Scarlet Shadows

by Elizabeth Darrell

  “I had not forgotten.”

  “Then I am still your friend?”

  “I hope you will always be.”

  Their short period of isolation was broken by Charles and Charity, who appeared before them out of the anonymity of the room. Hugo leaped to his feet.

  “You have finished entertaining us so soon, Miss Verewood?”

  It was an effort for her to smile, but she managed it. “Shame on you, Captain Esterly. I declare you only notice my performance when it has ceased. But you have never had a musical ear, as I remember.”

  He bowed his head in acknowledgment. “As I have already said, I am completely undistinguished in a drawing room.”

  “You are too modest, sir. There are those among us who would have it differently.”

  Charles intervened with an offer to bring the ladies refreshment, and the brothers went off, leaving the two girls together.

  Charity donned her armor quickly. “I am sorry you were obliged to abandon your attempt to shine at the pianoforte. I am not ungenerous enough to imagine you cannot do better, for I am sure it was due to nervousness. I have to say that I feel great sympathy for you. If the company of so few persons of distinction throws you into confusion, the strain of becoming the wife of the next Lord Blythe must defeat you. Your apprehension at your forthcoming marriage must be formidable.”

  “Perhaps,” said Victoria hotly, “but I do at least have the satisfaction of knowing my marriage will take place. The strain of uncertainty must try you sorely.”

  The other girl gasped. This schoolroom miss had the manners of a kitchen maid. “You might be destined to become a bride, Miss Castledon, but have a care you do not abuse the privilege,” she snapped. “To set brother against brother is a dangerous business where men of honor are concerned — or perhaps you would not understand that.”

  This time it was Victoria’s turn to gasp. Whatever could she mean? But there was no time to ask, even if she dared to, for the gentlemen returned with glasses of fruit cup, breaking the tense situation with easy conversation. For the rest of the evening Victoria went over and over in her mind how her own marriage could set brother against brother. The gaining of an heir for Charles would not affect Hugo. There was no question of his ever inheriting the title. Even if Charles had no sons, Freddie Massingham would take the title — and Hugo had a fortune of his own, left by the father who had perished in the Orient. When the departure of the Verewoods brought the evening to a close, she had still not reached an answer to the puzzle.

  The ladies retired to their rooms, leaving the gentlemen to cigars and brandy and stories unfit for delicate ears. Charles kissed Victoria’s fingers with great tenderness and promised to call upon her in the morning. Hugo gave his good night across the heads of the cousins, but there was no smile to comfort her. Indeed, his whole expression appeared to be one of infinite sadness. She went to her room in very troubled spirits. No matter what he had said, there was a strangeness between them tonight.

  *

  The ladies took breakfast in their separate bedrooms the following morning, but the gentlemen were up at an early hour. All the gentlemen but one, that is. Hugo’s absence from the breakfast table was not remarked upon, since everyone imagined he was tired after the rigors of the previous day. However, shortly before luncheon the entire party was gathered before a log fire to discuss the plans for the day when Dawkins, Hugo’s erstwhile steward, entered with a note on a salver and crossed to Lady Blythe.

  Lady Blythe took the note, read it through, then gave a strangled cry. “I cannot believe it. He would not do such a thing. Wicked, wicked boy to put me through such a torment of anxiety.” She rocked back and forth, knowing she held center stage, and determined to make the most of it. “I see now that his brain was affected all along, and we did not realize it.”

  “My dear,” said Lord Blythe. “I do not quite understand you.”

  “He will kill himself with this recklessness. There is no other explanation but that he is out of his wits.” Her bosom heaved beneath the burden of her distress, and the lace handkerchief was waved across her face in an attempt to revive herself as her voice broke on a sob. “To be released from one anxiety only to face a worse! Oh dear, oh dear, could any gentlewoman withstand it with any degree of composure?”

  His lordship had had enough. Striding across to his wife, he plucked the note from her fingers.

