August, 1863
Go home, the Navy doctor had said to Jack. What was home? It was merely a cold, half-empty mansion on Long Island where no one was waiting for him.
Travelling North was a tedious business, except on the one occasion when, by some odd chance, he met Charles Stanton who was also on his way home.
‘If I didn’t have my grand house, my useless title, and all the responsibilities that go with them,’ he told Jack, ‘I would stay in the States. I agree with Alan—who, as usual, is always right—the future is here, not in Europe.’
Jack had nodded agreement. After that he told Charles, who had asked him for his news, of his loss of Marietta, and of her marriage. Charles gave him an odd look, before saying slowly, ‘I find it difficult to believe that she abandoned you. If it were not that she has married Avory Grant—I remember him, a decent enough chap—I would tell you to return to Washington and try to discover what went wrong. I’m a little surprised that you never thought of doing so.’
‘I did,’ said Jack sadly, ‘and then I had news of her father’s sudden death, and that she had retreated into the country—no one knew where.’
‘Um,’ said Charles, who was never long-winded, ‘a pity, that,’ and tactfully abandoned the topic. Later he was to wonder briefly whether Sophie had taken a hand in the game, but concluded that, all things considered, the notion was somewhat fanciful.
Jack finally arrived home on a dark rainy day, a day which matched his current state of mind. Letters were piled high in the hall. One was from Peggy Shipton. To his surprise, it told him of her marriage. She added at the end, ‘I refused you because you still had that other woman on your mind. Why don’t you go back and find out what happened?’
She was the second person to tell him that, but how could he? Marietta was married to a good man and that was that.
The last letter was from Ezra Butler, delivered all of eight months ago, just after he had left for the South, asking him to visit Washington as soon as he was free to do so. ‘I grow old,’ he wrote, ‘and need a successor for the business. You are like enough to your late pa to make a good one.’
There was a postscript to this letter which contained a surprise for him.
Thought that you might like to know that news has just come in that Marietta Hope’s husband was killed at Fredericksburg. She seems dogged by ill luck, poor thing. First the Senator’s tragic death, and now this.
Jack put the letter down thoughtfully. He had not fully understood that the Senator’s death had been tragic, and he wondered a little at Butler’s motives in sending him the news.
So, her husband was dead, poor devil. They had not been married long. He wondered why she had married Grant—perhaps that was why she had cast him off. On second thoughts, that seemed a little improbable. She had not married Grant until nearly a year had passed since he had last seen her. Perhaps he, Jack, had seemed second-rate when Avory had come back into her life. It was still an agony not to know why she had abandoned him.
Jack had once said that, like his late and formidable father, he never looked back. Perhaps it was time to do so. There were several reasons why he ought to visit Washington. Not only did he need to accept Ezra Butler’s invitation to go there, but he had half-promised to visit the Secretary of State for the Navy in order to report to him the details of his journey to the river war in the South.
And when—and if—he saw Marietta again, what then? Would he at last discover what had gone wrong, and why she had left him after their last golden afternoon together? And if he did find out, it might either destroy or ease the ache in his heart which plagued him whenever he thought of her.
Perhaps simply to see her without explanations or recriminations would relieve his pain. All in all, she was unfinished business and, one way or another, he would finish it.
Washington was dingier than he remembered it. It was crammed with people: soldiers were everywhere, and whores stood on each corner. Every building in the capital looked seedy, and war had transformed Willard’s into something less than it had been. He was staying with Butler and was grateful for his hospitality.
Ezra had aged in the two years since Jack had last seen him. Ezra thought that Jack had changed, too. He was more serious, less light-hearted. At dinner that first day, he looked speculatively at his guest and asked, ‘What did you think of my PS?’
‘About Mrs Grant?’ replied Jack, as though there had been another. ‘I was sorry for her, of course.’
‘Only sorry?’ queried Butler. ‘Forgive me for being an old gossip, but I had thought that there was more to your relationship with her than that implies.’
‘There was,’ said Jack. ‘But something went wrong. I may try to find out what it was.’
‘I’m not sure that she’s in town,’ said Butler. ‘She’s seen occasionally in public, but she lives a restricted life compared to the one she enjoyed with the Senator and later with Grant.’
‘Yes,’ said Jack. His behaviour confirmed Butler’s belief that he had changed. He was a harder, more mature man than he had been before he had left for New York. Ezra dropped the subject. Jack was obviously a big enough man now to look after himself. They talked business.
