Marry in Haste (7 page)

“Well,” said Camilla thoughtfully, “I suppose it is not really so much worse than marrying a governess. But, tell me, how far did they get?”

“Not too far, by God’s mercy, though far enough in all conscience. Lavenham was in Portugal at the time, so it fell to my lot to rise from a sickbed and pursue them on their very inefficient way to Gretna. Luckily, the young man was a fool of the first water and all their arrangements went awry. By the time I caught up with them I think poor Chloe was positively glad to see me. She has never spoken of him since. That was six months ago, and we told her that a further year at school must be her penance. I think when you return from Portugal will be time enough for you to meet her.”

Camilla could not help but be sorry for the motherless girl, who, had had, she suspected, all too little of thought or affection from either her brother or her grandmother, but she had learned that, when Lady Leominster spoke with that touch of finality, it was best to let a subject drop, and therefore did so, only resolving that, if she could not contrive to meet Chloe before she left, she would at least enter into a correspondence with her. She had learned the direction of her school and kept hoping for an opportunity to go there, greatly daring, and visit her without consulting either Lavenham or his grandmother, but the press of work was too great, the day came for their move to Haverford, and the opportunity had still not arisen.

It was an oddly assorted quartet that set forward in two travelling carriages for Haverford Hall. Camilla’s father was resplendent in gleaming new buckskins and topcoat that she shrewdly suspected her betrothed had paid for, and was more Gallic than ever in his flowery attentions to her and to Lady Leominster. In some ways, it was a relief to find she was to drive down with him, while Lavenham escorted his grandmother. At least he would not be troubling them with his airs and graces, but nevertheless, she could not repress an illogical pang of disappointment. It had been absurd to hope that Lavenham would accompany her, but she had done so just the same, and had counted more than she had quite realised on this time alone with him to allay some of the doubts and fears that tormented her. Instead, she had to listen for the intolerable length of the journey to her father’s enthusiastic congratulations on her good fortune—and his. In the course of his long and exclamatory monologue it came out that Lavenham had undertaken to make him a small allowance—on condition that he kept away from the gaming tables. Camilla did not know whether to be more touched at this instance of Lavenham’s thoughtfulness or amused at the ungrounded optimism that made him believe her father’s asseverations that he would never touch another pair of dice. She would as easily believe him if he told her he would never draw another breath. Still, it was clear from a slight bitterness in his tone that the allowance was so tied up that it would be impossible for him to anticipate it. At least it should help to safeguard him from blackguards like M. Mireille, who, she was relieved to learn, had indeed packed up and left at once for France. But here, too, was matter for a slight pang. To have been so nearly in touch with her long-lost, dimly remembered older brother and then to have had nothing come of it was a sad blow. But the fact remained that he was only dimly remembered—and he had thrown in his lot with Bonaparte. Perhaps, after all, it was best this way. If peace ever came, which seemed unlikely, it would be time enough to resume relations with him.

At Haverford Hall, as in London, she was too busy for thought. Lady Leominster, after a volley of horrified exclamations at the state of the house, turned to with a will to plan its renovation. And Camilla must be consulted about everything. If she suspected that this was a device of the old lady’s to keep her, as she had done in London, too busy for thought, she was, in the main, grateful. The die was cast. What was the use of thinking? Instead, she must decide which paper should be hung in the dining room, and whether the curtains there should be of green-or rose-coloured brocade. She must decide the colour scheme of her own suite of apartments, which Lady Leominster intended entirely to remodel: “We’ll have no memories of his mother lingering there to haunt Lavenham,” she explained, when Camilla protested at the expense. This was a silencer. Impossible to suggest to the old lady that the chances of Lavenham’s ever visiting these apartments were remote indeed.

As their wedding day drew relentlessly near, he seemed more and more a courteous stranger. Considering her in everything, he nevertheless contrived really to talk to her about nothing. They might, she thought in despairing tears one night, be the merest of chance acquaintances, not a couple who were to marry in two days. And, as so often before, she pulled herself up, dried her tears angrily, turned over the pillow, and composed herself for sleep with the thought that they were indeed mere acquaintances, and likely to remain so. Since this did not, somehow, prove conducive to slumber, she made herself, instead, catalogue the items of her trousseau, which despite the speed at which it had been assembled, overwhelmed her by its richness and variety. But not even the enumeration of silks and gauzes proved soporific, and it was with a tear still trembling on one eyelid that she fell asleep, at last—to dream, maddeningly, of Lavenham.

