by Lynn Morris
“No, I saw that your candles were still lit and I wanted to see about you. Aunt Tirel, I thought you were fatigued? We missed your company very much at dinner.”
“A mild reproof, but still undeserved. I was fatigued, and I went to bed and to sleep at eight o’clock. Then I woke up and knew that it would be fruitless to try to go back to sleep. Since I’ve gotten old I find that my sleep is often disrupted by these episodes. It’s really most tiresome.” She patted the bed and Mirabella sat down with her knees up, hugging her ankles.
Lady Dorothea was now sixty-four years old, seven years older than her brother, Mirabella’s father. She had never been considered a handsome woman, for she definitely had taken after her father, as had Lord Camarden. She was tall and had the same strong features, a square jaw and long imperious nose and wide forehead. She and her brother had inherited their father’s thick salt-and-pepper hair. When she was younger she had been sturdily built, but now she was rather bony and gaunt. Still, she didn’t look her age, for her face was relatively unlined and she had a certain vigor about her, although she did rely more heavily on the cane she had been obliged to start using the previous year.
Mirabella sighed. “It is tiresome, is it not? I must take after you, Aunt Tirel, for I often have sleepless nights. That’s one reason I love this banyan, on cold nights a simple flannel dressing gown doesn’t keep me warm. I often wander about at night when I’m restless. The servants think Camarden Court is haunted.”
“I’m not at all surprised. But no, Mirabella, I don’t think you’re at all like me. When I was your age I slept like a stone. Why don’t you sleep, Mirabella? Are you that worried, or troubled?”
Mirabella considered this. “No, not really. I think that I’m just of the perverse opinion that sleep is a waste of time. I’m always so anxious to be up and about, doing things.”
“I see. And what things might you wish to be doing tonight?”
“Why, talking to you. Is it too late? Are you about to retire?”
“No, to be honest, it’s a relief to have a distraction from this stupid book,” she rasped, tossing it down without marking her place and taking off her spectacles. “I thought it would bore me enough to put me to sleep. Instead I just find it irritating.”
“What book is it?”
“Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage. Everyone is so mad for it that I thought I must investigate, but I could barely get through the first canto. I had almost decided to toss it out the window.”
Mirabella giggled. “Ah, yes, Lord Byron’s masterpiece, it is all the rage now. And perhaps I’m not so unlike you as you think, Aunt Tirel. I was quite unable to get through the first canto at all. Childe Harold is a dreary, drooping, melancholy libertine, isn’t he?”
“Excellent observation. I should have realized after reading the introduction, ‘To Ianthe,’ that it was certain to be syrupy and melodramatic.”
“And I should have been well forewarned when I learned that Lord Byron’s Ianthe is actually Lady Charlotte Harley, who is is all of eleven years old,” Mirabella said scathingly.
“That settles it. It is going out the window.”
“That will suit me. My copy went to Giles, for he reads everything, even if he hates it. He’s just too intelligent to live. Anyway, Aunt Tirel, I would like to talk to you about something in particular. But first”—she smiled slyly—“I happen to have a secret potion to help me sleep. Madame Danton makes the most delicious orange ratafia for me, with heavenly spices like cinnamon and nutmeg and cloves. Would you care to share a glass with me?”
“I certainly would. And if you won’t tell anyone that I’m a secret drinker, then I won’t tell anyone that you are.”
“I seriously doubt that it’s a well-kept secret. You know the servants always know everything. I’ll just go along to my room and collect it.” She left and came back with a silver tray that held an exquisite crystal decanter and two small glasses. After serving her aunt and pouring herself a glass, she settled back on the bed and sipped lightly. “You see? It has very little brandy in it. When Madame Danton first started making it for me, I kept having to tell her to cut down the amount. Her first concoction made my head spin so badly after only two sips that I thought I was turning somersaults.”
“Then I must say that you’re not a very accomplished secret drinker.”
