Devotion

by Meg Kerr

  “How pretty and quiet it is here,” said Georgiana as they surveyed the garden. “Then – there must have been a great deal of noise.”

  “And smoke. And the smell of gunpowder.” But he said nothing of the screams of men and horses, and the sharp smell of blood being poured out onto the ground.

  “It is so difficult to imagine fighting in this peaceful place.”

  “You should not attempt it, for you were not formed for war.” Indeed how delightful, with other objectives, had the Creator made her!

  “Neither was Wickham,” said Georgiana sorrowfully. “He was meant to be ordained.”

  Amaury did not wish to talk about Wickham but his curiosity was aroused. “If he was intended for the Church, how then did he come to the Army?”

  “It was through my doing.”

  He could not conceal his surprise at this statement. “What prerogative does Miss Darcy possess to turn a clergyman into a soldier?”

  After a short and doleful silence she replied, “We were going to marry. But we knew my brother would not give his consent; we knew he would accuse Wickham of wanting to marry me only for my fortune, and so we made plans to elope.” At the words “my fortune” all of Amaury’s senses were instantly active in the highest degree, although he allowed no sign of interest to tarnish his facade. He had not therefore mistrusted Mrs. Younge without cause! “The day before we were to go away together, my brother came to visit me. And I told him. Between two who love, there should be the most perfect mutual trust. Yet I had not the honour or the courage to be loyal to my dear Wickham.”

  Amaury could not resist murmuring, “‘Teach not thy lips such scorn, for they were made for kissing, lady, not for such contempt’”, and in ten seconds’ inspired thought he had seen his path laid out clearly. Good fortune beckoned; the opportunity could not be fairer. Georgiana was luckily lost in a reverie of her mistakes and did not quite hear him, but even so she thought she had discerned the word “kiss” and she stopt and looked at him puzzled and a little anxious. She was reassured however by his innocent smile.

  They walked on again and Amaury said, “I cannot conceive of you acting dishonourably. Will you tell me, how the failure of your plan to marry led to his turning soldier?”

  “The living he was to have had was in my brother’s gift. He would not give it to him after that. Wickham had to find some way of supporting himself, and so he joined first the militia, and then the regular Army.”

  Amaury said gently, “He was a good soldier, and a brave one, and his life was not thrown away. When the fate of England and Europe was in the balance, he carried out his duty.”

  “But he is dead and I am still alive!” said Georgiana in a surge of emotion.

  Amaury after an interval of silent contemplation of her profile answered, “He loved you, and died that you might live, in safety and peace.”

  This philosophy was welcome to Georgiana and turning it over in her mind she grew calmer. When she seemed to be restored to a measure of composure Amaury deemed it safe to continue with his suit and asked, “What do you believe he would he want for you now?”

  Georgiana wavered, and Amaury could clearly see that she was subject to a mixture of sensations. He had an intuition that this was a critical juncture. “I do not know what he would want for me,” she said at last. For perhaps the first time since she had received Wickham’s letter she came close to acknowledging to herself, that the silence of five years’ separation prior to his death had taken away from her any claim to understand his sentiments.

  “If you do not know, I do,” he said earnestly. “He would have wished your happiness.”

  “But how can I be happy?” she cried in reinvigorated agitation.

  Amaury was very much affected by Georgiana’s sensibility, and not only because it made her cheek luminous. The tenderness he already felt intensified. “He would not have wanted you to mourn him forever. After a proper time he would have wanted you to have all the good things of life.”

  Georgiana looked at him in wonder. “But how can you know what he would want?”

  With swelling heart Amaury replied, “Because it is what I would want if I died – and left you.” His eyes did not scorn a tear, indeed he found that they needed but little assistance to grow damp and dim. He turned hastily away from Georgiana’s widened eyes, seeming not to know what to say or do, and it was a long moment before he once more offered her his arm and they began again to walk.

