by Edith Layton
“Come, come,” the Earl said wearily, groping for his walking stick. “In another moment you will have filled the skies with sleet and invented a whirling north wind to give the tale more substance. It was a damnable thing, as it was, but I had no choice, Bev. Even you saw that.”
“Oh, aye,” his friend said quietly, “that’s true enough, but it don’t mean I had to enjoy it.”
“We had to do it, I saw no other course,” the Earl said, standing. His friend saw the stark sorrow in his face, such as he had not seen in years. He made a bleak gesture of denial.
“No, Morgan, you’ve the right of it. Don’t blame yourself further. We had to do it, for it couldn’t go on, you and Tompkins were right. It’s only that I didn’t like it above half.”
“Only pray we were right, Bev, and that there were no wrongs done that we cannot right in time.”
They walked to the stairs together, and Lord Beverly waited as his friend made his laborious way up them.
As they reached the door to the Earl’s rooms, he paused and turned to Lord Beverly. “She did not weep, you say?” he asked distractedly, passing a hand over his eyes. “I do not know that I would not have felt better if she had.”
His friend laid a gentle hand upon the Earl’s shoulder. “M’father used to say, ‘Sometimes you’ve got to do the worst in order to get the best.’ But then,” he mused, laying his head to one side, “I recall he always used to say that before I got a thrashing.”
The Earl stood tall and straight, and clasped his stick hard in his hand. He looked at his friend and essayed a grim smile. “A great deal I have done in my life, I would give much to have undone. Tonight’s work must stand large amongst those doings. But yet, there are some things I must have done right. You are my friend, after all.”
Lord Beverly only shook his head and said softly, “Blast it, Morgan, that makes me feel worse than ever.”
They bade each other good night, and Lord Beverly walked brooding to his room. As his door closed, another door did the same, but more slowly and with stealth.
The watcher sighed and turned back from the door. Then a glass of ruby claret was raised in salute.
“Done!” The watcher spoke softly on a note that could not contain its relief and joy.
“And well done!” another voice whispered with satisfaction.
15
The morning brought Elizabeth bright sunshine, a mild breeze, and hot chocolate in bed, but no wise counsel. In fact, as she dressed, she could no longer see the point to their remaining in this charming inn near Lyonshall without either her family’s or the Earl’s knowledge. Lord knows, she thought, catching a last glance at herself in the mirror before running lightly down the stairs, how I was mad enough to see reason in the plan last night. Bev must have bewitched me with his words. It is certain, she decided as she went to join Anthony in their private parlor, that we must soon be gone.
Anthony was in high good spirits as he finished off the last of his breakfast of beefsteak and ale. The night had brought him even greater enthusiasm for his friend’s proposal. As Elizabeth seated herself, he told her of his eagerness to get started. When he began to go on about how it might not be a bad idea for him to aid Bev by doing a bit of lurking in the woods to see what he could spy out, Elizabeth laid her toast down firmly upon her plate.
“Anthony,” she said severely, “I agreed to the scheme, which seems more cork-brained by the moment, only because Bev said he only wanted us to wait here, upon his summons. I will not have you going off on your own. Only think,” she said, imploring him, “how dreadfully it will look if the Earl finds us still upon his premises after he directly ordered us home. We shall look like pensioners, like poor groveling creatures. There is nothing worse than a beggar upon one’s doorstep, and how else is he to think of us if we are discovered? No,” she said, watching his face fall as her words registered, “it may be tedious, but we shall wait upon Bev. And if, as I suspect, he makes no progress soon, I suggest we part friends, but that we do part from him, and this place. I cannot bear any further insult, Anthony, I cannot!” she concluded, surprising even herself at the force of her words.
Anthony was instantly remorseful. He patted her hand awkwardly and cursed himself for a lout. If nothing more transpired from their visit than had already, Elizabeth thought as she heard him trying to comfort her, it would be enough, this newfound maturity. Doubtless it came from his close association with the various adult males at Lyonshall, and it yet clung to her cousin. For in the past he would have sulked if his project was balked, and blamed her for his incarceration in the Rose and the Bear. Now he sighed and then said stoutly, “You are quite right, Elizabeth. For you were the one to bear the brunt of it all, even though I was the candidate for heir. We shall wait for Bev, then, I promise.”
