24
The second of April marked a year and a day since the old earl’s death. The date was a more bittersweet affair than Eliza would have predicted, months before. Any day now, they expected Margaret to be sent for, infusing each arrival of the post with a sense of jeopardy, and in a week, regardless, Somerset would return to carry Eliza off. With each passing day, Eliza felt more disturbed. She wished Somerset’s letters might still have the tenor of that very first note, for to receive billets ever shorter in length, and more irritating in their high-handedness—did he truly think she would not mind such an interference?—was causing her apprehension at his return to build even higher.
At least, however, Eliza was at last able to shed her blacks and the most severe restrictions upon her. Madame Prevette had outdone herself with Eliza’s new wardrobe—her skill in rendering even the sober colors of grey and lavender into the most dashing gowns imaginable was superb. Each day, Eliza sighed with delight to choose her dresses: there was the slate-grey silk, with its demi-train and the little lace ruff around her throat, the dove-grey crêpe, adorned with black ribbons to compensate for the lighter color, a clinging robe of lavender silk for evening wear, and a stone-colored riding habit, trimmed around the body with swansdown.
After the monotony of wearing black every day for the past year, even this muted palette felt a veritable explosion of color to Eliza, and after months of circulating solely through the same three or four locations in Bath, Eliza was finally to be invested with a little variety. Lady Hurley had already left for London and was sorely missed by them all—the Winkworths, too, had gone, though missed they were not—but Bath was still busy enough for Eliza’s liking and by the fifth day of April, she had already attended a card party, a picnic expedition and a trip to the theater. But on the sixth of April, something of even greater excitement occurred: Eliza’s phaeton arrived. It was not violet or pink, as she and Caroline had joked, but a gleaming black with red lining upon the body frame. Eliza was so proud of it she thought she might burst.
“Look at her!” she declared to Caroline, who had walked around to view it.
“I am glad you approve,” Caroline said, smiling.
“We ought to name her,” Margaret said.
“As one does a boat?” Caroline laughed.
“Such a grand lady deserves a name,” Eliza agreed.
“Oh, she is a lady now, is she?” Melville asked. “What admirable social ascension.”
“She is at the very least a duchess,” Eliza declared.
“We must take her on a proper outing,” Caroline said.
“Can it be Wells?” Margaret suggested eagerly. “I have yet to see the cathedral’s mechanical feature, and I wondered . . .”
Melville wrinkled his nose.
“The cathedral it is,” Caroline said promptly, and Eliza looked down to hide a smile.
“I shall drive my phaeton, and Lady Somerset may follow with hers. Today!”
They set out within the hour, and as Eliza wound her way through Bath’s streets in pursuit of Caroline, she felt herself to be very dashing, indeed. Caroline had instructed Melville to accompany Eliza, in case they ran into any difficulty upon the road—Melville, of course, was quite as prodigious a whip as his sister—and Eliza resigned herself to a day of blushing. But as the carriage ran like a dream and Melville made all the appropriate sounds of admiration, lounging back in the seat, she could not bring herself to regret the arrangement.
Eliza swept onto Bennett Street and then bore a sharp right onto the Circus, where she had to check her horses in order to make her way carefully through this crowded thoroughfare. As they passed along, they were hailed by Mr. Berwick, who gaped, quite agog, at Eliza.
“What,” Melville said in great consternation, “is that man wearing?”
And Eliza had to spare a glance, as well as keep a weather eye upon the hackney cab drawing up on the other side of the road, to see that Mr. Berwick was wearing the exact shade of yellow pantaloon that Melville had been so proud of in his own wardrobe. Melville’s outrage lasted all the way out of Bath.
“First my hair!” he complained to Eliza. “Then my waistcoat—and now my pantaloons!”
“You do not own a monopoly on yellow pantaloons,” Eliza pointed out.
“That is not the point, Lady Somerset!” Melville said in spirited rejoinder. “It is where such criminal imitation will lead that concerns me. Perhaps one day he will appear at the Pump Room and you shall see he has stolen my skin and means to wear me as a suit!”
“That,” said Eliza, “is the most revolting thing I have ever heard.”
“I agree,” Melville said emphatically. “It is not I who would be doing it!”
Eliza dissolved into laughter. A week on from her revelation, she knew the impossibility of repressing her feelings for him—she could no more unlearn her sentiments for Melville, than she could unsee the sun each day. Every moment she spent with him was to understand more fully why she felt the way she did: how much she liked the way he made her laugh, even when she was out of sorts. Even when she was out of sorts with him, even when she did not want to. She liked his total and entire belief in her competence: whether at driving, or painting, or merely upon social occasions, he did not treat her with the gallantry or solicitation that she was used to from other gentlemen, asking constantly whether she was cold or warm or would like a drink or was feeling tired; nor did he assume in her a feminine delicacy so many persons seemed to take for granted from the mere sight of her. And that she still loved Somerset, that she was still as determined as ever to marry him, did not seem to signify one jot.
In deference to propriety, they avoided all of the public turnpike roads that might have made their journey quicker but would also have allowed every Tom, Dick and Harry from Bath to Wells to gawp at them and it therefore took over two hours to reach the cathedral town, which stood at more than eighteen miles from Bath across the Mendip Hills. Once they arrived, they rested the horses at an inn while they dawdled about the cathedral. It was certainly beautiful, and the famous clock did not disappoint Eliza: above the face, figures of jousting knights on horseback charged in a circle when the bells chimed on the hour, though Melville confessed that he had rather hoped they might spin at quarter past the hour, too.
