Lady Elizabeth's Comet

by Sheila Simonson

  What an appalling irony. That they had later been proven wrong, that Charles had been brash enough to ignore caution, had not prevented Clanross from enduring months of what must have been flat despair. And here was Willoughby--Papa's fair-haired boy, as well as Aunt Whitby's--chattering about the pangs of poverty. I had no doubt Clanross regarded him with contempt as well as dislike.

  Why had I lightheartedly created this unpleasant farce, which must expose Clanross to Willoughby's malice? Fear. Was that it? My initial response to Clanross had been fear, not derision. Despite the ill-timed witticisms I had written Bevis about Clanross's appearance, I had not found Clanross an object of laughter. I had been fearful of him. That feeling was now largely dispelled. It had been real enough to begin with, however, and that baffled me. I told myself I was growing gothick in my old age.

  * * * *

  The twins showed every sign of having spent a delightful afternoon. Bevis had complimented and teazed them, Clanross had made them a handsome apology, promised to frame Maggie's map, and crammed them with cakes. Miss Bluestone was gravely pleased that Charles should achieve his infirmary and in alt because Bevis had brought her tubers from the famous Dunarvon gloxinias.

  None of us--least of all Willoughby--had troubled to consider that Cecilia could not now remain unchaperoned at Brecon. It had just been possible with Clanross and Willoughby, for they were her connexions; Bevis's coming made it impossible. I did not see myself at breakfast with Cecilia Conway-Gore, however, so I solved the problem by ruthlessly packing Alice off to Brecon en chaperone. Alice did not resist overmuch. I suspect Cecilia suited her notions of female companionship better than I. I ought to have gone myself, of course.

  * * * *

  I have seldom felt lower than I did that night. Even the prospect of clearing skies did not cheer me. I did not sleep well. I will not chronicle my dreams, except to say that Bevis did not figure in them. In fact, Bevis had scarcely crossed my mind since his return--unless I was in his company.

  Next morning I felt some guilt that I had been mentally ignoring him, and I resolved to make it up to him. We were as good as betrothed. Or were we? I fear I felt no surer of my sentiments than when we had parted in December.

  It is rare to be able to carry out one's resolutions immediately and painlessly. As I was sipping my last cup of breakfast tea, Bevis, Charles, and Cecilia rode up and sent in to ask me to join them for a brisk gallop. Willoughby was still abed.

  "I was used to be able to loll about until noon." Bevis boosted me into the saddle. "A few weeks' campaigning cured me of it, and now I can't when I want to. Tom claims he always stands to arms half an hour before dawn. I ain't quite that bad."

  "Let us ship Willoughby off to the army by all means."

  To my astonishment, Cecilia laughed. She had a very pretty laugh. Charles and Bevis admired it silently, then Bevis decided to show her Uncle's ha-ha, and Charles and I fell behind. I reflected cynically that I ought to feel chagrin. The ha-ha was my trysting spot, after all.

  "I say, Liz, she's a real beauty, isn't she?"

  For a moment I thought Charles referred to my mare. I collected my wits. He meant Cecilia. "Yes, indeed." My echo of Cecilia struck me as inexpressibly comic and I fell into the whoops.

  Charles was offended and said so.

  "I'm sorry, Charles. Truly. I had an inappropriate thought."

  He looked mollified. "Does Miss Conway-Gore stay long?"

  "A week or so." No longer, God help us. "Are you still as cock-a-hoop over your infirmary as you were Monday evening?"

  "Oh, by Jove, yes. It was a lucky day for me when you called me in to treat Clanross, and I won't forget it."

  "Lucky for him, too."

  He flushed. "Well, I am good. I know it, but I began to think I'd rust from disuse. Now..." His voice trailed and it was apparent that delicious visions of splints and sutures and severed limbs danced before his mind's eye. I kept still and left him to his dreams.

  "Here! What are they up to?"

  I glanced ahead at Bevis and Cecilia. "A little mild flirtation, I should think." I regarded Charles with narrowed eyes. He was smitten. With Cecilia of all people. I hoped she would let him down lightly.

