As the day arrived for Edwin to bring his bride to Manchester, Isabelle found herself pacing the rooms, peeking out windows, checking the kitchen, and gazing into the gloomy drizzle. She knew it would not bring him faster, but she could hardly keep a seat.
Alexander had asked to wear his favorite blue coat and be seated in his chair. “I still look an invalid,” he muttered as Yeardley resettled Alexander’s coat around the seat’s straps. He stared out the parlor window in his turn. Isabelle stood before him. “You look very fine in that coat,” she offered. He gave a momentary start followed by a small smile before he contemplated once again the view outside the window.
Isabelle was learning to look past his apparent anger to uncover her own understanding of his hidden pain. There were days his tempers frightened her. When he grumbled at Yeardley or muttered about his meals, she found herself cowering and avoiding him lest he aim his anger at her. Other days exhausted her as she imagined a lifetime of caution, backing away from any accidental offense or confrontation. But today she refused to be frightened; she would only feel excitement and anticipation. In return, her positive state seemed to bring a small echo of cheerfulness to Alexander.
At long last, a black carriage pulled close to the front steps. It took all of Isabelle’s restraint to wait in the parlor, especially when she heard Edwin’s laugh outside. Oh, that laugh. One of her favorite sounds in all the world. She was certain she could have heard it from London, or the moon.
She stood, then sat, then stood again. Alexander aimed a look at her, but she didn’t attempt to translate it. If he was nervous or annoyed, he would continue that way with or without her interference. There was very little she could do about it now.
“They’re here,” she said, unable to contain her excitement any longer. She moved to the door as Yeardley announced them and rushed into Edwin’s arms.
He laughed as he swept her off her feet into a delicious, crushing hug.
The feel of strong arms squeezed about her nearly took her breath, not from the actual pressure, but from the rarity of the feeling. It had been so long.
“Oh, Belle. Look at you,” he said, holding her at arm’s length. “Haven’t changed a bit, have you? Like nothing at all has happened in the past few months.” He chuckled at his own joke, and in years past, Isabelle would have commented in the same manner, but now Isabelle felt that Alexander might not appreciate even oblique references to the accident, so she turned to welcome Edwin’s bride.
“My dear cousin, how welcome you are,” she said, stretching her arms to offer an embrace. Charlotte stood still and stiff, allowing Isabelle to wrap her arms around her shoulders but returning no such attention or affection. Isabelle realized she had overstepped the bounds of propriety and moved a pace backward. She smiled at Charlotte and said, “I am delighted to make your acquaintance, and I hope that we shall be good friends.”
Charlotte gave a polite if insincere-looking smile and said only, “Indeed.”
Isabelle glanced at Edwin to see if this was perhaps a jest they’d long waited to play on her, but Edwin was gazing at his bride with eyes full of stars, as if she were the most important person in the world—much the way he used to gaze at Isabelle.
She felt her heart stutter and took a slow breath. Turning to glance at Alexander, she saw that he had not missed any of it: not her overeager embrace, and not Charlotte’s cold reception. He gave her an almost-imperceptible nod of encouragement.
His reassurance increased her confidence enough for her to say, “Mr. Osgood, of course you remember my dear cousin Edwin, and may I present his bride, Mrs. Charlotte Poole?”
Alexander dipped his head in a nod to them both. “A pleasure. Welcome to Manchester, Mrs. Poole. Forgive me,” he continued with that mysterious smile, “for not standing to welcome you. Please, take a seat.” He motioned to a chair with his hand, and Isabelle noticed how natural his movement looked. Almost like moving his hands was not a daily miracle for him.
Charlotte’s chilly demeanor thawed a bit with Alexander’s welcome, but she did not warm significantly to Isabelle. After ordering tea and performing her hostess duties, Isabelle carried the conversation with Edwin, asking after their families, his home, and their favorite old haunts. Isabelle occasionally directed a question to Charlotte or to Alexander, but neither of them seemed eager to speak a great deal.
Ed, however, chattered along. He told amusing stories that made Charlotte smile. He touched her hand at every excuse, smiling at her with pride and adoration. Isabelle watched him attend to his wife with gentle regard and wondered how he could love her so dearly. She appeared to Isabelle unfeeling and cold. But Isabelle knew her judgment was unfair. Simply because Charlotte behaved insensitively and emotionlessly to Isabelle did not mean that was her typical behavior. After all, Alexander’s behavior to Isabelle had occasionally reflected warmth and affection, but lately only on rare occasions had he even given Isabelle more than a warm glance.
But Edwin seemed to feel toward Isabelle as he always had. Dear Edwin. He remembered old acquaintances to Isabelle, at which comments Charlotte looked bored. He handled the conversation in the parlor deftly, giving attention to each of the ladies in turn and calling Alexander into the conversation at opportune times.
