by Mary Balogh
“She was still furious,” he said. “She told me she had not had a wink of sleep and was going to dismiss the nurse as soon as morning came. I told her in a whisper not to be ridiculous and to hush, and she came rushing at me, all outrage, snatched Estelle from my arms, and set her down in her crib. To be fair, I had not spoken nicely to her even though I had whispered. Estelle woke up, of course, and started crying again, and then Bertrand woke up and started crying too. And when Adeline tried to snatch him away from me, I—” He stopped a moment and drew an audible breath. “I shoved her with my free hand and she stumbled back and . . . and I think she tripped on the hem of her dressing gown and reached behind her to steady herself against the wall. Except that the window was there and it was wide open. I had opened it earlier because the children were feverish—even though both the nurse and Adeline strongly disapproved of fresh air under such circumstances. She—” He stopped again to draw a ragged breath. “I tried to reach her. I tried to grab her, but she was gone. I do not know what I did with Bertrand. I do not know how I got downstairs and out on the terrace. I did not know who was screaming. I suppose I thought it was her until I realized she could not scream because she was dead.”
“Marcel.” Viola was on her feet though she did not approach him. His head jerked away from the window as though he had only just realized he had an audience.
“I cannot remember much of the following hours or even days,” he said. “I do not recall who pulled me away from her. I do remember her sister coming and her brother-in-law—Jane and Charles. I cannot remember what they said to me, though they said a great deal. I can remember the funeral. My mother was there—she was still alive then—and my brother and sister, though they were still very young. I cannot remember their leaving, or if, indeed, they left before I did. I can remember not daring to go near the babies lest I lose my temper with them and harm them too. I cannot remember leaving. I can remember only being gone. And remaining gone.”
Viola had closed the distance between them and laid a hand against his back. He did not turn.
“Marcel,” she said, “it was an accident.”
“I caused her death,” he said. “I opened the window. I shoved her away from me. If I had not taken either of those actions, she would not have died. She would still be alive. My children would have grown up with parents. All this would not have happened. I would not have caused you unutterable embarrassment.”
He turned and looked at her, his face hard and bleak in the candlelight. He had been blaming himself all these years for what had been essentially an accident. Yes, he had pushed his wife, and there was never any real excuse for that. But his punishment had been vast and all consuming. He had judged himself solely responsible for his wife’s death and for depriving his children of their mother. And so he had deprived them of their father too, the foolish man. He had cut out his heart and become the man the ton knew and she had known.
“I want you to promise me something,” she said.
He raised one eyebrow.
“No.” She frowned. “I do not want a promise. Only an . . . assurance that you will give serious thought to something. Had nothing happened that morning, the quarrel between you would have been long forgotten by now, replaced by layer upon layer of other memories. You were not to blame, Marcel, except for pushing your wife out of the way. The catastrophic consequences were unforeseeable and quite accidental. You did not intend that she would die or even be hurt. I want you to forgive yourself.”
“And live happily ever after, I suppose.” One corner of his mouth lifted in a parody of a smile.
“Forgive yourself,” she said. “For the sake of your children.”
They gazed at each other for a few moments and she wondered why on earth this was happening. Why had he set her free tonight if this was to follow? What did it mean? She supposed it meant nothing beyond a certain need in him to unburden himself. But why her?
“And I want you to promise me something,” he said, “or not to promise. Merely to give it serious thought. You learned when you were very young and married a scoundrel to suppress love. Not to kill it, but to push it deep. You love your children far more than they probably realize. For two brief weeks in Devonshire you allowed yourself some temporary escape, but now you have command of yourself again. I want you to think about . . . loving, Viola. About allowing yourself to love a man who will love you in return. There is such a man for you. You will find him if you will allow yourself to.”
She gazed at him in amazement. “This,” she said, “from you?”
“It is as suspect as all the wisdom Polonius poured out to his children, I must admit,” he said. “Wisdom from a foolish man. But it was wisdom, nevertheless. Shakespeare was perhaps a perceptive man—and I am hardly the first person ever to have noticed that.”
He was referring to Hamlet. And he was mocking himself. And surely her too—there is such a man for you. You will find him if you will allow yourself to. I want you to think about loving . . . a man who will love you in return.
He took her right hand in his, raised it briefly to his lips, released it, and walked past her and out of her room without another word. He closed the door quietly behind him.
Viola turned blindly back to the bed and snatched up the pink bag to hold against her mouth again. If it was possible to feel more wretched, she did not want to know it.
Twenty-one
For the first half hour Viola could do nothing but draw air into her lungs and expel it, over and over again. If she did not concentrate upon breathing, she felt she would simply forget to do it—or perhaps she would be too tempted to let herself forget. If she watched her breathing, counted her breaths, kept her eyes on the scenery passing by the carriage window, perhaps she would be able to put enough distance between herself and . . . and what? But she would not let her mind search for the appropriate word. There was only the feeling that if she could allow enough distance to pass by all would be well again.
