Of Moths and Butterflies

CHAPTER fifty-nine





ITH STOIC FACES, the couple arrived downstairs. Archer was the last to greet his guests, and did so with grace and humility, though he was clearly out of sorts. Imogen and Archer led the way in to dinner, while Roger escorted Claire, Sir Edmund escorted Mrs. Ellison, and Julia was left to see to Mrs. Montegue, who was looking particularly frail and tired tonight.

No sooner had the party been seated, than Muriel, who still did not understand Sir Edmund well enough to know which topics were strictly off limits, began in her usual interrogative manner, posing her questions with as much grace as a moth in blinding daylight.

“Is Mrs. Barton not dining with us tonight?” she asked.

“No, ma’am. I’m afraid she’s found herself unable to attend,” Sir Edmund answered with forced cordiality.

“But surely she’ll be joining us tomorrow? I would so like to see her again.”

“Perhaps you’ll be so good as to pay her a call when you’re next in Town. You do still reside in London, do you not?”

“Why, yes. Yes, of course I do,” she stammered, just now catching the veiled animosity in his voice.

“Speaking of London residences, how do you find your new house suiting you?”

“Oh,” she began and faltered. “Well. It’s an odd story, that. Has not Imogen told you?”

“Why would she do that, ma’am? You’ve not written to your niece since the day she married.”

“Oh, well, no. I suppose not. But she will forgive me, I’m sure,” Muriel said, casting a tentative look in Imogen’s direction. “You know how it is, new places take so much adjusting to, and what with the removals and the necessary improvements, it’s been a struggle to find the time.”

“The house does not suit you, then?”

“Oh, I did not mean to say that,” she answered nervously. “I have no complaints to make. I’m sure something will turn up to make the venture worth it in the end. So much trouble you know, and so many unexpected expenses. It was a good deal worse off than I had realised.”

“Aunt Lara did not come?” Imogen asked in a desperate attempt to change the subject.

“No, no. I left her at home. Someone must stay to watch the place. We find we have been beset by spies.”

“Spies?” Sir Edmund echoed.

“Not spies,” Julia clarified. “Just some hooligans come to have an eyeful now the place is occupied again.”

“They mean to rob it. I’m quite sure,” Muriel said, looking a little hysterical.

Again, Julia presented the rational voice. “It’s nothing more than idle curiosity. I’ll not credit it as being anything more. I think moving into our brother’s house has quite rattled her,” she said as an aside to Imogen. “I never would have dreamt she’d decide to live in it. She’s letting her own house now.”

“What of these spies?”

“Just a group of troublemakers who’ve likely been there as long as the house has been standing. They only watch her because she watches them, and because her odd behaviour veritably demands that they should.”

“Odd behaviour?”

“You must be able to guess why she would take residence there?”

Imogen hesitated for only a minute. “She is looking for—” She thought she had whispered it, but she glanced up to find Sir Edmund looking at her curiously.

Julia, lowering her voice further, answered. “Of course that’s why she moved in. Now she can spend all her waking hours—and there are more of them than there ought to be—looking for what she believes is there.”

Imogen’s attention turned once more to the end of the table, where Sir Edmund and Muriel sat, and where he had just been posed the question as to his satisfaction with his end of the bargain. Sir Edmund would not admit that it was a smashing success, only that there were advantages. And though he would by no means admit that Imogen was an ideal wife to his nephew, she served her purpose and she would do.

She glanced then at Archer, who had hardly touched his food, though he was just finishing off his third glass of wine. He did not seem to be aware of anything at all. He was half dead with sleep and preoccupied to the point of stupefaction. Roger and Claire had their heads together, speaking of who knew what, while Roger glanced surreptitiously about the table, first at Sir Edmund, then Archer and then at Imogen, tossing her a stiff smile as he did. Clearly he was just barely maintaining his temper. Mrs. Montegue did not appear to be feeling well, and the moment dinner ended and it was suggested that all withdraw, she made her excuses and retired for the night. Claire followed to be sure of her.

It was clear, upon entering the drawing room, that Muriel had not yet learned when to let well enough alone. She simply had to know that Sir Edmund properly realised that the bargain they had struck in the uniting of their dependents was to his greater benefit.

“Surely you don’t regret the match?” she asked, when she could not get from him a satisfactory answer.

“Certainly not,” he said. “I’m not a fool. But it is a little early to be counting our successes.”

“You speak as if she’s failed in her duty by you.”

“Her duty? By me?” he looked keenly at Archer. “She’s ornamental enough, to be sure. She’s got the house running again; that’s something. But I perceive she might make herself miserable over trifles, and men can’t bear to be around melancholy women, you know. It sets a bad example. Nor has she adopted all of the responsibilities expected of her.”

Roger stood and cleared his throat.