Just before the hour when Nurse Margaret was expected, Isabelle invited Edwin and Charlotte to make their way to their room to freshen or change clothes. “I should like to show you some of the sights in the city,” she said. In fact, she wanted to get them out of the house while Alexander was being prodded and twisted.
“Will you be joining us?” Edwin asked Alexander.
“Not today.”
“Perhaps another time,” Edwin replied, his willingness to help Alexander move about the city apparent.
Alexander nodded.
As Mrs. Burns showed Edwin and Charlotte to their room, Isabelle crossed the parlor to Alexander. “Thank you for showing my cousin such a warm welcome,” she said. Perhaps “warm” was a bit strong, but Isabelle appreciated anything more welcoming than the icy silence she still feared.
Alexander gave a small shake of his head, but whether he meant to deflect her gratitude or deny her comment, she did not know.
“We shall see you for dinner,” she said, walking out of the room.
Alexander spoke softly. “I only hope not to further disappoint you,” he said.
Turning, she came back to the side of the room where his chair sat.
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“Nothing, nothing.”
“Please,” she said. “I do not understand to what you refer.”
He shook his head and looked away before he said, “Doubtless any comparison you make over the next few days will leave our own situation dim in contrast.”
Isabelle stood dumbly in the middle of the parlor, unable to think of a single response. How had he understood and articulated so perfectly what she was feeling? Not only the truth of the obvious comparison but the fear of sinking deeper into the melancholy of that difference.
She wanted to reassure him, but anything she said to deny the disparity of their own situation and the Pooles’ would be untrue, and such fabrication was unjust. She could attempt a happier attitude than she felt, she could hitch on a convincing smile, but she would not lie to Alexander.
Instead, she said, “I shall see you for dinner,” and went out of the room.
Over the next few days, Isabelle took Edwin and Charlotte to Peel Park and the Natural History Museum. They walked on afternoons when the rain abated. They took a carriage ride across the city and explored Queen’s Park, and they wandered through the marketplace full of shopkeepers and household workers. Charlotte smiled a great deal at Edwin and almost never at Isabelle. Ed held his wife’s arm, as was proper, and continued to be attentive to Isabelle. There was nothing of which to complain, but she felt the shift in their relationship, and it left her feeling lonesome and, somehow, frightened.
Edwin was a married man. He would always be her first and favorite friend, but the recognition that his romance, his choice of wife, and his altered situation had driven some kind of wedge between them pricked at Isabelle’s heart. Or, Isabelle thought, I have done so. She was not naïve to the probability that her own situation must cause some of the distance between them. After all, she’d married first.
But Edwin had been a constant in her life. As she walked down a busy street half a step behind Edwin and Charlotte, she felt unmoored by the shift. She was no longer his Belle, and he was no longer her Ed. He belonged to Charlotte now, first and forever. It did not take long for Isabelle’s thoughts to move forward from there: if Ed no longer adored her, how could she imagine being loved by anyone? Had she somehow become unlovable?
The disappointment Alexander had spoken of reared up inside her, but not for the reasons he had supposed.
She was a passable beauty, but not an exceptional one. She was from a respectable family, but not an exceedingly wealthy or important one. She was fairly charming and witty, but her occasional impropriety must cause embarrassments. She could converse in a parlor, but when was she last in any but her own or the Kenworthys’? Startled to discover that she was, in fact, no more than ordinary, Isabelle realized she ought to expect nothing beyond ordinary happiness. Nothing beyond common attention, consideration, or courtesy.
Perhaps she simply did not deserve to be excessively happy.
Her heart gave a lurch, and she felt the truth of the thought.
Simple joys were likely all the pleasures in store for her.
Recognizing moments of delight from the months of her marriage must now be a deliberate action.
This unanticipated separation between her heart and Edwin’s gave her a shudder of sadness. Not for the distance but for the surprise. How could she have not expected this? Anyone could have told her that the nature of their relationship would change with her marriage and with his. She had a husband. He had a wife. And their friendship had always been a childlike delight. They were no longer children.
Well, then, she told herself, here is the life I now live. I shall make the best of commonplace contentment. She would carry on. And she did not need to wait for a drastic change in her life. She had some power to create further happiness in her marriage. And she must take note of such flashes of contentment so they did not go unnoticed.
Edwin turned to ask her about a tree filled with a few songbirds, and she placed a smile on her face as she described what she had learned about the birds most common to the north in late winter.
After sharing what she knew, she drew a bracing breath.
Was that so difficult? she asked herself.
Her question remained unanswered.