‘You’re going to be one of those whom this war will make rich,’ commented Butler. ‘The USA is going to be the number one world power when this war is over. Just let those Europeans watch out!’
‘Yes,’ said Jack, ‘and that makes me feel a little guilty because I shan’t have fought in the war.’
‘You shouldn’t,’ said Butler robustly. ‘You’ll only be getting rich because of all you’ve done for the Union and from what I hear you’ve certainly done your bit. You went to war with the Monitor when you needn’t have done. And your behaviour in the South was certainly beyond the mere call of duty.’
Jack said nothing to this. He looked tired, Butler thought, and he ordered him to bed. Tomorrow was another day and young Dilhorne ought to be ready for it. Besides, he was now sure that the Jack Dilhorne who had returned from the war would be the ideal young man to take over Butler and Rutherfurd’s when the time came for an old man finally to admit his age.
In the meantime he would hope that somehow Jack would be reunited with his Marietta again.
If Jack harboured any such hopes he did not say so. He thought that he would let a few days pass before he called on Marietta. Once he would have called on her the moment he had arrived in Washington and stormed the doors, but something that was almost superstition made him delay.
Perhaps he had been too forward in the past, taken things for granted. This time he would be more cautious. So it was with mingled hope and fear that he approached what was now Marietta Grant’s home. The blinds were drawn, he noted with some dismay, and the house had a deserted look about it. Nevertheless he rapped the knocker smartly.
No one answered for some time and then the door opened to reveal Asia, who had let him in on his first visit to the mansion. She stared at him for a moment before her face broke into a broad smile.
‘Oh, it’s Mister Jack. Fancy seeing you again.’
A woman’s voice from within, not Marietta’s, called, ‘Who is it, Asia?’
‘It’s Mr Jack, Miz Percival, come a-calling.’
Aunt Percival called back peremptorily, ‘Tell Mr Jack Dilhorne to go away at once. He’s not welcome in this house.’
‘I’ve come to see Marietta—Mrs Grant, that is,’ Jack said, astonished at the dislike and contempt he could hear in Miss Percival’s voice. He wondered what could have provoked it.
‘Indeed, you may not see her. Nor does she wish to see you. Asia, bid the man good afternoon, and close the door.’
All of this was conducted by Marietta’s aunt, with whom he had been something of a favourite, from inside the house and without even doing him the courtesy of showing herself.
Asia offered him a wistful smile and murmured, ‘Best go, Mr Jack. I know from what I have overheard that Miss Percival means what she says.’
Jack nodded. What else could he do? He watched Asia secure the door against him, and then began to walk away, wondering what he could have done to have inspired such hatred. Strangely enough, the very venom with which Aunt Percival had spoken inspired him, not to give up the battle to regain Marietta, but to pursue it with increased vigour.
Although how he would be able to do any such thing remained, for the moment, a mystery. The only things which might help him were those which his father had always relied upon: time and chance.
‘You would not, could not, guess who came to see you today, my love, and if I could conceal his arrival from you, I would, but I must tell you, lest others do, for it was Asia who answered the door and wanted to admit him.’
Marietta had just seated herself with a weary sigh, the result of a difficult afternoon. She had just returned from a visit to the Hamilton Hopes. She had had no wish to make it, but the man was her late father’s brother and she owed him the duty of kinship. They had particularly asked that she bring Cobie, and Avory’s daughter, Susanna, with her. She had done so, praying that Sophie would not be present.
Alas, Sophie, on being informed of the invitation, had turned down another engagement for the afternoon, even at the risk of offending her hosts. She felt a terrible need to see Marietta at close quarters. They had barely met since Marietta and Avory’s marriage.
She had been sitting in the parlour, magnificently dressed, when Marietta had arrived. She had treated pretty little Susanna to a cold stare, and glared at Cobie, who had been trotting along, holding his foster-sister’s hand. He loved Susanna dearly; indeed, at this stage of his life he loved everybody dearly, but Susanna most of all.
Sophie had little time for children, and had said to her mother on hearing that she had invited Susanna and Cobie as well as Marietta, ‘I can only hope that you are arranging for their nursemaid to take them to the kitchen for tea. Children do so spoil conversation.’
