Rondo Allegro

by Sherwood Smith

  Henry tugged her fingers gently, and she tugged back, a pulse of warmth thrilling through her at the latent strength in his hands. “Did you not notice? I don’t think this is mere evidence of my spleen; you were very careful when I brought up the matter of the governess earlier. One would think women would talk about this, but I gather Emily does not talk to you?”

  “She is a very quiet person,” Anna murmured, choosing her words with care. “And unfailingly polite. And yet there is a difference. I do not know why. I hesitate to lay blame at anyone’s door.”

  “She is the one who told me that one more or less would not be missed at Nelson’s memorial. It might have been kindly meant, and it was certainly rational. But it brought home to me how vast is the gulf between us. And always has been.”

  He sighed. “You probably have heard that she and I once had an understanding,” he said bluntly. “It was a boy and girl affair. Everyone said so at the time. But when you are a boy, you know nothing outside your experience. The short version is, she threw me over for my brother. I am certain her family united in wishing her to marry John, who would inherit, whereas at the time I had no prospects beyond what I might gain at sea. The thing I could not forgive was this, I was the last to learn the truth.”

  “Perhaps that is a mistake made by a girl without experience,” Anna began, aware of a confusion of emotions, above all relief and apprehension to hear at last what she had previously only guessed at.

  His voice dropped a note, his expressive mouth tight at the corners. “She knew what she was doing. She took great care to keep me dangling, and her mother abetted her in it. The entire countryside knew. I did not find out until she showed me John’s ring, and he was there in the next room, laughing himself sick at the expression on my face. Ah, to cut it short, I left home, spouting a lot of nonsense best left to Drury Lane. I promised I would never look at another woman, and I was angry enough to keep my promise until the war overtook me, and I had other things to think about.” He tugged her fingers again. “Say something?”

  “I know not what is right to say, except that I am sorry you were grieved.”

  “Oh, the grief was gone off within the first year. It was pride and anger that stuck the longest, until they had become habit.”

  He stirred, and let out a long breath. “I know something about anger, how it motivates, how it convinces one that the subjective is objective. On my coming home, without my seeing anyone, I must rely on voices. And I discovered that I don’t above half like her voice.”

  “Many people have not been trained well to hear pitch,” she said. “But she speaks very well. Her voice is soft, and yet clear.”

  “She does, but under that softness is anger. I couldn’t hear it until now, yet I know it is not her voice that has changed. It’s always been that way. She is very angry. And it frets at me, the same way discordancy does, or a sharp clatter.”

  Anna said, “This note that you call anger? It is also what I hear in Mrs. Squire Elstead’s voice. Perhaps it is inherited? I think I might be angry, if I were to be raised hearing continual scolding and sarcasm. Lady Emily Northcote has had a great deal to bear.”

  “Perhaps you’re right.” He uttered a short laugh. “I was so bitter, and thought myself immune to the wiles of women, but oh, there are few bigger coxcombs than boys my age suffering their first disappointment.”

  “You had a loving heart,” she said. “Whatever age, that kind of betrayal is a wound that takes time to heal, just as does a wound of flesh or bone.”

  He turned her way. His voice deepened. “Damn this bandage. I would give my soul to see you now. Anna, has your heart been wounded?”

  “I made my own foolish mistakes,” she admitted. “But the worst wounds to my heart were the deaths of my parents. My father felt my mother’s and little brother’s deaths as the worst betrayal. Not by her, but . . .” She left the sentence unfinished, remembering her father’s desperate fury against God, which at the end of his life he had repented, before he, in turn, had left her alone.

  Henry was silent, his head bent. Then he said, “I refused to write home, and after a time they stopped writing to me. Even my mother, finally, after my father died. I read about his death in the newspaper when we next touched land, after the brush with the Danes. I was estranged from him. I am not certain which of us despised the other the most, and I had just enough sense to refrain from writing my mother the truth, but I refused to grant her the small mercy of penning the usual things one says. So I sent her a single line.” His thumb traced a circle in the hollow of Anna’s hand, around and around. “But mothers—most mothers—forgive their children anything. I regret causing her sorrow.”

