The whole situation resolved itself easily and amicably within a couple of weeks. Ellen went with them. Marcel suspected that she would choose to remain at home as the prop and stay of her parents in their old age, though that was some way in the future yet. Oliver did not go. Marcel gave notice to his steward, who was to be allowed to remain in his cottage on the edge of the estate with a generous pension. And, before he sent to his man of business in London to find a replacement, Marcel offered the job to his nephew. Oliver, who was eminently suited to the job and who, Marcel had observed during the birthday party, appeared to be sweet on the daughter of a neighboring gentleman, accepted. Bertrand was happy about it. He obviously looked up to his older cousin as some sort of role model.
Marcel tried to take up the role of father. It was not easy. He had had very little to do with the upbringing of his children and did not want to be too intrusive now. On the other hand, he did not want to appear to be aloof or indifferent. He did not know if they loved him or even liked him, and was well aware that he had not earned either. But thanks to Jane and Charles, they were neither openly hostile nor rebellious. They had been brought up to be a lady and a gentleman, and that was exactly what they were. They were invariably courteous and deferential to the man who was their parent, even if he had no real claim to the name of father.
It would take time. And he would give it time. Sometimes it puzzled him that he was willing to remain and try. How could his whole outlook upon life have changed so radically and so completely in such a short while? It had happened seventeen years ago, of course, but there had been a definite, catastrophic reason then. But this time? Just because he had fallen in love and had not been given the chance to fall out again before she tired of him? Such a notion was ridiculous.
But his heart ached a little bit. Well, a whole lot if he was going to be honest with himself.
On the whole it was easier not to be honest.
* * *
• • •
Despite all the turmoil of the past few months, Viola quickly settled down to her old life and became her old self again. The need to run, to escape at all costs had left her—and she was a bit depressed. For what had changed? Had all the upheaval accomplished anything at all? She had perhaps proved to herself that she could be bold and defiant and adventurous and passionate. And happy. But now she had been caught in the return swing of the pendulum, as had been inevitable. She remembered Marcel saying that what went up had to come down.
She tried not to think about Marcel.
She mingled with neighbors and friends. She worked with the vicar and a few other ladies to arrange a Christmas party for the children. She stitched and embroidered and tatted and wrote letters and read and walked, within the park about the house and along country lanes. She started playing the pianoforte again after neglecting it for a couple of years. She organized tea parties for Abigail and her young friends and several times played for them in the music room while they danced.
She slept poorly. She could discipline her mind during the daytime and scarcely think of him more than once or twice an hour—and then only fleetingly until she realized where her thoughts were wandering. At night, when her mind relaxed, it was harder to keep the memories from flooding in. And it was not just her mind the memories attacked then, but her body too and her emotions. She ached and yearned for what she had found during those weeks. But not just for what she had found. She yearned for whom she had found.
It had been hard to recover fourteen years ago, when she had been a young, unhappily married woman. But at least then she had only been in love with him. She had not loved him. She had not known him in any of the meanings of the word. It had taken her a long time to forget anyway. It would take longer now. She understood that and set out to be patient with herself.
Her clothes began to hang a bit more loosely about her, but that at least was a positive effect of heartache. She had been intending for some time to lose a bit of weight, to get back the figure she had always had until her courses stopped two years ago.
And she was going to Brambledean for Christmas. She felt obliged to go—for Abigail’s sake and for her mother’s and Michael’s and Mary’s. They would feel awkward being there if she was not. And of course everyone had written—as she had written to everyone—and all, without exception, had variously hoped, urged, or begged or wheedled her to come too. She wondered why they bothered. She really had not treated her family well since Humphrey’s death. And while it was understandable that they would make allowances for a while, there surely ought to be limits. It was closer to three years than two. Yet it must seem to them that she was still sulking and behaving erratically and even discourteously. And good heavens, she had dishonored them. She had been discovered in the midst of an affair with a man who was not her husband.
Did love really know no bounds when it was true love? Was it really unconditional? She felt ashamed of something she remembered telling Marcel one day when he had asked her what she wanted most in life. She had told him she wanted someone to care for her—for her, not just for the mother or daughter or sister or whatever else label could be put upon her. She was ashamed, for they had proved over and over, her family, that they cared indeed—for her and for one another. What Humphrey had done to wreck the structure of the family had not wrecked what lay beneath it—love, pure and simple.
She would go to Brambledean out of gratitude and a returning love. And because she missed the children—Winifred and Sarah and Jacob. And even Anna and Avery’s Josephine. And Mildred and Thomas were to bring their boys, whom she had not seen for several years. They had been mischievous little boys then. Now they were apparently boisterous big boys, forever getting into scrapes at school and causing their parents mingled anguish and wrath. She was missing Elizabeth with her unfailing calm common sense and twinkling eyes, and Wren, who had grown up as a recluse, her face always veiled to hide the birthmark that covered one side of it, but who had found the courage to face the world and fall in love with Alexander. She was missing her mother and Camille. And her former sisters-in-law. Oh, all of them.
She had fled the stifling affection of her family a few months ago. Now she was ready to embrace it. Perhaps something good had come from all the turmoil and heartache.
She would go because she was lonely. Because her heart was broken and she could not seem to find the pieces to fit it back together.
She would go to show them all that she was neither lonely nor heartsick.
They worried about her. She would show them that they did not need to, that she was fine.
* * *
• • •
Marcel was in the boathouse down by the lake, looking at the two overturned rowboats inside. It was not a happy sight.
“They look as if they have not been used this side of the turn of the century,” he said.
“I do not know,” Bertrand told him.
Marcel turned to look at him. “You have never wanted to use them yourself?” he asked.
“Aunt Jane thought it would be unwise, sir,” his son replied.
Jane had not allowed much that was joyful into his children’s lives, it seemed. Every day he discovered more examples. Not that the twins ever complained. They were amazingly docile young persons—with the exception of Estelle’s grand fury and rebellion and epic journey to Devonshire. He wondered at that now, at the feeling that had burst the bounds of a lifetime of training. She must have been very angry indeed with him. A promising sign? There were not many such signs from either of them, though they were the most dutiful children any father could ask for.