Bear No Malice

by Clarissa Harwood

  “Surely you don’t believe Ann Goode’s scurrilous story about Tom being Jack’s natural father,” Julia said, studying Miranda’s face.

  Miranda didn’t reply. Ann’s story had appeared only in disreputable newspapers, as far as she knew. Simon had told her not to read it, so she hadn’t, but Ann had said quite enough when she was at the Thornes’ house to imagine what the written version would look like.

  “Ann made quite a scene at our London house before she left with Jack,” Julia added.

  Miranda had been dismayed to hear that Jack’s sister had come to take him to Scotland, where she had apparently found employment. “So you met her, then?” she ventured.

  “Not personally. I just heard a harrowing story from my housekeeper about her barging into the kitchen and terrifying the staff with her demands.”

  “I wish I knew exactly where she took Jack. I hope she’s treating him well.”

  “From my housekeeper’s account, he was happy to go with her. But you haven’t answered my question. Do you believe Ann’s story?”

  “I don’t know,” Miranda said slowly. She didn’t really, but the inappropriate relationship Tom had mentioned was still in her mind, and it troubled her. “Do you?”

  “Not for a second,” Julia said dismissively. “Tom wouldn’t lower himself to so much as flirt with a girl of her class, despite his own humble origins. And she would have been a child at the time. Ugh. Think about it, Miranda. He can have any woman he wants. Do you really think a common girl like that, pretty or no, would attract his notice, much less lead him to risk his reputation?”

  Something about Julia’s tone, or perhaps the look in her eyes, caught and held Miranda’s attention. In their private conversations, she’d noticed a gradual shift in the way Julia referred to Tom, from “Canon Cross” to “Tom Cross” to “Tom,” but it wasn’t just her use of his Christian name that made Miranda think she knew more than she was letting on.

  He can have any woman he wants. The words hung in the air. Did he want Julia? Miranda hadn’t the courage to ask.

  Julia continued to talk about the party, but Miranda merely went through the motions of listening, her mind spinning with her new realization.

  How could she have been so blind? Tom was the lover Julia had mentioned when she told Miranda about her past. And the inappropriate relationship Tom had alluded to during his confession to Miranda was with Julia, not Ann. Every Lancelot needed a Guinevere.

  Miranda couldn’t condemn Tom or Julia for what they’d done when she’d been in an adulterous relationship herself with Richard. But what an utter fool she’d been to believe Tom could love her when he’d been the lover of the most beautiful noblewoman in England. It was humiliating to remember that Miranda had been the one to push herself on him—the kiss, then her declaration of love—and he had responded with gentlemanly restraint in the first instance and a confession that wasn’t even about her in the second.

  Before Julia could notice that Miranda wasn’t really listening, they were interrupted by a light knock on the dressing-room door and Charles’s voice asking, “Is everyone decent in there?”

  “Yes, come in,” Julia answered.

  Miranda remembered the annoyance that used to cross Julia’s face whenever her husband appeared unexpectedly, and she was glad to see a neutral expression instead. Perhaps someday Julia would even look pleased to hear his voice or see him, but that might be too much to hope for. Especially if she was still in love with Tom.

  Charles opened the door and smiled at both women, his gaze lingering on his beautiful wife. “I’ve come with exciting news,” he said. “Miranda’s gallery is ready for viewing.”

  “Let’s have a look, then,” said Julia.

  The Carringtons had set aside a large room for Miranda’s paintings, despite her protests, and Charles had overseen its transformation. As the threesome made their way downstairs towards the gallery, Charles said to Miranda, “I hope you won’t regret giving me free rein. We can always change the way the paintings are arranged or the color of the walls, or anything you don’t like.”

  “I doubt very much that I’ll regret it. You have excellent taste.”

  Charles said nothing to this, but he looked pleased. Miranda liked Charles Carrington very much. He was kind to her, as well as surprisingly humble, considering his rank and wealth. She didn’t know any other members of the nobility, but he certainly hadn’t fit her preconceptions. Although he was nondescript in appearance, he had a deep, sonorous voice to which she never tired of listening.

  Charles opened the gallery door with a flourish, beckoning Miranda to walk in first. She went in and moved along in a trancelike state, obeying unspoken instructions to stop and look, then to keep moving, in an expectant silence that suggested something magical. The last painting, and the largest, was the one of Julia, and it was set off to advantage by its placement at eye level and the soft lighting.

  The woman in the painting looked obliquely out from her frame, not directly at the viewer but off in the distance, chin raised, as if seeing into the future. She was wearing a blue robe, draped modestly except for one bare shoulder. She held a book in one hand and rested her other on the head of a golden-haired child who leaned against her. She was everything Miranda and Julia had hoped she would be: Madonna, siren, angel, Eve, Lilith, goddess.

  Overwhelmed, Miranda couldn’t speak. She looked at Charles with tears in her eyes, and he patted her shoulder, beaming.

