Elizabeth Mansfield (25 page)

"Well, yes, of course, I quite see... I mean, won't you please sit down, ma'am?"

"May I?" Lady Sarah took the nearest chair and turned it so that they could be face-to-face. "It's very good of you to indulge an old woman this way," she murmured, studying Cassie with discomfiting intensity.

"Not at all. I've often wished to become acquainted with Lord Inglesby's mother."

"Truly? May I ask why?"

Cassie, attracted by the woman's directness, opened up to her for the first time. "I don't know if your son told you, but I spent a month at Inglesby Park recently, recovering from an accident, and I often came across your books in the library. I saw the little notes you wrote in the margins. Often my feelings about the readings were similar to yours. It seemed to me we might have ..." Here her courage failed her. Perhaps she'd assumed too much and gone too far.

"Tastes in common?" the older woman supplied. "I shouldn't be at all surprised." She tilted her head and studied Cassie's face again. "You do not look quite as I expected. I knew you would be beautiful, but I hadn't expected the... the softness."

"Softness?"

"Yes. I thought that a woman so determinedly protective of her daughter would look a little harder at the edges."

"Is that how Jeremy described me?" Cassie asked, unable to keep the hurt from her voice. "Hard at the edges?"

"No, no. He never described you at all. He is not at all forthcoming about his private feelings. Everything I know about him I had to learn either by indirection or by bludgeoning him for information, insisting that it's my motherly right to know." She sighed. "It's not easy to be a mother, as you no doubt have learned."

"No, it's not," Cassie agreed.

Lady Sarah leaned back in her chair and smiled. "I was quite ready to hate you on sight, you know. As I would hate anyone who'd hurt him as you did. But I find myself quite drawn to you. Isn't that astonishing?"

"Did he tell you I'd hurt him?"

"No, of course he didn't. He didn't have to. But you do not seem the sort who would callously cause pain to another."

"Thank you for that," Cassie said, lowering her eyes. "I'm afraid that, between your son and me, there was pain inflicted on both sides."

"I am sorry for that." She suddenly leaned forward and took Cassie's hand. "He would boil me in oil if he heard me," she said, "but I must ask. Do you love my son?"

"Oh, Lady Sarah," Cassie said, wincing, "please don't ask me that!"

"Very well, I withdraw the question. I shouldn't have asked. I know I mustn't interfere. I shall leave you, then, before we become the subject of gossip for keeping our heads together for so long. But if ever you wish to speak to me, about my son or anything else, please call on me." She stood up and smiled down at Cassie with real warmth. "In fact, do come to tea. You'd be welcome at any time. Good night, my dear."

Chapter 36

Cicely was having a fitting of her wedding gown. Eva's French modiste, Madame Brenet, was pinning it up in the upstairs sitting room. Cassie, who'd not yet had a look at it, went upstairs to see. As she stepped over the threshold, the first sight to meet her eyes was Cicely standing on a box in the center of the room, the sunlight pouring in the window from behind her, outlining her hair. Tall and youthfully slim, the girl looked breathtakingly lovely in a tamboured muslin gown with a band of seed pearls fitted tightly just under the breast. The very sight of her gave her mother a twinge of pride. "Oh, my dear," she sighed, "you are a vision."

Cicely giggled. "You sound just like Clive. That's what he always says."

"And why shouldn't he? You're as pretty as a picture whatever you wear." She sat down on the window seat and watched as the seamstress set about pinning up the hem. "You've done a beautiful job, madame," she said to the seamstress.

"Thank you, my lady," the woman said, throwing her a smile.

"Speaking of Clive," Cassie remarked to her daughter, "I'm surprised the boy is taking your forthcoming nuptials with such good grace."

"You mustn't think Clive is heartbroken about my marrying Charles. He isn't in the least discomposed. He doesn't care for me above half, not in that way."

"Since when have you become so expert in these matters, my love? You can't be sure about Clive. Boys like Clive don't wear their hearts on their sleeves. They think it manly to hide their pain underneath."

"Pain?
Clive?
"
She threw back her head and laughed. "Don't be a gudgeon, Mama. He's just been offered membership in the Four-in-Hand Club, and he's happy as a lark. You may take my word on it."

