Always remember, p.12
Always Remember, page 12
The boats were in constant demand, especially after the ball game was over. Barbara Rutledge and Ariel Wexford were currently standing on the bank of the lake with Owen and Bertrand, waiting for the boats to come in so they could take their turn. David Cox and Ben were up to their knees in the shallow water a little way from the boathouse with Cox’s three children and Joy, who were splashing around with a gleeful disregard for how wet they were getting themselves and their fathers. Five-year-old Olwen went staggering off to her mother, soaking wet and howling, after losing her balance and going right under for a fraction of a second before her father hauled her back up into the air. Eight-year-old Philip pretended to swim with a vigorous flailing of his arms, though his feet still anchored him to the bottom. Three-year-old Andrew jumped up and down, shrieking with glee at his sister’s misfortune and splashing water into Joy’s face. She gasped and reached for Ben. He lifted her up and laughed with her after she had caught her breath and cleared her eyes. But they had to get out and dry off. Gwyneth was signaling that it would be time for tea in a few minutes, and it looked as though almost everyone was discovering a ravenous appetite.
Ben wondered how on earth he could have expected when he removed his boots and stockings earlier and his coat and waistcoat too as an extra precaution that the worst damage he could do to himself was get the bottoms of his pantaloons wet. He was soaked. Even his hair was dripping.
“I’m c-c-cold, P-p-papa,” Joy said, burrowing against him as he hurried her toward the boathouse, though there was not much warmth to burrow into.
“We will soon get a towel around you,” he said. He had had the forethought when he arrived earlier to take a pile out of the boathouse and stack them on the bank.
He set her down on the grass, wrapped a large towel about her, rubbed her vigorously, including her hair, and picked her up again. “Into the boathouse with you to get dressed,” he said.
He was glad he had brought extra undergarments for her. He wished he had brought a dry shirt for himself—not to mention pantaloons. But what he had on would dry quickly enough in the sunshine, he supposed.
“I want to go play with Olwen and Andrew, Papa,” Joy said as they came out of the boathouse, her chills forgotten.
“You are not ready for tea?” he asked.
“Ye-e-ess,” she shrieked, but she dashed off anyway to find her friends. She would have tea with them.
And they feasted. For a while there was a mere murmur of sound as they all did justice to the banquet of both savories and sweets. But inevitably hunger was satisfied and voices rose again in conversation. People mingled again and the walks and boat rides and games resumed.
Only one person had done no walking or riding all afternoon. No moving about at all, in fact.
From his seated position on one of the blankets in a group with James and Barbara Rutledge, Clarence Ware, Ariel Wexford, and Stephanie, Ben looked at Lady Jennifer Arden. She was seated in the shade cast by the branches of an elm tree, as she had been from the start. She had not been neglected. There had always been one or two or even three people with her, squatting or kneeling or sitting on the grass close to her and conversing with her. She had been her usual cheerful, spirited self throughout, listening and talking with animation and a look of real interest on her face.
Miss Wexford, the colonel’s spinster sister, who had kept house for him for as far back as Ben could remember, was with her now, as were George Greenfield and Bertrand Lamarr. She looked as if she was enjoying their company.
But damn it all, she wanted to walk and run and dance.
Just the simple pleasure of driving the gig yesterday at a very sedate pace had given her a pleasure that had seemed quite in excess of the activity itself. She had been transformed from a cheerful, sociable, dignified aristocratic lady into a warm and vibrant, somehow beautiful young woman. An attractive woman. He wondered if anyone else here saw those things in her or ever had seen them. Perhaps her aunt or her brother? Or Pippa, who was her friend?
Surely he was not the only one who was aware of her essential unhappiness.
He ought to stay away from her. Good God, she was the sister of the Duke of Wilby, and all the outside guests would be very well aware of that fact. They would also be perfectly well aware of exactly who he was. No one—none of these people here—had ever treated him any differently from the way they treated the other members of the family. But that did not mean they were unaware. He had never even considered courting any of their daughters or sisters and putting that awareness to the test.
