Jason, Veronica

by Never Call It Love

  "Of course."

  After a few protests, Mrs. Montlow accompanied Elizabeth and Mary Hawkins from the courtroom, across Old Bailey's forecourt, and into the windy street. They had almost reached Sara Finchley's house when Elizabeth heard rapid footsteps behind them. With a stab of fear she halted and turned.

  To her relief, she saw it was Donald. He gave her a slight nod and a smile.

  So Christopher's carriage had gotten away in time. Now there was only one task left to her, one she dreaded. She had to tell her mother that it might be some time before she saw her adored son again.

  In Sara Finchley's parlor, with a fire snapping in the grate, the two sisters wept joyfully in each other's arms. Then Aunt Sara's maid-of-all-work, a thin and not very bright girl of seventeen, brought in the tea cart. Mary Hawkins moved beside her, carrying small glasses and a bottle of sherry on a tray.

  Fully a quarter of an hour passed before Mrs. Montlow said, "What on earth can be keeping Christopher?"

  She might as well know now, Elizabeth realized. She crossed to her mother, removed the teacup and saucer from her hand, and placed them on the cart. Then she sat down on a footstool beside her mother's chair.

  "Christopher won't be here today."

  "Won't be here!"

  Elizabeth took her mother's hands in her own. "Don't look like that. He's all right, Mother. But he must stay out of England for a while."

  "Stay out of England! Elizabeth, have you lost your—?"

  "Listen to me. That girl's guardian. In spite of everything, he believes Christopher is guilty. I saw it in his face."

  Mrs. Montlow had turned pale. "Yes, I saw him looking at Christopher in that... dreadful way. You mean, he intends to... harm my boy?..."

  "If he can. Donald and I have tried to make sure that he cannot. Christopher is on his way to Southampton now. I told him to take the first ship leaving port."

  Mrs. Montlow said, in an anguished whisper, "But where...?"

  "We won't know where he has gone until he writes to me. Perhaps he will have time to send us a message from Southampton before he boards a ship. Perhaps not. Anyway, he has enough money to last him several months. By that time, surely Stanford will have gone back to Ireland."

  Surely by that time, too, he would have abandoned the murderous resolve she had seen in his face. Not even an Irishman's vengefulness could stay at white-hot heat indefinitely.

  Mrs. Montlow shuddered and buried her face in her hands. "That man! That dreadful man." Then she lowered her hands and asked, "Couldn't we have him arrested?"

  "Upon what charge, Mother? He has done nothing so far. He hasn't even said anything. You cannot have a man arrested because of an expression on his face."

  "You ought to be able to!" Mrs. Montlow cried. She was silent for a moment or two, and then said feverishly, "We must go to the Hedges at once!"

  "Very well, Mother."

  "We must be there. Christopher may send a message." She stood up. Then she swayed, and would have fallen if Donald had not stepped forward and caught her in his arms.

  He carried her to the sofa. Taking a vial of smelling salts from her reticule, Elizabeth knelt beside the sofa and held the vial to her mother's nostrils. With terror she looked at the closed eyes, the white face, the bluish lips. She heard her aunt cry distractedly to the little maid, "Run, Agnes! Fetch the doctor."

  After a moment Agnes said, "What doctor, mum?"

  "My doctor, of course. Dr. Quill. You know where he lives. You fetched him only last week."

  "I don't know as I rightly remember, mum."

  "He is across the street and four houses to the left. Now, hurry!"

  For what seemed like half an hour, but was probably only ten minutes, Elizabeth stayed there beside her mother, watching the uneven rise and fall of her breathing. Then the front door opened and closed, and footsteps sounded along the hall. Dr. Quill came in, a thin, middle-aged man who, Elizabeth noted fleetingly, lacked the pompous air of most of his colleagues. He looked down at Mrs. Montlow and then said quietly, "Will you please leave me alone with the patient?"

  Twenty minutes later Elizabeth and Aunt Sara and Donald were sitting in the dining room, with Agnes and Mary Hawkins hovering anxiously beside the doorway, when Dr. Quill joined them. "The lady needs rest and quiet," he said. "If possible, she should remain right here for at least a week or ten days."

