Come Be My Love Read online

  said of it, in my mind I had decided that was where they would go for their wedding trip. I even decided when they would return and the number and sex of their children, all such machinations increasing my despondency, while, since I could never speak of it, Sydney decided living in the country to be the cause.

  "It is hard to survive twelve miles from a lemon. The charm of London is that you are never glad or sorry for ten minutes together, whereas in the country you are one or the other for at least a fortnight, and you, Alexandra, are very definitely the other."

  "I'm an ungrateful wretch to be moping around this way after all you've done for me."

  "There is a rule here at Combe Florey that everyone has the right to be what she wants to be. So mope away if you feel so inclined. Throw yourself into it, enjoy it!"

  Paul arrived one day to see Sydney, not expecting to find me but relieved when he did.

  "Was it so awful, Paul, that day at St. Mary's?" I asked after we settled down together on our own.

  "Well, it wasn't exactly comfortable. I counted nine times that the organist played 'O Perfect Love' until either he or the organ or both gave out. Everyone tried not to look in the direction of Lady Poindexter. She was all alone in the Bladen pew. I don't know what happened to Darius, for he was sup­posed to be there. And then Eugenia said in that piercing whisper of hers, heard all over the church, 'Surely she hasn't done it again!' Father didn't appear. He was either still wait­ing or off searching for you with Mr. Linnell. Mother, of course, became hysterical, but luckily dear Dolores was next to her and able to comfort her—I can't imagine where we all would have been without her. Howard, at least, looked cheered. I suppose he rather liked having company in being jilted by you—no offence meant, Alex—and anyway he was awfully impressed by Geoffrey, so I bet he thought it was good company. Actually I was impressed by Geoffrey, though I hadn't been up until then. He stood by the altar all that time, his face quite expressionless but calm, and when the music stopped, he turned around to the congregation and said in the most normal voice imaginable, as though being left at the altar were an everyday occurrence, 'I'm famished, and even though it appears there's not going to be a wedding, I can't see any reason why all that good food should go to waste. May I suggest we indulge our appetites.' And he did just that—he ate like a hungry bear and had everyone in gales of laughter. Of course, I must admit we were all so tense that it was a relief to laugh, and we laughed at the merest trifles, but that doesn't detract from his admirable conduct. I took him for a petulant, spoilt boy but he seemed to grow up before my eyes."

  "And father?" I asked hesitantly.

  "Father is father. You know, whatever he says, he means well."

  "Yes, I know. Well, at least I'm glad that Geoffrey is all right."

  Yet I was not, and I knew why I was not. Writing had been my cure before and it should be again, I decided, and asked Sydney for paper and pens, which he willingly supplied, giving me, along with them, the use of his desk at his favourite bay window.

  "My only admonitions are to write immediately after breakfast, for no one is conceited before one o'clock, and be sure to put your pen through every other word you write. There's nothing like it for imparting vigour to style."

  An hour later found me without a word on paper—no, that was hardly true, for I had written many, many words in that hour, but not merely content with striking out every other one as Sydney had instructed, I had become completely dissat­isfied with every one of them. Each page had in turn been crumpled up and flung into the fireplace or, I should say, in the direction of the fireplace, for most of them surrounded the hearth like so many snowballs, which Bucephalus, as dejected as myself, refused to retrieve. I had just landed one dead cen­tre in the middle of the grate and was feeling more elated about that than anything else I had done that morning when Sydney came in.

  "I'm sorry to interrupt you, for I can see you have been performing most vigorously, but you have a visitor who will not wait even to please the muse."

  Bucephalus was up, wagging his tail in sudden excite­ment, and was off down the hall, barking, but my eyes were fixed on the gentleman shown in by Sydney.

  "Father!" My confusion caused me to flush and grow pale at the very same time. "Oh, father!"

  I waited for his admonition, the berating I knew to be my due, but he said nothing; he only held out his arms to me and I threw myself into them.

  "Father! Father! I'm sorry, really I am. I simply couldn't marry him, that's all. I've been so afraid you'd never forgive me, at least not again."

  I could never remember father holding me to him as he did then. After hugging me, he pulled away, saying gruffly, "Well, that's enough of that. I'm glad to find you well, Alexandra."

  "How's mother?"

  "She's had her usual number of hysterical bouts—I rather think she enjoys them—but she's very well now she knows you're all right."

  "But how did you know? I was too ashamed to write."

  "Bladen told us."

  "Darius?"

  "Yes, he came down after the furor had subsided, and I went back to London with him. He introduced me to Lady Brentwood, a fine lady even though she is a Whig, and very hospitable she was though in the midst of preparations for her own wedding. She told me you had come north with Mr. Smith."

  "I'm very sorry, father, about—about everything. I don't deserve to be forgiven a second time, and I know it must have been worse than before because everyone was there waiting. I just couldn't face it, that's all."

