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Chapter Fifteen
The quadrangle within the gate is in a better style of building, but rather distinguished by simplicity than grandeur; and the garden next the Thames, with many trees, serves to screen the mansion from those disagreeable objects which generally bound the shores of the river in this vast trading city.
Leigh Hunt (describing Northumberland House),
The Town: Its Memorable Characters and Events,
Vol.1, 1848
Clevedon took her into the garden. They were plainly visible from all the windows facing the quadrangle. It was the best place for a private conversation. Knowing that curious servants would be watching, he’d keep a proper distance from her.
Then he wouldn’t have her scent in his nostrils, in his head, weakening his mind and his resolve.
They stood in the center of the quadrangle, where several paths converged.
“I should never have agreed not to see you again,” he said. “I hadn’t considered how Lucie would take it.”
“Lucie isn’t your responsibility,” Noirot said.
“She had a shocking experience,” he said.
“Children are resilient. She’ll throw a few temper tantrums, as she does sometimes when she can’t get her way, but she’ll recover.”
“Does she commonly run away?”
“No, and it won’t happen again.”
“You can’t be sure,” he said. “It was a desperate thing to do. I don’t think she would have done it if she hadn’t been very deeply upset.”
“She was deeply upset at being thwarted,” Noirot said. “She knows the city streets are dangerous, but she was too furious with us to care about any rules or lectures—and Sarah, unfortunately, doesn’t know her well enough to recognize the signs of rebellion.”
She was as taut as a bowstring. She was tired, clearly, her face white and drawn. Relieved of fear for Lucie, she was probably feeling the fatigue she’d ignored. He’d better keep this short and to the point. She clearly wanted to be done with this conversation, and with him. She was shutting him out of her life and out of Lucie’s.
She was Lucie’s mother, but he knew that parents were not always right, and she was wrong to shut him out.
“I don’t think that’s enough,” he said.
“I think you ought to let me be the judge.”
He made himself say it. He saw no alternative. “When my mother and sister were killed,” he said, “I wanted my father.” He had to take a breath before continuing. He’d never spoken of his childhood miseries to anybody, even Clara, and it was harder than he’d supposed to talk of them now. “It was a carriage accident. He was drunk, and he drove them into a ditch. He lived. I was— I didn’t know how to cope. I was nine years old at the time. I was grief-stricken, as you’d expect. But terrified, too. Of what, I can’t say. I only recall how desperately I wanted him with me. But he sent me to live with my aunts, and he crawled into a bottle and drank himself to death. Everyone knew he was a drunkard. Everyone knew he’d killed my mother and sister. But I was too young to understand anything but that I needed him, and he’d abandoned me.”
He took another breath, collecting himself. “Lucie experienced something terrifying, and I don’t want her to feel I’ve abandoned her. I think we must make an exception for her. I think I ought to visit her, say, once a week, on Sunday.”
A long, long pause. Then, “No,” Noirot said, so calmly. She looked up at him, her pale countenance unreadable.
That was her card-playing countenance. Anger welled up. He’d told her what he’d told no one else, and she shut him out.
“You’re right,” she said, surprising him. “Lucie does need you. She’s frightened. She had a shocking experience. But it up to me to deal with it. You’ll visit her on Sundays, you say. For how long? You can’t do it forever. The more she sees of you, the more she’ll assume you belong to her. And leaving aside Lucie and her delusions, how much more heartache do you mean to cause Lady Clara? How much more public embarrassment? None of this would have happened, your grace—none of it—if you had stuck to your own kind.”
It was not very different from what he’d already told himself. He’d behaved badly, he knew. But he wanted to make it right. He’d confided in her, to make her understand.
The cold, quiet fury of her answer was the last thing he’d expected. His face burned as though she’d physically struck him.
Stung, he struck back. “You’re mighty concerned with Lady Clara’s feelings all of a sudden.”
She moved away and gave a short laugh. “I’m concerned with her wardrobe, your grace. When will you get that through your thick head?”
What was she saying, what was she saying? She’d turned to him when Lucie disappeared, and they’d searched together, sharing the same hopes and fears. He cared for that child and he cared for her, and she knew it. “Two nights ago you said you loved me,” he said.
