by Mary Balogh
“It is auburn,” Peter said.
He had not been trying to lead Theo in the direction of inviting her to Fincham. He had been thinking more of Theo’s going down to Bath, taking Lady Markham with him and both letters so that the two of them could spend some time with her and help her deal with the past.
“You will invite her?” he asked.
Theo looked at him and chuckled before getting to his feet to fetch the brandy decanter.
“I will indeed,” he said, “and you can decide whether to give Fincham a wide berth over Christmas or haunt it every day. How firmly did she mean no when she said it? And how disappointed were you? They are rhetorical questions, Whitleaf-another fellow’s love life is not my concern. But I’ll fetch Susanna here if she will come. She may not, of course. It sounds to me as if she is a lady with a mind of her own-something that showed up when she was twelve years old, I suppose. More brandy?”
He held the decanter suspended over Peter’s glass.
“It’s dashed good,” Peter said, holding his glass up. “Smuggled, I suppose?”
“Is there any other kind?” Theo asked.
She would say no, Peter thought. Of course she would say no.
There was not even any point in wondering how he would behave if she did come. Would he stay away from Fincham? Or would he haunt it every day?
But he would never know, would he? She would not come.
Eleanor Thompson did indeed join the staff of Miss Martin’s school as geography and mathematics teacher. At first Claudia expected that she would come after Christmas, but she was very eager to start immediately and so moved into the school directly from her hotel and began her duties as soon as Claudia had adjusted the timetable and teaching loads.
She proved an instant favorite with the girls and her fellow teachers alike. She was a strict enough disciplinarian, but she also conducted her classes with humor and good sense. She was too late to do anything spectacular-her own word-for the Christmas concert, like directing a play or a choir or organizing maypole dancing. She would busy herself instead with the less glorious work behind the scenes, she announced the day after her arrival, and she worked during almost every spare moment after that, guiding a group of volunteer girls as they brought alive Mr. Upton’s sketches for the various sets, and as often as not wielding a brush herself.
“And to think,” she said with a weary sigh late one evening in Claudia’s sitting room as she rubbed at a stubborn spot of paint on her right forefinger, “that until Christine married Bewcastle and turned all our lives on their collective head I considered that the perfect life was sitting quietly at home in our cottage with an open book in my hand.”
“And do you still think the same thing?” Susanna asked with a twinkle in her eye.
Eleanor laughed. “Just occasionally,” she admitted. “Like this morning, for example, when Agnes Ryde uttered a Cockney curse when she could not solve a problem in mathematics and I had to resist the temptation to pretend I did not understand. It does help, I suppose, that Agnes is a favorite of mine, even though I am sure you would tell me, Claudia, that teachers ought not to have favorites. Agnes has character.”
“Altogether too much of it at times, I am afraid,” Claudia said ruefully. “But one cannot help liking the girl.”
“She actually told me yesterday,” Lila said, “that learning to speak correctly by pretending to be a duchess as I had suggested is fun. She even smiled when she said it. And she cocked one haughty eyebrow and presented her hand to me as if she expected me to kiss it.”
They all laughed, and Susanna got to her feet to pour them each a second cup of tea.
“Did your letter this morning upset you, Susanna?” Claudia asked after they had all settled again.
At first Susanna had thought it must be from Frances or Anne, but then she had seen that it was addressed in an unfamiliar hand.
“It came from Lady Markham at Fincham Manor,” she said. “That is in Hertfordshire, where I grew up,” she added for the benefit of Lila and Eleanor.
“And?” Claudia said, her cup suspended halfway to her mouth.
“I have been invited to spend Christmas there,” Susanna said. “Edith and Mr. Morley and their son will be going too. My invitation comes directly from Sir Theodore Markham himself. It is exceedingly kind of him and of Lady Markham, who told him, I suppose, of our meeting in Bath a few weeks ago, but I will say no, of course. I would have written back today if I had not been so busy with drama and a set of essays to mark after classes were over.”
“Susanna,” Lila said, her voice incredulous, “you have a chance to spend the holiday with a baronet and his family at a country home, and you are going to say no?”
“But of course,” Susanna said, still smiling. “I had a two-week holiday at the end of August. It would be too, too greedy to ask for another now.”
“And yet Lila and I will be here over the holiday, as well as Claudia, to look after the girls who will remain,” Eleanor said.
“But I have no wish to go,” Susanna protested. “I would far rather stay here with all of you.”
They talked for a few minutes longer until Eleanor got to her feet and declared cheerfully that she needed her sleep if she was to survive another day as a schoolteacher. Lila left with her. Susanna would have followed them after stacking the dishes neatly on the tray if Claudia had not spoken to her.
“Something in that letter upset you more than a simple invitation to spend Christmas would have done,” she said. “Do you wish to talk about it, Susanna? But only if you wish.”
Susanna stared at her for a moment before sighing and sinking back into her chair.
“I cannot go back to Fincham Manor, Claudia,” she said. “There are too many unhappy memories associated with it.”
“And it is too close to Sidley Park,” Claudia said. It was not a question.
“Yes.” Susanna looked down at her hands.
