Jubilee Bride

by Jane Peart

  She would be ideal for the painting he planned of Guinevere, the physical personification of the picture he had already formed in his mind. More than that, she had a kind of inner radiance that he knew instinctively would translate to canvas as a spiritual aura.

  In the brief silence that followed, Faith read Jeff's expression as he gazed at Lenora and immediately knew what he was thinking—knew he would like to paint her! Nor could she resist thinking, Oh, to have Jeff look at me like that!

  At last he managed the semblance of a greeting. "Hello, I'm-I'm happy to meet you."

  "But we have met before."

  "No!" Jeff protested. "We couldn't have. I would have remembered, I'm sure. . . ." He studied the purity of her face, the sculpted features.

  Lenora insisted, "Oh, yes, we have! It was at my mother's wedding, wasn't it?"

  Jeff protested, "But that's been ages ago . . . ten years at least! You must have been only a little girl then. You've changed a great deal, or I couldn't have forgotten—"

  "I've grown up, I guess."

  "Yes, of course, that's it." His eyes moved over her, appraising, admiring. "You've become beautiful—quite beautiful."

  As a peachy blush rose into Lenora's cheeks, Faith risked another look at Jeff and felt a sharp twinge and a sudden, awful premonition.

  A moment later, Neil Blanding and Lalage, her bright golden hair tied back with a blue ribbon, appeared on the path leading up from the lake.

  Much to Neil's disappointment, Evalee had insisted on tagging along with them. He had hoped to have some time alone with the beautiful American girl without her little sister's overhearing every word.

  Neil found himself experiencing a whole new set of emotions ever since the first night he'd been invited to Birchfields to meet the Devlins' American cousins. His reserved English nature had been turned upside down after only a few minutes with Lalage Bondurant. He had found her not only immensely attractive but sweet and amusing as well, with none of the artifice that was so boring in some of the debutantes his mother had thrust his way. In contrast, Lalage was completely natural and delightful.

  As she looked at him now with questioning eyes, he suddenly realized she had asked him something and he had been so intent on his own thoughts that he had not heard what she said. Actually, it didn't matter, for Evalee had caught sight of Faith.

  "We've been feeding the swans!" the little girl called excitedly.

  Then, seeing that the croquet wickets had been set up and the mallets brought out, she began hopping up and down, first on one foot, then the other. "Can we play croquet now, Faith? Can we?"

  "Yes, yes, of course," Faith replied as with effort she turned her attention from Jeff to her other guests.

  With Neil's assistance she organized everything, handing out mallets as they chose teams. She tried to focus on the game as it got underway, but her gaze kept straying to Lenora's graceful figure as she swung her mallet. Jeff's eyes, too, seemed fixed on her.

  Faith went through the motions, but as if from far off, the voices and laughter scarcely penetrating the feeling of imminent doom that hovered like a dark cloud over her.

  Then quite suddenly, she noticed a kitten at the edge of the lawn. Unaware of the danger of the rolling balls whacked with force, the little animal ventured across the path of the game. Before Faith could act, Lenora dropped her mallet and ran to scoop up the kitten, resting her chin on its head. She cuddled it on her shoulder, rubbing its furry softness against her cheek.

  Faith didn't miss the look on Jeff's face as he witnessed this touching tableau, his eyes following Lenora as she carried the kitten to safety then returned to the game.

  The sun shone golden on the grass as the afternoon took its pleasant, leisurely pace. For Faith, who longed to escape the sight and sound of Jeff's and Lenora's teasing exchanges as they played, the hours seemed endless. She deliberately concentrated instead on the copse of birches beyond the velvety lawn where their game went on and on. Ironically, however, the wind sighing through the graceful branches only reminded her of Lenora's hair waving in the summer breeze.

  chapter

  19

  WHEN IT WAS mentioned one evening at dinner that Birchfields was located not far from the site of the ruins of a medieval monastery, Garnet suggested that they take a picnic lunch out to the lovely meadow nearby. Naturally, when Evalee heard the plans under discussion, she demanded to go, too. So, of course, Scott, Kitty, and Cara must be included.

