May Mistakes

by Merry Farmer

  Basil gritted his teeth and turned to the fresh-faced, Lady Elizabeth. She couldn’t have been more than sixteen, not even out yet. It was no more appropriate for a man of his age to escort her in than it was for Thornhill to escort Elaine, but to refuse would humiliate Lady Elizabeth, Lord Thornhill, and himself.

  Wordlessly, he offered his arm to Lady Elizabeth, who took it with a flash of cunning in her eyes, then walked by his side as though she were the queen. Again, Basil searched over his shoulder for Elaine as the guests made their way into the elaborately-set dining room. It wasn’t until Thornhill had gestured for Basil to come to the head of the table, after leaving Lady Elizabeth at the foot of the table, in the seat traditionally reserved for the countess, that he spotted Elaine. She walked in at the very end of the line, unescorted, wearing an expression of devastating confusion. She paused just inside of the room, staring at the table as though she didn’t know where to go.

  “Excuse me.” Basil nodded to his host and began to make his way back down the table toward her.

  “Lord Waltham, where are you going?” Lady Ramsey asked in a voice far louder than was necessary.

  “Miss Bond needs me,” he said, alarmed by how gruff and impatient he sounded.

  Elaine glanced up to meet his eyes. Or rather, she glanced up to plead with him, for help, for answers, and to make it all go away.

  “Nonsense,” Lady Ramsey laughed, grasping at his sleeve as he attempted to march past her. “Your place is at the head of the table, with Thornhill and my dear husband. Miss Bond knows where she belongs.” The last was delivered with such a cut that it was all Basil could do not to yank his sleeve away from the woman.

  A disturbing sense of familiarity roiled through Basil, freezing him to his spot. He’d committed a social faux pas, and everyone was staring at him. The woman he loved was on the spot as well, inches away from being humiliated and shunned. It was almost as if he could smell the grass of Hyde Park again, almost as if Elizabeth Grey was standing there, demanding what in blazes he was doing and telling him to pull himself together and act like a man. Every bitter emotion, every agonizing sense that he was living the wrong life, making the wrong choices, and scrambling just to breathe and be who he was threatened to overcome him.

  “Basil.” He blinked as Malcolm spoke his name in a warning tone. When his eyes focused, Malcolm was staring at him with a mix of concern and curiosity, his brow furrowed. “I’ll look after Miss Bond.”

  Basil swallowed the painful lump in his throat and nodded. He glanced to Elaine, who was being escorted to her seat by Agatha Crimpley, near the inauspicious middle of the table. Agatha whispered something in her ear, and Elaine nodded. Even from the other side of the room, Basil could see how close Elaine was to tears.

  He wasn’t sure how he made it back to his seat. Thornhill and Ramsey had already started a conversation of some sort. It wasn’t until after the soup was served that the buzz in Basil’s brain quieted enough for him to hear what was being said.

  “…quite an election,” Ramsey laughed.

  “They say those damned supporters of Gladstone are making headway in the polls,” Thornhill said, “but I don’t believe it.”

  “They are making quite a show,” Crimpley put in from Ramsey’s side across the table, “but I don’t think their noise will be heard when it comes to votes.”

  “Certainly not,” Ramsey agreed. “The British Empire was built on the strength of order and the might of the ruling class. This silliness about giving working men the vote is all bluster, don’t you agree, Lord Waltham?”

  “No, I do not,” Basil said.

  Ramsey’s brow flew up, but it was Thornhill who spoke. “Disraeli has things well in hand. Elections are always a firestorm, but mark my words, once the votes are cast and the smoke clears, it will be business as usual.”

  “Men will know their place in the design and women will be nestled safely back in the home,” Crimpley agreed with a nod.

  Basil glanced down the table to Elaine. She felt miles away from him, seated next to Miss Crimpley and another female guest Basil didn’t recognize. Malcolm had managed to seat himself on that woman’s other side, but he’d become involved in a debate with one of the other gentlemen across the table. The footmen were already moving about to clear the soup and serve the next course. Elaine looked as though she hadn’t taken so much as a spoonful of her soup. She sat in silence while the young ladies at her end of the table chattered.

