Rebel Heiress (31 page)

‘He is dying, Henrietta, and knows it,' Simon told her. ‘And, what I know must please you, except for the reason, he has sent for Charles.'

‘What?'

‘Yes. He wrote some weeks ago, both to Charles and to Lord Wellington, asking that Charles might be sent home. There is much, I collect, to be settled about the estate. I think there is no question but that Charles will get leave to come. Whether he will find my grandfather alive is another matter. I cannot tell you how loath I was to leave him, and my poor grandmother, upon whom the whole burden of his illness falls, but to tell truth, Henrietta, there is not much that I can do for my grandfather. He has not, I fear, forgiven me for my refusal to
go into the church and has also, I think, got wind of my political activities. But what can I do? I know it must grieve him deeply, but there is so much to be done, and so few to do it. I do not see how I can turn back now. And yet it's so sad, Henrietta. We used to be such good friends, he and I, and now he just turns away from me and asks over and over again for Charles.'

Henrietta was trying to think of something to say that was at once true and consoling when little Caroline danced into the room.

‘Simon!' she cried. ‘You are back at last.' And flung herself upon him.

Lifted at once to his shoulder, she beamed down upon Henrietta from her perch. ‘
Now
can we go skating?'

Henrietta sighed and smiled. The child had been begging ever since the freeze began to be taken skating on the Thames. Henrietta had rashly admitted that she had learned to skate as a child in Boston and nothing would satisfy the child but that she should be taught too. But Henrietta had put her off. In her present state of depression, she was in no mood for such an outing and had pointed out that they had no one to escort them. When Mr. Rivers returned … perhaps…

Simon shifted the child to the other shoulder. ‘How well she talks these days,' he said. ‘I think she deserves the treat, do not you, Henrietta? And it would do you good, too. You look a trifle peaked, if I may take a brother's liberty to say so.'

In the end, Henrietta yielded to their joint persuasions and was glad she had done so when she saw the animated scene on the river. The sky, which had for days been a sullen grey, threatening snow, had cleared miraculously and the sun shone through, picking out here a touch of scarlet, there of white, against the silver-grey background of ice. At the end of a happy hour or so, she turned her flushed and laughing face to Simon.

‘How happy I am,' she cried impulsively. ‘I had forgotten what it was like to be alive.' And she turned to flash away from him on her quicksilver skates, fetched a whirligig pattern on the ice and returned at such speed that Caroline let out a cry of dismay and Simon let go her hand to steady Henrietta with both of his. She clung to him for a moment, laughing and breathless, then dropped his hands to catch hold of Caroline, who was dangerously unsteady on her feet. ‘It is too much happiness,'
she said. ‘All this — and Charles coming home. Are you not delighted, Simon?'

‘Of course.' He said it so shortly that she looked at him for a minute in puzzlement. Used, by now, to all his moods, she was surprised to miss his usual quick response to hers. Then an explanation struck her.

‘Oh, Simon,' she exclaimed, ‘how selfish I am. I forgot all about your poor grandfather, and we have kept you far too long from him and your work. Come, Caroline it is time to go home.'

It was a subdued little party that returned to the carriage. Simon continued oddly silent and surprised Henrietta by agreeing at once to her suggestion that they set him down near his place of business. But Caroline, whose teeth were chattering with cold, set up a wail of disappointment when he left them, and grizzled all the way home. Perhaps because of this, Henrietta too found her bright spirits oddly dimmed. And yet, she had so much cause for rejoicing. Charles was coming home at last. And if, as seemed probable, he arrived to find himself Lord Queensmere and a man of property, the main barrier to their marriage would be removed. Why, then, was she not happier? What was the matter with her these days? Hurrying little Caroline almost crossly to bed, she told herself that she was suffering from a schoolgirl's imaginary terrors. Charles' return would soon sweep these megrims away.

Happily for her, Cedric and Sally returned to town that week. They had beeen staying, since Christmas, at Sally's house in Leicestershire in the hopes that Cedric might be able to put in some hunting with the Quorn, but the continued frost had finally driven them back to London.

