by Liz Carlyle
Kemble tapped his finger pensively. “In any case,” he finally said, “could severe weight loss cause a cessation of a woman’s courses?”
“Oh, indeed it could do,” said the maid. “’Tis nature’s way of seeing they don’t conceive when they are too thin or too ill to bear a child. Nature knows what’s best, I always say.”
Kemble unscrewed the cap on his flask and took a small, pensive sip. “So which came first?” he muttered. “The chicken? Or the egg?”
“I beg your pardon?”
Kemble tipped the flask over Mrs. Waters’s teacup again. “If a woman became nauseous and her courses stopped, how would she know if pregnancy was the cause?”
The maid seemed beyond embarrassment now. “If she were married and healthy, ’twould be a safe assumption,” said Mrs. Walters. “Otherwise, why, it could be some time. Three months, perhaps—and then only if the doctor could feel it in the womb. A babe won’t quicken until much later than that.”
Kemble tucked the flask back into his pocket. “Thank you,” he said. “Thank you so much. You have been an invaluable help to me.”
Mrs. Waters’s eyes widened, and she gave another cough into her handkerchief. “Have I indeed?” she finally said. “That was simple enough.”
He had already started toward the door when he thought of something else and turned around. “Mrs. Waters, may I ask—have you any notion who might have been the previous lady’s maid here at Selsdon?”
She pulled a thoughtful face. “Well, I’ve heard Musbury mention it on occasion,” she said, then shook her head. “I’m sorry. I’m not at my best. I cannot call it to mind.”
“Mrs. Musbury,” said Kemble pensively. “Do you gather she knew the lady well?”
“Yes, I collect she did,” said Mrs. Waters. “She was from these parts, I believe, as was the last duchess.”
“Excellent!” Kemble rubbed his hands together. “Thank you, Mrs. Waters. You are, as always, perfectly brilliant.”
Gareth found Antonia in the parlor shortly before noon. He had not seen her since slipping from her bed in the early hours before dawn. She sat at the giltwood escritoire jotting out a letter, her head bent to the sun, which shot her hair with strands of brilliant gold. Her jaw was set somewhat rigidly over her task. She had not even heard him come in.
For a moment, he hesitated. She was beautiful, yes, but it was no longer her beauty which drew him. He thought of how she had felt in his arms last night. How loathe he had been to leave her. The almost ethereal intimacy they had shared. And now, when he had thought the reality of her situation would creep in to buck up his resolve, he found instead that it was flagging.
He was done for, he realized, watching her small, capable hand scratch across the page. He was in love with her, head over heels. There was no point in pretending otherwise. The only thing now was to decide what ought to be done about it. Would he do the right thing? Or the selfish thing?
And what was the right thing? Today he was not sure. Her questions last night about Zee had forced him to look inward and to face a certain truth. What Gareth felt now was very different from anything he had felt before, and far more complex. There was no impatience, none of the frustration he had felt with Zee. There was only a deep and abiding certainty that he needed this woman. A seemingly delicate and fragile woman who, Gareth was beginning to think, was actually neither.
He tucked his hat in the crook of his arm and stepped a little closer. “A penny for your thoughts?” he said quietly.
Antonia gave a little gasp. “Oh, heavens!” she said, her hand going to her heart. “Gabriel. I was lost in thought, was I not?”
With a muted smile, he peered over her shoulder. “Writing to one of your frustrated admirers in London?” he asked.
Antonia looked up and smiled. “It is very odd, but all those scoundrels seem to have vanished,” she said. “Could it have anything to do with the new duke who is in residence, I wonder?”
“I can’t think why I would put them off,” he confessed, taking one of her hands in his.
But perhaps he had done precisely that, he belatedly realized. Perhaps those sort of men feared being too closely examined by someone who might have Antonia’s best interests in mind.
She looked down at their entwined fingers. “I am writing to my father, Gabriel,” she said quietly. “I am telling him…telling him that I shall come. I shall do as he asks, and come to Town to celebrate the birth of the new child. I shall pay a few social calls with him, perhaps, and see how people receive me. There will be whispers behind my back, I know, but perhaps they will fade. Beyond that—well, I make Papa no promises.”