Mirabella nodded absently. She was deep in thought for long moments. Lady Dorothea waited quietly. Ever since Mirabella was a child, she had confided in her aunt, but sometimes it took a while for her to come to the point. On this night, however, she finally managed it very well.
“Aunt Tirel,” she said, frowning a little, “I have lately been thinking a lot about love.”
“Have you now? By your countenance I can surmise that it’s hardly like the so-rapturous swoonings of our Childe Harold. Is it charitable, familial, godly, filial, parental, maternal, or romantic love we’re considering?”
“Hm. Actually, it’s some of all of them. Tonight at dinner I was thinking about how I care so deeply for Lewin Rosborough, like a beloved brother. I hate to admit it, but it’s very different from my feelings toward Philip. I love him, of course, he’s my brother, I think it’s just that I hardly know him. And of course I love Josephine as much as if she were my own sister.”
“That is quite natural. Your life has been much more intertwined with Lewin’s and Josephine’s than it has been with Philip’s.”
Now Mirabella looked amused and the dimples showed ever so slightly. “And also at dinner I was thinking how very dear is Mr. Rosborough. I think if I could find a young man exactly like him I should marry him instantly.”
“You would do no such thing. Beautiful, wealthy, intelligent, accomplished, titled ladies of your age never have the good sense to marry a man such as the Reverend Rosborough.”
“No, I suppose not,” Mirabella agreed complacently. “And I know it wouldn’t suit. I’m so busy all the time, I should drive him to distraction. Mrs. Rosborough is such a calm, restful lady, they seem to do very well together.”
“They do. I believe they have one of the most successful marriages I’ve ever known.”
“A successful marriage,” Mirabella repeated. “How does one ensure that? How does one go about making the decision that this person will make me happy for the rest of my life? How will I know if I can make him happy?”
“I perceive now that we’re hardly talking about the romantic kind of love. We’re discarding that, are we?”
With a touch of weariness Mirabella said, “I don’t know. I don’t think I understand at all about romantic love. Once…I thought I did. Now I wonder if such a thing even exists.”
Mirabella could tell by the sudden shrewd light of understanding on her aunt’s face that Lady Dorothea now knew exactly what Mirabella was trying to ask her.
When Mirabella was seventeen, in her first Season in London, she had met the dashing, handsome Captain James Pryce of the glamorous Tenth Royal Hussars. Mirabella had fallen hard, and quickly, for him. He had been less forthcoming, but after a time he had told her of his deep love for her. Later he had told Mirabella that he simply couldn’t believe his good fortune, that he had never thought a lady such as Mirabella could fall in love with him. His family was not particularly distinguished, and he was poor. Mirabella told him that she couldn’t care less about either.
By the end of the Season, Mirabella had managed to be alone with him several times, and it seemed that their love was unconquerable and irresistible. Captain Pryce asked Mirabella to elope with him to Gretna Green.
Mirabella had been hesitant. “I dislike deceiving my parents, but I am so afraid that my father and mother would not approve. I must tell you, James, that I don’t think they would completely disown me, but it’s very possible that they wouldn’t give me such a substantial settlement.” Mirabella’s marriage settlement was thirty thousand pounds.
He had replied, “Mirabella, I wouldn’t care if they cut you off without a shilling. Tha
t is, I would hate to ask you to live on a captain’s pay, for we would be poor indeed. But for my part, I don’t care a fig for your settlement.” He had kissed her, and Mirabella had breathlessly agreed to elope with him.
But Captain Pryce had not been at all discreet. Either he bragged, or else he was truly so elated that he couldn’t keep it to himself. Mirabella often wondered which it had been. He told some of the other men in his regiment, and one of them was a good friend of the Earl of Reynes, Mirabella’s brother Philip. When her parents found out, they swept Mirabella back to Camarden Court immediately, and she never saw Captain Pryce again. He returned to the war in France and Spain, and died the next year in the Battle of Corunna. For almost five years Mirabella had struggled, trying to comprehend exactly what the nature of her love for Captain James Pryce had been. And she had ceaselessly wondered about his true feelings for her.
