Time Squared, page 6
“Ackley Castle is just ahead,” her aunt said. “I wonder how much you’ll remember.”
Mrs. Crosby rapped on the roof of the carriage and the coachman stopped. When Eleanor leaned out the window, glad of some air, she saw the castle in the distance behind high walls. She remembered the building as immense but not as imposing as it appeared now. The tower at its centre was ancient, the remnants of a fortress still inhabited a thousand years after it was built. On either side were great wings added during the Restoration. Eleanor had the impression of endless windows and chimneys and a lawn sloping down to what must once have been a moat. Sheep wandered across it, erratic clouds on an emerald sky.
“There’s a passage in Pride and Prejudice,” her aunt said, “where Elizabeth Bennet claims that her love of Mr. Darcy came on so gradually, she hardly knew when it began. ‘But,’ she says, ‘I believe it must date from seeing his beautiful grounds at Pemberley.’”
“She was joking.”
“The author wasn’t. Miss Austen knew very well that it’s foolish to marry without money.”
Eleanor dared herself to say it. “Just as foolish as to marry without affection. Even the queen . . .”
“. . . married one of a small group of princelings sent her way by her uncle, the King of the Belgians. All of them Prussian, unfortunately.”
Her aunt rapped the roof and they drove on.
“Nerves, Eleanor,” she said. “I don’t really blame you. And, frankly, it doesn’t hurt Mr. Denholm to understand you’re not merely after his money. I’m sure so many girls have thrown themselves at his inheritance that the process has lost its appeal.”
“I wonder if that’s what made him so vain.”
“More likely his mother,” her aunt said. “She’s always doted on him.”
So they were going to have a frank discussion.
“Mr. Denholm was unkind about his mother when last we saw him,” Eleanor said.
“He has his faults,” her aunt replied. “I wonder who doesn’t. But you’ve made him fall in love with you . . .”
“I have!” Eleanor blushed violently. “I’m quite sure I haven’t! And that he hasn’t, or isn’t. We scarcely know one another.”
No more than she knew Captain Denholm, honesty reminded her. Eleanor looked aside, lost in the moment she fell into Robert Denholm’s deep grey eyes. She didn’t have the words to describe the warmth that had spread through her.
“I’m glad you’re going to listen to me,” her aunt said. “A successful marriage isn’t an accident. Nor, I’m afraid, can passion be counted on to last. Mark my words: happiness is a decision one takes, and I can see you and Mr. Denholm taking it. You’re alike in any number of ways. I wouldn’t ask you to marry a stupid man, no matter how great his fortune. But Edward Denholm is clever, as you’re very well aware.”
“Must we have this discussion?” Eleanor asked. “What are you telling me? That I have to marry him? Surely not. Not anymore. Please tell me you haven’t talked about this with Mr. Denholm. Or his father. Even worse.”
“It’s true he’s highly strung,” her aunt said, taking her hand. “A restless young man, and an impatient one. But I promise he’ll settle if you marry him.”
“At least you said if.”
“I meant when. He’s likely to ask you, my dear, and you will accept.”
“You’ve been planning this for a long time, haven’t you?”
Arguably from birth, when her mother had died. Eleanor took back her hand, feeling caught in the way things had been done for years. For centuries. Back at Goodwood, she’d accused her aunt of playing chess with Lady Anne. She’d been amused at the time but it shocked her now. Generations of young ladies being moved around like pawns, like marionettes. Her nightmare of being caught in strings. Nothing had changed. Not really.
“Permit me to take care of you, my dear,” Mrs. Crosby told her. “You’re affectionate, and he already fancies himself in love with you—he does, Eleanor—and everything else will follow. Especially since I know you’re not thinking of anyone else.”
It was a question. Eleanor blushed even more deeply, and her aunt’s eyes turned as sharp as scalpels. But speaking about Captain Denholm was impossible.
“I think,” Eleanor fumbled. “I think perhaps Kitty has grown to . . . that she likes Mr. Denholm. I thought it was his brother at first. But . . . now I think not. I think it’s him.”
