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“How very agreeable,” she answered, momentarily at a loss for words. She recovered rapidly. “I hope I shall have the good fortune to meet him someday. He sounds quite delightful.”
Margaret looked as if she wanted to groan.
“I am afraid my opinion is hopelessly biased,” Rathbone said, excusing himself with a smile. He was actually extremely fond of his father. He liked him quite as much as anyone he knew. “Now I must not monopolize your time, Mrs. Ballinger. Miss Ballinger, I have greatly enjoyed your company, and I hope we shall meet again. Good evening.”
They replied appropriately and he turned and walked away, perhaps a little more rapidly than usual. In spite of his intellectual knowledge of what was happening, and why, and his wry amusement at it all, he still felt pursued, and only his certainty of escape kept the panic from welling up inside him.
He must not seem to be fleeing. It would hurt Margaret and be inexcusably rude. He should dance with at least three or four other young ladies, and perhaps one or two older ones, before he could decently leave.
An hour later he was preparing to excuse himself to Lady Hardesty and thank her for a delightful evening, when he found himself standing next to Zillah Lambert, who had just been left by a companion who had gone to seek refreshment for her. She looked flushed and happy, her skin glowing, her eyes bright.
“Good evening again, Miss Lambert,” he said politely. She really was a very charming girl.
“Good evening, Sir Oliver. Isn’t it a lovely ball?” She looked around at the sea of lace and tulle and silk, the blaze of lights, the laughter and the music and the sway and swirl of movement. “I wish everyone could be as happy as I am.”
He felt acutely awkward. He knew that almost all of her joy rested in her engagement to Melville, and she obviously had not even the slightest idea that his feeling was utterly different. What to her was a prospect of excitement and unshadowed delight was to him a prison closing in, so unbearable he would risk social ruin—and very probably financial and professional ruin also—rather than endure it.
Why? There had to be far more to it than he had told Rathbone. Was Zillah really completely different from the way she seemed?
He looked at her again. She was certainly comely enough to please any man, and yet not so beautiful as to be vain or spoiled because of it. If she was extravagant, she would probably bring a dowry with her which would more than offset that. And her nature seemed most agreeable.
“You must meet Mr. Melville, Sir Oliver,” she was saying enthusiastically. “I am sure you would like him. Everybody does, or nearly everybody. I would not wish to give the impression he is so obliging as to be without character or opinion. He certainly is not.”
“You are very fond of him, aren’t you?” he said gently.
“Oh yes!” She seemed to radiate her happiness. “I think I am the most fortunate woman in England, if not the world. He is everything I could wish. I have never felt so extremely at ease in anyone’s company, and yet at the same time so invigorated in thought and so filled with the awareness of being on the brink of the greatest adventure life has to offer.” There was not a shadow of doubt in her. “We shall be the envy of everyone in London for the blessings of our lives together. I know he will make me a perfect husband, and I shall do everything I can think of to please him and make him proud of me. I wish that never in all the years we shall live together should he even for an hour regret that he chose me.” She looked at him with wide, soft eyes filled with hope and trust.
Suddenly, like a hand clenching inside him, he understood Melville’s fear. It was unbearable to think of being responsible for so much in the life of another human being, one who sees you not as the fallible, sometimes self-conscious, sometimes weary and frightened creature that you are, just as frail as they, but as some kind of cross between a genius and a saint, whose every thought bears examination and whose every act will be both wise and kind. One could never relax, never admit to weakness or doubt, never simply lose one’s temper or confess terror, failure or despair. What intolerable loneliness! And yet a loneliness without privacy.
Was she aware of the intimate facts of life? Looking at her bright innocence, and knowing a little of the tragic lives of some of his clients, he thought very possibly not. And even if she was, could any man live up to her expectations?
His own skin broke out in a prickle of sweat as he placed himself in Melville’s situation for a moment. Now he understood only too sharply why the young architect could not bear it. With Delphine Lambert engineering everything, her clever, prying eyes seeing every fleeting expression of her daughter’s face, nothing he said or did would go unknown. He could not ever fail in decent privacy.