Abigail, gazing from the window on her side, was mercifully silent.
It had been awkward. No one in her family had seemed to know if they would stay a day or two longer as originally planned or follow immediately after her. Her leaving before any of them must have appeared incredibly bad mannered since she was their reason for being there. But she could not worry about that. She seemed to have established the habit in the last while of leaving when she ought to stay, of making an utter pain of herself to those whose worst sin was that they loved her.
She had shaken hands with all of Marcel’s family and thanked them for the welcome they had extended. Bertrand had surprised her by kissing her on the cheek. Estelle had hugged her tightly and clung wordlessly for several moments before doing the same with Abigail.
Viola had hugged her own family amid bustle and overly cheerful farewells. Sarah had kissed her on the lips, her own little ones puckered. Winifred had hugged hard and raised a plain, shining face.
“I wanted to tell you about the start of Robinson Crusoe, Grandmama,” she said. “But maybe by Christmas I will be able to tell you about the whole book. We are all going to Cousin Wren’s for Christmas.”
“Or you could write to me after each chapter,” Viola had suggested.
“Mama says I have better penmanship than she does,” Winifred had replied. “But I do not think that is correct, for hers is perfect.”
Jacob had frowned and released some wind.
Marcel had not appeared at the breakfast table or during all the bustle of leave-taking that followed it. Viola had willed him to stay out of sight until after she left. And she had fought panic at the possibility that he would do just that. She and Abigail had been inside the carriage, the door closed, her coachman climbing up to the box, when he had finally appeared at the top of the steps under the portico—remote, austere, immaculately elegant. He had not hurried down the steps to bid her farewell. Instead, meeting her eyes thro
ugh the window, he had inclined his head, raised his right hand not quite to the level of his shoulder, and shifted his gaze to give the coachman the nod to leave.
And that had been that. That was that. Inhale, exhale, watch the miles slip past. Home and safety awaited, and broken hearts mended. Indeed, it was a silly concept—a broken heart. It was all feelings, and feelings were all in the head. There was no reality to them. Reality was her daily life, her friends, her family, her many, many blessings.
Harry. She swallowed and wondered if there was a letter from him.
And finally, after half an hour or so, she let go of her concentration upon her breathing and trusted it to look after itself. She turned her head to look at Abigail.
“It is young people whose lives are expected to be tumultuous a time or two before they settle,” she said. “It is they who are supposed to need the calm comfort of a mother’s wisdom. Our roles appear to have been reversed lately. I am so sorry, Abigail. I will do better. It feels good to be going home, does it not?” She reached for her daughter’s hand.
“I thought you loved him,” Abigail said. “I thought he loved you. Perhaps I am too much of a romantic.”
“What I am is selfish,” Viola said. “Your life would have undergone great upheaval yet again if I really had been serious about marrying.”
“Yes.” Abigail frowned. “But, Mama, a woman does not have children in order to give up her life and happiness for their sake, does she? Why is it selfish for her to want to do her own living too?”
Viola squeezed her hand. “You see what I mean about our roles reversing?” she said.
“The point is,” Abigail said, “that Camille found her own way forward. Grandmama and I were horrified when she decided to take employment as a teacher at the orphanage, and we were even more upset when she decided to go and live there. But—she found her way all on her own. She found Joel and Winifred and Sarah and she has had Jacob and, Mama, I believe she is as happy as it is possible to be in a life that is always changing.”
“You are saying that I am not as important as I sometimes think I am?” Viola asked ruefully. “But you are quite right. Harry chose a military career, and Avery made it possible for him by purchasing his commission.”
“Oh, you are more important than anything,” Abigail cried. “But as a mother. All we want is your love, Mama, and the chance to love you. We must do our living ourselves, just as you have always done, and as I hope you will always do.”
Viola sighed. “But what of you, Abby?” she asked. “You were deprived of the chance to make your come-out during a London Season and of the chance to make a suitable marriage. You were—”
“Mama,” Abigail said, “I do not know what my life will be. But I am the one who must and will live it. I do not expect you to organize it for me or make decisions and plans for me or . . . or anything. It is my life and you must not worry.”
“You might more easily get me to stop breathing,” Viola said, and smiled.
Abigail smiled back, and for some strange reason they found her words uproariously funny and laughed until tears rolled down their cheeks.
“Mama,” Abigail asked, drying her eyes with her handkerchief, “do you love him?”
Viola curbed the easy answer she had been about to give. She sighed as she put her own handkerchief away in her reticule. “Yes, I do,” she said. “But it is not enough, Abby. He does not love me, or at least not in any way that would allow for a lifelong relationship. He is not the sort of man who can settle to anything or with anyone. He was once upon a time, perhaps, but he changed after his wife’s untimely death, and too much time has passed to enable him to change back or to change at all in essential ways. We never expected permanence, you know, when we decided to go away together for a week or two. I needed to . . . escape for a while, and he is always ready for an adventure that will bring him some pleasure. As he said last evening, I had already decided to return home and would have done so without fuss or bother if you had not turned up at the cottage with Joel and Elizabeth and Alexander.”
