Summer Campaign

by Carla Kelly

  Surely he was joking. Frozen by the piano, she waited for his slow wink and smile. They did not come. He was perfectly serious.

  The silence between them stretched on until the air seemed to hum. Onyx knew she had to answer him. “Oh, Jack, no,” she said softly. “I'm engaged.”

  “You can't possibly love him, Onyx, for all that I suppose he is an estimable man. Dash it all, I don't know if you love me, but I love you.” He came closer and touched her under the chin. “It fills me. It may even keep me on my horse between here and Sherbourn. Marry me, dear lady.”

  She shook her head. “Only think what your family, your friends, your fellow officers would say. Jack Beresford wed to a penniless non-entity.” Her eyes misted over. “And soon someone would recall Sir Matthew Daggett's nothing daughter, the one who …” Her voice faltered. “ … who has nothing to recommend her. No, Jack. For your sake, and probably mine too.”

  His gaze was warm and direct. “How can you call such stubbornness nothing? You needn't hide from me, Onyx.” He paused. “I knew this was not the time or the place. I meant what I said, though, and if you do not agree, can we at least be friends?”

  “Oh, yes.” She wished he would leave so she could run upstairs and cry.

  The sun broke through the fog. Through the window, Onyx could see the line of workers heading toward the vicarage. She pointed at them. “Now there will be a roof, Jack. I shall have a dry bed.”

  “Small pleasure.”

  “The best kind.”

  “Not always. I had all the ‘small pleasures’ I wanted in Spain. Now I want big ones, magnificent ones. Maybe that's why I proposed.”

  She looked at him in real confusion.

  “You are adorable when you are disturbed,” he said. “But I can see that I'm embarrassing you now, and I wouldn't do that for the world. Well, maybe I would. I am a bit of a bully, you know.”

  She held out her hand. He took it and then shook his head. “A handshake won't do, Onyx B,” he said, and kissed her.

  It seemed the most natural thing in the world to return his kiss, to hold him tight for the last time, to smell deeply of bay rum, and feel the warmth of him.

  He let her go and pulled on his gloves. “Onyx, I might propose again sometime.”

  “The answer will still be no … but thank you, no,” she replied. Her knees wanted to part company with her legs, so she sat down on the piano bench.

  He blew her a kiss from the doorway. “Promise me?”

  “What?” she asked, feeling cross with him all of a sudden.

  “That you won't kiss any other soldiers like that, my dear.” He winked. “They might get the wrong idea. My best to your estimable fiancé. I seem to have forgotten his name.” He grinned wickedly. “Can you recall it?”

  “Oh, go away!” she said. “But … be careful while you're doing it, please.”

  He closed the door and whistled his way down the path. She put her hands over her ears so she could not hear him ride away.

  Seated at the piano in her sunny little saloon, Onyx finally had her cry.

  The workmen were creating a vast distraction on the roof later that morning when there was another knock at the door. Onyx opened it, and before her stood a little man in a shiny suit, carrying a large leather satchel. He bowed elaborately. “I am Signor Sabbacini,” he said, “and I have come to tune your piano.”

  Onyx clapped her hands and pulled the startled man into the house. Her eyes filled with tears for the second time that morning. “Oh, do come in, signore. I cannot express in words how welcome you are.”

  Sabbacini set down his valise and stalking around the piano, eyed it like a matador would a bull. He touched it, stroked the wood, and examined the hammers, making small cooings of appreciation that sounded almost like the twittering of evening birds. At last he stopped his minute perusal, took off his coat, and rolled up his sleeves.

  “To work, excellent lady, to work,” he said. “This will be a pleasure.”

  “Oh, yes,” she exclaimed. “I do not know how I will ever thank Lady Bagshott. Especially after I was so rude.”

  He stared at her. “What has Lady Bagshott to do with this?” he demanded. “The good major, he told me about your piano. He said that he wished he could hear you play, but that he was in a hurry.” Sabbacini patted his breast pocket. “He paid me in advance. I might have even cheated him. Leave me, now. I have work to do.”