Gareth felt his heart sink and the floor seemingly shift beneath his feet. He was suddenly at a loss for words. “You have had a change of heart, then,” he finally managed. “When do you leave?”
Antonia glanced up, her eyes softening as she caught his gaze. “I think I should go at once, if Nellie is up to it,” she answered. “I—I have become a distraction to you, Gabriel. Please don’t say I haven’t. Besides, I shall need new clothes. My mourning is all but over.”
“Yes, I see,” he said quietly.
“I thank you, Gabriel,” she said, her voice soft. “You have given me strength and encouragement. You have made me feel as if—well, as if I really do have some say over my destiny. I can control my father. And perhaps I can have a life again. Perhaps I need not shut myself away in the country, or in Bath, for God’s sake, like some widow on her last legs.”
He still held his hat and was fighting not to crush it. “No, you are a widow with a pair of very lithe, very shapely legs,” he said, forcing himself to smile. “I think they will stand you in good stead whilst you waltz around London breaking hearts.”
She studied him quizzically, then the expression smoothed away, as if she had forced it. “Well, have you come in search for me?” she asked brightly, changing the subject. “Am I needed elsewhere in the house?”
Yes, he wanted to say. You are needed in my bed. In my heart. In my home, wherever it may be.
Her leaving so suddenly was a development he had not anticipated. And while it had sounded wise in the abstract, the reality of her going was another thing altogether. He wanted, inexplicably, to beg her to stay. To take back all his wise and cavalier words and simply throw himself on her mercy.
But whose needs did that serve? His, and only his. A return to society was precisely what Antonia deserved. She had every right to reach out for the life she wanted, not simply settle for the life which was at hand. And if, by some miracle, he and Kemble could lay to rest any of the doubt surrounding Warneham’s death, her path to her new life would be even smoother.
But she was still looking at him and awaiting his answer to her question. “No, I just wandered in,” he lied. “Everything is fine. I was just looking…for something.”
“Whilst carrying your hat?” She leapt to her feet and lightly kissed his cheek. “Come now, Gabriel. I thought we were to be honest with one another?”
“Yes, we did say that, didn’t we?” He gave a muted smile. “Actually, I was going to ask if you would go for a walk with me.”
“I should love to,” she answered. “May I have a moment to change my shoes?”
“Antonia.” He caught her lightly by the arm. “You need not go.”
She set her head to one side and studied him. “Perhaps I want to. Where are you going?”
He dropped his gaze. He felt suddenly twelve again. “To the pavilion in the deer park,” he said. “But I just…didn’t really want to go alone.”
“I should be pleased to go. I love the pavilion.” She gave his hand one last reassuring squeeze and started toward the door. “I will meet you in the great hall.”
A few minutes later, Gareth watched her come dashing back down the stairs. She wore a somewhat loose, old-fashioned gown of sprigged muslin in a fetching shade of green with a matching green-and-yellow shawl tossed over her shoulders. “I decided to wear some
thing colorful and comfortable,” she said, her eyes sparkling. “And—well, it was the only thing I could quickly get on without Nellie’s help. Oh, what do you have in the basket?”
Gareth smiled and lifted his arm. “A cold luncheon, I’m told,” he said. “Mrs. Musbury thinks I am skipping my midday meal too often.”
Antonia laughed. “A picnic!” she said. “How lovely.”
They went out through the conservatory into the back gardens, her hand resting lightly upon his arm. The air today was touched with a hint of autumn, and if one looked quite closely, a flash of red or gold could sometimes be seen in the lush foliage of the orchard which bordered Selsdon’s formal gardens. The orchard gave onto a swath of woodland, and below it lay the deer park.
The road which led down to the deer park was easy to find and, like the road to Knollwood, well kept. “I used to walk this way often as a child,” he said. “The pavilion was Cyril’s favorite place to play. We would pretend it was our castle and stage mock battles to defend it. Or sometimes we would treat it as a sort of amphitheater and act out one of Shakespeare’s plays—not Romeo and Juliet, mind. One of the more bloodthirsty ones.”