  At dinner that evening, Miranda asked Charles what he thought about the prospects for grouse season. He loved to talk about the latest controversies over different methods of shooting grouse. Charles went on at length about the driven method, which he preferred to walking up, then moved on to the unsportsmanlike practices of netting and traffic in live grouse. Julia had no interest in shooting, and so paid little attention. Miranda herself was not particularly interested in the topic, but pretending to show interest wasn’t difficult, and it made Charles happy. It had surprised Miranda at first that Julia didn’t see this.

  But Julia was centered on her own concerns and would not brook being ignored for very long. At what Miranda felt was the right time, she subtly shifted the conversation from grouse to the party. The guests would be arriving in a fortnight, and Julia had decided to exert herself by behaving like the perfect hostess. Miranda wanted Charles to know how much time and thought Julia had put into the planning and that he could choose to see it as a credit to him.

  “Have you told Lord Carrington what you’ve planned for dinner the last night of the party?” Miranda prompted Julia.

  “No. We’re having ten courses—I can’t remember them all myself. I can show you the menu, if you like.”

  “I’d be happy to see it,” Charles said.

  Julia had the menu close at hand in the drawer of a side table. When she presented it to Charles, he looked at it, then at Julia, in surprised pleasure.

  “These are all of my favorite foods,” he said. “I had no idea you remembered.”

  Julia glanced at Miranda, who was careful to look only at her plate. It hadn’t taken much investigation to find out his favorites—only a talk with the cook, who had known Charles since he was a child and knew exactly what he liked best to eat. Again, it was such a simple way of adding to Charles’s happiness that Miranda couldn’t understand why Julia hadn’t thought of it herself.

  “Thank you, my dear.” Charles smiled at Julia, but he looked at her too long, and she looked away.

  After dinner, Miranda retired to her rooms. She had a bedroom and an adjoining sitting room, both of which were large and luxurious. The sitting room had a large bow window with cushions where Miranda would often sit with her sketchbook. There was enough space to set up an easel as well, and though another room had been set aside for her as a studio, she occasionally worked on her paintings in her sitting room. The bedroom was decorated in shades of plum with mahogany furniture and a huge, high bed that made her feel like the princess in “The
Princess and the Pea” every time she climbed into it.

  Miranda sat down at the dressing table in the bedroom, unpinned her hair, and brushed it until it shone. Julia had wanted to give Miranda her own maid, too, but a line had to be drawn somewhere. Besides, having her own maid would have interfered with her privacy. Although she didn’t need to guard her privacy jealously now that she was no longer living with Simon and Gwen, the impulse to do so was still there.

  After Ann Goode had burst into the Thornes’ drawing room that fateful night, Simon had become suspicious of Miranda’s relationship with Tom. When he found out about Tom’s early-morning visits to the studio, he reverted to his overbearing-older-brother role. Gwen had surprised Miranda by taking her side, but the tension between brother and sister hadn’t abated. Thus, Julia’s invitation to stay with the Carringtons at Rudleigh had come at the perfect time.

  Miranda put a hand to the back of her neck and drew her hair forward, watching it fan over her shoulder, silky and straight. She wondered if Tom would accept Julia’s invitation, and if so, what it would be like to see him after two months apart. It seemed longer because her life had changed so dramatically. She wondered, too, what he felt for Julia now. Miranda remembered Julia speaking of her lover in the past tense: “He made me happy for a while, but the effects wore off.” But even if he no longer made her happy, perhaps they were still lovers. Or in love.

  A knock at Miranda’s sitting-room door startled her because of the lateness of the hour. It was Julia.

  “Come in,” Miranda said. “Is something the matter?”

  “No, I just want some company.” Julia walked in and tucked herself into an overstuffed armchair. She appeared to have been preparing for bed, since she was wearing a wrapper over her nightdress and her auburn hair fell in loose waves over her shoulders. She looked younger than her three-and-thirty years, even younger than Miranda. Although Miranda was only eight-and-twenty, both Julia and Charles sometimes treated her as their elder, which amused her. But tonight all she could think about was how irresistible Julia must have been to Tom.

  “Are you happy here?” Julia asked.

  “Yes, of course. Don’t I seem so?”

  “I can’t tell.”

  “I would be ungrateful indeed if I were discontented after everything you and Lord Carrington have done for me.”

  Julia waved her hand wearily as if to physically brush Miranda’s words away. “That’s not what I mean. We’ve made no sacrifices for you and don’t expect gratitude.”

  “You’ve taken me into your home and treated me like a sister.”

  “I was on the verge of leaving Charles before you came. Your presence has made it possible for me to live with him. I think we’re the ones who ought to be grateful.”

  Miranda didn’t know what to say.

  “I asked you if you were happy because I was hoping you’d tell me why you’re not speaking to your brother,” Julia went on. “You were very anxious to leave home, and he hasn’t come here to see you, nor have you gone to London since you’ve been here.”

  “We had an argument.”

  “What about?”

  Miranda couldn’t tell Julia about Tom. Not now. After a brief pause, she said, “Simon believed I was behaving improperly. That I didn’t care enough about my reputation. I’d rather not say more about it.”

