Louisa Elliott

by Ann Victoria Roberts

  But Edward was not Robert, and from long experience his passion was a governable thing. Trembling, with his fingers lightly tracing the line of her breast, he slowly shook his head. ‘I love you,’ he said again, and she recognized too the change in emphasis.

  ‘And I love you — always and forever.’

  He kissed her very gently. ‘Then marry me.’

  Louisa’s heart and soul leapt in unison; she thought of all the false starts and wrong directions, roads which had led to pain and grave misunderstanding, and it seemed she was being offered a most undeserved and overwhelming second chance.

  ‘Yes,’ she whispered at last, against his mouth, knowing life had never been more beautiful, Edward never more the lover she had always wanted.

  Drawing back, with the suggestion of a smile lighting the glance which traversed her face, he murmured unsteadily: ‘If you are going to marry me, I think you’d better make it very soon. I’m beginning to doubt my ability to wait!’

  ‘There’s no need…’ she began, but he silenced her with a light, chaste kiss.

  ‘Oh, but there is,’ Edward insisted. ‘After all these years, my angel, you and I are going to do things right.’’

  Sixteen

  They were married eight days later by special licence, in the church of St Mary, Bishophill Senior, at three in the afternoon.

  A quaint little gritstone church, its brick tower, pointed gables and dipping, layered roofline spoke of changes and additions which stretched back over a thousand years. It stood within the city walls at the head of a steep slope, overlooking the chimneys, roofs and warehouses of Skeldergate, its tiny graveyard a haven of autumnal peace amongst that dusty, workaday bustle.

  Escorted by John Chapman, Louisa walked past ancient, weathered tombstones to the south door, her eyes catching names and dates spanning three centuries, while her feet scuffed the fallen yellow leaves of another year’s dying. The golden, hazy day reminded her for a moment of other such days in other years, the years of another life to which it was suddenly important to say goodbye.

  By the door she paused, and, leaving John in some consternation, went round the church to the shadowed north side. From there, beyond the river, between those rusty roofs and blackened chimneys, she could see the Minster, its glorious towers rising clear and white. Beyond them lay Gillygate and childhood, and somewhere to the left, upriver, was the little apartment she had shared with Robert. She said goodbye to that, and, in her heart, to him. When he knew of her decision she was sure he would understand; she felt that perhaps he had been trying to tell her something of the kind on his last visit. From now on the past would no longer matter. Secure in Edward’s love, in the fact that at long last he knew and understood the very mixed feelings Robert inspired, Louisa prayed that one day they could meet again as friends.

  John Chapman cleared his throat and glanced at his watch. ‘Come on, Louisa. It’s time we went in.’

  She looked at him, well-fed, prosperous now, and wondered where the bashful young carpenter had gone. They were the same age and yet he seemed much older, and was certainly ill at ease. Was it the occasion, she asked herself, or a continuation of the basic antipathy he had always felt towards her? But it hardly mattered, she thought; determined nothing should mar the day, Louisa smiled at him and took his arm, grateful for the part he had offered to play, and trying to like him for a few minutes at least.

  Walking into the old church with its smell of candles and beeswax and age, she felt fresh and sweet and new, like the scented carnations she carried, a last-minute gift from Edward. A delicate shade of pink, they matched her blouse and the trim of her new velvet hat. There had been no time to order a new costume for the wedding, but the pearl-grey jacket and skirt bought in the spring had rarely been worn, and even Blanche pronounced it acceptable. To Louisa it was more than that, and when Edward turned to see her approach down the aisle, she knew she was beautiful.

  His eyes were bright with emotion, hair burnished gold in light diffused through medieval glass. He was indeed, she thought, her ‘verray parfit gentil knight’...

  Without benefit of choir or hymns, the ceremony was short. She gave her responses clearly, promising as she had practised, to love, cherish and obey.

  Edward’s promise as he slipped the ring on her finger: ‘With this ring, I thee wed… With this body I thee worship…’ moved her almost to tears. She glanced at him as they knelt together for the blessing, and felt the fullness overflow. For a fleeting second he pressed her hand in reassurance, and afterwards, raising her hat’s tiny veil, he embraced her with brief intensity.