They sat in silence for a few moments. Viscount Whitleaf’s name had not been spoken between them since the afternoon when Susanna had said good-bye to him. The pain had been too intense to share with even the dearest of friends, and Claudia, as usual, had sensed and respected that fact.
“Is it perhaps necessary that you go back?” Claudia asked, breaking the silence. “Now that the past has been raked up again, whether you wished it to be or not, ought you perhaps to put it properly to rest this time?”
Susanna lifted her eyes to gaze into the dying embers of the fire.
“There were letters,” she said. “I did not tell you that after my visit to Laura Place, did I? My father wrote two before he died-one to Sir Charles Markham and one to me. They are both still in a safe at Fincham. Theodore asked Lady Markham to inform me that he will send me mine if I wish, but that he strongly recommends that I go to Fincham to see both letters and to speak with him.”
“Oh, Susanna!” Claudia exclaimed. “What a shock it must have been for you-but what a delightful one-to discover that your father wrote to you after all before taking his life. And how exciting to find out today that the letter still exists! Do you not ache to read it? I will send you there tomorrow if you wish so that you will not have to wait one day longer than necessary.”
“I do not want to see it,” Susanna said.
Claudia stared at her and raised her eyebrows.
“I know why he killed himself,” Susanna said, “and I cannot bear to read what he thought suitable for a twelve-year-old’s eyes. He loved Viscountess Whitleaf, Claudia, but she was cruel to him and broke his heart. Lady Markham told me a few weeks ago that there was something shameful in his past that was about to expose him to disgrace and dismissal and poverty, but I do not believe it. I know the truth. Viscountess Whitleaf killed my father as surely as if she had pulled the trigger herself. Or it could be said that his own weakness in being unable to live on with a broken heart was what killed him.”
There. She had never said it aloud before. She had tried not even to think
it-that one person could wield such emotional power over another, and that the other could not find the strength of character or will to fight back. She had seen them together. She had heard them. She knew. She had always known.
Her father had left her, abandoned her forever, because he had not been able to live without the love of a cruel woman who did not care the snap of two fingers for him-and those had been the viscountess’s own words.
It was no wonder Susanna had cringed from the name Whitleaf on that country lane near Barclay Court during the summer.
“Oh, Susanna,” Claudia said, “Viscountess Whitleaf of all people? You poor dear.”
“You can see now why I want nothing to do with any of it,” Susanna said. “Or with him.”
Claudia sighed. “Why do we persist in believing that we can control our lives provided we work hard and live decently and mind our own business?” she said. “You really do not deserve any of this now. You did not deserve any of it when you were twelve either. But here you are stuck with it.”
“No, I am not,” Susanna said. “It is all history. The present is what matters. And I have my life and my friends here in the present and am quite happy, Claudia. I am.”
“Except,” Claudia said, “that the sunshine has gone out of you, Susanna.”
They stared at each other.
“Perhaps no one else has even noticed,” Claudia continued. “You are as energetic and as cheerful and as busy as ever. You smile and laugh as much as you ever did. But I have known you a long time, and I love you as if you were my younger sister-and I know that the sun has stopped shining in your life.”
Susanna closed her eyes briefly and then opened them again.
“All I need is time,” she said. “I will prove that a broken heart can mend, Claudia, and that life is always worth living. I need a little more time, that is all.”
It was pointless, she supposed, to deny to Claudia-or herself-that her heart was broken. Sometimes she found herself wondering if she would find the strength to refuse that marriage offer if it were made now. It was a good thing there was no danger of any such thing happening. All other considerations aside-and there were many of them-she could never marry the son of Viscountess Whitleaf.
“I am about to offer some unwanted advice,” Claudia said, “something schoolteachers excel at, alas. Accept your invitation. Go to Fincham Manor for Christmas. Hear what Sir Theodore Markham has to say. Read your letter-and the other one too if he renews his offer to show it to you. Know the truth in your father’s own words-know it from Sir Theodore’s point of view. You already believe you know the worst, and so nothing can come as a terrible shock to you. See the place you fled eleven years ago and lay some ghosts to rest. As for Viscount Whitleaf and his mother-see them too if you will and if the opportunity presents itself, or avoid seeing them if you so choose. But deal with it all, Susanna. Deal with it and move on so that the sun can shine in you again.”
“I feel,” Susanna said, “as if a wound had been ripped open during the summer and then other wounds inflicted on top of it. A few times since then it has seemed that they have filmed over only to be torn open again. They have been healing now, Claudia. They really have. I do not want…I cannot bear…”
“But your letter this morning exposed the wound again,” Claudia pointed out. “For how long will it fester, Susanna, now that you know your father spoke to you before he died-but you refuse to listen? And when will the hurt be renewed yet again if you ignore it now?”
“I could have Theodore send the letter here,” Susanna said.
“You could, yes,” Claudia agreed. It seemed that she would say more, but she closed her mouth.
“It is late,” Susanna said, glancing at the clock on the mantel, “and I am so weary. You must be too.”
