The Indian Maiden Page 5

  But Grandfather had been forced to leave his homeland because of poverty, and so remembered those gentlemen with an aura of grace and graciousness that only envy could have gilded them with. For she didn’t find them so beguiling. But then, she thought, suppressing the thought even as it arose as it so often did in the depths of night, like some leviathan from the unplumbed bottoms of her mind, she wouldn’t, since love, marriage, and all it entailed was not for her, could not be for her, no matter if Grandfather had sent her to the heights of Olympus rather than to the countryside of England to seek a mate.

  But she shouldn’t disappoint him. That was poor payment for one who’d cared enough to take her to live with him those years ago, rescuing her from out the noisy, rancorous, frightening battlefield that had been her parents’ keeping. No, she owed him far more than that. If she were a better girl, she often thought when in her deepest desponds, she’d marry just to suit him, no matter the sorrow to herself. She’d been tempted to do so many a time and would have done long since if it were not for the outsize terror that arose in her at the very thought.

  At the least, she sighed, twisting her coverlets in her tossing until her bed looked as though it had been furrowed and plowed for a spring planting, she ought to have seen it out until a decent time had elapsed before returning home, as she’d agreed. She oughtn’t, she knew, just like her countryman had cautioned, have given up the ship. And she was too honest to elude the damning suspicion that it was possible she’d known all that, but had gone ahead and ended it all anyway at the first opportunity and on the merest pretext, in the quickest, most selfish, convenient way possible.

  Faith was so disappointed in herself that when she finally heard the faint tapping on her door above her stifled sobs, and thought for one moment that it might be all the assembled company come, bearing torches, to escort her to the town limits, she didn’t blame them in the least.

  She finally managed to sit up and whisper “Come in.” When the tapping went on, she slid down from her high bed and crept to the door and cracked it a slit open. Lady Mary stood before her, shifting from foot to foot, her worried face seeming to float in a blurred nimbus of candlelight.

  “Oh do let me in, Faith dear,” she whispered, her breath causing the candle to dance and throw violent shadows across her lovely face and the wall behind her. “I dread being discovered out here in the hall, but I have to see you.”

  “I don’t know why you should want to,” Faith said on a sniffle. But she drew the door wide and Lady Mary came hurrying in, looking very like one of the ancestral spirits Faith was most anxious not to meet, with her long white dressing gown floating after her, almost catching in the door she closed quickly behind her.

  “Oh dear,” Lady Mary said, as she placed the candlestick on a dressing table. “Does that mean you won’t forgive me either?”

  Faith had wandered back to her bed, and was in the process of climbing up to sit on the side of it when her hostess’s words stopped her in mid-motion.

  “Forgive you?” she asked, turning her head and staring at the blond girl. “What in heaven’s name is there to forgive you for? I’m the one who’s thoroughly disgraced herself. I ought never to have spoken as I did, and I tell you right now, Mary, I’m ashamed. But you needn’t worry, I’ll be ready to leave for home on the first fair tide ... and Will doesn’t have to come with me either.”

  “Oh no,” the other girl wailed in distress before she clapped her hand over her mouth and whispered, “Indeed Faith, that’s why I came here tonight. Father said he’d have a word with you in the morning, and Mama is so angry at Lord Greyville that he’s been allowed to stay on with us only because the only way she could get to bed was by telling him his apology was accepted. That and the fact,” she mused, “that Father went to school with his father. But it will be dreadful if you don’t accept our apologies—it will be unthinkable. Oh Faith, please, it will all be forgotten in a day if you stay on, but if you leave us, Mama says we will look so ... gauche, ah, no account, do you see?”

  “I understand ‘gauche,’ ” Faith said wryly.

  “I’ve done it again, haven’t I?” Lady Mary sighed. “It’s only that I’ve tried and am trying to take such special care with you, Faith. I’ve never known any other Americans, except you and Will, and he,” and here she paused and even in the inconstant light, Faith imagined she could see the other girl blush rosily, “is actually English, you know. It’s simpler with French people,” she explained sadly, “because they’re so foreign, and you can always blame everything on their not understanding, but in your case, you do understand, and are so much the same as we are, but very different too.”