  She was past thirty, dammit, not a child, like Lady Elizabeth, or a woman in her first season, like Miss Crimpley. She stood out in bold contrast to those women, dressed in her medieval finery, her hair resting in a long plait down her back. She made the rest of them look like colorless automatons, conforming to fashion, conforming to opinion, conforming to the cages they’d been locked inside. The cage he felt closing around him with every second that ticked past.

  “Don’t you agree, Lord Waltham?” Thornhill asked, dragging Basil out of his thoughts.

  “What?” Basil snapped, no desire to be polite.

  Thornhill cleared his throat. He glanced down the table to Elaine and frowned before turning back to him. “I said that it’s more important than ever for the right sort of people to take our rightful places in the House of Lords. Don’t you agree?”

  The last sliver of Basil’s patience broke off and slipped, like a rock into a boiling pit of lava, into his gut. “Yes,” he said, loud enough to stop every conversation at the table. “Yes, I do think it’s important for the right kind of people to be present in Parliament right now. People who will stand up for the rights of the working class, which you seem so casual about stepping on. People who will champion the cause of women’s rights to ensure that they are treated as more than mere possessions of men. People who will ensure that the indigenous people of the lands we have colonized will be respected and given their due. Those are the sort of people we need in Parliament right now, and I will be proud to count myself among them.”

  His speech was met by the clatter of a fork being dropped against a plate. The sound was enough to pull his glance away from Thornhill, but before he could look to Elaine, he caught Malcolm’s eye. His friend beamed at him in pride, looking ready to pounce on the table full of arrogant, stuffed pricks.

  Basil almost grinned right back at him, until Malcolm said, “That is why Lord Waltham and I will be departing for London first thing tomorrow morning. The election is on, after all, and we’ve not a moment to lose.”

  “Well,” Thornhill said, blinking rapidly. “Tomorrow, then?”

  Basil had only just turned to face the man when a loud scrape came from the other end of the table. He whipped his head back just in time to see Elaine leap out of her chair and bolt for the door.

  He didn’t hesitate for a moment. He shoved his chair back and rushed after her. The dining room was a blur as he dodged his way back to the door. There was another flash of movement as someone else got up, but he didn’t care who it was.

  “Elaine,” He caught up with her in the hall, just as the butler opened the door to let her out. “Elaine, wait!”

  She didn’t stop her flight until they were both outside, the gravel of the drive crunching under their feet. Then she spun around, glaring at him with tear-filled eyes. “You didn’t tell me you were leaving.”

  “I—” He skidded to a halt in front of her, panting as though he’d been running for hours. Every fiber of his being wanted to deny that he would ever leave her, but the truth that Malcolm had brought with him was too loud to ignore. “I have to go,” he said, nearly choking on his words.

  “Then go,” she barked, turning with a wet sniffle and starting to march down the drive.

  “Elaine.” He caught her in two steps, tugging her to a stop, then turning her to face him, his hands clamped around her arms. “This election. It’s important. More important than any election for decades.”

  “So I’ve heard,” she answered with sarcasm and another sniff, refus
ing to look at him.

  He heard the crunch of another set of footsteps on the drive, spotted Malcolm approaching them out of the corner of his eye, but his focus remained on Elaine. “I love you,” he said, tempted to shake her so that she saw the truth of it. “But I am a peer of the realm. I have a responsibility to this nation, a responsibility I was born to. I ran from that responsibility for my own, selfish reasons, but listening to those bastards, sitting around that table, gloating about how much better than everyone else they think they are….” He took a breath to clear the venom from his voice. “I have a responsibility to the people of this country who cannot speak for themselves as of yet. There are men in Parliament, wicked, self-serving men, that my friends have been fighting for years. I would die if these men and their like were to win this fight and have sway over you. I have to go.”

