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The Lighting Of The Fires (Chapter 4a)
A shower of rice followed Relena and her bridegroom into the well-sprung traveling coach with Quatre's family crest of a lion rampant in gold on a dark green door. Her Abigail and his valet rode in another large coach on which was strapped Relena's trunk and his lordship's portmanteau. There were four outriders, and there was also a fine saddle horse, which, Quatre had told Relena, he intended to ride for part of the way. Since it would take something under three days to reach their destination, they were booked into two inns.
As they rolled down the street, Relena, sitting with one hand clutching the strap by the window, found herself suddenly tongue-tied, while Quatre, sitting near the other window, was similarly silent. He was not usually so constrained, Relena thought. And of course, she hastily reminded herself, neither was she. In the days before this one, he had always had plenty to say about where they would be going, whether it was to look at the jewels in the Tower of London or to visit the exhibits at the British Museum. She wondered what he was thinking – she also wondered what might lie ahead. They would reach the first inn by seven or eight that evening, she had been told. Then, as the silence grew oppressive, she said shyly, "I expect…" and paused, for he had cleared his throat as if he were about to speak.
They looked at each other and laughed nervously. "You were about to say, my dear?" he inquired.
Relena noted that he was not looking directly at her. Indeed, it seemed as if his gaze were fixed upon a spot over her head. "I…do not remember. What were you about to say, Q-Quatre?"
"I thought I would tell you a little about the road over which we will be traveling. I do not believe you have been to this part of Somerset."
"I have not done much traveling at all," she said.
"You have never been on the Continent?"
"No." She forbore to mention that he had asked her that once before. "I know you have," she said, by way of a gentle reminder.
"Yes, I have been to Paris."
"It must be a beautiful city."
"Yes, it is, very." Then he added abruptly, "Your sister Sylvia…"
A pulse rose in Relena's throat and pounded there. "Yes?"
"She lives in Cornwall?"
"Yes, in Land's End. That is where Heero's estate is located. Though I must say that she much prefers London." Then other words rose in her throat, demanding utterance. She said, albeit reluctantly, "Sylvia is very beautiful, is she not?"
"Yes." He nodded. "Very."
She wished that he had not been in such haste to agree, but how could he not? "Sylvia," she continued bravely, "is the beauty of the family. The year she came out, she was voted an Incomparable by Beau Brummel and others at White's. The poor Beau, I do feel sorry for him, do you not?" she added, in hopes that she might change the subject.
"Yes," he said gravely, "there will be many who will miss him, but one does make a great mistake to depend upon the favor of princes…and an even greater mistake to insult them." He was silent a moment, then, as if he could not help himself, he continued, "Your sister was married her first season?'
"Yes, that was five years ago."
"You will not be telling me that she is already in her twenties!"
"Oh, yes," Relena said with melancholy satisfaction. "Sylvia will be twenty-four in October. Though certainly she does not appear that old."
"No, I certainly never would have thought so," he agreed. "Does she have any children?"
"Not as yet. It has been a great disappointment to her and to her husband," Relena explained, and felt her face grow hot as she remembered the main reason she was here in this coach and with Lord Marne's wide gold ring on the requisite finger.
"He must have an heir, my dear," her mother and her grandmother emphasized.
"Many young women do not have children until later in life," Quatre said.
"I expect they do not." Relena nodded. "Though my brother Milliardo was born less than a year after Mama was married."
"How old is your brother?'
"He will be thirty in August. Sally is two years younger, and Sylvia, as I told you. No one really expected me."
"No, you are six years younger than Sylvia – a child, really."
"I do not feel a child," Relena said defensively. "I am turned eighteen."
"Yes, I do know that," he said teasingly. "I know all about you, Relena." Moving closer to her, he kissed her lightly on the cheek.
In that moment it seemed to Relena that a whole bevy of shadows hovering in her mind flew out, losing themselves in the sky. She smiled up at him. "Do you know, Q-Quatre, I am very happy," she murmured.
He slipped his arm around her shoulders, "We must see that you continue that way, my dear."
She wished that he might have answered that he, too, was happy, but perhaps that is what he implied when his arm had tightened around her shoulders. She thrilled in the sensation of his closeness.