The afternoon came and then wore on without word from their friend. Elizabeth occupied herself with an attempt at reading, and Anthony with popping back and forth from his chair to the window in expectation of seeing his friend arrive with news. Every farmer, every townsperson, every servant that arrived at the door to the inn was watched closely by Anthony from behind a curtain. It was a sweet August day, and Elizabeth would have dearly loved to throw off her affect of calm, resigned patience and go walking forth along the country lanes. But if she were to go, so would Anthony. And if she were to show restlessness, she would only agitate him further.
It was only after Anthony had delivered himself of an even dozen “Where the devil can he be’s” that the anticipated arrival came. Lord Beverly, looking most dashing, Anthony cried out, upon a slapping gray, rode up to the courtyard. A few moments later, he was in the parlor with them, his face all smiles and gladness.
“Things are all in train,” he shouted, clapping Anthony upon the back. “Even better than we had hoped. Young Anthony,” he chortled, beaming like the late-afternoon sun above them, “get yourself dressed to a shade. For we are going to have a talk with Morgan.”
Elizabeth and Anthony stayed frozen in their places. Of all the expectations they had harbored, this one was not amongst them.
“I shall not go to beg my case,” Anthony said straightly.
“No need, no need,” Lord Beverly replied joyously. “It has all come out. We only need, that is to say, I only need you to be there at the moment of truth. Then it will not be you who asks the pardon, I assure you.”
Elizabeth stood slowly and said with wonder, “We never expected such a turnabout. How did you achieve this, Bev?”
“No time for that now,” Lord Beverly said quickly. “Only needs must go. There’ll be time later to talk it all out, I promise you.”
“Very well,” Elizabeth said, running her hands over her hair to make sure it was still neat, though how she could have disordered it by merely sitting and waiting all afternoon, she did not know. “Anthony looks well as he is, and I think I need only my shawl and we can go.”
Lord Beverly paused, and his face reddened slightly. He spoke, but did not lift his eyes to Elizabeth. “Ah, no, my dear,” he said awkwardly. “Morgan wants to see Anthony, not you.”
Elizabeth felt the color drain from her face. Of all the indignity she had yet been exposed to, she thought, this surely was the worst.
“I shan’t go without Elizabeth,” Anthony said immediately.
“Look here,” Lord Beverly said. “It isn’t the end of the world. Morgan wants you at Lyonshall, Anthony, right now, and he don’t want Elizabeth there. I’ll wager he has a good and tight reason, too. No need for you to poker up. All will be made clear in time,” he said, his voice fading at the obstinacy he saw on Anthony’s face.
“Anthony,” Elizabeth said softly, coming up to him and laying a hand upon his sleeve, “Bev is right. I’m not needed. Perhaps it is to protect me from insult that Morgan does not wish to see me. I fear he is sadly disappointed in me. No,” she went on, staying his rebuttal, “I know you feel I have been wronged, but at least I can receive no further wrong here. If there is
to be an heir to Lyonshall, and if you are he, my presence will make little difference. There was a time,” she said carefully, “when I thought Morgan liked me very well, and, I confess, I was glad of it. But that in itself may be why he does not wish to see me, so as not to give me any false expectations. Although, to be truthful, I never did think of anything to our friendship beyond friendship. Oh, dear, I fear I am beginning to sound like Bev now, in one of his flights. Go, Anthony. Even if you are not named heir, clear up the matter. Little though you may like it, the Earl is a powerful man. You are kin, and Uncle could do with all the help he can get. Do not cast away this chance out of gallantry, especially when I assure you there is no need for it.”
Anthony listened and then nodded to Lord Beverly. “Then I shall come, but I do not like it.”
“No more do I,” Lord Beverly muttered, his usually pale face ruddy with suppressed emotion. “Listen, Elizabeth, he only said he did not want you today. It may all change tomorrow. Wait here, then, till we return or send a summons. All will be right, I promise.”