  "Of course it is possible!" Sara Finchley said. "All of you can stay here."

  "Not all, I am afraid." He looked at Elizabeth. "Your mother wants you to return to your home. She became quite agitated in her insistence. Apparently she is hoping her son will send some sort of message."

  Appalled, Elizabeth thought of leaving her mother here, with no one but rheumatism-crippled Aunt Sara and dim-witted Agnes to care for her.

  Mary Hawkins stepped forward. "Please, Miss Elizabeth. Let me stay here. I know it will be lonely for you in the country, but your mother needs me."

  "Let you, Hawkins! Why, I will be more grateful than I can say."

  Dr. Quill gazed with approval at the tall, competent-looking woman with the graying hair and concerned face. "A splendid arrangement." He turned to Donald Weymouth. "And now, sir, if you will help me take the patient upstairs..."

  It was four o'clock by the time Elizabeth said good-bye in an upstairs bedroom to Mrs. Montlow, still weak of voice, but now with a little color in her face. Thus, darkness had fallen when the carriage Donald had hired for Elizabeth and himself passed the last of London's straggling outskirts and then moved north through a silence broken only by the clop of hooves over the frozen road, the barking of a dog in some isolated farmhouse, and the occasional sound of their own voices. Most of the time they rode with hands clasped, not speaking.

  They were within a mile or so of the Hedges when Donald said, "I received a letter from my uncle yesterday. My parents had sent it on to me. He wants me to come down to Bath again."

  "When will you leave?"

  "I don't intend to go at all. He says that he has more matters concerning his estate to discuss with me. But I feel that all he really wants is to argue more about philosophy. The old man has been reading Bishop Berkeley, you know, and he keeps demanding that I refute that silly argument that no one can prove the existence of anything except his own mind."

  "Still, if he wants you to come..."

  "But I want to see you every day. You will be lonely enough as it is."

  "Nonsense. I have been there alone before. Twice when Mother and Hawkins went into London for the season, I stayed behind for a few days to cover the furniture with dust sheets and tidy up the garden. Besides, my dearest, your uncle is an old man, and you are his heir. Thanks to him, we will have many years of comfort and happiness together. Surely you can spare a few days in which to argue with him about Bishop Berkeley."

  Donald was silent for a moment. Then he smiled, drew her to him, and kissed her. "That's my Elizabeth. Warm of heart, clear of head. All right, I will leave tomorrow and stay in Bath for a week. The sooner I go, the sooner I can return."

  When they reached the Hedges, they left the carriage waiting and walked up the path to the house. He took the heavy key she gave him, unlocked the door, and then, inside the hall, struck a flint and lighted the tallow lamp on its narrow table.

  They smiled at each other through the upward-striking light, aware of the silence around them. She did not ask him to linger, nor did he indicate he wanted such an invitation. They were both aware that for a betrothed couple very much in love, an evening in a house empty of everyone but themselves might constitute too strong a temptation.

  He kissed her gently. "Good night, dearest I will write to you as soon as I reach my uncle's."

  When he had closed the door behind him, she not only turned the key in the lock but also shoved the bar into place. She lit the candle standing in its holder beside the lamp, carried it into the side parlor, and kindled a fire in the grate. Then, with a second candle in her hand, she went to the kitchen, ass
embled bread and cold meat and fruit preserves on a tray, and carried the tray back to a small table in front of the parlor fire.

  Despite her brave words to Donald, she was aware as she ate her supper that she did feel lonely. She thought of her mother, lying ill in a bedroom fifteen miles away. She thought of her young brother—a fugitive now, not from the law, but one man's murderous intent—riding through the darkness toward Southampton. How could it be that within a few short months the lives of the Montlows had changed so disastrously?

  She realized that her thoughts were veering toward self-pity, and that would not do her or anyone else any good. In the morning she would be in better spirits. If the weather moderated, she would work outside in the garden. There was no chance of digging those dahlia roots, not with the ground frozen hard. But perhaps she could pull up some of those long-withered flower stalks. And certainly she could trim that neglected boxwood.