  The monastery was some distance from Birchfields, up a little traveled country road. With such a large group, three vehicles were needed to make the trip. Garnet, Blythe, and Dru would take the open carriage, while Jeff, who must transport his portable easel and painting box, would drive Lenora, Lalage, and Neil in the landau. Since it was Miss McPherson's day off, Garnet had asked Faith to take the children with her in the pony cart.

  Now Faith was watching as Jeff helped the Bondurant girls into the landau, noting how cool and pretty they both looked as they seated themselves and unfurled dainty, frilled parasols. Above the squabbling of the children about who would sit where, Faith could hear their amused laughter. They were probably laughing at something that Jeff had said. He is certainly being his most charming self today, she thought with chagrin.

  She waited impatiently while the maids brought out two large wicker hampers containing the picnic food, and Martin, the footman, strapped them on the back of her mother's carriage. At that moment, Jeff and the Bondurants set out at a brisk pace, and Faith knew that the two couples would arrive at the lovely old monastery long before she could manage to get there. Still, she flicked the whip over the heads of the two fat, lazy ponies pulling the cart, hoping that they wouldn't lag too far behind.

  The hillside where the old priory stood was covered with rough tussocks of grass and jutting rocks green with lichen, wild heather, and bracken. It looked for all the world like a stage setting for some medieval play or opera, Faith thought. As the curtain rises, the audience waits in anticipation for the entrance of the actors in the play. Would it be a drama, a farce, a comedy, or a tragedy?

  Why am I so fanciful, always imagining? Why can't I just enjoy the day for what it is—a family outing? Faith asked herself irritably.

  But as the day progressed, as if by some preordained script, she began to see yet another drama unfold. Coaxed into a game of dodgeball with the children, Faith saw Jeff and Lenora leave the others and make their way up the hillock to the stone ruins. A few minutes later, she saw him climb up onto one of the broken turrets and extend his hand to help Lenora up. Together they leaned on the ledge—Jeff, gesturing with animation; Lenora, listening as if entranced.

  It's like watching a pantomime, Faith thought, with Jeff directing Lenora to take a graceful position against the ledge. Then, as if following his suggestion, Lenora lifted both hands to her hair and freed the waves of pale gold to tumble down on her shoulders. Jeff took her blue chiffon scarf, draped it loosely about her, then stepped back, his head to one side as if to check the effect. Apparently satisfied, he propped up his sketchbook and began to draw.

  "Look out, Faith!" Scott Cameron's shout jerked her out of her fascinated trance as the ball whizzed by her head. She ducked just in time and, catching the ball, threw it at him with furious verve.

  It was only sheer determination and willpower that kept Faith from looking again at the little scene being enacted on the hillside.

  Garnet surveyed the setting with self-congratulatory approval. What a good idea it had been to picnic here. She had forgotten how peaceful and serene this place was, almost as if the peace that had prevailed here at the old monastery in days gone by had somehow blessed the whole area. Since she had only a very rudimentary knowledge of English history, the fact that bigotry, cruelty, and bloodshed had been perpetrated on this particular stretch of land did not invade her pleasure.

  It was a beautiful day, and all her guests seemed to be enjoying themselves. Garnet's eyes roamed over the small groups.
The children couldn't be happier. Rod and Blythe were wandering about, holding hands like two young lovers. Even Randall, his hat over his eyes against the bright sunshine, drowsed contentedly on the hillside with Dru beside him.

  How charming Neil was being to Lalage Bondurant, Garnet thought, and his patience with her rather spoiled younger sister, Evalee, was admirable. Such a gentleman! Her glance darted over to Faith, hoping that she was taking note of Neil's considerate behavior. Garnet frowned. Faith had seemed so distracted lately. Did she mind that Jeff had asked Lenora to model for him? The thought crossed her mind, but it was time to set out the lunch, and she quickly dismissed it.

