Chapter 48

48

There was no denying that things were a little difficult for a while, and Isabella would not soon forget the hurt expression on her parents' faces when they realised all that she had kept from them, but their innate good manners and restraint carried them through it and inside the house. Everything seemed a little easier when they were sitting in the familiar old parlour with a glass of wine by a cheerful fire, the thick brocade curtains drawn against the cold.

Mrs Richmond said, ‘I thought there was something a little peculiar about the tone of your recent letters, dear, but your father told me I was imagining it. Yes, you did, Peter. You mentioned such a quantity of young men, Isabella, and I was sure that one of them must be the cause of the strangeness, but I couldn't work out which. You seemed indifferent to all of them, or pretending to be so. And your name, sir,' she said almost accusingly to Leo, still somewhat stiff in her manner, ‘she never mentioned at all. I didn't even know that you existed!'

Her mother was a little tearful, and Isabella hurried to say, ‘I'm sorry! I knew I couldn't be natural if I referred to Leo, and that you would realise and question me, so I didn't say anything at all. And then things happened so quickly at the last, and it was far too late to break it to you gently!'

They'd discussed this beforehand, and Isabella had asked Leo to find some way to speak to her father alone so that she could have a heart-to-heart with her mother. There were things that fathers didn't need to know, she'd told her husband; he had smiled a little wryly, as if seeing a vision of his own future, but agreed all the same. The Captain set down his glass now and said, ‘I know that all this has been a shock to you, ma'am, sir, but I hope at least that I will be able to demonstrate to you that I am perfectly able to support a wife and family, that my estate is well enough though it is not large, and that Isabella's marriage settlements will be all that you might desire for her. Shall we discuss it now, sir, so that I may set your mind at rest on such matters? I have brought papers for your perusal, including details of what I have invested in the Funds.'

‘Yes,' said Isabella, ‘that's an excellent idea! Mama, would you come and help me unpack? I am sure that Betty will have enough to do without waiting on me.'

In a moment or two, she was alone with her mother in her old bedchamber, and Mrs Richmond sank down into the comfortably shabby old chair by the window and gazed at her daughter, her gentle, anxious face a picture of confusion and several other conflicting emotions. ‘I love him, Mama,' she said directly, jumping up onto the bed and hugging her knees as she had done when she was small. ‘I love him and he loves me. That's all you need to know, really, in the end.'

‘Why didn't you tell me?' her parent protested with some justice.

‘I've been very foolish. I was so determined that I wouldn't marry again, so sure that I could never love anyone but Ash, that I refused to see that I was falling in love with him. I've loved him for weeks and weeks, and never knew it. Even when he declared himself to me, I wouldn't accept it. I told him I didn't love him and never would – I hurt him, Mama! If you had seen his face! And all along it wasn't true, and I've only recently realised it. I didn't want to tell you in a letter – can you understand that? I thought it better if you met him, so you can see how good and kind he is, and how much he loves me. I knew you'd only worry, if I wrote.'

‘I would have worried. We both would. I'm still worried at the suddenness of it all. Is that why you married so quickly, without us even being present? So that you could travel to see us together?'

This idea obviously gave her mother some measure of comfort, and Isabella rather feebly wished she could accede to it; how much easier it would be, if she could say, Yes, Mama, that is why . But it wouldn't be honest, her mother wasn't stupid, and she wouldn't begin her married life with any more lies. The truth would have to come out soon enough, at least between mother and daughter.

‘Not… entirely,' she said cautiously.

There was a little silence, as her mother looked her up and down, and she shifted uncomfortably under her gaze. It was written on her face, she knew. She might as well say it. ‘I'm with child.' There. It was out.

Mrs Richmond looked at her, her mouth slightly open, anger kindling slowly but surely in her eyes. ‘He took?—'

‘He didn't take anything. I made him. Well, no, that's not quite right,' she amended scrupulously. It certainly didn't sound right. She'd have to explain: maybe not the list, definitely not the list, but some part of it. The facts rather spoke for themselves, and could hardly be denied.

‘I wanted a last time that I knew was a last time,' she said, as she had said once before. She glanced at her mother's horrified, uncomprehending face, and hurried on. ‘I couldn't endure the way Ash was taken from me so cruelly, you know I couldn't, and I wanted to… control the memories, I suppose. To make new ones that didn't hurt so much. To feel as though I was in control of my life again. I thought I'd never marry or fall in love, I didn't want to, but… I was so lonely, Mama! And he is so kind and good. I won't have you blaming him, thinking he seduced me, because it isn't true! I knew I'd be coming back home soon, and that I'd be alone for ever after that. And so…'

Her mother was looking at her as though she were a stranger. ‘But… You took him to bed. That's what you're telling me. This is what comes of going to that London – I always knew it was a terrible idea, and now look! You have been led astray by your fine new friends, I see now, and taken shocking advantage of! You must have been! I simply refuse to believe, Isabella Richmond, that you initiated… that!'