  She suddenly found herself thinking of him with a warmth that surprised her. Where the surprise lay I confess that I do not know, for he was a captivating young man with every superficial charm needed to besiege a woman’s heart. At last Georgiana said in a very low voice, “What would he – you – have me do?”

  “You will allow me to advise you?” said Amaury in the same grave tone. With commendable discipline he did not shout or leap or give any other outward sign that he had just achieved his purpose.

  “Yes.”

  “Then this is what I would say to you. You have already made a beginning. You have come to this place to grieve for him, but you experience more than grief. You also feel the caressing rays of the sun, and the hallowed peace of this garden.”

  Georgiana said, a little uncertainly, “Yes, it is true.”

  “Each passing day you will feel more of enjoyment and less of pain. In time grief will diminish and your recollections of George Wickham will arouse you to give your own love without reservation, and to receive others’ love without reluctance.”

  She marveled at this wisdom, as one usually does when wisdom is of so palatable a quality, and felt that she might be able to trust and confide in Amaury. She asked shyly, “What would you counsel me to do next?”

  Amaury had a ready answer, he paused only to appear to think before saying, “While you are in Brussels, come to know the place where he spent the final lighthearted weeks of his life. And when you return to England, cast off here your sadness and take with you only your loving memories.”

  Impulsively, Georgiana extended her hand to him in gratitude. He took it unself-consciously. Nor did he immediately release it; he kept her hand within his. It seemed an occasion of special importance, to both. Georgiana would not allow herself to show the pleasure she felt (naive girl, to imagine that she could conceal from him a reaction so elemental!), but nevertheless when he looked deeply at her there was no turning away in bashfulness, or awkward feeling of any kind.

  Was ever maid in this humour woo’d? Was ever maid in this humour won?

  Georgiana and Amaury reappeared at the barouche with radiant faces. When Georgiana was seated, Mrs. Younge stared eloquently at her and said, “You need not tell me you had an enjoyable walk.”

  So deep a blush scurried over Georgiana’s complexion, as might confirm the most heedless observer’s suspicions, and Mrs. Younge said, “Well, I will not tease you. But do not profess to me again that you are indifferent.”

  They drove back to Brussels and arrived at their hotel; the step was let down and the ladies descended. Amaury enquired when he might be admitted on the morrow, wishing to reassure himself that neither of them had taken cold. Mrs. Younge ventured to invite him to join them for their walk after breakfast and he looked all delight; and so did Georgiana, even yet feeling her hand pressed in his.

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  CHAPTER

  12

  Hertfordshire and London, February 1816

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  There are old women, of all ages and both sexes, who hold that hunting is the worst of all pursuits, loud, rough and even immoral. They maintain that it cannot be separated from strong drink and gambling and, when l
adies ride to hounds, something even more reprehensible, that is to say, flirting.

  Anyone who has spent a day in the field knows that men cannot gamble while hunting, and there are few places where a man may not drink and find himself more comfortable. As to flirting, although I cannot absolutely deny its existence, a hunting lady who wishes to be admired will do much better never to ask a gentleman to take care of the gate.

  The Earl of B*** was not old-womanish and rated hunting the most harmless of pastimes. He enjoyed it as often as he could. He kept a pack of hounds and rode over his own lands and those of his neighbours, and had not the smallest objection in the world to mounting not only the Earl of Tyrconnell (the former Colonel Fitzwilliam who, although a second son, through a series of tragic events had ascended to the earldom) but also his Countess (née Miss Catherine Bennet, who may hereafter be called, with egregious disrespect for her rank, not even by her Christian name but by her pet name, Kitty) while they visited at his country house in Hertfordshire.

