Louisa Elliott

by Ann Victoria Roberts

  ‘Why did you keep us apart?’ she whispered to her mother’s name. ‘Would it have been so wrong for us to fall in love and marry then? There’d have been no Robert — none of this anguish.’

  Drying the last of her tears, Louisa laid the little bouquet of meadow-flowers by the headstone and rose to her feet. With a silent request for some kind of benediction, she read their names like a prayer and turned away.

  Counting the hours to Edward’s return, she decided to say nothing of Robert’s visit. The face in the mirror, however, seemed to tell its own tale, pale and hollow-eyed from restless, dream-filled sleep. Attempts to redress those effects with powder and rouge proved an abysmal failure; in the end Louisa settled for a pretty lace blouse that Edward particularly liked, and a determinedly bright manner which might cover the hours between his return and bed.

  Although it was late when he arrived, Edward was obviously cheered by his father’s recovery, more relaxed than she had seen him for weeks. While he related the highlights of his weekend, her brightness became less forced, the smile she wore a natural expression of her pleasure at his return. It was rather disconcerting, therefore, when Edward remarked with some concern that she looked tired and pale.

  ’Oh, I’m all right,’ she said with a quick smile. ‘Just a bit late going to bed, that’s all.’ Remembering where she had slept, she coloured in sudden embarrassment and looked away. ‘I was lonely without you.’

  ‘I missed you too,’ he said softly, drawing her into the crook of his arm. In surprise at that unexpected gesture, Louisa turned her head, and the kiss which was intended for her cheek caught the corner of her mouth.

  For an instant they both froze, shocked by the current which flashed between them. With the blood pounding in her throat, Louisa looked away first, afraid he would see her soul laid bare, and be repulsed by its naked hunger. It seemed to her they stood there for an age, she with her eyes downcast, not daring to look up, and Edward rigid beside her. She heard him begin to breathe again, felt the stomach-churning uncertainty as his hand slowly fell away.

  He said something about presents for the children, but she was barely listening. Saying goodnight, she climbed the stairs on heavy limbs. In the privacy of her own room she sank down onto the bed, bending instinctively against overwhelming misery. Her lips burned, but her body was leaden with disappointment. Right or wrong, she wanted to be loved, and having rejected what would have come so easily from Robert, it seemed unbearably cruel that Edward should withhold from her all but the smallest gesture of affection. Robert’s capacity for hurting them both seemed undiminished: like a crackling flame, every time they turned to each other the searing heat of his memory turned them back.

  The atmosphere next day was taut between them, but the following evening, when the children had gone to bed, he told her that Tempest’s had closed. The place was being boarded up, and he had heard of no other buyer. But, he added, rumours were flying that Rachel’s husband had disappeared.

  The words she had overheard and forgotten between Arthur and his sister Sophie returned. ‘Arthur’s probably joined up,’ she said, biting back any further comment. The war and Robert were too closely connected.

  Within a couple of weeks there was an advertisement in the weekly paper to say that the Blossom Street house was for sale, together with its contents.

  As Edward read the details aloud, he grinned mischievously. ‘Dick tells me Rachel’s moved in with the Bainbridges. What do you think of that?’

  A sudden vision of Rachel as captive audience to the boring old Major, reliving the Crimean campaigns of his youth, prompted a chuckle. ‘Oh, she’ll hate it! She might have envied of their way of life at one time – but I dare say the gilt’s worn off by now. Oh, dear,’ she smiled, ‘poor Rachel!’

  ‘And still no word of her husband,’ Edward remarked, shaking his head.

  A day or so later, he returned home with an air of news to impart.

  Opening the evening paper, he handed it across. Louisa’s eyes were caught by a large illustration of a mounted British soldier. ‘Trouble in the Transvaal,’ the headline announced. British demands for voting rights amongst their nationals working the goldfields had been refused yet again. With a sinking heart, she read on: ‘In the event of war between England and the Transvaal...’

