The Wood Nymph

by Mary Balogh

  Hetherington had gone with him to his southern property, Ferndale, along with a few other acquaintances with whom he had learned to be comfortable. And there he had had his first experience of the kind of welcome a new member of a community could expect to receive. He and his houseguests had become involved in a constant round of activities. Invitations had been endless. And he had enjoyed it all, surprising himself with the sense of belonging that he had felt almost from the beginning.

  He might have settled there at Ferndale had it not been for that unhappy experience with Elizabeth. She had been a paid companion at the time, but he had been instantly attracted to her quiet charm and tranquil manner. It was only when he was already in love with her, he was sure, that he had realized just how beautiful she was too. It was only then, too, that he had discovered that by some bizarre twist of fate she was the estranged wife of his friend Hetherington. It still seemed impossible, even now, to believe that such a thing could actually have happened.

  In his innocence he had not recognized the fact that love still existed between those two. Although Elizabeth had told him that she still loved her husband, he had tried to persuade her to let Robert divorce her so that she might marry him. Hetherington was no longer at Ferndale at the time. And she had agreed, though he realized now that her acquiescence had been a muddled and unhappy one. So, like a knight crusader, he had ridden off to ask Hetherington for the simple matter of a divorce for his wife.

  Mainwaring took one hand from the reins of his horse and ran it along his jaw. He could almost feel that first unexpected punch that Hetherington had thrown in the middle of the drawing room of Hetherington Manor. They had fought doggedly and silently for several minutes before the butler and Robert’s secretary had rushed into the room to pull them apart. Hetherington’s voice had been cold and expressionless afterward when they were straightening their clothes and wiping blood from mouths and noses.

  “Elizabeth is my wife and will remain so, Mainwaring,” he had said. “You had best forget her. I will not tolerate your touching her, and if I find that you have already done so, I shall kill you, my friend.”

  Mainwaring had left without another word, and he had seen neither one of them since. It was not that he was afraid of Hetherington’s threats. Rather, he was a man of high principle. If his erstwhile friend chose to claim his wife, he had every right to do so. Mainwaring himself must not interfere.

  He had never been back to Ferndale. He had spent the winter and the spring in London, though he had not involved himself to any large extent in the social life there. He had tried to adjust himself to the first real setback that life had offered him. He had never loved before. Indeed, he had had almost nothing to do with women before. Consequently, when he had fallen in love, he had fallen hard. And he had found that it was impossible to forget Elizabeth. He would love her all his life. No other woman could possibly mean anything to him.

  Instead of dismounting at the entrance to the earl’s house, Mainwaring rode on to the stables. He should have expected the welcome he had been given at Graystone, then. Perhaps its closeness to Scotland had led him to expect that he would have quiet and privacy here. But maybe it was as well that matters had turned out this way. Shy as he was, he really did not wish to be a hermit. He had learned to value the few friends he had made since leaving Scotland, though he had permanently lost the two dearest friends he had had. He had heard since leaving Ferndale that they were together again, Robert and Elizabeth Denning, though he had not tried to contact them.

  Being here at Graystone was more unnerving than being at Ferndale had been the year before, though. Here he was alone. The burden of the conversation would be on him. He dreaded the prospect. The earl had said that he had a wife and daughters—Mainwaring could not remember how many. And he had no idea of their ages or matrimonial status.

  Having turned his horse over to the care of a groom in the earl’s stables, Mainwaring checked the folds of his neckcloth and fall of lace over the backs of his hands and strode across to the main door. There was no point in delaying the moment any longer. Perhaps the next visit would be easier, once he had got through this one.

  * * *

  A stream wound its way through the dense trees and wild undergrowth that formed the western border of William Mainwaring’s property. It gurgled past some large stones that had somehow embedded themselves along its path, and it played with some leaves and twigs, which had fallen from the trees that overhung its waters, twirling them, stranding them against a stone for a few teasing minutes, and then carrying them onward again. Most of the trees were old and gnarled, uncared for. But the very wildness of the scene had its charm.

  At some time in the past, a gamekeeper’s hut had been built in a small clearing on the bank of the stream. There had been no gamekeeper employed for many years, and the hut was old and dilapidated. The wooden walls and roof were bleached and weathered; the door hung crookedly on its hinges and had been wedged shut at an awkward angle. Long grass and weeds grew up all around it, and there was only the faintest trace of the path that had been worn to its door.

  Yet Lady Helen Wade was clearly familiar with the scene. She entered the clearing on foot and walked without hesitation to the hut. She wrestled with the door for only a few moments before it swung open with a loud squeak. Clearly she was accustomed to its awkwardness. She disappeared inside.

  A few minutes later a completely different young lady emerged from the hut. This girl wore a shapeless cotton dress, which was too short for her. It reached barely to her ankles. It covered her to the neck, but its sleeves, which were meant to reach the wrists, ended just below the elbows. It had been washed and bleached so many times that it was almost impossible to say which shade of blue or green it had once been. Light tawny hair fell in loose and tangled curls over her shoulders and partway down her back. The girl was barefoot. In one hand she held a leather-bound book.