  And then Emily was kissing her, fussing like a mother hen; even Blanche allowed the semblance of a tear as she patted Edward’s cheek and exhorted him to look after Louisa properly now. After that, the signing of the register was almost an anti-climax.

  The little party walked back along the riverside in the hazy autumn sunshine, all of them strangely quiet, locked in private thoughts and speculations which broke into the sharp laughter of relief only as they reached the cottage. Bessie was there to welcome them, her kind old face flushed and tragi-comic as she laughed and wept by turns.

  Bemused but excited, Robin and Tisha milled between the adults, demanding to know what was happening. Receiving no definite replies, they demanded cake and sandwiches instead, but access to the tea-table was denied until Liam arrived. He was visibly astonished by the sight of his two aunts in their best gowns, his mother looking like a princess and almost giddy with laughter, and everyone suddenly patting his head, kissing him and wishing him a very happy birthday.

  Louisa drew him onto her knee. Cuddling him, smoothing his soft blonde hair, she longed to let him into the secret, even while she knew he was too young to understand. Her eldest son, and Robert’s, although he did not know it; and at last she had married the man Liam thought was his father. Even while she wished him a happy birthday, Louisa felt she was cheating him…

  The coincidence of his birthday that week had seemed the best way of explaining everyone’s presence and the air of celebration. Very gently, she explained that he was going to Leeds with Aunt Emily and Uncle John; along with Tisha and Robin, of course, but it was to be a special treat for his birthday. She sensed from his expression that it was a treat he would rather have done without, and was tempted, suddenly, to call the whole thing off. Torn, glancing at Edward, happy in smiling conversation with John Chapman, she knew she owed this night, at least, totally to her husband. No distractions, no lengthy bedtime stories, no children crying in the night. Hardening her heart, she kissed her best-loved child with sudden intensity, and, taking his hand, took him to her sister.

  Within the hour they were all gone, leaving Edward and Louisa with the dregs of the champagne and a considerable amount of clearing-up. Bessie had washed most of the china, but there was still much to side away and a fire to light. After the warmth of the afternoon, the cloudless sky and blazing early autumn sunset promised a cold night with perhaps a touch of frost.

  Distracted from her task, Louisa called Edward to her side, and from the window overlooking the garden they watched the haze of red, like fire in the west, spread and deepen over distant roofs and chimney stacks; stood and watched until the apple trees in the orchard were no more than black silhouettes.

  With his arms around her, Edward nuzzled her neck. ‘Come on, Mrs Elliott,’ he murmured with gentle, teasing pride, ‘this and better might do. Let’s clear these things away and get that fire lit — then we can settle down. There’s a new book I brought home yesterday,’ he added slyly, ‘which I rather hoped you might read to me.’

  For a moment she thought he was serious. ‘A new book? What is it?’

  He smiled, kissing her. ‘A first edition, very valuable. It’s by some chap called Milton — Paradise Regained, I think it’s called...’

  She laughed then and kissed him back, holding his face between her hands. ‘In that case, Mr Elliott, we’d better hurry. I understand it’s an aw
fully long poem!’

  While Louisa washed the last of the dishes he went outside, strolling to the top of the garden in the cold, still air. The smell of autumn, more pronounced with every passing day, reminded him of his aunt and those revelations so many years ago; and of his father, so recently buried. Stricken for a moment, he looked back to that early summer visit, recalling the old man’s serene philosophy and trying to hold it in his mind like an amulet against these sudden bouts of pain. Life was changing, as his father had predicted; although it seemed uncanny those changes should be brought about by the fact of the old man’s death. But in a way, Edward thought, it was peculiarly fitting.

  Fitting also that he and Louisa had given themselves this week of readjustment and discovery. Each evening, curled up on the sofa before a warmly blazing fire, they had explored both past and present with unaccustomed honesty, healing the occasionally painful disclosures with love. Each night, however, it had been harder to part; so tempting, with no more than a thin wall between them, to set that earlier vow aside and give way to burgeoning desire. Although he had slept fitfully, Edward did not regret it; out of that new closeness he had found courage to ask the kind of questions he had never asked anyone before. Reassured, he was less afraid of making a hash of things. New to each other, they would learn, as she so wisely said, from one another’s mistakes.

