at the time when I most wanted to be eloquent and say something memorable?”
“Oh, Peter,” she said, clinging to his arm, “I do like you. Of course I do. And of course I approve of most of what I see in you. How could I not? You are always so very kind. And I care for you too.”
“But not enough to marry me?” he asked her, still not looking at her.
“No.” It was easier just to say no than try to explain-it was impossible, anyway, to explain all her reasons. “I do thank you, but no, we would not suit.”
“No,” he said softly, “I suppose not. I will leave you here, then.”
“Yes.” Panic grabbed at her stomach, her knees, her throat. She slid her hand from his arm.
He turned then and took both her hands in his, squeezing them so tightly for a moment that she almost winced. He lifted them one at a time and set her gloved palms to his lips.
He raised his eyes to hers-and smiled.
“An already glorious November day has seemed warmer and brighter because of your presence in it,” he said, misquoting his very first words to her. “Thank you, Susanna.”
And so he drew a smile from her even though her heart was breaking.
“Foolish,” she said. “Ah, foolish.”
And somehow they both laughed.
“Good-bye, Peter,” she said.
And because she could not bear any more, she dashed with ungainly haste around the corner and up to the door of the school, and she lifted the knocker and let it fall with more force than was necessary.
She glanced toward the corner as Mr. Keeble opened the door, but there was no one there. She stepped inside, and the door closed behind her.
And now it seemed to her that there was nothing left to live for. Nothing at all. She was in too much distress to notice the melodrama of the thought.
I want you to know before I leave that I do care for you.
Mary Fisher, one of the middle school boarders, was on her way up the stairs. She turned back when she saw who had come through the door.
“Oh, Miss Osbourne,” she cried, all excitement, “we and Mr. Upton have made the changes you wanted to the sketches for the scenery and finished them. They are ever so gorgeous. Do come and see.”
“Of course. I can hardly wait. Lead the way, then, Mary,” Susanna said, smiling brightly as she pulled loose the ribbons of her bonnet. “Have you been working all afternoon? How splendid of you.”
I want you to know before I leave that I do care for you.
… before I leave…
And now he was gone.
20
Peter went straight from Bath to Sidley Park-to stay.
Will you do one thing for me? And this was it. She might never know he had done as she asked, and how his coming here could benefit her anyway he did not know. But here he was. He loved her, and so he had honored her final request.
He hoped that love would go away again as suddenly as it had come. He did not like the feeling at all. It was a dashed miserable thing, if the truth were known.
His mother was ecstatic to see him. She scarcely stopped talking about Christmas, which would be absolutely perfect now that he was home to enjoy all that she had planned for him. Four of his sisters-Barbara, Doris, Amy, and Belinda-were to come to Sidley Park for Christmas, all except Josephine, in fact, the middle one in age, who lived in Scotland with her husband and his family. And of course the presence of four sisters was going to mean too the presence of their spouses and children-nine of the latter among the four of them. And because it was Christmas, numbers of their in-laws of all ages had been invited too. None of his uncles-he had made himself clear to them five years ago, though in the intervening years since he had seen them occasionally in London and learned to be cordial with them.
And of course the Flynn-Posys were coming for Christmas.
Well, he would endure it. He would even enjoy it. He would establish himself as host.
His mother took him into the dining room the day after his arrival and explained to him all that she planned to have done in there for his comfort and delight.
“I’ll think about it, Mama,” he said. “I may have some ideas of my own.”
“But of course, my love,” she said, beaming happily at him. “Whatever you want provided it will not ruin the overall effect of what I have planned. How lovely it is to have you home again.”
He left it at that. It had never been easy to talk to his mother-it had always seemed something akin to dashing one’s brains against a rock.
Will you talk to your mother, Peter? Really talk?…Tell her who you are. 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.
He had never really talked to his mother, or she to him. He had confronted her once, of course-ghastly memory-but they had both been horribly upset at the time, and they had not used the opportunity to open their hearts to each other, to establish a new and equal relationship of adult mother and adult son.
That would change. He would talk to her. He would hold firm against her iron will. It just seemed somewhat absurd that the provocation was probably going to be a lavender dining room.
