The Autumn Rose

by Fiona Hill

  Amy wept. As a rule, Amy did weep these days, except when she was sleeping. She had been shedding tears continuously almost since leaving Canterbury with Mockabee, for it was then she had discovered her stupidity. Certainly she had cried all this morning—first with joy on seeing Mrs. Henry, and later with fright at the idea of Lady Beatrice’s arrival. Her worst fears were being justified even now, and she cried all the harder. “I do not know,” she finally brought out.

  There was a silence; then, “I do not know? I—do—not—know?” parroted Lady Beatrice nastily. “Idonotknow?” she fairly shrieked, spitting the words out all in one piece as if they were a charm to invoke Satan, or someone of similar qualities. “I,” she pronounced with terrible distinctness, “I wish to know. I want to know. I must know, Miss Amy. I will know!”

  Ansel Walfish looked upset. “Dear ma’am, really,” he dared to say, at the same time nervously fingering the cords on his Brandenburg buttons. “Might you not be—ah, coming it a trifle strong? The poor girl—” he added, gesturing awkwardly at Amy, who certainly was a sorry sight.

  “The poor girl?” shot back the marchioness. “And what of me? Or you? Or Seabury? Obliged to chase about for days through the countryside! Obliged to tell stories to all the world, only to protect her miserable little name? Obliged to pay ten thousand pounds to retrieve—”

  “Ten thousand?” gasped Walfish.

  “Ten thousand?” echoed Amy, who until now had not heard the sum.

  “Yes, my dears! Ten!” thundered Lady Beatrice. She flung up her fat fingers and waved them at the other two. “This many, my dears! Ten thousand.”

  Her audience sank into awed silence. Finally, “Who paid it?” asked Amy hoarsely.

  Lady Beatrice fixed her with a dreadful stare. “Seabury.”

  “Oh my!” whimpered Amy.

  “No, not ‘oh my,’” Lady Beatrice pounced again. “Oh Seabury! That is who deserves your exclamations. Amy Meredith, you have disgraced, distressed, and seriously discommoded us all.”

  Revitalized wailing answered this charge.

  “Well may you weep!”

  Amy wept.

  “Well may you grieve!”

  Amy grieved.

  “Well may you—”

  “Lady Beatrice, pray stop a moment!” Mr. Walfish burst out at last, rushing up to his old friend. “I entreat you, I implore, dear ma’am—sit down, be calm. I can bear no more of this; no, indeed I cannot. Does it not occur to you—dear friend, forgive me, but does it not occur to you that part of the blame is yours?”

  “Is…mine?” In spite of her outraged intonation, her ladyship accepted the chair Walfish offered.

  Miss Cecelia Windle, who was crouching in the corridor to listen to all of this through the keyhole, breathed a sigh of profound relief.

  “Yes, dear ma’am. I regret it infinitely—I have magnaregrets, if I may say so; I am omniregretful—but I am compelled to give it as my opinion that you are at fault as well as Miss Meredith.” He stood watching her almost fearfully, quite astonished at his own forthrightness.

  “My dear Walfish,” said Lady Beatrice in a low tone, “please enlighten me as to the justification of your interesting opinion.”

  “Well,” said Walfish, noting with surprise that he was experiencing a sort of mild exhilaration, “I think you ought to have taken Miss Meredith into your house in the first place. It was foolish to leave her with Seabury. A bachelor cannot be expected to know how to manage a young girl. I should not know how, for example.”

  “Your ignorances, my dear Mr. Walfish, are your own affair. Is this the end of your reasoning?”

  “Not entirely,” he said bravely.

  “Pray complete your remarks, in that case,” said she, breathing ice.

  “It is my conviction,” he resumed resolutely, “that Miss Meredith never was old enough to come out in the first place. In spite of her years, I mean. It is not her age which is objectionable; it is the fact of her not having been educated properly. She needs taking in hand—which is what I am obliged to submit, with apologies, you should have done, dear ma’am. She wants sophistication.” On these words Mr. Walfish made a little bow, to signify that his oration had come to a close, and seated himself again.