Archer, tossing a look at the ceiling, finished off his drink, brandy now, and faced the curtained window.

“The house has never looked better,” Sir Edmund went on. “I will not deny that, but there is more to marriage, after all, than appearances alone. And while this might do tonight,” he added with a wave of his hand in the direction of the young couple, “tomorrow’s evening will be a complete disaster unless they learn to play their parts a trifle more realistically.

Imogen stood and moved toward the door. Roger stopped her.

“But certainly she’s meek and mild and does everything she’s expected to do?” Muriel went on.

“I don’t know that she does, ma’am.”

“Will you walk with me, Imogen?” Roger asked her.

“In the dark?”

“Yes,” he said. “Have you a wrap?”

She borrowed a shawl from the back of a nearby chair, one that was kept there for just such a purpose. Roger wrapped it around her and then offered his arm. Which she took. Then, with that same exemplary show of deference, he led her out of doors.

They had walked some distance, however, before he found it possible to speak.

“The ass!”

“Roger.”

“Is this how it will be tomorrow?”

“I’ll try harder tomorrow. It will be okay. We quarrelled is all, and—”

“You’ll try harder? You’ll try? Devil take it, Imogen! I don’t want to hear that you’ll try harder. I want the sanctimonious smirk wiped off Sir Edmund’s face with my fist, is what I want. I want them, the pair of them, to realise what they have and are too self-absorbed to properly appreciate!”

He was shouting now, and Imogen feared that any minute he would be overheard.

“Roger, please?” she pleaded.

He checked himself, placing an arm around her and drew her nearer as they walked on.

“Tomorrow will be different,” she said. “I promise. He wouldn’t dare behave so among proper guests. You’ll see. I’m sorry it has upset you. I’m sorry if it pains you to—”

“My feelings are of no account at present. Yes, I’m disappointed, I won’t deny it, but it’s not my happiness—or lack of—that concerns me now. It’s this infernal charade that is not a charade at all. It’s Sir Edmund’s complete indifference to the demands he makes on you—and on Hamilton too, I grant him that. And if that’s not bad enough there’s your aunt, with her blatant reminders of the ruthless manner in which she has disposed of you. With no remorse, she speaks of the bargain they made, how she sold you off for her own personal gain. They sit there and speak of it as if you were some burden to be lamented. To hear him speak as though he had not quite got his money’s worth... And she talking as though she had not gotten precisely what she wanted!”

“She didn’t. I made certain of it.”

“What?”

“She got the house. Nothing more.”

He was struck dumb by this.

“It was wicked and vindictive of me.”

“Vindictive?” he demanded, shaking his head. “How was it vindictive to give her something, the one thing, that might have remained yours even after your marriage?”

“Because I knew why she wanted it. I knew she wanted all the wealth and treasures her imagination had built and stored up inside it. But it’s not there. There is nothing. There was once. But it’s gone.”

He looked at her curiously.

“I had Mr. Watts dispose of it.”

“What?”

“I could not let her win.”

“But don’t you see how it might have helped you?”

“How? Had I held onto it, it would have transferred like the rest of it.”

“But the house!”

“What would I have done with that?”

“You might have used it, should you find you needed somewhere to go.”

“I could never go back there again. Not ever. And while some hope yet remains, neither can I think of leaving.”

“Do you mean to say you wish to remain, with his uncle, and all your wealth doing naught but laying a fine shellac over all the family’s corruption?”

“I don’t know. I can’t know until I speak to Archer. Until he tells me what he has learned.”

“And if he won’t?”

“He must.”

“Why should he? You’ve never confided your secrets to him, after all.”

“That is cruel.”

“It’s not a reprimand, Imogen. I’m not saying you should have done, I’m just saying that if this marriage bore the promise of the hope you’ve placed in it, then would you be here now, tormented by his uncle, hiding from your past and afraid to own up to it, having been veritably sold and then robbed? What must they do next before you’ll realise that this is no place for you?”

“To leave the house is one thing. But to leave him… You would truly persuade me to do it?”

“I think you’re a fool to stay.”

“He’s doing all he can.”

“Is he?”

“Yes. What more would you have him do?”

“Ask me what I would do in his place, Imogen!”

He was shouting again. She turned from him and walked back toward the house.

“You say he’s not unkind to you” he said, catching up to her. “Is this not unkind, this passivity, this changeability in itself? He sits there, drinking, completely absorbed in himself, and he does nothing!”

“I don’t know,” she said, her own voice rising now. “I don’t know what he means by his silence. But Roger, he has not used me ill. He has never forced me to anything I did not want.”

He looked at her hard for a moment. “What nonsense is this? It was a marriage arranged for the acquisition of a fortune. You didn’t choose it.”

“But I did. He asked me to marry him. I accepted.”

“What?”

“It’s true it was arranged. But he offered to me nonetheless, and I accepted him.”