‘Certainly not!’ Mrs Hope had exclaimed. She was growing tired of Sophie’s many large and small selfishnesses. ‘That would be most uncivil. Susanna is a war hero’s child, and Cobie is the best behaved little boy I have ever come across. He conducted himself like an angel on my last visit to dear Marietta. Besides, it would do you good to entertain them: you will have children of your own one day and will need to know how to look after them.’
If ‘God forbid’ was Sophie’s secret reaction to that unwelcome statement it did not show. Unfortunately, her mother, determined to encourage her to amuse Marietta’s charges, picked Cobie up and began to cuddle and pet him—something which he always enjoyed.
‘Come,’ said Mrs Hope, handing him to her daughter, ‘let cousin Sophie look after you.’
‘He is not my cousin,’ said Sophie sullenly, perching him on her knees and offering him nothing of the loving warmth to which he was accustomed, ‘but if you think I ought to entertain him, I suppose I must.’
This was ungracious, even for Sophie, and her mother coloured a little. Susanna said, sharply for her, ‘Cobie doesn’t need entertaining, he entertains himself, and he does not like being treated as though he were a parcel.’
This accurate description of Sophie’s handling of him did not help matters. It was her turn to colour and to show her anger by clutching Cobie in a death grip before bouncing him violently up and down on her knee.
It was one of the many wise sayings of mothers and grandmothers in those days that babies and little children always knew whether the person who was holding them was a friend or not. Cobie immediately demonstrated his mistrust of Sophie by beginning to cry, something which he rarely did, and to try to twist out of her grasp.
‘Goodness me,’ exclaimed Sophie, ‘of all things I do detest a squalling child,’ and she almost flung Cobie at Marietta.
Susanna, who had been watching Sophie’s unkind treatment of her treasure, said loudly, ‘I don’t like that lady, she’s not kind.’
‘Well, really,’ said Sophie. ‘Have I given up an afternoon at the Van Deusens’ gala in order to be pestered by two badly behaved children?’
‘Sophie!’ exclaimed her agonised mother. ‘Apologise to Marietta at once. It is your own unkind conduct which has caused Cobie’s distress.’ For he was now howling loudly. He was always sensitive to the feelings of those around him, and the waves of dislike coming from Sophie were something to which he was not accustomed.
‘Indeed, not,’ said Sophie, now lost to all sense of propriety by her hatred of Marietta and her own failure to secure a proposal from anyone halfway decent. ‘If you will excuse me, I will retire: it is not too late for me to visit the Van Deusens, where there will be no impudent brats to spoil the proceedings.’
She was no sooner out of the room than Mrs Hope added her tears to Cobie’s.
‘I don’t know what has come over her these days,’ she sobbed. ‘She was such a pretty child, a little headstrong, perhaps, but not like this. She has been upset ever since her papa refused to allow her to visit Isabelle Tranter in Boston. He said that it was time that she settled down a little.’
Her sobs redoubled to such a degree that Marietta went over to her aunt to try to comfort her—something made difficult by her own disgust at Sophie’s behaviour. The afternoon was ruined. She felt compelled to reprimand Susanna gently for her harsh—if justified—criticism of Sophie; so to Cobie’s hiccuping distress was added Susanna’s unhappy face.
Now Marietta was listening, her face growing whiter by the minute, to what Aunt Percival was telling her.
‘It was Jack, wasn’t it?’ she asked faintly. ‘How could he? What could possess him, after two long years of silence, to come here as though nothing had happened?’
‘In fairness, I suppose that he’s in Washington on business,’ said Aunt Percival. ‘The trouble is that you will be moving in the same circles and you are sure to meet; there’s no help for it.’
‘Well, I shall not speak to him, that’s for sure,’ returned Marietta robustly. ‘I have nothing to say to him, and he chose, two years ago, to say nothing to me.’
Her words were braver than her thoughts, and she was not telling the truth. She had the most shameful wish to see him again, to throw herself at him, to tell him that he was the father of her child, the child whom she had borne in deserted loneliness, and to whom Avory had given his name when many men would have disowned him and refused to marry her.
If she could not forgive Jack, she could also not forget him.
‘The Van Deusens’ afternoon gala is to be followed by a reception, to which your cousin Julie and her husband are escorting you. He’s almost sure to be there—and Sophie, too. I suppose that she’ll be setting her cap at him again.’
Why did it hurt so much to hear Aunt Percival say that? Jack Dilhorne was nothing to her. He could marry a thousand Sophies for all she cared. He deserved her—they would make a fine double-dealing pair.