  "I don't deny it was awkward, but the young man de­ported himself better on that occasion than on any other in my brief acquaintance with him. For a brief moment I almost regretted he would not be my son-in-law."

  "Almost regretted!" I repeated, "But I thought you wanted me to marry him, that that was why you agreed to that outrageous settlement."

  "I don't deny I want you to marry—I still do—but I knew that marriage was not right for you. He's interesting, amusing, but he'd never have been able to handle you."

  I turned to him, dreading his response. "And you have another prospect for my hand?"

  "I do, and I've come for that purpose. I want to see you settled, Alexandra, once and for all."

  My heart sank. Would things never change?

  I heard Bucephalus scraping at the door and, letting him in, I vented my anger on his excitement. "Down, Bucephalus! Oh, get down, do!"

  I took hold of his collar but he would not be still, pulling me, instead, across the room to the french windows. There I received my second and greater shock of the morning, for ad­miring Mrs. Smith's bed of petunias was—

  "Darius!"

  His name escaped from my lips with such force that, even though he was some distance from the window and deep in conversation with Sydney, he turned and started towards the house as I began running towards him.

  "What are you doing here? I thought you must be in Italy by now."

  "Italy?" He looked puzzled, and I realized that I alone had decided that that was where he and Althea would spend their honeymoon.

  "Is Althea here?" I asked.

  "No, she should be in Paris by now."

  "In Paris? On her own?"

  "Of course not. She has her husband with her."

  "Her husband! But I thought that you . . . that she . . ."

  The puzzlement cleared from his face. "Surely you didn't think that Althea was marrying me! What on earth gave you that idea?"

  "Geoffrey told me so—that day you came to Maplethorpe. He said it was all arranged."

  "The machinations of that dear cousin of mine! Althea married Harry Caxton. She had known him for ages—he was a friend of Lord Brentwood. I'm sure you met him at Holland House. He's a fine man."

  And Darius went on to describe Harry Caxton, and I nodded, even though I couldn't remember him at all but just because I was so relieved.

  "I've seen Geoffrey a few days ago. We talked at some length," Darius went on thoughtfully. "He's changed, Ale
x, and I do believe that we understand each other better now than we ever have. Of course, being Geoffrey, he'll be dining out on his almost-wedding for months to come. He's terribly amusing about it, though I suspect some of his humour comes from an absurd and unwarranted feeling of inadequacy. He told me that he had had a lengthy discussion with his mother on the way back from Wiltshire, and at his request, she has made concessions—she has agreed to allow him more money, yet what is better, more responsibility in the handling of the estate. In return he is giving up his acquaintance with Wil­mott, who had a terribly bad influence upon him. But what I think pleased him most was her admission that she had always wanted him to be like—to be someone he was not. She agreed that she had been wrong, that she would accept him as he is, remembering his fine qualities and not dwelling on his short­comings. I think their relationship has changed. I think, too, that he is only just beginning to realize what a very fortunate and gifted fellow he is."

  I bent down to pluck a dandelion and held it up against my palm. The yellow petals didn't shine the way those of the buttercup used to on Crumpet's chin, but I shouldn't mention him, not then at least. Instead I said, "I had a long talk with father, Darius, and he has forgiven me."

  "I've had a long talk with him, too. In fact it's the first time I've spent any length of time with him, and strange as it may seem, both he and I were amazed to find the number of things we do agree on, Tory and Whig though we be."

  "He's picked someone else out for me," I blurted out.

  "Yes, I know." *

  "But I can't, Darius, I can't and I won't marry to please father. I know I owe him a debt of gratitude for standing by me after all I've done, but to accede now—why, I might just as well have taken Howard Ramsey and have done with it."

  Darius grew thoughtful. "But I understood, at the time that you preferred me to Howard Ramsey," he said slowly.

  I turned in bewilderment. "You!"

  "Perhaps it was presumptuous of me to speak to your father—after all, you had already rejected my suit once be­fore—yet I still think, as I did then, that we need one another."

  "You—you mean father meant you," I repeated.

  "Yes. I went back to see him after I left you at Orchard Street. I asked for your hand and he agreed, but I had thought he would say nothing until I had spoken to you. I wanted to know your mind first. Had I known you were irrevocably fixed on your single state it was better left unsaid, though if you wish to continue to write—and I urge you to do so—in view of all that has happened, you could more freely do so as my wife."

  It was too good to be true, and yet, perversely, it was not put to me as I would have had it.

  "That is sensible and kind, Darius, but both you and father overlook the need I have to love—and to be loved." Convulsively I turned the dandelion round and round in my hands as I spoke, watching the twirling of its petals. "I love you, Darius, I always have and I expect I always shall, but I know you love Philomena, and though Althea might have been willing to share you with a ghost, I am not."