  “I have the same problem,” Faith replied, and hopping down from the side of the bed again, she came over to Lady Mary and said, with the first real warmth she’d felt for hours, “And I’m not angry at anyone, truly, except myself. And,” she smiled, for the other girl looked so woebegone and defenseless in her white gown with her fair curls worn loose and tumbling down her back that Faith remembered she was three whole years her hostess’s senior, and that eighteen was, or at least seemed to be in the case of English girls, or perhaps only this particular English girl, still very young, “I’ll stay on, of course, and gladly, if you can assure me that you all truly want me to.”

  Mary blurted in amazement, “Of course we do, how can you doubt it? But when you went rushing out of the room without a word, we feared we’d mortally insulted you. The War, you know. It never ought to have been mentioned. Is it,” she asked hesitantly, “was it,” she stammered, “oh I don’t know whether you think it proper that I ask, but had you ... lost someone dear to you in the confrontation?”

  “Oh. No. It wasn’t pleasant, of course, to know we were at war, and there was a scare when all the militia came to town because we’d heard we were going to be invaded. I was frightened then. But no, we were lucky. Grandfather was likely too old to join, even if he’d wanted to, my father was down in Virginia and only in a civilian patrol, and I’ve no brothers or uncles. No,” Faith repeated, adding, since it seemed her hostess was still uneasy, “and it isn’t rude to ask me that.”

  “Oh,” Lady Mary said, and then very quickly, as though she hoped to get the words out before she thought better of them, she said, “It’s only that, you see, I’d thought perhaps that’s why you’d never married, and that, you see, what Lord Greyville said upset you so much because it brought all of it, and ... him, whoever he was, back to you,” and having said this in a rush, she hung her head.

  “Oh,” Faith said softly, “that’s lovely. But I’m afraid you’ve read too many novels. Or perhaps I haven’t read enough.” She laughed, feeling closer to her hostess for the first time since they’d met, but then, she realized suddenly, they’d never had such an informal chat, nor even had time alone together since that day. “No, there’s no ‘he,’ and likely never will be. You see, I don’t want to marry, that’s why I’m not wed.”

  But now the other girl’s eyes opened wide and she stepped back a pace, stumbling against a chair, and by catching onto its side, she unthinkingly backed herself into it. Then she stared up at Faith, and asked, with a certain amount of absolute incredulity coloring the shock in her voice, “Never wed? But Faith, whatever else will you do? I don’t know about America, but here, if you don’t marry, you dwindle to nothing. No, really. You have no home, unless it’s with your father or your husband. If you can’t get a husband, when you grow old and your parents are gone, you must live with a relative and make yourself useful, as it’s not likely you’ll ever have any fortune. Females seldom inherit, you know; your money usually comes to you in a settlement when you wed. No, there’s no place for a woman alone here. Whatever do you do in America if you aren’t married?”

  Faith hesitated. This was difficult. Though she’d thought the problem through logically time and again, it was never easy to explain. None of her friends who were already wedded agreed. Grandfather refused to believe it, which was why sh
e was here. And she’d tried to explain it to Will forever, but he simply didn’t comprehend at all.

  “It’s not a great deal different in America,” Faith began, but then said impatiently, “Well, no, it’s not different at all, yet. But it will be. No, truly, because we pride ourselves on being daring and modern in all our ideas, at least, we aren’t quite so ... rigid in our customs as you are here. That is to say, and I’ve discussed this with my grandfather at length, someday I hope to help him run the family business. Ah, there, you see? You’re horrified, I can see it in your face. But there’s one whopping big difference between us right there, for we see nothing wrong with trade, and since I’ve come here I’ve noticed that you don’t think any gentleperson should engage in it. But at home, we think everyone should, and if they make a great deal of money, well, more to their credit. Here, you don’t even like to talk about how you make your fortunes at all.

