The Escape by Mary Balogh
22
Perhaps the most surprising and significant thing about the next few months, Ben thought later as he looked back on them, was that he commissioned a wheeled chair to be made for himself, one with which he could propel himself about. He used it a great deal and wondered why he had not done it years ago. He had been too stubborn, of course, to give up his dream of walking unassisted again. And he could not really fault himself for that dream. Without it he probably would not have walked at all ever again. But he was very much more mobile in his chair. In fact, it set him free.
He no longer thought of himself as crippled. He could ride, he could move about freely with his chair, he could and did walk, and he could swim. He tried to do it every day when there was the sea or a lake close by.
He enjoyed those months immensely despite all the hard work that was involved—or perhaps because of it. He started from a position of total ignorance and ended up knowing as much about the working of the mines and ironworks as anyone, his employer included. And his work was indeed the next best thing to being back with his regiment. He had always liked people. And he had always had a gift for getting them to like him, even those who were subordinate to him and subject to his command. He might well have been resented in his new role. He was English, he was of the privileged classes, he was half crippled, he was lamentably ignorant and inexperienced. And perhaps he was resented at the beginning. Wisely, he did not worry about whether he was popular or not. He did not set about being liked. And perhaps that was the secret of his success. For respect, liking, and loyalty came gradually as he earned them.
Mr. Bevan spent a good deal of time with him. Ben liked him and learned from him. Ben had ideas of his own too, mainly about transportation and shipping, for which Bevan hired outside companies at great expense. But he kept those ideas to himself at this early stage of his career. This was the time to listen and learn.
He did not write to any of his family or friends for several months. He did not want to hear or be influenced by their opinions on what he was doing. They were bound to be negative. And he did not want to confide in anyone until he was more certain about his long-term future. There was the whole question of Samantha too. He did not want to tell anyone about her until there was something to tell—if there ever was anything. He had told her he had feelings for her. She had not said she returned those feelings. And he had not been specific about his own.
He heard very little about her during those months. He made it a point never to ask Bevan about her, and sometimes he thought the man deliberately refrained from mentioning her himself. There were only a few stray snippets of information, tantalizing in their very brevity. She had had a pianoforte delivered to the cottage, Bevan mentioned on one occasion. How did he know? Had he seen the instrument? Or had someone told him about it? She had attended an assembly at the village inn in celebration of the harvest, but she had worn lavender to indicate mourning and had refused to dance. But had Bevan seen her there? Or had he been told?
Ben did not even know if she had a relationship with her grandfather. He did not know if time had erased him from her mind, or if she was glad he was gone. As for him, he had fallen in love during those brief weeks he had spent with her, and he remained in love, as he never had with any woman before.
Finally, in early November, Ben wrote three letters—to Calvin, to Beatrice, and to George at Penderris Hall. Calvin wrote back immediately and with a warmth Ben found surprising and rather touching. He and Julia had been frantic with worry, Calvin had written. Beatrice had informed them that he had gone traveling in Scotland, but as time had gone on and no one heard from him, they had been sick with apprehension, for they would not know where to begin looking for him if he never returned, and Scotland was a large country. Yet all the time he had been in Wales. He gave no opinion of what Ben had been doing with his time. His letter was filled with obvious relief over his brother’s safety and brief details of the harvest at Kenelston and other estate matters.
It seemed after all, Ben thought, that his brother loved him.
Beatrice’s letter was full of amazement and good-natured scolding for his long silence. Gramley, she reported, had given it as his opinion that his brother-in-law had taken leave of his senses, if it was true that he was working down a coal mine. Bea thought it was all vastly diverting and wondered when and if her brother would recover from the novelty of actually working for a living. She went on to complain about Mr. and Mrs. Rudolph McKay, whose presence at Bramble Hall was a severe trial to everyone else in the neighborhood—and to ask Ben if he had heard about Mrs. Samantha McKay’s fleeing back in the early summer, never to be heard from again. I do hope she is kicking up her heels somewhere exotic, enjoying life, she wrote. Apparently she was expected to go to Leyland Abbey under heavy guard, there to live at the tender mercy of the Earl of Heathmoor and that killjoy of a sister-in-law whom you met when you were here.
