Of Moths and Butterflies (49 page)

“Yes. And there may be no use at all, even if it is possible. Don’t you see?”

“Imogen, my dear, he has gone for a day or two only. When he returns you can discuss it. Until then, I think it will be best not to worry about it. You have a great deal to think of without fretting over what may or may not be possible long before anything is ever actually engaged upon.”

“Yes,” she said and took a deep breath. “Yes, you are right.”

“You have this party to plan for. Shall we get the invitations out this morning?”

“Yes, I believe we had better.”

“And we will send only the ones for those whom you are comfortable having into your home, yes?”

“Yes, all right.”

*   *   *

It was late in the evening when Imogen was at last free to seek Roger out. She found him in the book room.

“They are gone,” she said, upon entering. He had not heard her, his attention was so firmly fixed on the space of wall before him, though a book sat open in his lap.

“Imogen,” he said, rising and kissing each cheek. “What did you say? What are gone?”

“The insects. They were all over the walls.”

“The house was as bad off as that, was it?”

“No,” she laughed. “He collects insects. Or did. He had them displayed here. They were beautiful.”

Roger’s look was a questioning one.

“He thought I objected.”

“And did you?”

Reluctantly she answered him. “I suppose, in a way.”

“In what way?”

“I just could not stand to see something that was supposed to be wild and free, however beautiful, caged and pinned in boxes of glass.”

“I understand your meaning. But if you want to be free, it requires only a word, my dear.”

“Roger.”

“This business of freeing himself from his uncle. He can’t do it. He won’t.”

“You don’t believe in him, and yet you persuaded him to go?”

“He cannot right the wrongs he has done you, however he may pretend to try.”

“That’s enough. You are speaking of my husband.”

“Devil take the man! You love him. I’m sorry for it. He doesn’t deserve you.”

“Speak another word against him, Roger, and I’ll leave you once more to your book. You were quite consumed.”

“I was, as a matter of fact.”

“Perhaps you want to get back to it, after all.” And she turned to go.

“Stay.”

She stopped at the door, and looked back.

“I’m sorry. I’ve not seen you in an age. Can we not speak of pleasanter things?”

She smiled tentatively and re-entered the room. “All right,” she said and placed herself on the sofa adjacent to the chair in which he had just been sitting, the chair in which she had once fallen asleep. It would smell of another now. Would she mind? She blinked and dismissed the thought. “Can you suggest a pleasant subject? What you were reading, perhaps?”

“Dash it. You know I wasn’t reading.”

She smiled again, more broadly this time, and he, seeing her joke, at last returned it.

“Tell me of this party for which Miss Montegue is helping you to prepare.”

“Well,” she began, hesitantly, “we’ve made a few alterations to the original plans, but we think that by Thursday my aunts will arrive, whereupon we shall have a private dinner with the family—”

“His and yours?”

“And Claire means to invite her people, but whether they will come—and when—remains to be seen.”

Roger lifted his brow contemplatively and sat back in the chair he had so recently re-occupied.

“Friday will be the formal party.”

“To host Sir Edmund’s guests.”

“Yes. And, with any luck, we’ll have the Abbey once more to ourselves come Monday.” She released a heavy breath.

“And reciprocal invitations pouring in shortly after.”

“I… I hadn’t thought of that.”

“Hadn’t you?”

“If we succeed, then I suppose it’s inevitable, and yet…”

“Yes?”

“Truly, I hadn’t thought that far. I was only considering what it would take to get through the next several days.”

“Surely in so public a setting, with so much at stake, all will be on their best behaviour.”

“It’s not him alone, Roger, but those like him who will gather to celebrate.” She paused and glanced up at him. “Mr. Osborne has been invited, you know.”

“What!”

“Claire has determined that we are to cross him from the list.”

“I hope you mean to listen to her.”

“Whatever the consequences, Roger, yes. I cannot have him here. I only hope…”

“Yes?”

“Well, Sir Edmund is likely to find out, and…it may not matter, after all. If he offers his own invitation… And there are others, besides. I cannot hope to escape my uncle’s former associations quite completely, it seems. If I can escape the worst of them—Mr. Osborne—then that is as much as I dare to hope for.”

“Great day, Imogen! I’m supposed to support this?”

“To support me. I hope you will. You will not abandon me?”

“He has no idea what he is asking of you, does he?”

“Sir Edmund?”

“To the devil with Sir Edmund! It’s Hamilton I mean!”