“I am sad,” Abigail said. “Life is sometimes sad, is it not?”
And for some absurd reason they found that observation funny too and began to laugh again, but somewhat ruefully this time.
* * *
• • •
The really odd thing, Marcel discovered over the following couple of months, was that he did not once feel tempted to dash off to London and his old life or to accept any of the invitations he received to join shooting parties or house parties or, in one instance, an unabashed orgy at the shooting lodge of an acquaintance of his—in the company of only the loveliest, most alluring, most accomplished young ladies, Dorchester. You must come, old chap.
The houseguests all left within two days of the party, including Annemarie and William.
“I must confess to you, Marc,” Annemarie told him privately, “that I am not overfond of Isabelle, and I find Margaret insipid for all she is to be a bride in December. And if I have to make excuses much longer for avoiding morning prayers with Jane, I shall forget my manners and give her a truthful answer. Though she has done splendidly with the twins, I must confess. Bertrand is positively dream material for all the young ladies who will be coming on the market in five or six years’ time. And Estelle is going to be a beauty after all. I did not think so for a long time—she was all eyes and hair and teeth too large for her face. She did a magnificent job with the party, thanks to Jane’s training. She is going to have suitors queued up outside your door as soon as she is let loose upon society. Next spring, will that be?”
“She says she is in no hurry,” Marcel told her. “I will allow her to decide. I am in no hurry to be rid of her.”
“You will allow?” she said with a lift of her eyebrows. “Not Jane?”
“I am going to remain here,” he told her.
“Oh, for how many weeks?” She laughed. “Or days? I am going to start counting.”
André left a few days after everyone else.
“I do not see why you will not come with me, Marc,” he said. “If I had to stay here one more day, I would be climbing trees to alleviate my boredom.”
“But no one is forcing you to stay one more day,” Marcel replied. “Or even half a day.”
“Oh, I say,” his brother said. “You are serious about staying. I will give you another week, Marc, and then expect to see you in London. Have you heard about the new brothel on—”
“No,” Marcel said. “I have not.”
“Well.” André grinned. “You never did have any need for brothels.”
No, he never had. And never would. He doubted that he would ever need another woman, but that was a rather rash thought, brought on, no doubt, by the damnably flat, heavy feeling with which his latest affair had left him. Damn Viola Kingsley—which was grossly unfair of him, but in the privacy of his own mind he damned her anyway.
He spent the two months sorting out the unsorted threads of his life. He gave his aunt and his cousin and her daughter free rein to plan the upcoming wedding—upon one condition. Under no circumstances whatsoever was he to be bothered by any of the details. In addition, he told them, after the wedding, by the beginning of January at the latest, they were to remove to the dower house. Again they might have a free hand about preparing it and the carriage house and stables for their comfort, but the move must be made.
None of them argued.
He had a word with Jane and Charles and suggested that they might wish to resume their own lives at last now that the twins were more or less grown-up and he was living at home with them. Jane looked skeptical.
“But how long will it be, Marcel,” she asked, “before you take yourself off again?”
“I have no such plans,” he told her. “But if and when I do, then Estelle and Bertrand will go with me.”
The tenants who had leased thei
r own home for the past fifteen years had recently moved out. The truth was, Jane confessed, they had been longing to return home and had only remained because they had felt their first duty was to Adeline’s children.
The whole situation resolved itself easily and amicably within a couple of weeks. Ellen went with them. Marcel suspected that she would choose to remain at home as the prop and stay of her parents in their old age, though that was some way in the future yet. Oliver did not go. Marcel gave notice to his steward, who was to be allowed to remain in his cottage on the edge of the estate with a generous pension. And, before he sent to his man of business in London to find a replacement, Marcel offered the job to his nephew. Oliver, who was eminently suited to the job and who, Marcel had observed during the birthday party, appeared to be sweet on the daughter of a neighboring gentleman, accepted. Bertrand was happy about it. He obviously looked up to his older cousin as some sort of role model.
Marcel tried to take up the role of father. It was not easy. He had had very little to do with the upbringing of his children and did not want to be too intrusive now. On the other hand, he did not want to appear to be aloof or indifferent. He did not know if they loved him or even liked him, and was well aware that he had not earned either. But thanks to Jane and Charles, they were neither openly hostile nor rebellious. They had been brought up to be a lady and a gentleman, and that was exactly what they were. They were invariably courteous and deferential to the man who was their parent, even if he had no real claim to the name of father.
It would take time. And he would give it time. Sometimes it puzzled him that he was willing to remain and try. How could his whole outlook upon life have changed so radically and so completely in such a short while? It had happened seventeen years ago, of course, but there had been a definite, catastrophic reason then. But this time? Just because he had fallen in love and had not been given the chance to fall out again before she tired of him? Such a notion was ridiculous.