Of Moths and Butterflies

CHAPTER fifty





OU HAVE NOT told me how the young people are getting on,” Mrs. Barton asked Sir Edmund as they sat together in her newly redecorated sitting room. Sir Edmund was reading the morning newspaper. Mrs. Barton lit a cigar and he took it between his lips with a sidelong glance and one corner of his thin mouth turned up. This, as she had learned in the many years they had been together, was the nearest thing to gratitude he was likely to bestow.

Sir Edmund took a long puff and exhaled before at last answering the question. “Not as well as one would expect.”

“They’re not quarrelling already?”

“I can’t say as how they’re doing much of anything. Mrs. Hamilton keeps herself busy about the house, and Archer is usually with me, hiding in the library with his tail between his legs. I rather thought this marriage would make a man of him. It seems to have done the reverse.”

“Well, he’s walking a thin line, I suppose. If he means to keep you both happy, I mean. It’s a delicate business.”

“Humpf!” Sir Edmund said, raising his paper up a little higher to signify he had had enough of the conversation.

Mrs. Barton, however, had not. “There can be no doubt that they are fond of each other. I think I might actually feel guilty about the whole thing if I wasn’t so sure of myself on that point. Perhaps it’s just their having been thrown together like this. And if there is any truth in what they say about her life before, well, that would explain a great deal about her reluctance now.”

“And what are people saying, Cassandra?” he asked her, bending one corner of his paper down to look over it.

“Well, they do say Mr. Everard was a deplorable man. There is some titter, as well, about the enticements he offered those who came to do business with him.”

“I know very well what went on in that house. I can guess it at any rate. I knew the man myself, remember. But if Society is still chattering about it, perhaps I made a mistake in thinking it could be overcome.”

“There is the money. And she’s not your average sort of pretty face. The world will forgive her—eventually. So long as she can hold her head up in a crowd.”

“Yes, well. We shall see about that, won’t we?”

Mrs. Barton considered for a moment more. “They do not quarrel, you say?”

“I don’t know what they do when they’re alone. Not the usual thing, that’s for certain. Not with the door between their rooms locked from her side and he having given up the keys. It’s enough to drive a man mad watching him pine away for a woman he’s already got. Or would have with a little more effort.”

“Is that why you’ve come away?”

“A little privacy is what they need.”

Mrs. Barton arose from her place on the arm of Sir Edmund’s chair and began to wander the room.

Sir Edmund tried to ignore her, but found at last that it was as impossible to ignore her in her silent agitation as in her persistent prattling.

“I do want them to get on,” she said when Sir Edmund at last looked up at her, irritation heavy on his brow. “But there may be a risk in leaving them too much to their own devices.”

Sir Edmund laid his paper on his lap and stared at Mrs. Barton, uncomprehending.

“Well, it’s just that Archer is very impressionable. If he loves her like I think he does, and supposing she cannot love him as he is, he will become what she needs him to become.”

“What are you saying?”

“For all his loyalty, he has never been very happy…”

“Go, on.” His tone was warning, but she continued nonetheless.

“Well…what if she proved the necessary incentive to changing those circumstances that have so far oppressed him? And which now might possibly oppress her? You said he has threatened to leave you.”

“He won’t do it.”

“Not on his own, no, but you know others have encouraged him to do it, already. Miss Montegue, for instance. So far his sense of duty has prevailed. You’ve trusted in that, and rightly…up till now. But if he loves her… If he thinks she might give him what you never could…”

“And what, Cassandra, have I failed to give my nephew?”

“You’ve not shown him much love. I know you do love him. His sense of obligation is uncommon, but he has no uncommon reason to maintain it. You’ve not given him that.”

“I’ve not simpered over him like a woman, if that’s what you mean. If his wife refuses to do it, then why should that concern me? If he gets an heir off of her, that’s as far as my interest lies.”

“Is it? If you make her unwelcome in her own house… You are not always very generous to the women of your acquaintance.”

“Are you complaining, Mrs. Barton?”

“You have had your trials, Edmund. I understand them, as I’ve had my own. You and I fulfil needs entirely apart from those your nephew and Mrs. Hamilton seek. Ours is a more practical alliance. You cannot love again, I think, as perhaps you once did—”

“That’s quite enough, Cassandra!”

“As a widow of some little substance,” she went on unheeding, “I have found myself with the power to help you. You, possessed of certain advantageous connections, are able to help me. The arrangement suits us both, though it has certain limitations. At least for the present. With him, well, anything might be possible. Now he has money, and you do too, through him. His star is on the rise and he might raise you with him. Your hopes and aspirations are not mistakenly placed. His present circumstances are both fortunate and difficult. I don’t blame you if your conscience troubles you over it.”

“Who says my conscience troubles me? I did what had to be done.”

“Yes, of course,” she answered too knowingly. “But my point is, dear man, that if Mrs. Hamilton finds herself unable to tolerate life under your roof, Archer may get it into his head to provide her with another. If he were to leave you now…”

“He wouldn’t dare!” Sir Edmund growled. “It will be their ruin if he decides to make a legal case of it. The whole of her history will be in the papers.”

“And yours.”

Sir Edmund gave her a warning look. “Without the money and the house and a title to back them, what hope have they with their sordid histories between them? None!”

“But you are speaking in terms of your own ambitions. Is any of this what they really want? You say she would not be fool enough to leave fortune for poverty, but isn’t that what she was doing when she came to you, as a servant, so many months ago?”

Sir Edmund was struck by this, and it occurred to him for the first time that just such a thing might, after all, be possible, preposterous though it seemed to him.

“It’s good of you to allow them a little time on their own,” Mrs. Barton went on, “but there may possibly be such a thing as too much. In your absence, she may realise how much better her life might be without your interference. And I believe you said Miss Montegue was expected. If she were to side with Mrs. Hamilton…”

Sir Edmund stood now to look out the window, as if his gaze could pierce across miles of countryside and through the very walls of the Abbey. “He wouldn’t dare,” he said again, though more to himself than to anyone else.

“You’ve benefited greatly by the alliance,” she said now. “Even if he were to assert himself, you are better off than you were.”

Sir Edmund turned back toward the window, as Mrs. Barton continued on. But he was no longer listening. She had said quite enough. And though he was reluctant to believe his nephew capable of betraying him, he knew the power a woman could hold over a man. What did that girl mean by putting Archer off? What demands was she trying to make? Sir Edmund turned from the window again, and in half a dozen steps had crossed the room.

“What is it, Edmund? Was it something I said? Why, I hardly thought you were listening.”

“I wasn’t. I’m going out.”

“You are going back?”

“Not yet. I have some business to take care of first.”

Without any further delay, without any further explanation, he left the house, first for his club, then for his man of law. Precautions must be taken, it seemed. And then… Then he must return to the Abbey and establish, for once and for all, his place as head of the family.