Mrs. Crosby relaxed.
“So that’s why she was so firm in her mother’s assertion he has only eight thousand pounds a year. As if that would give her a better chance. I’m afraid she has no chance at all, my dear. You’re being in the way means nothing to her future, and it’s sweet of you—lovely—but you needn’t bridle yourself. The colonel would never permit his heir to marry a girl of small fortune. Nor, I’m afraid, would Edward Denholm even speak to Kitty if she wasn’t your friend.”
Finally hearing her aunt, Eleanor realized that she was going to marry Edward Denholm, not his brother—and now, in modern times, despite the happy choice made by their queen. The party had started and Eleanor couldn’t leave, incapable of running away like Julia Holmes, mistress of whomever.
“How much do you plan to give them with me?” she asked, feeling shockingly bitter.
“It depends how much the colonel requires.”
Her aunt pushed back a strand of Eleanor’s hair.
“Isn’t my daughter happily married to Mr. Whittaker?”
“Yes,” Eleanor whispered.
“Of course, you might prefer Stansfield Mowbray.”
“You said you wouldn’t marry me to a stupid man.”
“He’s not stupid, he’s dull,” her aunt said, trying to coax a smile before turning more serious. “I actually think more highly of Stansfield than you do. He may be a bit slow to come to a conclusion, but he gets there eventually. He also likes to do the right thing, which is an excellent quality in a husband. As long as one behaves oneself.”
It was another question, and Eleanor nodded mutely. Of course she’d behave. Her father had given her principles.
Seeing her capitulate, Mrs. Crosby moved away, letting her breathe.
“Once you’re engaged to Mr. Denholm,” she said companionably, “Stansfield will have to follow the same program of impinging on his acquaintance to find a wife. There’s really no one suitable in the neighbourhood. Except Kitty, of course. It’s a pity about incest. They’re actually rather well-suited.”
“Aunt!”
But Mrs. Crosby only smiled again, not seeming to notice the abrupt lurch of the carriage. Or perhaps it hadn’t lurched. It was only Eleanor’s world spinning further off its axis. When she looked outside, everything was the way it had always been. To her left was a high brick wall. Gateposts lay not far ahead. Beyond them was Mrs. Crosby’s estate.
5
Preston Hall had begun life as the ancient manor of a small Kentish lord. Her father had told her it would have been a loud, smoky, rumbustious place, the lord and his retainers cooking and sleeping among the livestock, horses stabled inside, chickens laying eggs in the corners, the great hall as much a barn as a palace.
Most medieval manors had disappeared centuries ago, burned down in chimney fires and raids. The central hall at Preston was a rare survivor, protected by a warren of rooms added over generations. Eleanor liked the way the rooms rambled one from the other, giving the house an eccentric but pleasing aspect, like a kindly old gentleman. An ancient gentleman, born before the Domesday Book was written.
Maybe even earlier. A year ago, Mrs. Crosby’s new steward had been repairing the cellars when a workman had dug up a small hoard of Roman coins. Digging deeper, the men had uncovered a lovely mosaic floor showing that the Hall had been built on a Roman site fifteen hundred years old.
Eleanor hadn’t seen the mosaic until now, standing on a scaffolding looking down at the pebbled portrait of a dark-haired lady, her bust shown against a pale circular background. The colours were still astonishingly vivid after fifteen hundred years. Glossy red apples floated around the dark-haired lady, each with a pair of green leaves fluting from its stem. Apples! Her aunt’s orchard was full of apples this very minute, new green fruit the size of a baby’s fist. According to her aunt’s steward, the Romans had brought them here from Syria.
“The house is a palimpsest,” Mr. Denholm said, standing beside her.
Eleanor kept her eyes on the apples. “I don’t know what that means.”
“It refers to an old vellum manuscript from which the writing has been erased and written over. Except that traces of the original writing remain.”
An intelligent man, it was true. Eleanor looked up.