‘Yes,’ said Marietta faintly. ‘I suppose that’s a real possibility. Avory told me, before he left for the war, that there was not a man in Washington who would have her for a wife. Aunt Hope muttered something about Carver Massingham, who will be her escort tonight.’
‘Carver Massingham!’ exclaimed Aunt Percival scornfully. ‘She must be in a bad way to be going around with him. He’s nothing but a middle-aged, low-life profiteer. God knows, he’s rich enough, but what a come-down after some of her beaux.’
‘All of whom have now married other women,’ sighed Marietta. ‘Who would have thought it?’
‘And her looks are not what they were,’ said Aunt Percival cattily. There was no answer to that from Marietta because she had thought the same thing earlier that afternoon. Sophie’s unpleasant soul was beginning to show on her face, and her passion for cream cakes and food was destroying her once dainty figure.
‘Well, I’m not crying off myself because Jack might be there,’ Marietta said briskly. ‘And if I am to go, I shall have to start getting ready soon. You’re sure you won’t come? Mrs Van Deusen invited you.’
‘Quite sure. You go and enjoy yourself, and try to forget Sophie’s megrims—and him.’
Which Marietta thought, later on at the Van Deusens’, was more easily said than done: particularly when she first saw Jack. He was standing by the door, Ezra Butler by his side. Jack had, in some subtle way, changed. He looked harder than the man she had known. There had been a softness about him, an easy charm, but this man possessed a cold, shuttered face. It was the face of a man of power, a face which she had seen time and again in Washington, a face like that of his brother Alan.
If she were fanciful, she would also have thought that it was the face of a man who had suffered. But what of that? Had she not suffered, and at his hands? She watched his eyes quarter the ballroom before he turned to speak to Ezra, who shook his head at him.
Was he looking for her? And, if so, why? What could he possibly want from her, after two long years? She turned away to speak to her current partner. He was a member of the Beauregard family, a man who a few years ago would not have cared to know her, for all her wealth, let alone pursue her now that she was an even richer widow. The Beauregards had no need to marry money and therefore could afford to marry for love, or to acquire beauty.
Whatever else Jack had done to her, loving him and bearing his child had made her attractive to other men. Oh, she knew that she would never be beautiful as the world accounted beauty, but she possessed something better than that: a glow of pride, of accomplishment, enhanced by fact that the severe lines which betrayed the strength of her character and will had been softened by a rare humour. Yes, she did owe Jack something—but he owed her more.
‘Is that Jack Dilhorne over there?’ Danvers Beauregard was asking. ‘The man whose English brother made such a stir two years ago? I believe that you and the Senator were very friendly with him then, were you not?’
‘Oh, yes,’ she tried to reply carelessly. ‘But that was then, this is now.’
If Danvers Beauregard thought that this was an odd answer he did not say so. He was still by her side, when Jack, having seen her from across the room, came over to speak to her.
He had examined her from afar, and unknowingly, like Marietta with him, had thought how much she had changed. She had become a strange, rare beauty whom even a jealous Sophie would have found it difficult to put down. Oh, he must speak to her, he must. The two lost years were as though they had never been: but he must find out, and soon, why they had become lost.
He reached her at last. She was wearing an amethyst and silver gown, her rich chestnut hair was up-swept and a small tiara of amethysts and pearls nestled in it. The amethyst-coloured gown was probably the result of the reduced mourning after the obligatory six months had passed since Avory’s death. Indeed, in the war, such mourning had become, for the time being, less obligatory.
If Jack had ever thought that his passion for her was dead, slain by her abandonment of him, the mere sight of her standing there before him, in all her glory, told him otherwise. If absence from her had done anything, it had made that passion stronger.
‘Marietta,’ he managed hoarsely, all his ready wit, the things he had planned to say to her quite forgotten. ‘At last, we may speak…’
She raised her fan to her lips before dropping it and remarking in an indifferent voice dripping with icicles, ‘Mr Dilhorne, I have nothing to say to you, and you, sir, can have nothing to say to me. We meet, and part, as strangers,’ and she began to turn away from him.
Like Jack, it was not what she had meant to say if she ever saw him again, but she was afraid that the mere sight of that once-loved face was enough to set her raging like a maenad if she were not careful. He had let her go lightly enough, so she must play the Roman matron to whom duty and honour were everything—and mistaken passion nothing.