Now Mirabella had only one certainty concerning Captain Pryce. She had never again known the same breathless delight in another man’s company. She had never known the same heady and, yes, passionate depth of feeling again. She had never again even come close to falling so helplessly in love with another man. She was utterly confused. Her father had told her that Captain Pryce was nothing but a shameless fortune hunter. Had she been that deceived by him? Even more troublesome was the question: had she deceived herself ? Was it possible that he had been the only man she could ever love? Had it even really been love, or simply a youthful infatuation?
Lady Dorothea watched the changing expressions on Mirabella’s face. She asked, “Mirabella, are you wondering why I never married?”
Mirabella managed a small smile. “Yes, I am, Aunt Tirel, although I would never have the courage to be so impertinent as to ask you.”
“On the contrary, you do have a great deal of courage, in many ways. But then I know that I’m a fearsome old lady, and if the time had not been right, I would have given you a proper set-to.
“But I think that it is time now. I was engaged once, you see. I was twenty-five years old, and he was ten years my senior. I wanted to marry him more than anything I had ever wished for.”
Mirabella’s eyes grew wide and startled. “But no one has ever spoken of this. I don’t mean gossip, I mean my parents, the family has never told me.”
“No, I forbade them to. At first it was so painful for me that I never wished to hear his name again. And then, after a time, it wasn’t that it was so painful, it was simply that I had healed enough that I didn’t need to dwell on it, and I went on with my life.”
“What happened, Aunt Tirel?” Mirabella swallowed hard. “Was it—was it like me?”
Vigorously she said, “Not at all, Mirabella, except for one thing, I suppose. He was a soldier, Colonel John Grandison of the Bengal European Regiment, with the East India Company. He had been orphaned at sixteen, and had joined the army, and had been in India for eleven years. My father, your grandfather, knew him. John had returned to England, he was then thirty-five years old. He loved the army, and he loved India, and he had decided to sever all his ties here and live in India. My father introduced us.”
A slight shadow of pain darkened her eyes, and she took the last sip of her ratafia and held out her glass. “I promise not to tell anyone that you took two glasses if you promise not to tell anyone that I did.” As Mirabella silently poured the two drinks, she wondered if she really had intruded on a subject too painful for her aunt.
But then Lady Dorothea continued in her normal matter-of-fact tone, “Colonel Grandison and I fell in love, almost from the first time we met. His only hesitation was that he really wanted to live in India, but I was wild for it, and I convinced him that was what I wished, too. We decided to marry. The only request he made of me was that we wait until he could go back to India and make a home for us there. He had a small indigo plantation, and he said that the house was very humble, and that he couldn’t bear the thought of me living in a cottage with mud and dust and scorpions.” Now her dark eyes lit up with amusement. “I fought him savagely, but he simply wouldn’t consider taking me to India until he could provide for me.”
“He must have been a very strong man indeed, to win a fight with you,” Mirabella said lightly, then she looked dismayed. “That is—if he— Is he—”
“No, you’re right. He did die. He had been back in India for two months when he got typhoid. We received word from his commanding officer. I think that perhaps the hardest, most painful thing was that General Mayes said that John had never once been ill all the years he had been in India.”
“Oh, Aunt Tirel, I am so, so very sorry. That is so tragic,” Mirabella cried.
“It was, and I was devastated, of course. We were so well suited, we were so much alike. I knew that my life with him was going to be such an adventure.”
When Lady Dorothea Tirel was young, she’d been something of a rake. She rode to hounds, went shooting, raced her cabriolet, and generally scandalized Polite Society. Mirabella also knew of the greatest scandal, although she had never known the reason for it. When Lady Dorothea was twenty-six years old, she had gone to India with only a maid and a manservant. Lord Camarden had said that once Dorothea made up her mind to do something, no power on earth could stop her.
Aunt Tirel was watching Mirabella with an amused look on her face. “And so I went to India, and to this day I still relish the scandal it caused. It’s too ridiculous, I was never an immoral woman. I was just different. I had always chafed from the rigid strictures of society.
