A Christmas Bride / A Christmas Beau (30 page)

“After all,” he said as they made their way there, “a man is entitled to snatch a half hour of Christmas Day to spend just with his very nearest and dearest.”

But there was someone else in the sitting room when they arrived there. Edgar suppressed a smile. They would have to have been blind and foolish during the
past week not to have guessed that some such thing was in the works.

Mrs. Cross smiled at them, but she looked a little less placid than her usual self. She looked very slightly anxious.

Mr. Downes cleared his throat after tea had been poured and they had all made bright, self-conscious conversation for a few minutes. “Edgar, Cora,” he began, “you are my children and of course will inherit my fortune after my time. Edgar will inherit Mobley, but I have seen to it that Cora will receive almost as much since it seems unfair to me that my daughter should be treated with less favor than my son. You are wealthy in your own right, Edgar, as you are in yours, Francis. It would seem to me, therefore, that perhaps neither of my children would be too upset to find that they will receive a little less than they have always expected.”

“Papa,” Cora said, “I have never
seen
you so embarrassed. Why do you not simply say what you brought us here to say?”

“My love,” Francis said, “you cannot know how difficult it is for a man to say such a thing. You ladies have no idea.”

Helena was smiling at her aunt, who was attempting to remove a particularly stubborn—and invisible—speck of lint from her skirt.

“Neither Cora nor I covet your property or your wealth, Papa,” Edgar said. “We love you. We would rather have you with us forever. Certainly while we do have you, we want nothing more than your happiness. Do we, Corey?”

“How foolish,” she said, “that I am even called upon to answer that. Papa! Could you ever have doubted it?”

“No.” Their father actually look sheepish. “I loved your mother dearly. I want all here present to know that and not to doubt it for a moment.”

There was a chorus of protests.

“Your children never have, Joseph,” Mrs. Cross said, looking up at last. “Of course, they never have. Neither have I. You loved Mrs. Downes just as I loved Mr. Cross.”

Mr. Downes cleared his throat again. “This may come as a great surprise—” he began, but he was halted by another cry—of hilarity this time. He frowned. “Mrs. Letitia Cross has done me the great honor of accepting my hand in marriage,” he said with an admirable attempt at dignity.

There was a great clamor then, just as if they really had all been taken by surprise. Cora was crying and demanding a handkerchief of Francis, who was busy shaking his father-in-law’s hand. Helena was hugging her aunt tightly and shedding a tear or two of her own. Edgar waited his turn, wondering that it had never happened before. His father, with a huge heart and a universe of love to give, had mourned his wife for almost thirty years and lavished all his love on his children. But they were both wed now and paternal love was not enough to satisfy a man’s heart for a leftover lifetime.

Mrs. Cross was a fortunate lady. But then, Edgar thought, his father was probably a fortunate man, too.

His father turned to him, damp-eyed—and frowning ferociously. Edgar caught him in a bear hug.

H
ELENA HAD WORN HER SCARLET GOWN TO THE
Christmas ball. It was perhaps a little daring for an entertainment in a country home, especially when she was a matron of six-and-thirty. More especially when she was fast losing her waistline. But it was not indecent—and the soft folds of the high-waisted skirt hid the slight bulge of her pregnancy—and it suited her mood. She felt brightly festive.

And desperately unwilling for the day to be over. It almost was. It was already late in the evening, after supper.

Tomorrow Christmas would linger, but in all essentials it would be over. Just as it always was. The great myth lifted one’s spirits only to dash them afterward even lower than they had been before. She had feared it this year and sworn to resist it, but she had given in to it. Christmas!

But having given in, she would take from the celebrations all she could. And give, too. That was an essential part of it, the giving. And it was that she had shunned as much as the taking—more. She was terrified of giving. Once upon a time she believed she had had a generous spirit. Despite the disappointment of a lost love at the age of nineteen, she had put a great deal into her marriage with Christian. She might have settled into unhappiness
and bitterness and revulsion, but she had not done so. She had set out to make him happy and had succeeded, God help her. But she had focused the largest measure of her generosity and the sympathy of her loving heart on Gerald. She had tried to help him overcome the setbacks of his mother’s desertion and his father’s dislike. She had tried to help him gain confidence in himself, to realize that he was a boy worthy of respect and love.