  Picturing Robert, knowing his predictions had been accurate, her eyes scanned the page. There was further news that the War Office planned to dispatch fifty thousand men from England and India to the Cape…

  ‘Including large forces of cavalry and field batteries,’ she said slowly, raising her eyes to look at Edward.

  ‘Strange that you haven’t heard from Robert,’ he commented.

  ‘Yes,’ she said quickly, returning to the newspaper. ‘But I imagine he’s been busy.’

  A month, and no word. Several times she had thought of writing to him, but what was there to say? Her inner turmoil was only bearable when left alone; taken up for examination it writhed like the snakes of Medusa, abhorrent and frightening. But now she would have to write something, if only a single word of apology. He could not be allowed to go away without that.

  Suddenly, she was on the verge of tears.

  The following day more shocking news arrived, this time through the post from Lincoln. Mrs Pepperdine wrote that the Reverend Gregory had passed away, peacefully, in his sleep. The sheer unexpectedness of it after his gradual and apparently good recovery was hard for Edward to take in. As always when deeply hurt, he retreated into himself, calm and quite unreachable during the few days before the funeral.

  Apart from confessing anxiety at coming face to face with his father’s family at long last, he seemed quite composed as he set off for Lincoln. Kissing the children, he hugged Louisa briefly, and said that he would see her the following evening.

  ‘I’ll be thinking about you — all the time,’ she called as he walked away.

  It was foggy along the river. Louisa stood shivering by the gate until he disappeared into the mist, wondering whether her sense of foreboding was simply an extension of grief and the day’s damp chill, or something more sinister. She had a most irrational desire to run after him, to enfold and arm him with her love.

  Edward was on her mind for the rest of the day. Next morning, during the hour of the funeral, she prayed for him, and for the repose of his father’s soul. At least, she told herself, father and son had found each other, and there was comfort in that. For Louisa, the worry lay with George Gregory’s family.

  It was late when he returned, his whole demeanour so bruised and battered she ached at the sight of him. The dinner she had cooked was no more than picked at; when he abandoned it she pushed her plate away.

  ‘Go and sit down in the parlour,’ she said gently. ‘I’ve made a fire in there. I’ll be through in a minute.’

  There were still a few bottles of her mother’s elderberry wine in the cupboard. Not the very best year, but good enough. With a silent message of thanks, Louisa opened one and filled two glasses.

  Edward was sitting, not in his usual chair, but on the sofa, elbows on knees, staring into the fire. Sitting beside him, Louisa handed him the wine and told him to drink it.

  ‘It’ll do you good,’ she said, pushing back the lock of hair from his forehead. ‘Now, tell me. What happened?’

  ‘The funeral went well – church full, people outside, the entire village gathered to pay their respects. It was very moving. The eulogy – well,’ Edward cleared his throat, took a sip of wine, ‘clearly my father was well-loved.’

  It was a moment before he could go on. ‘They’d read the will beforehand. Put Mrs Pepperdine through hell before I got there. But at least she had the good sense to tell them no more than they were entitled to know. Good grief, Louisa, that nephew of his – the one who inherited the title – he’s an arrogant swine. I’m just glad my father referred to me only as his friend. If he’d acknowledged me as his son — as apparently he wanted to – I’d never have heard the end o
f it. As it was,’ Edward added bitterly, ‘the nephew was talking about contesting the will’s validity almost before we’d got the funeral over with. Thank God the solicitor who drew it up was there — he soon squashed that idea.’

  ‘I don’t quite understand...?’

  ‘I’m sorry, I’m getting ahead of myself – not thinking straight at all.’ Drinking deeply, he said: ‘Excluding property, my father’s estate has been divided up three ways. Apart from small bequests — mainly to servants — a third goes to Mrs Pepperdine, who’s been his housekeeper for nearly thirty years, a third goes to charity, and the rest to me. It’s hard to say how much just yet, but the solicitor thinks in the region of two thousand pounds.’

  ‘All of it?’ Louisa asked in amazement. ‘Or do you mean just to you?’

  ‘Each. Two thousand each.’

