Private Passions

by Felicia Greene

  ‘They have always required more apologies than me.’ Susan shrugged; even in the midst of her rage, she had never believed apologies were required in this particular instance. ‘And I was not disappointed.’ She paused. ‘I was somewhat shocked at the size of the bird.’

  ‘Everyone is.’ Oliver looked up, beaming, as Sheba’s wing-shadow passed over his face. ‘Sheba has always possessed that talent.’

  ‘I recall you describing her first meal in your letter. The twelfth letter.’ Susan looked up; the regular beat of the bird’s wings was oddly soothing. Without thinking about it, she slowed her pace to Sheba’s speed. ‘She seemed very small, in the letter.’

  ‘She was.’ Oliver had a soft, likeable twinkle in his eye as he turned to her. ‘And then she grew.’

  There was another period of silence, more companionable than the last. Susan took the time to sneak quick, darting glances at Oliver out of the corner of her eye.

  He was still as tall, and broad, and disorderly as ever; that much was evident. His hair fell in unruly strands instead of being neatly cut and shaped—Susan had to fight the intense urge to tidy it for him as they walked, as she had done with Henry when he was smaller. His face was pleasingly weather-beaten, in the manner of a worn stone building or an old leather boot. Susan knew that she couldn’t tell him that; the Hereford sisters, after overhearing her at balls, had endeavoured to teach her which were pleasing comparisons, and which were not. But still… the effect was pleasant.

  She supposed, in an abstract sort of way, that he was handsome. His eyes were bright; his figure was correct, and correctly dressed. Susan rarely dared to think of who was handsome, and who was not; she knew that people formed their own judgements about her, much more quickly than she did about other people, and the results were rarely positive.

  She should probably speak to him. She knew that people were meant to have conversations together; in the gardens she normally gave orders to Isaac—at least, she had, before he had married Agnes. Another change; yet another tear in the fabric of her life….

  No. The morning was beautiful; Oliver Whitstable was not ugly. She had to say something.

  ‘Are the animals being adequately fed, in your absence?’ She leaned a little closer, not wishing anyone to overhear what she was about to confess. ‘I never quite believe the roses are being fed correctly, when I am gone. I fear that Isaac doesn’t use enough blood and bone in the mixture.’

  As Oliver moved closer, his face already smiling for his reply, his sleeve brushed against her own. Susan felt it; the lightning-flash that came whenever she was forced to touch someone, be closer to someone than she wanted… but the feeling that filled her was different from her usual panic.

  It wasn’t necessarily pleasant. It was, if anything, overwhelming. But still, Susan did not pull her sleeve away as if she had been burned—her usual reaction, when something touched her unexpectedly.

  ‘I have left the strictest instructions with the staff. One can never be too careful.’ Oliver sighed, watching Sheba as she drifted above their heads. ‘I have ever so many questions for you about aquatic mammals and birds, and what they may or may not eat.’ His eyes narrowed a little. ‘But my usual correspondent did not write, and my mammals and I have thus been robbed of both good sense and a good meal.’

  ‘I did write. I wrote as usual.’ Susan reflexively pulled at her sleeve, wishing she felt less awkward at admitting it. ‘I simply could not send it. The letter is back at Longwater, sealed and addressed to Rowhaven.’ She turned to Oliver. ‘You may read it when we return, if you wish.’

  ‘Good.’ Oliver’s tone was simple; there was nothing to read into in his words, or interpret badly, as Susan often did. ‘I shall like that very much.’

  Was this silence, or was this speaking? For a long time they walked together, taking in the beauty of the morning gardens, with Susan wondering all the while. Yes, they were saying words, and exchanging pleasantries, and pointing out plants and trees that had been mentioned in her letters—but it was not the stilted, awkward affair that most conversations became, at least for Susan. There was no particular pressure to be witty, or charming, or sparkling… why, it was as if they were writing to one another, but with their tongues rather than their pens.

  It was as calming, as fascinating, as silence had always been. Susan, listening to Oliver talk about the time he had procured an antelope for the Prince Regent, was struck by a thought that she simply had to express.

  ‘Goodness.’ She looked at him, dumbstruck. ‘I… I believe you might be a friend.’

