Web of Love (21 page)

She was sorry to have lost a friend, to have bitter memories of him instead of sweet ones, connected with the times he had shared with her and Charlie. But that was all her fault. She had spoiled their relationship. And, of course, they could never be friends again.

She would not think of him any longer.

And she would not look back to a past that could never again be her present or her future. She would look ahead.

“When may we expect to see the coast of England?” she asked Prudence, raising her face resolutely to the wind. “Do you know?”

Sometimes the pain was a real and a physical thing. Sometimes it was almost past bearing.

E
LLEN SAT DOWN FACING HER SISTER-IN-LAW, Lady Habersham, and smiled. “The house is suddenly quiet with Jennifer gone out. She seems almost her old self again,” she said. “I am so glad the Misses Emery have taken to her and she to them.”

“They are sweet girls,” Lady Habersham said. “And of course I have known Melinda Emery for more than twenty years. We were girls together. It will do Jennifer the world of good to spend the afternoon shopping.”

“I had no idea when I came home that she would be quite so broken up,” Ellen said. “I expected tears, Dorothy, and regrets. But not all the rest.”

“She always worshiped her father,” Lady Habersham said, “and lived for the day when she would be free of school and free to live with him all the time. She used to talk of it when she was here, you know. It has been a terrible blow, losing him like this just when it seemed that her dream was coming true.”

Ellen smoothed the black silk of her dress over her knees. “I didn't expect to be the way I have been, either,” she said. “I had thought of it many times during the five years of our marriage and wondered how I would react. Quite honestly, I did not think it would be possible to live on with Charlie dead. And when it did happen and I knew that of course I would survive, I thought I could fight the grief and the emptiness. I remember standing on the boat from Ostend thinking that once I set foot on English soil I would be able to put it all behind me and start life again. I even made plans. I knew it would be hard, but I thought it would be possible. That was two months ago. And I have done nothing.”

Lady Habersham picked up her embroidery frame and began to stitch. “Losing a husband is the very worst thing that can happen in the world,” she said. “I know, dear. And, believe me, you are doing remarkably well. You have allowed Jennifer to lean on you, and have been a pillar of strength for her. If it were not for your face and your loss of weight, Ellen, no one would have an inkling of how deeply you are suffering. But it is time to start living again, is it not?”

“Yes.” Ellen stared down at her hands. “You know, the very worst thing is finding myself storing up some silly little incident in my head to tell Charlie later, and then remembering that I won't be able to do so. Ever. Oh, dear, I must stop this. You are quite right, Dorothy. It is time to live again. Where should I start, do you think?”

Lady Habersham kept her head bent over her embroidery. “Papa wants to see you,” she said.

“Your father?” Ellen looked up wide-eyed. “He wants to see me, Dorothy? Why?”

Her sister-in-law set her work down on her lap. “You are Charlie's widow,” she said. “Charlie was his favorite child, Ellen.”

“His favorite child?” Ellen's eyes flashed with indignation. “Yet he did not talk to him for almost twenty years?”

“He would doubtless have forgiven Charlie a long time ago if he had only loved him less,” Lady Habersham said sadly. “Family members sometimes do dreadful things to one another. Now that it is too late, of course, Papa is almost prostrate with grief. He has worn mourning ever since he heard. He asked me two months ago, and has been asking me ever since, if I would persuade you to meet him. I have not thought that you were ready for such a thing. But now perhaps you are. Will you, Ellen?”

Ellen drew in a deep breath. “I promised Charlie I would try to get his father to receive Jennifer,” she said. “It was my last promise to him, and it was one of those things on the boat home that I was going to do without delay. And now it has been made easy for me. No, not easy. It will be one of the hardest things I have ever done in my life.”

“I will arrange for you to take tea with him tomorrow,” Lady Habersham said with a smile that showed her relief. “He will want Phillip and Edith to be there too. You might as well meet all the family at once, Ellen.”