  Charles and I quickened our pace, and Bevis and Cecilia greeted us merrily. They had discovered a patch of crocuses and Bevis was engaged in beheading them for the lady's pleasure. She had stuck one in a frog on her green velvet riding jacket and another in her hat brim.

  Bevis plucked a large yellow one and handed it up to me with a half-guilty grin. "Only the best for you, Liz."

  "I see through you as if you were glass, my lord." I stuck the crocus through my lapel. It would wither in an hour. "Stop denuding Clanross's woods, Bevis. Cecilia, what say you? Shall we show the gentlemen our mettle?"

  I pointed the stock of my quirt at the low wall that marked the Long Field. I must confess I expected her to refuse it, but she nodded decisively, dislodging the blossom in her hat, and we made for the wall, Charles and Bevis following.

  No unseemly repeat of Bevis's courting behaviour transpired. We cantered along the edge of the field Quillan had unromantically planted in turnips, but I don't think we did much damage. Presently we turned back. The breeze had picked up, and there was a great deal of mud among the turnips, so we decided to descend on Clanross and rescue him from the clutches of Mr. Moore, with whom, according to Bevis, he was closeted.

  When we entered Brecon, Jenkins informed us his lordship was with Mr. Conway-Gore in the first floor withdrawing room. They were playing at an old board game called backgammon, with which Bevis and Clanross had whiled away the tedium in December. Willoughby looked surly. He rose.

  "Dashed stupid game, f'you ask me." He rattled the dice in their box.

  "You only say that because I cleaned you out." Clanross contrived to rise also. He knocked the board, scattering the pieces, and regarded the mess ruefully. "That's torn it. Too late, Gore. We should have played chess. The board's sturdier."

  Bevis laughed and bent to pick up the scattered tiles. "He won't play chess with you, because I dashed well warned him not to, Tom."

  "Treason, is it? Good morning, Wharton. Hullo, ladies. You look appallingly healthy."

  Cecilia did not seem to know how to respond to that.

  I did. I ignored it. "I'll play chess."

  Bevis whooped and Clanross looked disconcerted.

  "Afraid?"

  "Yes."

  I grinned.

  "You're on, but I'll play standing, if you don't object."

  Willoughby, catching his first glimpse of Sims's broad villainous face when the man brought Papa's jade chess set, repressed a shudder. "If Liz and Clanross are going to bore each other for an hour or so, we might as well have a rubber of whist. Shall you play, Wharton?"

  Charles excused himself and made his farewells, languishing rather obviously over Cecilia. He promised to ride over again on the morrow. Willoughby regarded this byplay with compressed lips, but refrained from commenting and contented himself with sending Cecilia to find Alice.

  Presently, we were all settled in--Alice sleepy and plaintive at the whist table and Clanross towering over the chessboard.

  The rubber came and went. Clanross and I battled for two hours. He was a very fine player, cool and longheaded, and it took every ounce of concentration I was capable of to bring him to a draw.

  We had an audience for the last few moves.

  "Do you mean to say, after all that, neither of you won?" Alice asked, incredulous.

  Clanross smiled. "Oh, we won. Thank you, Lady Elizabeth. I thought you might prove a worthy opponent."

  I let my breath out in a long sigh. "My word, that was something like! Thank you, my lord. After that, I believe you will have to confess to kinship and omit my style."

  He flushed but said with his customary composure, "Very well, Elizabeth. Bevis, you clunch, don't disturb the board. It ought to be preserved in amber."

  "You're a dashed frightening f
emale, Liz," Willoughby said seriously.

  "A witch," I agreed. "You do not speak, Bevis. Are you frightened, too?" There was more challenge in my tone than there should have been.

  Bevis touched his heart. "Never. Merely, I am struck dumb with admiration." He turned to Clanross. "How many years was it you stayed unbeaten?"

  "Seven." Clanross smiled at me. "May I remind you I still am?"

  "What?"

  "Unbeaten."

  They all laughed and I had to, too, but I couldn't ignore the challenge. "I'll try to amend that."

  "Done."

  "This day week?"

  As we shook hands on it Willoughby and Bevis were heard to lay a sidebet, flipping a coin to decide which of them should back which horse. Cecilia looked bewildered and Alice scandalised.