  “Damn the fellow,” he exploded.

  “Augustus,” shrieked his wife. “Such language on top of this will finish me off.”

  Charles was greatly disturbed by now and joined his father to read the note.

  “What has taken possession of him?” demanded father of son. “Is it his wish to defy the mercy of the Lord and break his mother’s heart into the bargain? Charles, what devil’s work is this? Had you known what he was about?”

  “No, sir. I swear he said nothing of his intentions when I left him last night.” He was as angry as his parents. “I have known Hugo to be reckless — just how reckless you have no notion — but this is not only completely irresponsible, it is damned bad manners. I am sorry, Mama,” he said at the sound of her gasp, “but such ungrateful behavior from my brother forces me to forget myself in my indignation. Here we have all been suffering the severest anxiety on his behalf, doing everything in our power to aid his recovery, and the minute all is well we are treated to a display of mannerless selfishness that would be insulting even to a mere acquaintance. It is unforgivable.”

  Victoria could remain silent no longer. She rose and went to rest her hand on the major’s arm. “Charles, what has occurred to make you so incensed? What has Hugo done?”

  He looked down at her as if returning from a trance. “My dear, perhaps you will comfort Mama.”

  “Of course, but over what am I to comfort bier?”

  He shook his head, still with that dazed quality in his expression. “This letter from Hugo says that he has this morning returned to Brighton, on recollecting that he made a promise to spend the New Year with his friends the Markhams. He has gone.”

  “Gone?” She was stunned. “Are you saying he has traveled to Brighton alone?”

  “With Stokes to help him, I assume. One day after the doctor removed the bandages, he is off, without a thought for anyone. After the care and attention he has received here, he slinks away without a word, knowing what I would have had to say to him if he had made known his intention. By heaven, I shall berate him for this when I return to Brighton — if he has not succumbed to the infirmity we all prayed he would resist.”

  Victoria went to Lady Blythe with no hope of soothing a woman who was bent on extracting the maximum drama from the situation and found she had even less affection for her. In no way was Hugo’s recovery due to his mama, for she had merely retired to her room with chocolates the minute he arrived at Wychbourne — and she would undoubtedly do so again at any minute.

  All around her were the sounds of angry voices — Charles and his father in righteous wrath, Mr. Massingham and his son indulging in hurt indignation at the insult. The Massingham girls still sat like wax dolls overlooked on a toy-shop shelf, except that they both appeared about to burst into tears at their rejection, and Lady Blythe’s sister reveled in the satisfaction of telling the afflicted woman how all these years she had nursed a viper in her bosom.

  Victoria sank down on the velvet chair, shaken with a pain so real and fierce it was all she could do not to gasp. They were all quite, quite wrong. Hugo would not go with no word of explanation unless there were some urgent reason. The note he left was plainly an excuse to cover the truth he could not at present reveal. Did they know so little of him that they could condemn him so quickly? Had they not noticed the difference in him last night — last night, when he already knew that he was about to leave? Was that what he had been trying to tell her?

  The voices around her grew louder and more heated. She looked up. Each of them was so lost in his own feelings he had given no thought to what
could have happened to make Hugo leave with such urgency. They did not care about him, only about what his actions had done to their precious dignity. Unnoticed by all those present, she rose and walked out.

  The anguish inside her was spreading to her limbs; the stairs seemed like a mountain. There was no question of losing her way this time; her feet took her deliberately to the room where she knew she would find the answer. She did not knock.

  Inside, the room was the same, yet devoid of life and reality. No dogs rushed madly to meet her, Stokes’s turned-up mustache did not amuse her, not even the ghost of a blindfolded man was there to greet her. The hearth was dead; everything was straightened and unused. Even the clock had stopped at a quarter to eight. She walked slowly through the room, touching his possessions with trailing fingers that longed to find some part of him there but found none.