  In spite of the lavish feast, Faith's usual healthy appetite failed her. She felt consumed, instead, with a raging jealousy that made it impossible to swallow. It lodged like an iron ball in her throat, weighting her chest and stomach. What made it worse was knowing the emotion was unworthy, yet she seemed incapable of setting it aside.

  She knew all the reasons that she should not feel toward Lenora as she did. The object of her envy was not at all responsible for incurring it. No one could be sweeter, kinder, or more thoughtful than Lenora. She was so unaffected and unself-conscious, gracious to everyone.

  It was Jeff who monopolized Lenora the entire long weekend he spent at Birchfields, but it was Lenora on whom Faith vented her suppressed fury. She could scarcely bear to be in the same room with the two of them, to see Jeff's eyes following the other girl's every movement, to hear him persuade her to pose for "just one more sketch," to suggest that they return to the site of the old monastery time and again.

  "I want to get the details right, then I can fill in the background," he explained. "Once I do that and position the figure of Guinevere where I want it, I can work on the actual painting in my studio."

  Since propriety would not allow Jeff and Lenora to go alone, they all had to pack up and go again to the picturesque meadow below the ruined priory, and Faith had to endure the agony of seeing Jeff spend another long day with Lenora.

  Jeff was totally oblivious to the turmoil he was causing in Faith, and the fact that he was so indifferent to her suffering made it all the more acute. She tried to tell herself that he was an unfeeling brute, but she knew he was simply oblivious to everything but his project.

  In her present distress, however, Faith could not separate Guinevere from Lenora. They had become one in her mind, and she could not control her anguished envy of the time her cousin was spending with the man she loved. So she prayed earnestly to overcome her feelings.

  For the first time, she understood Paul's words in Romans 7:15: "I do not understand—for what I want to do, I do not do, but what I hate, I do."

  If Faith had only guessed the depth and seriousness of the secret correspondence between Lenora and Victor Ridgeway, some of her heartache would have been allayed. As it was, she had no idea that her cousin slipped downstairs early each morning to be the first to look over the morning post, to look for and almost always find an envelope in a dear and familiar handwriting, then to keep it hidden until she could read it privately. If Faith had known all this, her suffering over Jeff's seeming interest in Lenora would have been greatly reduced.

  Still, although she despised the way she felt about Lenora, Faith could not help wishing that her cousin had never come to England. It was wrong, so wrong, she realized, and she deeply regretted her bitter troubled thoughts but could not deny them.

  Once when Jeff was wheedled into a game of tag with the children, Faith took the opportunity to glance through his sketchbook. Her heart wrenched as she saw the exquisite sketches he had made of Lenora—so delicate, poetic, romantic. Even though the sketches idealized Lenora, Faith had to admit that they were some of Jeff's best work.

  With an audible sigh, Faith closed the book and put it back near his paint box. But not before her mother had taken notice.

  Garnet gave her daughter a long look. Something was definitely bothering Faith. The usual bloom was missing, the lovely mouth drooped, the eyes were shadowed. Garnet's mother's heart felt the pinch of anxiety. Was Faith hiding something? Something that was making her ill?

  What could it be? Then Garnet felt an inner alert. Jeff. It must have something to do with Jeff Montrose. That was it, Garnet decided with sudden enlightenment—Jeff's obvious infatuation with Lenora Bondurant. How ironic, she thought, that the very thing that had brought her such relief was making her daughter miserable!

  Garnet frowned as she watched her daughter move rapidly across the grass where they had been picnicking toward a little curved footbridge built over the stream that ran through the meadow. She saw her pause there for a moment to look down into the water, and wondered what Faith was thinking.

  If she could have read Faith's mind, Garnet would have been quick to caution her against the decision she was making. Garnet could have told her of her own folly. In love with one man, she had recklessly pursued another to make her true love jealous.

  But Faith was as strong-willed and stubborn as her mother had been under similar circumstances, and her frustration and anger blinded her to the perils of the course she had decided to take. A little jealousy might be very good for Jeff, she thought, and she was determined to give him a taste of his own medicine!