George was delighted to hear about the new life Ben was making for himself and believed it would suit his friend down to the ground even if he did get some coal dust beneath his fingernails. He had some startling news too. Hugo and Lady Muir had indeed married in London, at St. George’s on Hanover Square, as planned. All the Survivors had been present except Ben and Vincent, who could not be found. However, he had arrived on Hugo’s doorstep two days after the wedding, bringing with him Miss Sophia Fry, a young lady whom he intended to marry without delay. And marry her he did, by special license, two days later, also at St. George’s, with all his friends around him except Ben. The new Lady Darleigh was in expectation of her first confinement just before March, when the Survivors’ Club usually gathered for a few weeks at Penderris Hall, and had suggested that they meet at Middlebury Park in Gloucestershire, Vincent’s home, instead, since Vincent had declared that he would not leave his wife and child so soon after the birth. Now Ben would be able to give his opinion on the matter. Everyone else was in agreement, the duke reported.
Life had gone on without him, Ben realized. And Vincent, the youngest of them, the blind one, was married too. It sounded as though there must be a story behind such hasty nuptials. Ben would hear it in time, he supposed. But he hoped it was a happy marriage. Those friends of his were like brothers—and one sister.
He wrote again to George as well as to Hugo to explain why he had not replied to his wedding invitation. And he wrote to Vincent, knowing that someone—perhaps his wife—would read the letter to him. How strange to think of Vince with a wife!
Mr. Bevan finally set a date for the planned meeting at Cartref to discuss Ben’s future as his overseer. It was to be one week before Christmas, and was to coincide with a ball he had planned for his friends and neighbors. They would spend a few days together, he said, relaxing and talking things over. There would be a few other guests too to make things more sociable.
He did not say if Samantha would be at the ball.
Samantha was almost entirely happy during those months. Sometimes she felt guilty about it, for poor Matthew was dead and perhaps she ought to be far sadder than she was. But though she thought of him frequently and mourned the fact that his life had been cut off so early and so unhappily, she did not dwell upon what she could not change anyway.
She and Mrs. Price and even Gladys worked hard at making her house into a home. She changed curtains and rugs and replaced some vases and ornaments with ones she liked better. She purchased some pieces from the village potter. The only actually new piece of furniture she added was a pianoforte, which she purchased when she knew there was a music teacher in the village who had time to take on another pupil. There had been a harpsichord in the house when she was a girl, and while her mother lived she had taken lessons. But she had never enjoyed them and had abandoned them after her mother’s death. Now she regretted having done so and was determined to learn to play again, at least well enough to amuse herself. More important, perhaps, the same teacher gave her voice lessons and taught her how to use her mezzo-soprano voice to best advantage.
She took Welsh lessons from Mrs. Jenkins, the vicar’s wife, and wondered if it really was the most difficult language in the world to learn or if it just seemed that way because she had never tried learning anything else but French.
She made numerous friendly acquaintances among her neighbors and one definite friend in Mari Pritchard, the schoolmaster’s wife. She might have attracted the romantic interest of a number of men but took to wearing gray and lavender on public occasions so that it would be known that she was still in mourning.
Her grandfather did not come near her for a week after she and Ben had dined with him at Cartref. Finally, Samantha went to see him and was fortunate to find him at home. The next day, he told her, he would be going away and staying for a couple of weeks or so. She wondered if he would be seeing Ben, but he did not say so and she did not ask.
She sat with him in the main drawing room, from the window of which there was a magnificent view down across the park and the village beyond it to the sea. And she told him her story, ending with her decision to come to the cottage, which she had expected to be a mere run-down hovel, and Ben’s decision to accompany her here.
He nodded his head slowly.
“And you knew nothing of me,” he said, “and nothing of your heritage here.”
“Nothing.” She shook her head.
“Drink is a terrible thing,” he said. “Or, rather, drink in the hands of a weak and foolish man is a terrible thing.”
“You overcame it.”
“For myself, yes,” he said. “But that was no consolation to your mother, was it? I am glad she found a good man. And that she had you for a daughter.”
“I would like,” she said after a short silence, “to call you grandfather.”
She watched tears brighten his eyes, but he did not shed them, and after a moment or two he went to stand by the window, his back to her.
“I loved her with an all-consuming passion,” he said after a while. “Your grandmother, I mean. Unfortunately I was young, and I had no wisdom to balance out the passion. When she left, she took everything that was me with her and left behind an empty shell of raw pain. Love ought not to be like that, Samantha. One should love from a position of wholeness. One should have a firm and rich sense of self no matter what. For there is always pain—it cannot be avoided in this life, more’s the pity. But pain should not destroy the person who feels it. I should not have been destroyed. I had my life and my health, this home, my work, friends. Most of all, I had Gwynneth. I loved her too, more than life, I believed before her mother left me. But it turned out that I loved my self-pity more, and the drink helped me wallow in it until I had lost my daughter as well as my wife.”