  Contrary to his expectations, Lady Beatrice did not spring at him the instant he finished. In fact, she did nothing for some minutes. She sat, wordless and still, with very much the air of a person who is considering things. Mr. Walfish waited on tenter-hooks—though not more so than Amy Meredith, who dared to imagine at this juncture that her hour of trial might be ended. She also dared to smile—just a very faint and fleeting smile—at Ansel Walfish. Mr. Walfish smiled back.

  “My friend,” Lady Beatrice said, after quite some time had passed, “there is much truth in what you say.”

  “Not really!” was the phrase which escaped Walfish’s lips.

  “Yes, really. You are as surprised as I at the notion—and yet, dear Walfish, I am obliged to confess your point is well taken. Indeed I ought to have kept Miss Meredith with me, or I ought not to have countenanced her visit to London at all. I am an old and selfish woman, Mr. Walfish, but I hope I am not too old and too selfish to admit when I am wrong.”

  Ansel Walfish found himself in the unusual situation of not knowing what to say.

  “I think what Amy must do now—providing her reputation can be kept intact, which will be a miracle considering all our antics these past few days—is to come home with me to South Audley Street for the remainder of the year. I shall teach her—with your assistance, Mr. Walfish, I hope—how she must conduct herself in society. Evidently it is perfectly useless for her to pass any more time with her aunt Meredith. You will not, however, be in society, young lady,” she continued, rounding on Amy, “until you have shown yourself capable of mature and reasonable behaviour. Do you understand? If you are not ready next season, you will simply be obliged to wait until the one following it; and if you have to wait until you are forty, I do not care. I shall not risk another scandal like this one, is that clear?”

  “Very clear,” said Amy, beginning to cry again.

  “Now then, my dear, no need for more tears. I suspect you have tormented yourself tolerably well these last days, eh? Take my hand, then, and let us speak no more of it,” she added, quite kindly. Miss Meredith fell upon the hand she extended and rather covered it with kisses. “Oh, la, my dear! Leave something for the gentlemen!” laughed the marchioness presently. She smiled somewhat wearily upon Amy. “What a task we have before us!”

  The young lady gathered up what little courage was hers to gather and, in trembling accents, made a request. “May Mrs. Henry live with us and help me too?”

  Lady Beatrice was not delighted with the notion, but she said she would reflect upon it—and Mr. Walfish winked at Amy as if to indicate that he would see to it her wish was granted. Miss Windle, still stationed at her keyhole, tightened her lips sceptically, but was scarcely in a position to voice her opinions to anyone. “I must confer with Seabury now,” she heard Lady Beatrice say, and afterwards made out the unmistakable sound of skirts rustling. It was time for Miss Windle to be off, no doubt about it; she sprang up, but was still in the corridor when the others issued from the sitting-room. She was obliged to employ deception in order to escape being found out: with a weak smile, she murmured something vague about a volume of Herrick, and swept gently past Lady Beatrice towards the library.

  “Listening at the door,” Lady Beatrice whispered to Walfish after she had gone, and shrugged. “I know these lady’s companions; eavesdropping is eat and drink to them. They could not survive without it. Ah well,” she shrugged, “I hope she heard something interesting!”

  Lady Caroline had been so full of her own news, when she first arrived at Gaworth, that was above an hour before Angela Gilchrist could mention what she had been burning with curiosity to ask about from the start. She had plenty of privacy, at least—if she had not the opportunity—for the two young women
were alone, Baron and Lady Trantham having exchanged pleasant but brief courtesies with their daughter’s bosom beau and then having retired diplomatically. As for Edgar, he was nowhere in sight. “He never is anymore,” Angela at last replied to Caro’s question on that head. “Do you know, I think he has conceived a tendre for Maria Halley! Papa is awfully pleased; you know what he and Colonel Halley are to one another.”

  “Maria Halley!” Caro said, surprised but not at all stung that Edgar’s heart should have turned in that direction. “With her teeth! Our Edgar must be grown a man at last, for this can only be true love, I trust.”