“John had left me his property, you see. He was a simple man, and he lived modestly, and had no air of privilege about him. But his plantation, and all of his money, came to over ten thousand pounds.”
“Ten thousand pounds? That must have been a substantial fortune that many years ago.”
Lady Mirabella rolled her eyes. “Oh, yes it was, back in olden times.”
Mirabella looked down into her glass. “And so my grandfather approved of your marriage?”
Lady Dorothea smiled, and it warmed Mirabella. When she smiled her eyes sparkled and her entire countenance looked merry. She may not have been a handsome woman, but she was attractive. “My father indulged me in the same way that your father indulges you. How do you suppose I was allowed to run wild, as I did?”
“Aunt Tirel, I do not run wild. There may be occasional lapses, such as the stewpond incident, but normally I’m perfectly respectable. At any rate, I’m sure one reason my grandfather was so lenient with you was because Grandmother died when you were but seven, and he never remarried a woman to raise you and Pappa.”
Mirabella’s grandmother had died giving birth to her father. In the course of their marriage, her grandparents had had seven children, but Lady Dorothea and Lord Camarden had been the only ones to survive. Four had died in infancy, and one had died at the age of eleven.
“That may be true, I suppose. How I wish he would have lived to see you, you are so much like my mother,” Lady Dorothea said quietly. “Still, his indulgence of me wasn’t the sole reason that he approved of John. Your grandfather was a soldier, and an army man through and through, and he greatly respected John. As I said, we weren’t even really privy to his financial situation. At my request, my father offered to give John half of my settlement, which was six thousand pounds, before we married, to help with building us a new home. John flatly refused, but it shows how much Father esteemed him.”
Mirabella sighed. “So for all of these years you’ve mourned Colonel Grandison. I understand now why you never married.”
“No, you don’t understand at all, Mirabella. Of course I mourned him, I grieved for him, I felt terrible loss. I was even angry at God when John died. But as I said, time passed, I healed, and I went on with my life. Later, when I was thirty, and again when I was thirty-two, I considered marriage. But I made a decision that I simply was not meant for marriage. And I realized how much the Lord had blessed me, because I had the means to remain independent, and a wonderful family. I had a l
oving father and brother, and later I had your mother, and you and Philip. No, Mirabella, I have not been suffering. I’ve had a good life, a satisfying, rich life. I still do.”
Mirabella asked softly, “But Aunt Tirel, haven’t you had regrets?”
“Of course I have, everyone does. But remaining unmarried has not been one of them.”
“It’s so difficult for me to understand.”
“Yes, it would be. Because I was right when I said that you’re nothing like me, in spite of our mutual disdain for Lord Byron. Don’t mistake me, child. I don’t expect anyone else to make the same choice I did. I heartily approve of marriage. Well, some marriages, but that is not the salient point. I can see now, my dear, that you are longing for marriage.”
“Oh, I am, Aunt Tirel,” Mirabella said with relief, now that she could admit it. “I know that I swore when I was seventeen that I would never marry, and—and of course you know the reason for that. And then when I was eighteen I said that I would, perhaps in my third Season. That Season I decided I would wait until the next Season. I have driven my poor Mamma to distraction. But now, just in the last year, I have been longing to have my own home, and family. Especially children.”
“I would advise you to select a husband first,” Lady Dorothea said. “And have you?”
Mirabella smiled mischievously. “Not yet. I have several candidates, but I shall have to interview them this Season.”
“I see. What are your requirements for the position?”
“He must be handsome, of course. He must have a suitable income, and preferably a sizable estate, although there is room for negotiation on that particular point.”
“That’s very generous of you. Now I should like to revisit our first topic. What about love? The romantic kind?”
Mirabella looked straight into her eyes. “What about it, Aunt? One thing I have understood as we’ve talked tonight. You never loved another man as you did Colonel Grandison. If you had you would have married him.”