Not that he was considering courting Lady Jennifer Arden. But some might think it presumptuous of him even to single her out for conversation. Perhaps he was being oversensitive, but he had always preferred to keep his distance from anything that might be even mildly controversial.
He wanted to speak to her, however. He wanted to tell her he had written to Vincent Kelliston. He thought she would be pleased. He also wanted to apologize again for the terrible indiscretion of discussing her case with Cam Holland and even involving John Rogers. He wanted to assure her that he would go to the smithy early tomorrow to instruct the two men to forget what he had said and on no account to tell anyone else, though he did not believe either man would need to be told that.
Miss Wexford was moving away from Lady Jennifer, and George Greenfield was answering a question Mother had asked him from his other side—she was sitting a few feet away with Lady Catherine Emmett and Lady Rhys. Bertrand had been hauled away by Owen to row a boat. A quick glance showed Ben that Joy was dancing what might possibly be a waltz with Cousin Clarence while Stephanie appeared to be la-la-la-ing the music and Olwen Cox jumped up and down, clapping her hands and awaiting her turn.
Opportunity had presented itself and the temptation was too great to resist.
“Lady Jennifer,” he said as he approached her, and she smiled at him. “Would you care for a change of scenery? I believe your chair will move quite smoothly on the carriage path. There is a narrower footpath that branches off it and goes right around the other two sides of the lake. I am almost certain it is wide enough for your chair.”
“Perhaps, Ben—” Mother said, lifting a staying hand as she turned her attention away from her brother.
But Lady Jennifer forestalled her objection. “A change of scene sounds quite heavenly, Lady Stratton,” she said. “And if the footpath proves to be too narrow and rough, well, then, we will just have to turn around and come back.”
Mother looked dubious, Lady Catherine Emmett, who perhaps did understand some of her niece’s yearnings, twinkled at her, and Ben bore her off, hoping the wheels on her chair were durable enough to take her over the footpaths all the way around the lake. He hoped too that all the picnic guests were not gazing after them, aghast at his impudence.
“Let the adventure begin,” she said when they arrived at the oak tree to which he had tethered the horse yesterday. There was laughter in her voice.
Ben smiled. An adventure indeed.
Chapter Ten
The carriage path was well maintained, as Jenny remembered from yesterday. Her chair moved quite smoothly along it. She hoped it was going to be possible to go along the narrower footpath that branched off it at the southwest corner of the lake. She had not noticed the path yesterday, but at that time, of course, she had been concentrating upon driving the gig.
The footpath was indeed wide enough and well enough maintained that they could turn onto it and move ahead without any great difficulty, though it must be a long way to go all about the lake. Poor Mr. Ellis would have sore arms tomorrow. The path was bordered on the side away from the lake by a variety of low bushes and a few well-placed flower beds. At the northwest corner there was a pretty little open-fronted grotto with a thatched roof and hanging baskets at its corners overflowing with multicolored sweet peas. Flowerpots on the ground beneath them brimmed with blooms. There was a wooden table inside with benches pushed against it.
It was a little piece of rural paradise, Jennifer thought. She had seen a few people stroll this way along the northern path, including Aunt Kitty and Mr. Greenfield, but she would have had no idea what she was missing if Mr. Ellis had not offered to bring her here. The air was fragrant with the scents of the flowers. No one else was strolling the paths now. Probably the picnic fare upon which they had all feasted had made them content just to sit and relax.
“I did not notice any of this from the gig yesterday, or even from the boat,” she said. “How unobservant of me. But these paths are meant to be walked and enjoyed with all the senses, not just admired from afar.” Bees hummed all around them but were far more interested in the flowers than in the two humans who were admiring them.
“The park was very well designed,” he said. “At first glance it may appear to be little more than open, green countryside, though tamed countryside. And that was intentional. Nature at its most unspoiled can be very soothing. But there are areas of enhanced loveliness, like this path around the lake, and the poplar walk to the east—you may have observed it through the window of your room—or even the courtyard at the center of the house. They concentrate the attention upon how astonishingly beautiful individual flowers or beds and flowering bushes can be. It is possible for nature and art to work together in a pleasing harmony.”