  “Though I have noticed,” Faith continued on a smile, as she paced in front of Lady Mary like a lecturer, “that everyone whispers about how much money they think the other fellow’s got.”

  Lady Mary smiled at that too, remembering the hushed conferences one so often overheard among the mamas and dowagers at every social occasion as they rated prospective suitors by their birth, appearance, and funds, although not necessarily in that order.

  “I’ve a head for business. My grandfather is in shipping and trade, and I find it fascinating. He has a colliery, part ownership in several vessels, both river-and ocean-going, and deals in tobacco and cotton going to Europe, and china and linen coming from it. And he has no son, only my mama, who doesn’t care for money in the least, she only likes to spend it.”

  Here both girls grinned, and then laughed together, thinking of similar females they both knew. As they laughed, Lady Mary thought with wonder at how nice Faith actually was, not at all alien or prickly as she’d thought she was until now, and Faith thought all at once about how sweet young Mary was, not a bit stiff or excessively mannered as she’d believed her to be all this time.

  “My father’s in business, too, but he lives down in Virginia,” Faith said quickly, “and hasn’t the slightest interest in anything but his plantation and his crops. So who’s to carry on the family trade? Will’s a partner, and Grandfather has others. But who will carry on in the family tradition? Well, I think I will.

  “Because,” she said at last, coming to the hardest part, “I don’t care to marry. My parents, you see, dislike each other enormously. They haven’t lived together for years. And for all he talks of marriage, I note Grandfather has been content to live a widower since before I was born. So why,” Faith asked militantly, “should I wish to be told what to do, to be ordered about, and to spend my entire life at someone else’s beck and call?

  “After all,” Faith insisted, wheeling about, hands on her hips, facing Lady Mary as though the girl were accusing her instead of sitting wide-eyed listening to what appeared to be her idea of blasphemy, “you were right. It may not be easy to remain unwed in either of our countries. But why should I spend my youth obeying my father, my adulthood obeying my husband, and then likely my dotage obeying my children? When then, should I be able to do what I choose?”

  Since this was unanswerable, since indeed the entire concept was so ... yes, Lady Mary thought dazedly, revolutionary, she could not speak at once. But looking at Faith, who stood waiting for a reply, and seeing how her eyes flashed even in the unreliable candlelight and how her long straight hair gleamed when it caught that unsteady glow, even bound as it was in its single bedtime braid, and how her nightshift drifted against her as she spun around, outlining her high breasts against her graceful, slender form, Lady Mary (who had read quite a few novels) said only, rather pitiably, as though she was holding on for dear life to the one sure thing she knew even as she’d hold on to a raft in a raging floodtide, “But what about love?”

  “Ah,” said Faith.

  After a moment, when her words were carefully chosen, she said thoughtfully, “I’m sure it’s delightful. I’ve never been ‘in’ love, and I daresay if I were, I’d wish to marry. But,” she said at once, as Lady Mary began to grin in triumph, “I firmly believe that one doesn’t ‘fall’ in love, as one falls into a pit, or a hole in the street, all unawares. One has to want to be in love, or need to be, to feel love for someone. Only look at all the old bachelors this old world holds! I don’t see them tripping about, ‘falling’ in love, or apologizing for having not done so. No, they’re far too concerned with their own comforts to be susceptible. And as I don’t wish to love anyone either, I don’t think that will be a problem.”

  “My nurse,” Lady Mary giggled, “would say you’ve just dared the elves. She always told me to never say ‘never,’ since there are elves that live in cracks in the ceiling who listen to you and take you up at your word. She’d say that now you’ve guaranteed that you’ll fall in love with the first fellow you see when you leave the room.”

  “Good heavens,” Faith gasped in great mock horror. “And with the way my luck’s been running, I’ll wager it will be Charlie Bryant!”

