Page 41

Friendship is the Noblest and most Refined Improvement of Love.

Her mouth made a wordless O. To Sarah it seemed as if the ground beneath her opened up, and she was sinking. Sinking into a black, yawning vacancy. She knew he would go—had known it—but to have the time suddenly upon her and overshadowed as it was by this mystery and incipient scandal—

Reaching, he tugged her sewing from her numb grip and set it aside, to take both her hands in his, the warmth of his skin perceptible even through his kid gloves.

She should have pulled away—it was most improper—but somehow she was immobile.

Turned to stone, if stone could breathe and pulse and inwardly tremble.

“Mrs. Sebastian,” he said slowly, “you know why I came to Iffley. With what carelessness, what perfunctoriness I fulfilled the obligation your husband placed on me. You know as well the outcome, and how well I deserved your rejection of such an offer. And yet, in the following two months, I have come to recognize your…great worth. Barstow did not exaggerate.”

By this point Sarah’s tremble was no longer merely inward, but Mr. Langworthy did not rally her for it, thank heaven. On the contrary, his hold on her hands tightened.

“He spoke of your beauty, to be sure, but also of your good sense and calm (though perhaps I saw less of that than Barstow, given my enjoyment of provoking you). But I discovered and experienced other qualities for myself. Your ability to rise above the weaknesses in my character—I speak of when you were so generous, apologizing to me when you yourself were probably the more deserving of such.”

“Oh, Mr. Langworthy,” she managed at last, panic rising.

This was how it would end? With him saying these marvelous things to her, things which she knew she would pore over in her mind every bit as sadly as she pored over Sebastian’s letters after she lost him?

If only she could go back in time to that January day, when Mr. Langworthy made his “careless and perfunctory” offer!

She would accept him—oh, in an eyeblink!

Then there would follow no period of antagonism, no mystery with Miss Pence’s servant, no terrible parting.

Indeed, had they been engaged, Mr. Langworthy would have revealed all to her.

He would have told her in detail what he was doing on the Pettypont Bridge, where he was not supposed to be, struggling with (or kissing) a person he was not supposed to be struggling with (or kissing).

He would have told her all, because that was how he told his tales—too broadly, with nothing held back.

And yet, even as she thought it, Sarah knew it was impossible. She would never have accepted him that day, and had she done so, he would probably have resented her acceptance.

No. Their rapprochement had only come about in spite of, and perhaps because of, their bad beginning.

“I will leave here having made a number of friends and acquaintances whom I will remember fondly,” he went on, one thumb now lightly rubbing the base of hers.

“Rearden, the baron, the Tommies. Even Harry Barbary. But your family will hold pride of place in my affections, Mrs. Sebastian. And you—your friendship will be most precious of all.”

Her friendship? He would hold her friendship precious?

What bloodless, mealy offering was this?

Despair strove with pride as Sarah fought not to tear her hands from his, nor to surrender to tears.

And yet , she reminded herself, her breath coming shorter, he considered my Sebastian just such a dear friend, and you see what lengths he went to, in the name of that friendship.

His friendship is not nothing.

It was this conclusion which gave her the strength to retain her seat. To leave her hands pressed in his. To nod and to say quietly after a minute, “Thank you. I too will remember you and your friendship.”

“And you will try to think the best of me, whatever is said after I am gone?”

She shut her eyes briefly, praying she could keep this promise.

“Yes.”

Drawing a deep breath, Langworthy gave one last squeeze to her hands and lifted them gently to his lips. Then he replaced them in her lap and rose.

“I had better go. I have overstayed my time as it is, but I had not expected to find you alone. I thought I would bid a general good-bye and ask Mrs. Gordon Barstow if she would be kind enough to write to me…”

“I’m sure she would,” Sarah assured him hastily, afraid of the constriction of her throat.

“Thank you. Rearden has my uncle Langworthy’s direction in Portsmouth. And—perhaps you might also add a line to her letters from time to time?” he asked.

A nod. She could speak no more. Impossible.

He sighed. “Very well. I wish we had more time.” When still she said nothing, a trace of his old humor returned, though it was rueful.

“This would be the appropriate moment for any friend of mine to wish me, among other things, Godspeed, health, safety in battle, heaps and heaps of prize money, don’t you think? ”

Another nod, this one with her lips pressed together.