  “Very well. But it seems odd to me that he would think such a thing. You seem overscrupulous about your reputation. I don’t understand why you try so hard to fade into the background and why you wear those ghastly black dresses. It’s as if you’re forcing yourself to do some sort of penance, and it troubles me. I can’t believe you’ve done anything so terrible that it would require you to deny yourself any joy in life.”

  Miranda had told very few people about Richard. She’d held out the childish hope that if she didn’t speak his name, he’d disappear. But of course it had done just the opposite: his presence had loomed over her for many years, restraining her freedom. She sensed that Julia would be a sympathetic listener, and perhaps telling the story would loosen Richard’s hold on her.

  “When I was very young,” she began slowly, “I was seduced by a man named Richard.”

  24

  Even a man who has practised himself in love-making till his own glibness has rendered him sceptical, may at last be overtaken by the lover’s awe—may tremble, stammer, and show other signs of recovered sensibility no more in the range of his acquired talents than pins and needles after numbness.

  —George Eliot, Daniel Deronda

  It had been an interminably long afternoon in the yellow drawing room at Rudleigh. Tom stood at the French windows, staring out at the garden and allowing himself to commit the social sin of ignoring the ladies for a few minutes. For the hundredth time he wished he hadn’t accepted the Carringtons’ invitation, or at least that he had invented some excuse to leave early. Instead, he had agreed to stay out the week. Any gentleman who didn’t hunt or shoot and who had a measure of wit was pressed into service amusing bored society ladies while their husbands were out shooting. Tom had fulfilled this social role before at the Carringtons’ parties.

  Some of the ladies were writing letters on tiny ornamental tables, a feat that discouraged all but the most determined. Others engaged in desultory conversation. Tom had exerted himself at first, asking about their children, the theater performances they had seen, the latest gossip about Tyne and Bow. But having lately been the subject of gossip himself, he was less inclined to speculate about others now that he knew with excruciating clarity how such speculation about oneself felt.

  It was also difficult to be witty and entertaining when he was frustrated by two things. First, Julia had mentioned when he first arrived that Ann had taken Jack away, apparently to Scotland. Ann had left no forwarding address, and while Tom had no desire to see her, he was dismayed that Jack had seemingly vanished without a trace and anxious about the boy’s welfare.

  Second, it seemed impossible to find opportunities to talk alone with Miranda. Although he had been at Rudleigh for three days, he had seen very little of her. She had greeted him pleasantly enough when he arrived, but she seemed to be playing the role of the mysterious artist to the hilt: she often slipped away when the others were engaged in conversation, and she retired early after dinner. When she was present, she said little. She had always been quiet in social situations, but Tom couldn’t help thinking she was avoiding him.

  Julia’s clear voice cut into his reverie. “Canon Cross, you haven’t said a word about your trip to Yorkshire, though your voice betrays the fact that you were there. Did you find your mother and sister?”

  Tom turned from the window to face his hostess, who was sitting on a nearby sofa. Miranda was at her side with a sketchbook, adding shading to a drawing of one of the Carringtons’ daughters, but she didn’t look up.

  “My voice? What do you mean?” he asked.

  Julia picked up a book from a side table and held it out, saying in a playfully theatrical tone, “You mun take the bee-yook.” Appealing to the others, she added, “You hear it, don’t you?”

  Miranda was still looking at her sketchbook, but the other women nodded.

  “I hardly think my accent is that pronounced,” said Tom, trying to hide his irritation. “In any case, I’ll lose it quickly enough now that I’m back in the home counties. And yes, I did find my mother and sister.”

  Now Miranda did glance up at Tom. She was wearing a pale pink blouse with a froth of lace at the neck and wrists. Although her clothing was nothing like the brightly colored, beribboned concoctions on the other women, it was very different from the drab clothing she used to wear. Next to Julia, who was wearing a green dress that made her eyes glow like emeralds, Miranda should have faded into the background. But Tom’s perception had altered so dramatically, surprising even himself, that Julia might have been a wilted hothouse rose and Miranda a rare, perfect lily.

  “Surely that isn’t all you’re going to say,” J
ulia said with raised eyebrows.

  “He wishes to create suspense,” Lady Altwick said from the other side of the room. She had the manner of an ancient dowager but was only in her thirties.

  Far from wishing to create suspense, Tom would have preferred not to speak of his trip to Yorkshire at all. Even after a few days at Rudleigh, it was a shock to be in the presence of so much wealth and luxury after being in his sister’s dilapidated cottage. But Miranda was looking at him with an interested expression, so he felt encouraged to speak.

  He told the story with appropriate modifications for a general audience, dwelling on the wild beauty of the Yorkshire countryside and saying of his mother and sister only that they were poor but healthy and that the reunion had been a success. He regretted the necessity of simplifying what had really happened, but it would be a mistake to say too much to people who couldn’t possibly comprehend what he had experienced.

  “What an affecting scene it must have been when your mother first saw you!” exclaimed Lady Toynbee, a vapid woman with fluffy blond hair. “It sounds like something out of a Dickens novel.”

  “Canon Cross’s whole life seems like something out of a Dickens novel,” put in Lady Altwick.

  “I’d say it’s closer to the work of Zola or Flaubert,” said Julia dryly.

  Tom shot her a warning glance.