  “If she felt it,” Anna said, “I can see that it is gone now. She smiles when she sees you, and I never saw her take so much pleasure at anything than when you played Bach duets with her.”

  “Smiles,” he repeated reflectively, and then, “Is Emily still beautiful?”

  “Very,” Anna said, though it cost her a pang.

  The gentle pressure of his thumb on her palm caressed the heel of her hand, then moved leisurely up to rub the underside of her knuckles, one by one. “As beautiful as I recollect you are?” he asked softly.

  She uttered a low laugh. “How is one to answer that?” She looked at his profile, bent away, yet she could see the somberness of his expression, the tender curve of his mouth which could be so severe, then smiling, then thoughtful, a thousand subtle varieties of expression in between.

  Until now she had suppressed the impulse to brush back the curling lock that fell forward over the bandage, but this time she did not resist. Lifting her free hand, she smoothed back his hair, finding it unexpectedly soft.

  His breath hitched; his hand left her palm and slid up her arm. His fingers found her face and cupped it. “I want to court you, Anna. You deserve that, being married willy-nilly to a coxcomb and a fool. But I don’t know how.”

  And so she had her answer, she thought. She might never know why he had uttered Emily’s name that night, but she understood that whatever the cause, it no longer mattered.

  “This is how,” she whispered back as his fingers traveled over her face, reading her features. His touch was tender, tentative, coming at last to her lips.

  She kissed his fingers, one by one.

  Again his breath hitched, and he uttered a little groan and bent to kiss her. “Stop me,” he said raggedly after they broke apart to breathe. “Say the word if . . .”

  But after all he did not need sight, nor she words, to understand the other.

  She took his hand, and her bedroom door shut behind them.

  33

  Anna woke to happiness, reminding her of the first time she saw dawn’s light pouring golden over the crown of Vesuvius.

  She wanted to share it with everyone, but when she went up to the schoolroom to give the girls their lessons, shrill voices met her ears, the sound punctuated by Nurse trying to calm the wailing baby.

  “No, there will be no lesson,” Nurse was saying as Anna entered, her cheeks red with vexation. “Go to the night-nursery, Justina, and you to your bedchamber, Eleanor. You may both reflect upon your bad tempers. Look what you have done, upsetting your sister.”

  Anna said, “Nurse, may I talk to them before they go?”

  Nurse dropped a short curtsey, then went into night-nursery with Amelia.

  Anna approached the two tear-stained faces. “What is the quarrel about?”

  “She is always singing, and never on note, and no one stops her, but she says I cannot go along for her dance lessons,” Eleanor stated in a tone of ill-usage.

  “I don’t want her,” Justina wailed. “I want my dance to be my very own!”

  Anna’s elation dimmed. “To see you two at odds with each other makes me sorry I offered these lessons. I thought your singing, and your dancing, Justina, would give you each joy, and also bring joy to others. But there is no joy now. So perhaps I had better go away again.”
>
  Eleanor ran after her. “But what about my lessons?”

  “I will come when you and your sister make peace.”

  The rest of the day was taxing in a different way as she and Henry made further inroads into the tangle of estate affairs.

  He tried not to be frustrated with his inability to see, to remember the columns of numbers she had written down, and to understand yet another aspect of farming that made little sense to someone who had spent so many years at sea.

  Finally he pressed the heels of his hands to his bandaged eyes in a way she was beginning to recognize, and she said, “Shall I ring for tea and something to eat?”

  “Thank you, no. It seems to me that some of these numbers do not add up. Here, let us set this aside for a time. I need to ask some questions of Pratt, before I can puzzle out whether it is I or the steward at fault here. I may as well get some fresh air while I’m at it, but Thomas can walk me out to the gardener’s cottage.”