Charlie's younger brother, Phillip. He had figured in most of those stories of childhood that Charlie had told her so many times.

“I wonder how Jennifer will feel about going,” she said. “Excited, do you think, Dorothy? Nervous? I do not know if she even knows much about her grandfather.”

Lady Habersham picked up her frame again in nervous hands. “Papa wants to meet you, Ellen,” she said. “He has not mentioned Jennifer. Let's take it slowly, shall we? Perhaps after he has met you and grown to love you, as he is bound to do, then he will be willing to meet Jennifer too.”

Ellen stared at her sister-in-law. “He does not want to meet his own granddaughter?” she said. “He is grieving for Charlie, but he does not want to meet Jennifer?”

“Do you know the whole story?” Lady Habersham's attention was concentrated on her work.

“Yes.” Ellen looked at her sister-in-law, aghast. “Charlie was right, then? His family believes that Jennifer is not his daughter? Is that what it is?”

“I believe that she is,” Lady Habersham said. “Perhaps Papa does too in his heart. They had been married long enough when she was born. But, Ellen. She was a prostitute.” She flushed and lowered her head even further over her work.

“And Jennifer is to be held to blame for that?”

Lady Habersham looked up in some distress. “You must understand,” she said, “that Papa and Charlie were very close. Papa had great hopes for him. And then he insisted on enlisting in the army. Then that marriage. And the birth just a little too close for comfort afterward. Oh, Ellen, it is so easy to judge other people. Papa is not a monster.”

“I will not visit him,” Ellen said, “unless he also receives Jennifer. She is his flesh and blood, Dorothy. I am merely the widow of his son. No, I will not go. I will see her respectably married on my own after our year of mourning is at an end and then carry on with my own life. I don't need your father. I don't need anyone. Only Charlie, and he is gone.”

“Don't upset yourself.” Lady Habersham pulled a hand-herchief from her pocket to dab at her own eyes. She looked up at Ellen, who had got to her feet and was looking back at her, unshed tears brightening her eyes. “I will talk to Papa. He is so stubborn, Ellen. And so hurt. Oh, dear, I don't know what to do.”

Ellen closed the distance between them, and laid a hand lightly on the other's shoulder. “This is hard on you, Dorothy,” she said, “being a go-between like this. I understand, and I honor you for remaining loyal to both sides all these years. But I can't make it easy for you, I'm afraid. I can't go and visit him without Jennifer.”

Their conversation was interrupted at that moment by the entrance of the butler, who presented a card on a silver salver to his mistress.

Lady Habersham picked it up, read it, and smiled up at Ellen. “This should cheer you up,” she said. “You have a visitor, my dear. Is he waiting downstairs?” she asked the butler.

“Yes, ma'am,” that individual said, bowing.

“Who?” Ellen asked.

“Charlie's friend,” Lady Habersham said with a bright smile. “The one Jennifer was taken with. The one you nursed in Brussels. Lord Eden. Show him up, Hancock.”

“No!” Ellen spun around to face the butler. “No. You will tell him, if you please, that neither I nor Miss Simpson is at home.”

“Ellen, dear…”

“We are not at home,” Ellen told the butler firmly.

He looked inquiringly at Lady Habersham, bowed, and left the room.

“But why?” Lady Habersham's voice was puzzled. “I thought you would be delighted to see him, Ellen. Was he not a very close friend of yours and Charlie's?”

“Excuse me.” Ellen did not turn around to look at her sister-in-law. “Excuse me, please, Dorothy. I, er…We…Excuse me, please.” She hurried from the room.

Lady Habersham was left to stare after her in some dismay. Clearly Ellen was not as far along the road to recovery as she had hoped, if she went to pieces like this at the prospect of meeting someone who would remind her of Charlie and the events surrounding the Battle of Waterloo.

 

L
ORD
E
DEN HAD SPENT
almost a month in Brussels with his mother and brother before they felt that he was fit for the journey home. There he had concentrated all his energies on his physical health, forcing himself every day to greater and greater effort, priding himself on the gradual return of stamina and weight and muscle.