"I won't take your word," Cassie retorted. "I have at
least
as much knowledge on the subject of love as you, no matter how knowing you've become in the last few weeks."

"Turn about a bit, miss, please," said the seamstress from her seat on the floor, her mouth full of pins.

Cicely turned. "Really, Mama, you've always overestimated the interest that men take in me. I suppose that's something mothers do. But the truth is that nobody's ever really loved me but Charles."

'Turn around, miss, again," the modiste ordered.

Cicely turned again. "Even Jeremy," she said, half to herself. "When he came to offer, he said everything he ought but the words 'I love you'."

"What?" Cassie felt her whole body stiffen.
"What
did you say?"

"I didn't mind, really. It was sweet that he did it. Offered, I mean. But I knew he didn't feel about me as Charles did. I suppose he thought he ought to offer, having disappointed me that time before. But I could sense his heart wasn't in it. It's strange, isn't it, Mama, how one can sense when a man truly loves one?"

"Turn around again, please, miss," the modiste said.

Cassie swallowed hard. She could not have heard correctly. "Are you saying that Jeremy
offered
for you?" she asked, her voice shaking.

"Yes, didn't Aunt Eva tell you?"

"No one told me. When did he do it?"

"I don't remember exactly. A day or two before I ran off to Swallowfield. Why?"

"Once more, please," the modiste put in.

Cassie looked down at the seamstress with half-blind eyes. "Would you mind taking a bit of rest, madame? You could use some refreshment, couldn't you? Why don't you go downstairs and ask the butler for a cup of tea?"

"Yes, ma'am," the seamstress said, looking at her curiously before whisking herself out. "Of course, ma'am. Thank you."

Cicely was looking at her strangely, too. "Why did you send madame away, Mama? Is something amiss?"

Cassie put a trembling hand to her forehead. "Please, my love, this is very important. Sit down and tell me about everything. And very slowly, because my head is spinning."

'Tell you about what, Mama?"

Cassie looked at the girl as if she'd suddenly lost her wits. "About what you were just saying! About Jeremy making an offer."

Cicely blinked at her. "There's nothing important about that."

"There is to me."

"I don't see why. That entire business with Jeremy was a stage of my girlhood, without any permanent significance. But if you really must hear about his offer, I'll tell you what I remember."

"Yes, I really must hear. Everything."

Cicely shrugged. "There's not very much to tell. Jeremy called just after teatime, with an enormous armful of blooms for Aunt Eva. And then he sat down beside me, took my hand and said he'd like to resume where we'd left off in the courtship before. And I said I couldn't believe he was serious, and he assured me he was, and I said I was very flattered but I had to refuse, and after a bit more backing and filling, he left. Oh, yes, I remember one thing more. I said he ought to offer for you, but he said you were too old."

Cassie, brushing aside the insult as too insignificant when compared to the primary information, merely gaped at her. "I don't understand, you
refused
him?"

"Yes, of course I did. Why are you so astonished?"

"But how could you refuse him? He's everything you wanted in a husband. Isn't that what you told me, time and time again?"

"Yes, but that was before."

"Before? Before what?"

"Before Charlie, of course."

Cassie could not accept what her daughter was trying to tell her. Her own preconceptions, her own preferences, her own desires loomed so large they blocked her mind. "Do you honestly expect me to believe that, given the choice, you'd
prefer
Charles Percy to Jeremy?" she asked in disbelief.

Cicely's patience came to an end. "Good heavens, Mama," she exploded, "haven't you been
listening!
Can't you hear anything I've been saying? I
love
Charlie. I wish I could make you see. He charms me and excites me and inspires me and attracts me... and also irks me and infuriates me... and— Oh, I don't know! It's just that in every possible way he touches my heart. I've never felt this way toward anyone before. Not any of the gentlemen who called after my come-out. Not Clive. Not Jeremy. Not anyone."