  Those afternoons in this chair were dreams and fancies that had flickered through her mind during a young girl’s reveries. The laughter they had shared was the return of some early memory — perhaps of her own mama and papa when they were young and happy together — that she had stored away until now. One day she had wandered lost along this corridor and strayed into the past or future for a while — a sudden moment’s departure into another life that had spun golden threads which seemed to her to last a span of ten days.

  She halted in the center of the room, lost and frightened. Where was she now? What was real and what was not? Why should all these reflections be covered by a black blindfold? Why should this room she knew so well mean nothing, retain none of the properties she had thought it had? It told her nothing; there was no longer a welcome here. With his departure Hugo had ceased to exist. He had never been.

  She passed through the doorway, not bothering to close the door. The memories had escaped already. The carpet along the corridor was the same blue it had always been, the paintings hung there, as before. The heavy bronze statuette still stood on the half-moon table with carved bun feet that reminded her of lions’ paws. The door into the Mirror Room opened inward, and she was surrounded by a multitude of dark-haired girls who looked at her from every direction.

  Walking toward them as if drawn by their very wariness, she came face to face with her own reflections. Suddenly, she had the answer. It was there in the bruised eyes, the paleness of faces lost in the revelation that had come too late. She saw it in the slender bodies that were melting with longing and in the hands that drifted up so that lips could touch the fingers he had kissed.

  Turning away from them with a small cry, she found only another multitude of selves facing her with the same truth. Whichever way she turned, it came back to her twenty fold. Of course his room meant nothing to her. The laughing, friendly brother had never existed; the man she had acknowledged as a beloved stranger last night was Hugo. He had recognized the truth before she had and had run from it, hoping to save her. She pressed her wet cheek against the glass. He was too late. Dear God, he was a lifetime too late!

  Chapter Four

  When Hugo arrived in Brighton there was only one place to which he could go. His quarters at barracks would long since have been allocated elsewhere, and all the hotels were filled with New Year’s guests. Tired and depressed, he hired a carriage to take him to Bendeaton Street and climbed into its damp interior with the two dogs, leaving Stokes to load his baggage and climb up beside the driver. It was a raw night, without the covering of snow that had made Buckinghamshire so attractive, and the wind off the sea found its way into the cab to freeze the breath of the dogs as they panted with excitement.

  There was much traffic abroad, for it was the time when society set out for parties, balls or other pleasant pursuits. Hugo hoped to God Jack Markham was not entertaining or, worse still, out for the evening. Selfishly, he wanted a meal, a bottle of wine and the company of his friends — all in an atmosphere of comfort and peace. The journey had tired him more than he had expected — and his thoughts were not fit to be alone with tonight.

  The Markhams’ house was in the less fashionable part of Brighton. Three stories high with steps leading to the basement and to the yellow front door, its neat gay appearance reflected the personality of its owners. It was the best Lieutenant Henry John Markham could afford on his pay as a Hussar subaltern.

  Hugo’s friend laughed in the face of poverty. He had obtained a commission in one of the exclusive cavalry regiments through the influence of a very distant elderly relative on his mother’s side who lent his name for the purpose but none of his vast fortune, thereby leaving Jack stranded as a cornet in a regiment that boasted more titles than most of the British Army. Consequently, the young man was hard put to maintain the standard required of the gentlemen with whom he served. Teetering just beyond the reach of the lenders’ grasping fingers, he no sooner obtained a lieutenancy through the death in a hunting accident of a foppish young aristocrat than he caught the eye of a doctor’s daughter, who persuaded him he could not live without her.

  The marriage obliged him to rent a house, for Letty could not live with him in barracks, and they went from week to week, always on the verge of debt, but supremely happy.

  Thinking of seeing them again after so long made Hugo impatient to arrive. It would be really too bad if they were not at home. He was not disappointed, however. No sooner had the maid announced him than Jack was striding from the parlor, grinning and clasping his friend’s hand heartily in both of his.

