At last, it seemed, Camilla was to be allowed thinking time, though whether, at this late date, she really wanted it was another question. Anyway, the formidable dowager soon took care of her. “Camilla, my love, you look pale this rooming. Perhaps you would do me a kindness and yourself a benefit by taking a message to Forbes for me? Your father, I know, will accompany you.”
Since Forbes, the bailiff, had a cottage at the farthest end of the estate, this would have entailed a ride of several miles there and back, but soon after Lady Leominster and her grandson had left, Forbes appeared in person and Camilla was able to give him the message. This done, and her father having vanished with scarce concealed relief to the billiard room, where he would, she knew, spend the rest of the morning pushing the balls about and betting left hand against right, Camilla found herself alone indeed. At once she knew that it was the last thing she wanted. She prowled about the house, trying to think of anything but tomorrow, and it was with a sensation of pure relief that she saw a dusty hired carriage turn into the drive and come to an awkward stop at the front door. She had been half-heartedly considering colours for the drawing-room curtains; now she stood and unashamedly watched as an untidy postilion let down the steps. A golden-haired girl in a maroon travelling dress bounced out of the carriage, said something to the man, hurried towards the house, and vanished into the front entrance.
Camilla had hardly time to wonder who she could be, arriving thus unheralded and, it seemed, unaccompanied, when Marston, the butler, appeared, looking even more melancholy than usual. After apologising for disturbing her, he came quickly to the point. “Here is Lady Chloe arrived, Miss Forest, in a hired chaise, and wants the man paid off, and my lord out, and my lady too. I am sure I don’t know what to do for the best.”
“Why, pay the man of course, as Lady Chloe tells you,” said Camilla with an assumption of authority that surprised herself. “And bring her in here to me.”
This further instruction, however, proved unnecessary, for Lady Chloe had followed the man and now stood hesitating in the doorway, a look of mixed fright and amusement on her exquisite face. Why, Camilla found herself wondering as she went forward to greet her, had no one thought to tell her that her future sister-in-law was a beauty? The explanation flashed into her mind almost as soon as the question. For Chloe Lavenham’s golden ringlets, exquisite pink and white complexion, and huge blue eyes must proclaim her, for all the world to see, her errant mother’s child. The less said about it, perhaps, the better. She was tiny, too, and had to reach up to plant an impulsive kiss on Camilla’s cheek.
“I knew I should like you,” she said. “You are not going to give me a scold, are you?”
Camilla laughed as she returned the kiss and temporised. “That must depend,” she said, “on what you have been doing.”
“Why, nothing so very dreadful,” said Chloe, taking off her bonnet and gloves and throwing them on a chair. “And, besides, it serves Lavenham right for trying to keep me away from his wedding. It was perfectly bone-headed of him to think I would stay virtuously minding my book at such a time. You do not mind my coming, do you?”
“Of course not: I have been longing to meet you.” And then, aware that Lavenham and his grandmother might think her sadly lacking in firmness, she changed her tone. “But I trust you have at least your school mistress’s permission to come, if not your brother’s?”
Chloe threw back her head in a fit of delighted—and delightful—laughter. “Permission,” she crowed. “I should just about think I had. I am not only permitted to leave, but most earnestly entreated not to return. I told Lavenham I’d make him regret it if he left me mewed up with those old women much longer. I am seventeen, you know,” she confided. “All my friends are being presented, and I must stay muddling over French verbs and the pianoforte. Well, I have taken care of that now: the old cats will not have me back even if Lavenham goes on bended knees to them—which, mark you, he is quite incapable of doing.”
“Oh dear.” Camilla could see trouble ahead. “Have you done something so very dreadful?”
“Of course not. Do not look so grave: I have been in enough trouble already as I have no doubt they have told you: I do not wish for more. No, no, I took the most particular pains to make it something the old pussies could not forgive—and Lavenham could not mind too much: it was only what he had taught me anyway.”
“What was?”