The sun was sparkling on the lake water. Nicholas was out there in one of the boats with Ariel Wexford, the colonel’s daughter.
“It must be hard work pushing my chair,” Jennifer said. “Shall we sit in the grotto for a while? I hope you will not get blisters on your hands.”
They had not spoken a great deal since they left the far side of the lake. It had not been an uncomfortable silence, however, for she had been drinking in the sights and sounds and smells of the park around her, and he had probably needed all his breath to push her chair.
“If you see me in the coming days wearing fat white mittens on both hands,” he said as he stepped inside the grotto, moved back one of the benches, and wheeled her chair inside, “you will know that you were correct.” He turned her chair slightly so that she could look outward with ease, and sat on the bench at the other side of the table. “I am sorry I have no wine to serve you. Or even lemonade.”
“I ate and drank my fill not an hour ago,” she said, removing her bonnet and setting it on the far end of the table. The air felt deliciously cool on her head. “Why is it that food tastes so much more appetizing outdoors than in?”
He was wearing his coat over his shirt, she noticed, but neither a waistcoat nor a neckcloth. She wondered if his shirt had dried before he pulled the coat back on. He must have felt very uncomfortable when he stepped out of the water with his little girl, dripping wet. He had probably not expected to be soaked, since the water where the children had played was quite shallow. He had obviously not brought any dry clothes from the house with him. Jennifer had felt quite breathless at the sight of him, feet bare beneath his pantaloons, his shirt transparent with wetness and clinging to every impressive muscle in his chest and arms.
She had fully amended her earlier impression of him. There was nothing ordinary about Mr. Ben Ellis. Not about his person and not about his looks. He was actually quite gorgeous—though no one else ever seemed to notice. He had indeed perfected the art of going largely unnoticed. She was sure it must be deliberate. He had mingled with the guests today. He had smiled and made conversation and offered plates of food and fetched drinks. But it had all been done unobtrusively. She had been left with the impression that everyone liked him but almost no one really knew him. She had no idea how he did it.
“I have been hoping all afternoon to have the chance of a word with you,” she said. “You will never guess what I did this morning.”
“Let me see.” He folded his arms on the tabletop. “Your secret is out, alas. You went with Pippa to call upon Sally Holland—Sally Roberts, I should say—and Mrs. Holland. It was brave of you to go, though I daresay you did not have to suffer the embarrassment of seeing Cam. He would have been in the smithy working. And I must apologize again, Lady Jennifer—”
“But I did see him.” She laughed as she interrupted him. “I went specifically to see him, in fact. I took Pippa with me, and she suggested asking Mrs. Roberts to join us. I daresay she asked her mother to come too, and Mrs. Holland brought Mr. Holland. A full family gathering.”
Mr. Ellis leaned back on the bench, visibly grimacing. “I am so sorry,” he said. “What did I start with such careless disregard for your privacy?”
“But I am the one who started it,” she said. She was enjoying herself enormously. “Well, perhaps not quite. You may rightly claim credit for that, I suppose, but I continued it. The smithy is rather large, is it not? Yet this morning it seemed quite crowded with all the Hollands in it as well as Mr. Rogers, the cobbler; Mr. Taylor, the carpenter; and Dr. Isherwood, the village physician. And Pippa and me, of course.”
He gazed at her, openly aghast, and Jennifer laughed again.
“It was a scene worthy of farce,” she told him. “Mrs. Holland insisted upon running for a very large pink blanket and making a sort of tent of it to guard my modesty, but everyone had a look anyway and made a comment and pointed and gestured, every bit as though I were some sort of new farming machine that needed adjusting. It was all so impersonal it was hardly even embarrassing. And then Mr. Rogers was sketching and the others were all looking over his shoulders and stabbing fingers down onto the paper making suggestions and disagreeing and raising their voices to be heard over everyone else. That was when Mrs. Holland insisted upon sending her son running to fetch the doctor.”
“Good God.” He groaned and pressed his palms to his eyes.