“I often think of the way each second of our lives is erased as time flows forward,” she told him. “But of course what happens remains written on each of us. I suppose we’re like palimpsests ourselves.”
“Miss Crosby, you’re far too clever for me,” Mr. Denholm said, turning to his brother. “Isn’t she?”
Captain Denholm was the great surprise of Eleanor’s arrival. The two brothers had ridden over that morning with an invitation to an informal supper at Ackley Castle. When the captain had walked into her aunt’s sitting room, Eleanor felt her heart explode.
“Captain?” she’d said so stupidly that the brothers had laughed. It looked like a set joke, one they’d played on other neighbours. As they sat, Eleanor was relieved that her surprise had covered up her embarrassment at meeting Mr. Denholm, which was just as genuine as her shock at seeing the captain. She hardly knew what unsettled her more, meeting the brother she was supposed to marry or the one she wanted to.
Yet as they exchanged the usual civilities—their mother’s health, the Yorkshire hunt—Mr. Denholm proved to be in an odd mood. He paid more attention to his immaculate cuffs than he did to her aunt’s conversation, his smile an absentminded tic he called up when silences demanded it. He soon got up restlessly to stand by the window, only reluctantly accepting Mrs. Crosby’s suggestion that Eleanor show them the mosaic.
Now he’d called her far too clever. Far too clever for me: Eleanor didn’t miss the emphasis.
“I wonder if any of us can be too clever,” the captain said, looking embarrassed for his brother. “Not with life so unpredictable.”
“Yours, in any event,” Mr. Denholm replied.
“My brother refers to the fact I’m going to India,” the captain told Eleanor. “A few days’ leave and then I’m off.”
“India!” she cried, feeling caught in another explosion.
“I consider myself lucky. Our father served there for a decade . . .”
“A decade!”
“. . . an ensign when he sailed out with Lord Wellington—Colonel Wellesley, as he was then—and a colonel himself when he came back to fight Napoleon.”
“And he would have made general had he not inherited Ackley Castle,” Mr. Denholm said impatiently. “As he will no doubt tell you at supper.”
The mosaic lay in a deep cellar lit by flickering candles. Eleanor was happy it obscured her repeated shock. Yet when she caught the pained expression on Mr. Denholm’s face, she thought she understood, at least, the reason for his mood.
“You’ll miss your brother,” she said gently. “Although no doubt it’s a fine chance for the captain.”
“Thank you for enlightening me about my feelings,” Mr. Denholm replied.
“The posting is a bit of a surprise,” the captain said, stepping in, and shooting his brother a look. “Although a happy one, as you say.”
“I hope so. Given your long sacrifice. I mean of home.”
Mr. Denholm only grunted. So much for Mrs. Crosby’s bold prediction that he’d ask for her hand. Eleanor didn’t believe he loved her, and doubted he’d been hurt by her coolness when he’d left Yorkshire. More likely she’d wounded his vanity, and she didn’t care about anyone’s vanity. If it was inflated, it deserved to be punctured. But that didn’t make the visit any easier.
“My aunt plans to dig out the cellar,” she went on, not knowing what else to say. “Her steward says he can rebuild the exterior wall down to Roman level, and put in a row of high windows up there, you see, at ground level, to let in some light. Then she’ll hold a ball, and we can dance on floors that haven’t been trod in more than a millennium.”
“Ruining them,” Mr. Denholm said, with an unexpected tremor of feeling.
Eleanor felt out of her depth. “Why don’t we go back upstairs,” she said, “where it isn’t quite so gloomy? The lady’s used to being alone. I don’t think she’ll miss us.”
“The goddess,” Mr. Denholm said, as he led the way back up the stairs. “She’s likely a domestic goddess. That’s why they covered her with dirt, getting rid of her when the family converted to Christianity.”
“And you speak of me being too clever,” Eleanor said.
“Is this the way to the garden?” Mr. Denholm asked, opening a door at the top of the stairs. Without waiting for an answer, he walked outside.