  She left the parlor and sat down with a thump at the foot of the stairs. “Thank you, Jack,” she said out loud. “Thank you from the bottom of my heart.” She put her fingers to her lips, thought of his kiss, and realized that baking soda and water was a poor remedy for her discomfort.

  ACK BERESFORD ARRIVED AT SHERBOURN A night and another day later, clinging to the pommel of his saddle while Private Petrie held the reins. For the last three hours, after he gave up the reins to Petrie, Beresford had been talking to himself, telling himself to stay in the saddle, reminding himself that soon the landscape would look familiar and they would drop down into the little valley that sheltered his home.

  In a curious circumstance that he could only blame on his exhaustion, each bend in the road looked stranger than the one before. He began to ask himself if the aspect of his particular part of Yorkshire could have changed so much in only four years. “Or did I just remember things differently?” he asked his horse. “Did I dream something that could never have been so perfect?”

  For the last hour, Private Petrie had been watching him closely, waiting for him to fall out of the saddle. It became a matter of pride to remain upright. Beresford sat as straight as he could and willed Sherbourn to materialize out of the rain and growing darkness.

  When he realized finally that even one more mile would be beyond him, Beresford looked up and there before him was the familiar and beloved shape of Sherbourn, his birthplace and the ancestral home of many Beresford men before him who had returned from one war or another.

  He needed Petrie's help to dismount, and even then it was difficult. He leaned on Petrie and stroked his horse's mane. “I should be shot for leaving you standing here in the rain,” he murmured, “but I can't remedy that right now. The groom will be here soon.”

  Private Petrie helped him up the few shallow steps. He leaned against the stone arch that framed the entranceway while the private knocked. Jack closed his eyes. When he had come home four years ago from London before departing for Spain, his mother had greeted him at the door, flinging it open and running down the steps, her arms outstretched. She was dead now, resting beside his father, the sixth Marquess of Sherbourn, Arthur Edmund Beresford.

  This time the door opened slowly, cautiously. Chalking, the butler who had come to Sherbourn as part of the marriage settlement when Matilda Ghormley wedded Lord Arthur Beresford, stood there holding a lamp high and peering into the rain. Jack pulled himself away from the arch.

  “I've come home, Chalking,” he said.

  Suspicion changed to wonder and amazement, and then just as quickly to an unsettling mixture of sadness and relief. The butler came forward hurriedly and took Jack by the arm, something he had never presumed to do before. He clung to Jack's arm, and with a touch of sorrow, Jack realized that Chalking was an old man now.

  “Major Beresford,” said the servant, retaining his grip as if fearing the major would vanish in the rain if he released him. “How glad we are to have you home!”

  “No more than I am to be here, Chalking,” Beresford replied. “If you will send the footman to the stable to tell the grooms to come for our horses, Private Petrie and I would count it an excellent thing. And, Chalking, find me a chair quickly.”

  Beresford stumbled into the entrance hall, looking around just enough to note with relief that little had changed during his years in Spain. He went immediately to one of his mother's dainty French chairs that still adorned the hallway. He sat down as Chalking relieved him of his hat and cloak, which had grown heavier with the rain.

  Private
Petrie stood by long enough to assure himself that the major was in competent hands and then left for the stables, promising Jack that his horse would be well dried and grained. “I will even talk to him, sir,” Petrie said.

  Jack managed a smile as Petrie went back out into the rain. He looked up at Chalking.

  “Adrian?” he asked. “Tell me I am not too late.”

  Chalking sighed. “Sir, we thought this morning that he would not last the day, but he is better now. He is sleeping. The doctor only left an hour ago, but he says that Lord Sherbourn will rest through the night.”

  “Then where is Lady Sherbourn?”

  “She is in the library.”

  Jack could not suppress a smile. Emily Beresford had probably never read a book in her life. “But, my dear brother, she dances divinely.” Adrian's long-ago words came to him as he sat there in the entrance and tried to summon the strength to rise.

