AllFreeNovel
Share Us
The two ladies were silenced.
“I let him go. Jilted him.”
“Butwhy, dear?” Connie said plaintively. “I thought you were getting along so well. You are not going to worry about your lack of dowry, I hope, because—”
“Not that, no. I could not do it… it was impossible… Oh, Connie, Itrickedhim into it, and he has been so good, but he does not want it, not in the least, and so I… I set him free.”
“Oh dear,” Mrs Ambleside said, her pleasant face creased with distress.
“Well, that is… I must say, I… oh dear,” Connie said. “Tricked him, Eloise?”
“It was a point of dispute between us as to whether he was a true gentleman or not,” she confessed, twisting the handkerchief restlessly between her hands. “I said he was not, he said he was and set out to prove it. But anyone mightappearto be a gentleman. It is so superficial, is it not? The simple courtesies… how could I know if he were truly honourable, or only trying to impress me? So I tricked him into offering for me, imagining, naturally, that he would find some excuse to back away. But he didnot!”Her voice rose almost to a wail. “He is everything that is good and generous and gentlemanly, but Icannotforce him to marry me. It would be unforgivable. And so I have set him free.”
“And now you are miserable,” Connie said.
“Of course I am miserable! I have done a dreadful thing, and my conscience has been tormenting me for weeks. But I have set it right, and done what had to be done, and he is free now, and need think about me no more, and at least my conscience is clear at last, and I shall be better directly.”
“When you have stopped crying,” Connie said.
“Yes,” she wailed. “When I have stopped crying!”
But most of all, when she had stopped loving him. And that would be never. What a fool she was.
~~~~~
JULY
Will drifted through the days in a fog of disbelief. How could she do this to him? It was beyond his comprehension. All his pleasant dreams of life at Orchard House, of a charming wife, of children… gone, all gone. It had never been anything but an illusion, had he but known it. She had never liked him, never wanted to marry him, never cared tuppence for him or his family. He could scarcely believe it.
Somehow, he dragged himself out of bed each morning, got dressed, ate breakfast, went about the duties of the day. Then there were the evenings — dinners, card parties, balls, happy people all around him. He noticed none of it. He supposed he conducted rational conversations, and he danced occasionally, but afterwards he could not say with whom or what had been said.
The family closed ranks protectively around him. Only to Pa did he reveal the terrible truth of Eloise’s rejection. The girls knew only that he had been jilted, and not the humiliating reason for it. They wept piteously over his loss, and grieved for the new sister who had been snatched away from them.
It did not help that there were two weddings at this time. The first was that of Miss Barantine, she of the pretty little dog, to the elder Tranter brother, held in St George’s Church, Hanover Square, in the presence of a boisterous congregation come from Ireland to celebrate. Then there was the journey to Hertfordshire to watch Julia, her face alight with joy, united with James Plummer. Their happiness only served to bring home to Will his own misery, and if it had not been for the wretched vouchers for Almack’s, he would have been all for taking off for Yorkshire, far, far away from Eloise and the memories.
But to the heat of London they were to go once more, and more particularly to Almack’s, where they found the rooms half empty, as many of the great families had already decamped for the summer. Will thought it a dull place, the dancing sedate, the refreshments paltry and the company subdued. Or perhaps that was no more than a reflection of his own mood.
When they got home, Pa had waited up to hear all about it, but after half an hour of Stepmother’s raptures, he had had enough and dispatched the ladies upstairs to bed.
“Come and have a brandy with me, Will,” he said, ushering him into his office. “Pour me a large one, will you, and then we can settle down while you tell me what you’re going to do about Miss Whittleton.”
“There is nothing to be done about it, Pa.” Will’s hand shook a little as he passed his father a glass. “She has no wish to marry me, and that is all there is to say on the matter.”
“But you’re unhappy about it.”
“Of courseI am unhappy about it! I had this foolish dream of contented married life… children, Pa. Believe it or not, I was looking forward to having children. But she properly bamboozled me. Lord, what a pudding-head I was, to be taken in by her lies! I should have followed my first instinct, and kept clear of her. She never, ever intended to marry me. It was all a sham, the whole thing. What a take-in!”
“You know, it’s a strange thing, Will, but when she first caught you in her snare, you weren’t angry about that at all. You said as plain as plain that you didn’t want to marry her, but you weren’t raging about it. Not like you are now.”
“So?”
“Well, it seems to me that you always wanted to marry her. You were a bit put out that she trapped you into it, maybe, but not about the actual betrothal. And now, you’re hurt and upset that she’s been lying to you all this time, but mostly you’re unhappy because you wanted to marry her and now you can’t. Because you’re in love with the girl.”
“Of course not! What a foolish idea,” Will said crossly. “There’s not an iota of sense in a notion like that.” A long pause. “No, it is ridiculous. Quite ridiculous.” Another long pause, then in a small voice he added, “I just wish I could stop hurting inside. It is as if she is squeezing my heart, Pa, and I cannot imagine how I am to get through the rest of my life without her.”
“You will,” Pa said quietly. “Trust me, the pain never quite goes away but it becomes more bearable after a while.”
“You are talking about Ma, I suppose.”
