It was a dark autumn evening, and the music-room of Castle Hackton was lit only by candles.
The Countess of Lyndon and her chaplain, Reverend Runt, were momentarily alone, Lord Bullingdon having retired a few moments earlier to write some letters before bed. There was no sound except for the rustling of pages as her ladyship, still seated at her harpsichord, put away her music, and the reverend disassembled his flute and cleaned it. Both clad in black - her ladyship in mourning, the Reverend according to his office -, they made for a melancholy picture.
When, a week earlier, upon receiving the news of Barry Lyndon's death, Lord Bullingdon had argued with his mother that there was no need to mark his passing in any way, 'not after such a long – and necessary - estrangement', she had quietly nodded – only to appear at breakfast the next morning dressed in black. Though her son had opened his mouth to say something, he had not been able to in the end. That sad, faraway look of hers was too disarming for a man to argue with.
Reverend Runt, for his part, thought that the black only served to accentuate the pale, tragic beauty of her face, and was even more in awe of her than usual. Alone with her in the music room, he allowed himself to admire her as she carefully arranged her music, and his expression as he did so – for once wholly unguarded – betrayed in its intensity the secret flame which he had nursed for close to two decades.
Suddenly, she spoke, and he hastily looked back down to his task.
'Samuel.'
'Yes, milady?'
'You have been a good friend to me all these years.'
Though the white face-paint hid it well, his long, gaunt face flushed with pleasure, and his heart skipped a beat. She, however, did not see his smile, as she was still looking at her music.
When he replied, his voice was soft. 'Your ladyship is too kind.'
There was then a long moment of silence, during which she finally looked up at him, and seemed to study his expression. After holding her gaze for a second, he was forced to look down, overcome by sudden shyness.
The question she asked him then puzzled him even more.
'Would you say that Lord Bullingdon sees you as a kind of - surrogate father?'
Now that was not an easy question to answer.
'I could not presume -… I – I was only ever his tutor, you see.' He paused briefly, to collect his thoughts. 'Naturally I am very fond of his lordship.'
'Good – good.' She looked back down at the harpsichord, and, extending her beautiful arm, idly played a few notes upon it.
The poor chaplain, by this point, was remarkably ill at ease. Lady Lyndon rarely said much, and it was unusual for her to look so distracted.
'Samuel.'
'Yes, milady?'
'If I were to marry you, do you think you could be a good husband to me?'
The question hit him like a blow to the guts, and for a moment he could not breathe. When he recovered capacity for thought, he told himself that he had to be dreaming.
'I – I beg your pardon?'
'As it says in the marriage service – 'reverently, discreetly, advisedly, soberly…' Do you think you could manage that?' Her expression remained perfectly collected, and she spoke as if she were asking him for the time.
'Milady – if you are speaking in jest – I beg you to stop.' He brought a shaking hand up to his throat, and gave his collar a nervous tug.
'Have you often known me to speak in jest?'
The reverend was forced to admit that he had not.
'I think we have known each other long enough for me to speak to you with perfect honesty.'
She motioned for him to take a seat at her side on the bench, and he did so, with some trepidation.
'I have not had a happy life, Samuel. When I was still but a girl, I was married off to a man old enough to be my grandfather. He was not unkind to me, but I sometimes think something in me died the day I became Lady Lyndon. When I met my second husband, I thought that maybe all those long-abandoned dreams from my girlhood might come true after all.' She smiled wistfully. 'I loved him and thought he loved me too. He did not, however, and the only good thing he ever gave me – our son – is long dead. I now find myself a widow again. Through all these things, you remained faithfully by my side, and were always a great comfort to me. Truthfully, I do not know what would have become of me without you...' At this point, she placed her hand on his forearm. 'To get to the point, - what I really mean to say is that if you were to make me an offer of marriage, I should likely accept it.'
This was a very long speech coming from her, and even she seemed surprised at her volubility.
The reverend, who had been struggling to hear her over the hammering of his heart in his ears, was for once completely at loss for words, and only sat there trembling and staring at her with wide, fearful eyes.
'If, however, I have been deluding myself, ' she resumed, removing her hand from his arm, ' I should be most grateful if you could disregard everything I have just said, and agree to keep our relations as they have always been.'
When he did not reply and the silence was in danger of becoming unbearable, she moved to stand and leave the room - but the reverend, in what was perhaps the boldest gesture in his life so far, caught her hand in his, and held onto it tightly.
Looking at her with great earnestness and a vulnerability in his eyes which was like that of a little child, he asked her in a quivering but solemn voice, 'Will you, then, Lady Lyndon, do me the honour of becoming my wife?'
She smiled at him softly, in her strange girlish way, and gave him a small nod. His normally austere face lit up with joy, and, feeling bold, he bent over and proceeded to cover her hands in kisses.
If this was a dream, it was the loveliest one he had ever had, and he never wanted to wake up.
They were wed a few months later in a small, private ceremony in the castle chapel. Lady Lyndon had been out of society for so long, and the choice of an obscure clergyman was so uninteresting, that the event was only fleetingly noted and not much commented on in society, except as an occasion to reminisce about the scandalous behaviour of the previous husband.
A daughter was born to them about a year later.