The Autumn Rose

by Fiona Hill

  “It was in the Gazette,” she explained, then added conversationally, “you know, I practically tripped over Windle in the corridor. Lovely to see her again, of course, but I do hope you were not discussing anything confidential.”

  Lady Beatrice waved vaguely to indicate that they were not. “You are absolutely certain of this?” she asked.

  “Oh, positively. Did you know nothing of it, sir?” she continued, turning to Seabury.

  “Nothing at all.”

  “I hope you are not—I hope it does not—”

  At this juncture Lord Inlowe, happening to pass the open doors of the sitting-room, entered and was told the news. “Of course,” said he, striking his fist against his palm, “that is where I saw her name. Remember, I said I had seen it?” he remarked to Caroline. “Lady Susan Manning and Sir Sidney Pettingill. And I remembered his name because Angela told me just the other day that he had offered for y—Oh dear,” he checked himself. “Probably a secret, hey?”

  “Rather,” said Caroline, while Seabury burst out, “He did offer for you?”

  Lady Caroline affirmed that he had.

  “And you refused him?” he pursued.

  She gave him a puzzled glance. “Naturally. You do not suppose I could be happy with such a man as that!” she said, candidly if not delicately. “Not but what Pettingill is a very agreeable gentleman,” she hastened to add, regretting (as usual) her initial, spontaneous reply. “Very agreeable. Lady Susan ought to be very hap—Are you quite well?” she broke off suddenly, as Seabury sank down into a chair and buried his head in his hands. “Oh my dear, you are—what an idiot I am, springing it on you…oh dear!” She looked frantically from Lady Beatrice to Humphrey, but neither of them seemed to know what to do either. “Seabury,” she exclaimed, dropping to one knee before him, “is there something I can give you? Oh, forgive me, forgive my wretched tongue. I was so full of the news I never stopped to—dear sir, are you crying? Seabury, you are crying!”

  This was incontrovertible, for when his lordship looked up his blue eyes were quite awash with tears, and more had slid down his handsome cheeks to the very edge of his rugged jaw. One tenacious droplet trembled at the corner of the cleanly-moulded lips Lady Caroline admired so much. “I cannot…I wish…” As he struggled with these words, Lord Seabury broke into a brilliant, entirely involuntary smile. “Absolutely in confidence,” he brought out at last, in a shaky voice, “I have never been more relieved in my life. Good heavens, if it is only true!”

  “But it is true,” Caroline insisted, so fascinated with his behaviour that she forgot to rise, and still knelt by him.

  “I do not know how to believe it.”

  “Believe it, believe it,” urged Lady Beatrice, who did not care whether it were true or not, so long as Seabury took it to be so.

  “This is…most embarrassing,” Seabury roused himself to say, grinning despite the awkwardness of the situation while he wiped the tears from his face with the lace-edged handkerchief Caroline offered him. “I think I had best excuse myself…compose myself…” He continued to sputter obscure phrases as he moved past the others to the door, but regained some coherency before he made his exit “This is a very extraordinary piece of news to me, as you may perhaps imagine. I hope you will all be kind enough to excuse this—unusual display on my part. It took me by surprise as much as any of you, believe me—” he murmured, descending again into muddled words as he finally left the company.

  Lord Inlowe was the first to speak in his absence. “Does he do that often?” he asked mildly. “I protest, I should never have taken him for so sentimental a fellow. He practically had me crying myself!”

  Caroline assured him the viscount’s outburst was completely out of character.

  “An astonishing man,” Lady Beatrice pronounced. “Astonishing. I have known him all his life, and he still surprises me. Do you know he refused to let me pay Amy’s ransom? Not only that, he advised me to give the money to her instead of himself! It is positively unheard of—especially in his family. No one on earth is greedier than Romby—and I daresay you have noticed a certain…fascination where money is concerned in Lillian, hey?”