  “The Devil take you, Hugo! What a friend you are. We heard you were blinded — we even heard you were dead — now you turn up in the middle of a Christmas night like Saint Nicholas himself, as white as a sheet and in company with those two damned beasts. If I weren’t so fond of you I should turn you away.” He laughed with great gladness as he drew his friend forward. “Letty will be thrown into a great tarrididdle over your arrival.”

  “Lies…all of it lies,” said Hugo faintly. “She will be delighted to have some civilized company for a change. I have no doubt she has been pining these last six months.”

  “That I have,” cried Letty, coming to the parlor door on recognizing his voice and seizing his hands. “This has made Christmas perfect. Hugo, I cannot tell you how glad we are to see you. We have been beside ourselves with worry. And to some cause,” she added, dismayed by the hollowed eyes in a strained, blanched face.

  “Forgive me,” he said, kissing her on the cheek. “Word travels too quickly these days.”

  He was dragged into a cluttered parlor. A bright fire welcomed him and drew the dogs to its side, where they flopped down in complete possession of the hearth rug.

  “I have no objection to your making yourself free of my wife’s kisses,” protested Jack, “but when your dogs claim the fire for their sole benefit, I think you go too far.”

  Hugo smiled. “Address your complaints to their unfeeling ears, not mine. I have no control over them after six months in Austria.”

  “Do sit down,” urged Letty. “You do not look fit to make yourself free of any woman’s kisses. I will arrange a meal, then you must tell us the truth to dispel all the rumors. We’ve been very worried.”

  She departed to the kitchen to consult her cook, and Jack pressed Hugo into a chair before the fire, saying with a grin, “You may avail yourself of what warmth your animals are happy to leave you.”

  Hugo looked up apologetically. “I have Stokes with me.”

  “Have no fear, my man will already be fixing him with a plateful of stew and a corner for the night.”

  “You are a good friend, Jack.”

  “Aye, you will be hard put to find another with my outstanding qualities.” He stopped smiling. “The latest on dit was that you were in Buckinghamshire in a serious state. Whatever the truth of the matter, you would hardly turn up here late in the evening two days before the end of the year unless there were some urgent reason.”

  Hugo just nodded, weariness washing over him and an ache behind his eyes making them smart in the brightness of the room. After a short p
ause during which he glanced around, absorbing the cozy atmosphere of the parlor, he said, “You are a fortunate man, Jack.”

  “I know it.” He took the seat opposite Hugo and was about to question him when his wife returned, having arranged for a room to be prepared for their unexpected guest.

  “Cook is cutting some cold meat, and there is a good soup that will nourish you. At short notice, it is the best I can do, but if you remain awake long enough to eat even that I shall be surprised. What a pity Papa is not still here — he visited for Christmas, you know — for he would have advised you on your constitution.”

  Hugo shook his head sadly. “You sound too much like the young woman Mama would have me wed, Letty. I had not thought you would fuss over a man so unnecessarily.”

  “She does not on my account, I assure you,” Jack told him. “I should more likely receive a hearty scold were I to arrive here looking as you do this moment.”

  Letty’s green eyes sparkled with affection as she glanced at the husband who loved teasing her. “You will receive one very shortly if you do not hush and allow me to set my mind at rest over Hugo’s health. Your eyes are undamaged, dear friend?”

  “Completely, it would appear. They were uncovered yesterday after two weeks and, apart from a slight reaction to brightness, I see perfectly well. It is good to escape from the sickroom. One’s family can be the very devil at a time like this.”

  Letty and Jack exchanged glances before she said, “You had Christmas with them?”

  “Yes. I believe it was beautiful with the snow all around. I did not see it.”

  The maid came in with a tray so laden she could hardly carry it, and Letty soon had Hugo installed at the circular table with a substantial meal before him. “You will not mind eating here? The dining room is chilled, and you would feel very neglected. Do you not think this is cozier?”