It was fairly obvious that somebody had. ‘But I did, Mama, I swear it was all me… I can't speak of it! I'm sorry I've shocked you, but I've always been odd, you know it's true. Perhaps you can put it down to that, if it helps. But what I didn't know, Mama dear, was that he loved me then. He'd been meaning to ask for my hand, was biding his time because he knew I'd been hurt. He was going to woo me slowly. But of course when I… Poor Leo, he had no choice.' It would definitely be wise not to tell her mama that she had intended to try someone else if he had refused her. She'd have an apoplectic fit if she heard that.

Her mother's face was working in a curious way. ‘Perhaps he did and perhaps he didn't! You have always been so very determined!' Their eyes met, and suddenly they found themselves engulfed in helpless laughter. Mrs Richmond laughed till tears streamed down her face, and Isabella clutched at her bedpost till she felt weak, then flopped back among the pillows. ‘He… he told me he was in love with someone else,' she gasped at last. ‘He invented this whole ridiculous story… He thought it made sense at the time, he told me later, the dear idiot that he is. But I'm no better.'

Her mama was mopping her face. ‘Oh, I am furious with you, but after all I'd say you deserve each other. And what's done is done, I suppose, whoever you say began it. At least you're safely married. How… how long?'

‘I've just missed my courses once. They were due about two weeks ago, or a little more. I'm losing count, so much has happened. But I know, Mama. I can feel it. This time it's real, I promise you it is. Not like before. I never thought I could…'

Mrs Richmond rose then, and came to embrace her, and she found that she was crying in earnest now, sobbing into her mother's soft shoulder. ‘My dear, my dear,' she whispered, and she was crying too. There was no need for words; her mother knew what she had suffered after Ash's death, and her pitiful delusion of carrying his child.

At length, her mama said raggedly, ‘I'm happy for you, my love. Really I am. Despite the circumstances. You've been through so much, and now at last… It is very irregular, and most improper and wrong, but still, I must be glad, when I think of everything that you have endured, and all our worry over you… Oh, it's too much, I can't speak!'

This didn't help either of them to stop weeping, and it was only when she said, ‘Mama, there is no need for Papa to know anything at all of this!' that they were able to stop. The speed of her mother's horrified agreement, and the comical expression on her countenance, set her laughing uncontrollably again, until she was obliged to hold her aching sides and struggle for her breath. It was a long while before they could compose themselves enough to wash their tear-stained faces and go downstairs to see how her father and Leo had been getting on in their absence. It was to be hoped that the very respectable nature of the Captain's fortune would have reassured Mr Richmond on worldly matters, at least.

They had a celebratory dinner, and all the servants, many of them people she'd known from the cradle, were brought in to toast the happy couple and wish them well. It was a happy evening in the end. Much later, Isabella lay in Leo's arms in her rose-papered childhood bedroom, surrounded by all that was dear and familiar, and sighed in contentment as she nestled into his chest. ‘That's done,' she said, snuggling closer.

‘We're lucky we arrived when we did, my dearest. It's meant to snow tomorrow,' he told her. ‘A heavy fall this time, your father thinks. If it settles, and he believes it will, we'll be here for Christmas, I dare say.'

‘Well, I don't mind if you don't. Do you?' She looked up at him, and he touched her face with a tenderness that made her eyes water a little. It was a wonder she had a tear left in her, but it seemed she did: one or two, at least.

‘I don't. I don't mind anything if I can be with you.'

‘I told Mama about my condition, Leo. I felt it only right.'

‘I thought you might have done. Did she want to kill me?'

‘Only for a second, until I explained that it was all my fault, and you were the innocent victim of my lust. Don't worry, I didn't mention the list.'

He chuckled. ‘I should hope you didn't. Some things are private. What did she say?'

‘She said a fair amount. She was quite shocked, naturally. But in the end, she forgave me, I think, and agreed that we should in no circumstances tell my papa!'

‘By all means, let us not! Will he believe that his grandchild is an eight-month babe when he or she makes an early appearance, then?'

‘He will believe,' she said with certainty, ‘anything my mother tells him to believe!'

‘Oh, he lives under the cat's foot, does he?' She nodded, smiling and running her hands suggestively over the thick hair of his chest. ‘And am I to do the same?'

‘I think so, Bear,' his wife told him, sitting up and straddling him, her hair wild about her shoulders and her breasts. ‘Admit, sir, while you can still speak, that you would not have it any other way!'

While he could still speak, he did.