“Why, the composition they gave me to write. It was a punishment, of course, for whispering in church: I was to write about what religion means to me. Well, I told them right enough, just what Lavenham has said to me, all about enlightened self-interest and the church being a bogey to frighten children. No, no, they will not have me back, and I do not see how Lavenham can be so very angry.” But her voice shook a little, and Camilla, recognising fright, put out an impulsive hand to her. “Never mind,” she said, “I will stand your friend, and truly I am glad to have you here for my wedding.”
Just the same, it was two visibly frightened girls who greeted Lavenham and Lady Leominster on their return. And the scene that followed amply justified their fears. But it was over at last, and, as Lavenham said, if Chloe had indeed been turned out bag and baggage, there was not much to be done about it. “But, in your mighty contriving,” he turned on her with a renewal of anger, “what do you propose to do with yourself after you have graced mv wedding? Perhaps you are not aware that I leave for Portugal tomorrow.”
“Oh, I did not know.” Chloe’s face fell.
“Exactly! You did not know. Now, you had best go on bended knees to your grandmother to ask for house room in St. James’s Square, for I am most certainly not going to leave you here alone with Cousin Harriet to get into what scrapes you please.”
It was clear to Camilla that this proposal was equally unwelcome to both the parties concerned, nor did she wonder at it. Lady Leominster was too old to go much into society and too selfish to change her habits for the sake of a young visitor. And Chloe visibly thought that this would be but to exchange one form of servitude for another. Camilla let the unenthusiastic discussion dwindle towards deadlock before she intervened.
“May I propose another plan?” she said. “Could not Chloe come with us? I am sure I should be glad of her company, Lavenham, when you are away, as you tell me you will often have to be.” She felt herself colouring at her own temerity, but was rewarded by a quick kiss from Chloe: “I knew you would stand my friend. Oh, Lavenham, do, do let me come. I will behave like an angel and not give you or Camilla a moment’s anxiety, I promise it, cross my heart.”
Lavenham laughed. “For you to talk about keeping out of trouble, puss, is like a fish planning to live on dry land, but to have your promise that you will try is something, I suppose.”
Since Lady Leominster warmly seconded this plan, all obstacles to it were quickly dealt with, and indeed Camilla soon began to suspect that after his first doubts Lavenham himself had come to greet this breaking-up of their tete-a-tete existence with considerable relief. For herself, she was not sure what to think, only that there was nothing else she could have done.
Certainly Chloe’s presence added a gaiety that had hitherto been lacking in the wedding preparations, and her warm sympathy carried Camilla through the trying hours, while the extra preparations entailed by her joining the travelling party kept everyone too busy for thought. It was Chloe, of course, who helped Camilla dress for her wedding, exclaiming in dismay at the simple dove-coloured travelling dress she had chosen and then keeping up such a stream of chatter about what she would wear when her turn came that Camilla had hardly time to be frightened. Chloe talked all the way to the village church and only paused, at last, to give Camilla a little reassuring pat on the shoulder and say, “You look like an angel.” She reached up to pinch Camilla’s cheeks in an attempt to bring some colour into them and added, “A rather frightened angel, but there’s no need for it. Lavenham’s bark is much worse than his bite, I tell you, and I should know.”
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And with these encouraging words ringing in her ears, Camilla took her father’s arm and started up the aisle to meet her husband.
CHAPTER 4
It was over, it seemed, in a flash. Lavenham’s cold hand slipped the ring on her finger, the clergyman finished the short service, and she clung grateful and uncontrollably trembling to her husband’s arm as they walked down the church through the sparse and curious congregation to the vestry, where, for the last time, she signed as Camilla Forest. Then her father was kissing her enthusiastically, shaking Lavenham warmly by the hand and seizing the chance to press a more than paternal kiss on Chloe’s flushed cheek. Glancing up, Camilla saw Lavenham’s dark eyes taking this in.
“I should kiss you?” he said.