  ‘I see.’ Oliver did not look annoyed at having been interrupted. ‘Was I not a friend before?’

  ‘No. You were a correspondent.’ Susan stared at him. ‘I do not believe I have made a single friend since I was a child. Those friends have remained, but I have never considered adding to their number.’

  ‘Ah. Then I am pleased to have been permitted to enter the fold—especially given the mess Sheba made of the drawing room.’ Oliver gave a stiff, formal bow that Susan rather appreciated.

  ‘I have been informed that other are less reserved in their offers of friendship.’ Susan spoke carefully; she tried not to offend people, but knew that her efforts often failed. ‘If I became a friend to you before you became a friend to me, I apologise for the discrepancy.’

  ‘Oh, no. Do not trouble yourself on that account.’ Oliver shrugged, his eyes crinkling rather attractively as he smiled. Susan caught her breath; she rarely noticed beauty. Perhaps it was something new friends did. ‘I never know who to call a friend, and who to call something else.’

  ‘Friends are people you can speak to unreservedly.’ Susan paused, remembering that even her oldest friends grew weary when she spoke with complete lack of reserve. ‘Or as unreservedly as one thinks best, of course. And… and one attend teas together, and exhibitions, and dances, if one enjoys those things.’

  ‘I rarely enjoy those things, but have one or two people who make them tolerable. I suppose they are friends, then.’ Oliver smiled to himself, as if in faint surprise. ‘And my daughter, of course. She can forever be called upon to guide me to the correct cause of action.’

  His daughter… this, then, was as close as they had ever come to talking about Oliver’s late wife. Susan had never previously felt curious about the long-departed Mrs. Whitstable—but this conversation, this unusual morning walk, let new curiosities come fluttering to the surface.

  How would Anne phrase such a question, or Lydia, or someone else who was good at conversation? She racked her brains, eliminating several promising options, before choosing words that sounded appropriately bland. ‘Was Olive’s mother as wise as her daughter?

  She felt obscurely proud as Oliver considered the question deeply, rather than reacting with offence or revulsion. Each had seemed equally likely. However, as the silence lengthened, Susan felt a tightening in her breast.

  ‘My wife was a great friend.’ Oliver spoke lightly, but Susan sensed the same slight reticence in his tone that she felt in her chest. ‘A very great friend. Many married gentlemen cannot count their wives as friends.’

  Susan nodded. She had always consoled herself with this fact, when confronted with the many ways in which her marriage had fallen short of what she had hoped for. ‘My husband was a great friend, too.’

  ‘Yes.’ Oliver paused. Susan had heard of meaningful pauses, but she had never experienced one; she realised, with a shock, that the silence between her and Oliver seemed full of unspoken words. ‘It is good, to have friends.’

  ‘I quite agree.’ A nameless spur of courage compelled her to speak further. ‘But—but friendship is not all that a marriage is. At least, as far as I can see from the Longwater marriages.’ She struggled to phrase the sentence, aware that Oliver was listening intently. ‘They are not simply friendships. They have another quality—I do not know if I can describe it, or name it—’

  ‘Understanding.’ Oliver’s voice was quiet. ‘At least, Olive n
amed it thus, once. One can be friends with someone without understanding them. A marriage, a good one, requires understanding.’

  Understanding. That was the sentiment that Susan had learned never to count on; to the rest of the world, to the mass of men and women she had met, it was as if her heart were written in a new and unknown language. Hardly anyone tried to read it; most looked at the unfamiliar signs and symbols and ignored it completely. Those who tried to decipher it, it seemed, were often left dispirited and impatient.

  She wanted to be understood. Wanted it so desperately that it hurt; it physically pained her. She looked at Oliver, frightened at the force of it—her need for someone to read the raw, uncomfortable desires that lay hidden deep within her.

  He wasn’t going to attempt to discuss it, was he? No, she could not bear it; she would die of embarrassment. Susan felt her breathing quicken, the horror of a difficult conversation looming on the horizon—

  ‘I say!’ Oliver’s eyes narrowed; he pointed to a nearby tree, his voice taking on a note of pleased surprise. ‘Is that a jay?’

