Marjorie Farrel

by Miss Ware's Refusal

  “Yes, I remember you mentioning him after one of your visits. Is he still in the army?”

  “Yes. He was not wounded in the last campaign, thank God, for I remember him as quite active.”

  “He was lucky, then, Judith. I see soldiers begging in the streets who are in pitiable states, lacking eyes or limbs.”

  “I am glad that you did not choose the army,” said his sister. “I do not think I could have survived these last three years had I known that you were in constant danger.”

  “I was never interested in that kind of action. I would far rather put my energy to work in the courtroom. It was necessary to stop Bonaparte, but I do not wish to see us forgetting what led to his ascendance in the first place. We can’t turn our backs on Europe now that we are at last the victors. Well, enough politics for tonight! Let’s sit in front of the fire and enjoy Emma.”

  Chapter 2

  Barbara returned home after her meeting with Judith feeling that something very valuable had been returned to her. Her intimacy with Judith had eased her loneliness at school and helped make up for the lack of a warm and responsive mother. The countess, by no means a neglectful parent, was, however, like many women in her position, rather removed from her children. Barbara relied mainly on her brother, and she and Robin were very close, having drawn together for comfort and support, but his seven years seniority meant he was gone just at the time Barbara needed him most. She left for Miss Hastings’ feeling awkward, gangly, and homesick. Judith, who remembered her own first weeks, was quick to respond to Barbara’s silent but obvious unhappiness.

  What could have been only a brief relationship blossomed into a rich friendship. Both girls shared a self-reflectiveness and intelligence that enabled them to laugh at their adolescent agonies even as they suffered them. The social distance between them was not a barrier. Barbara loved hearing about the small, cozy vicarage in Hampshire, and Judith’s unworldly but adored father. Judith, on the other hand, was fascinated by Barbara’s life, which alternated between Ashurst and London. And both of them were impatient with the limitations on their lives as women. They resented their brothers’ greater freedom, but swore to each other they would never marry just to gain the greater freedom as a married woman. They dreamed of marriage with men who would treat them as equals and appreciate them for their intelligence as well as their beauty. If either of them would ever be said to be beautiful, a development they despaired of! They read Mary Wollstonecraft secretly and imagined themselves setting up house together. Judith, in addition to her painting, would learn German and Italian and support them by translating, while Barbara worked on her music. Somehow, in their fantasies, their dreams of romance and independence seemed not incompatible.

  Despite their dreaming, they were both in touch with reality. They knew that Barbara would make her come-out. They knew too that Judith would not, and that it was less than likely that she would ever marry, the selection of eligible men in Cheriton being rather limited. There was the baronet, and a few gentlemen’s sons from the surrounding neighborhood who treated Judith like a sister. When the vicar died suddenly and Judith was forced to cut short her last year at the school, she and Barbara swore to maintain their friendship. They had successfully done so for a few years. Barbara had read between the lines of Judith’s letters and felt the old anger at the lack of opportunities for women.

  As for herself, she had wealth and position, but except for Robin, no one to whom she could reveal her ironic view of the world. The few occasions upon which Barbara had spoken plainly had taught her it was safer to appear thoroughly conventional if one wanted to keep one’s friends. To have Judith back in her life was like recovering a part of herself.

  On Tuesday morning, therefore, she woke early, with a feeling of excitement, like a child who is anticipating a special outing. At first she could not identify the source, and then she realized that she would have a whole day to herself. No calls to make, no shopping to do. A rare luxury.

  When she walked into the breakfast room, she found Robin already there, reading the newspaper. There was no footman about, for both the Stanleys preferred to live more informally than their parents and took advantage of their absence to be more relaxed. Barbara served herself eggs and ham and muffins from the sideboard, and Robin looked up from his paper.

  “You are up early this morning,” he teased. “I am sure you were not in earlier than two last night.”

  “I hope you weren’t waiting up for me,” Barbara laughed. “Weren’t you also out?”

