Through a Glass Darkly: A Novel (13 page)

   "Yes. Here I am."

   There was a silence. Carlyle pulled at the diamond in his ear.

   "Oh, very well," he said, pursing his lips and sighing. "I have been bad; I admit it. Tell me I am an atrocious, meddling gossip and be done with it."

   "You are an atrocious, meddling gossip."

   "Very good, Roger! You almost hurt me! Well, what have I done? Are the proceedings with the Lady Diana quite, quite ruined?"

   Roger smiled and sipped his brandy. Eyes narrowed, Carlyle watched him.

   "You have been drinking alone," he said slowly. "You are sad? Disillusioned? No? It must be Diana. Rumor has it you saw her today—that is it! You saw her and met the daughter and now you must drink alone tonight to solace yourself. No! Do not speak. Let me finish my scene—I am enjoying it so! The girl is a horror—buck–toothed, sway-backed, spavined. And you, my fastidious one, are comforting yourself tonight only with the thought of all that lovely land she brings as her dowry. Never mind. Marry her. Bed her once—twice if you must—then lock her away and do as you please! It is what most married men do anyway!" Smirking at his own wit, he summoned a waiter to bring him a glass.

   "I am going to marry the girl, Tommy," Roger said. He spoke quickly, softly, maliciously. "And I am drinking tonight—alone—because when I first saw her today, it was as if Richard himself were walking toward me in all his youth and glory. For a moment, I found myself struck to the heart. In truth I did, Tommy. Even tonight I am affected by it." And he raised his hands above the table and held them out. They trembled slightly. He put them back on the table.

   Carlyle stared at him, his rouged mouth open, his face sagging with surprise. Roger laughed aloud at his expression. The sound of his laughter floated above the roar of songs and other laughter. Several groups of people glanced toward the alcove, smiling to themselves at its sound.

   "Good God! Are you in love?"

   Roger shrugged, his handsome face grimacing. "The girl has the look of her grandfather. I admired him more than any man I have ever known. I loved him, as everyone did who knew him. If we marry, I shall have children of Richard's to comfort me in my approaching old age."

   "Not to mention two hundred acres of the best land left in London!"

   "Not to mention that."

   "There is more," Carlyle said dramatically, putting one of his huge, clumsy hands over his heart. "I feel it. No! Do not deny it, Roger. Tell me you have fallen madly in love."

   Roger shook his head, amused rather than irritated by Carlyle's theatrics. Tomorrow, he knew, various rounds of this conversation would be repeated in the coffeehouses, and by evening in the drawing rooms. It was inevitable.

   "All I know," Carlyle was saying, "is that I must see this vision for myself. Not that I will. Diana despises me. When is the happy bridal?"

   "I leave that to the lawyers and my prospective bride's family. I simply want the affair settled before I go to France so that I may leave some instructions with my bankers. I would like to start building roads by spring—"

   "France! Roads! Spring! Do stop and explain yourself, dear boy. You will leave this treasure behind? A honeymoon in France would be quite romantic."

   "I am too old for romance. And she is only a child. She can wait. The regent has invited me to Carnival, and I find myself yearning to see Paris, and to visit the homes of my friends there. And Italy beckons. Burlington has just come from there. He says the villas are magnificent. I want to build the most beautiful house London has ever seen. Before Burlington does."

   "Then you ought to know that one hears Lady Saylor has had the land surveyed."

   Roger had been relaxed in his chair. Now he straightened up. Several different emotions chased themselves quickly across his face. Carlyle waited with interest; he loved to watch Roger's face.

   Finally Roger said slowly, choosing his words with care, "Lady Saylor, no doubt, interests herself in her family's welfare. It is certainly too bad that her interest does not spread itself to opening her home to her sister–in–law and niece when they are in reduced circumstances."

   "Very well put! I could not have phrased it better myself."

   "But you will!"

   "Of course, dear one."