  ‘Yes.’ Susan eyed the bird with no small relief; the creature chattered, flying away as if tired of being observed. ‘They are quite common here.’

  ‘Are they? Hardly any come to Rowhaven.’ Oliver kept speaking, his eyes still on the space on the branch where the jay had been. ‘We have great quantities of magpies, though. Clever creatures—they get into terrible trouble with the maids, because they tend to steal buttons…’

  As he talked gently of pleasant things, Susan wondered if he had pointed out the jay to make the conversation flow more smoothly. She knew that people did it, especially when she had been speaking for too long about a particular subject. Normally she hated it; it made her feel like a child, who couldn’t be trusted to speak to adults—but Oliver had seemed so genuinely excited at the sight of the bird that it seemed to make sense, trusting him.

  Even if he had changed the subject to avoid conversational problems, she wasn’t angry. That was unusual in itself. Perhaps she had simply exhausted her rage the day before, looking at what Sheba had done to the drawing room.

  Or, perhaps… perhaps it was something different.

  As the sun rose higher over Longwater, the morning slowly lengthening, Anne Colborne and an irritated-looking mathematics tutor stood on the front lawn. Shading her eyes from the sun as she looked about her, Anne eventually turned to the tutor with an elegant shrug.

  ‘My son is with his aunts. He always is, at this hour—they go and hunt for frogs, or trap things in jam-jars, or pursue any number of boyish things. It leaves him enthusiastic for the labours of the day.’ She smiled apologetically. ‘Perhaps they have simply lost track of the hour, this morning.’

  The tutor’s expression showed a distinct lack of warmth for both William and his absence. ‘Perhaps he has not completed the exercises I set for him.’

  ‘Oh no. No, he has—I sat with him myself.’ Anne smiled, but lapsed back into seriousness at the look on the tutor’s face. ‘I am sure that he will be arriving with my sisters very shortly.’

  ‘Wonderful.’ The tutor’s voice was as cheerful as a funeral. ‘Then with your permission, my lady, I shall wait in the schoolroom.’

  Anne opened her mouth to give permission—then closed it in annoyed surprise when the tutor turned and walked away before she could speak. Rolling her eyes, mutely praying for strength, she began scanning the horizon once more.

  After ten or so minutes of increasingly anxious waiting, she smiled. There was her son, muddy and grinning, his small hands full of rocks and flowers—and then there were Henrietta, Lydia and Agnes, each smiling as broadly as the other, straw bonnets doing little to protect their freckled skin from the sun.

  ‘Good morning, my love.’ Anne swept William into her arms, not minding the mud, delighting in how similar her son looked to his father. ‘You must wash, and quickly—you are late for lessons.’ She turned to her sisters, her smile fading. ‘Was William not supposed to begin his lessons a half-hour ago?’

  ‘Oh, Lord!’ Lydia clutched at her bonnet, looking in horror at Henrietta and Agnes. ‘How on earth are we so late!’

  ‘Come now. Lateness for lessons is hardly a reason for hysterics.’ Anne looked at her tousle-headed child with narrow, loving eyes. ‘On a day like this, he would not have paid any attention anyway.’

  ‘But still… it is quite odd.’ Henrietta stood thoughtfully, one hand on her chin. ‘Odd that we did not notice. We had no special game to play today, or object to show him—’

  ‘Susan!’ Agnes exclaimed it suddenly, eyes wide.

  Anne frowned. ‘Susan?’

  ‘Think. We never bother to look at the clock in the mornings on any day other than Wednesday.’ Agnes looked at Lydia, who nodded. ‘Susan always walks by the front door of the cottage a half-hour before William’s morning lessons begin.’ She turned to Anne, sudden concern on her face. ‘But this morning, she did not—why, we did not see her at all.’

  ‘But I saw her leave this morning.’ Anne stood up, hugging William to her as she thought rapidly. ‘Which means she is half an hour later than usual—why, this has never happened. She must have had some sort of accident, or—’

  She stopped as Henrietta stepped forward, her face changing as she pointed to the lawns. At the entrance to the Long Walk, half-shaded by the topiary hedge, two figures were coming into view… and a very large bird was gliding overhead, for all the world as if escorting them.