  “Then go,” she said, a shocking lack of energy in her voice. She pried herself out of his grip and took a step back, still not looking at him. “Go be where you belong. But I don’t belong there.” At last, she looked up at him, but the effect was the exact opposite of what he’d hoped for. Instead of being encouraged, his eyes stung and his throat closed up. “I don’t belong anywhere. You saw how they treated me.” She nodded to the house, then wiped her nose and eyes with her long, fanciful sleeve. “You’ve seen the way everyone has treated me for two years. I could have spent my whole life loving Mr. Wall, the bookseller, but I don’t belong with Lord Waltham.”

  “Yes, you—”

  “No, I don’t,” she cut him off. Their eyes met, and the sadness he saw in her eclipsed every other emotion he’d ever felt. “Can you honestly say that I belong in your world?”

  He opened his mouth, but no sound came out. Memories of London balls, of Parliamentary debates, of society’s darlings strolling through Hyde Park in the latest fashions, there to see and be seen, accosted him. The life he’d lived and the people he’d known felt more real to him than they had in years. Everything in front of him felt like a dream, a beautiful, wonderful dream. He wanted to grab onto it with both hands, clasp Elaine in his arms and never let her go. But the dream was fading. He was waking up.

  “Miss Bond, would you like me to have the carriage take you home?” Malcolm asked.

  Elaine stood straighter, putting on the brave face she’d worn when Sudbury evicted her from her home, but with infinitely more sadness. “No thank you, my lord,” she said, meeting and holding Basil’s eyes. “I can get home on my own.”

  She stood there, proud but broken, for a few more seconds, shaming him with her strength. He could have handled it if her lip hadn’t quivered at the last possible moment. Her expression threatened to break, but before it could, she turned and marched off, head still held high.

  Chapter 10

  Basil wouldn’t have been able to sleep a wink if he hadn’t already dragged himself through three nearly sleepless nights. He’d refused to go back into Huntingdon Hall after Elaine left, which caused a confrontation with Thornhill. The argument had solved nothing and left everyone involved seething and offended. It had wasted valuable time that he could have used going after Elaine. As it was, he’d been surprised not to come across her when Malcolm finally wrestled him away from his argument with Thornhill and bundled him into the carriage. The only thing that stopped him from searching every corner of the woods between Huntingdon Hall and Brynthwaite to make sure Elaine was safe was the sight of Isaac Newsome waiting at the door to the bookshop when he made it home.

  “She’s at our house,” Isaac calmed Basil’s worst fears immediately. “She says she left a few things in your flat that she wanted me to fetch for her.”

  “Why hasn’t she come herself?” Basil asked.

  One sympathetic look from Isaac was all the answer he needed. She didn’t want to see him. He’d hurt her too horribly. It was over.

  He’d led Isaac up to the flat without another word. Malcolm attempted to soothe him, urging him to think of the good that would come out of the sacrifice he was making. Basil refused to speak to him either. It was clear to him that Malcolm hadn’t the slightest sense of what Elaine meant to him, or what his careless mention that they were leaving on the morrow had done.

  Before long, even Malcolm gave up trying to talk to him and left, presumably for the pub. Basil packed the single case he’d arrived in Brynthwaite with two years ago. He wished he had a photograph of Elaine, an old-fashioned miniature, anything that he could take with him. All he could find was an embroidered sash from one of her artistic gowns. It had fallen behind the bureau, but he retrieved it, folded it carefully, and lay it on top of the few belongings he wanted to take with him.

  That night, he slept, but not easily. His body was exhausted, but his mind tormented him with dreams. He was on the battlefield of Sebastopol once more. Cannon fire rent the air. Guns exploded around him. He lay, helpless, in the mud, his side torn open by shrapnel. The scene played out almost exactly as it had twenty-six years before, only instead of the nameless nurse from Florence Nightingale’s army that had tended him then, it was Elaine who came to his rescue. He tried to reach for her, tried to call out to her and apologize for his wounds, but Malcolm and Peter found him. They threw him onto a stretcher, tangled in bandages, and carried him away from Elaine. No matter how desperately he thrashed or how determinedly she pushed her way through falling soldiers, mud, and bombs to reach him, Malcolm and Peter carried him farther and farther from her.