He had set goals for himself. By such and such a day he would be able to set foot outside the hotel, or walk for fifteen minutes or half an hour, or ride a horse. By such and such a day he would be ready to return to England. Edmund's frequently woebegone expression spurred him on to the last goal. Edmund was missing his family, though not by a single word would he ever have admitted the truth.

They had come home eventually, leaving Madeline behind. She was still busy nursing Lieutenant Penworth, whose recovery was necessarily slower than his own, and was made slower by the patient's own lack of will to live. Madeline had refused to listen to any of the advice she had been given, gently by her mother and older brother, scathingly by him. She was convinced that she loved the lieutenant and would be happy with him for a lifetime. And when Mad once got a notion into her head, Lord Eden had to admit at last, there was no shaking it.

Perhaps she was right. Perhaps she really did love the man. And perhaps she would live happily ever after with him. Who knew? And who was he to judge? He was no great expert on love and happiness.

He had been back in England for a month. Back in London. Getting himself out of the army and back into civilian life. It was unusual for his brother to spend much time away from Amberley, especially during the summer months. But on this occasion he did stay, with Alexandra and the children. And so did the dowager, with whom Lord Eden took up residence. And his uncle, Mr. William Carrington, was there too, with Aunt Viola and Walter and Anna. They had come to London in the spring for Anna's come-out Season. They had stayed after the Battle of Waterloo in order to have news of him. And then they stayed until he came home. And now they were staying—as was the rest of the family—for Madeline's return.

His physical recovery was progressing daily. Provided he walked and rode and exercised in moderation, he could almost forget his injuries. It was only when he forgot and exerted himself too much that he felt the old twinges and aches in his side and the old breathlessness. And only when he caught sight of himself shirtless in a mirror that he was reminded of the ugliness of his wound.

His emotional state he did not explore too deeply. In Brussels he had had to block thoughts of Ellen from his mind. They were too painful, and threatened his physical recovery. After the first week, when his mother finally informed him that she was no longer in Brussels but had gone home to England, he felt some relief. There was no chance that he would come face-to-face with her if he went outside.

And back in England he kept up the mental block. He would not think of her. He would put her behind him with all the other pain and nightmare of the Battle of Waterloo. He would not think of Charlie because doing so reminded him that he had lost a friend so dear that he had felt almost like a brother. And he would not remember Ellen because doing so reminded him that he had lost what might have been the happiness of the rest of his life.

He would not think of her.

And when he did—as he inevitably did every single day and every single hour—it was to admit that she had probably been right. He had loved her because she had nursed him with such gentleness and devotion. Because they had been cut off together from the rest of the world. Because she was beautiful and had great strength of character. Because they had both been carrying the burden of a great grief that they were afraid to admit even to themselves and had turned to each other for comfort.

It had not been love. It had not been lust either. But definitely not love. Not the sort that could last a lifetime through the daily routine of marriage.

When the pain was gone and he could eventually think quite openly about their affair, he would be able to remember it and her with some pleasure. But it was an affair for memory only. It was not something that he would want to revive.

He had promised Charlie, as his friend was dying, that he would look after his wife and his daughter, that he would see to it that they were never in need. It was very possible that Charlie had not heard. He had almost completed his journey into death when the words were spoken. But that did not matter. The fact was that the promise had been made and that it was binding.

And so it nagged at Lord Eden's mind for the month after his return to England. And he knew that he could never know peace of mind until he had called upon Ellen and Miss Simpson to satisfy himself that they were not in need. But always he would pay that call tomorrow. There was always a good reason why it should not be made today.

It was Susan Jennings who finally decided him that the visit could be postponed no longer. Susan too had lost her husband at Waterloo. She was in London, staying at the home of Lord Renfrew, her brother-in-law. Her mother, Mrs. Courtney, had come up from the country to be with her.