The truth burst on Cassie at last, a lightning bolt of comprehension. "Oh, my dear," she murmured, awestruck. "Is that what you've been trying to say to me? You're right! I
haven't
been listening to you. I had no
idea
you felt this way!" Dazed, she stumbled across the room to the window and stared out at the little walled garden behind the house. "I don't believe I've been really listening to
anyone.
"

Cicely came up behind her and put an arm about her shoulder. "I'm glad, Mama, that you finally understand.
Now
will you be happy—completely happy—that I'm going to wed Charles?"

Cassie looked over her shoulder at her daughter's blissful face and wanted to weep for sheer joy. The terrible ache—the ache that she'd carried in her chest for weeks and weeks—dissolved away like a lump of salt in boiling water. The whole world was suddenly brighter, cleaner, lovelier.

She put a hand lovingly on her daughter's cheek. "Happier than you'll ever know," she said.

Chapter 37

She couldn't eat or sleep. She couldn't think. Her own daughter was about to be married, and she couldn't concentrate on the wedding plans. She was, to put it bluntly, in a state.

She knew exactly what she had to do to settle her mind, but she didn't know how to do it. A properly reared female, even one of a certain age, could not call on a gentleman, throw herself into his arms, tell him she was sorry and request that he please ask her again to marry him.

Of course she
could
call on his mother. She'd been invited to do so, after all. But the very thought of it put her in a quake. What if she were drinking tea with Lady Sarah and Jeremy happened to come into the room? She would be overwhelmed with embarrassment. The only thing to do was to call when she was certain he would not be at home. But how was she to tell when that would be?

In finding the answer to that question, she was unwittingly aided by her delightful son-in-law-to-be, who happened to remark, when he called at the house to escort Cicely to the Pantheon Bazaar, that he would bring Cicely back by three because he'd promised to meet Jeremy at White's at four.

That is why Cassie, knowing that Jeremy would be safely ensconced at his club on St. James Street, stepped down from a hired hack at the comer of Dover Street promptly at four that afternoon. She adjusted her dashing new straw bonnet on her carefully coiffed hair, shook out the skirts of her stylish new walking dress—an extravagant concoction of rose-colored cambric—and marched bravely up to the door of the Inglesby town house.

She was admitted by an aged butler who took her name and disappeared down a shadowy corridor for what seemed a very long time. When he reappeared, she saw Lady Sarah herself hurrying down the hall after him. "My dear Lady Beringer!" she exclaimed, holding out her hand. "I'm delighted that you've seen fit to call on me. And looking so splendid, too! Beecks, bring us some tea in the sitting room. Come this way, my dear. That's the drawing room, there to your right, but the sitting room is much more cozy."

This warm reception did much to ease Cassie's tension. She followed her hostess into a modest-sized room in which two wing chairs faced a large fireplace. On the wall over the mantel was a painting of a strong-looking young woman seated on a chair with one leg outstretched and a small boy standing at her elbow. Cassie, recognizing him at once from the lock of dark hair falling over his forehead, stared at the painting in fascination. "Oh, what a fine piece of work!" she exclaimed.

"Yes, we think so. I'm so glad you like it. I'd heard that you yourself are a painter."

"I only dabble," Cassie said, unable to take her eyes from the portrait. "This striking woman is you, isn't it? And that's Jeremy, of course. One can see in that face the beginnings of the man he would become."

"Yes, that's quite true," Lady Sarah agreed proudly. "But do sit down, my dear. Speaking of Jeremy, I'm sorry to tell you that you just missed him. He left only a moment before you arrived."

"I'm glad he's not at home," Cassie said, perching on the edge of a chair and looking over at Lady Sarah nervously. "I've come to see you."

"For a special reason, or just to pay a social call?"

"For a very special reason. Special to me, at any rate. I would like your help, but I..." She hesitated, suddenly afraid to go on.

"But, my dear, there's no need to look at me like a frightened rabbit," Lady Sarah said with a kindly smile. "There's nothing I'd like better than to help you. In any way I can."

"Yes, but... you told me the other evening that you'd vowed not ever to interfere in your son's life."

Lady Sarah's eyes lit up. "Ah! Then this has something to do with Jeremy?"

"It has everything to do with Jeremy."

"And is it something that will make him happy?"

Cassie looked down at the fingers she was twisting in her lap. "I'm not certain, your ladyship. I hope so."