A gift of daisies

by Mary Balogh

  Time certainly did not drag by. Rachel could even convince herself that she was happy. And why should she not be? She was surrounded by friends and admirers. There was always someone with whom to talk. And there was Algernon, whom she saw every day. Her spirits always lifted when she saw him riding or walking across the fields from the direction of Singleton Hall or when he was announced. A house party certainly gave her every chance of continuing in the country the sort of life she had lived in town and the sort of life she had come to think of as right for a young lady. Yet here she had the chance too to do the sorts of things she had always enjoyed doing. And so some of the restless emptiness that had threatened her quiet moments in London did not come upon her so frequently.

  The happiest part of her days, in fact, came to be the mornings, when she was free of the obligation to entertain. And as the days passed, she found more and more that she was drawn to the cottages of her father's tenants and laborers. She took food with her most of the time, but she did so only as an excuse to visit the children and the elderly people. She had never felt quite as comfortable in the few houses that had neither. She felt frivolous and useless when confronted solely with working people. She felt that she was keeping them from their work.

  But she grew to love more than ever the older people, those whose working days were past. They were mostly lonely people with a great deal to say and almost no audience to whom to say it. Rachel became their audience as she had to a lesser extent before. Not just out of a sense of politeness or charity-she loved to hear their stories of the past, accounts of their almost heroic efforts to earn a living, to bring up a large family, and to maintain a dignity in the face of hardship. She always enjoyed especially their reminiscences of her grandparents and their family, who had lived at Oakland fairly frequently through the years.

  Following her success with Mrs. Perkins, she suggested to several of these old people that she might read to them, and all were delighted at the notion of Lady Rachel Palmer reading from books just for them. She was soon in the habit of carrying around a Bible and a copy of The Pilgrim's Progress in the gig with her. Once she started reading the latter, she found she was committed to returning again and again so that she might continue reading the adventures of Christian on his way to the Celestial City.

  She tried reading to the children and indeed found that they were enthralled at first and for short periods of time. She soon learned, though, that she could hold their attention much more easily by telling a story. She used the same book, The Pilgrim's Progress, and found that it could grip a child's imagination as deeply as it could an elderly person's.

  The added attraction of these mornings was the hope of meeting David Gower, though Rachel tried not to admit the thought to herself. And finally he did come upon her one morning, sitting on the rather dusty grass outside one cottage telling four rapt children the adventures of Christian at Vanity Fair. She did not even see him approach and would not have realized he was standing behind her if the children had not begun giggling more than was normal at her exaggerated gestures and spirited imitations of the characters in the story. She looked behind her eventually and joined in the laughter.

  "This particular rendition of the story is not for the ears of anyone past the age of twelve, sir," she said primly.

  "A pity, Lady Rachel," he said with a grin. "It sounds vastly more entertaining than Mr. Bunyan's version. Do you realize that the picture of Vanity Fair you were creating resembles Bond Street to an uncanny degree?"

  But his attention was caught before Rachel could answer, by a small child who was pulling persistently on the leg of his breeches.

  "Reverend," the child said as soon as he looked down and smiled, "look." She held up a child's silk-lined basket, capable of holding perhaps two eggs.

  David touched her tangled curls. "Very pretty, sweetheart," he said. "Are you going to help our mam with the carrying?"

  "It's mine," she said, big-eyed.

  "You brought the basket for Patty?" David asked later as he sat in the gig beside Rachel. She had offered to drive him back to the vicarage.

  "It was just something I had as a child," she said. "It was of no earthly use to me now."

  "You amaze me," he said, sitting sideways on the seat and watching her profile. "You are a very good and sensitive person, Rachel."

  She did not immediately answer. "I don't think I am flattered," she said quietly then. "I do not believe you know me very well at all. You find it amazing that I can occasionally think of someone other than Rachel Palmer?"

  "I did not mean my words to sound insulting," he said. "Pardon me. It is just that I knew you first in London, and you did there give the impression that your life was given over entirely to the love of gaiety and frivolity. And I don't believe I can be wholly blamed for forming that impression. You seem to go out of your way to hide the more serious and tender side of your nature."

  "Perhaps both impressions of me are true," she said. "People are not simple beings, you know. You cannot hang a single label on a person and think that you know him. Even you are not as uncomplicated as you appear, are you? You seem all calm gentleness, all dedication to a calling that most gentlemen would find irksome in the extreme. But there is a more impulsive, more passionate David, is there not? I have seen him."

  He sat looking at her for a whole minute before replying. "How have I come to upset you?" he asked. "I did not mean to, Rachel. I merely meant to comment on how touched I have been with your kindness to your father's people."

  "You are condescending to me," she said. "How would you feel if I were to tell you how kind I think your treatment of your parishioners? You would think me presumptuous. It is your duty to behave so, you would say. Well, perhaps it is my duty too, David. I do not need to be patted on the back and told what a good girl I am being. I have not been visiting these people in order to look good or to feel pious. I have been going because they are my friends and I derive great enjoyment from being with them. You see, I am still just the pleasure-seeking Lady Rachel Palmer at heart. You were quite right, David. I would be entirely incapable of sharing your life."