  Helen crossed to the stream and stood staring down at its moving waters. She tested the water with the toes of one foot and seemed to be satisfied with her findings. She lowered herself immediately to the thick grass of the bank, hitched her skirt almost to the knees, and lowered both feet into the water. She swished them around for a while, enjoying the delightful coolness after the confined heat of her boots.

  She looked around her at the wildflowers that were almost lost in the long grass, at the heavy summer foliage of her favorite tree, the old oak, which grew close to the bank, and up to the sky, which still swirled with heavy clouds. She breathed deeply of the heavy summer scents of it all and closed her eyes with a smile of satisfaction. Oh yes, it would be worth every moment of that scolding she was bound to be subjected to.

  Finally Helen opened her book, a much coveted copy of Mr. Wordsworth and Mr. Coleridge’s Lyrical Ballads. Soon her mind was in a totally different world, a world

  Where Alph, the sacred river, ran

  Through caverns measureless to man

  Down to a sunless sea.

  Everything was forgotten: her feet gradually growing colder and colder in the water, the grass and trees around her, the clouds growing heavier with the promised rain, her father’s drawing room where the rest of the family was gathered, and Mr. Mainwaring.

  CHAPTER 2

  “Aladies’ man,” said the Earl of Claymore.

  “A most genteel sort of a man,” said the countess, “though his manners are a little stiff.”

  “Very handsome,” sighed Lady Melissa Wade, “with those brown eyes and that dark hair. And so very tall!”

  “Toplofty!” said Lady Emily Wade decisively. “The man thinks himself superior just because he has acquired some town bronze.”

  Helen heard all four opinions of Mr. Mainwaring during dinner that evening. Their new neighbor dominated the conversation, even if the opinion of him was not altogether favorable. She gathered that he had not shown sufficient interest in her father’s talk of horses and hunting. It was shocking enough for even a lady to admit to the ear
l that she had never hunted and, indeed, even disapproved of the sport. But for a man to do so was clearly a testimony of his basic effeminacy. Mr. Mainwaring had even dared to express sympathy for the fox!

  “It is surely not unmanly to hate killing for the sake of killing, is it, Papa?” Helen was unwise enough to ask.

  “We all know your strange views, child,” he grumbled. “Can’t think where you acquired them. Certainly not in this house. I am certainly thankful you did not turn out to be the son I hoped for. I should not be able to hold up my head in the neighborhood. Feeling sorry for the poor fox, indeed! The animal is a nuisance, child, with no right to live. Its only use in life is to provide pleasure to the hunter.”

  Helen nodded her head to the footman who was offering her wine. She did not this time answer her father. There was no point in doing so. It was always useless to try to discuss any topic with him. He took any disagreement with his opinion as a personal affront. But she did find herself warming unwillingly to the neighbor whose acquaintance she had avoided during the afternoon. The man could not be all bad if he had the courage to oppose blood sports in an age when the willingness to hunt was a badge of manhood.

  She soon understood the differing opinions of her sisters. Emily had sung for him, accompanying herself on the pianoforte. She was generally accounted the best musician for miles around. No entertainment was complete without a musical selection from the eldest Lady Wade. But Mr. Mainwaring had not appeared suitably impressed. He had apparently nodded his approval and complimented Emily on the song, but he had kept his seat and he had not smiled. And he had committed the unforgivable sin of expressing interest in Melissa’s watercolors when Mama had mentioned them to him. And he had spent all of five minutes with his head bent over the pictures after the younger sister had been sent to fetch them.

  But Helen could not escape indefinitely the scold that she had known was coming.

  “I did not take kindly to your absenting yourself this afternoon, child,” the countess said, fixing Helen with a severe eye. “You knew very well that we were expecting a visitor, and you know that I sent you upstairs for the express purpose of getting ready. You are no longer a schoolgirl. You are expected to do your duty as an adult member of this family, just like the rest of us.”

  “Maybe if I took a strap to you, you would learn to heed your mama,” the earl added. “I can’t think where you disappear to half the time, Helen, but you had better not let me ever find out that you have left our land or mixed with any company beneath your station.”

  Helen lowered her eyes to her plate and ate steadily through the next few minutes while the scold proceeded. She was used to it. She had heard the same complaints and the same threats many times. But she could not feel sorry that she had not stayed for Mr. Mainwaring’s visit. She would have been dreadfully bored and she would doubtless have been called upon to show him her embroidery. She would have had to endure the sight of his lip curling in disdain when he saw that dandelion. No one ever understood her vision of life. No one could see beyond prettiness to the true beauty all around them. She did not regret her afternoon spent in an area that most would consider wild and quite worthless.

  William Mainwaring spent the next two days getting to know his own property. His estate manager had worked there for years and had clearly done a good job. The land was prosperous, the tenants contented. Although he had never visited the place before, Main-waring had always meticulously examined every report he received from his various properties. He was satisfied with this man and saw no reason now to begin to interfere. He contented himself, then, with wandering around, sometimes alone, sometimes with the manager, looking and listening. He enjoyed meeting his tenants, most of whom treated him with marked friendliness, having found him to be a generous and a just man, even though he had always been an absentee.