And then she had destroyed him.

But not forever. She had perhaps overestimated her own importance. She had harmed him. She had made him suffer, perhaps for a long time. But he had recovered. And she dared to believe that he was now happy. He was still gentle, quiet Gerald, but he was at peace with himself. She did not know all the circumstances surrounding his strange marriage, but there was no doubt of the fact that he and Priscilla were devoted to each other and suited each other perfectly. And their son, little Peter, was a darling. Today there was an extra glow of happiness about all three of them. Peter must have been starved for the company of other children. He had steadfastly made up for lost time. Priscilla had been accepted at Mobley just as if she had never been anything but a lady. Helena guessed that her happiness was as much for Gerald’s sake as her own. He would no longer feel that he must absent himself from society for her sake. And Gerald’s happiness doubtless had a similar unselfish cause. His wife need no longer hide away from the company of her peers.

Helena watched them dance a cotillion as she danced with her father-in-law. Though they were not the only ones she watched. There were Edgar and her aunt—dear Letty. She was quietly contented. She would have a home of her own again at last and a husband who was clearly very fond indeed of her—as she was of him. And
never again would she find herself in the position of being dependent upon relatives.

If she had not married Edgar, Helena thought, her aunt would not have met Mr. Downes and would never have found this new happiness. Neither would he. If she had not married Edgar, Fanny Grainger would not now be dancing with Jack Sperling and looking as glowingly happy as if she expected her nuptials within the month. She would instead be dancing with Edgar and wearing forced smiles. If Helena had not married Edgar, Gerald and Priscilla would be at Brookhurst, alone with their son, trying to convince themselves that they were utterly happy.

Really, when she thought about it, very cautiously, so that she would not jump to the wrong conclusions, nothing very disastrous had happened lately for which she could blame herself. Except that she had forced Edgar into marrying her—though he was the one who had done the actual forcing. He did not seem wildly unhappy. He claimed to love her. He had said so several times. She had refused to hear, refused to react.

She had been afraid to believe it. She had been afraid it was true.

It was as if a door had been held wide for her for several days now, a door beyond which were bright sunlight and birdsong and the perfumes of a thousand flowers. All she had to do was step outside and the door would close forever on the darkness from which she had emerged. But she had been afraid to take that single step. If she did, perhaps she would find storm clouds blocking out the sunlight and silencing the singing and stifling the perfumes. Perhaps she would spoil it all.

But she had not spoiled anything yet this Christmas. Perhaps she should dare. Perhaps she could take that step. If all turned to disaster, then she could only find
herself back where she expected to be anyway. What was there to lose?

It seemed suddenly that there was a great deal to lose. The cotillion had ended and her father-in-law was kissing her hand and Edgar was smiling and bending his head to hear something Letty was saying to him. Cora was laughing loudly over something with one of Edgar’s friends, and Francis was smiling in some amusement at the sound. The Duke of Bridgwater was joining Gerald and Priscilla—and addressing himself to Priscilla. He must be asking her for the next set. The smell of the pine boughs and the holly with which the ballroom was festooned outdid the smells of the various perfumes worn by the guests. There was a very strong feeling of Christmas.

Oh, yes, there was a great deal to lose. But the sunlight and the birdsong and the flowers beckoned. Edgar was coming toward her. The next set was to be a waltz. She longed to dance it with him. But not this one, she decided suddenly. Not yet. Later she would waltz with him if there was another before the ball ended. She turned and hurried away without looking at him, so that he would think she had not seen him.

“The next is to be a waltz,” she said unnecessarily as she joined the duke and Gerald and Priscilla.

“Yes, indeed,” his grace said. “Lady Stapleton has agreed to dance it with me.”