  Aware that Louisa and his father had shared certain wisdoms he lacked, Edward offered a silent prayer of thanks for them both as he retraced his steps, past serried lines of winter vegetables and through the orchard, heavy with ripening fruit. A few apples had fallen already, and as he picked one up he sniffed it pleasurably, inhaling its cidery sharpness. Suddenly taken by the allegory of lost innocence, he smiled and bit into its rosy skin, savouring an unexpected sweetness on his tongue.

  He could see Louisa in the kitchen, moving unhurriedly about her tasks; the scrubbed white table with its lamp in the centre, and, where the door was open, a golden triangle of light spilling forth across the flags. It was a view he often saw and paused over, and, like a stranger, envied; but for the first time he felt he truly belonged here, and knew she was waiting for him.

  Smiling back at the moon, rising large and pale in the eastern sky, Edward tossed the core of his apple across the garden wall and went inside.

  Making a play of searching for that mythical new book, he produced instead a second bottle of champagne, saying that, with luck, they should each have more than the half-glass they had been left with earlier. ‘Although I must admit,’ he added with a slight grimace, ‘I think it’s overrated. I’d have preferred us to drink to each other with your mother’s elderflower wine.’

  ‘There’s plenty of elderberry left, if you’d rather have that.’

  ‘No,’ he said gently, privately recalling an evening spent in Robert’s company, ‘that’s for consolation, not celebration.’

  ‘Is it?’

  ‘I think so.’

  Handing Louisa a glass, he raised his own, watching her over its rim, feasting his eyes on her peach-like loveliness, hardly daring to believe she was his wife at last. Conscious of that lingering study, her hands made little fluttering movements, from the glass to a small table, from its cover to her hair and then to the lace-trimmed collar of her pink silk blouse. That she should also be stricken with last-minute nerves was a most flattering revelation; one which stirred his blood even as he smiled. Going to her, for a moment he simply enfolded her within his arms, kissing her cheek with affectionate and tender restraint.

  After all the heightened tensions of the past week he wanted her desperately, but, remembering the subtle pleasure of each slow discovery already made, Edward was reluctant to rush those final steps. Easing her down beside him he was aware, at every point of contact, of an exquisite tingling running through him; touching her hair, her mouth, her breasts, he wondered whether she could feel it too.

  There was answer in the little moan of happiness and relief as he kissed her, in the parting of soft lips under his. Conscious, in some distant corner of his mind, that he was losing control, Edward tried hard to concentrate, to think of the bed waiting upstairs, far more comfortable than this elderly sofa, and surely more appropriate. But the unexpected touch of her tongue triggered a leaping response; with a gasp he pressed himself against her, eagerly exploring the warmth of her mouth.

  It was heady wine, headier by far than the neglected champagne. He felt her hands run under his shirt and over his back, and the restrictions of clothes were suddenly too much. Wanting to be rid of them, he fumbled inexpertly with the tiny buttons of her blouse, slipping off his jacket and waistcoat as she unfastened them herself. With his shirt open, he drew her back, and as she knelt between his knees, shivered at her touch. Untying each little satin bow of her chemise, slipping the narrow straps from her shoulders, he sighed as the soft lawn fell away. Caught by her fire-warmed beauty, by that strange vulnerability as she knelt there, he could only watch as she released the fastening at her waist, until, surrounded by that mass of virgin white, she took his hand, stretching out like an odalisque before him.

  With great reverence he bent and touched his lips to the tip of each full breast, unable to speak, scarcely able to breathe for wanting her. Naked, he lay beside her, feeling skin that was cool against the throbbing heat of his loins; and where she led, he followed, until, like a slow-burning fuse, that heightened hour of flickering firelight, of soft words and butterfly touches, exploded at last in a short, violent consummation. Louisa arched and cried out as he flooded her, thrusting hard against him in a shared, sobbing climax which seemed to go on forever.