  “No, I had planned to go to the Beckwiths’ assembly, but I was tired, so I sent my apologies and had a quiet night here, losing to Devenham at piquet.”

  Barbara tried not to react to the viscount’s name. All the men she had met in London had not diminished her feeling for Robert Chase, Viscount Devenham. He had grown up with them in Kent, and was the heir to the large estate bordering Ashurst. Several years younger than Robin, he had been at school while Robin was on the continent. Now that Robin had returned, he had resumed his habit of treating the Stanleys as his second family.

  Although Dev was only a few years older than Barbara, he teased her like the younger sister he considered her to be. Barbara, however, was afraid she was more than a little in love with him. She had tried to talk herself out of it, for he was hardly the serious partner she and Judith had fantasized. He was charming, boyish, and apparently frivolous, although she knew that he was also a responsible landlord and loving son.

  She had no illusions that he looked for more in a woman than any other male of her acquaintance. He would more likely amuse himself with the demimonde before he settled down with some seventeen-year-old, fresh from her first Season. Barbara was sure that he had no knowledge of what she disparaged as her “schoolgirl infatuation”: in fact, he seemed blissfully unaware of her as a woman at all, and had, over the years, come to her for sisterly advice regarding his affairs of the heart.

  “Are you doing something special today? Or did you come to breakfast early just to watch the eggs get cold?”

  Barbara was jolted out of her daydreaming, and blushed as she realized that Robin was repeating his question for the third time.

  “Do you remember Judith Ware, my good friend from Mrs. Hastings’? She visited us one summer, and the last Christmas you and Simon came home on leave together. It was the year of the big snowstorm, and we were all housebound. Remember you and Simon taught us to waltz?”

  “Yes, that nice little wren-like girl? I thought you told me she left school to work as a governess?”

  “She did, after her father died. But she has a brother who is now in London studying law. He sent for her, and I met her by chance at Hatchards and invited her to spend the day with me.”

  “So you have been reunited with an old friend, and I fear I have lost one,” replied Robin.

  “Simon?”

  “Yes. He has been in London for almost a month now and will not admit anyone. I have tried for weeks, Barbara, and he just sends his butler back with apologies that he is not in to visitors. He seems to be living in the expectation that his sight will return.”

  “But I thought the surgeons told him he was permanently blind?”

  “Yes and no. There was no damage to his eyes, Francis told me. They speculate that the head injury irreparably damaged whatever part of the eye conveys images to the mind, but since they cannot see the injury, there was initially room for hope. Simon is holding on to that for all he is worth. But he sits all day in the library, looking at nothing. He is eating little and has lost almost a stone since he came home, according to Francis. I am worried about him, and don’t know what to do. I can’t very well force my way in and drag him out.”

  Barbara placed her hand on Robin’s arm. “Do not give up, Robin, keep going back. Even if he refuses to see you now, you may eventually wear him down. And he has to be taking it in, on some level, the fact that you have not given up on him.”

  “I hope so, Barbara, I hope so. Well,
I must be off. I will see you later.”

  Barbara sat over her last cup of tea until it grew cold, lost in thought. Of all her brother’s friends, Simon, Duke of Sutton, was the one she felt closest to. He was the son of an old friend of their father’s, and they had seen him many times over the years, on his visits to Ashurst. She had many memories of the three of them picking raspberries or racing their ponies. She had been allowed to tag along after her older brother and his friend, and they tolerated her as long as she didn’t become missish.

  “Missish” meant being unwilling to bait their hooks for them, so Barbara had learned to close her eyes and quickly press fat, wriggling worms against the needle-sharp hook, sometimes impaling her thumb in the process, but never crying out. “Missish” meant worrying about her clothes, so Barbara had learned to kilt up her skirts and ignore scratches on her legs when they went berrying. “Missish,” she thought, would also have been complaining about a twisted ankle, so she hobbled after them one day, until Simon, glancing back, noticed her grimace of pain and supported her the rest of the way home.