She looked up at him and smiled. “I found this little lane on my own,” she said. “Warneham never mentioned it. I suppose it is just as well, for it gave me a place to hide myself away occasionally.”
They strolled in silence for some time, her hand lying lightly on his arm. The path narrowed as it descended, and the foliage grew more untamed. It was beautiful, but a little haunting as the wood enfolded them, shutting out the sky. Gareth looked up and thought of little Beatrice. From time to time, Antonia too glanced up into the canopy of green, but she said little.
“Are you thinking of Beatrice?” he finally asked. “I mention it because…well, I suppose I am.”
She looked at him with a soft smile. “Always,” she said quietly. “She is never far from my mind or my heart, Gareth. But I think perhaps—oh, I don’t know—I still feel the loss so deeply. I still feel at fault. The grief is ever present, but I have begun to hope that perhaps one day I might understand. I must accept, someday, that nothing I can say or do—no amount of prayer or penance—will ever bring my babies back. What would you call that? Resignation?”
“Wisdom,” he answered. “I would call it wisdom, Antonia. And a giving in to the ways of God.”
“Yes, perhaps that is it,” she murmured, giving his arm a little squeeze. “Perhaps I am surrendering unto God that which was always his.”
“Yes, but that part, Antonia, about feeling at fault,” he continued. “That part, I hope, you will carefully consider as you go forward with this next part of your life. You cannot hold yourself responsible for…for the actions of a capricious, narcissistic ass.”
“Oh, my!” she murmured appreciatively. “I never heard Eric described better.”
Gareth managed to smile down at her. They walked on in silence for a moment, but finally Antonia spoke. “Tell me more about mourning,” she said. “Jewish mourning, I mean.”
Gareth was not sure how to explain it. His impressions were those of a child. “Well, after the funeral, the family goes home to meditate on the life of the departed, and to pray for them,” he said. “This is done for seven days, and it is supposed to be a period of intense grief.”
“Seven days?”
“Yes, and in that time, one does not leave one’s home,” he went on. “Visitors may call upon the bereaved to pray and to talk about the departed, but that is all. Mourners may eat only very simple foods. They cannot enjoy any luxury, such as a leisurely bath or even the wearing of shoes. We cover our mirrors, and we take the cushions off the chairs. We may not work, nor even think of work, and we light a special candle of remembrance. It is a time to begin to heal ourselves, and sanctify the memory of the one who is lost to us.”
He glanced down to see Antonia looking at him in wonder. He realized that somewhere in his narrative he had gone from “they” to “we.” It was characteristic of his life, perhaps. The chronic confusion of never knowing just where one belonged.
“It almost sounds like a luxury to me.” Antonia’s voice was low and raw with emotion. “To be encouraged in one’s grief…I cannot imagine it.”
“When I was a boy, I thought sitting shiva very dull,” Gareth confessed. “But now that I am older, I wonder if it isn’t very wise indeed. Yes, it is a sort of luxury. In a shiva house, it is thought wrong to try to cajole the bereaved from their grief, or to distract them from thinking of their loss.”
“You are surprisingly knowledgeable, Gabriel, for one who did not worship in the faith.”
They had started down the hill which led to the pavilion and the small lake beyond. Gareth found himself growing unaccountably tense. “Everyone I knew, Antonia, was a Jew,” he said quietly. “As a small boy, I had seen no other way. And yet I was kept from being a Jew. I know my mother meant well, but—”
“Oh, Gabriel, I am quite sure of it.” Antonia stopped abruptly and turned to look at him. “She just never knew she would die so young. She never knew your father would not come home again. How well I understand that a mother cannot foresee and prepare her child for life’s every tragedy. You must not think ill of her. You mustn’t.”
Gareth nodded, and resumed their walking, but at a slower pace. He did not want to reach the foot of the hill. And he did not want, particularly, to carry on this conversation any further. There was a part of him that was still irrationally angry with his mother. He felt as if her choice had left him hanging, suspended between two worlds, and belonging to neither.
