part0013

“Oh, isn’t the scent heavenly, Mr. Kirkland!” declared Miss Greyson in ringing accents. She felt his quick surprised look at her, but the reason for her increase in volume became clear as they glimpsed a drift of yellow muslin retreating down a side path. He returned a polite agreement, and they began to stroll slowly amongst the assorted rose bushes. Miss Greyson was delighted with everything she saw, pouncing with glee on a speckled variety she called Belle de Crecy, even more thrilled to discover a particularly fine Rosamunde. Mr. Kirkland ably supported her inspired performance with a look of pointed amusement that would have caused her to lose countenance had she been so foolish as to try to meet it.

It was perhaps two or three minutes before they heard Juliet calling, and they turned around, projecting pleased surprise. Miss Greyson took in every detail of her charge’s appearance in one lightning summary before shifting her attention to Lord Hampton. Juliet’s manner was fairly composed, but she looked like a girl who had been thoroughly kissed. Her cheeks flew two flags of colour, and her eyes sparkled dramatically. There was an aura of suppressed excitement about her that belied her casual manner. The yellow dress appeared decidedly crushed also, although perhaps one should take into account the heat of the day and the picnic under the trees before attributing this condition to a man’s embrace. She was carrying her straw bonnet over her arm tied by its satin ribbons. One or two fine specimen roses peeked out over the brim.

Lord Hampton met Miss Greyson’s glance with a slight smile and a knowing look in his cold blue eyes that made her fingers itch to slap his face. She noticed the stained handkerchief wrapped around his right hand and experienced a fleeting satisfaction that he had evidently scratched himself picking roses for Juliet. She wondered what the chances of developing blood poisoning were but dismissed the hope as unrealistic.

Juliet began compulsively expatiating on the glories of the rose garden for the benefit of Mr. Kirkland, who said all the right things and, to his eternal credit, maintained a pleasant impersonal air that helped restore her composure.

“Now that you mention it, Aggie, I am a trifle warm,” Juliet admitted. “A glass of lemonade would be most refreshing.” She accepted Mr. Kirkland’s arm and walked off, leaving Lord Hampton and Miss Greyson to follow.

Thanks to Mr. Kirkland’s social address, Juliet was almost entirely herself, chattering quite naturally in her usual enthusiastic manner by the time they had regained the orchard. The pair behind them stayed well behind at the will of Miss Greyson, who did not permit Lord Hampton to hasten her deliberate pace. Nor did she allow the earl to take charge of the conversation; once having taken the reins into her own hands, she negotiated the conversational course with a steady eye on generalities and a light touch, nicely blending humour and observation. Not for nothing had Virginia served as her father’s hostess for nearly five years. Lord Hampton’s initial efforts to steer the talk to Juliet’s charms, whether in the hope of embarrassing her chaperon or eliciting information, were skilfully parried by one as adept and practiced in verbal fencing as he. It was not until he had escaped the non-prepossessing companion of his quarry that the self-assured earl realized that he had divulged more about himself than he had learned about Juliet.

Between them, Miss Greyson and Mr. Kirkland saw to it that Juliet and the earl did not have so much as one additional minute of privacy during the rest of the afternoon, even though the gentlemen from the Manor rode back partway with the Fairhill party. More tired by her afternoon’s adventures than she wished her governess to know, Olivia accepted a seat in the carriage that had brought the ladies from the Manor, which relieved Miss Greyson of one of her responsibilities and freed her to concentrate on the other.

Her thoughts were not comfortable ones, and the result of her deliberations was likewise neither comfortable nor to her liking. Her first reaction had been to continue to ignore the matter, trusting that the near discovery today and Juliet’s own sense of propriety would combine to see that such familiarities ceased entirely. However, the information she had gleaned from Mr. Kirkland regarding Lord Hampton’s desperate financial position, allied to the distrust she felt of his character, represented too great a danger to the inexperienced girl. She would be contemptible indeed if she allowed the fear that another confrontation with her charge would irreparably damage their shaky relationship to weigh in the balance against Juliet’s whole future.

Lately, the conviction had been growing that her days with the Brewster family were numbered. The position had been a haven for her during those first few heart-breaking months of loneliness, and she had grown fond of all the youngsters, but a parting was inevitable in any case. Sir Reginald had intimated that he was considering a girl’s seminary for Olivia after Juliet’s presentation in preference to a restricted regime in London, since the child would not be able to participate in the bustle of social events that would absorb all her sister’s time. If she did not alienate Juliet beyond reason, there was every likelihood that Sir Reginald would give his employee an excellent character and perhaps even recommend her services to a family of his acquaintance.

There was little time to dwell on her own barren future during the ride back to Fairhill because it was necessary to hold up her end of the desultory conversations that broke out when the going was slow enough. Juliet became rather silent as the distance from her home and a probable accounting of her behaviour diminished. Miss Greyson was aware that the girl had directed several speculative glances at her companion on the way. Without doubt she was trying to assess just how much her chaperon had seen — or guessed — of her tryst with Lord Hampton amongst the roses, but Miss Greyson maintained a serene, impersonal facade and, ably aided by Mr. Kirkland, kept the conversation moving smoothly on trivial matters.