  They parted, each to separate tasks. When they met again, she looked to see when he was in a room, and so she saw when he lifted his head as he listened for her step. Then he would smile, and she would smile, though she knew he could not see her, and neither could resist a touch, a caress. In that moment, the elation bloomed inside them both, bright as sunrise.

  The next day, Nurse found her alone at breakfast, as Henry was still being shaved. Nurse apologized for interrupting her, then said with grim satisfaction, “The girls have ended their quarrel. Now they are resolved to give your lessons to each other. It won’t last,” she added with the freedom of one who has seen almost the entire family in her nursery, under her care. “But it gives them a good start on civility.”

  “Tell them I will be with them later this morning, after I help their uncle in the book room,” Anna said. “Eleanor first, then Justina.”

  o0o

  The snow storm lasted the better part of a week, then it took almost that long again for the roads to be cleared.

  Emily knew within half a day after her return that something material had changed, something more than the news that the Rackham governess was all but engaged, if she concurred.

  Her first reaction was wrath. How dare Henry consult that woman about her own children! But she forced herself to listen to Henry’s measured words, clearly rehearsed, as he told her in front of the others, over dinner. Not even a private interview!

  “A capital plan,” Harriet exclaimed the moment he paused to draw breath. “At last! The girls will like her amazingly.”

  “So comforting,” the dowager said, “to have someone come into the family who is not a stranger.”

  That At Last! was justified, Emily knew, and so she forced herself to answer with composure. She knew Miss Timothy as an excellent teacher, and even her mother had found out nothing against her character.

  The only thing Emily had against her was that though she was at least forty, she was still a handsome woman. Emily had no desire to admit that she had put off hiring a governess because she did not want any young woman in the house for John to chase after, once she had got rid of that designing Miss Porter who had taught Harriet so abominably. It was undignified to advertise for one sufficiently qualified yet ugly and old.

  Now it would be the adventuress’s problem if Henry formed a tendre for Miss Timothy’s smiling ways. But no doubt the foreigner would have some clever ruse to deal with that, too.

  Emily retired to her rooms with a great deal to reflect on. It was not a surprise that the mysterious ‘duke’s daughter’ had turned out to be an adventuress after all, scarcely better than the opera dancer of Emily’s fancy the night of the Christmas ball.

  It was equally no surprise that she had ensnared Henry, because all men were fools for a pretty face. And men made the laws. A duke might marry a kitchen maid, and everyone accepted it, though a duke’s daughter who married her footman could be disinherited, even forced into annulment. The only recourse good society had was to refuse to receive low women raised above their station. Emily cared for the opinion of good society only insofar as it served her ambition, and acting precipitously would only lose Henry.

  She could confront Henry about his wife, but she suspected he would refuse to believe her, or worse, he would take the woman away, and Emily would be left with nothing. Better to wait until the strength of attachment had dwindled. As it always did.

  She hugged her secret, confident that it was known only to herself and her mother, but in this, she counted without the servants.

  Over the next few days, Parrette and Harriet both noticed Polly’s occasional absence, her demeanor unwontedly sober.

  Harriet twitted her for her glum face, and though there existed a certain amount of friendship between them, Polly had been dinned never to forget her place, and claimed toothache.

  But to Parrette she could speak the truth, especially one night after they returned from their usual night at over stable, during which Polly had not spoken a word.

  Parrette stopped her in the courtyard, ignoring the snow piled all around, and said tartly, “If you wish to go to London with Miss Harriet, you must do better than this.” She pointed at Polly’s basket, which held the unfinished work that Polly had been staring at rather than finishing.

  Polly flushed, then to Parrette’s surprise, she clutched the basket against her, turned around in a full circle to make certain they were alone, and then leaned in and whispered, “It isn’t true, is it? That Lady Northcote is a French spy?”

  Parrette was so astonished she exclaimed in French, “Quoi? Eh, what say you?”

  Polly sucked in a shuddering breath. “Rosa, you know, my friend at the Groves. She was waiting outside the morning room when the widow got there, before the big storm.”