  Lord Inlowe conceded that he had. It was of interest to him to hear of Seabury’s generosity, but it did not surprise him. He had formed as good an opinion of his lordship as Seabury had of himself, and would have had difficulty believing any ill of the other man whatever. Lady Caroline, though, heard in this little anecdote a reminder of how rashly and foolishly she had judged the viscount. Imagine her having supposed he allowanced Romby to safeguard his own inheritance! The reflection, though it had occurred to her before, was more lowering than ever. She sank into the chair Seabury had so lately vacated and, as he had done, hid her face in her hands.

  “What is this?” demanded Lady Beatrice.

  “Caroline thinks Lord Seabury does not like her,” Inlowe explained quietly.

  “Oh phoo! I never saw such sapskulls as these two. Agreeable ones though,” she added, with a smile at Humphrey and a pat on the shoulder for Caro.

  “I had better go to my room,” Caro said in a muffled voice, for the events of the morning had already been so confusing as to exhaust her all over again. With little more ceremony, she quitted Lady Beatrice and her brother and wandered sadly up to her bed-chamber, where a tenderly maternal Miss Windle comforted her and urged her to rest for a while. She slept until it was time to dress for dinner, and awoke a good deal more tranquil.

  “You know, my dear,” said Windle, while she watched Jeannie brush Caroline’s abundant hair, “I have become convinced of late that the key to happiness in life is not romance and adventure but good works and fine thoughts. It is fine thinking, my dear, and not impassioned dreams, which signify in the end. Fine thoughts, I may say, are rocks in the river of life. Good works, I consider, are the sand that underlies them. Young hearts may flow like the swirling waters; young breasts may churn and throb; young mouths may gush like river deltas; but the bottom of all is the river bed, and this, I conceive, is the very stuff of life, its core, its centre!”

  Lady Caroline correctly interpreted this speech as signifying that Miss Windle had put Lord Romby out of her heart. She nodded politely and listened with what patience she could muster to her companion’s continued development of this philosophical theme, but she could not help but rejoice when, properly dressed and coiffed, she was ready to go down and join the others. She was wearing one of her favourite old dresses, a white satin chemise dress edged with lace ruffles; she carried a fan cut in ivory. She was much more at ease in this gown than she had ever been in her London wardrobe; and feeling so, she carried herself to more advantage. Lord Seabury noticed the change at once, though he could not be certain whether it was actual or only the product of his imagination.

  He had been much refreshed by his period of solitary reflection, and sat down to dinner with a healthy appetite. He could not make this morning’s news accord with the impression he retained of his last interview with Safford, but he had already written to that gentleman to felicitate him on his daughter’s impending nuptials as well as to ask (as tactfully as possible) if anything he had said or done had given offence. Beyond his fear of losing Safford’s friendship, the newly announced marriage agreed with him uncommonly well, and he was more cheerful at table than Caroline had ever seen him.

  Unfortunately, the repast was marred, and Lord Seabury’s spirits considerably dampened, by a dispute which sprang up during the second remove between Lady Lillian and her brother. It began with her inquiry as to their father’s whereabouts.

  “He is in London, naturally,” said the viscount; “or at least I suppose he is. I hope he is,” he added with a laugh, draining a glass of claret.

  “Hope indeed!” she returned, with unaccountable frigidity. She had not been blessed with her brother’s good looks, and when she was angry (which was often) her cheeks flared with a blotchy, unattractive pinkness. They did so as she continued, “I scarcely think it
was wise of you, Oliver, to leave him unattended.”

  “He is hardly that,” objected the other mildly, with a smile. “He has a whole houseful of servants to abuse, and is probably enjoying himself immensely at it.”

  “But he ought not to be permitted to do so,” she insisted, much too loudly for his taste. Amy Meredith, for one, was listening to them, without any pretense of doing otherwise, and he suspected Ansel Walfish was too.

  “My dear Lillian, when a man passes the age of—oh, sixty or so, it is my feeling he ought to be allowed to do pretty much what he pleases. In fact, it would be difficult to say who has authority to stop him.”

  “You have always been soft with him, Oliver,” Lillian pursued. “You have always been on his side. He bullies you, and you permit it. It is shameful.”