It certainly did not come as a surprise when Juliet pleaded fatigue on their arrival and declared her intention of retiring to her room for a rest before dressing for dinner. Virginia said nothing whatever in reply but presented herself at that young lady’s bedchamber door as soon as she had freshened her own appearance. Juliet, enveloped in a vastly becoming pink wrapper, opened the door herself.

“What I have to say won’t take long, then you may rest.” She moved inside the door and shut it behind her. Juliet did not ask her to sit down and remained standing herself, her face a closed book. Miss Greyson studied her coolly for a moment, then dispensed with preliminaries.

“Don’t trouble to deny that you allowed Lord Hampton to kiss you in the rose garden today, because I cut my wisdoms many years ago and you would be wasting your breath. If you continue to travel the path you are treading at the moment, you may well find yourself betrothed to the earl before your comeout — if your father should fear that your complete want of conduct has left him no choice. Think well before you decide, my dear Juliet, if this is truly what you want. Yes, you would be a countess, but since the entire ton has long been aware that Lord Hampton is deep in debt and must make an advantageous marriage, where is the triumph for you in being regarded as the means for him to re-establish himself? Everyone will say, with justification, that the triumph is his, and if word of your current behaviour got out, they might also say, with equal justification, that you had set your cap for him.”

At the beginning of this blunt speech Juliet had gone beet red, but soon the colour faded, and she was white with anger, defiance, and fear by the time Miss Greyson had thrown her final shaft. There could be no doubt that all of them had gone home.

Virginia knew a surge of relief that at least Juliet wasn’t in love with Lord Hampton. Her reaction would have been very different if her feelings rather than her self-interest had been involved. She was careful to maintain a stony exterior, however, the memory of the way Juliet had rejected her sympathy on another occasion still sharply with her.

“You need not take my word for this. Ask your father for confirmation. I did not come here to pull caps with you, Juliet, merely to show you where a continuation of today’s actions could lead. Now I’ll leave you to your rest.” She was gone on the words, shutting the door quietly behind her.

The tempestuous beauty stood rooted to the spot for an instant, staring at the closed door in disbelief, her face ashen and her fists clenched at her sides. Aggie had whisked herself out of the room without allowing her to give utterance to any of the justifications and protests churning in her mind. Suddenly she was released from her temporary paralysis, and she dashed across the charming blue and white apartment to fling herself down on the big bed, where she relieved a burning sense of frustration by indulging in a lusty but short-lived bout of weeping. In less than ten minutes, she had cried herself into an exhausted sleep from which she was roused by her maid when it was time to dress for dinner.

It was a rather quiet group that gathered about the dinner table that evening. Bertram, it was true, was full of the day’s events, but the female members of the family displayed much less than their habitual vivacity. Both girls agreed that Maniston’s grounds were beautiful and assured their father that they had found the picnic excursion a vastly diverting experience. They answered all his queries willingly but had little to offer unprompted. Miss Greyson and Mr. Ryding took up the slack with their customary skill, though Miss Greyson was not insensible to the growing puzzlement on the part of the tutor at the unusual respect the young ladies under her care were according to any opinion she might offer tonight .

Considering the state of hostility in which she had parted from Juliet, Miss Greyson had been prepared for a difficult hour when next they met; in fact, it had been a monumental task to assume an air of serenity to conceal her own abysmal lowness of spirits, a task that was only made possible by resolutely banishing all personal concerns and concentrating on the necessity to uphold her position in Sir Reginald’s eyes. She too found the girls’ propitiating attitude incongruous until it dawned on her that both Olivia and Juliet were anxious that certain activities of theirs at Maniston today should not be brought to the attention of their papa.

There was a certain piquancy to the situation, she reflected with humour, but it relieved her mind of its most pressing concern. If Juliet had wholly discredited her revelation concerning Lord Hampton, it was extremely unlikely that she would have adopted this conciliatory manner. The cautious hope was born that the girl would retreat somewhat from her open encouragement of the earl’s attentions.

It was still a difficult evening with all three females ill at ease in each other’s company. Mercifully, it was mutually agreeable to make it a short one. The young men had departed after dinner to fulfil a mysteriously unspecified engagement, though Olivia, who added eavesdropping to her other accomplishments, later confided with ineffable scorn that they were bound for a mill in the next village, adding that she quite failed to see the entertainment value in watching two low, vulgar persons attempting to knock each other unconscious. Sir Reginald retired to his study and the ladies, after a praiseworthy charade of engaging in amicable conversation for an hour, retired with unspoken but shared relief to their various bedchambers .

An hour later, Virginia was compelled to acknowledge that the early bedtime was at best a mixed blessing. True, the Brewster girls had been awkward company this evening, but her own thoughts were proving equally so, and from them she had so far been unable to escape. Closing the book of sonnets in her lap, she glanced around the comfortable apartment dimly lighted by a lamp at her elbow and wondered how much longer she would be safely installed here. She experienced again that sense of time running out and felt helpless to slow the process.