  Miss Gilchrist made a disapproving, clicking sound with her tongue. “Maria is very, very sweet,” she pointed out.

  “Very sweet!” agreed the other, her hands flying up to indicate her blamelessness in anything said against Maria Halley. “I am delighted for Edgar. Only I am a little curious,” she added, more quietly, “as to what I shall do now. I seem to be throwing off prospects at a perfectly ripping pace.”

  “Dear me, Caro, you are not sorry about Edgar and Maria, are you?” asked Angela, concerned but puzzled. Her pretty face showed her bemusement as she remarked mildly, “I suppose it is painful to lose a suitor even if one did not want him; but you looked positively crushed, my darling! I should have thought you would be very cheerful just about now, Caro. After all!”

  “I am cheerful, believe me,” said Caroline, striving valiantly not to cry. “Very cheerful indeed. Edgar and Maria Halley…is that so? Very wonderful, very very lovely—” But she could not continue.

  “No, not that, my love. Really, this is fascinating,” Angela said. “When I saw the Gazette this morning I thought immediately of you—how happy you would be!”

  Caro looked up, her sadness checked for the moment by curiosity. “The Gazette?” she inquired.

  “Well certainly. Humphrey sends it over every day from Two Towers you know, after Lillian is done with it. He always has, my dear. Had you forgot? What a very long time you have been away!”

  “Naturally Humphrey sends it over,” Caro said, her brow furrowing, “and he is very glad to do it; but what has that—you must understand, my dear, I have been much too busy these past three days to look at the Gazette. What is there—”

  “Why, Lady Susan Manning of course,” Angela retorted. “You do not mean to say you have not heard!”

  “Not heard what, my dear? Tell all,” exclaimed Caro, suddenly aching with impatience.

  “Why, that Lady Susan Manning is betrothed to Sir Sidney Pettingill. Caroline, you really did not know?”

  “Good Heavens!” was her only answer.

  “My dear girl, do you desire some tea? Some water? A cordial? Caro, you look positively ill!” cried Angela in some alarm, heading for the bell-rope.

  She held up a hand in a vague gesture. “No, no. I need a moment to take it in, that is all.” She was silent again.

  “I am sorry to have blurted it out so abruptly, my pet. I simply never imagined…I wonder—do you suppose it is possible Lord Seabury does not know either?”

  “I have no idea,” said Caroline woodenly.

  “Well somebody ought to tell him. He may wish to do something about it.”

  “I cannot fancy his not knowing,” she murmured.

  “I cannot fancy his knowing and not mentioning it,” returned Angela; “unless the picture you have drawn of him is very false indeed.”

  “Perhaps Lord Safford asked him not to say anything,” hazarded Caroline. “Are you quite certain this is true?” she asked a moment later.

  “Absolutely. See for yourself,” she said, crossing the room to a small Pembroke table laden with journals and papers. “Now where can that have got to? I was sure I put it—”

  “Never mind, my dear Angel,” Caroline broke in. She had risen hurriedly and followed her friend, and now she gave her arm a quick squeeze. “Forgive me, pray; I must fly. I do not need to see it for myself, but I must ask Seabury—I am sorry. Give my love to Edgar…Do not bother to show me to the door, really—” And with this phrase, flung carelessly over her shoulder, Caroline was gone.

  Chapter XIV

  “Well, my dear,” Lady Beatrice commenced drily, “how do you like your sister these days?”

  She addressed her nephew, Lord Seabury, whose ride round the park of Two Towers had but recently ended. Indeed, he still wore his riding boots, complete with mud—but Lady Beatrice was too impatient to wait while he changed. She had grabbed him the moment he and Inlowe returned, and more or less dragged him to that same convenient sitting-room where Amy Meredith and Mr. Walfish had lately been closeted with her. Miss Windle, as before, hovered silently outside the door.

  “Lillian,” Seabury replied haltingly, “seems well.”

