Daniel and Celeste were married quietly in St. Mary’s at three o’clock in the afternoon. Her father supported her down the aisle, and Beatrice and Hugh were witnesses. Mr. Tillingham was the only guest, his role being to look severely at the Professor from time to time. Hugh had urged that their aunt and uncle be present, but Daniel had been adamant that they not be told. Beatrice could see the dismay on Hugh’s face, and her heart ached at his distress. Daniel sent a telegram to his father, expecting a row, but was surprised to receive curt congratulations and notice of a substantial bank draft by return. As Beatrice heard Mr. Tillingham whisper to Hugh, while they filed into the church, his father’s relief must have overcome any scruple about such a sudden marriage.
Standing in the lofty old church, resplendent with polished brass and the scent of late chrysanthemums in tall vases, Beatrice was filled with a rare sense of peace, with a feeling that the world did come right sometimes. She looked at Hugh, with his serious face, standing so upright and listening hard so as to be ready when called to sign the register. She thought him like her father, but then was forced to acknowledge that her father had been less dependable, less upright. Her father had often been spontaneous to the point of damage. He had given up positions, changed apartments, and fired valets, all at the most inconvenient of moments. His final journey home had been no better considered than so many of his schemes.
She could not imagine Hugh Grange having any sudden schemes—and that seemed like a perfect quality in a man. As they each threw a small handful of rice at the bride and groom in the churchyard, she wondered if she would see more of him before he went away. She had seen no engagement notice in the papers yet, and this gave her a strange comfort, unearthing some warmth of feeling she had long ago decided to lock away. She would be resolute in damping any such longing as might disturb the life she had made. But as she threw rice at the bride, she allowed herself the hope that he might ask her to take a walk with him.
“I hope all goes well at Daniel’s hearing tomorrow,” she said as the bride and groom left in a hansom cab for the train to Hastings and the hotel suite that Daniel had arranged. He would bring his bride and his hotel bill direct to the morning’s hearing.
“So do I,” said Hugh. “If all is resolved, we will leave for France together on Monday morning.”
“France?” asked Beatrice, her heart constricting in her chest.
“We’re both bound for the front,” said Hugh. Beatrice felt ill. The front was no longer a grand adventure. Britain’s Expeditionary Force was being slowly decimated at Ypres as the opposing armies entrenched in a grim line across Flanders. The outcome of the war was no longer the rousing certainty so touted in the papers.
“I wish you Godspeed,” she said, as all her small hopes shriveled away in the enormity of his departure.
—
The hearing was over before it could start. In the rough hut used as the Colonel’s headquarters, Celeste’s beauty, in a sober dress and a new pair of white gloves from Beatrice, dazzled the Colonel and his small group of assembled officers. Daniel asked the Colonel’s blessing on his marriage, and the Colonel looked as relieved as a man reprieved at the scaffold. It would have been almost comical, thought Hugh, to have seen the Colonel try to conduct the hearing. It was surely a topic for which he would have had great difficulty uttering any of the words.
The young couple said their goodbyes on the parade ground, and many a soldier peering from the tents or passing by in formation wiped away a tear to see young lovers parted too soon by the regiment’s impending embarkation. Hugh was to accompany Celeste home, and Daniel asked him to convey the news of his marriage and his departure to their aunt and uncle.
“Ask them not to come to the station,” said Daniel. “I would not like to be discourteous to them in such a public arena.”
“What about me?” said Hugh. “I’m leaving on the same train. Am I to have no one to wave me off?”
“You must do as you please,” said Daniel. “I would not deny you that comfort. I can get the sergeant major to hide me under a seat, if I must.”
“I will say my goodbyes at home,” said Hugh. He had a horror of what a scene might ensue at the train station. “What arrangements have you made for your wife?”
“I’m afraid I have made none at all,” said Daniel. “I suppose there is an allowance due her? I assumed she would continue to live where she is. Beatrice will take care of her.”
“I don’t think it will do,” said Hugh. “She should go to your father.”
“Good God, no,” said Daniel. “Better the nunnery after all. What should I do, Hugh?”
“I will talk to Uncle John,” said Hugh. “Perhaps they will take her in.” He tried to keep his tone neutral, but he was desperate for Daniel to agree. Such an arrangement might be the key to restoring Daniel to the family in due course.
“It won’t change my mind,” said Daniel. “But I would be grateful to you, Hugh, if you could speak to them tonight.” He grinned and shook Hugh’s hand. “See you on the train tomorrow. Let the real war begin.”
The Colonel arranged for Hugh and Celeste to travel back to Rye on a heavy dray loaded with supplies bound for the station, and Hugh walked Celeste home to Beatrice’s cottage, where she was welcomed with an effusion of exclamations and good wishes by Mrs. Turber, on whom Celeste’s marriage had exactly the desired effect. It was to be hoped she would spread the good news as effectively as she had whispered the bad.
“I must go home,” Hugh said to Beatrice, lingering on the doorstep. “I must try to repair the breach between Daniel and our aunt and uncle.” He looked worried, and Beatrice longed to help him.
“Will they be very angry about the marriage?” she asked. The enormity of what they had done, conspiring to bind Agatha’s nephew to Celeste for life without her knowledge, weighed heavily on Beatrice.
“These are difficult times, and what is done is done.” He paused. “Daniel and I leave in the morning, and I wanted to ask would you write to me?” he asked.
“I got into a spot of trouble for agreeing to write to Mr. Dimbly,” she said. “I was not aware that letter writing implied some other sort of attachment?” As she said it, she knew she was being coy and the words spilled awkwardly from her tongue. She hesitated and added, “I would not like to offend Miss Ramsey.”
“There is no obligation or attachment implied,” he said. He hesitated and then added, “It is always pleasant to get correspondence when one is far from home.”
“Then I will be happy to write?” she said, with a question in her voice.
He seemed to be struggling with some emotion. He caught up her hand and pressed it. “I cannot truthfully tell you I am entirely free of obligation to Miss Ramsey,” he said. “I am ashamed to say I may not have behaved in the most forthright manner.” He hesitated again and went on. “But I can tell you that she and I have no formal claims on each other.”
Her heart leaped as she waited for him to say more. He looked at her so intently that for one bright moment, she thought he might embrace her. “Hugh?” she asked, his name carrying a new intimacy.
“I fear the time is never right,” he said. “I leave for France and I would not for the world ask anything of you while I am not free.”
“Then your friendship must be enough, Hugh,” she said, and though her eyes grew blurry she would not shed tears to spoil his going. “And we will write to each other as friends.”
“You are the best of women, Beatrice Nash,” he said, and raised her palm to kiss it.
“Shall I come and see you off tomorrow?” she asked, though she wondered how she would endure it. She felt the same yawning loss she had felt at her father’s going. She fought away the image of the cold river and the dreadful ferryman. Unlike her father, she prayed, Hugh would return.
“Please do not,” he said. “I would not expose you to the vulgarity of a railway station departure.”
“I will think of you often,” she said, blinking back tears.
“If all goes well with my aunt and uncle, I think they will come for Celeste,” he said. “Will you be all right by yourself, Beatrice?”
“I am used to my independence, Hugh,” she said. But as he walked away down the steep cobbled street, she had to hug her arms about her to keep from calling him back. Never before had she understood so clearly what independence might cost. She had never felt so alone.