“I will, ma’am,” he said, bowing.
But it seemed to him as they stepped out onto the street a few minutes later that the visit had not settled a great deal. Perhaps it did not have to, though. Susanna seemed not to want to find out exactly what had happened eleven years ago and why. Perhaps the comfort of knowing that her father had written to her was enough. It would not be enough for him, but that was not the point, was it?
And at least the visit had given pleasure to Lady Markham and Edith and had perhaps persuaded Susanna that she had not been the unwanted burden she had thought she was.
“Are you glad you came?” he asked, drawing her arm through his.
She turned her head to look at him briefly.
“Yes,” she said. “I would have been afraid to set foot beyond the school doors for fear of running into them. Now I have come face-to-face with them and discovered that they are just people and just as I remember them. Edith is pretty, is she not? I hope she will be happy with Mr. Morley.”
“Even though you never could be?” He chuckled.
“But I was not asked to be, was I?” She laughed too.
It was good to hear her laugh again.
And so the end had come. She might have been celebrating her betrothal now. Instead she was about to say good-bye.
By her own choice.
Susanna knew as they walked along Great Pulteney Street in silence and turned onto Sydney Place that memories of her visit to Lady Markham and Edith would return to haunt her for some time to come, along with her decision not to press on with inquiries into the contents of her father’s letter to Sir Charles Markham or into the possible continued existence of the letter he had written her.
But she could not think of any of that now.
Her heart was heavy. She felt that with every step she took she trod on it, increasing her pain.
Yet at the beginning of the afternoon she had been so hopeful that it could all end cheerfully and amicably. The fact that she loved him was of little significance. Given the circumstances of her life, it would have been strange indeed if she had not fallen in love with him. She would recover. How could she not? A happy marriage between them would be impossible for all sorts of reasons, and she would rather lose him altogether and forever than have an unhappy marriage with him.
But, oh, at the moment it was very hard to think such sensible thoughts. In an hour’s time she would think them, perhaps. Tonight she would think them, and next week, and next month. But now…
“I shall be making an early start for London in the morning,” he said as they turned onto Sutton Street and the school came into sight.
“Yes,” she said. “There cannot be much to keep a visitor in Bath, especially at this time of year.”
“I have spent a pleasant few days here, though,” he said.
“I am glad.”
They spoke to each other like cheerful, polite strangers.
“It has been good to see you again,” he said.
“Yes.”
“Perhaps,” he said, “we will meet again sometime.”
“Yes, that would be pleasant.”
Their footsteps slowed and then stopped altogether before they turned onto Daniel Street.
“Susanna,” he said, his hand covering hers on his arm, though he did not turn his head to look down at her. “I want you to know before I leave that I do care for you. I know you do not like me half the time or approve of me the other half, but I do care. I think we were friends once. I think in many ways we still are. But when we became more than friends on that one afternoon, it really was more. I was not just a lustful man taking advantage of being alone with an innocent woman. I cared for you. I know you do not want me or need me. I know you are happy with the life you have. But I think perhaps in some way you have cared too, and I wanted you to know that…Well. Was there ever a more muddled monologue, and just at the time when I most wanted to be eloquent and say something memorable?”
“Oh, Peter,” she said, clinging to his arm, “I do like you. Of course I do. And of course I approve of most of what I see in you. How could I not? You are always so very kind. And I care for you too.”
“But not enough to marry me?” he asked her, still not looking at her.
“No.” It was easier just to say no than try to explain-it was impossible, anyway, to explain all her reasons. “I do thank you, but no, we would not suit.”
“No,” he said softly, “I suppose not. I will leave you here, then.”
“Yes.” Panic grabbed at her stomach, her knees, her throat. She slid her hand from his arm.
He turned then and took both her hands in his, squeezing them so tightly for a moment that she almost winced. He lifted them one at a time and set her gloved palms to his lips.
He raised his eyes to hers-and smiled.
“An already glorious November day has seemed warmer and brighter because of your presence in it,” he said, misquoting his very first words to her. “Thank you, Susanna.”
And so he drew a smile from her even though her heart was breaking.
“Foolish,” she said. “Ah, foolish.”
And somehow they both laughed.
“Good-bye, Peter,” she said.
And because she could not bear any more, she dashed with ungainly haste around the corner and up to the door of the school, and she lifted the knocker and let it fall with more force than was necessary.
She glanced toward the corner as Mr. Keeble opened the door, but there was no one there. She stepped inside, and the door closed behind her.
And now it seemed to her that there was nothing left to live for. Nothing at all. She was in too much distress to notice the melodrama of the thought.
I want you to know before I leave that I do care for you.
Mary Fisher, one of the middle school boarders, was on her way up the stairs. She turned back when she saw who had come through the door.
“Oh, Miss Osbourne,” she cried, all excitement, “we and Mr. Upton have made the changes you wanted to the sketches for the scenery and finished them. They are ever so gorgeous. Do come and see.”
“Of course. I can hardly wait. Lead the way, then, Mary,” Susanna said, smiling brightly as she pulled loose the ribbons of her bonnet. “Have you been working all afternoon? How splendid of you.”
I want you to know before I leave that I do care for you.
… before I leave…
And now he was gone.
20
Peter went straight from Bath to Sidley Park-to stay.
Will you do one thing for me? And this was it. She might never know he had done as she asked, and how his coming here could benefit her anyway he did not know. But here he was. He loved her, and so he had honored her final request.
He hoped that love would go away again as suddenly as it had come. He did not like the feeling at all. It was a dashed miserable thing, if the truth were known.
His mother was ecstatic to see him. She scarcely stopped talking about Christmas, which would be absolutely perfect now that he was home to enjoy all that she had planned for him. Four of his sisters-Barbara, Doris, Amy, and Belinda-were to come to Sidley Park for Christmas, all except Josephine, in fact, the middle one in age, who lived in Scotland with her husband and his family. And of course the presence of four sisters was going to mean too the presence of their spouses and children-nine of the latter among the four of them. And because it was Christmas, numbers of their in-laws of all ages had been invited too. None of his uncles-he had made himself clear to them five years ago, though in the intervening years since he had seen them occasionally in London and learned to be cordial with them.