  Faith's plan never had time to be put into operation. Her preoccupation with Jeff and Lenora had made her completely unaware of what was happening right under her nose. While she had been observing Jeff's constant posing and sketching Lenora for his proposed painting of Guinevere, another romance had been quietly blooming.

  Therefore, it came as a total shock to Faith not a week after the picnic when Neil Blanding showed up unexpectedly one afternoon. From her bedroom window, Faith took note of his arrival and made quick work of tying up her hair with a new ribbon and putting on a fresh blouse, then ran down the stairs and out onto the terrace, where lemonade was being served.

  "Where's Neil?" she asked casually.

  "I think he went down to the lake," Lenora replied without moving, since Jeff was busy doing another sketch of her.

  Plotting just how she would manage to take advantage of this fateful opportunity to flirt with Neil in plain view of Jeff, Faith did not see the two figures coming toward her up the path from the lake. When she heard Neil's voice hailing her, she lifted her head in surprise. What luck! she thought. When Lalage stopped to pick some flowers beside the trail, Neil walked on ahead.

  He was smiling, and Faith felt a small tug of guilt when she realized how happy he seemed to see her. Maybe she'd been wrong not to value him more. Maybe Neil would be the right one for her, after all. He was such a dear, always so patient, so considerate. She did love him—in a way—

  "Hello, Faith, we were just coming back up to the house. It's almost tea time, isn't it? The afternoon just seemed to slip away from us."

  "Oh, Faith, hello!" Lally greeted her too, waving one hand holding the small bouquet she had just picked.

  The smile on Faith's lips froze as Lally came up beside Neil and slipped her arm through his. Her left hand rested possessively on his sleeve. It was then that Faith saw on the third finger the gold ring bearing the Blanding heraldic crest—three roses encircled with laurel leaves—the same ring Neil had offered her at least twice in the past four years!

  Faith looked from one to the other. Neil was gazing tenderly at Lalage, whose happiness was evident in the shining dark eyes.

  Faith swallowed hard, taking it all in with mixed feelings of disbelief and then gratitude. At least she had been saved from making a bigger fool of herself than she might have. What if she had blundered stupidly into suggesting to Neil that they become engaged? And all just to spite Jeff?

  Whatever this meant to her, Faith knew without doubt that these two had found something special, something that had so far eluded her. Ironically she thought of the Grace Comfort message Annie had read to her that morning: "When you pursue happiness, it eludes you, but when you least suspect, it may alight upon your shoulder.
"

  Would the kind of happiness she saw in the faces of Neil and Lally ever be hers?

  Somehow Faith found the presence of mind to congratulate them both with an enthusiasm that sounded genuine. Then, with the excuse that she had left something in the boat house, she rushed past them down to the lake. There she leaned against one of the birch trees, drawing in deep breaths of cooling air. Her face flamed at the thought of what she had almost done! At least she had been saved from that humiliation. Thank God!

  When she finally stopped trembling, she splashed her hands and face with lake water, then started slowly back toward the house.

  Just before she reached the garden, she saw Jeff and Lenora strolling along one of the gravel paths, his dark head bent to her satiny golden one. The two of them were evidently deep in intimate conversation. The sight was like a dagger plunged deep into her heart, twisting agonizingly. She could feel all hope draining out of her, leaving her more empty and forlorn than she had ever felt before.

  chapter

  20

  AT TEA TIME, on the afternoon that Neil and Lally happily announced their intentions and received Dru's and Randall's blessing, Garnet seemed outwardly calm enough. But it was hard to tell, Faith thought. However, when everyone dispersed to bathe and dress for dinner, her mother stopped her at the foot of the staircase.

  "May I see you for a few minutes, dear?"

  Upstairs, Garnet led the way into her bedroom without a word and motioned for Faith to take the slipper chair opposite her dressing table bench. When she spoke, Garnet's voice was very low, controlled.

  "How could you have let this happen, Faith?"

  It was pointless to try to explain that her feelings for Neil had never been strong enough for marriage, and she refused to confide that she had almost made the irrevocable mistake of suggesting marriage to a man she did not really love! So she sat quietly and let her mother vent her frustration.