  By the afternoon of the second day, there was only one part of the estate that he had not explored. It was the dense wood that ran almost the complete length of the west side of his property. There had used to be a gamekeeper there, the manager had explained, until it became obvious that there was no longer enough game in the area to keep the man busy. The previous owner had once considered clearing the trees away so that the land might be cultivated, but it would have been too huge an undertaking. The trees were large and old. There was a great deal of undergrowth. And even if the task could be accomplished, it was doubtful that it would have proved to be worthwhile. A stream meandered through the woods. Its presence would complicate the matter of cultivating the reclaimed land. The scheme had been abandoned.

  Mainwaring was glad. He welcomed a place that was likely to give him some privacy. If his neighbors continued to be as attentive as they had been thus far, he would be thankful to have a private place to which to escape, a place where he could be alone with his own thoughts occasionally. Not that he resented the visits of his neighbors. In fact, he was touched by the friendliness of most of those who called and by the flood of invitations he had already received. It was just that he had not expected it.

  He needed solitude on this particular afternoon. He had had a completely unexpected letter that morning from the Marquess of Hetherington. It had been a painful experience breaking the seal, knowing from whom the letter had come. They were in Sussex for the summer awaiting the already overdue birth of their first child. Mainwaring had put down the letter at that point, finding that his hand was shaking. When he took it up again, it was to find that this was by no means the first letter Robert had sent him. Others had gone to Ferndale, to Mainwaring’s former address in London, even to White’s Club. Both Hetherington and Elizabeth had been puzzled and a little hurt by his silence.

  “We keep telling ourselves that perhaps these letters have not reached you,” the marquess had written, “and we cling to the hope that this is so, because we do not like to think what your silence might mean otherwise. However, Prosser called on us a few days ago while on a journey west and we have finally discovered from him exactly where you may be found. You can have no idea how elusive you are, my friend.

  “Let me repeat yet again what I have written in every letter to you. Both Elizabeth and I grieve over the lapse in our friendship and both of us have a very real sense of our own guilt. Can you forgive me for the way I treated you when we last met? I have long been sensible of the fact—indeed, I knew it even at the time —that your intentions were perfectly honorable and your behavior above reproach. I can excuse myself only with the explanation that I was an extremely jealous husband.

  “What I should have explained, of course, is that I loved Elizabeth perhaps more than was good for me at the time. Fortunately, I later discovered that she returned my feelings equally and that the whole of our separation had been caused by a ghastly misunderstanding. We both feel that we owe you this much of an explanation, though the details, of course, are known only to my wife and myself. Elizabeth herself wishes to write to you. She feels, I know, that she treated you with less than complete honor. But she values your friendship as do I, my friend.”

  The letter went on to explain that they were planning to be in London for the winter, but that it was likely that they would return to Sussex as soon as next spring came, though it would mean missing the Season. Both he and Elizabeth preferred life in the country and they felt it would be better for their child to live there. They wanted William to visit them in London, if he would not find the meeting too painful. They wanted to be given the chance to show him that they still considered him to be their dearest friend.

  Mainwaring was badly shaken by the letter. He had accustomed himself to the unhappiness of having lost these two friends. He had always convinced himself that he had been the guilty party, deliberately trying to come between a man and his lawful wife. And he had reconciled himself to the belief that he would never see Elizabeth again, although he would love her all his life.

  Now he discovered that in fact Hetherington had been trying to contact him for most of the past year and that
they both still valued his friendship. They wanted him to visit them.

  He did not know how he felt about it all. The knowledge that they were not still angry with him, that they had not deliberately cut the acquaintance, was remarkably soothing. Yet he was cautious. Elizabeth had been a friend, yes, a very dear friend, one to whom he could talk at his ease. But far more than that, she had been the woman he loved, the woman he still loved. Could he see her again without showing that she still meant a great deal more to him than she should? Could he invite such personal pain? Could he bear to see her with Hetherington, to see the love that they clearly felt for each other? Could he bear to see their child, when once he had dreamed that she would bear his children?

  He wandered toward the wood on foot, taking the letter with him. He must reply, and soon. But he did not know exactly what he would say.

  * * *

  Helen had managed to slip away for the afternoon. Mama and the girls were going on a round of visits, mainly to boast of the news that they were to entertain Mr. Mainwaring for dinner, she suspected. It had not been difficult to avoid being made a member of the party. It was becoming an accepted fact that she did not participate with any regularity in the afternoon social rituals of the neighborhood. She rather believed that her own family welcomed her absence. She did not offer much support in the conversations anyway.

  She had already shed her riding habit and was dressed in the shabby old cotton dress again. One day soon, she knew, the garment was going to fall to pieces around her and she would have to find something else to wear when she wished to be totally comfortable and free. But she hated to think of its happening. She had worn the dress since she was in the schoolroom, first as a day dress, and later when it became too short for her, as a painting smock to save her good dress from the splatters of paint that were inevitable when she began work.