“And when did you find out it wouldn’t have mattered had you accepted or refused? When did you learn that it all would have been the same? Tell me! Did he wait until after you were married, when you were well and truly and irrecoverably his?”

She hesitated to answer him.

“Imogen?”

“We had gone for a walk. He made his offer then. When we returned, to Mrs. Barton’s house, where my aunt and Sir Edmund were waiting, that’s when Sir Edmund told us. That is when he told me.”

“The scoundrel! Do you not see how you’ve been deceived?”

“Yes, I see it. I’m not blind, after all. Only–”

“What?”

“Only I think he thought he was giving me the honour of choosing for myself.”

“Honour? What the—”

“He meant well, Roger. I’m certain of it now.”

“He’s convinced you, has he? And what has been his method of persuasion, Imogen? Has he forced it upon you? Has he forced himself? Has he beaten it into you?”

“No! Don’t speak of him that way. He’s never touched me. Never.”

Again, Roger only offered that cold, uncomprehending stare. And then: “Do you mean–” he began and stopped. “Do you mean to say he has never-”

“I can count on one hand the number of times he has entered my bedroom, the number of times he has dared an intimate embrace, the number of times he has kissed me...” And then she shook her head to say the rest.

Roger fell back upon the stone wall, utterly dumbfounded. He was both appalled and elated with relief. It was not too late, after all.

“Then what is all this talk of shame and honour and redemption? You can leave him. He’s not asserted his place as your husband or as your protector. You can leave. You may lose the fortune you never wanted but what is that compared to freedom?”

She looked away and he turned her toward him.

“No one can now make any claims upon you. You can really and truly be free.”

“Free to do what, Roger? To live alone? To live a life of scandal? Always to be the subject of Society tattle? To be judged and despised?”

“For a time, perhaps. But that will go away, when people learn how you have been wronged. Don’t you see?”

Her eyes flashed suddenly to his. “No I don’t see,” she said. “I don’t see at all. Perhaps I’m a fool, but–”

“What, Imogen?” he said more patiently. All the fight had been knocked out of him, for what he saw now gave him little comfort.

“It could be worse. I have known so very much worse. And he needs me.”

“I don’t know if I can do it, Imogen. I don’t know if I can play witness to anymore.”

“Then you must go.”

“I can’t do that either. I won’t leave you.”

“It’s unfair, what you’re asking me.”

“Unfair?”

“Yes. You sent him to London, without telling me, to see what might be done to free us from Sir Edmund’s grasp. His difficulties are as much your responsibility now as they are mine. Whatever it is he’s learned, he’s not yet even had the opportunity to use, to his benefit, or to mine. Please, Roger. Please be patient.”

“Can you be patient? Can you endure more?”

“For the first time in my life, I have someone prepared to fight for me. If that’s what he means to do, I owe him that opportunity.”

He glanced at her tentatively before casting his gaze once more upon the ground. Repentant, he approached her. He took her hand in his, pressed it to his lips and then placed it gently in the crook of his arm. There was so much more he had planned to say, but she was right. And this, in light of Claire’s admonitions, persuaded him, though he did not want to admit it, that he was wrong. Rebuked in his selfish impatience, he could think of nothing at all to say. Nothing that could offer any comfort. Not for her. Certainly not for himself.

They walked on in silence for a little while, she clinging to his arm, he trying to draw some warmth from it—some comfort. It gave him none.

Having taken more time than was possibly appropriate, they at last returned to the house. Archer was waiting for them, standing within the doorway and looking a little worse for drink. They entered, and Roger, making his excuses, retired for the night. But neither was Imogen feeling up to the task of facing Sir Edmund and her aunts once more. She glanced at her husband and moved past him.

“Will you come back in?” he said, stopping her with a hand placed lightly upon her elbow.

“I have a headache.”

“It’s just your aunts now,” he said, and she could smell the alcohol, could see the effects in his drooping eyelids. “Sir Edmund has returned to his study.”

“You?”

“I need to speak with him, Gina. You’re right, we need to talk, but I must speak with him first. Do you understand?”

“Yes, of course.”

He was looking at her almost pleadingly, and she found she could not meet his gaze. They stood there, together, alone, in strained silence.

“Will you return to the party?”

“No,” she answered, looking at him, though only briefly. “No, I’d really rather not.” She hesitated a moment more as his hand lingered on her arm, chill now from the evening’s air. “Perhaps I’ll go check on Mrs. Montegue.” And then she moved on.

Archer, left once more to himself, went in search of his uncle, but found, to his mounting frustration, that the library doors were once more locked. It was not possible his uncle was alone, for he heard the sound of muffled and indistinct voices through the oaken panels of the door. Having nothing else to do, and fully aware that he was unfit for any company, he went out to walk the grounds.