  ‘But that’s a fortune! I thought he was a poor man.’

  He shrugged. ‘By their standards, I suppose he was. Nevertheless,’ he added, his voice suddenly tight, ‘the nephew was fairly hopping. He wanted to know who the hell I thought I was, battening on to an old man in his senility. God knows,’ Edward exclaimed, startling Louisa by his vehemence, ‘there was nobody with more wit and good sense than my father — to suggest that…’

  Louisa took his glass and set it down. Squeezing his shoulder, she said: ‘They’re not worth it, Edward. Don’t distress yourself...’

  ‘That solicitor knew more than he was letting on, though. There was a note for me: he gave me it as he was leaving. He just said, “Your father asked me to give you this…”’

  Suddenly, to her great dismay, Edward’s self-control deserted him. Like a child he hid his face in his arms. Feeling all his sorrow and humiliation, Louisa’s heart twisted. In itself, money meant nothing to him: it was merely a means to provide. Besides, it could never compensate for the loss of a loved and trusted friend, the father he had longed for all his life and discovered such a few short years ago. To be accused of avarice hurt him, she knew, like nothing else could.

  ‘Don’t,’ she said again, ‘don’t distress yourself. They don’t count — none of them do. Whatever they think doesn’t matter. You need never see them again.’

  He turned then, hiding his contorted face against her breast. ‘It isn’t just that,’ he whispered brokenly.

  ‘I know.’ Hurting for him, Louisa held him close, cradling his head in her arms. ‘It was what you meant to each other – I know. If it’s any comfort, dearest, you’ve still got me — and the children. I know I’m not much, but I do love you.’

  ‘You’re everything to me,’ Edward said fiercely. ‘If I should lose you, too – if you should go away...’

  ‘How could I leave you?’ she whispered. ‘I love you. Why won’t you believe that?’

  His arms tightened, and through the pin-tucked layers of blouse and chemise, she felt the pressure of his lips against her breast. It was like being burned by a secret fire, one she did not want to relinquish. A little moan escaped her as he raised his head; and another as he kissed her throat.

  With a long, deep sigh, like a man at the close of an arduous, exhausting journey, he eased her back against the cushions; and for a moment looked wonderingly down at her.

  ‘Do you?’ he murmured huskily.

  Her fingers touched his lips. ‘You know I do.’

  The pain left his face then; without another word he nestled his head against her shoulder, his arms possessively around her waist. Tension coiled her every nerve, but he seemed quite relaxed, breathing with deep and steady regularity, neither moving nor speaking for so long she began to think sleep had claimed him. She told herself it was natural, that after two exhausting days of harassment and grief he was simply relieved to know he was home and safe.

  No lamps were lit, and in the fire’s dull glow all should have been peace and contentment; but a little cinder of need, lit by the pressure of his lips, burned resolutely within. If she had only known ten years ago, Louisa thought, what seemed so obvious now, but with no Robert in between...

  ‘Why the sigh?’ he murmured.

  With a wry smile, Louisa shook her head. ‘I thought you’d fallen asleep.’

  ‘No, just extending a very precious moment. And listening to your heart, so steady and strong.’

  In the light of her thoughts, those words were imbued with unbearable poignancy. For a moment it was difficult to speak. Then, with feigned lightness, she said: ‘It’s a very foolish heart. It wishes, sometimes, for things which just can’t be.’

  ‘What things? Tell me.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ she said, a little breathlessly. ‘That I could turn back the clock, be what I used to be, instead of what I am.’

  ‘Don’t wish that. I wouldn’t change you.’

  ‘Wouldn’t you? Wouldn’t you go back ten years and start again?’

  Edward raised himself to look at her; with a tender smile he shook his head. ‘I might have done once, but not now. You see,’ he said simply, ‘I love you just as you are.’

  For a moment his fingers tightened round hers, crushing Robert’s signet ring against the plain gold band on her wedding finger. In that painful moment she longed to discard them, lock them away in some secret place along with the woman she had been. As though he read those thoughts, Edward looked down at her hand, worrying the two rings with his thumb.