  “Sir,” ventured Chalking, “we were distressed to hear of your injury. I trust that the clothes I sent fit?”

  “Oh, yes, indeed, and I thank you. Now, if you will help me up, I must go to Emily. Could you bring a little port wine and some bread and meat to the library?”

  Chalking helped him as far as the library door. Jack knocked.

  “Come in.”

  He walked in, straightening his shoulders, adjusting his neck-cloth, and rubbing the growth of whiskers on his chin. I don't even smell very good, he thought. I'll probably shock her; Adrian is so fastidious.

  Emily Beresford sat hunched over in a wing chair close to the fireplace. She did not look up when he came in, and even turned her face farther away and hunched lower in the chair. This puzzled him, but as he watched her, it dawned on him that she had the air of someone about to receive bad news who wanted to avoid it as long as possible. He watched her for a moment, and what he saw broke his heart.

  The wedding of Lord Adrian Beresford, seventh Marquess of Sherbourn, to Emily Tallent, reigning London beauty, was the nuptial of the year, the crown of the 1809 Season. The wedding had taken place the last day of his leave in England. On the morning following, he had departed for Spain with his troops. On that journey, and throughout the war-ravaged Peninsula, Jack had carried somewhere in the back of his head the memory of Emily Tallent's Dresden loveliness. He had not thought of her often; he was too busy, and not so inclined. But when he did think of her, in those moments when all around him he could see only ugliness, it was to remember her startling beauty.

  A different woman sat before him, gazing into the flames. As he watched her, silent, unmoving, Jack Beresford realized finally that nothing was going to be the same again.

  “Emily, it's Jack.”

  His words took a moment to penetrate her silence. He came closer as she turned around slowly and looked up into his face. He could see that just for a second, she did not recognize him. Have I changed so much? he asked himself. Oh, Emily, you have. Then she slowly put her hands to her mouth, hands that trembled, and tears filled her eyes. “Jack? Jack?”

  “Yes, Emily,” he managed as he tried not to stare at her and failed utterly. “I'm home.”

  She rose and came toward him then. “You must have traveled straight through,” she said, wonder in her voice. She held out her hand to him and he grasped it. “And look at you. Jack, are you all right?”

  He didn't know what to say. He knew that as much as his arm pained him, as tired and ravenous as he was, he would soon be healed and rested and fed. As he stared into Emily's eyes, he saw only death looking back at him.

  She watched his expression and drew his hand against her cheek. “Not the woman who married Adrian Beresford? Remember Emily Tallent, the silly chit who never had two idle thoughts to rub together?” Her voice broke, and she leaned against Jack's chest, shivering like a new kitten, even though the room—the whole house, in fact—was stiflingly hot.

  “I am so glad … you are here,” she said finally, when she had some mastery over her voice.

  Her words chilled him. A great feeling of powerlessness settled over him like the wet cloak he had just removed. She sounded so relieved, so grateful, as if Jack Beresford could solve her problems.

  “I came as fast as I could, Emily. Only tell me: how is Adrian?”

  She clutched his hand still. “I will show you soon,” she said, her voice a tiny whisper.

  Chalking brought food and Jack ate, resting in the other chair that faced the fire. He wanted to move it back from the flames, but he was too tired.

  “Tell me about Adrian.”

  When Emily did not answer, he looked over at her. She was asleep, her head lolling sideways, her hands still in her lap. “Poor Emily, you're burned to the socket,” he said softly. He finished eating and remained where he was, watching Emily, and waiting for her to wake up by herself. He had not the heart to disturb her.

  A log crashed in the fireplace, and she was out of the chair in one leap, her hand clutching her throat. She looked over at Jack and managed a weak little laugh. “I am … a trifle on edge, Jack. You must forgive me.”

  His unease deepened. “Emily, let me see Adrian.”

  “Tonight?”

  “Yes.”

  He struggled to his feet, and Emily was at his side in a moment, her hand under his elbow, steering him expertly to the door, despite her own apparent exhaustion. She controlled him like one expert in the management of invalids. Emily Tallent, who had broken more hearts in her one London Season than ten other beauties in as many years. He couldn't bear to look at her, so great was his distress.