  ‘Oh.’ Anne looked at Susan and Oliver Whitstable, the two of them clearly engaged in animated discussion. ‘My goodness.’

  ‘Things have softened somewhat since yesterday, then.’ Lydia murmured quietly to Agnes, who nodded. ‘I wonder what on earth he said?’

  ‘Something very helpful indeed.’ Agnes shrugged. ‘It would have to be.’

  The sound of rushing footsteps briefly interrupted their conversation. Olive Whitstable, bonnet askew, ran up to the table with an ashen face.

  ‘Has anyone seen Father?’ She looked at Anne in complete panic, until Agnes pointed. ‘He always feeds the animals in the morning, and I cannot imagine what he is… oh.’

  ‘Yes.’ Anne watched the two figures talking, their voice carrying over the lawns. ‘Oh, indeed.’

  Oliver Whitstable was staying at Longwater. Oliver Whitstable, despite covering the drawing room in broken china and bird leavings, would be staying at Longwater—and Susan, surprised beyond measure, had no idea how to conduct herself at all.

  After her morning walk had finished, and Henry had smilingly extended the invitation, all she could think to do was watch. Watch Oliver, watch herself, and try to understand the morass of confusing feelings that had risen in her breast.

  She watched everyone, and everything, until night fell. Lying in bed, wondering how she had managed to speak to people and perform her daily tasks while observing everything so closely, Susan drifted off to sleep in sheer confusion… and woke, at the correct hour, no wiser than when she had fallen asleep.

  Why did she feel so strange? Guests had come to Longwater before; she had tolerated their presence, slowly becoming more comfortable with them once they had assumed a more permanent role in the life of the house. She had grown used to the Hereford sisters, even if she largely ignored their husbands—apart from Isaac, who had been kind enough to continue his duties as Head Gardener even after marrying Agnes Hereford. Susan had become accustomed to people before… so what was so different about Oliver Whitstable being at Longwater?

  He was her friend. Perhaps that was it; visits from Susan’s friends to Longwater were very rare occurrences. He was also a gentleman; Susan had never had a gentleman friend, apart from Roberto—and that had been very different as well.

  That wasn’t the whole of it, though. Susan knew it. And so, when the family gathered for breakfast on the front lawn—as was their custom in the spring—she continued to watch Oliver Whitstable out of the corner of her eye.

  Was she bein
g obvious? Perhaps she was, but there was no chance of Henry or anyone else telling her that she was being embarrassing. The family appeared to be so surprised that she had emerged from her room with no new peculiarities, that everyone was speaking to her with the most exaggerated politeness.

  As the sun shone down upon the breakfast table, birds twittering agreeably as the family drank coffee and discussed the day’s most pressing matters, Susan continued watching Oliver Whitstable. She watched him walk through the gardens after drinking his coffee, Sheba flying a little way ahead of him, the trees seeming to bend in his wake…

  Oh. Susan thought for a moment, her eyes imperceptibly widening, before deciding that her latest conclusion required speaking to someone else.

  Her eyes travelling down the breakfast table, selecting and rejecting the laughing figures one by one, Susan’s gaze finally alighted on Agnes. The youngest Hereford sister, windswept and pretty in a pale blue morning gown, was cradling her infant in a blanket as she laughingly spoke to Lydia and Henrietta.

  ‘Agnes?’ Susan tried to say her name politely, but her tone was a little louder than she had wanted. As the table quietened, she tried to lower her voice. ‘Come and look at the new rosebuds. You will need to show Isaac how best to tie them when they fully flower.’

  With only a shadow of loving exasperation falling over her face, Agnes rose gracefully. Susan walked what she believed to be a safe distant away from the breakfast party, standing awkwardly by a rosebush as Agnes approached.

  ‘Look.’ Susan spoke very quietly; so quietly that Agnes leaned in to hear her more clearly. ‘May I ask you something?’

  ‘Of course.’ Agnes tucked a stray end of blanket back into the baby’s bundle, smiling down at her sleeping infant. ‘Anything.’

  ‘Good.’ Susan thought for a moment, arranging her words into the least frightening order possible. ‘Do you believe animals enjoy engaging in sexual congress?’