* * *

   "Why does he not call on me?" Barbara cried for the tenth time to her mother. Diana was sitting near the window to catch some unexpected morning sun. Her store of money was far too small. Abigail's generosity made no mark against her pressing debts. Her creditors were like hounds on the scent of blood, and she paid them just enough to hold the most vicious of them at bay. Yet when her lawyers brought the marriage proposals, she rejected them as though she had all the time in the world. She was haggling over every penny in every portion and jointure with the desperation of someone who knows this may be her last chance. Just now, she was totaling again what amount would keep her in the style to which she was accustomed. She looked up from those figures to Barbara's dancing, impatient one.

   "Take a piece of advice from me," she said coldly. "Learn to wait. It is a woman's lot. You are the furthest thing in the world from his mind at this moment. You may always be. If you learn that now, you will save yourself much grief later on."

   Barbara tossed her head. She would not listen to her mother. Outside the window, Covent Garden was readying itself for the coming twelve days of Christmas, England's greatest holiday other than Easter. The market baskets were filled with Christmas greenery, with yellow pears and red apples and different kinds of nuts (to be given to guests and carolers and as presents to children), with logs (called Christmas blocks or yule logs, to burn in fireplaces on Christmas Eve and turn the night into day as a celebration of the Lord Jesus' birth). At Tamworth, the church choir would be practicing carols. Vicar Latchrod would be a sight, pursing his lips and waving his arms and finally pulling off his wig and stamping on it if the choir should sing too off-key (as it usually did). Grandmama, thought Barbara, staring out the window, Grandmama and Harry and Tom and Kit and Anne and Charlotte and Baby…. The names were a litany against homesickness and her mother's miserliness and her own impatience and the fact that Roger had not called again.

   But he did call on them unexpectedly, and Barbara was beside herself with happiness. Diana, watching her scamper about the parlor, frowned. The parlor was cold. She was cold. The words flung at Abigail were coming back to haunt her. She did need her family, their support…their money. Despite Roger's generosity in the settlements, she would still not have enough money to live on. The debts on Kit's estate were too enormous; they ate into the income she had expected to give to herself. Roger had agreed to pay off these debts, but neither he nor Diana had realized their total. He was settling stock on Diana and Harry, as well as giving Barbara a quarterly allowance and jointure at his death. It was more than generous. And it was not enough. Her own allowance and jointure were long ago spent. It would take Harry years of careful management to recreate it out of the estate. And the other children must be provided for. She was going to have to live with relatives or remarry or find a rich patron. Of the three, only remarriage offered any security. But it would be the hardest to achieve. She could only do it if her divorce was granted; but then she would have to surmount the obstacle of the divorce and having no money to bring to the marriage. She needed this proposed marriage of Barbara and Roger's to make her every extra penny she could squeeze out of Roger's lawyers.

* * *

   Roger settled the fur rags about their legs. There were warm bricks to put their feet upon and extra cushions to lean against. He had thought of all the comforts. Barbara watched every move he made: the quick, sure, lean grace of his movements, the way his eyes crinkled at the corners when he smiled, the way he cocked his head as he listened. She did not know when she might see him again. They rattled through the narrow, crooked streets; she with her window shade rolled up, Roger beside her, pointing out the sights, the Guild Hall here, the Royal Exchange there, all rebuilt since the great fire of 1666. Diana shivered under the fur throw and yawned.

   "This is my favorite building in London, St. Paul's Cathedral," said Roger, smiling at Barbara, who was watching him with her heart in her eyes. The carriage stopped and Barbara stepped out to see sweeping steps leading up to enormous white pillars that crowned the classical portico on the western front of the cathedral. Atop this portico, magnificent in its height and depth and carving, was a smaller portico no less magnificent for its smaller size. Each end of this front was flanked with columned towers. Everything was of white Portland stone, already graying from London's ever–present coal smoke. She walked into the deep porch. A vast door creaked open on one side and a priest of the Church of England bowed them inside. She blinked suddenly at the dimness, then began to blink again at the magnificence of marble, wood, gold, and space all about her. Roger introduced himself to the priest, and the man said he would send at once for the dean.