  “My dear, perhaps—” He was reluctant to go on, but there seemed no other choice. “Perhaps we may discuss this some other time? Surely there must be gayer subjects than—”

  “You ought to have allowanced him ages ago. You ought to have done it the moment you reached your majority. I told you so then and I was perfectly right.” Her voice was gaining volume at an alarming rate; she seemed to have lost all government of herself.

  “Dear Lillian, I have always done what I thought was best at the time, you know,” he defended himself quietly. “It is very hard on him to be controlled by his children; it would be for anyone. Even now I sometimes contemplate restoring him to his original—”

  “Oh, you are hateful!” she cried out, with as much petulance as either of her little daughters could have manifested. “You know how he always despised me, and yet you defend him—! How can you sit at my table and accept my hospitality and still persist in…persist in…” But she did not have the opportunity to say what Seabury persisted in, for Lord Inlowe—quite alarmed by this exhibition—chose this moment to go to his wife and insist upon her leaving the table.

  “You are not well, my dear,” he murmured kindly, as he urged her gently from her chair. “You must have a dreadful headache, I am sure. Do come with me, and let me see what I can do for it.” With this and similar encouragement, he led her from the room: it was not the first time she had had such an outburst. Generally, however, her temper was directed at Caroline—very occasionally at her children. He had never seen her lose her head this way among company however. He found it disconcerting.

  “Been that way from a child,” Beatrice murmured to Caroline later, when the ladies had withdrawn from the table. “Her mother spoiled her dreadfully.”

  Lady Caroline, though she naturally had a thorough and intimate acquaintance with Lillian’s fits, found this one peculiarly illuminating. It had never occurred to her that Romby might be the cause of the rift between Seabury and his sister. She had certainly never imagined that Seabury might have defended his father against even greater restrictions than the ones he himself had eventually imposed. Lady Lillian never spoke of her father at all. It was another example, undoubtedly, of her own odious jumping to conclusions. The observation was not cheerful.

  Lord Inlowe, meanwhile, had left his wife to the care of her abigail and returned alone to his guests at the dining-table. He poured some excellent Madeira for Mr. Walfish and Lord Seabury, and sat back to enjoy a glassful himself. His nerves were still jangled by the contretemps at dinner, but the wine soothed them pretty efficiently. “You know, Seabury,” he said presently, “I feel as if I must apologize for Lillian, only I cannot think how.”

  The viscount waved this remark away. “Not at all necessary,” he said, feeling a trifle better for the Madeira himself. “This is hardly the first time Lillian has…ah, vented her spleen in this direction.”

  “You are very good to take it so calmly,” Inlowe replied. “I wish I could.”

  “Frankly, dear sir, I suspect I can take it in stride because I know I shall probably not see my sister again for another six years or so. It does distress me, though, that we get on so ill with one another.”

  “I certainly hope it will not be another six years,” Humphrey returned warmly. “Now that we have finally met, I do not mind saying I should like to continue the acquaintance. Yours too, Walfish,” he added politely.

  Mr. Walfish bowed smilingly and accepted another glass of Madeira. “I am afraid it will be another six years before Lillian will receive me,” Lord Seabury said regretfully. “Otherwise, I protest I should be tempted to move in with you, so pleasant do I find these surroundings.”

  “But really, Seabury, Lillian does not mean to flare up like that. I am sure she loves you, despite all appearances. She only…she seems to need someone to be angry at. Before you came it was Caro. And she actually likes Caroline too, believe me!”

  “I am sure she does,” said Seabury. “I fail to see how she could do otherwise, indeed.”

  “I am glad to hear you say that, old fellow. Caroline seems to feel—” But he checked himself mid-sentence, having just remembered that Ansel Walfish (quiet though he was) still remained in the room.

  Mr. Walfish, however, was far too alive to the feelings of others not to understand at once what was happening. Dining at the tables of friends almost every night of his life had made him sensitive to the needs and desires of his companions, and he had learned that where he was not tactful, he did not get invited to dinner again. Therefore he rose, graceful and unalarmed, and excused himself from the room with the ease of a professional. “If you do not mind, dear sirs—I feel a bit supernourished; you see what I mean. I believe I shall take a stroll out on the grounds, if you can spare me. Deuced delicious Madeira,” he added, and he polished off his last glass and bowed himself from the dining-parlour.