It was nearly eight and the sun a dark streak of red on the western horizon when they reached the King's Rest, a large coaching inn outside of Reading. Built around a vast, cobble-stoned courtyard and with all its chambers on the second floor, the inn was welcome indeed to Relena. Though the coach was well sprung and the going reasonably smooth, there had been some rough stretches of road, resulting in a need to clutch the strap at her side to keep from being thrown to the floor. Furthermore, by eight, the excitement of the day had diminished, and she was feeling unexpectedly weary. Quatre, too, looked tired, and the chamber into which an obsequious innkeeper had showed them was a very welcome sight. Once the innkeeper had bowed himself out promising to send up the small repast Quatre had requested, Relena sank down in a wing chair.
"Oh." She sighed. "This is comfortable, and it is also stationary!"
"Coach travel can be strenuous, my dear." Quatre smiled at her. "I think we need not rise too early tomorrow morning."
"T-that would be n-nice if it were no necessary," Relena stuttered, belatedly struck by the realization that she and her husband were alone in the chamber.
He said, "I am glad you agree." Staring down at her, he added, "My love, I think that…that given the exigencies of road travel, it were better if we made use of separate rooms until we reach our destination."
Casting a glance around the room, Relena suddenly noticed that there were two doors opening off this chamber. She said, "As you wish, Quatre," and was caught between relief and confusion as she remembered certain confidences embarrassedly vouchsafed by her mother concerning her wedding night.
He regarded her anxiously. "You will not mind…waiting, then?"
"No, of course not," she assured him. "It has been a wearisome day."
"Indeed it has," he agreed, and bent to kiss her, his lips brushing her mouth. "You are a dear girl," he added gratefully.
Later, after a repast Relena had hardly touched, being as she explained to Quatre, too tired to eat, she went to bed. Catherine, hovering about her, looked as if she wanted to say something, but on opening her mouth, she closed it. Finally, on bidding her mistress a constrained good night, she hurried out of the room, leaving Relena with the feeling of a spate of soundless comments hovering in the air behind her. There was, of course, no reason for her to weep into her pillow, and her tears were of short duration. It had been a tiring day, tiring and trying, and might have been considerably less so had her sister Sylvia been delayed on the road.
In his own chamber, Quatre, too, lay awake, guiltily aware that he should not be reveling in the wide expanse of mattress he was not sharing with anyone. Yet on flinging his arms out and drawing them back slowly to his sides, he was very glad that they had met with no impediment to a freedom he had experienced, if not enjoyed, for two years. He was enjoying it now, and he was also bitterly regretting having yielded to family pressure.
Despite his fondness for Relena – and he was fond of her, he assured himself – there was a vibrant memory of Dorothy, and once more he was assailed by the image that had haunted him off and on through the hours it had taken to reach the inn. Sylvia! Sylvia, who so resembled Dorothy and who was alive and infinitely desirable! To think of her was to want her, and he did not believe himself mistaken when he had read the same longing in her eyes, those incredibly beautiful blue-gray eyes!
In the few moments during which they had been able to speak to each other, he had come to the belated realization that he had been far too willing to accede to the wishes of his aunt and his sister. He should have waited!
"Waited for whom?" he murmured. "Another Sylvia?"
There could be no other, he knew, and he was married. She, too, was married, but unhappily, as unhappily as himself, he realized with a shock, and what was he to do about that? He could seek an annulment – but he could not hurt poor Relena, he decided wretchedly. It was not her fault that her sister was so much more beautiful than herself, so infinitely more desirable, and who looked at him with Dorothy's eyes! She also possessed his late love's way of making him ache with longing for her. Furthermore, Sylvia had made him feel that she shared his passion. Indeed, when she had stood on tiptoe and let her lips brush his cheek, it had been all he could do not to embrace her before all the wedding guests! He was quite sure that Sylvia's failure to catch Relena's bouquet was her way of showing him just what she did feel for him.
"Oh, God, God, God, what am I going to do?" He groaned. "I must see her again. Yet how?"
There was no answer to that painful question. He could not leave the inn as he would like to do, leave his unwanted bride behind, leave his responsibilities behind and ride to Cornwall. He had to consider Relena when, at this particular moment, he almost hated her for needing him as much as he was sure she did.
Sylvia had a husband, too, he reminded himself, but again, without resorting to speech, she had let him know that the handsome man she addressed as Heero meant little or nothing to her. In common with Romeo and his Juliet, he and Sylvia had locked glances for the first time and they had fallen in love forever! And what of Relena? There were duties he owed his bride.
"No," he whispered. "Not yet, oh, God, not yet."