  "Rachel!" He leaned forward and put one hand firmly over hers. He eased the horse's ribbons out of her hands and drew the horse to a halt. He laid the ribbons down and placed one booted foot over them. "You are upset. I am truly sorry, and yet I do not know quite for what I apologize. I do not know how I have offended you."

  Rachel looked down at her hands clenching and unclenching themselves in her lap. "I don't think it will work," she said. "Risking loving you, I mean. I can't do it, David."

  "Can't love me?" he asked quietly.

  "I can't take the risk," she corrected him. "I have tried. I have tried thinking of you as Algie's cousin, as the vicar here, my vicar. I have tried admiring you for the way you live your faith and the way you project it at church. I have tried to think of you as my friend, and I have genuinely wanted to cooperate with you on making life richer for the children and the elderly. I have tried."

  "And?" he prompted at last. His voice was toneless.

  She shook her head. "It is too late," she said. "It is too late, that is all. I can convince myself all the time when I do not see you. And then I see you, and I know that it is too late."

  David said nothing. He continued to watch her profile, bent low now over her hands.

  "I just want to know something," she said. "I must know. You said yourself that we must not set barriers between us. Let there be no barrier now. Tell me in what way you love me. If you love me at all."

  "I want to lie," he said reluctantly at last. "It would be so much easier to lie. But it is never right to do so, is it? Pain is not thereby averted. I love you as you love me, Rachel. With the whole of my being."

  Rachel closed her eyes for a moment before turning her head and looking at him. There were no tears, but her eyes were full of pain.

  "And there is no hope for us, is there?" she asked. "Even if I were quite free, you would not marry
me."

  He shook his head. His face was very pale.

  "Because I am Lady Rachel Palmer, daughter of the Earl of Edgeley, and a wealthy heiress. Because I am used to a life of luxury and frivolity. Because I would find it impossible to settle to life in a drab vicarage with a man who gives away freely the little substance that he has. Because ultimately I would be a millstone about his neck." Her voice was bitter.

  "Yes," he said gently.

  "Should not I be the one to make that decision?" she asked.

  He shook his head. "No," he said.

  "Because I am too foolish to make a wise choice?" she asked. "Because I need the wisdom of a man to make my decisions for me?"

  "Because love is blind," he said. "Because your love for me seems at present to be the only thing that matters in life. Because I know that if I took you away to my chosen life, I would be taking you from the gaiety and the activities that make you the delightful person you are. I have to say no because I love you, Rachel."

  "Oh, no," she said vehemently. "You are going against your own philosophy, David. I thought you believed that only love could see. I thought love said yes, not no. I thought love took risks." She laughed suddenly. "One thing I never expected to do during my lifetime was beg any man to marry me. And now I have done it twice. Just a short while ago I begged Algie. I thought I might be safe if I married him. I thought I might be safe from you."

  She put a hand over her mouth and continued to stare at him. Tears welled into her eyes but were blinked away.

  David put his hand over her wrist and stroked the back of her hand with his thumb. He said nothing for a while, until one tear spilled over. "I must leave here," he said. "I thought it would be the mark of a weak man to leave my position merely because of a personal problem. But for your sake I must leave, Rachel. You will forget me when I am gone, or at least you will be able to get on with your life."

  "Hold me," she said. "I need to be held. Oh, please. Don't close your eyes like that and bite on your lip. I am so very weak. Oh." She spread both hands over her face and turned sharply away. "This is well-deserved punishment for all the flirting I have done. None of those men has ever meant a single thing to me. And now the only man who means more than everything is too honorable even to touch me."

  She was in his arms then, his own holding her like iron bands to his heart until one hand came up to her chin and pulled roughly at the strings of her bonnet before casting it to the seat on the far side of her. He held her head against his coat and laid his cheek against the top of her head.

  "Rachel," he said. "My sweet love. Oh, if I could only have foreseen what knowing you would do to us both. I would have stayed away, love. I would have accepted my godmother's offer to find me a post in London. If I had only known. I wanted to devote my life to bringing the love of God into the lives of my people. I wanted to touch hearts with love. And I have brought only pain and bitterness to the woman I love most in the world. Forgive me. Oh, God, forgive me."

  "I have a large dowry, David," she said against his coat. "Papa will not oppose any marriage I make if he knows my heart is set upon it. And you have said Lady Wexford will help you find a position. We could go away from here and live in some comfort, and you could still work for the church. We could combine our two worlds, David. We could." She buried her face against him.

  "No," he said. "We can never have a life together, Rachel. If you give up your way of life for me, you will be very unhappy. If I give up my way of life for you, I will be destroyed. I must go away, love. It is the only way. You will marry Algie and have children, and a few years from now you will remember this episode as a slightly sad youthful infatuation."

  "And will you remember it that way?" She drew her head away from his shoulder and looked up into his eyes.

  He framed her face with his hands and shook his head. "No," he said.