“Right then. We’ll take it as read. Good-bye, my—Sarah.”

And then he left her.

She had precisely twenty-two minutes alone in her closet chamber to throw herself across the bed and give way, before the inevitable sounds of the Barstows returning forced her to sit up and repair her appearance.

Nor was the process complete before she heard Frances tripping up the stairs to knock on her door.

“Sarah? What are you doing in there? Come down at once, if you can at all manage it. We are dying to speak with you.”

When Sarah entered the parlor again, Mrs. Barstow leapt up from the very chair in which he had been sitting to demand, “Is it so, Sarah? Mr. Langworthy called in our absence?”

“You’ve been crying,” Maria observed.

“I have. A little,” Sarah replied, her voice thick. She cleared it. “Yes, madam,” she addressed her mother-in-law. “He called to say he was going away. At once. And he begged you might write to him.”

“Of course! Of course I will,” Mrs. Barstow said, her eyes filling.

“I am sorry I was not here to see him off. How he brought Sebastian to mind, with all his stories! We will miss him. For those reminders and because he was so pleasant for his own sake.” She took Sarah in her arms, murmuring just for her own ears, “I know how hard it is, dearest. I would break down myself, but we must help each other be strong.”

Clearly everyone assumed Mr. Langworthy’s departure affected Sarah for the same reasons it affected Mrs. Barstow, and she would have been grateful for this misapprehension, if she could have brought herself to care.

“Well, Mama and Sarah, we had better confine our crying over Mr. Langworthy to the walls of Iffley Cottage,” Frances warned. “Because, Sarah, if you could have seen Mrs. Markham Dere this morning—! Suffice to say, she is one person glad to see the back of him.”

“When he called did Mr. Langworthy say anything to you—about what Irving was talking about?” asked Mrs. Barstow, all too aware of her children’s eyes upon her and their listening ears.

She shook her head. “He did not. That is, I told him that there seemed to be a deal of—talk—flying around this morning, and he wanted to know what sort of talk, but he did not…offer his own explanation,” she answered.

“Indeed, he only said what was likely to be told was untrue, but it was not—he did not feel at liberty to say more. Because he declared it was not entirely his own story to tell. I can only guess he referred to the young lady who jilted him—Miss Pence—because yesterday, when he was cleaning my dress after spilling chocolate on me, that person Wrigley confessed to being Miss Pence’s servant. ”

This revelation led to a hundred questions, naturally, which Sarah answered as quickly as she could, knowing her replies would bring no more satisfaction to the other Barstows than they had to herself.

“You have played your cards awfully close,” Frances accused. “You might have said something about Wrigley before this.”

Sarah put a hand to her temple. She couldn’t, couldn’t say why again. Not with everyone about. “Tell me what happened at Perryfield,” she urged instead, turning the subject.

“Mrs. Dere was turning the place upside down,” crowed Gordon. “Because Wrigley told Harker that Mr. Langworthy accused him of stealing a ring! He said that’s what they were fighting about.”

“And Mrs. Dere had all the servants running around, to see if anything had been stolen from Perryfield,” Maria put in breathlessly, jumping in her eagerness. “They were opening every drawer and inventorying the plate and counting the candlesticks—”

“And Peter told me that his mother was so angry with the housekeeper Robson—because it was her cousin who recommended such incompetent, thieving servants—that she threatened to dismiss her!”

“Poor Mrs. Robson, who had been at Perryfield since the baron was a young man!” Maria added.

“It was Lord Dere who intervened, of course,” Frances said, placing a hand on either shoulder of her younger siblings to calm them. “And Mrs. Robson is happily reprieved. But I’m afraid Mrs. Dere has transferred the indignation to Dr. Rearden and—and to us.”

Sarah stared. “But what have Dr. Rearden or we to do with the matter?”

Mrs. Barstow sighed, dropping again into the chair Mr. Langworthy had occupied. “She said what were good gentlefolk to do, if others were to bring such people to Iffley—”

“She was referring to us with that bit , you understand,” explained Frances. “Because Sebastian told Mr. Langworthy to come.”

“—And then when people like the curate, utter strangers to the neighborhood, should invite them to stay,” finished Mrs. Barstow.