He suddenly thought of a solution. Given the fine weather they were enjoying, he would try to reach his home as soon as possible. Then he would give Relena some excuse regarding a need to visit some outlying properties on his estate. He would explain that his tenants were giving him trouble. In that way he could postpone the need of betraying Sylvia by making love to his wife.
A short time later Quatre was bitterly reprimanding himself for decisions that bordered on madness. He had undertaken a responsibility and her name was Relena, and even if he did not love her, would never love her, he would try to be her husband – at least until there was an heir.
By the time they came in sight of the great stone posts with their wrought-iron, spear-tipped gates fronting the winding carriageway to Lord Marne's house, the present holder of the title was in a morose and self-accusatory mood.
Quatre was, in fact, bitterly regretting what he now termed the aberration that seized him on what, for want of a better description, might be called his wedding night. Though his young bride, still sleeping in her virgin bed, had had no notion of his thoughts on occasion, he was still only too aware of the injustice he had done her. He, who had courted her for no other reason than the fact that he needed an heir, had been prepared to be unfaithful to her and with her sister Sylvia!
A sigh escaped him. He had been quite sure that he would never fall in love again, and now, upon mature reflection, he told himself that he had not fallen in love with Sylvia, and indeed, he had no notion of ever seeking her out. It had been an attraction based mainly on her astonishing likeness to Dorothy and on her beguiling little ways, something of which she, in her innocence, was, he knew, completely unaware.
Furthermore, it was not of Sylvia he must think. He must consider Relena, whom he had liked from the start. It was not her fault that try as he had for the past twenty-four hours, he could not obliterate the memory of his beloved Dorothy, a memory that was growing more vivid with every revolution of the carriage wheels! And here, where once it had seemed perfectly natural to bring his bride to his home, it now seemed completely unnatural and an insult to the memory of poor Dorothy. He had a fugitive wish to tell his drive to turn the carriage around and go as fast as was possible in some other direction!
Cornwall.
He actually shuddered as he wondered what had put that thought into his head. Cornwall and Sylvia, Sylvia-Dorothy. Think of neither, he ordered himself furiously.
"Oh!" Relena suddenly exclaimed excitedly as the gatekeeper, alerted by the coachman's horn, appeared to open the gates. "Oh," she repeated as the coach moved forward up a curving driveway, "such tall trees! These are the woods of which you spoke, Quatre?"
"They are a small part of them," he said with a surge of pride and pleasure at seeing the gate house. Though he owned houses in London and in Yorkshire, here was his home, where he had grown up, and it was here that he had brought his dearest Dorothy! He avoided looking at Relena as, unwillingly, he envisioned Dorohty sitting beside him as she had been on the first day of their marriage. Resolutely he banished that all too persistent image and smiled at Relena as he continued. "There are other woods beyond the castle, which, as I have explained, is really a house, save for the keep, which lies in ruins a short distance from the newer buildings. Ah, and here's old Peebles, the gatekeeper, come back to greet us. You must give him a nod and a smile as lady of the house."
Relena smiled shyly as the carriage came to a stop. The gatekeeper's face was deeply lined and his hair was white. His eyes, deep blue, sparkled as he looked up at his master. "Ah, 'tis good to see ye, my lord."
"It's good to see you, Peebles, good to be home again," Quatre said warmly. "This is Lady Marne, my wife."
"Ah, it's welcome ye are, milady." The gatekeeper smiled back at her.
"I thank you, Peebles. I am pleased to meet you," Relena told him shyly.
In another few moments they were passing more trees, elms and oaks and red beeches on either side of the carriageway. Then the road turned abruptly and Relena saw the house that had taken the place of the castle – a long, tall building, its façade blindingly reflecting the sun from two rows of windows above and below and causing galaxies of red and blue spots to dance before Relena's eyes. A small mansard roof with dormer windows was encased by a marble fence running the length of the house, and she counted six windows and almost as many chimneys. As he had explained, it was not a castle, but she did glimpse what appeared to be a part of a keep on one side of the edifice, partially hidden by a pair of elms. And was she to live in this giant's dwelling? She wondered nervously. It did appear so very big – much larger than her home in the country. Inadvertently, she shivered.
"Why are you shivering on such a warm day, my dear Relena?" Quatre asked.
"Someone walked over my grave." She shrugged and subsequently was amazed and chagrined to see anger flash in Quatre's eyes.
"That is an old wives' tale!" he exclaimed. "Death has no place in this homecoming, my dear Relena."