To Jack this encounter was the stuff of nightmare. She was rejecting him again, and in public, too. He could see Danvers Beauregard’s avid eyes on him. He was waiting, no doubt, for the further revelations which might follow on such an almighty snub, which was the result of—what?
Had they been alone, Jack might have said something, but Marietta’s dislike of him was so plain that it drove every rational thought from his head. He wanted to fall on his knees, to clutch her hand, to ask her what he could have done to provoke such dislike, nay, hate. As it was, mindful that there were other avid eyes on them, and—for her sake—however much she had publicly demeaned him, he could not create a disgraceful scene.
He bowed, his hand on his heart, and said to her retreating back, ‘I had hoped that we might discuss…’
She turned and said, ‘Enough. I will discuss nothing with you, sir. If you are a gentleman, you will refrain from badgering me.’
Her words were hurting her as much as they were obviously hurting him, but she dared not trust herself to his falsity again, as much for poor Cobie’s sake as for her own. Jack said no more.
‘Then allow me to write to you, at least…’ he began.
‘Write!’ This time when she faced him her scorn was so strong that she might have been the Medusa herself, the woman whose look could turn a man to stone. ‘Pray spare me that, sir,’ and she turned away again, obviously determined to have nothing whatsoever to do with him.
He turned away himself and, his face white and grim, would have left the room and the house at once, except that Ezra caught him roughly by the shoulder and said, in a hoarse whisper, ‘For God’s sake, man, stay. You cannot wish to expose either her, or yourself, to the mean gossip which would follow your retreat. I have no notion of what went wrong between the pair of you, but I know you to be a man of honour and of sense, and I must believe that there is something here which needs an explanation.
‘From what you have said to me, you are mystified by her rejection of you. If so, there must be a reason, and a powerful one, for her to do such a thing, and to speak to you as she just did—she is no fly-by-night fool like her cousin Sophie. A man of sense—such as yourself—would try to find that reason. Think, man, think, what might you have done to deserve this?’
‘Nothing,’ said Jack, equally hoarse. ‘I have done nothing that I can think of, and dammit, I love her still, and I fear I always will.’
‘All the more reason not to give up. There is an old saying I once came across, it goes something like this, “Truth will arise, though all the world may hide it from men’s eyes.” Hold on to that, Jack—and remember, your father never gave up, ever, and it brought him an empire. Dammit, man, you’re only after a woman!’
Jack began to laugh, his whole face changing as he did so. ‘You’re right, Ezra, I’m behaving like a spineless ninnyhammer. I’ll find out why she has changed towards me so greatly if I have to turn the thumbscrews on a few people.’
Ezra clapped him on the back. ‘That’s the spirit, old fellow. Now, let us go and get politely drunk—the other sort wouldn’t do for the Van Deusens!’
It was easy to make such a decision, Jack thought, but harder to follow it up. He couldn’t kidnap Marietta, or Aunt Percival, and compel them to talk to him, and if either of them saw him they went out of their way to avoid him. He came across Aunt Percival once in the street, and she immediately dashed off in the opposite direction. His own feelings of decency stopped him from pursuing her and grasping her by the arm to compel her to speak to him.
Desperate measures seemed to be necessary, particularly when he heard, through Ezra, that the word was that Marietta Grant was about to leave Washington and retire again to her farm near Bethesda—doubtless to avoid his hateful presence, Jack thought morosely.
It was while he was walking down the street where Marietta lived, after a hard morning spent in the offices of the Secretary of the Navy, that he suddenly remembered that when he had called there the little black servant had welcomed him and tried to console him. She, at least, still liked Mr Jack—although she had hinted that Marietta and Aunt Percival no longer did. If he called again to ask her whether she knew of any reason for their dislike, she might be able to enlighten him.
And if she didn’t, could he persuade her to trick Aunt Percival into coming to the door in person where he might speak to her face to face instead of being abused at a distance as he had been the last time he had called?
He turned round, walked back to the Grant house and knocked smartly on the door. To his great good fortune, it was again Asia who answered and no one else seemed to be about.
‘Oh, Mr Jack,’ she said reproachfully. ‘You know you’re not welcome here.’
‘But you were kind to me when I called the other day,’ he said. ‘Perhaps you can tell me why I am not welcome—it would ease my mind.’
She leaned forward and said confidentially, ‘Now that I don’t know, for neither of the Missises gossips, as you are well aware, Mr Jack. You’d have to ask them why.’