  "Don't belittle my feelings then," she said, "just because I am a woman."

  He bent his head and kissed her, his hands still cupping her face. Rachel rested her hands against his chest and abandoned herself to an embrace that was warm with deep love but empty of passion. Neither lost contact with reality for even a moment. Both were reluctant to withdraw and know themselves alone once more.

  "I shall go away," David said again when he was looking down into her eyes, inches from his own. "Perhaps not as soon as I ought. Rufus and his family are coming to stay at the Hall. My brother, you know. Has Algie told you? I will not say anything while they are here. But after that I shall ask Algie to replace me. I shall be gone before you marry him."

  "I love you," Rachel said. "There. Am I not incurably self-indulgent? I wanted to hear myself say it because I know I will never say it again. There will be a strangeness between us after this, will there not? An awkwardness again. The next time we meet we will find it difficult to look at each other. So good-bye, David, while I still have the courage to look you in the eye. I love you, and I believe I always will. And I believe you are a fool to refuse to take the risk of marrying me. You really do not know me. I am not at all the person you think me."

  He smiled and finally withdrew his hands from her face. "You will be thanking God in future years for protecting you from such an indiscretion," he said. "Be happy, Rachel. That is what I wish for you more than anything in the world. You will be happy. You love Algie far more than you realize, I believe."

  Rachel bent down to retrieve the ribbons from beneath his boot. "Will you think me very rude and ungracious if I ask you to walk from here?" she asked. "The village is not much farther than a mile, is it? I am as taut as a bow, David. I must be alone."

  He jumped down into the roadway without another word, and Rachel none too gently set the horse into motion. She did not look back at the man who stood in the dust and watched her out of sight.

  ***

  It was true that Viscount Cardwell and his wife and two young sons were coming to stay at Singleton Hall the following week. Lord Rivers brought the news to Oakland that same afternoon.

  "He writes that he is coming because the children are now old enough to travel," Algernon explained to Lord and Lady Edgeley, "and because I have been pestering him ever since his marriage to visit me." He smiled at Rachel, who was sitting on a sofa flanked by Lord Morrison and Sir Herbert Fanshawe. "In reality, I think he wants to cast an eye on David to see how well he has settled to his new life. He will not take my word for it that his brother is a changed and a happy man."

  "Indeed, we are most fortunate in your choice of vicar, Algernon," Lady Edgeley said. "What a delight it is to be able to sit through a Sunday sermon without having to fight the urge to nod off to sleep."

  "Rufus has always felt guilty about having been born the elder," Algernon said. "He wanted David to accept an income from him, y'know, even though apparently he cannot afford such generosity. And he wanted David to go on the Grand Tour before settling down. It will be a good thing for him to come. He is bound to be reassured when he sees David for himself."

  "I have only one fault to find with our new vicar," Lord Edgeley said. "He is altogether too generous. It is all very well to help the people of his parish, though I would far prefer him to come to me if he discovers a need among my tenants of which I am unaware. But I must take exception to his feeding and even giving money to every Tom, Dick, and Harry who knocks on his door."

  "Does he do that?" Lord Mountford asked. "You should put a stop to it, Rivers. It only encourages vagrancy."

  "He is doubtless giving away money to people who are far better off than he is," Lord Edgeley said. "And how does he know that he is not giving aid to a fugitive from justice?"

  "I did tackle him on the subject a few days ago," Algernon said. "He just gave me that smile of his and said that it is better to give to some unworthies than not to give to some who are really in need."

  "It is called risk," Rachel said. "Do you not remember the Gospel reading at church last Sunday and the sermon? 'Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have
done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.' That was the key verse, I believe." She flushed suddenly, realizing that all eyes were upon her.

  "Lady Rachel has swallowed a Bible," Lord Morrison said languidly. "We should summon a physician at once. Dreadful malady, you know."

  "Everyone in my home is encouraged to be familiar with the book," Lord Edgeley commented. "One has to be wary of taking the words too literally, though, Rachel. In the days of Jesus there were probably not nearly as many frauds and liars as there are today. But no truly sensitive person would deny the virtue of giving alms where they are deserved, I believe."

  Rachel looked at her hands. It would be far better to hold her peace and allow her father to have the last word. "The Reverend Gower believes that one must risk loving everyone," she said, "even if that love is misplaced. Look at what happened to Matthew and Zacchaeus, Papa. Any sensible person would have said they were a poor risk."

  "Gracious, child," Lady Edgeley said, a note of finality in her voice. "We are boring our guests quite shamelessly. Did you say that you came to invite all the young people to walk over to Singleton to take tea, Algernon? I think that would be a splendid idea. Do run along, everyone, while the sun is still shining. It looks as if clouds may settle in later."

  One fact was perfectly clear to Rachel as she walked with Algernon ten minutes later. She would not be able to do what she had decided she must do. She had spent an agonized hour in her room after returning the gig to the stable before luncheon. But she had forgotten what David had said about the proposed visit of his brother. Now she must wait. Viscount Cardwell would not arrive for perhaps another week. He would probably stay as long.