She swallowed an obstruction in her throat. Quatre had seemed so angry, and it was not the first time she had aroused his ire with some foolish remark. "I meant nothing by it," she said apologetically.
"No, no, of course you did not, my dear," he apologized hastily, slipping his arm around her waist. "You must forgive me. I am never at my best on long journeys. We will both need to rest once we are indoors. Would you not like that, my dear?"
"Oh, yes, it would be pleasant," she agreed shyly.
"I think I have not told you about the servants, or have I?"
"No, you have not," she said.
"Well, they are under the rule of Mrs. Wilson, who has been in the household since my father's time. She is a most capable woman. Of course, you might want to make some changes in the staff. It is your prerogative, of course."
"Oh, no, I am sure I will find all your arrangements most satisfactory," she said quickly, feeling and not knowing quite why he did not want any changes in the staff.
"Very good," he said approvingly. "My wife…my late wife was of your mind. She did not trouble herself over household arrangements. She was content to leave everything to Mrs. Wilson."
"Did you live here most of the year?" Relena asked.
"Yes, Dorothy was extremely fond of the country, as I hope you will be too."
"Oh, yes, I much prefer it to London," she could tell him with perfect truth.
"Indeed?" He regarded her quizzically, almost as if, she thought, he did not quite believe her. "Do you really?'
"I really do. As you know, I do enjoy riding." She flushed, reminded of her fall in the park, the fall that had somehow resulted in his offer. She continued, "I am not generally as clumsy as I was in the park that day, and I do prefer a less restricted area. I shall enjoy riding through these woods."
"I hope you will also enjoy inviting some of the families who live nearby. In my wife…in Dorothy's day we rather neglected our social obligations. We were both so young and…"
"You wanted to be together," Relena finished, feeling a slight twinge of regret that he obviously did not regard her in that same light – but of course she was being foolish. As her mother had told her more than once, he was not marrying for love. He needed an heir.
"Ah," Quatre said. "Here we are."
Relena gazed out of the window and found herself a few paces away from a huge oaken door and realized that they were directly in front of the great house that she was not to call home. As the carriage drew to a stop, Bob, one of the footmen, opened the door and set the steps before it. Quatre, climbing out, helped Relena down the steps at the same time that the front door swung open, and in the aperture stood a tall, dignified man of about sixty-four or sixty-five, Relena thought. He was beaming at Quatre.
"Your lordship and milady, welcome home!" he exclaimed warmly.
Quatre smiled back at him. "Thank you, Wilson." He turned to Relena. "My dear, this is Mr. Wilson, our butler. He has been here since…before I was born."
Relena smiled up at him. "I am glad to meet you, Wilson."
"It is my pleasure, your ladyship." The butler bowed and added, "The others will be in the hall, sir."
"Yes, of course." Quatre nodded. He added, "You will need to stand back, Wilson, as I carry my bride inside."
"Oh, must you?" Relena asked worriedly, all too aware of her weight, which she feared might even have increased during their two and a half days on the road. The meals she had eaten had been delicious, and she had not stinted herself.
"I must, my dear. It is a custom."
"Well, if you must…" she began, and then gasped as Quatre easily lifted her and carried her over the threshold, setting her down just inside a vast hall with patterned marble floors and a wide staircase winding gracefully up to the first floor.
However, much as Relena wanted to look longer at the sculptured plaster ceiling and its huge center chandelier, she could not ignore the servants, a large group of men and women, some elderly and a great many quite young – footmen, housemaids, under-housemaids, a heavyset woman who looked like a cook and standing with three grinning young underlings who must be her helpers. And, of course, the woman coming forward, small and probably in her late fifties, with a plain pleasant face and a welcoming smile, must be the housekeeper. Her black gown and her white apron and the keys at her waist proclaimed her position.
"Your ladyship." She curtsied.
Quatre said, "Here is Mrs. Wilson, our housekeeper, my dear."
"Mrs. Wilson," Relena repeated. "I am glad to know you…would you be related to the butler?"
"I am that, your ladyship. We have been wed these forty years come September. And it's glad I am to welcome you. As you can see, our staff bids you welcome too."
AN: So sorry I took such a long time to update this story. I actually had to split this chapter into two different parts because it turned out to be 11 pages. I thought that might've been too long. That's why the end is so abrupt. Then again, I don't proclaim to be the best cliffhanger-writer. Thanks to all the wonderful people who reviewed. ^_^ Means a lot. For those who joined my mailing list, I sent out both parts to say thanks for joining the list.