  Over nuncheon-cum-tea--it was after two o'clock--I had leisure to observe that Willoughby's acid mood had moderated.

  "Shall you fly to Aunt Whitby?" I ventured. Alice was regaling the others with her famous description of my sister Anne's card parties.

  "Not just yet." Willoughby examined a cucumber sandwich and took a gingerly bite. "Do you tire of the game already?"

  I contrived to look innocent. "Of chess? Never."

  Willoughby downed a second cucumber sandwich. "Breakfast," he responded to my questioning look. "I never touch buttered eggs."

  They all pressed me to dine that evening, but thinking of the sky, which was clearing, I refused as gracefully as possible.

  "If we were to put dinner ahead an hour would you come?" That was prescient of Clanross.

  Willoughby was struck with horror at the insult to his digestion and protested, but Clanross ignored him.

  I threw up my hands in surrender. "Very well. I trust you won't read my mind all the time."

  Bevis gave a shout of laughter. "It's the dashed telescope, ain't it?"

  I confessed, smiling, that I meant to commence my work, and resigned myself to being roasted. After all, one must suffer a little in the service of Science. I declined absolutely to let them try the instrument. Clanross listened to their clamour with a half-smile. It was just as well, considering my tendency to fly out at him, that he didn't join in the teazing. I am oversensitive about my telescope.

  Chapter 12

  Willoughby and Cecilia hung on like death. I could see why Cecilia stayed. She had a tendre for Bevis.

  The symptoms showed more clearly on each morning ride, and Bevis did not discourage her. She received Charles's clumsy homage gracefully, but I think she did not really see him when Bevis was with her. Charles grew sulky and clumsier than ever. Only talk of his beloved infirmary could distract him and that not for long.

  I ought to have been angry with Bevis for courting two women at once, but I fear I found his antics amusing. In an odd sense I was proud of his winning ways. So far as I could tell he expended no more lavish efforts on Cecilia than on Miss Bluestone or Alice, and he certainly did not cease to pay me homage. Cecilia was his latest flirt, nothing more, and I could not resent her.

  Indeed, I felt sorry for her. She had apparently picked me out as her rival from the first, and she continued to be confused and tongue-tied in my company.

  We all spent our afternoons in the withdrawing room with Clanross and Willoughby, and, to Willoughby's incomprehension, Jean and Maggie and Miss Bluestone as often as not. I could not understand Willoughby's tenacity. He must have been dreadfully bored. I asked him bluntly why he did not leave and he answered with evasions.

  What Clanross felt I couldn't tell. He was content, except for the odd chess game with me, to stay quietly in the background watching. I lost to him in our rematch and two days later brought him again to a draw. We both enjoyed the mental exercise. Nevertheless, he did not obtrude on the company. It was as if he were biding his time--but in what cause I knew not.

  Once or twice he asked how my work progressed. I fobbed him off with generalities, and presently he stopped asking. I ought to have been more forthcoming, perhaps, but I was so accustomed to be teazed over my freakish avocation it did not cross my mind that his interest might be genuine.

  * * * *

  Our party--excepting Clanross, of course--rode to Charles's home for afternoon tea on a rare dry day. Charles, despondent, drooped beside me.

  "Cheer up. She'll love your house."

  "After Brecon and Dunarvon Castle?" He fairly sneered.

  "If I had lived a fortnight in the marble fastness of Brecon, I should certainly prefer Hazeldell."

  "Ha!"

  "Charles."

  He grunted.

  "Do you really wish to marry Cecilia Conway-Gore?"

  He stared, ill-humoured. "No, I enjoy making a cake of myself. When is that fellow going to take himself off?"

  "If you mean Bevis, he will leave when Willoughby does."

  Charles groaned.

  "Shall I bring Bevis to heel for you?"

  He looked at me with dawning hope. "Would you, Liz?"

  "Charles! You didn't say 'could you?'!"

  He laughed. "You can do anything, Liz."

  "Heavens, perhaps I should marry you."

  His eyes narrowed. "Do you mean to marry Lord Bevis?"

  "He's asked me."

  "I know that. Five years ago, wasn't it?"

  I bristled--unwisely. "He asked me in December."