  He greatly admired Lady Tyrconnell’s acumen and fearlessness as a horse-woman and declared he had never seen a lady sit a horse better or have such hands on a horse’s mouth. He thought her quite equal to the management of one of his hunters in a fox-chase, and had a handsome bay mare named Willow brought out, which he promised Lord and Lady Tyrconnell would carry her over water or fence without balking. Kitty examined the horse in a knowing and possibly unladylike manner, scrutinizing the width of her chest and the curve of her haunches, running her hand up and down the legs, and having the groom trot her about. The mare moved with spirit and freedom. “She is a splendid animal!” Kitty exclaimed. Although no gentleman likes a lady to have as good an eye as he to look at a horse, Lord B*** promptly forgave Lady Tyrconnell, for in addition to all her virtues as a horse-woman she was very pretty, and told her that he looked forward with great pleasure to seeing her ride the horse across a country the following day.

  The next morning was very fine; glorious weather for hunting. There was a thin crust of frost, which the gentlemen walked about kicking at with their boots, until everyone had thoroughly assured himself that the ground was rideable. The gentlemen then mounted, Kitty was lifted on to her horse, Trollope the huntsman rode up, and as the hounds trotted off to cover the riders followed. They drew a nearby covert without success and then moved on to a farther one where after a delay, which the wise hunters passed quietly near the centre and the impatient ones in rushing back and forth along the edges, they suddenly heard that the hounds were on a fox. It broke, the hounds were away, and the run began.

  “I will give you a lead,” said Lord Tyrconnell to his wife as they began to canter in the scramble to move off. “See me over the fences before you take them, and if you hold back I will wait for you.” Kitty graciously responded to these remarks with a slight turn of her head. She knew she was mounted on a faster horse than her husband’s and did not mean to hold back, and so exquisite was her tact that she never even meditated telling him that she could make a line as well as he.

  The uninitiated imagine that in a fox chase, the riders chase the fox. This is very far from reality. The riders who have got well away do not even follow the pack of hounds; they follow the pack leaders, for most of the hounds are not hunting at all, they are simply running behind the leaders. The riders who have not got well away follow neither the fox nor the hounds but one another. A rider who has not quite got his mount in hand finds himself following not the other riders in general but that one particular horse on which his own steed has fixed devoted eyes. Thus fox hunting may be taken as a comment upon the practices of society at large.

  The fox led them first through open country. Ignoring Lord Tyrconnell’s looks and increasingly imperious waves to fall in behind him Kitty chose her own line. At the beginning there was a variety of low hedges that her mare took as though it were beneath her to notice them, Kitty looking as she cleared each one for the best place to take the next. After a quarter mile of gradual ascent through an enclosure she gained the summit, which commanded a view of a brook at the foot of the hill. She made her way down along a rough sort of channel and arrived at a muddy ford. Splashing through the water she turned up the bank on the far side where a steepish grass field lay before her, with a gate at the top of the hill. She could see a rush of horses at it, so she turned her mare and rode across the field, boldly taking a broken wall. She was over and into the next field while most of the other riders were still milling about the gate. She could now see the tail hounds some distance away, and she chose her points to follow them. There was a blind hedge to go over, and a man struggling through its foliage. His horse, not knowing what was on the other side, had prudently refused it, but less prudently had delayed its decision too long and landed right in the hedge. Spying a rail not very far distant she judged it safer although a little higher and made for it. Her mare took it well.

  She had come to the brow of the hill and now it was downhill again on a narrow path crossing the fields, ridden at all possible speed. She reached the bottom in safety to find another, wider stream, this one with a bridge over the water. A track led to the bridge and the riders were rushing to reach it first. But Kitty had a good eye and saw that about fifty feet from the bridge there appeared to be firm ground to jump from and land on. Two men with the same thought crossed it before her but she was not far behind them. She gave the mare her head and Willow took the jump with a good heart.

  Now they came into close country and the pace slowed, for the scent had weakened. Kitty gave place as she drew up on the pack, which had come to a check, thereby sparing herself the huntsman’s glares which he was distributing impartially among the crowding riders, and rested her horse to keep her fresh. With wifely concern she looked about for her husband but he was not among those within her vision, and I am compelled to state that she forgot him immediately when she saw the hound that was leading the pack turn sharply. She turned in the same direction and in a moment the hounds and riders were once more in motion together.

