Mary Balogh: The constant heart

"Ah, thank goodness," Mrs. Sinclair sang out when they were still several yards distant. "We have searched all over the place for you two young ladies. Mr. Sinclair and Julian have gone looking in the other direction. And Christopher is nowhere to be seen either."

"What has happened?" Rebecca asked.

"My dear," said Mrs. Sinclair, "a servant came riding in from Limeglade to say that his lordship has taken a turn for the worse and that Dr. Gamble was to come and Lady Holmes. Poor lady! She was almost distracted what with blaming herself for leaving him and looking in vain for Harriet. 'You take our carriage, your ladyship,' I said, 'and leave everything else to us. We will see that Harriet comes home as soon as may be.' Julian was going to drive her, but the Reverend Everett was kind enough to take her himself. He will be a comfort to her and to Lord Holmes if he really is poorly."

"Papa?" Harriet said rather shakily. "He is really sick? I must go to him at once. Rebecca, come with me, will you?"

"Yes, of course," Rebecca replied. "We shall take the gig at once. It is such a bright moonlit night that there will be no trouble seeing our way."

"Not alone," Mrs. Sinclair said firmly. "I will not hear of it, my dears. Julian will take you when he comes back from searching for you in the other direction. Ah, thank goodness. Here comes Christopher."

They all turned to watch him walk along the street beside Mr. Carver. To Rebecca's searching eyes, he looked quite as calm and immaculate as he had looked earlier in the evening. There was no sign of Mr. Bartlett.

"Christopher," Mrs. Sinclair called, "here are the Misses Shaw with an urgent need to return home. Poor Lord Holmes has taken a bad turn and the doctor and the ladies have been sent for. The vicar has taken Lady Holmes already and left the gig for the young ladies. And I have just been saying that I will not hear of them going off alone."

"Indeed not," he said, looking with quiet sympathy at Harriet and Rebecca. "I shall accompany them, Mama. You need not worry. We had best leave immediately. Will you take my arm, Miss Shaw?" These last words were directed quite gently to Harriet, who indeed was looking as if she was not capable of getting anywhere under her own power.

It was an almost silent journey. Rebecca could not guess what Christopher's thoughts might be. He appeared perfectly calm, and there was no sign that he had just been involved in a fight-no black eyes or bloody nose or split lips. She longed to ask him what had happened, where Mr. Bartlett was now, how Mr. Carver had discovered the elopement plan, why he had been quite so angry with Mr. Bartlett, what exactly he had meant by his references to the past, if he was nursing some broken ribs or some other ghastly but invisible injury.

She wanted to question Harriet, to find out why the girl had been about to elope with Mr. Bartlett, where they had planned to go, what they had planned to do afterward. Her head teemed with enough questions to keep them all talking nonstop during five journeys from the village to Limeglade. But she said nothing. And what of Uncle Humphrey? Had the doctor been right and was he now really ill?

"It is all my fault that Papa is ill at all," Harriet said from her seat between Rebecca and Christopher. Her voice was unusually subdued. "That journey to Cenross Castle was just too much for him. Do you think he is really ill, Rebecca?"

Rebecca murmured something soothing.

"I know what you are both thinking," Harriet blurted a little later. "You both despise me."

"I believe your cousin loves you simply because you are her cousin," Christopher said. "And my feelings are merely ones of relief that you have been rescued from the clutches of an out-and-out bounder. You need not fear recriminations from either of us, I think, Miss Shaw."

"But I deserve to be despised!" Harriet said vehemently and quite unexpectedly. "It was a stupid thing to do. I only did it because Maude tried to separate us. I had not even thought seriously of marrying Mr. Bartlett before that. But I could not let her think that I would give in meekly to her bidding. I really am too stubborn for my own good."

Neither of her companions said anything to contradict this opinion of herself that Harriet had given. She looked down at her hands for the remainder of the journey home and said no more until Christopher drew the horses to a halt outside the main doors of the house.

"I do hope Papa felt better once he saw Maude," she said.

But when they went inside, a poker-faced butler directed them to the drawing room, where they found Maude and Philip standing at opposite sides of the empty fireplace. Maude, her face deathly pale, came hurrying across the room when they entered, her hands outstretched to Harriet.

"My dear," she said, "it was much worse than we could have imagined. He is gone, Harriet." Her eyes, fixed on her stepdaughter's, were dazed.

"What?" Harriet said on a gasp. "Papa is-dead? No, he cannot be. I won't believe it. I must go to him now."

"No," Maude said, catching Harriet by the shoulders as she turned. "We shall both see him afterward, Harriet. But not just yet. He is gone, dear. Your papa is dead. He had a heart seizure."

And Maude pulled the stunned girl into her arms.

Rebecca had not moved. She still stood just inside the door. She looked across the room to Philip, whose eyes were fixed on Maude and Harriet, and back to the doorway to Christopher, whose hand was still on the handle of the door.

It was Christopher who strode across to her, put a firm arm around her shoulders, and led her to a chair before crossing the room and pouring them all a drink of brandy from the decanter that was always kept on a sideboard there.

Maude, Harriet, and Rebecca were sitting in the garden. Each was wearing deep mourning, black shawls in place over black dresses. Early autumn was already in the air.

"It is all my fault," Harriet said, staring listlessly ahead of her. "Papa would never have died had I not insisted on going to Cenross Castle for my birthday. No one else wanted to go, but I would insist. And he had to climb all that way up the hill and sit in a windy courtyard for a full afternoon. And then I scared him by going down to those infernal dungeons and hurting my ankle. I had no idea that his heart could not stand the strain. Oh, I am so selfish! I killed Papa."

"Nonsense, Harriet," Rebecca said. "Of course you did not kill him. Your papa was an adult. He could choose for himself where he wanted to go and where not. And what was more natural than that a young girl whose birthday falls in August should want to go on an outing for the occasion? You must stop blaming yourself. Grief is hard enough to cope with without that."

"Yes, dear," Maude said, "Rebecca is quite right. You are in no way to blame. Your papa was afraid of fresh air and exercise. If he had taken his normal share of both through the years, I am sure his heart would not have weakened as it did."

"I would not even have been here on the night he died if it had not been for Mr. Carver," Harriet said drearily. "I am the most selfish, thoughtless creature in the world."

"I think perhaps we should take a short walk, Harriet," Rebecca said, getting decisively to her feet. "There is nothing like exercise to calm the mind." She turned to Maude. "Mr. Carver was the one who brought Mr. Sinclair along in time to drive us home from the village that night," she explained, No one had told Maude of the failed elopement plan. She had had enough to cope with in the week that had elapsed since the death of her husband, receiving calls and preparing for the funeral two days before. Everyone who knew avoided the subject of her brother and left her to assume that Mr. Bartlett had decided to return to London the night of the fair instead of waiting until the next day. Indeed, Rebecca guessed that she was secretly relieved that her brother had not delayed. Had he done so, he might have used Lord Holmes's death as an excuse to stay awhile longer.