She woke to something like panic. Tomorrow was her wedding day. They were to be married early in the morning, then leave at once for the long journey to Falmouth. By spending one night in Exeter, they would break the journey and reach Falmouth in time to go aboard their ship the evening before she sailed. It all seemed too near, too soon; in short, impossible. And yet to retreat was equally impossible; she was caught, a helpless prisoner in the web of Lady Leominster’s kindness. The certainty that this was exactly what Lady Leominster had intended made no difference. She had gone too far, now, to turn back; she must go through with her mad bargain.

But it was with an aching head and a pale face that she joined the others at breakfast. Lady Leominster looked at her sharply, said nothing, and presently engaged her grandson to drive her out to pay a morning call on Mrs. Cummerton. “I will not go so far as to invite her to your wedding, my love,” she told Camilla, “but I warrant you I’ll silence her effectively enough without.”

At last, it seemed, Camilla was to be allowed thinking time, though whether, at this late date, she really wanted it was another question. Anyway, the formidable dowager soon took care of her. “Camilla, my love, you look pale this rooming. Perhaps you would do me a kindness and yourself a benefit by taking a message to Forbes for me? Your father, I know, will accompany you.”

Since Forbes, the bailiff, had a cottage at the farthest end of the estate, this would have entailed a ride of several miles there and back, but soon after Lady Leominster and her grandson had left, Forbes appeared in person and Camilla was able to give him the message. This done, and her father having vanished with scarce concealed relief to the billiard room, where he would, she knew, spend the rest of the morning pushing the balls about and betting left hand against right, Camilla found herself alone indeed. At once she knew that it was the last thing she wanted. She prowled about the house, trying to think of anything but tomorrow, and it was with a sensation of pure relief that she saw a dusty hired carriage turn into the drive and come to an awkward stop at the front door. She had been half-heartedly considering colours for the drawing-room curtains; now she stood and unashamedly watched as an untidy postilion let down the steps. A golden-haired girl in a maroon travelling dress bounced out of the carriage, said something to the man, hurried towards the house, and vanished into the front entrance.

Camilla had hardly time to wonder who she could be, arriving thus unheralded and, it seemed, unaccompanied, when Marston, the butler, appeared, looking even more melancholy than usual. After apologising for disturbing her, he came quickly to the point. “Here is Lady Chloe arrived, Miss Forest, in a hired chaise, and wants the man paid off, and my lord out, and my lady too. I am sure I don’t know what to do for the best.”

“Why, pay the man of course, as Lady Chloe tells you,” said Camilla with an assumption of authority that surprised herself. “And bring her in here to me.”

This further instruction, however, proved unnecessary, for Lady Chloe had followed the man and now stood hesitating in the doorway, a look of mixed fright and amusement on her exquisite face. Why, Camilla found herself wondering as she went forward to greet her, had no one thought to tell her that her future sister-in-law was a beauty? The explanation flashed into her mind almost as soon as the question. For Chloe Lavenham’s golden ringlets, exquisite pink and white complexion, and huge blue eyes must proclaim her, for all the world to see, her errant mother’s child. The less said about it, perhaps, the better. She was tiny, too, and had to reach up to plant an impulsive kiss on Camilla’s cheek.

“I
knew
I should like you,” she said. “You are not going to give me a scold, are you?”

Camilla laughed as she returned the kiss and temporised. “That must depend,” she said, “on what you have been doing.”

“Why, nothing so very dreadful,” said Chloe, taking off her bonnet and gloves and throwing them on a chair. “And, besides, it serves Lavenham right for trying to keep me away from his wedding. It was perfectly bone-headed of him to think I would stay virtuously minding my book at such a time. You do not mind my coming, do you?”

“Of course not: I have been longing to meet you.” And then, aware that Lavenham and his grandmother might think her sadly lacking in firmness, she changed her tone. “But I trust you have at least your school mistress’s permission to come, if not your brother’s?”