  Parrette had learned that certain of the servants called Lady Emily Northcote ‘the widow’ among themselves.

  “Mrs. Squire has a loud voice, everyone knows that, and Rosa wasn’t listening a-purpose, but she had to wait there with her tray, and she could hear plain as plain, as Mrs. Squire told her, the widow, I mean, not Rosa, that Lady Northcote was a French spy caught by the Spaniards, in the guise of a company of low musical players,” she finished in a breathless voice, having got all that out as quickly as possible. “But she isn’t. Is she?”

  “Naturally not.”

  Polly sighed a cloud of vapor in relief. “I didn’t believe it. Spies creep around looking in windows, do they not? And they carry knives, and perhaps poisons, or they do in the plays put on by the players when we have the fair. But Rosa said that Mrs. Squire got some letter from somebody overseas.”

  “Whoever it was got it wrong,” Parrette stated. “Listen, Polly, I am very happy that you told me. But you must not repeat it to anyone else. Understand? When lies are repeated, they cause nothing but trouble. You must tell Rosa not to share it with anyone else. When was this she told you?”

  “T’other day when Widow Emily returned, they sent Rosa after, a-bringing of her dirty laundry. She said she daren’t tell anyone at the Groves, it would be as much as her place was worth, so she got it out to me.”

  “Well, you came to the right person. But it’s a lie, and lies are wicked and a sin.”

  Polly looked if possible even more terrified.

  Parrette made an effort to speak less sharply. “We will say no more, but get to our work. I will help you reset this sleeve.”

  They went inside, and Polly sped upstairs, looking much relieved.

  But Parrette was aware of the burden of the widow’s spiteful words having shifted from Polly’s shoulders to her own. She went slowly upstairs, and went about lighting the candles in Anna’s dressing room, and putting hot water on the hearth to heat.

  She opened the outer door, and heard the sound of the fortepiano drifting up the stairs, followed by male laughter from Frederick Elstead and Lord Northcote. She had thought The Captain—though admirable in every respect—incapable of laughter, but that had been proved wrong, ever since he and Anna had
begun to live truly as man and wife.

  And Anna herself?

  There was a secret that Parrette suspected, but she had not said anything about that, because time would tell in its own way.

  She looked about the room, saw everything laid out and waiting, then stepped to the door again. The music made it clear that their evening was not ending immediately, and so she gave in to temptation, fled down the back stairs, barely pausing to grab her shawl and to shove her feet into the pattens still wet from the earlier journey across the courtyard.

  Bareheaded, she hurried back across the court to the stable, where she saw lights still burning upstairs.

  She tapped at the door, her heart in a flurry. It was opened by John-Coachman himself, his coat pulled hastily over his shirt. Parrette lowered her eyes, aware that she was blushing like a girl, as she said, “Forgive me, Monsieur Cassidy, but I have me a terrible problem.”

  “Come in, please,” he said. “I trust Polly is not sickening for something? Shall I summon Peg? She has gone to bed, but I doubt that she is asleep yet.”

  “No, no, do not disturb her, please.” Parrette waved her hands. “It is Polly, but not sick . . .” And quickly, she told him.

  As she spoke, she was amazed at herself. Even a month ago she would never have trusted anyone with the truth, much less a man. But as he drew her toward the fire, his gaze concerned, without shock, anger, or fear, she found herself having to stop and explain, and backtrack, until the entire story poured out—everything, right back to the terrible days in Lyons.

  He listened, his gaze steady, until she finished the tangle of past and present, saying, “I was going to tell her. But I was afraid. I would not have her overset now, especially. Or to ruin the happiness they both had so long in coming. Yet, I do not know what the widow will do.”

  John Cassidy rubbed his raspy chin, then grunted. “If she has said nothing so far, I expect she will not. For a time. If she acts in this the way she has in other things, she will sit on the secret, and spring it when it most suits her.”