He turned away from the window to look at Samantha. “You loved your husband with passion,” he said, “and survived its early loss, putting duty before self-pity when he needed you. You are stronger than I was, and I am proud to call you granddaughter. You will find it again—passion, that is, and love. Perhaps you already have. But take it and offer it from a position of strength, Samantha. Use these months to—” He stopped and smiled suddenly with an expression of great warmth. “And listen to me, giving advice upon loving wisely and well.”
“You are my grandfather,” she said, “and someone who has had experience of life and of hell.”
He nodded toward Tramp, who was lying at her feet. “And what is the story of your dog?” he asked. “He does not look like the type one would willingly choose unless he was a tiny pup at the time and one did not know his full parentage.”
“Oh, poor Tramp.” She laughed and told his story, or the part of it she knew.
Her grandfather left the next day and stayed away for two weeks. He was frequently gone after that. But whenever he was at home, he would come to the cottage or she would go to Cartref. They became gradually acquainted with and fond of each other, until she realized that he had become quite central to her life. He was family, something she had craved since her marriage and the death of her father not long after.
They sat together at church on Sundays. He escorted her to a concert in the school hall when a visiting choir was performing there with some solo artists, and to the harvest assembly at the inn, which she enjoyed immensely though she did not dance. He invited her to dinner whenever he was entertaining guests, which happened quite frequently when he was at home. He was a sociable man.
He never mentioned Ben directly to her. She would not even have known for certain that Ben was still working for him if he had not answered an inquiry from one of his guests at a dinner one evening in October with the information that yes, the man in question was indeed a baronet—Major Sir Benedict Harper.
It was Ben who kept Samantha from being perfectly happy during those months. She had not swum since he left. She had not even walked much on the beach, and when she had, usually at Tramp’s insistence, she had found it desolate rather than magical.
For she did not know for sure that he would come back. She had more or less forced him to accompany her on her journey here, after all. She had forced him to stay when she arrived and he would have resumed his own travels. Perhaps she had even half forced him into their affair. Perhaps once he had left here he had found that he was glad to be free of her.
And what about her? For such a long time she had yearned to be free. Now she was free. Would it be wise to give up that freedom so soon after her bereavement? If she was asked to give it up, that was.
It was only at night that all doubts fled and she knew that she loved him quite differently from the way she had loved Matthew. She liked his looks, yes, and his charm. But whereas at the age of seventeen she had not looked beyond outer appearance to wonder if Matthew had the character to match his looks, at the age of twenty-four she had looked. And her love was for Ben himself. His looks were unimportant. His half-crippled state was no encumbrance whatsoever to her. She loved him.
And surely he loved her. He would not have taken employment with her grandfather, she believed, if he did not. Or, if he had, he would not have come to consult her first. He would not have talked about coming back. He would not have told her what her grandfather had said about their having feelings for each other. He had even admitted that he had feelings, though, like a typical man, he had not elaborated.
And then, in December, her grandfather called at the cottage one morning while she was practicing at the pianoforte to tell her that he was going to host a ball at Cartref a week before Christmas for everyone in the neighborhood and a few friends from more distant places who would stay with him for a few days. He wanted her to come to stay too and to be his hostess at the ball.
“All of which you can do with a clear conscience, my dear,” he said. “For your year of mourning is at an end, is it not?”
“It is,” she said. “I will be happy to come, Grandpapa.”
Was Ben to be one of those more distant friends?
“Major Harper will be one of my guests,” he said as if she had asked aloud.
“Ah,” she said. “It will be good to see him again.”
His eyes twinkled at her.
“Come into the sitting room,” she said, rising from the bench to lead the way. “Mrs. Price has been baking and will be eager for you to sample her cake.”
“I could smell it all the way up at Cartref,” he said. “Why else do you think I walked over here?”
Ben was coming, she thought, a flutter of mingled excitement and anxiety in her stomach. It had been such a long time. It had seemed like forever. Sometimes she struggled to remember just how he looked.
He was coming, of course, to discuss business with Grandpapa.
And maybe …
Well. Maybe.