It seemed strange to hear another woman called that, to realize that the name was no longer hers. She was not sorry, Helena thought.
Mrs. Downes
sounded a great deal more prosaic than
Lady Stapleton
, but the name seemed somehow to give her a new identity, a new chance.

“Splendid,” she said. “Then you must dance it with me, Gerald. It would never do for you to be a wallflower.”

He looked at her in some surprise, but she linked her arm through his and smiled dazzlingly at him. They had not avoided each other since that first meeting in the library the day before, but they had not sought each other out either.

“It would be my pleasure, Helena,” he said.

And so they waltzed together, smiling and silent for a few minutes.

“I am glad we came,” he said stiffly after a while. “Mr. Downes and your husband have been extraordinarily kind to Priss and to me. So has everyone else. And Peter is ecstatic.”

“I am glad,” she said. She was aware that she wore her mocking smile. It was something to which she clung almost in terror. But it was something that must go. She stopped smiling. “I really am glad, Gerald. She is charming and delightful. You have made a wonderful match.”

“Yes,” he said. “And I might say the same of you, Helena. He is a man of character.”

“Yes.” She smiled at him and this time it was a real smile. He smiled back.

“Gerald.” She was alarmed to find her vision blurring. She blinked her eyes firmly. “Gerald, I am so very sorry. I have never been able to say it because I thought my sin unforgivable. I thought its effects permanent and irreversible. I was wrong. I was, was I not? It is not a meaningless indulgence to say I am sorry?”

“It never was,” he said. “It never is, Helena. There is nothing beyond forgiveness—even when the effects are irreversible. We all do terrible things. All of us. For a long time before our marriage I treated Priss as if the label of her profession was the sum total of her character. If that is not an apparently unforgivable sin, I do not know what is. I had to lose her before I realized what a precious jewel had been within my grasp. You do not have a monopoly on dastardly deeds.”

“If I had asked forgiveness at your father’s funeral,” she asked him, “would you have forgiven me, Gerald?” Had she been responsible, too, for all the wasted years?

He did not answer for a while. He took her into an intricate twirl about one corner of the dance floor. “I do not know,” he said at last. “Perhaps not. I felt terribly betrayed, the more so because I had loved you more than I had loved anyone else in my life since my mother. But in time I believe it would have helped to know that at least you had a conscience, that you regretted what had happened. Until a few days ago I assumed that you felt no guilt at all—though Priss has always maintained that you must. Priss has the gift of putting herself into other people’s souls and understanding what must be going on deep within them even when the outer person shows no sign of it. And she did not even know you.”

“I am hoping,” she said, “that I can have the honor of a close friendship with my stepdaughter-in-law. If you can say again what you said yesterday, Gerald, and mean it. Can you forgive me? Will you?”

He smiled at her, all the warm affection and trust she had used to see in his face there again. “Priss was right,” he said. “She so often is. The one flaw to my peace of mind has been my enduring resentment of you. I have accepted my father for what he was and am no longer hurt by the memory of his dislike. I like the person I am, even though I am not the person he would have had me be. And I have the memory of my mother back. She did not desert me, Helena. She was banished—by my father—and forbidden to see me or communicate with me in any way. I visited my aunts and found out the truth from them.”

“Oh, Gerald—” Helena said, feeling all the old pain for his brokenness.

“Sometime,” he said, “perhaps I could tell you the whole story. It brought pain. It also brought ultimate
peace. She loved me. And you loved me. I have thought about it during the past few days and have realized that it is true. You were very good to me—and not for ulterior motives as I have thought since. You did not plot. You were merely—young and lonely. But even if all my worst fears had been correct, Helena—about my mother, about you—they would not be an excuse for the failed, miserable life to which you thought you had doomed me. I am an individual with a mind and a will of my own. We all have to live life with the cards that have been dealt us. We all—most of us—have the chance to make of life what we will. You would not have been responsible for my failed life—I would have been.”

“You are generous,” she said.

“No.” He shook his head. “Just reaching the age of maturity, I hope. Have you really denied yourself happiness for thirteen years, Helena?”