  "And you said no?" Incredulity rang in his voice. Definitely I would not wed Charles.

  I said with dignity, "I wish you will not bruit it abroad. I have neither accepted nor declined."

  "Why the devil is he hovering about Miss Conway-Gore, then, if he means to fix his interest with you?"

  "Bevis deals gallantly with all women. With Miss Bluestone, for an instance, and Alice. Even Mrs. Smollet is not immune to his charms. I think you need not trouble yourself for Cecilia."

  "She's head over ears for him," Charles said flatly. "Spent half an hour last evening while Bevis and Clanross were playing backgammon telling me of the splendid viscount's exploits at Water-loo. Dash it, I ain't blind. Are you?"

  "I think not." I regarded the three ahead of us carefully. Bevis had turned and was speaking to Cecilia, and she looked up at him smiling. Willoughby's shoulders were eloquent of boredom. "If I'm mistaken, Charles, then perhaps I ought to detach Bevis, for I'm tolerably sure he doesn't mean to enslave her."

  "I wish you may try." His voice was so glum, I cast about for another topic of conversation.

  "How does your patient?"

  "Eh?"

  "Clanross."

  "I never met a more obstinate man," he said without heat. "All the same, he surprises me. Perhaps there's something in what he says."

  "What does he say?"

  "That lying about doing nothing is the worst course he could follow. Not that he's tried it, God knows. I'll admit I didn't expect him to walk before summer, let alone without crutches, but he still has appalling spasms in those muscles I tore up, and climbing stairs like a dashed goat can't help. If the carriage ride wouldn't set him back months, I'd make him go to Cheltenham or Bath."

  "Can't he arrange for a litter?"

  Charles hooted. "If you fancy Clanross would lie still for that, you're touched in the upper works. I suggested it and you may imagine the satire that was heaped on my unoffending head. He was ready to deck Sims out in ostrich plumes to sprinkle lavender in his path. He said he might try riding in short stages to Harrogate if I insisted on a change of venue. I flew into the boughs over that, I can tell you. Whatever you do, don't encourage the man to ride."

  "My word, Charles, I have no influence with Clanross."

  "You're wrong there, Lizzie."

  "What do you mean?"

  "He's dashed grateful to you, and he knows exactly what he owes you. I made sure of that."

  I winced. "I don't care to have my boots licked."

  Charles said earnestly, "He wouldn't do that. Not stupid. Except over the blasted laudanum."

  I stiffened and my mare, startled, began t
o dance. I quietened her and said carefully, "Surely Clanross has no need of laudanum now."

  "No? He don't sleep. Not more than one or two hours at a stretch. I told you the muscle spasms were bad."

  "Good God."

  Charles pulled up, his face grave. "If you could persuade him to use it. Not forever. Just for a week or so until the muscles have a chance to relax..."

  "No!" I set my mare in motion again.

  Charles sighed. "Very well, pander to his lordship's unreasonable aversion. I hope it will please you to see him twisted in a knot."

  "It won't please me," I said unhappily. "Isn't there another way?"

  "He could drink himself insensible every night."

  "Charles!"

  He said grimly, "There are two specifics for pain, opium and strong drink. Take your choice."

  "If he has the courage to endure it..."

  "Courage, phhht! It's not courage his brass-plated lordship wants. It's common sense."

  "Do you dislike Clanross?"

  "The devil, Liz, don't look at me that way. If I disliked him, watching him fight it wouldn't tie me in knots." He kneed his horse to a trot. "Hi, you idiots, we turn off here."

  I fear I did not take in a great deal of what Charles showed us as we approached Hazeldell, which was a pity, for the grounds, though not extensive, are as pretty as any in the shire.

  I was disturbed as much because of my nightmare memory of forcing Clanross to drink the laudanum as because of what Charles had told me. I did not wish to recall my conduct again to mind. Clanross had trusted me, for whatever reason, and I had used the trust to trick him. I do not betray a trust without guilt.

  As we rode up to the stables I tried to persuade myself that my deceit had saved his life, indeed, that he should thank me for it, but I did not believe he would, and I did not believe my nightmare would cease. I still dreamt of that night.