  “Always was a fine actress, that gal,” her ladyship said musingly. “She is simply furious at our descending upon her, you know. I am surprised she does not poison our tea.”

  “I trust her feelings are not so violent as that.”

  “Oh, one can never tell,” she said carelessly. “In any case, that is not why I wished to speak to you.”

  “Pray speak on, then,” said Seabury quietly. Little though he cared for his sister, he liked even less to hear the situation joked about. It was painful to him that he and Lillian had grown so far apart. If the cause of their quarrel had not been even closer to his heart, he would have done much to achieve a reconciliation.

  “Seabury, I should like to pay Amy’s ransom,” Lady Beatrice brought out flatly. “I think it my duty, in fact.”

  His lordship could not help glancing at her in surprise. “Your duty, ma’am?” He smiled in spite of himself. “I do not recollect your ever referring to such an entity in—well, ever!”

  She looked flustered but continued determinedly. “None the less, I feel I am at—at fault in this matter, and should like to make what reparations I can.” She went on to explain her plans for Amy’s future, ending with a repetition of her initial request.

  Seabury stood and walked the length of the room. “My dear ma’am,” he said presently, returning to look down upon her, “I am grateful for your generous offer, but the difference between your estate and my own—in short, it is out of the question. Your circumstances would be considerably reduced by such an expense, would they not?”

  “Somewhat,” she admitted.

  “And mine scarcely at all,” said he. “I think you had best keep your money. If you desire to help Amy with it, give her part as a dowry and the rest as a legacy; that is my advice.”

  “Seabury,” Lady Beatrice said slowly after a moment; “Seabury, you are entirely—revoltingly—good. That money might have been left to you!”

  He shrugged and turned away. He was not feeling terribly well, for some reason. It disturbed him that his first and only visit to Two Towers took place under such peculiar circumstances. There was something depressing in the fact that he liked Lord Inlowe so much; indeed, he liked him more than anyone he could remember meeting in years, and felt as if he had known him forever. What good did it do, though, when he and Lillian got on so badly—and when, moreover, he was under orders from Safford to put Lady Caroline utterly out of his mind? A stay at Two Towers ought, by rights, to have been supremely pleasant to him; instead, he felt as if he had no business enjoying it. As for Lady Beatrice’s extravagant offer, it was positively absurd, and rather irritated him than anything else. She was saying something to him now, in an unusually grave tone; he forced himself to listen.

  “You like Lady Caroline very much, do you not?” she was asking rhetorically. “In fact, my dear, I have a strong idea you love her. Well, you ought to offer for her, Seabury. It is perfectly preposterous, this business of sacrificing your happiness to the Marquis of Safford. Marry her, my dear; do.”

  In his present humour, this interesting suggestion was as much balm to Seabury’s soul as salt is to a wound. “In the name of all that is reasonable,” he spat back sharply, “I beg you will stop trying
to make my life pleasanter. I have enough trouble without that.”

  “What troubles have you?” asked Beatrice, surprised. “Seabury, I know it is not the sort of thing one is in the habit of doing, but will you confide in me?”

  He turned to her with a weak smile. “I thank you,” he said patiently, “but as you say, it is so far from my habit…in any case, I stand in no need of a confidante. I know what I must do; I only require…the strength to do it.” His nerves were so much strained by this time that as he said these words Lord Seabury felt tears starting to his eyes. Preferring not to show them, he went at once to a window and gazed out upon the lawn. His back was still to the door when it burst open and Lady Caroline bounded in.

  “Oh, here you are at last,” she said breathlessly, rushing to give Lady Beatrice a welcoming kiss. “I have been looking into every room in the place. Lady Beatrice, I hope you had a pleasant trip? Lord Seabury, did you know Lady Susan is to marry Sir Sidney Pettingill?” As these sentences came out all in a jumble, it was necessary for her to repeat the last one several times before the others could make sense of it. While she did so she untied the ribands of her cap and tossed it upon a chair, for she had entered Two Towers in too great a hurry to attend to that detail before.