He spent a good deal of the time before Christmas away from the house. He liked to go and sit in the dower house, sometimes for hours on end, lighting a fire in the sitting room and enjoying the peace he found there. He had always loved the house, and it had always been well kept even though it had been inhabited during his lifetime only by the girls’ governesses and the tutors he had had before going away to school and sometimes during school holidays. It was a small manor in its own right and was set in the middle of a pretty garden in a secluded corner of the park.
It would, in fact, be the ideal home for his mother…
He visited his neighbors again. And he called on Theo.
“I must thank you, by the way,” Theo said as they sat in his library sipping brandy, “for taking Susanna Osbourne to call on my mother and Edith in Bath. They both wrote to tell me all about it the very next day. I suppose because I was away at school at the time of Osbourne’s death and Susanna’s disappearance, I did not realize quite how upsetting it all was for them. My mother has been thinking all these years that she must be dead.”
“Are the letters still in existence?” Peter asked.
“Yes, indeed,” Theo said, stretching out his booted feet to the blaze in the hearth. “They were at the back of the safe in Osbourne’s old office where I never look-it is stuffed with old papers that I must go through one of these days. I had never even read the letter Osbourne wrote my father until I found both letters after my mother wrote. Susanna’s is still sealed. I suppose I ought to send it on to her even though my mother seems to think she is not interested in seeing it. Queer, that.”
“I think it is more that she is afraid to read it,” Peter said.
“Eh?” Theo said, giving a log a shove farther onto the fire with the toe of one boot. “What would she be afraid of? Ghosts? I suppose it might put the wind up someone, though, to see a letter written more than a decade ago in the hand of a dead man.”
“I think she is afraid of what she will find there,” Peter said. “Sometimes it seems better not to know what one thought forever lost in the past. But I do wonder if the not knowing will fester in her now that she knows about the letter. Does she know it still exists?”
“Not unless my mother has told her,” Theo said. “Sometimes I wish I had a secretary of my own. Writing letters is not my favorite occupation. I suppose I must write one, though. I can hardly just bundle up her father’s and send it off to her without comment, can I?”
“Is there likely to be something in your father’s letter that would not be in in hers?” Peter asked. “Remember that hers was written to a twelve-year-old.”
Theo raised his eyebrows and considered the question as he gazed into the fire an
d took two more sips from his glass. Then he looked at Peter.
“I say, Whitleaf,” he said, “what the devil is your interest in all this?”
“Just that,” Peter said. “Interest.”
“You told me you had met Susanna during the summer,” Theo said. “And then you were with her in Bath of all places, at a concert in Bath Abbey, and then in Sydney Gardens, and then at Edith’s. She isn’t your mistress by any chance, is she? Morley won’t like it if you took your mistress to call on him and Edith.”
But he chose to find the mental picture amusing, and first chuckled and then threw back his head and laughed outright.
“He would probably have a fit of the vapors,” he said. “Lord knows what Edith sees in him, but it was a love match.”
“Susanna is not my mistress,” Peter said, without joining in the laughter. “And I would thank you, Theo, for not making that suggestion ever again. I offered her marriage, and she refused me.”
“Eh?” Theo frowned. “Why the devil? She is a schoolteacher, isn’t she? And last time I looked you were a viscount. It would be a brilliant match for her, wouldn’t it? And that’s a colossal understatement.”
Peter did not answer the question.
“I think she needs to know the full truth,” he said. “Everything you know and everything your mother knows and everything both letters can tell her. It may be upsetting for her, but I don’t think she will be able to put the past fully behind her until she knows all there is to know. He was all she had, Theo, and he deliberately put a bullet through his brain.”
“Well, yes,” Theo said. “Poor devil. I say, I wonder if she would like to come here for Christmas. I’ll wager Edith would be ecstatic, and I think my mother would be pleased too-she is coming home the day after tomorrow, by the way. I’ll see what she says. Come to think of it, though, I have a hankering to see Susanna again myself. I used to be rather fond of her. I can remember teaching her to row a boat one summer. She was damned good at it too for all she was just a little bit of a thing with sticks for arms and a shock of red hair. Does she still have the hair?”