  At that, both girls began laughing, for Bryant was a houseguest and though as well blooded as a brood stallion and twice as high on his own high horse, he was famous for having almost as long a nose as one of those fine steeds, and absolutely no chin at all. After they’d shushed each other for making so much din at such an advanced hour, and then promptly went off into more fits of smothered laughter, they smiled at each other. For though Lady Mary was more than a little shocked by her outspoken American guest, and Faith thought her hostess charming but more childlike than was good for her, each thought she’d found a good friend. The late hour, the shared laughter and stealth had united them.

  And so when Lady Mary finally crept off to her chambers, with Faith keeping watch at her own door and barely suppressing her giggles when Mary stubbed her toe and hopped a pace, Lady Mary thought that though a great deal of what her American guest had said was absolutely terrifying and certainly seditious, it was, like everything else about her new friend, interesting, nonetheless.

  And Faith, tumbling into her bed at last, and noting that it had begun to feel like her own bed at last, and moreover that now she hadn’t the slightest desire to dampen that pillow with so much as one tear, thought that in all, Lady Mary was a very good sort of girl, and perhaps this visit wouldn’t be as onerous as she’d believed.

  But before sleep could come, Faith felt a twinge, because she hadn’t been completely candid with her hostess. She’d told her the bare facts, of course. But since she was basically a straightforward person, she wondered drowsily as she sank into sleep whether she ought to have mentioned certain details. Such as, for example, the reason for her own name. And that the reason there had never been a “Hope” or “Prudence,” “Clemency,” or “Charity” to keep her company in the nursery as her parents had originally planned was because they seldom could get together in a bedroom without fighting for long enough to have produced one. Except of course, for that one time Faith knew of, but that, she thought suddenly, coming stark awake in distress as she always did at the thought, was foolishness, since it wasn’t for anyone else to hear, know, or think about. Even herself, she decided.

  As for those elves of Lady Mary’s, Faith thought, the late hour and her own weariness calming her and helping her to store away untidy thoughts that sometimes came slipping out of closets where they’d been safely locked when she was too weary to take care which doors she opened in her mind, why, she didn’t believe in spirit. She’d stay the summer here in England and she’d do the pretty with the gentlemen, and then she’d go home, heart-whole and whole-heartedly, to take up a useful life. And she’d leave no languishing suitors behind her either.

  She’d already decided to pass her time with gentlemen who were no more serious or susceptible than herself. That way she could keep to the letter of her agreement with Grandfather and not harm anyone in the process. There were enough fo
olish young lordlings to tarry with here, and when their company palled, there was Will to confide in, and the Earl of Methley for humor and spice. That languid gentleman seemed to take nothing seriously, and if he had a heart that did more than lazily pump blue blood through his lanky frame, she’d be very much surprised.

  When her last conscious thought of the night came—and with it, the vision of dappled sunlight and the scent of pines, for it was an image of the dashing gentleman the noblemen at the house party had called the Viking—she smiled. Though admittedly, his presence had been oddly disturbing, unlike the lusty fellows that name they’d given him implied, he’d seemed more intent on warning her to behave properly than set on ravishment.

  Perhaps, she smiled into her pillow as the feathers in it winged her away across the night, they ought to have called him the Missionary instead.

  The gentleman drew his dressing gown more closely together about his naked form and belted it around himself. Then he smiled, on a yawn, and picking up a crystal decanter, raised it and a tawny brow as well at his unexpected visitor.

  “No,” he yawned again, even as he poured out two glasses, “unfortunately you have not interrupted anything. This is the countryside, remember, sir. This is Stonecrop Hall. When I go to my chambers here, my bed is just as chilly and empty as my ancestral halls are at this hour of the night. It’s odd, I grant you, but when I’m in residence in London where there are several hundred people I know and wish to avoid, I can take whomever or even whatever I choose to my bed because it is the City, and I’m not as likely to be remarked upon. But here, where my nearest neighbors are pheasants, I repair to solitary sheets, to preserve,” he grimaced, “my good name.”

  Then he grinned as he presented a glass to his visitor, who was already seated at his ease in the library, and taking a twin goblet to his own lips, he drank before settling in an adjacent chair near the newly laid fire.