  He woke in a tangle of bedsheets, sweating and panting as Malcolm shook him awake.

  “Good God, man. What were you dreaming about?” Malcolm asked.

  Basil mumbled something that passed for an answer and pushed Malcolm away.

  “I hope you’re packed, because the train leaves in an hour,” Malcolm said.

  Basil swallowed hard. The same words had been spoken at nearly the same time two days before. Chances were, they would depart on the same train that had taken Elaine to Windermere.

  “The clock is slow,” he said, his voice a gloomy drone.

  “Then you’d better move faster than that.”

  Malcolm grabbed him under the arm and yanked him out of bed. He marched Basil across the room to the water-closet. Only then did sleep desert Basil enough for him to shake his friend off and to wash and dress on his own power.

  He still felt as though he were in the middle of a nightmare as he put himself in order, fetched his case, and started downstairs.

  “Mr. Wall—uh, Lord Waltham, sir—my lord,” Andrew stopped him with a fumbled greeting at the door. Basil turned his bleary eyes to the man he’d considered his friend and equal, who now looked at him with a mixture of awe and caution. “What should I do about the shop?” Andrew finished.

  He only hesitated for a moment before saying, “I’m giving it to Miss Bond. You report to her now.”

  Andrew studied him with a puzzled frown. “Yes, sir, my lord.”

  “Come on.” Malcolm pushed him toward the door. “I can already hear the train whistle.”

  Whether he could or whether that was a ploy to keep him moving, Basil didn’t care. He nodded to Andrew, then shuffled out the door. The April morning was grey, cold, and cloudy, which seemed fitting. Brynthwaite’s normal morning traffic stopped and people dropped what they were doing to watch him plod down the sloping hill from the center of town to the train station. It was all Basil could do to drag his feet up the stairs to the platform. His heart didn’t want to come with him. It felt heavier and heavier in his chest the farther away from Elaine he got.

  “Since you’re determined to pout like a child and be good for nothing, I’ll purchase the tickets,” Malcolm told him. He shook his head with a typically Malcolm scowl before marching off to the stationhouse.

  Basil walked to the end of the platform, looking out over the cozy, bustling town of Brynthwaite. He’d been happier there, in the last two years of his life, than he’d ever been. The friends he’d made were among some of the best he’d ever had. If he’d had
time, he would have had one more pint with Ted Folley, would have taken some sort of gift of gratitude to Isaac Newsome. He would have rewarded Andrew with more than a curt goodbye. And Elaine….

  He let out a maudlin sigh, not caring that he sounded like a lovesick poet. He would have done anything to be able to take her with him, to never let her go. If she showed up at the station, bag in hand, demanding with all her characteristic, Elaine insistence, that she accompany him to London, he would take her without thinking twice.

  In fact, the longer he stood there, the more convinced he was that she would come to him. She would march through the center of Brynthwaite in one of her flowing, Pre-Raphaelite gowns, hair loose and adorned with flowers, at any moment. Every new flash of movement, every glimpse of color from the center of town set his heart beating faster. She would come. If he knew anything at all about Elaine, it was that she wouldn’t give up so easily. She wouldn’t let him leave without a fight. And, God help him, he needed her to light the spark if he was going to find the strength to fight Malcolm, his friends, and the causes of the nation himself.

  “Right, that’s it,” Malcolm said, coming up behind him. “I’ve got the tickets and the conductor is calling passengers to board.”

  “In a minute,” Basil said, brushing Malcolm off.

  The conductor blew his whistle, sounding the last call for passengers.

  “Basil,” Malcolm said, annoyed. “Come on.”

  “She’ll come,” he said. “Just give her a few more minutes. She’ll come.”

  “Don’t be daft, man,” Malcolm snapped. “If she was coming, she’d already be here. The train is leaving.”

  Sure enough, the engine puffed, and the whistle shrieked. Malcolm grabbed Basil’s arm and yanked him toward the train, where the first-class conductor was staring at him with badly-concealed impatience.