  ‘Do you really need these?’ he asked quietly; and when she shook her head, asked if she would take them off.

  With difficulty, she did so, thrusting them deep into her pocket. Her left hand looked naked without them, but she was aware of a most ridiculous lightness, as though fetters had been broken and she was free.

  Edward kissed the palm, and then each fingertip, one by one; and then, very deliberately, bent his head and touched her lips. It was a gentle kiss, but, like that accidental contact weeks before, it sent a darting flame through both of them. Their eyes met, and this time Louisa did not look away. For a long, long moment he continued to regard her, as though needing to know, positively and absolutely, that he was the one she really wanted. Gentle fingers touched her eyes, her hair, her face; he traced the outline of her mouth and smiled as she smiled, with tender satisfaction.

  ‘I love you,’ he said again, and clasped her to his heart. For some time nothing more was said; even kisses were unnecessary, so close was their embrace, so deep was their awareness of each other. In that moment all barriers fell. Stirred, Louisa felt the same need in him; yet that leap of the blood was nothing compared to the sense of hearts and minds and souls being reunited; of coming home, and finding peace and rest and absolute contentment.

  With no more need for pretence, apprehension fled; and in its fleeing Louisa wondered how she could ever have questioned the breadth and depth of his love.

  Sharing those thoughts, he said: ‘It was a long time before I knew. Before I realized how much I needed you. The day before you left for Ireland – do you remember? – you said something about not noticing the Minster when it was there all the time. Things need to be taken away, don’t they, before we notice how important they are.’

  Pressing herself closer, Louisa murmured: ‘Why did you never say, before?’

  He laughed, softly. ‘Oh, my angel, what a question! Give me a week, and I might answer that! No,’ he amended gently, ‘let’s just say that while you were wishing for a return to innocence, I’ve been regretting my celibate years.’

  ‘Does that worry you?’ she asked, looking up at him.

  With a rueful smile, he said: ‘It has done, yes.’

  Moved by that honest admission, by what she saw as his deliberate refusal to mention Robert, Louisa suddenly saw how difficult life had been for him, especially these last months in the cottage. Her eyes examined him for any lingering trace of bitterness or anguish, but there was none. Nor, she thought with tenderness, did he show the years which had divided them when she was young. With his fine features and pale skin, Edward could have been touching her own ag
e; and even his eyes, which betrayed the strain of the past few days, held all the uncertainty of an untried, beseeching lover.

  ‘Oh, Edward,’ she whispered, loving him so much she thought her heart would break with it, ‘how could I be so blind?’

  Looking deep into her eyes, he said softly: ‘Probably because I didn’t want you to see — I didn’t want to spoil what we already had.’

  ‘But I thought I knew you so well, I thought you...’

  ‘Don’t,’ he whispered, laying a gentle finger against her lips, ‘don’t tell me what you thought. We were both wrong, and it doesn’t matter now. I haven’t been unhappy — far from it. The worst thing was the fear of losing you.’

  For a long moment, words would not come. She kissed his hands passionately, pressing each palm against her mouth. ‘You shame me, Edward...’

  ‘No,’ he said fervently, ‘I love you.’

  Holding her very close, he repeated those words over and over, as though, having broken the seal on his tongue, it was necessary to compensate for the years of silence. And between the words, like pauses in a poem, his lips touched her skin; soft, sensitive, searching, each little touch raising thrill upon thrill of pleasure. Opening the neck of her blouse, she felt, given the chance, that he would probably kiss every inch of her body, and shivered with delightful anticipation. Turning her mouth to his, wanting him, needing to show it, she urged the same quickening in him. She had a sense of carefully banked-down fires bursting into flame; his skin was hot, his lips burned against hers and, by the eager press of his body as they lay together, Louisa knew at last how very much he wanted her. Giving herself up to that passionate embrace, for the first time since Robert’s visit she was genuinely, wholeheartedly glad that she had sent him away.