* * *
It was a still day, warm for the season, and the humid air seemed to inhale the scent of the spring flowers; inhale and diffuse it so the air was indistinguishable from their perfume. Showing her aunt’s gardens, Eleanor thought this heaviness might be another reason for the odd tenor of their meeting. She was surprised to find the brothers in no hurry to leave, although they didn’t seem to want to be there, either. Even the captain seemed apathetic, and Eleanor fought faintness when she wasn’t a young lady who fainted. It was the strangest morning she’d ever spent.
“Are you well, Miss Crosby?” the observant Captain Denholm asked, walking beside her.
“It’s only the heat,” she said, pulling herself up. “It was cool when we left Yorkshire, and here the scent of flowers seems a bit loud.”
“Loud flowers,” Mr. Denholm said from behind her. “Are you secretly a poet, Miss Crosby?”
“I’m actually rather practical-minded,” Eleanor replied, aware that she never used to keep secrets from anyone. “You’ve seen my friend Catherine’s drawings, but as I think we’ve established, I only do accounts. Rather neatly; I will say that for myself.”
“It’s too bad your father didn’t push a little harder,” the captain said. “I can’t see any reason why ladies can’t become proficient at higher mathematics, at least the most clever among them.” He gave her a friendly smile. “It’s an elegant science.”
“Not loud?” his brother asked.
“Eight is a loud number,” Eleanor said. “Seven rather proud of itself.”
“And six a bit of a vixen,” Mr. Denholm said. “Rather like you.”
“Really, Mr. Denholm,” Eleanor said, turning on him. “I’ve been attempting to account for your rudeness, but quite honestly, I can’t.”
He had the grace to blush. Or perhaps he was flushing with anger. For a brief moment, Mr. Denholm met her eye and seemed ready to say something. Then he bowed abruptly and left, striding toward the stables for his horse, leaving Eleanor alone with the captain. That might have been her goal if she’d been capable of forming one.
“You’ll meet our father at supper,” Captain Denholm said, gazing after his brother. “Or renew the acquaintance. It’s not easy being his heir. I drew the long stick, being the second, and inclined toward the military.” After hesitating a moment, he said, “Perhaps you’ll show me the rest of the gardens, and I’ll have another corner of Kent to think about in the Punjab.”
With a little flutter, Eleanor wondered if he meant he’d think of her. She led the captain into Mrs. Crosby’s white garden, which she’d planted as a bride. Most of the plants remained green this early in the season. But there were beds of sweet white hyacinths, and the air was thick with their delicious caramelized scent.
“I was mistaken when you arrived in Yorkshire,” Eleanor said. “I believe I said that I thought you’d be a clergyman.” They exchanged a smile at her pertness. “But now you imply you’ve always been inclined toward the military.”
“From the time I was a lad,” he said. “Wishing to defend not so much my country as its quite exasperating people. Meaning my family, I suppose, but also the nation. Of course I speak affectionately.”
“Exasperating, are we?”
The captain—Robert, Robin—gave his easy companionable smile. He showed none of his brother’s vanity, or his readiness to take offense. He was dressed again in his thick brown coat, the wool far more practical than the elegant weave favoured by Mr. Denholm.
“I don’t mean to interrupt,” she said.
He shook his head. “What happened, you see, is that my father heard about a letter the Duke of Wellington wrote to a nephew. The duke had advised him to get a university education before entering the army. He said the nephew would learn soldiering when he got his commission, but at Cambridge he would, and I believe I’ve got the exact words, ‘get that education both of learning and of habit which you will never get again.’”
They left the gardens to follow a path around the fish pond, dammed from a creek with grilles placed at either end to contain the fish. The path continued at the far side under an archway of freshly greened trees, their shade still blooming with bluebells. All was silent save for the mutter and splash of the creek beside them. The birds were resting as it approached midday and the buzz of insects was muted. It was peaceful with Mr. Denholm gone. His brother was a far more restful companion, humorous and attentive, and handsome despite his casual clothes, not because of them.