Then he led her cousin outside. He tossed the innkeeper a few coins, and a mount was led out for Anthony. Elizabeth watched through the window as they both rode away.
When they had gone, and even the echo of their horses’ hoofbeats had faded, Elizabeth at last sank down into her chair again. She had the maddest impulse to simply pack and leave for home, and send them all to the devil. But after a few moments she began to think more clearly. The Earl detested her; that was one fact. Anthony might yet again be in his good graces; that was another. But whatever transpired, she now swore, she would never, never enter Lyonshall again. It was a matter of pride and of honor. She would remain here at the inn, and whatever the outcome, the only destination that would lead her from this pleasant parlor would be the road homeward.
She was very glad of her decision, and did not know why such clear thinking should make her feel so very much like weeping. Then she stood up with determination. She badly needed a good long walk to clear her head, she decided, and so went to the door, flung it open with unnecessary force, and from there marched to the door of the inn.
“And where are you off to, Miss Smythe?” Rose cried, bustling in from the taproom.
“I am in need of a stroll, some exercise to blow the cobwebs from my mind,” Elizabeth explained as she placed her hand upon the door.
“Oh, no, never that,” Rose said with determination, placing her hands upon her hips. “I do not wish to disagree with a guest, and a lady, but I have my express orders from your brother and from that lovely young lord. Last night they told me that you must not leave, nor must anyone discover your presence here. And as I took good coin of the realm from them upon that head, I cannot allow you to go out.”
Elizabeth tried over and again to explain the change in circumstance to the obdurate landlady, but she was adamant. She steered Elizabeth back to her parlor, and listened to all her explanations, and sighing, said, “This all may be well and true. But I cannot budge. I have given my word, you see. Please, Miss Smythe, I’ve a business to tend to, but if you insist, I shall have to sit with you like a nanny. For I gave my pledge. But if you give me yours that you will not stir from here, I can go back to my custom and help poor dear Ferdie with earning our livelihood.”
Defeated and embarrassed, Elizabeth reluctantly agreed. When her gentle and misguided jailer had left, Elizabeth sat again and prepared to wait for what she was sure would be creeping, interminable hours. So it was that she was startled when Rose came back only few moments later, bearing a note in her hands.
“You are called ‘Elizabeth,’ Miss Smythe?” Rose asked slowly, scrutinizing the note she held.
“Oh, yes,” Elizabeth cried gladly.
“A boy brought this for you, then, for we haven’t another Elizabeth hereabouts.”
Elizabeth took the note eagerly and quickly read the few lines scrawled upon it in a heavy, dark, masculine hand.
“Elizabeth,” it read, “Please come to Lyonshall at once, alone. But come round the back way. I shall meet you in the Shakespearean garden and explain all.”
It bore no signature, but it needed none. Such an imperious summons to the lost Simon’s refuge could have come from only one person. The urgency of the message drove all of Elizabeth’s vows never again to set foot at Lyonshall from her mind. He needed her, that was clear. And, she thought as she absently handed the note to Rose, he had said “please.”
“I must go, you see,” she explained rapidly. “There is proof enough.”
“I dunno,” Rose said thoughtfully. “It isn’t signed, you see.”
“Perhaps there wasn’t time. Oh, I must go at once,” Elizabeth cried as she went toward the door.
“Aye,” Rose said slowly, “but still you cannot walk there. Not in your thin slippers. It would take until dark. And I don’t fancy sending you off alone. I’ll have Ferdie get out the gig, and we’ll have you driven there. I do suspect,” she said, seeing her guest’s great hurry to go, “that you don’t even know the back way to Lyonshall. It’s for servants and deliveries, and not for the Quality.”
It seemed an eternity till the gig was brought round, and Elizabeth could only thank her benefactor briefly, she was in such a flurry of impatience. As they drove off she said not a word to the stableboy who held the reins, she was so occupied with mentally urging the horse along to a faster pace.