‘But they won’t talk to me,’ said Jack sadly. ‘Think, Asia, for old times’ sake, would you consent to help me to speak to either Miss Percival or Mrs Grant?’
‘Now how could I do that?’ asked Asia, her small face solemn.
‘By telling Miss Percival that there is an official at the door who is being a nuisance and won’t go away. She is certain to want to dismiss him personally, and that will give me an opportunity to speak to her and try to find out what I have done.’
Asia thought for a moment. ‘You was always kind to me, Mr Jack, when many weren’t, me being a nigra and all, so I will do as you ask.’
‘If you get into trouble through obliging me,’ Jack said, ‘you know that I will not see you suffer by it. You will only have to call at Mr Butler’s home and ask for me.’
Asia gave him a warm smile. ‘No need, Mr Jack, I’ll do what you ask. Miss Percival has a sharp tongue but she’s always kind—and Miz Grant, too.’
It seemed an eternity, there on the step, until Aunt Percival appeared. The moment she saw him, she said grimly, ‘I might have guessed who the nuisance was. Go away, Mr Dilhorne, you have caused enough trouble in this house,’ and she began to shut the door.
Jack could not grab Aunt Percival by the arm, but he could put his foot in the door and hold it steady with his hand so that she could not shut it.
‘No, Miss Percival, I am not to be dealt with as easily as that. I wish to speak to you or to Marietta, and I am determined to do so whatever it might cost me.’
‘Well, you’ll not speak to Mrs Grant, she’s gone to Bethesda with the children so that you might not pester her further.’
‘I haven’t pestered her at all,’ said Jack truthfully. ‘I haven’t been given the opportunity to.’
‘Nor will you ever be,’ said Aunt Percival, still grim. She had retreated behind the door, and was offering him only the sight of her head. ‘I’m sure that she wishes never to see you again after you abandoned her without a word or a line two years ago.’
This statement was delivered with such venom that it shook Jack to his foundations. For a moment he was speechless, staring at Aunt Percival as though she, too, were, in truth, the Medusa who might, at any moment, turn him to stone.
Unable to believe what he was hearing, he almost stuttered, ‘Abandoned her without a word! How can you say that? It was she who never replied to my letters.’
‘Never a letter came from you, my man,’ said Aunt Percival magisterially. ‘Isn’t it enough that you broke my poor girl’s heart with your wickedness and then, when she found a good man to love and to care for her, God had him killed in this terrible war? She has had enough to plague her without you lying about writing her letters in order to torment her further.’
‘I’m not lying,’ said Jack, desperately thinking of all those weeks when nothing had come back from Marietta. He remembered, with pain, all the loving words which he had written to her, the hopes which he had had, all shattered and lost in sleepless nights and unhappy days.
‘As God is my witness,’ he said—and he rarely called upon the Deity— ‘I wrote to her again and again—and she never replied to me, not once.’
‘She could not reply to what she did not receive,’ said Aunt Percival glacially. ‘She tried to write to you through Butler and Rutherfurd’s and nary a word came back from them—not ever.’
‘No,’ said Jack, his face suddenly ashen. The shock of what he was hearing overwhelmed him. ‘No, this cannot be true. At least tell me how to find her in Bethesda so that I may speak to her of this, for I cannot believe what you are telling me.’
‘No,’ said Aunt Percival, ‘you may find your own way there, but be sure that she will not receive you. She has no wish to have her heart broken again.’
He stepped back a little on hearing this, relinquishing his grasp on the door, something of which Aunt Percival took immediate advantage. ‘Good day, Mr Jack Dilhorne—and do not come here again,’ she added, shutting it in his shocked face.
Jack stared blankly at the knocker and the shut door. Could he believe what Aunt Percival had just told him with such bitterness? What in the world could have happened to all his letters—and to hers? He half-moved to knock again, but he was sure that Aunt Percival would not help him, and he also had to believe that by her manner and her speech that she was telling him the truth as she knew it. Well, he would discover where Marietta was from others, and go to see her to try to plumb this dreadful mystery. His tortured mind rehearsed it and over again.
He was plodding along the sidewalk, his head down, lost in speculation, when he heard running feet behind him. He turned. It was Asia, breathless and panting.
‘Oh, Mr Jack, you was allus kind to me. I was watching from the window and I saw your poor face when she told you to go. Miz Marietta’s at the old Hope Farm in Bethesda with the children. Mr Butler will tell you how to get there.’