And it had been arrogant of Rathbone to imagine he could not have found himself in the same position. He was at least twelve or fifteen years older than Melville, if not more. And yet he had been neatly enough maneuvered by Mrs. Ballinger.
“I imagine you will be very happy, Miss Lambert,” he said awkwardly. “I certainly hope you will. But …”
She looked at him without the slightest comprehension. “But what, Sir Oliver? Can you doubt my good fortune? You would not, if you knew Killian, I promise you.”
What could he possibly say to be even barely honest? What should he say to her? Melville had asked Rathbone to defend him in court, should the need arise, not to conduct any negotiations to break the engagement. He might change his mind. It might simply be the sort of nervousness many people experience before marriage.
“But nothing, Miss Lambert,” he said, shaking his head. “Perhaps I merely envy you. I wish you every joy. Good evening.” And before he could find himself any further embroiled, he took his leave and made his way towards Lady Hardesty.
The following day Rathbone sent Melville a message saying that on further consideration he had changed his mind, and if Melville should, after all, find himself sued for breach of promise, Rathbone would be willing to represent him. Although he feared it would be a most difficult case, and his change was not based upon any alteration in his belief that the chances of success were very small. Still, he would do his best.
2
WHILE THE THOUGHT of her had crossed Rathbone’s mind during Lady Hardesty’s ball, Hester Latterly herself was sitting quietly in the room she had been given for her accommodation during her stay in the elegant house at the northwest corner of Tavistock Square. It was the house of Lieutenant Gabriel Sheldon and his new young wife, Perdita. Lieutenant Sheldon had served honorably in the army in India. He had survived the hideous Mutiny, the siege of Cawnpore, and been one of the few survivors of that atrocity. He had remained in India afterwards, only to fall victim to appalling injuries just over two years later, in the winter of 1859–60. He had lost an arm, been severely disfigured, and at first was not expected to live.
By January his partial recovery was deemed sufficient for him to be shipped home to England and invalided out of the service. However, he was far from well enough to manage without skilled nursing, and the damage done to the skin and flesh of his face was such that it required a particular sensitivity, as well as medical knowledge of and experience with such wounds, to care for him. The stump of his arm was also far from satisfactory. The wound still was raw in places and not entirely free from infection. Even the danger of gangrene could not yet be disregarded.
Perdita Sheldon had been young and pretty and full of high spirits when her handsome husband of a few months had been obliged to return to his regiment and departed for India in the late autumn of 1856. She had wanted to go with him, but she had been newly with child and not at all well. She had miscarried in the spring. And then in 1857 the unimaginable had happened. The native sepoys had mutinied, and the revolt had spread like wildfire. Men, women and children were massacred. The tales that reached England were almost too monstrous to be believed. Daily, almost hourly, people rushed to read the latest news of the besieged cities of Cawnpore and Lucknow, the battles that raged across the country. The names of Nena Sahib, Koer Singh, Tanteea Topee, and the Ranee of Jhansi became familiar to everyone’s lips. For two years the continent of India seethed with inconceivable violence. The question of whether Perdita Sheldon, or any other woman, should leave England to go there did not arise.
When it was over and calm had been restored once more, nothing could ever be the same again. The trust was shattered forever. Gabriel Sheldon was still on active service with his regiment, mostly in the rugged country of the northwest, near the borders of the Khyber Pass, leading through the Himalayas into Afghanistan. Perdita remained in England, dreaming of the day he would come back and she could once again have the life he had promised her, and which she had equally promised him.
The man who did return was unrecognizable to her either in body or in spirit. He was wounded too deeply, broken too far to pretend, and she had not the faintest idea even how to understand, let alone to help. She felt as abandoned as he did, confused and asked to bear a burden heavier than anything her life had designed her to face.
Hence Gabriel’s brother, Athol Sheldon, had engaged the best nurse he could find, through the agency of his excellent man of affairs, and Hester Latterly was installed in Tavistock Square to nurse Gabriel for as long as should prove necessary.