  After twenty-four hours in the saddle, stairs were quite beyond him. She summoned a footman and the two of them helped him to the second floor.

  “Emily, forgive me for the trouble I am causing you,” he gasped at the top of the stairs.

  She shook her head. “Jack, it is not anything compared to the trouble we are going to cause you. I hate to tell you that. If you insist on seeing Adrian tonight, you must know. He doesn't … look like he used to. He's … he's … Oh, Jack.”

  The footman left him, and they paused outside the chamber that used to be his father's. Emily picked up a small bottle on the table and shook it. The smell of lavender filled the hallway. Emily pulled a handkerchief from her pocket and sprinkled the lavender on it, holding it to her nose as she took a deep breath and opened the door.

  The wave of putrefaction from Adrian's room nearly knocked Jack over as he stood in the hallway. His eyes blurred from the smell of rotting flesh, and the hair rose on his neck as he swallowed again the bread and meat that he had eaten in the library. Emily went in and he followed, breathing as shallowly as he could.

  He had been in a charnel house once, a small room below the chapel in one of the monasteries in Spain or Portugal, forever nameless to him because there were so many. Spanish soldiers had come to his troop, out of breath and shouting, with the news that French soldiers were massacring the monks and throwing them down there among the long-dead religious.

  They had come up on the double march in time to stop the French soldiers from their work of killing and spent the rest of the day pulling bodies from that subterranean pit of dead men's flesh and bones. Stripped to his small clothes, he had spent that whole hot afternoon in the charnel house removing the recent dead. Eventually he became used to the smell, but he knew when he climbed out of the pit that evening that if he ever smelled it again, he would remember it.

  Standing at the doorway to Adrian's room, he couldn't help himself. He made gagging noises in his throat. Emily grabbed his arm and slapped the lavender-scented handkerchief over his mouth and nose. He breathed deeply of the fragrance until his head cleared, and then handed it back to her.

  The room was dark, lit by only one candle that flickered as it burned lower and lower. Emily put her finger to her lips. “He's asleep and I wouldn't for the world waken him. I don't know that I could, anyway. He doesn't open his eyes anymore.”

  He came close and looked on his brother. Adrian Beresfor
d was an old man, with an old man's parchment skin stretched tight across his cheekbones. He was breathing through his mouth, each breath a laborious process. Every now and then he would stop breathing, and then shudder and continue the effort. His skeleton's hands rested on his distended stomach. His fingers, each one a mere thread of flesh, moved restlessly of their own accord, but he did not waken. He looked eighty instead of thirty-four.

  Jack reached out and touched Adrian's hair, which used to be thick and red, and had now only the merest wisp of faded color. He touched Adrian's shoulder lightly and then his cheek. Emily's hand was on his arm again, and he followed her out of the room.

  Jack sat down heavily in the chair outside the door and put his head between his knees. Emily stood beside him, her hand on his hair until he sat up. She pulled up a chair beside him and took his hand wordlessly. They sat close together until he could speak again.

  “Emily, why didn't you write to me?”

  She looked down at her hands. “I wanted to, Jack. I wanted to so badly, but Adrian wouldn't let me. He imagined how terrible things were in Spain. He feared that you would be unable to return here anyway and would only have the added burden of worry.” She forced a smile. “You know how stubborn Adrian is.”

  “I know. But sometimes you just have to go around him. I wish you had, but it hardly bears dwelling on now. Who in the world is his doctor?”

  Emily looked at him then. “Dr. Marchmount. He was recommended to us by friends in York. ‘He is so fashionable,’ they said. ‘Adrian should never go to anyone else.’” Her voice was bitter. “And now poor Adrian has such sores, but the doctor says the evil humors are escaping from those wounds and to leave them alone. Oh, that cannot be right!”

  “And when you take issue with him, Dr. Marchmount only gives you an arch stare and reminds you who is the doctor?” asked Jack.