  "Do you mean that!" He caught hold of my arm and then lifted my chin until I raised my eyes to his. "Do you really mean that, about loving me that way?"

  His eyes searched mine as he continued, "It's not a sort of hero worship, is it, Alex? I must warn you I'm a very real, a very human man. And I'm no hero. It was one reason I liked Althea, because she knew that. Philomena never did. She saw me as something I never was, a sort of knight in shining ar­mour—I think I was supposed to be off killing dragons or fight­ing tournaments for the privilege of wearing her ribbon or whatever it was knights did in the courts of love—worship from afar. I don't know which of us she placed higher on a pedestal, but there we were, together but separate, frozen in place. As far as she was capable of loving any man, she may have loved me, but I petrified her on our wedding night and she never wanted me to touch her again. I was bewildered—I tried patience, impatience, kindness, anger, all to no avail against her tears and recriminations, and at last I left her alone. She was, as I think you will agree, captivatingly beauti­ful, utterly charming, she was even affectionate until away from her social milieu, where more was desired than a smile or a tap of her fan. Then she became as cold as marble, horrified that her body might be touched, sullied—I believe the very thought of congress was defiling to her.

  "She was drawn to Geoffrey, for they were very much alike—both young, charming, handsome, willful—but his will was the stronger of the two. He forced her to submit to him, and for that I hated him—it was an act of malice, not one of passion, and Philomena, with all her faults, was not deserving of such treatment. She was silly and shallow, yes, but pri­marily because she was a spoilt child who never grew up and who never wanted to grow up. I gave up hope of ever chang­ing her, and the marriage I had entered into so blissfully be­came, for me at least, an unmitigated disaster of which I have detested any reminder. Philomena, once she was assured I would leave her alone, enjoyed it, for it afforded her the pro­tection she needed to play her games without having to pay the piper, but she was to discover, to her distress, that Geoffrey didn't play the game by her rules.

  "For my part I grew horribly bitter, and it was Althea who changed all that. I welcomed her warmth, her response, even though she knew I wasn't in love with her. She made me feel wanted, made me feel alive again. I threw myself into my career, swearing, after Philomena's death, never to marry again. When you offered yourself to me that day at Charteris,

  I was still of such a mind. Then you disappeared and I knew I loved you and it was too late."

  "No, Darius, no, it isn't too late for us."

  "Alex, you once accused me of not knowing what love is, but I believe now that I do—it's not that immature infatuation I felt for Philomena, nor the passion I had for Althea. It is deep and caring—caring for the well-being of another, respect­ing her, wanting to be with her, to hold her, to make love to her in all passion and to be content, satisfied, once that love-making is done. I know that I love you, Alex, and yet I am troubled by your love for me."

  "But why?"

  "Geoffrey said you had made me the hero of your novels, that is what troubles me. A long time ago I told you, though not then knowing you to be the author, that the hero of that first book was too perfect. I'm not perfect, Alex, not by a long shot; I'm only too human, and that is how I love you, not in a divine but in a human, imperfect way."

  "Oh, Darius, I love you, I've always loved you, but never more than I do at this moment. Geoffrey was right when he recognized you as the hero of my novels, but if you find too much perfection there, I should remind you that you are also the hero of my poems—Love's Breath is about us."

  I don't know how much later it was, after an intermina­ble blending of kisses, one following another, each more insis­tent, more demanding, more satisfying than the last, each of which I never wished to end, each arousing in me the passion I had known on that night we had been together, arousing, I knew, that same passion in Darius, that I heard a snuffle, which multiplied to become, before we could bring ourselves to relinquish one another, a positive paroxysm of coughing.

  "I often say that marriage resembles nothing so much as a pair of shears, so joined as not to be separated, devilishly pun­ishing anyone who comes between, so I suppose I take my life in my hands by announcing to you that lunch is ready."

  Darius tucked one arm through mine, the other through Sydney's, replying as we made our way back to the rectory, "We thank you, Sydney, as a man of the cloth, for overlooking that the intimacy of our embrace just now occurred before taking the vows of matrimony which sanction it, vows I was about to search you out to administer."

  "Nothing gives me greater delight in my calling than per­forming that sacrament where I personally believe it most fit­ting, and have, I might add, ever since I first saw you two together. As for overlooking the intimacy I just interrupted, I would remind you that there are not, as so many people will have it, three sexes—men, women, and clergymen—
but that parsonages are peopled with chubby children by exactly the same passions as are other households!"

  So it was that almost a decade after I had fallen in love with him, in the village church in the parish of Foston, I was united in marriage by Reverend Sydney Smith, under the ap­proving eyes of my father, attended by Dolores, Paul's be­trothed, with Paul acting as best man, to Darius Wentworth, sixth baron of Bladen.