  Had Simon not been so much like an older brother, Barbara might well have given her heart to him instead of to Dev. He was genuinely kind to all: servants, tenants, little sisters, and hero-worshiping young viscounts. Responsible and possessed of a true dignity, but not at all impressed by his own rank and fortune. In fact, she knew there had been a time when he had quite painfully questioned his wealth and position. At Oxford, both he and Robin had been influenced by radical thinkers. Indeed, it had been Simon who had first introduced her to Mary Wollstonecraft’s writing. He had eventually come to terms with his responsibilities and sincerely believed that since he had been born into a particular place, he had a duty to use the influence he possessed for those who were less fortunate.

  Simon was a serious man, albeit with a good sense of humor. And good-looking. Not Byronically handsome, of course, like Dev, or blond and elegant, like Robin. He was tall, and he had outgrown the gangliness of his adolescence without losing a certain ranginess. His hair, thick and sandy, and his light sprinkling of freckles counterbalanced the imposing quality of his rather hawk-like nose and clear gray eyes. And now those eyes, which were always so direct and honest, looked out at nothing.

  Barbara loved Simon as a member of her own family, and was as distraught over his injury as if it had been Robin’s. Yet there seemed to be no way to reach out and help. If he would not admit his closest friend, he would certainly not admit her, even if it were appropriate for her to visit a man’s house alone. And what was there to do or say? “I am so sorry, Simon. Come to dinner tomorrow night.” Or, “Will you be at Lady Bellingham’s? I’ll save a waltz for you.”?

  Surely time will have a healing effect, she decided. Simon could not keep himself isolated indefinitely. Perhaps the thing to do was to go on waiting until he was ready to receive visitors.

  Barbara left the morning room and settled in for her hour’s practice at the pianoforte. Like most young ladies, she had been given music lessons and had been expected to develop a certain proficiency at the keyboard. What was not expected was that she reveal a genuine talent. She had gone far beyond the conventional, and her parents, in recognition of her ability, had finally hired a professional teacher. For her, music was both a calming discipline and a way to express emotion. Her range was wide enough to encompass Bach and Mozart, and now she was working on some new music, by Beethoven. She was busy working on a sonata she had just purchased, and as she worked out the fingering, she lost all sense of time.

  When Judith was admitted an hour later, the butler was about to settle her in the morning room and summon Lady Barbara. “Milady is practicing, you see, and she often quite forgets about the time. I will inform her of your arrival.”

  Judith could hear the faint sound of the piano and impulsively reached out to stop Hotchkiss. “Let me go down. I have not heard Lady Barbara play for so long, and I would like to just listen for a while.”

  Hotchkiss pointed out the door, and Judith walked softly down the hall. The slow chords got louder as she drew closer. She opened the door quietly and sank into a chair. Barbara was so engrossed in getting the first few measures right that she heard nothing.

  Judith was not familiar with Beethoven’s work, and there was something about this new arrangement of sound that moved her in the same way as certain poetry or a painting by Turner. She wanted to get closer to the music, and so she walked over to stand a little behind her friend, watching Barbara’s hands work out the best placement. Barbara, sensing someone’s presence, stopped in the middle of a measure and glanced up.

  “I am sorry to distract you, Barbara, but I couldn’t resist that music. Whose is it? You play it beautifully.”

  “Oh, no, not yet. I am barely beginning to work out the fingering, much less the dynamics. Beethoven is much more difficult than anything I have tried before, and I am quite at sea.’’

  “It was wonderful. I have not heard any of his music before. There is something about the music ... I can’t put it into words. He goes straight to the soul.”

  “Oh, yes, my friend.” Barbara stood up and gave Judith a spontaneous hug. “It is so good to be with you again. You don’t know how I have missed your insight.”

  “You have become an even finer musician than before. It is a shame that such a talent must be hidden, merely because you are a woman.”