"No," said Roger. "I want my young friend to see this cathedral as anyone else would. Would you have the kindness and the time to show her some of it?" The priest, whose name was Father James, blushed and led them forward into the great, echoing vastness of the nave. Diana looked around her once, then sighed. Her glance flickered over Father James, then away.

   "The original church was almost completely destroyed in the great fire," Father James told Barbara. "As were three hundred ninety–five acres of the surrounding city." It had taken Sir Christopher Wren and his workmen thirty–five years—from 1675 to 1710—to finish this cathedral. Being as slow as a St. Paul's workman had become part of the vernacular. But the slowness had been worth it, for now the cathedral was the most beautiful sight in the landscape, its landmark the huge central dome topped with a forty–foot lantern and cross of gold that towered over all other buildings and church spires.

   Barbara drank in the dark, silent beauty of the church; Roger, watching her, smiled. Everything, the choir, the altar, the great soaring arches and huge columns, the intricate wood carvings of angels and fruit and flowers, the gilding, had only one purpose: to draw one's mind to an almighty and all–powerful God. She stood in the very center of the cathedral while Father James recited statistics: overall length, 513 feet; diameter of dome, 112 feet; height of dome to top of the cross, 365 feet; weight of lantern and cross, 700 tons. His words meant nothing; all that mattered were her feelings as she stared up, up, up into the center of the dome. Far above her was a gallery circling the bottom rim of the dome, then great windows, then a mural, then, at the dome's center, a small opening that led up into the lantern. On a sunny day, the light must pour in like God's divine blessing. Leaving her mother and Roger, she followed the priest through a doorway and then up and around a twisted and seemingly endless flight through a narrow, dark hallway and out onto the gallery circling the widest past of the dome. She looked down, down to the marble floor below her, to her mother and Roger, then up, past the tall windows, past the muted colors to the mural, up to the windows circling the topmost part of the lantern.

   "Stay where you are," Father James told her. "I will show you something special. Put your ear to the wall."

   She did as she was told. He walked around the gallery to a point directly opposite her. He put his lips against the wall and spoke quietly: She heard his every word: "O God the Father, creator of heaven and earth; have mercy upon us."

   He walked around to her again. "This is called the Whispering Gallery. Now you see why. Sound carries only in that way. If I had faced you from the other side and said the words, you would not have heard me."

"Well, Roger," said Diana below them, "we have come to a pretty pass when you take me to see a cathedral!"

   He laughed, and for a moment sunlight filtered in from the windows above and highlighted his face, with its striking cheekbones. He took Diana by the arm and led her toward one of the side chapels. They sat down in a wooden pew. After a moment, he reached into a pocket and pulled out some gold coins.

   "Out of funds again?" he said, an ironic look on his face. "Barbara ought not to be living so."

   "I will be the judge of that!" Diana snapped, taking the coins from him.

   "Go and stay with Abigail a while—"

   "She and I have quarreled."

   "When do you not? I understand there are some problems with the marriage contracts, Diana. Craven tells me that my terms, terms I thought you and I had both agreed to, keep coming back to him with new demands. And he, knowing I want Bentwoodes, agrees to each demand, only to have another one attached when the papers are sent to you." He looked at her. His face was hard. "I want Bentwoodes, Diana, but I will not be made a fool of. I have been more than generous with you—"

   "It is not my doing!" Diana exclaimed. She looked a Roger, her lovely violet eyes wide and sincere. "Truly, you must believe me, Roger. But Wilcoxen and Blight have been with my family for years. And they advise me not to give in too easily, to realize the potential value of the land, to—"

   "Realize the potential value of the land?" Roger cut in. "Phrases like that make me nervous. Who have you been talking to? Do you not understand that I will have to invest thousands before I 'realize' a penny from that land? That I am looking at ten years' work—perhaps twenty. Can you wait twenty years, Diana?"

   She looked away from him, looked at the lovely marble angel standing with folded wings above a tomb, the tomb of the person for whom the chapel had been built. She closed her eyes.

   "I want this settled before I leave for France, or I do not want it at all," Roger said, trying to see her face.

   She opened her eyes to the marble wreath of bay and rosemary that the angel was holding in her hands. "It will be," she said. "I promise."