“He can hardly be blamed for what he does not know. And I can go nowhere until I’ve exerted my utmost effort. You must see that. If Archer is trying what he can to ease our burdens, then so must I.”

Roger turned from her and tried to calm himself.

“Don’t be angry with me,” she said at last, which brought him round once more to face her.

“I’m not angry, Imogen. Not with you, at any rate. But it is more than I can take to watch as you are once more employed as the device for someone else’s selfish aspirations.”

“But think, Roger. If I should succeed. If we should succeed. It’s my responsibility to see that we raise ourselves. This party is the first step. I cannot do it alone.”

“No. And I’ve no doubt of your ability to do it. Do not mistake me. Under one circumstance or another you are likely soon to leave, so what connections you secure on this occasion are likely the most important of your life. Miss Montegue’s family are expected to come, you say? Tell me about them?”

“Her grandmother is Sir Edmund’s cousin. Claire’s relations are, to my understanding, much respected and admired. If they are any of them at all like Claire, then I think they must be, but it’s been some time since they were received here. They’ve not been anxious to maintain their connection with this side of the family.”

“Miss Montegue once meant to take you away herself.”

“Yes.”

“I suppose she would do it again.”

“She has proposed as much. If he makes the break, I will very possibly go to her for a time. Or if I find I cannot endure it here… If she deems it unsafe for me to remain.”

“As exasperating as she is, I cannot help but be grateful to her. She has been a good friend to you.”

“Yes, she has. And loyal, despite her fondness for Archer.”

Roger returned once more to his seat. “Well, she is not without her virtues, it seems.”

“No. I think you will find more of them the longer you look.”

“What makes you think I mean to take the trouble?”

She did not answer, but gave him a knowing look.

“Nonsense,” he said and took up his book once more. He skimmed its pages, then put it down again in frustration. “You know, she is the most infuriating woman I have ever met.”

Imogen raised herself from the sofa to kiss him affectionately on the forehead. “Yes, Roger, I know,” she said, and left him once more to his book.

OU HAVE NOT told me how the young people are getting on,” Mrs. Barton asked Sir Edmund as they sat together in her newly redecorated sitting room. Sir Edmund was reading the morning newspaper. Mrs. Barton lit a cigar and he took it between his lips with a sidelong glance and one corner of his thin mouth turned up. This, as she had learned in the many years they had been together, was the nearest thing to gratitude he was likely to bestow.

Sir Edmund took a long puff and exhaled before at last answering the question. “Not as well as one would expect.”

“They’re not quarrelling already?”

“I can’t say as how they’re doing much of anything. Mrs. Hamilton keeps herself busy about the house, and Archer is usually with me, hiding in the library with his tail between his legs. I rather thought this marriage would make a man of him. It seems to have done the reverse.”

“Well, he’s walking a thin line, I suppose. If he means to keep you both happy, I mean. It’s a delicate business.”

“Humpf!” Sir Edmund said, raising his paper up a little higher to signify he had had enough of the conversation.

Mrs. Barton, however, had not. “There can be no doubt that they are fond of each other. I think I might actually feel guilty about the whole thing if I wasn’t so sure of myself on that point. Perhaps it’s just their having been thrown together like this. And if there is any truth in what they say about her life before, well, that would explain a great deal about her reluctance now.”

“And what are people saying, pray?” he asked her, bending one corner of his paper down to look over it.

“Well, they do say Mr. Everard was a deplorable man. There is some titter, as well, about the enticements he offered those who came to do business with him.”

“I know very well what went on in that house. I can guess it at any rate. I knew the man myself, remember. But if Society is still chattering about it, perhaps I made a mistake in thinking it could be overcome.”

“There is the money. And she’s not your average sort of pretty face. The world will forgive her—eventually. So long as she can hold her head up in a crowd.”

“Yes, well. We shall see about that, won’t we?”

Mrs. Barton considered for a moment more. “They do not quarrel, you say?”

“I don’t know what they do when they’re alone. Not the usual thing, that’s for certain. Not with the door between their rooms locked from her side and he having given up the keys. It’s enough to drive a man mad watching him pine away for a woman he’s already got. Or would have with a little more effort.”

“Is that why you’ve come away?”

“A little privacy is what they need.”

Mrs. Barton arose from her place on the arm of Sir Edmund’s chair and began to wander the room.

Sir Edmund tried to ignore her, but found at last that it was as impossible to ignore her in her silent agitation as in her persistent prattling.