Hurrying round to visit them, at Lord Liverpool's, where they were staying, Henrietta found Sally alone, looking, she thought, paler and quieter than usual. Cedric, she explained, was out looking at a house that was for sale in Grosvenor Square.

Henrietta was delighted. ‘You are thinking, then, of settling in town?'

‘I believe so; for the greater part of the time at least. After all, one must be in town for the season, and it will be so much more convenient to have a base from which we may visit my properties. And, besides' — suddenly she was the old outspoken Sally — ‘to tell truth, I do not find that Cedric likes life in the
Midlands. There is neither the society nor the conversation that he has been used to. And what is the use of having money if we do not use it to make ourselves happy?'

While entirely agreeing with this sentiment, Henrietta could not help wondering what had become of Sally's hopes that Cedric would take over the management of her business interests. Too tactful to refer to these, she asked instead how they had gone on at Melton Mowbray.

‘Oh, well enough,' Sally replied. ‘If it had not been so bitter cold. Poor Cedric had but one day's hunting all the time we were there, and if that was not bad enough, the friends of his we had asked cried off at the last moment — at the news of the frost, I imagine — so we were left high and dry with only each other to talk to. Let me tell you, Henrietta, that I find a honeymoon a grossly overrated institution. I like society, plenty of it, and so does Cedric. To shut us up alone together is almost cruelty. Why, it got so that he was falling asleep over his port after dinner while I shivered over the fire in the drawing room and pretended to entertain myself with
Childe Harold
until I could decently get myself warm in bed. If you will take my advice, Henrietta, when you marry Rivers you will take him on a round of bridal visits at once, where you may entertain yourselves with company and show off your trousseau at the same time.'

Henrietta was surprised and grieved at this speech. It was true, she had never thought that Cedric and Sally had very much in common besides a certain open good temper, but she had certainly not expected to see their marriage running into tedium so soon.

She was silent for a moment, wondering what to say, and Sally went on. ‘Of course, I am a disapointment to Cedric. He bet Mark Stanmore a pony that he would have an heir before Ascot, and I fear he is to lose his money. I show no sign of breeding, and how should I when he sleeps all night over his port?'

To Henrietta's relief, these painful disclosures were interrupted by the arrival of Cedric himself, who greeted Henrietta warmly and told her he had just missed her at Marchmont House where he had been visiting his mother.

‘And I met that protégée of yours, Henrietta, like Caroline. I confess, she does you credit. She was talking away nineteen to the dozen. Making up for lost time, I suppose. But, what, pray,
does Rivers think of this charity of yours? Does he relish the idea of beginning married life with a daughter ready made?'

Everything in this speech grated on Henrietta's nerves. That Cedric, who knew perfectly well whose child Caroline was, should yet pretend, to her and to his wife, that she was Henrietta's protégée rather than his mother's was intolerable. And, besides, there was something about the tone of his reference to Rivers that she could not like.

‘You are mistaken, Cedric,' she said. ‘My father has already agreed, in the kindest of letters, that Caroline shall remain with him and Lady Marchmont. She will, I am sure, be the greatest comfort to them. As for Charles, I have not yet heard from him on the subject, but I rely entirely on his trust in me.'

‘I am glad to hear it,' said Cedric unpleasantly. ‘Otherwise you might perhaps be asking yourself how he will take your flirtations with his brother.'

‘My flirtations with Simon: Cedric, what in the world are you talking about?'

‘Only what all the world is, your constant escort by Simon Rivers. A cit, too, without a penny to bless himself with. I had thought you had more sense, Henrietta.'

She was angry now. ‘That is enough, Cedric. Simon is Charles' brother and has done me a brother's service these last months by keeping me company. I know that Charles will be as grateful to him as I am. And as for his being a cit, you are surely not to be scoffing at him for that. Sally will forgive me, I know, if I ask where else the money comes from with which you are now buying houses? Let us not start casting that kind of stone, Cedric, or who knows where we shall finish?'