Jack felt in his pocket, pulled out several dollars and offered them to her: it was little enough reward for her kindness. Asia put her hands behind her back. ‘No, thank you, Mr Jack. I liked you. I was sorry when you went away. Keep your money. This is my kindness to you.’
‘And was it true that Miss Marietta never received my letters?’
Asia nodded her head. ‘Nary a one, Mr Jack. I saw her poor face when I took the mail up to her bed. She was ill after you had gone, and Miz Percival allowed as how it was disappointment made her worse. I never believed that you had left her like that, without a word, you being allus so kind. I promised Miz Percival I would say nothing to you about the letters, but you deserve the truth, that you do. I know she wrote to you, because I placed her letters on the table in the Senator’s study, ready for the post. And then the Senator died and the Missises went into the country, leaving the staff behind, with orders to forward all the family’s mail. They said that nothing came back from you while they was gone.’
‘I can only give you my most sincere thanks for your news—although it offers me no cheer,’ Jack said.
‘Thanks is all I want,’ Asia told him before running back to the house, arms flailing, and Jack walked back to Ezra Butler’s home, still puzzling over what he had heard, and saddened by Aunt Percival’s hostility.
It was now late afternoon, warm and pleasant: the day was too far gone for him to drive to Bethesda now; he could not badger her when she might be tired. The journey would have to be made on the morrow. Meantime, he would have to think most carefully of what he should say to her when at last they met where he could speak freely—if she consented to see him, that was.
All that sustained him that evening when he dressed for the Reception at the White House to which Ezra was taking him, and which he was duty bound to attend, was the thought of seeing her again and, if possible, trying to convince her that they must both try to discover what had gone wrong.
The more he thought about his lost, loving, letters—and Marietta’s—the worse he felt.
Back at the Grants’ house, Aunt Percival was having similar thoughts. For the first time in her long life of looking after Marietta and her interests, the way before her was far from clear.
What troubled her most of all was Jack’s horrified face when she had reproached him for deserting Marietta, and for lying about writing to her from New York. She remembered how much she had liked him, partly because he had seemed to care so deeply for her darling, had made her laugh, had made her happy, and had made her believe that she could enjoy herself like her pretty cousins, Sophie and Julie. Her subsequent hatred of him for his betrayal of her darling was the deeper for it.
She had not planned to leave Washington for Bethesda until the following morning, but she suddenly decided that she must waste no time before she told Marietta of what had happened. There were so many things to think of, among them the question of Cobie, the little boy who had made up for Jack’s desertion with his sweet good nature. Aunt Percival’s face softened at the thought of him, their treasure, despite his irregular birth.
For surely when Jack arrived at the farm—as she was certain he would—he would discover the existence of his son, and what then? Avory had loved him, too, and had adopted him and given him his name, but Aunt Percival was hazy as to how legal this was in the face of Jack being his father. Suppose he tried to claim him? Yes, she must leave at once so that Marietta would have time to decide what to do for the best.
Once she would have thought such a decision easy to make, but Jack’s evident distress when she had told him that Marietta had never received any letters from him had made her remember that she had once seen him as fundamentally decent and kind, not as an ogre who had treacherously betrayed a woman who had foolishly come to love him.
Seated in the carriage on the way to Bethesda, she began rehearsing again those lost days when Marietta had lived in the hope of a letter from Jack. The days when she had agonisedly realised that Marietta was pregnant and she had watched her, helpless to remedy matters.
One thing was certain: Marietta was sure to have known whether the letters were coming or not because it was she who always oversaw the Senator’s mail, who inspected it each morning—and the outgoing mail, too…
And then she remembered something else, something which brought her erect in her seat, her hand to her trembling mouth, her heart thudding, her face alternately white and scarlet. The something else which had been forgotten in the turmoil of the days after the Senator’s sudden death and funeral.
She exclaimed, ‘No, oh, no,’ and stared into the growing dusk. ‘No, it cannot be true,’ and she tried not to think the unthinkable, of who had taken care of the post when Marietta had first fallen ill with morning sickness… Dear God, no, do not let it be true…
What she could not erase from her recovered memory was the sight of the Senator lying dead in front of the fire in his study, of Sophie screaming above him, of the mail lying scattered and neglected on the floor… She must speak to Marietta, she must, before Jack arrived to confront her.
‘Faster,’ she called to the driver. ‘Faster,’ but he could never drive as fast as she would wish. Her dreadful thoughts would always run before him.