  “Mr. Walfish is a natural diplomat,” Seabury smiled.

  “Bless him for it,” the other returned. “I am anxious to discuss this business of Caroline with you, you know. I hope it does not make you uncomfortable?”

  “Not at all,” said Seabury, whose jubilant mood had led him to drink three times as much wine as he was accustomed to, and who consequently could only be made uncomfortable by a natural disaster, or perhaps a political crisis of major significance.

  “Caroline thinks you dislike her,” Humphrey said flatly. “What do you say?”

  “Ridiculous,” came the response.

  “Just as I thought,” Inlowe pronounced with satisfaction. “More wine?”

  “Please.”

  Lord Inlowe filled his guest’s glass and his own, which he then raised and drained. Seabury followed suit, upon which Inlowe bespoke a second bottle. When it arrived he dismissed the servants from the room. “Now look here,” he resumed, pouring freely. “I have no idea how to persuade her of what you say. She is convinced you could never approve of her. Thinks she is too flighty for you, or some such thing. Indiscreet—that was it.”

  “Ah,” said Seabury, thoroughly foxed by now. “She is indiscreet.”

  “Exactly,” agreed the other. “Always was.”

  “But charmingly so.”

  “Precisely! Entirely!”

  “A delight merely to be acquainted with her. You too, Inlowe,” he added, gesturing at the other with his glass and drinking up immediately afterwards.

  “I was sure of it! I knew it. You must tell her so,” said Humphrey.

  Seabury considered this. “No,” he finally brought out.

  “But why not?”

  “Might lose my head,” he explained. “Might kiss her. Excuse me, Inlowe; I hope you do not mind.”

  “Mind!” exclaimed the other. “On the contrary!”

  “Well you see,” Lord Seabury murmured confidingly, leaning over the table, “I think I might ask her to marry me.”

  “And then what?”

  “Then what? Disaster!” affirmed the other.

  “Indeed? But why?” demanded the lady’s brother.

  “Rebuff. Rejection. I cannot bear it. Too hard on me, old fellow. Forgive me. Otherwise—no question about it.”

  “But…would she refuse yo
u?” asked Inlowe, his head hopelessly muddled. “I do not think so, dear sir. I think she loves you.”

  “Oh, phoo,” said Seabury. “If I may borrow a phrase from my aunt.”

  “Why should she refuse you? Really, old fellow, tell me. I am dying to hear,” said Humphrey, who actually had forgot what he knew of the subject.

  “She hates me!” said he. “I heard her say so myself. She thinks I am the greatest beast in nature. Well she did think that, anyhow. Maybe she tolerates me now. I could not say, exactly.”

  “Oh, phoo,” Inlowe retorted. “If I may borrow from your aunt as well.”

  Seabury vouchsafed permission; then, “But I swear it to you, dear friend,” he said. “It is true: she thinks I am cold and rigid and dull. She would laugh at me.”

  “She would not. She would accept you.”

  “Never.”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Impossible.”

  “Beyond question.”

  “Not believable.”

  “Fifty pounds she will.”

  “An hundred she will not,” said Seabury.

  “Done!”

  “Done,” the viscount agreed, shaking his brother-in-law’s hand firmly. There was silence at the table.

  “Better go ask her,” Inlowe advised.

  “Tonight?”

  “Why not, old fellow?”

  “Frankly,” said Seabury slowly, “I think I may be a trifle bosky.”

  “Best time!” the other recommended.

  “You really think so?”

  “Indubitably!”

  Seabury pushed his chair away from the table. “Off I go, then,” said he resolutely.

  “Good man!” encouraged Humphrey.

  “Just a—just a few minutes and we shall know,” muttered Lord Seabury, his head reeling as he stood. “Know for certain,” he refined, staggering to the door. “Know for good and all.” He walked out of the room.

  “Inlowe,” he said, entering the dining-parlour again a moment later.

  “Yes, old fellow?”

  “Where do you suppose the ladies have got to?”