They dawdled about the cathedral for only two iterations of the mechanism and made an excellent nuncheon before the rapidly darkening skies warned them that a swift return to Bath was advisable. Sure enough, a mere hour into their journey, it began to rain.
“Oh hell,” Melville said. “Are you cold?”
“Not yet,” Eliza said, huddling her cloak about her. But as the sky began to darken, and the rain worsen—the track getting muddier and muddier—Eliza did indeed begin to shiver.
“Not long now,” Melville said encouragingly, throwing his own cloak around her as well.
It was not the cold that was bothering Eliza, but the poor visibility, for with sheets of drizzle coming down and the afternoon sky purpling, it was becoming more difficult to make out the road.
“Perhaps you ought to take the reins . . .” Eliza said anxiously, as they bumped over a divot she had failed to spot.
“You have it well in hand,” Melville said calmly.
“Could you—speak to me,” Eliza said, hands clenching.
“What do you wish to speak of?”
“Anything—how is Medea?”
“Vengeful,” Melville said. “Demanding.”
Eliza smiled abstractedly, as she tried to keep Caroline’s carriage within her sights. She was breathing rather quickly.
“I am doubtful, however,” Melville went on with a light voice, as if Eliza were not about to vibrate out of her seat with anxiety, “that Medea is like to see the light of day. Paulet has, very disagreeably, seen fit to block my every avenue to publication.”
“But still you write it?”
Eliza reined the horses in to navigate a tricky corner, then gave them their heads again once they were back upon the straight and Melville gave an appreciative murmur before answering.
“Time was, I would have petulantly abandoned the endeavor if there was no chance to see it printed. But though it is just for me, I do not think it any less worthwhile.”
The words were familiar, and Eliza puzzled for a moment over who Melville could be quoting, before realizing . . .
“I said that.”
“So you did,” Melville agreed. “I suppose you may consider yourself my inspiration: seeing the care you put into those paintings in your parlor, with no hope or expectation of their ever being seen, struck something of a chord.”
And Eliza, predictably, blushed—all of a sudden quite glad for the weather, to give her an excuse to stare fixedly forward. It seemed now the rain was at last beginning to clear, and as they progressed onto the firmer roads that surrounded Bath, Eliza was able to release her hunch over the reins. By the time they reached the town, it was long after they had meant to return.
Eliza drove Melville directly to his doorstep. There was no sign of Caroline—she had drawn ahead miles before and must now have gone to Camden Place to drop Margaret.
“Excellent driving,” Melville said to Eliza, as she pulled the horses to a stop.
“Thank you,” Eliza said, turning to face him properly for the first time in many miles. Melville had long since abandoned his hat upon the seat beside him—the rain had been such that headwear could not offer much protection—and his dark curls were slicked back off his forehead.
“You are quite soaked,” Melville said, looking her over as well.
“I know,” Eliza said ruefully. “I am not sure my hat will recover.”
“A shame,” Melville said. “For it is a very charming ensemble, though . . .”
He reached over and delicately lifted a damp curl of her hair from where it had become plastered against her neck, and with a few deft movements had tucked it back into her braid. It was the simplest of touches, the graze of his hand against her neck occurring only very briefly, and yet despite this, and despite the rain soaking her to the bone, Eliza had to try very hard not to catch entirely upon fire. She trembled, whether from desire, or guilt, or anxiety, she could not know.
Melville left his hand resting gently upon her neck for a moment. He watched her steadily and, almost involuntarily, she felt her body begin to sway toward his. It would be so easy, the most natural thing in the world, to allow herself this . . .
“Melville,” she said, very softly.
“You might call me Max, if you wish,” he said, just as quiet.
And Eliza clenched her eyes shut and reined herself in. She could not. She could not.
“My lady—” Melville said.
“Don’t,” Eliza said, before he could continue. “Don’t.”
For whatever it was—a declaration, or a proposition or what she did not know—and however much she was desperate to hear it with every muscle in her body, she could not. She could not allow him to speak when she was promised to another.
“Then I shall not,” Melville said gently, taking his hand back.
“It is just,” Eliza said, feeling she owed him some measure of an explanation, though he had not asked for one, “it is just that when one has not expected such a thing, and one cannot—because one has already—and one thinks of all the reasons it is impossible, even if one wants . . .” Her words were as garbled as her thoughts. “Do you understand my meaning?”
“One does not,” Melville said gravely. “One wonders, even, if you understand your meaning?”
Eliza let out a watery laugh.
“I do not know,” she said, and she suddenly felt as if she might burst into tears. “I do not know.”
“That is all right,” Melville said, more gently still. He picked up her hand in his and pressed a single kiss into her gloved palm, and even that set Eliza to trembling again. “I shall bid you goodnight.”
He climbed out of the carriage and, with a last tip of his sodden hat, disappeared into Laura Place.
That Eliza made it home without crashing owed more to her groom’s quiet reminders to watch the other side of the road than to her own skill. She handed him the reins when they reached Camden Place and descended from the carriage, resembling nothing more than a drowned rat, thinking that it was a good thing Mrs. Winkworth had long ago left for London, for she might have suffered an apoplexy to see her in such a state.
Eliza hurried into the house, sighing to feel its warmth around her, and feeling tears beginning to spring to her eyes.
“Margaret?” Eliza called. “Margaret?”
Margaret appeared almost at once, running down the stairs, her hair still dripping.
“Are you all right?” Eliza said. “Whatever is the matter?”
“Eliza,” Margaret said. “It is Somerset. He is here, in the drawing room.”