Lady Hathaway's House Party Read Online Free PDF Page B

deprive her of any part of it. Plenty of time for rusticating afterward. But there hadn’t been any conjugal rusticating in any case. He had gone to Belwood alone, to face the servants and neighbors, eager to meet his bride, with the shamefaced story that she was visiting her father. There she continued to visit, and doubtless would continue to visit till he went and fetched her.
    Twenty-five miles to Amesbury. Should he go? The impulse was strong. It was the beginning of May—the time of their courtship and marriage. A little more than twelve months ago he had never heard of Belle Anderson. What a happy man he had been, without realizing it. Why could he not have married any of the dozens—hundreds—of women of his own sort and class that had been presented to him? Why must he be different and marry a gauche, shy girl that turned into a damned marble statue the minute you got her home?
    But once he had set eyes on her, he knew he would never marry anyone else. She wasn’t extraordinarily beautiful, except to him. Not breath-stoppingly beautiful, with the classical, perfect features of fiction. She had brown hair that looked reddish-gold in the sunlight, and brown eyes that were flecked with yellow in the same light. In the shade of candleglow she looked different, like a brunette, though she really had a golden glow to her in the bright of day. His golden girl he used to think of her at the high tide of his infatuation, and still thought of her as he sat alone at Belwood, looking out on the sullen winter landscape. And in any light she had a sweet, soft smile, or had till he married her. She had awkward, coltish movements of the limbs, more noticeable in the drawing room than outdoors. On horseback she was perfect, moved easily with the animal, and was more graceful than any other girl he knew. She had long-fingered hands, “unbecomingly brown” he had told her in jest.
    Belle wasn’t as careful of the sun as she ought to be. She had a russet complexion when she came to town, but it was soon faded to the more stylish white, and her little smattering of freckles had either faded or been covered with rice powder. He had complimented her on these improvements, but as they had been accompanied by the change of behavior as well, his mind had long since adjusted to preferring her more highly colored, even sprinkled with a few brown spots across the bridge of her nose.
    Yes, he much preferred his warm, alive country Belle to the automaton she had grown into during one season in London. It was her natural exuberance that had attracted him so strongly at Stepson’s ball. When he first stood up with her for a dance she had been quiet, but before its end he had been in love. She had laughed and talked him into it, with her gauche questions, her gawking around at the fops and dandies, and asking him in a voice squeaking with disbelief if he really kept horses stabled on four different routes. She had been vastly impressed with his high style of living. During the courtship he regaled her with various extravagant follies of the ton, and she had laughed and jeered at it all, but had been pretty impressed all the same.
    Impressed enough to marry him. How quickly she had become blasé. Toward the end, nothing impressed her. Of course he didn’t encourage her to rattle on, acting the dowd in front of his friends. Well enough for one’s girl friend to be a little naive, but one’s wife must behave with more propriety. Must not laugh and call the waltz debauched, nor snicker if a gentleman chanced to be carrying a bouquet of posies, nor run in Hyde Park to chase a squirrel. She must behave with some semblance of propriety, but dammit, she didn’t have to turn into an ice statue.
    He arose and decided to go to Easthill to see her. Twenty-five miles—he’d be there by five o’clock. This stopped him a minute, and when he took the reins of his curricle between his fingers, he still didn’t know where he was going, but five