“It is, I believe, customary.” She held up her cold cheek to his still colder kiss. Then they were all outside, grateful for April sun after the winter cold of the church. There was laughter, a scattering of flower petals from the village children, a volley of farewells. The day’s journey to Exeter was so long that Lavenham and his grandmother had decided that any delay for a wedding breakfast was impossible. So bride, bridesmaid, and groom were loaded forthwith into Lavenham’s travelling carriage, while Camilla’s new maid, Frances, took her place with the valet, Jenks, in the second carriage with the luggage.
“Well,” said Chloe into the stretching silence as the carriage swung out on to the main road, “that was quick. I shall expect something quite other when my turn comes, and so I warn you, Lavenham.”
He laughed shortly. “I doubt if there are bride’s cake and champagne at Gretna Green.”
“Oh, that.” She dismissed her elopement as a youthful folly, long forgotten, then turned with a pretty gesture to Camilla: “You cannot conceive what an encumbrance I feel. To be acting third on a honeymoon party is a most monstrous piece of ill manners. Should I, do you think, ride with Jenks and the maid?”
Camilla, whose gratitude to Chloe for breaking the silence had indeed been mixed with a shade of regret at her presence, began a polite protest, but Lavenham interrupted her, telling his sister not to be more absurd than she could help. “You wished to be of the party; now you will put up with the consequences.”
Even Chloe found this something of a silencer and after exchanging a glance of quick sympathy with her new sister-in-law settled down to gaze out of the carriage window. Camilla, too, was silent, sorry that Lavenham had given his sister such a setdown, and yet sympathising with the almost intolerable strain under which she recognised him to be labouring. She longed to make some gesture of sympathy—after all, she was his wife—but restrained the hand that would have gone out towards him. The first advance, if there was to be any, must come from his side, not hers. She remembered Lady Leominster’s warning, “You will have to be patient ... patient as Job,” and sat back, quiet in her corner. So they travelled across the heart of England all day, almost as silent as if they had been three strangers in the public coach. By the time they reached Exeter, late in the evening, the silence of constraint had given place to that of fatigue, and Camilla observed a crease across Lavenham’s brow that she had never seen before. Was he, she wondered, regretting their marriage already?
Chloe brightened up at sight of the outskirts of Exeter with its promise of food and rest. For all her seventeen years and attempted elopement, she was enough of a child still so that the mere passage of time could put her at her ease in any situation. By now, her sense of awkwardness of intruding on her brother’s honeymoon was lost in the excitement of the journey. She began to chatter excitedly to Camilla and was soon running from side to side of the carriage in her attempts to see Exeter Cathedral. A lurch of the carriage as it hit the paved road overset her, and she cannoned heavily into her brother, who let out an exclamation of such black rage that Camilla shrank back in her corner.
Chloe did not seem particularly surprised, however, but settled back in her own corner with an apology, and added, “Have you one of your migraine headaches, poor Lee?” Her sympathetic tone and the use of the pet name, which Camilla had not heard before, showed that his start of bad temper had neither surprised nor alarmed her.
He admitted to the headache. “I am afraid I have been vilely bad company all day,” he said to Camilla. “You must forgive me, M—” He had almost said, “Miss Forest,” but remembered himself in time, coloured deeply, and contrived to turn it into “my dear.”
The mild endearment moved Camilla almost to the point of tears, which she however took care to conceal, remarking instead, in her gentlest voice, on the length of the day’s journey and enquiring what treatment he found best for the headache.
“Oh, nothing but to endure it,” he answered a shade impatiently as the carriage turned into the inn yard, and she could only admire the fortitude with which he endured the bustle of their late arrival. Fortunately, rooms and a meal had been bespoken for them, and a question, which had been troubling Camilla, of whether she and her husband were to share a room, had apparently been settled in advance. They found two large bedrooms with a sitting room between them ready for their occupation. Chloe’s presence, of course, had not been provided for, and the obsequious host was soon deep in apologies because he had no other room available that was fit for her occupation. But this was easily settled, “Of course she must sleep with me,” said Camilla, and felt herself amply rewarded for the sacrifice of comfort and privacy by her husband’s grateful look.