  “I do work hard at it, but sometimes get discouraged. This piece is particularly difficult, and Signor Cavalcanti will have expected me to have learned this movement by Friday. Remember when we dreamed of becoming great artists overnight? Well, now I know how much hard work and discipline it takes. And you are right: as a woman, this music will never be my life. But I am determined to keep it a part of my life. Come, let’s not stand here, but go into the morning room. I’ll send Hotchkiss for some tea.

  “Now tell me about the last three years, Judith,” Barbara asked as they settled in. “They cannot have been easy for you.”

  “My first position was difficult. I was responsible for two terribly spoiled children. That I could have survived. But when their uncle started making advances and could not be convinced that I was uninterested, I decided to find another position. I was much luckier the second time. They had five children and all were a little harum-scarum, but the Thorntons are a warm, close family, and that more than made up for the occasional toad in my bed! They made me feel like one of the family, my salary was generous, and I had one half-day a week to myself.”

  “One half-day!”

  “That is generous, my dear lady of leisure. And Lady Thornton was very involved with her children, so I seldom had full responsibility for them all at one time. At times I felt like a cousin who had come to help out, rather than a hired stranger. And one of my duties this past year was quite restful.”

  “What was that?” queried Barbara.

  “Lord Thornton’s older sister, Harriet, came to live with them. She suffers from a progressive eye disease that cannot be cured, and she is almost completely blind. I spent some of my day as her companion, walking with her and reading to her. She is a wonderful person, intelligent and independent, and much more accepting of her handicap than I could ever dream of being. We had long conversations on literature and life that reminded me of the talks we used to have.’’ Judith smiled. “All in all, I was very lucky, Barbara. And I knew that it was only for a limited time. Now, that is enough of me. Your come-out was last year, and you are still not wed? Are you considered to be on the shelf yet?” teased Judith.

  “I’ll have you know that if I was not the incomparable of the Season, I was quite the thing, despite my excess inches. I received no less than three proposals! In fact, I refused an earl last year.” Barbara’s eyes sparkled mischievously.

  “An earl? Why did you refuse such a good match?”

  “Well, if you must know, it was Julian, Lord Denver, and since he is but twelve years old, I told him I was flattered, but thought he deser
ved someone a bit younger.”

  “Robbing the cradle proved too unconventional even for you, eh? However did this proposal come about?”

  “We both met often in the park. He and I both share a rebellious streak. He was escaping his mama, and I was riding off some steam at mine. We agreed to be friends and support each other. We have visited the zoo together, and the waterworks. I must say I have found him the most pleasant, most amusing male I’ve met in months. And he does not mind in the least my being bookish. He said, quite seriously, it might be very pleasant to have a wife with whom one could discuss politics intelligently.”

  “Seriously, Barbara,” Judith said after they had finished laughing, “have you truly emerged heart-whole?”

  “With regards to those proposals, oh, yes.” Barbara bent her head over the teapot. “More tea?”

  “ ‘With regards to those proposals’? So there might be someone who has not proposed whom you might have accepted?”

  Barbara looked up at Judith and made a comically despairing face.

  “Oh, Judith, I really have not admitted it, even to myself, but I am in a bad way.”

  “Who is this heartless one? Don’t tell me. He is years older and only looking for someone to run his household? No, no, he is a radical and does not even believe in the married state?”

  “Oh, worse. He is everything I thought I despised. He is top of the trees, drives to an inch, spars at Jackson’s, gambles, and up until this fall flirted with the prettiest young debutantes. He is, in short, utterly charming, utterly inappropriate, and decidedly not interested in a tall, musical lady.”

  “And who is this villain?”

  “Robert, the Viscount Devenham.”

  “Wasn’t he the young man who was always hanging about the summer I visited you?”

  “Yes.’’ Barbara blushed. “We have grown up together, and that is why he never looks at me. And how I could form a tendre for someone so far from our old ideal, I’m sure I don’t know.’’