Today had been the most eventful day in weeks. On the heels of the fright over Olivia and Mellie had come Juliet’s indiscretion with the earl, and between the two incidents the most significant and alarming event of all — the unwelcome discovery that she was no longer indifferent to the potent appeal of Mr. Simon Kirkland, if indeed she had ever been in that infinitely desirable state. It was a stunning discovery and in the circumstances, a most unwelcome one. When she considered the number of eligible suitors who had paid assiduous court to her in her salad days without making the least impression on her heart, she was much inclined to rate her intelligence extremely low. She had begun to think herself immune to those flutters that attacked most of the females of her acquaintance in the days before her father died. While he lived, marriage had held no real allure for her. Afterward, any hazy notions of lost possibilities were swamped in the grimmer reality of having to make her own way in the world. She had certainly not spent her time at Fairhill mourning any loss of matrimonial prospects.

Until now . Today’s revelation had struck her like a thunderbolt. How could she have been so stupid as not to have seen whither she was drifting? She had clung to her original dislike of Mr. Kirkland, knowing it for no more than an irrational whim, and had drifted into a dangerous friendship with her eyes wide open. How had the significance escaped her of the frequency of late with which her glance would meet Mr. Kirkland’s in an instant of shared amusement or understanding? Why had she not been aware that she waited for that spontaneous, unselfconscious smile that wiped all the mockery from his face and gave him such a different character from the one he presented to the world? At her age she should have recognized the initial symptoms, should have known that her pleasure in helping him organize the theatrical production stemmed from more than satisfaction of a job well done. She had felt that their minds and tastes were attuned but hadn’t had the wit to see the danger in this line of thinking so she might draw back before it was too late.

The chair rocked violently as its occupant rose with the haste of someone who had been stung by a wasp. Unseeing eyes watched its motion gradually slow down and stop; their vision was directed inward. Could she have drawn back somewhere along the way and averted this present torment of loss and longing? Or would it be more accurate to say that some instinct for self-preservation had impelled her to do just that in the instant of meeting Mr. Kirkland’s challenging gaze for the first time in Bath, and that once met again she was irretrievably lost? For uncounted seconds she savoured the knowledge that she might have won his affections in Bath, but the thought was more bitter than sweet, given the present and permanent condition of her hopeless ineligibility.

She had been standing motionless in the middle of the room but now wandered over to the window to pull back one of the draperies and stare out at the moon-washed grounds. It was eerily beautiful at this hour with all colour drained out of the lawns and foliage, and it was perfectly suited to a mood of aching melancholy. The clock on the dresser had chimed eleven times before the woman at the window replaced the curtain and began to make her preparations for bed. She removed her clothes and folded them methodically, donned a plain white bedgown, and rinsed her hands and face without recourse to a mirror. It was only after removing the ubiquitous cap, symbol of her current and future spinsterhood, that she approached the mirror with brush in hand. The rich chestnut hair crackled as a result of strong rhythmic brushing before the woman ceased her mechanical efforts and bundled the mass up under a nightcap, which she tied under her chin before climbing wearily into bed.

“Of course. Do you have a light?” Miss Greyson, her spectacles shoved on her nose, was scrambling into a wrapper after which she felt her way to the door and turned the key. The light from the candle Juliet held was sufficient to show them the way to the corridor where the girls’ bedchambers were located.

“Did you say Olivia had a nightmare?” Miss Greyson, busily engaged in retying the girdle of her wrapper more securely about her waist, was unaware of the swift survey being made of her person by the girl at her side, but she turned her head in question when no answer was immediately forthcoming and encountered a fixed blue stare.

“Oh … yes,” Juliet said, removing her glance to the candle in her hand that flickered dangerously until she shielded it with her other hand. “She woke up crying. I had not been asleep, so I heard her right away. When I went into her, she was crying out that she was falling, or someone was falling. She wasn’t very coherent and she was a good deal upset. I tried to calm her, but she is still weeping. I was afraid she’d make herself sick, so I came for you.”

“Very well.” Juliet placed the candle on the table and withdrew, though not without another long look that roved over her companion’s face and lingered on the hair escaping from under the nightcap. At the door, she turned back once more. “Goodnight, Aggie,” she said quietly.

Miss Greyson returned an absent reply, her attention already engaged in scooping up the girl huddled in the middle of the bed into a comforting embrace. During the whole of the climbing escapade Olivia had remained cool and seemingly unafraid, but here was a delayed reaction that was every bit as severe as Mellie’s fright.

It took Miss Greyson the better part of an hour to calm the tearful girl and restore her to a semblance of normalcy with repeated assurances that no one believed she had meant to endanger her friend. Olivia gradually grew sleepy again, but it was after two A.M. when the governess returned to own bed after satisfying herself that both girls were finally sleeping peacefully. She scarcely dared hope that the eventful day had at last come to an end as she blew out the candle and crawled back under the blanket.