“You have? Have you another sight-seeing expedition in mind? It seems to me we must have seen nearly all of London by now.”
“Well not an expedition, precisely, but perhaps you might say I have an adventure to propose.”
“An adventure? Will it be dangerous?” she asked.
“Oh, very dangerous indeed. But you see, for my part, I have already succumbed to its perils, and it is up to you to rescue me.”
She held her breath and looked uncertainly up at him, wondering if she could possibly be understanding him rightly. “How…how might I rescue you?”
“Merely by answering a question.”
“It does not sound so very dangerous,” she said shyly.
“I must tell you that I have written to your father and he has given me permission to address my question to you.”
“Oh, Sir Edmund, are you sure?”
“Very sure, my dearest. Will you not consider rescuing me? Will you marry me and be my darling wife?”
“Do you truly wish to marry me? Are you certain it is not my sister you wanted for your wife?” Anne asked, feeling a bit giddy.
“No my little pea goose. It is you for me or no one.”
“But she is so beautiful, and you were such good friends for so long.”
My dearest, I hold your sister in the highest esteem and feel a warm regard for her, but when I am with her, I am as calm and as comfortable as a sleepy old dog. There is no adventure for me there at all.”
“And when you are with me?”
“I am completely overset. My heart pounds most alarmingly and I can see nothing but you – not merely your glorious hair, your lips, your eyes, but the true you that lives inside you, the funny, sweet, loyal, warm-hearted enchantress that has captured me for good and all.”
“That is how I feel, too,” she replied with great satisfaction. “Overset, I mean, and captured, and not at all comfortable.”
Anne and Sir Edmund began their adventure together early in June at the Dunnsfield church near Lynnfield. Mr. Howard gathered his remaining strength together to attend the marriage ceremony. He cried a little when his darling spoke her vows in a clear strong voice, and afterwards went quietly home to bed.
“I’ll die a happy man,” he told Elaine that night, “though I’ve never done anything to deserve it.” And the next week he died as he had foretold, with a smile tickling the corners of his mouth.
Elaine and James, both in full mourning, had a simple ceremony in the same church the day after her twenty-fifth birthday. Elaine managed to laugh and cry at the same time once again, causing her newly wed spouse to shout with laughter.
But the final joke arrived the next week, for Mr. Norton paid another visit to Lynnfield and revealed Great Aunt Agatha’s plans for the school. Elaine was to become a trustee along with Mr. Norton, and her Aunt encouraged her to consider also taking on the job of headmistress at a prescribed wage considerably higher than the usual salary for such a position. As a young woman of twenty-five, Elaine would be, Great Aunt Agatha considered, sufficiently mature to make all major decisions about the school – its location, the curriculum, the recruitment and selection of students, the hiring of staff. It was to be her school and no one else’s. Mr. Norton’s role would be to tend to financial matters and advise her, but only when she asked for his counsel.
“It seems we are still not rid of this fortune of yours, Dear Heart,” her husband said once Mr. Norton had driven off and they had finally stopped laughing.
“Thank heavens I will have Libby and Mary to help me! And I recall that you once said that you wanted to become an educationist. If you ask me nicely, I believe I might hire you. Do you think you could make an adequate dancing master?”
“A very inadequate one. However, if you’ve a mind to teach the girls history, I’m your man.”
“You’ll teach them men’s history – wars and kings and barbarians.”
“And you shall teach them about women. I’ll teach Julius Caesar and you’ll teach Cleopatra. I’ll offer up Abelard and you can tell them about Heloise.”
“You can have King Henry,” she replied. “I’ll introduce them to Kathryn Howard.”
An Unmarried Lady Page 24