“I am indeed,” Claudia said, getting to her feet. “And now I suspect I have doomed you to a sleepless night, Susanna. But I believe you would have had one anyway after receiving that letter. It is strange, is it not, how one event can be the innocent cause of another quite unrelated to it? We were both elated when Anne arrived back from Wales in August just in time for you to go to Barclay Court with Frances and the earl. If she had been even one day later, none of all this would have happened. But then, perhaps it would have found a way to happen anyway. Perhaps it is impossible to avoid our own fate. I must be tired. I am talking nonsense.”
Susanna left the room after saying good night, and climbed the stairs to her own room. She was in bed a few minutes later, huddled beneath the bedcovers against the chill of the night. But sleep did indeed evade her for a long time.
If only Anne had not come home until a day later. If only the Duchess of Bewcastle and Viscountess Ravensberg had not planned a wedding breakfast for Anne and Mr. Butler here in Bath. If only she had not gone to Bath Abbey for that evening concert and so seen Lady Markham and Edith again. If only she had never known that her father had written her a letter.
And if only Claudia had agreed with her decision to write back to Theodore tomorrow refusing his invitation and even declining his offer to send her father’s letter.
Why did she not want to read that letter? The question woke her up fully again just when she was starting to feel drowsy.
Did she want to turn her back on her father as he had turned his on her? Was it a type of revenge for the suffering he had caused her? Did she want to hurt him even though he was not alive to feel the pain?
Papa,she thought, turning her face into her pillow.
She had not even thought of him by that name for years and years.
And finally, just before she fell asleep at last, she realized that in truth she had no choice. Having Theodore send the letter here might satisfy an empty craving within her, though she doubted even that. But there were other things to know, places to see, people to talk with.
She had to go back.
She had to hear it all, see it all, read it all.
Perhaps it could all be done without her ever having to set eyes upon Viscount Whitleaf. She had seen him only once during her childhood, after all.
And if she did by some chance see him again, well then…But her mind could not cope with that possibility. One thing at a time.
Tonight it was enough to know that she was going to go back. Enough to fill her with dread.
And yet, the decision made, she slept.
21
Susanna arrived at Fincham Manor very late in the afternoon three days before Christmas, having traveled post. She had left Bath early on the morning following the Christmas concert and all the other busy activities that came with the end of term. She was tired even before she started the journey. She was exhausted by the time it ended.
The fact that she had dreaded coming did not help, of course.
She had wondered how it would feel to step into the house again after all these years. When she had left it eleven years ago, her father had just killed himself and she had just heard Lady Markham describe her as a burden. She had been running away.
But though it all looked startlingly familiar, it also seemed like a place she must have visited during another lifetime. She felt no great emotional connection with it.
This time, of course, she was staying in a guest chamber in the main part of the house rather than in the pretty little attic room next to her father’s. She was a guest of the family.
Edith and Mr. Morley had already arrived for Christmas, and a few other guests were expected. The whole family gave Susanna a warm welcome-Theodore even shook her hand warmly after she had curtsied to him, and then held it in both his own while he assured her that she had grown into a rare beauty. He had grown into a great bear of a man himself, with wild, unruly dark hair and a genial face. She had worshipped him as a child and still instinctively liked him.
“You will want to freshen up and change for dinner, Susanna,” he said. “I may still call you Susanna?”
“Only if I may still call you Theodore,” she said.
He laughed heartily.
By the time dinner was at an end and she had drunk a cup of tea in the drawing room with Lady Markham and Edith while the two gentlemen drank their port in the dining room, Susanna was finding it hard to keep her eyes open.
“Susanna is very weary,” Lady Markham said when the gentlemen arrived in the room. “I do think that any business you planned to discuss with her tonight, Theodore, must wait until the morning.”
Her letter. It was in this very house-the words her father had written to her just before he died. She had come specifically to read it. And now that she was here she was almost sick with the longing to see it, to hold it, to read it. But not tonight. She needed to be wide awake and strong.
“I was going to suggest the very same thing, Mama,” Theodore said. “Will that suit you, Susanna? Would you like to retire for the night now?”
“Yes, please,” she said, getting to her feet. “Thank you, Theodore. And thank you for inviting me here.”
“We will talk tomorrow, then,” he said. “And later tomorrow our other guests should be arriving.”
Lady Markham walked with Susanna up to her room.
“I am very happy you came,” she said. “I have always felt that the story of eleven years ago was never properly ended. I have felt it even more since seeing you in Bath. Now perhaps we can all end the story, Susanna, and remain friends after you return to your school. Good night. Do have a good sleep.”
And Susanna did-have a good sleep, that was. She remembered nothing between setting her head on her pillow and waking to the sounds of a maid lighting a fire in the small fireplace in her room. There was a cup of steaming chocolate on the table beside her bed.
What luxury!
But as she dressed a short while later, her teeth chattered, not so much from cold as from sick apprehension of what the morning held in store.
First, though, she had to sit through breakfast and smile and make light conversation and assure Edith-quite truthfully-that she would indeed like to go up to the nursery with her to see Jamie.
“But not yet, Ede,” Theodore said, getting to his feet at the end of what had seemed an interminable meal. “Susanna and I have business first. I’ll fetch your letter, Susanna, and you may read it wherever you wish-in your room or in the drawing room, which is always empty at this time of day. Or in the library if you prefer.”