Back at Marchmont House, Henrietta gave way for once to despair. All her world seemed out of joint. Charles was far away and, worse still, she was not sure that she wanted him any nearer. She had taken Cedric roundly to task for his remarks about her friendship with Simon, but was she, in fact, so sure that Charles would approve of it? If it had really become a subject for gossip, could she rely on him to take her part? But surely, she told herself, he could not look on her friendship with his own brother as another of the scrapes he had warned her against. She would not injure him by such a suspicion. Having come to this wise decision, she lay down on her bed and burst into tears.

She was roused by Rose tapping on her door with a message
from Lady Marchmont. Caroline, who had been fretful and ailing for some days with a chill caught, Henrietta feared, on their skating expedition, had taken a turn for the worse. Hurrying to her room, Henrietta found Lady Marchmont bending anxiously over the little bed, on which Caroline tossed and turned in the grip of a raging fever. Always emotional, Lady Marchmont had given way already to complete despair and it was Henrietta who sent for the doctor and gave the orders necessary to turn the child's bedroom into a sickroom.

The doctor, when he came, was gloomy. The child, he said, was still too frail to withstand the fever that shook her. It was only a question of days, of hours perhaps … He shook his head sadly and murmured something to himself about a ‘merciful dispensation.' Fortunately, Lady Marchmont, sobbing by the bed, did not hear him, but Henrietta did, and led him to the door with a sudden, fierce courtesy that reminded him formidably of her father. Having got rid of him, she rolled up her sleeves and sent for Rose, whose red eyes showed that they were already mourning for Caroline in the servants' hall.

‘Nonsense,' said Henrietta, in answer to her first lachrymose remark. ‘It is merely a question of nursing.' And she sent her off with a list of commissions beginning with Dr. James' powders and ending with hot bricks and water gruel. That done, she managed to persuade Lady Marchmont to go to bed and prepared, herself, to sit up all night with the child.

Morning brought little comfort. Caroline had slept fitfully, Henrietta hardly at all, fearing that the child might uncover herself in her restless tossings and leave the bitter night air to administer the
coup de grâce
. Lady Marchmont's early appearance in the sickroom did more harm than good. She would do nothing but sob over the child's bed, convinced, apparently, that this illness was somehow the result of her own neglect. Inevitably, her tears were the signal for Caroline's. At last Henrietta banished her entirely and arranged that she and Rose, who was proving a tower of strength, should take turns to nurse and sit up with the child. Three days passed like this, days in which Henrietta seemed cut off from the world. It was, in a way, restful. Below, in the garden, snow still lay white on the ground. The cold remained intense and one of Henrietta's main anxieties was to keep the room warm enough, since it was almost impossible to keep Caroline covered through her spells of restless delirium.

From time to time, Lady Marchmont would come whispering to the door, with enquiries for the invalid and news of the world outside. Genuinely racked with anxiety for the child, she had yet not found it quite possible to give up her social round. After all, as she explained to Henrietta, one of them must make an appearance in society. Too busy to comment, even to herself, Henrietta simply agreed and listened passively while Lady Marchmont detailed her morning callers. One name, she noticed, was oddly absent. Where was Simon? She had been sure he would call the morning after their skating party to enquire after Caroline. But several days had passed, and still Lady Marchmont had not mentioned him. Was this, perhaps, because he was practically a member of the family — his name not worth mentioning? On the fourth morning of Caroline's illness, she asked, as casually as she could, if Lady Marchmont had not seen him.

‘Why, no, not this age,' was the answer. ‘Have you contrived to affront him, Henrietta? I confess I had begun to think he was here a little too often, but I have missed him strangely these last few days. I had not quite noticed how we had got in the way of giving him commissions.'

‘Well then,' said Henrietta with an attempt at philosophy, ‘perhaps he is grown tired of running our errands.' But she found herself oddly restless all day and amazed Rose by nearly losing her temper when Caroline spilled her gruel.

That was the day when Caroline, about whom Henrietta had secretly almost despaired, took a visible turn for the better. The results, for her nurses, were not altogether happy. In danger of her life, she had tossed and turned, slept and waked, muttered deliriously and slept again. Nursing her had been a matter, in the main, of mere physical endurance. Now, with the first return of strength and consciousness, she was fretful, restless and in need of constant entertainment. Too tired, almost, to think, Henrietta found this the greatest strain of all and turned hopefully to Lady Marchmont for help.