He kicked a rotting walnut from the path and felt mild satisfaction when it cracked solidly against a tree. “I know, Antonia, that everything my mother did, she did out of love,” he said. “Love for me, and for my father. But to a small boy, there are few things more important than fitting in with the world around you—and few things more reassuring. And frankly, I think my grandparents’ faith was a grounding influence. I believe it would have done me a vast deal of good.”
“Do you believe what they believed?” There was no hint of judgment in her voice; merely curiosity.
“Some days, Antonia, I don’t know what I believe.” He paused to lift a wayward briar from Antonia’s path. “For me, this isn’t even about faith. It is about a nurturing community of good and honest people.”
She ducked under the briar, then glanced toward him with a faint smile. “Perhaps I understand better than you might imagine, Gabriel.”
Gareth looked up to see the pavilion through the trees up ahead. Beyond it lay the lake. He picked up their pace a little. He had come this far; it was best to get it over with.
The pavilion was round and entirely open. Eight Ionic columns of white stone supported the pavilion’s dome, and three white marble steps encircled its base. Once it had been furnished with chaises and chairs, but now it held nothing but a rough-hewn wooden bench and a swath of dead leaves.
Antonia sensed Gabriel’s hesitation well before they reached the end of the path. But when the pavilion came into view, he marched on like a soldier to battle. He did not give the impression of a man who had come to savor the outdoors and admire the greenery.
“It is lovely, isn’t it?” she said when he finally stopped to take in the view. “Lovely, but a bit ostentatious, I always thought.”
Gabriel did not answer. After a moment had passed, he picked up his pace again, and together they went up the steps. Gabriel put down Mrs. Musbury’s basket and drifted toward the opposite side of the circle. Antonia let her hand fall away from his arm, and for a moment, she simply watched him. There was a hesitance to his gait and a rigidity to his posture which was unusual. He had apparently left his hat behind at Selsdon, for his luxurious golden hair now tossed lightly in the breeze coming off the lake.
He went to the very edge of the pavilion and set one hand high against the nearest column. The other hand went to his hip, pushing back the front of his coat to reveal the
slender turn of his waist. Gabriel stared out across the water, in the direction of what had once been a boathouse but was now just a pile of rotting timber, which was slowly sliding into the lake and taking its sagging roof along with it.
Gabriel was thinking, she knew, of his cousin Cyril’s death. It was here that Warneham’s son and heir had died during a family picnic—at least that was the story Nellie had got belowstairs. Antonia’s husband had never spoken of it, save to say that Gabriel had done it deliberately, out of jealousy and spite. Knowing him as she did now, however, she knew that was not remotely possible. Despite his cold, formal edges, the man had a heart that was kind, perhaps to a fault.
Since his arrival at Selsdon, Gabriel had been exceptionally good to her, when he had no reason whatever to trouble himself and when many in his shoes might have been bitter. He had accepted almost unquestioningly her protestations of innocence surrounding Warneham’s death. He had come to Selsdon with his heart newly broken, his lover newly wed, and thrust into a position she was now convinced he had not wanted, but he had still opened at least a little piece of his heart to her. He could not love her, perhaps, in the way she might wish when she let her silly, girlish fantasies run free, but he cared for her. And yes, he wanted her, too—but it was a desire, she believed, which had arisen from his tenderness and his concern.
The least she could do was repay him in kind. Slowly, she walked through the dead leaves which littered the marble floor. She hardly knew what to say. Gabriel had obviously come here for a reason, and she must trust he would deal with it in his own way, and in his own time.
He apparently heard her approach, for he turned, one hand still on the column, and extended his arm as if to invite her to his side. Antonia smiled and joined him. Gabriel set his arm about her waist, and his warm, heavy hand came to rest lightly on her hip.
“The lake is beautiful, isn’t it?” she murmured. “Like glass, almost. One can see the reflection of the clouds, and the low-hanging branches along the edge.”