Chloe threw back her head in a fit of delighted—and delightful—laughter. “Permission,” she crowed. “I should just about think I had. I am not only permitted to leave, but most earnestly entreated not to return. I told Lavenham I’d make him regret it if he left me mewed up with those old women much longer. I am seventeen, you know,” she confided. “All my friends are being presented, and I must stay muddling over French verbs and the pianoforte. Well, I have taken care of that now: the old cats will not have me back even if Lavenham goes on bended knees to them—which, mark you, he is quite incapable of doing.”

“Oh dear.” Camilla could see trouble ahead. “Have you done something so very dreadful?”

“Of course not. Do not look so grave: I have been in enough trouble already as I have no doubt they have told you: I do not wish for more. No, no, I took the most particular pains to make it something the old pussies could not forgive—and Lavenham could not mind too much: it was only what he had taught me anyway.”

“What was?”

“Why, the composition they gave me to write. It was a punishment, of course, for whispering in church: I was to write about what religion means to me. Well, I told them right enough, just what Lavenham has said to me, all about enlightened self-interest and the church being a bogey to frighten children. No, no, they will not have me back, and I do not see how Lavenham can be so
v
e
ry
angry.” But her voice shook a little, and Camilla, recognising fright, put out an impulsive hand to her. “Never mind,” she said, “I will stand your friend, and truly I am glad to have you here for my wedding.”

Just the same, it was two visibly frightened girls who greeted Lavenham and Lady Leominster on their return. And the scene that followed amply justified their fears. But it was over at last, and, as Lavenham said, if Chloe had indeed been turned out bag and baggage, there was not much to be done about it. “But, in your mighty contriving,” he turned on her with a renewal of anger, “what do you propose to do with yourself after you have graced mv wedding? Perhaps you are not aware that I leave for Portugal tomorrow.”

“Oh, I did not know.” Chloe’s face fell.

“Exactly! You did not know. Now, you had best go on bended knees to your grandmother to ask for house room in St. James’s Square, for I am most certainly not going to leave you here alone with Cousin Harriet to get into what scrapes you please.”

It was clear to Camilla that this proposal was equally unwelcome to both the parties concerned, nor did she wonder at it. Lady Leominster was too old to go much into society and too selfish to change her habits for the sake of a young visitor. And Chloe visibly thought that this would be but to exchange one form of servitude for another. Camilla let the unenthusiastic discussion dwindle towards deadlock before she intervened.

“May I propose another plan?” she said. “Could not Chloe come with us? I am sure I should be glad of her company, Lavenham, when you are away, as you tell me you will often have to be.” She felt herself colouring at her own temerity, but was rewarded by a quick kiss from Chloe: “I
knew
you would stand my friend. Oh, Lavenham, do, do let me come. I will behave like an angel and not give you or Camilla a moment’s anxiety, I promise it, cross my heart.”

Lavenham laughed. “For you to talk about keeping out of trouble, puss, is like a fish planning to live on dry land, but to have your promise that you will try is something, I suppose.”

Since Lady Leominster warmly seconded this plan, all obstacles to it were quickly dealt with, and indeed Camilla soon began to suspect that after his first doubts Lavenham himself had come to greet this breaking-up of their tete-a-tete existence with considerable relief. For herself, she was not sure what to think, only that there was nothing else she could have done.

Certainly Chloe’s presence added a gaiety that had hitherto been lacking in the wedding preparations, and her warm sympathy carried Camilla through the trying hours, while the extra preparations entailed by her joining the travelling party kept everyone too busy for thought. It was Chloe, of course, who helped Camilla dress for her wedding, exclaiming in dismay at the simple dove-coloured travelling dress she had chosen and then keeping up such a stream of chatter about what
she
would wear when her turn came that Camilla had hardly time to be frightened. Chloe talked all the way to the village church and only paused, at last, to give Camilla a little reassuring pat on the shoulder and say, “You look like an angel.” She reached up to pinch Camilla’s cheeks in an attempt to bring some colour into them and added, “A rather frightened angel, but there’s no need for it. Lavenham’s bark is much worse than his bite, I tell you, and I should know.”

And with these encouraging words ringing in her ears, Camilla took her father’s arm and started up the aisle to meet her husband.