Rose had been right, she did not recognize the narrow road that led round the back of Lyonshall. There was little traffic here; only one farm cart was seen trundling by, and one large closed coach by the roadside, which must have lost its way, for the horses were feeding idly and the occupants could not be seen. It was a quiet country lane else, protected from the setting sun by the interlaced boughs of the towering trees that stood on each side of it.
The boy slowed the gig. “We’re almost there, miss,” he said respectfully.
All Elizabeth could see was a wood filled by enormous trees, and a narrow path that led between them. As the boy began to turn the horse to enter the path, Elizabeth said quickly, “No. Stop here, I will walk the rest of the way.”
Clearly torn between what he perceived to be the duty owed to a young woman of Quality, and that same female’s orders, the boy halted the gig. As a sop to his conscience, however, after he helped Elizabeth down and turned his horse to go, he pointed toward the path with one mud-streaked finger. “If you foller that there,” he volunteered, “a long ways, never stepping off, although it curves like a snake, you’ll be at the end of the wood. Then there’s the grassy part, and then the house itself. Do be careful, miss,” he called back over his shoulder, “for you can turn an ankle quick as a snap on them stones, if you ain’t careful.”
Then, feeling that his advice was as good an amulet as any against Rose’s possible wrath, he tipped his battered straw hat and departed.
The path was difficult to travel in her thin slippers, Elizabeth realized, but nevertheless she stepped lightly and quickly in her impatience to arrive at her destination. There were times during that long walk up the back drive when her eyes would dart to the cool woods at the side of her path, and she would long to make her way through the soft bracken rather than the stony path. But she remembered the stableboy’s warning, and kept to the path no matter how her feet stung. Due to the twisting nature of the path, when she turned to see how far she had traveled, she could no longer see where she had entered the grounds, and when she looked ahead, she could not see the outline of Lyonshall. But she went on as rapidly as she could, for she could see the sun growing redder as it began to sink beyond the tops of the ancient trees.
A sudden turn in the path gave her the view of Lyonshall at last. She could see where the trees ended abruptly and the long sloping lawns commenced. Narrowing her eyes against the setting sun, she could pick out in the distance the great willow that stood at the foot of Simon’s garden. Then she realized that it did not lie directly in back of the house, as she had thought, bu
t rather off to the right side of it.
As her present path would lead her only directly to the back entrance of Lyonshall, she noted with relief that she could at last take a transverse route over the softer ground of the wood and in that manner achieve her goal even more quickly.
Elizabeth entered the blessed shade of the wood and stepped over the cool mossy earth with alacrity. She was fretting about her ruined slippers to prevent herself from worrying about her approaching interview with the Earl, when she noted a tall figure, backlighted by the brilliant sunset, coming toward her rapidly. For one moment she thought that it was he, but a breath later she remembered that he was incapable of such a fluid stride. And though the sunlight created a blazing halo about the figure’s head, she realized that no light could transform deep auburn hair to such a glittering light yellow shade.
She stood still then, watching the figure approach. The moment’s pause helped her to get both her fluttering breath and heart back to their normal states. As she waited, she realized that this cool copse was the last clearing in the wood. Only a few steps farther and the forest ended, and then only a fair easy walk up the manicured lawn would bring her to the garden.
When the figure was still too far for her to see the face properly, but close enough to speak to, she called out, “Bev! What has happened? Why was such a hasty summons sent? For I came running, as you see, as fast as I could.”
“And I am sorry that you did, for it is a wretched business for me, Elizabeth,” Lord Kingston said as his long strides brought him to her.
For that moment, Elizabeth’s speech failed her, and she could only gaze up at Lord Kingston. Then she blurted, “It was you? You sent me the note?”
“No,” he explained carefully in such a strange tone that she stepped back a pace, “I did not. Morgan did, to be sure. But as you may have noted, he often fails in his resolve. And when he decided that he could not, after all, face you again, he deputized me to his purpose. Blast!” Lord Kingston said savagely. “It is not an easy thing to be Morgan’s house guest. First he has Bev send you away, then he calls upon me to depress you further. If the bonds of friendship between us were not so strong, I would have denied him. But as it is…” He shrugged.