“To cut a very long story a little shorter, Mr. Ellis,” she said, “the verdict was as I expected. My leg and foot can never be straightened or lengthened to match my left leg. But they all knew that as well as I did even before they started, and Dr. Isherwood strictly forbade anyone to try—not that anyone had suggested such a thing. There is little hope that I will ever walk much better than I do now, which is almost not at all. Certainly I will never be able to discard my crutches to engage in a footrace about this lake or to waltz in a London ballroom. But I take encouragement from those two pairs of words—little hope and much better.”
She paused to smile at him, but he still had his palms pressed to his eyes. He was shaking his head slightly.
“The leg brace will not work at all,” she said. “The idea has been abandoned. The shoe will not solve every problem. But with a shoe carefully made to fit the curve of my foot and raise it a few inches, there may be a possibility that I can walk in some fashion. Better than I can now, anyway. Dr. Isherwood suggested that a single crutch for my right arm, carefully made so that it will not easily slip from my grasp, might actually work better than two crutches since it will brace the side of me that needs bracing. Though he did make me promise that I will consult my own physician before making extensive use of any of these inventions, which the other men are quite convinced they can produce within the next week. I did tell them about the cushion you made for me and explained how the combined firmness and softness of it worked well for my foot. I do not want an iron sole on my shoe that weighs half a ton, after all. Imagine if I were to step upon someone’s foot.”
He rubbed his palms over his eyes before folding his arms on the table and looking at her. “Curse me for being an interfering busybody,” he said. “It must have been excruciatingly distressing for you, Lady Jennifer. And I suppose that is a vast understatement. Only to be told that there is little hope of success. I do not even know how I can ask your forgiveness.”
“Oh, but I enjoyed myself enormously,” she told him, reaching out one hand to rub his arm. “They were all so earnest and so eager to do something for me, Mr. Ellis. And even if what they produce helps just a little, it will be a gigantic something to me. I do not expect miracles. Dr. Isherwood was surprised, though, that none of the grand physicians who have tended me most of my life have suggested anything that may actually help me. They have merely murmured soothing words and assured me that I am a brave woman but that I must relax and allow those who love me to look after me. But what I realized at the smithy this morning—and what I began to realize yesterday when you came to suggest that I drive the gig around the park—is I have been a passive participant in my own immobility for years when really all that is wrong with me is that I have one useless leg.”
She realized suddenly that her hand was still on his arm and slid it away, hoping he had not noticed.
“At the very least,” she said, “you have shown me that I need not be entirely helpless. I can drive myself about in my own gig.”
“I daresay,” he said, “you can be driven anywhere you want anytime with a simple request or command.”
She leaned back in her chair. “No,” she said, frowning. “Please do not do that, Mr. Ellis. Do not do what everyone else in my life has done since that wretched illness came calling on me. Anytime you want you can get to your feet and propel yourself wherever you wish to go, whether it be across a room or on a five-mile walk, you can mount a horse and ride. You can drive yourself in any sort of vehicle. You do not have to enlist the help of anyone. Even with a gig I will have to be lifted in and lifted out—unless, that is, I can become more effective on my crutches. But I want more than what I have always had. I do not want the rest of my life to depend totally upon servants and family members. I want at least some independence. Do you wonder why Mr. Taylor was at the smithy too this morning? The carpenter?”
“Curiosity?” he said. “He lives above the smithy. Probably all the commotion under his feet brought him down.”
“No.” She laughed. “He was sent for. When you took me driving in the gig yesterday, you gave me a wild idea. You explained that the large wheels made the vehicle safe and stable, almost impossible to tip over. I made a joke about having them fixed to the sides of my chair so that I could propel myself about. But afterward I could not stop thinking about it. I asked Mr. Holland what he thought. Neither he nor his father was very encouraging. They said it would be impossible to change the size of the wheels on my chair. But they sent for Mr. Taylor anyway, and he knew something about Bath chairs and a few other chairs that might be similar to what I had in my mind. And they were at it again—all the men excited and talking at once and sketching a new chair that might work for me—something with which I could propel myself forward and back and even perhaps in different directions, though that idea sent them into a frenzy of argument and discussion and more sketches. And it would have to be something I could stop in the event that I suddenly found myself at the top of a steep hill with the prospect of becoming a screaming missile hurtling toward the bottom.”