Dinner, the host told them, would be served immediately, and they retired to their rooms at once to repair the ravages of the long day’s journey. To Camilla’s relief, Chloe did not comment on the odd allocation of bedrooms, being far too busy hanging out of the window and counting the number of gentlemen’s carriages in the inn yard below. “If only Lavenham would eat at the ordinary like anybody else,” she wailed, “we might see their owners, but he is so mortally high in the instep he would never even think of it. And how am I to find myself a husband if I meet no one?”
Camilla paused with the comb in her hair and looked across the room at Chloe. The time, she felt, had come to be firm. “You must not speak like that of your brother,” she said, “and most particularly not to me. As for a husband, there is time enough to be thinking of that when the world has forgotten about your excursion to Gretna,” and then, seeing the ready tears in the child’s eyes, “Come, that is enough for a first scold, and I promise you we will never speak of Gretna again.”
When they joined Lavenham in their sitting room they found him staring pale and gloomily at the table which a man and a boy were engaged in loading with food. Chloe exclaimed with delight at the plenty before her, but it was soon obvious to Camilla that Lavenham ate only by a heroic effort of will. At last, she could bear the sight of his struggles no longer. and as Chloe embarked on her third helping of devilled chicken, asked: “Would you not be very much happier in the quiet of your own room, my dear?” She ventured the endearment he had used. “Chloe and I will do perfectly well without you, and, with your permission, I will come, presently, and see if I cannot massage the pain away. I used to do it for the poor Duchess of Devonshire when she had one of her headaches and she said it was wonderful how it eased her.”
He protested, but was obviously glad to leave them. Later, when she knocked timidly on his door and found him stretched fully clothed on his bed in the darkened room, he was obviously in too much pain not to be grateful for any chance of alleviation. He turned over obediently and lay flat on his face while her gentle hands worked their way over the tense muscles at the back of his neck where the dark hair grew close and curling. Gradually, as she sat there in the half dark, she could hear his breathing ease off into sleep and at last, very quietly, she rose to leave him. At the door, his voice stopped her: “Camilla.” he said, and then, as she paused, “thank you.”
“Good night,” she whispered, closing the door softly behind her.
They had another long day’s journey before them, and were up early again, but Camilla h
ad already lain for a long time, listening to the noises of the inn yard, and Chloe’s quiet breathing, and thinking about her husband and the strange life before her. Later, the first sight of Lavenham was encouraging: he was visibly better, his colour nearly normal and the furrow gone from above his eyebrows. But if she had hoped for any increase in warmth on his part this morning, she was to be disappointed. He was brisk almost to the point of rudeness, both to her and to Chloe, and it was a subdued little party that climbed punctually into the carriage as the cathedral clock struck the hour. Chloe, however, had had enough of silence and, having ascertained that his headache was indeed gone, began to tease him with questions about Portugal. What was he to do there? Where were they to live? Did he like the Portuguese, and was their Queen really mad? And a thousand other questions, which he began by answering monosyllabically enough, but gradually, as the carriage rolled on through fitful sunshine and the sounds of spring, he began to thaw a little and answer her questions, and those that Camilla now dared to raise, more fully. Yes, he told them, Lord Strangford, the Minister Plenipotentiary, had already secured a house for them on the eastern outskirts of Lisbon; they would be able to go there directly from the boat. “I found the dirt and discomfort of my lodgings intolerable when I was last there and insisted that this time I would have a house—fortunately, as it has proved. You will find the Portuguese a good enough kind of people, I think,” he was addressing Camilla now, rather than Chloe, “if curiously unaware of dirt or discomfort. But the climate, I am sure, will make up for much, though I hope you neither of you find hot weather oppressive.”
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