  How silent the world was when you were alone in winter. No insects bumping against the terrace doors, no nightingale singing, and tonight, no breath of wind whispering through bare-branched trees. Even the fire burning in grate no longer snapped, but made only soft, hissing sounds.

  She stood up, lifted the tray, and started to turn toward the door into the hall.

  From the corner of her eye she saw movement, over there beyond the glass doors to the terrace.

  She stood motionless for an instant, heart thudding painfully, and then turned her head. Weak with relief, she realized that what she had seen was her own moving reflection in the glass panes.

  She carried the tray back to the kitchen. What was she so afraid of, her in this house, this peaceful countryside, where she had lived without fear all twenty-three years of her existence? Patrick Stanford? He would not be here. Perhaps he was pacing up and down his lodgings somewhere in the city. Perhaps he was in some tavern, trying to drown his frustrated rage. Far more likely, he was galloping along a road leading out of London, hoping to overtake Christopher. But he would not be seeking his quarry on the road to Southampton. He would have of course concluded that Christopher would flee to the nearest port, Dover. It was for precisely that reason that she had arranged for her brother to be taken to much-more-distant Southampton. No, whatever else he might do, Patrick Stanford would not waste his time coming here.

  Nevertheless, before she went to bed she made sure that all the downstairs doors to the outside were locked, and all the ground-floor windows latched.

  CHAPTER 10

  The next day dawned cloudy but much milder. Giant icicles hanging from the eaves began to drip, and then crashed to the ground. On the hillsides, rapidly spreading patches of winter-brown grass appeared in the thin snow cover. Early in the afternoon, beside a cedar tree at the foot of the garden, Elizabeth found a harbinger of early spring, a cluster of snowdrops.

  Just as she had known she would, she began to enjoy her solitude. It was pleasant to work in the garden with no sense of her mother watching from the house, her face reflecting her discontent that her daughter should be performing tasks proper only to servants. It was pleasant to take meals whenever she chose, and to go to bed as early or as late as she felt sleepy.

  On the third morning after her return from London, she still had received no message from Christopher. In a way, that was a good sign. It probably meant that he had gone aboard some ship immediately before sailing, with no time to write and post a letter.

  There were letters, though, from both her mother and Donald. Mrs. Montlow was feeling much stronger, she wrote. Dr. Quill had said that she could go home in another week. But in the meantime, she was frantic to learn if there had been any word from Christopher.

  Donald's letter included an account of his running argument with his uncle over Berkeley's theory. "The old gentleman still challenges me to refute his argument that I cannot prove the existence of anything outside my own mind. I think he is hoping that I, like Hume, will howl, "Thus I refute it!' and kick a large stone. But since I know that I would accomplish nothing except to acquire a sore toe, I shall not oblige my uncle.

  "I long to see you, and will do so within three or four days after you receive this letter."

  Elizabeth wrote her replies, and walked to the village to post them. Because she knew that she had only a few days more in which to enjoy the freedom of utter solitude, she loitered on the way back, stopping to watch white clouds move slowly across the pale blue sky, or to look at swelling buds on a roadside maple tree. When she reached the house, she went into the small library opposite the side parlor and took down Tristam Shandy from among her father's books. Glad that she did not have to answer her mother's questions as to whether the book was a suitable one for a young woman, she carried it outside to a sun-warmed bench against the rear wall of the house, and sat reading until almost dusk. After supper she read several more chapters, and then, pleasantly tired, went to bed.

  ***

  Afterward she never knew at what hour of the night her ordeal began. She only knew that she came awake in the darkness, rigid with the knowledge that she was no longer alone in the room.

  The drain, she thought numbly. Someone had climbed up the heavy drainpipe that ran past her window to the gutter along the roof's edge.

  Heart hammering now, she called out, "Who's there?"

  For several seconds there was silence. Then: "You had best strike a light, Miss Montlow." The voice, cold and deep, was one she had last heard speaking from the witness stand at Old Bailey.