“I do want them to get on,” she said when Sir Edmund at last looked up at her, irritation heavy on his brow. “But there may be a risk in leaving them too much to their own devices.”

Sir Edmund laid his paper on his lap and stared at Mrs. Barton, uncomprehending.

“Well, it’s just that Archer is very impressionable. If he loves her like I think he does, and supposing she cannot love him as he is, he will become what she needs him to become.”

“What are you saying?”

“For all his loyalty, he has never been very happy…”

“Go, on.” His tone was warning, but she continued nonetheless.

“Well…what if she proved the necessary incentive to changing those circumstances that have so far oppressed him? And which now might possibly oppress her? You said he has threatened to leave you.”

“He won’t do it.”

“Not on his own, no, but you know others have encouraged him to do it, already. Miss Montegue, for instance. So far his sense of duty has prevailed. You’ve trusted in that, and rightly…up till now. But if he loves her… If he thinks she might give him what you never could…”

“And what, Cassandra, have I failed to give my nephew?”

“You’ve not shown him much love. I know you do love him. His sense of obligation is uncommon, but he has no uncommon reason to maintain it. You’ve not given him that.”

“I’ve not simpered over him like a woman, if that’s what you mean. If his wife refuses to do it, then why should that concern me? If he gets an heir off of her, that’s as far as my interest lies.”

“Is it? If you make her unwelcome in her own house… You are not always very generous to the women of your acquaintance.”

“Are you complaining, Mrs. Barton?”

“You have had your trials, Edmund. I understand them, as I’ve had my own. You and I fulfil needs entirely apart from those your nephew and Mrs. Hamilton seek. Ours is a more practical alliance. You cannot love again, I think, as perhaps you once did—”

“That’s quite enough, Cassandra!”

“As a widow of some little substance,” she went on unheeding, “I have found myself with the power to help you. You, possessed of certain advantageous connections, are able to help me. The arrangement suits us both, though it has certain limitations. At least for the present. With him, well, anything might be possible. Now he has money, and you do too, through him. His star is on the rise and he might raise you with him. Your hopes and aspirations are not mistakenly placed. His present circumstances are both fortunate and difficult. I don’t blame you if your conscience troubles you over it.”

“Who says my conscience troubles me? I did what had to be done.”

“Yes, of course,” she answered too knowingly. “But my point is, dear man, that if Mrs. Hamilton finds herself unable to tolerate life under your roof, Archer may get it into his head to provide her with another. If he were to leave you now…”

“He wouldn’t dare!” Sir Edmund growled. “It will be their ruin if he decides to make a legal case of it. The whole of her history will be in the papers.”

“And yours.”

Sir Edmund gave her a warning look. “Without the money and the house and a title to back them, what hope have they with their sordid histories between them? None!”

“But you are speaking in terms of your own ambitions. Is any of this what they really want? You say she would not be fool enough to leave fortune for poverty, but isn’t that what she was doing when she came to you, as a servant, so many months ago?”

Sir Edmund was struck by this, and it occurred to him for the first time that just such a thing might, after all, be possible, preposterous though it seemed to him.

“It’s good of you to allow them a little time on their own,” Mrs. Barton went on, “but there may possibly be such a thing as too much. In your absence, she may realise how much better her life might be without your interference. And I believe you said Miss Montegue was expected. If she were to side with Mrs. Hamilton…”

Sir Edmund stood now to look out the window, as if his gaze could pierce across miles of countryside and through the very walls of the Abbey. “He wouldn’t dare,” he said again, though more to himself than to anyone else.

“You’ve benefited greatly by the alliance,” she said now. “Even if he were to assert himself, you are better off than you were.”

Sir Edmund turned back toward the window, as Mrs. Barton continued on. But he was no longer listening. She had said quite enough. And though he was reluctant to believe his nephew capable of betraying him, he knew the power a woman could hold over a man. What did that girl mean by putting Archer off? What demands was she trying to make? Sir Edmund turned from the window again, and in half a dozen steps had crossed the room.

“What is it, Edmund? Was it something I said? Why, I hardly thought you were listening.”

“I wasn’t. I’m going out.”

“You are going back?”

“Not yet. I have some business to take care of first.”

Without any further delay, without any further explanation, he left the house, first for his club, then for his man of law. Precautions must be taken, it seemed. And then… Then he must return to the Abbey and establish, for once and for all, his place as head of the family.