  Slowly, the violence subsided. He would think it was over, and then another tremor, deep within her womb, would find its echo in himself. Joined to her, kissing her, he was aware of a profound sense of completion, of wanting nothing more than this.

  As languor overtook them both he smoothed damp curls from Louisa’s forehead, and, raising himself on one elbow, looked down into her happy, beautiful face. Reluctant to speak lest he should break that fragile sense of being one and whole with her, Edward simply smiled. Her eyes, soft with love, told him all he wanted to know.

  Seventeen

  Returning from Leeds with the children the following afternoon, they heard the cries of news-vendors. ‘War’ was the word they caught, verified by headlines on every hoarding. ‘WAR COMMENCED!’ and: ‘LAING’S NEK SEIZED BY BOERS!’

  At the station they queued for the latest edition, scanning the inside pages immediately.

  ‘Majuba Hill to be occupied,’ Louisa read aloud. ‘Hurried flight from Newcastle – Natal to be abandoned down to Dundee and Glencoe – nearest British troops in Ladysmith.’

  ‘That’s bad,’ Edward murmured. ‘They’ve managed to take advantage of us, after all.’

  ‘And before we were ready,’ she added with sickly apprehension. Soon — all too soon – Robert would be on his way.

  As though he read her thoughts, Edward pressed her hand. ‘You must write to him – tonight, I think.’

  Having risen at five to oversee the arrival of a new batch of horses, Robert returned to the Mess for breakfast. Tommy was already halfway through an enormous plate of bacon and eggs, his chin fairly dripping with grease. Wiping his lips on a napkin, he greeted Robert with his usual friendly grin.

  ‘What do you think to them? Will they do, d’you think?’

  Robert grunted a monosyllabic reply. His breakfast ordered, he sat back and yawned, suddenly aware of the fatigue the last few weeks had wrought. ‘We could have done with them a month ago. Like everything else the War Office condescends to allow. The way they’re carrying on, you’d think this damned war was a great surprise to them!’

  ‘They should’ve had us ready a month ago, never mind the horses. By the time we get there, the damned war’ll be over!’

  ‘D’you really think so?’

  With a laugh and a shrug, Tommy pushed his empty plate away. ‘Perhaps not. With any luck, they’
ll let us do the mopping-up.’

  Easing the neck of his new khaki uniform, Robert forebore to comment. Of the reports he had read so far, not even the best were enough to rejoice over. Kruger was clever and those Boer farmers were hard, used to the climate, familiar with the territory, and, most important of all, fighting for their land, hard won over several generations. They had a lot of advantages, and were not about to give up easily, even if it meant fighting dirty without any rules. As they were doing already, he reflected. While British troops waited for an official declaration of war, the Boers had taken matters into their own hands.

  The vague, illogical uneasiness of months had grown into a positive but inexplicable certainty. Without specific reason, Robert knew instinctively that all the unquestioning discipline of the British troops, all their bravery and patriotism, was not going to be enough to win this war with speed or ease. It would not be over by Christmas, no matter how often that phrase was repeated; nor would those Boer farmers be squashed like recalcitrant natives.

  War was a job he trained for, and part of him could not fail to be excited by its fulfillment. But he was also afraid, and that very fear prevented him from furthering his argument with anyone else. The memory of being wounded at Omdurman a year ago still gave him occasional nightmares, and his fear and presentiment were strong. Strong enough to sharpen his eye for detail and discipline, to make him determined that every man under his command should be as well-trained and well-prepared as it was humanly possible to be.

  And was it the thought of dying, he asked himself, which made him so very sad about Louisa?

  Her letter arrived by the afternoon post. It was waiting for him in his quarters when he returned to change for dinner in the Mess.

  As usual, Harris had laid out his uniform. Quiet and unobtrusive as ever, he eased off Robert’s boots and poured him a large brandy, setting the tray with its glass and decanter on the small table by his chair. Almost as an afterthought, he placed the letter on the tray, giving the Major a surreptitious glance as he did so.