  Her icy hands groped on the bedside stand for the flint box. After several fumbling attempts, she managed to light the candle in its holder. The small flame showed her that he stood, wearing a dark coat and breeches, a few feet inside the open window. If he'd had a cloak and hat, he must have left them on the ground before he began his climb. The candlelight gleamed dully on the leveled pistol in his hand. But the weapon frightened her far less than the cold resolution in his dark face.

  She asked, from a dry throat, "What do you want?"

  "Christopher Montlow, of course. Where is he?"

  "Get out of here! If you don't, I will scream. There is a pistol downstairs. My servant—"

  "What servant? You are alone here. I have watched this house for hours today, and seen no one but you."

  Watched. He must have been up in that hillside copse, gaze fixed upon her as she sat reading in the afternoon sunlight

  "Now, where is your brother?"

  "I don't know."

  He ignored that "In Southampton yesterday morning I learned that seven ships had sailed in the last few days, two merchantmen for Calais, another merchantman for Brussels, and one for the West Indies, and a troopship and two supply ships for the American colonies. On which of those ships did you arrange passage for your brother?"

  So he had not reached Southampton until yesterday. That must mean that, as she had hoped, he had gone to Dover first, and vainly searched the docks and inns and grog shops for people who remembered a youth of Christopher's description. But in her fear she could take no satisfaction in the success of her stratagem.

  "Which ship did that unspeakable degenerate take, Miss Montlow?"

  "I don't know."

  "You must have arranged for the carriage in which he sneaked away. I cannot imagine your mother doing it, or your servant. Or was it Weymouth's doing?"

  Donald! This man was quite capable of killing him. But surely he would not kill her, a woman. She said swiftly and truthfully, "I hired the carriage. But I have no idea what ship my brother took."

  The dark eyes studied her. "If you are lying, you had best reconsider and tell me where I must go to look for him. Someone is going to pay for murdering my ward. Better that it be him than you."

  Her mind tried to tell her that he would not carry out such a threat. But her body, under the thin nightshift, seemed to shrink in upon itself, as if sure that soon a pistol ball would smash through flesh and nerve and bone.

  Perhaps, she thought desperately, if she could get out of bed and
stand facing him, she would feel less terrified, less at an overwhelming disadvantage. She said, "Please, Sir Patrick. Would you mind turning your back for a few moments?"

  "Turn my back, when perhaps you have a pistol or a knife in the drawer of that nightstand? You see, Miss Montlow, I have learned not to underestimate you."

  "Then... then will you toss my robe to me? It is there on the chair back."

  He moved to the chair near the foot of the bed, gathered up the blue woolen robe with his left hand, and threw it to her. Aware that he watched her every movement, she thrust her arms into the robe's sleeves, got out of bed, and knotted the sash around her waist. On legs that trembled, but with a gaze she tried to make direct and calm, she stood facing him.

  "I know, Sir Patrick, how you must feel...."

  "Do you? Do you know what I felt when I looked down at Anne Reardon in a stinking hospital ward and watched her die? Do you know what I felt as I heard you tell your lies on the witness stand?"

  "They were not lies!"

  "Stop that!" he said harshly. "It was plain in your face that you lied. It was plain, too, that you realized I knew you were lying. Your brother was nowhere near this house that Wednesday. It was Thursday evening when I saw him sneaking up to a side door from the carriage house, where he'd been hiding.... For how long, Miss Montlow? How many hours did it take your brother, after Anne Reardon landed in that areaway, to reach your carriage house?"

  Guilt and terror were clouding her mind. Several seconds passed before she thought to say, "If you were watching this place, if you did see Christopher come out of the carriage house, why didn't you tell the court about it?"

  "Because even though I am sure it was your brother I saw, I had no proof to offer. Besides, I was sure he would be convicted. It did not occur to me that those mutton-headed jurymen would fail to see that all three of you women were lying. Now, admit that you lied."

  Perhaps it was a trick of the candlelight, but it seemed to her that his forefinger had tightened on the trigger. Best to admit she had lied. Perhaps the confession would appease at least some of his fury.