  There was straight riding until they came to bank with a low rail on top of it and a ditch, where a horse had to land on top of the bank and then immediately make a second leap. With perfect command Kitty steadied the mare and cleared the rail, and steadied her again so that the mare seemed barely to touch ground before taking the ditch. For an instant Kitty had to cling to her horse’s neck wondering if her hind feet would slip back into the ditch; but Kitty was light and graceful, and Willow clever and agile, and the danger passed so quickly that Kitty never felt the breath of fear. Behind her the next rider floundered into the ditch, but Kitty was five lengths down the field by then.

  The hounds were running fast now, and the country opened out again. Kitty stayed with them when they steadied to their exercise, pursuing her way against the wind, for five miles. What joy was there in the world superior to this? and the mare’s elation seemed to be as great as Kitty’s.

  They killed in the open and the huntsman broke up the fox. Kitty then once more had leisure to look for her husband but did not find him until she was trotting back towards the home fields in the company of the huntsman and came up to him heading in the same direction. He was covered in mud and looking cross.

  “It was a pretty run, my lord, that you missed,” said the huntsman.

  “I couldn’t have been carried better!” said Kitty, patting Willow’s neck.

  Lord Tyrconnell was of course very glad to see his wife safe and in good humour, but he did not share her mood. He had not experienced the same degree of enjoyment in the hunt.

  His horse had shown some initial tendencies towards objectionable vivacity, which had required an expenditure of time and energy to subdue. Over the first hurdle another rider had passed him roughly and almost taken off the side of his top boot. At the stream Kitty had so easily cleared his horse refused. Instead of jumping it floundered into the water and finding it deep very nearly had to swim across it. His l
ine through close country had taken him splashing through muddy tracks with boughs slapping at him. Following Lord B*** who he had thought must have some knowledge of his own country he had jumped into a field from which there appeared to be no way out and the two of them had spent much time searching for a hedge they would be able to surmount, as in the distance they watched the backs of other men diminishing and then vanishing. Finally his horse, perhaps hoping to expiate its misdeed at the stream, exhibited ungovernable determination to take a fence even though it was too close to the rail, caught its foot and somersaulted. Horse and rider came down together in the mud and when Lord Tyrconnell arose the horse was already capering half-way across the heavily ploughed field. It was his duty to catch the animal, and of course he did so, after a quarter hour of running across the furrows.

  When they reached the house Kitty was almost loath to dismount. She would have been overjoyed if they had set off to draw again. Lord Tyrconnell was thinking only of a bath. Their emotions instantly coincided however when they discovered an express waiting for them, for they had too often received grievous news in such a way. Taking the letter they retired to the empty dining room, and so read of Georgiana’s disappearance. It was just noon, and the journey to London would take but half a day, therefore Lord Tyrconnell instantly notified their host that they must leave. They were on the road within an hour.

  They arrived in town to find the Darcys in conspicuous affliction, which they were soon to share. It was now ten days since Georgiana had gone missing. The more the four of them discussed it, the more desperate they began to count the case. If she had not stopped in Ramsgate, where could she had she gone? And by what means? Darcy had been able to get no information that she had removed to any other vehicle, public or private, after arriving there. In addition, he had obtained further word from Mr. Gardiner, that no coaching station within twenty miles of Ramsgate had seen or heard of either one lady or two, unaccompanied by servants, journeying away from the town near the time. Repeated visits to Edward-street were rewarded by no fresh intelligence, nothing but the reiterated assertion that Mrs. Younge was away and had not communicated when she would return. Darcy mulled forcing his way into the house and searching it from attic to cellar, and he might have done so if he had not felt rationally certain that neither Georgiana nor Mrs. Younge was to be found there.