“Not tonight. I have more business to attend to with Mr. Walcot in the morning,” Somerset said, after a brief pause. He turned his hat once more in his hands, then added: “Perhaps—perhaps I may call upon you again, tomorrow, if it would be convenient?”
“It would,” Eliza said, tamping down excitement springing within her. “It would indeed.”
Somerset bowed his head. “Then I will see you tomorrow, Lady Somerset, Miss Balfour.”
The cousins waited until they heard the front door close. Then Margaret darted to the window embrasure to watch Somerset’s departure down the street.
“He is gone!” she declared. “What did you speak of, when I was absent? I tried to listen on the stairs, but your voices were too quiet.”
“Not a great deal,” Eliza said, feeling dazed. Had what just occurred, truly just occurred? “He reassured me I would be welcome at Harefield if I wished to return.”
“Which you don’t,” Margaret checked.
“Which I don’t,” Eliza agreed. “Though it was most kind of him to suggest it. Did he seem . . . concerned to you, when he thought I was ill?”
“I should say so; most worried,” Margaret said.
“And relieved, when he heard I was well?” Eliza said.
“Very relieved,” Margaret confirmed with a sharp nod.
“And he means to return, tomorrow,” Eliza said, half thinking she might have imagined it.
Perhaps, then, he did not nothing her after all. Eliza pressed a hand to her mouth, to try to prevent herself smiling. Do not, she tried to tell herself, make the mistake of becoming hopeful now. He spent half the visit chastising you, for goodness’ sake.
But he was kind, a smaller, dreamier voice protested. And he means to return.
“Do you think—” Eliza broke off.
“Do I think . . . ?”
“It’s just . . . his manner was so much the warmer, by the end,” Eliza said. “Perhaps it is a sign that he might, one day . . . forgive me?”
“He forgive you?” Margaret said with a sudden frown. “Whatever for?”
“Margaret, you know ‘whatever for.’ ”
“I do not at all understand why you still feel so guilty,” Margaret said stoutly. “It was an impossible situation for you both, but it was only you who had to bear the consequences—marrying that old goat while he remained free and unencumbered.”
“He joined the navy, Margaret,” Eliza pointed out. “I do not think you can call that free and unencumbered.”
“Oh pish, jauntering about the Atlantic with a boat of friends?” Margaret said. “Many persons would pay for such a diversion.”
Margaret’s understanding of the navy was demonstrably rather limited.
“I have always been fond of Somerset,” she carried on. “But if he still bears resentment over the matter years later, then he is certainly not worth a single thought more.”
“Perhaps we ought have a nuncheon,” Eliza said, rising from the sofa to ring the bell.
She did not want to argue. Margaret had always been Eliza’s fiercest defender and Eliza loved her for it—but she had not been there, when Somerset had heard of Eliza’s betrothal. If she had, she might better understand why Eliza still felt such remorse.
“My lady.” Perkins had appeared once more at the door. “A delivery from Mr. Fasana has arrived and it being—ah—a fair sight larger than previous, I was wondering where you might wish me to . . . ?”
“Oh!” Eliza said, recollecting the very large number and size of purchases she had made that morning. “Perhaps you ought to place them in here, for the time being.”
Perkins paused delicately. “And the easel, too?”
Eliza looked around. The drawing room already boasted a pianoforte, and the addition of an easel would make the space rather crowded—and doubtless encourage questions from any visitor that entered. Visitors such as Somerset, tomorrow.
He means to return.
“Perhaps it ought to all go in the parlor, instead,” she said, but abstractedly. “It is north-lit, after all.”
Perkins nodded briskly. With characteristic efficiency, it did not take him above an hour to rearrange the first-floor parlor: removing two chairs in order to accommodate the large easel which he had placed a little back from the window, so Eliza could enjoy the natural light whilst remaining unobserved from passersby; clearing the bookshelves to allow for all of Eliza’s portfolios, full and empty, to be arranged neatly within; and purloining a small bureau from the drawing room to house her paints. With Eliza’s mind full of agitation, it proved the perfect distraction, and while Margaret read her book, curled up upon the sofa, Eliza tested her new oils. At once, the room was filled with their sharp, acidic scent, a smell that transported Eliza so abruptly back to her childhood that she had to blink back sudden, joyful tears as she covered the canvas with a ground layer of yellow ochre. Soon she would capture Bath’s evening light with that creamy roseate and begin a portrait of Margaret with the carmine that perfectly matched her red locks; but for now, in the fading afternoon light, Eliza resealed the oils—which came in strips of bladder tied at the neck as a suet pudding—with a tack and moved back to pencil and watercolor, sketching from memory the scenes from the concert: Melville’s expression as he flirted with Lady Hurley, Mr. Fletcher’s annoyance, Mrs. Winkworth’s judging eyes.
By the time Eliza at last put aside her materials, the fire in the grate had almost burned itself out, her eyes were beginning to strain, and she felt calm enough, at last, to retire to bed.
Tomorrow, she vowed as she undressed, she would be prepared. She would not be found stooped on the ground as though she were some grubby urchin. She would be calm and collected and composed and all would go well.
8
Though the traditional hours of calling—between midday and three o’clock in the afternoon—left plenty of the day remaining, she and Margaret did not attend to any of their usual errands. Instead, to be sure not to miss Somerset’s visit no matter what time he called, they arranged themselves patiently in the drawing room to await his arrival.
“What do you think you will speak of?” Margaret asked, from beside her.
“The usual subjects, I suppose,” Eliza said. She had compiled just such a list that morning. “I shall ask him for news of his family, of London, of . . .”
Margaret made a face.
“What did you used to speak of?” she asked next. “When you were courting, I mean.”