Bitter Oath (New Atlantis)(30)

Liv had cried herself to sleep, and when Jenny came to wake her in the morning her eyes were so puffed that they were almost glued together. It took soaking a flannel in the cold water, and lying with it over her eyes for an hour, for them to lose some of their redness and swelling. By then, Portia had been in to see what was wrong, and had looked doubtful when Liv claimed a headache.

But, dutiful sister that she was, she left Liv alone, and sent for a breakfast tray so she could eat at her leisure. Liv had no stomach for food, but she moved the smoked herring around on the plate so it looked as if she had made an effort. Then she had returned to bed, wanting to remain there for ever.

Grief was a strange thing, she observed almost distantly. It could be so immediate that you felt you would die from it at any moment. Then it could recede like the tide, leaving you numb and stricken for a time, until the next wave of agony hit, and you thought you would die from it again. Each wave was no less intense than the one that went before it. She wondered how long it would be before the numbness would win out over the suffering.

It was midmorning when she heard voices outside her bedroom door. She felt no desire to find out what was going on. Nothing mattered to her. But then she heard her sister say, ‘Father, she will want to know. If she is asleep, I will not disturb her.’

There were more whispers, and then the door squeaked open, and Portia tiptoed over to the bed. In a stage whisper she said, ‘He is back.’

Instantly, Liv opened her eyes, and sat up in bed. ‘What did you say?’

‘Oh, I did not wake you. Good. I said he is back. Our impolite guest of yesterday has returned. He is asking to see you.’

‘Rene is here?’ she demanded urgently, hardly believing her own ears. It had to be a dream. She had fallen asleep after her sleep-deprived night, and now she was dreaming. Any moment, the dream would take on some outlandish character, and she would know it was not real.

‘Yes. Downstairs. He is insistent, and Father is extremely annoyed. He nearly did not let him in. Considers him an “uncouth young savage”, to quote him exactly.’

She was off the bed before her sister had finished speaking. ‘Help me, help me.’

Portia smiled brightly, and came to her assistance. After a little over ten minutes, she was fully dressed, her hair tied neatly, if not intricately back, and her face was as good as it was going to get after her crying jag.

Liv almost flew out the door and down the stairs to the morning room.

As she opened the door, she was prepared for disappointment. He wouldn’t come back. It would only make it all the worse when he left again. Surely he hadn’t thought better of it, and was going to ask her to run away to another time with him? If he did, she would be sorely pressed not to agree. Another night like she had spent would surely kill her.

He turned from the open window, and smiled at her. It was the most beautiful smile she had ever seen. All the sadness was gone from it, and he was as light as she remembered him being at their very first meeting. What had happened to make him so happy?

Portia followed her into the room, grimacing as she apologied. ‘With our Aunt away, Father insisted I be here. If not, he said he would be forced to chaperone. And he is much too busy for this young man’s nonsense.’

Liv barely heard her. She walked slowly toward her husband, each step feeling as long as those through the Portal. At last she was beside him, and he was staring down at her as if she was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. He looked like a child, bubbling with excitement.

‘You were not supposed to come back,’ she whispered, still not sure he was real.

‘I know. But things have changed. It seems I solved our dilemma. We can be together.’ He reached out, and gently stroked the side of her face. Acutely aware of Portia’s presence, she tried not to weaken too much at his touch.

‘We cannot change destiny,’ she said, carefully phrasing herself so that Portia wouldn’t gain too much insight into what she was witnessing.

‘Destiny has already changed. Or, let us say, it was always destined for us to be together. We just didn’t know it.’

‘You have been home?’

‘No. But somewhere else where I spoke to a reliable authority who explained to me how we can make this work. Your father will not approve of us. I was assured of that when I arrived. So we will, with the help of your dear sister here.’ He indicated Portia with a graceful sweep of his hand. ‘Her betrothed, and Augusta and her husband, fabricate a death so that we can run away to the New World together.’

‘What?’ exclaimed Portia, from the other side of the room. ‘Are you mad? My sister barely knows you. Why would she run away with you in such a fashion?’

But Liv wasn’t listening to her sister’s indignant retort. She was already in his arms, standing on tiptoe so that she could kiss his beloved mouth. He didn’t deny her, and as Portia exclaimed at the intimacy of the kiss, they held each other as if they would never let go.

‘In October?’ she asked, once they were able to draw apart. Then she stood in his arms, her head against his chest, listening to his heart beat time with her own.

‘Yes. Until then I will stay, if I can give your father cause to allow it. Then we will go.’

‘Liv, for heaven’s sake. You cannot be considering this. He is an impulsive youth!’

‘Just as you are?’ Liv turned to focus on her sister. For once, she felt like the young one, and Portia was behaving like the mother. She could just imagine how this might seem to her baby sister. A strange young man with a mysterious past comes to their house to read a journal. After half a day, and a cursory look at the journal, he goes to his bedroom where Liv is searching. For ten minutes they are alone together, and then, when next Portia sees her, she is different, changed in some inexplicable way. A visit to the library to see the young man results in his expulsion, and Liv’s utter despair. Now he turns up out of the blue again with wild plans to stage her death so they can run away together. Liv would be incensed by such carry on, if she were Portia.

Gently, she broke from her husband’s arms, and went to Portia’s side. She reached out and stroked her cheek, meeting the grey eyes that were filled with so much confused rage.

‘Darling sister, I know this seems highly unusual, to say the least, but believe me when I say that there is nothing sudden or rash about what is happening here. I love this man, and he loves me. And though I will miss you, as I would a limb, there is only one way I can be with my heart. I know this, as well as I have known anything to be true in my life. Please help me.’

Portia’s fury abated and was replaced my sorrow. ‘But I do not want to lose you, Livy. You are more mother than sister to me. If you go to the New World, I will never see you again.’

‘I know, dear heart, I know. But you will soon be married, and will make a new life of your own. Do you want me to stay here, a lonely old maid, with nothing to comfort me but my books and grandfather’s specimens? You know I have had many opportunities to marry. I have turned them all down because I never loved even slightly, any of my suitors.

‘But I love Rene more than life itself. And though it may appear we have known each other for such a short time, it is not the truth. He left yesterday because we could find no way forward for us. But he is back today because he has discovered a way we can be together. And I can assure you, where he will take me is a place where I will be happier than I have ever been. It is my one chance at love, Portia. Will you not assist me in that?’

The tears were pouring down her baby sister’s pale cheeks now, and the hands that clung to hers were shaking. Wordlessly, she nodded. Liv smiled her gratitude, and hugged the slim girl. But Portia was a grown woman now, not a girl, she realised with a start. And her response was that of an adult.

‘If this is truly what you want, Livy, I will help you.’

‘Thank you. You have no idea how happy that makes me. Now, I am starving, and I imagine Rene is too. Let us organise an early luncheon, and then start our plans.’





CHAPTER SIXTEEN





Even though it was risky, Liv could not stand the idea of being alone that night. Her father’s room was next to hers and Portia’s. Their Aunt, who was away, had the next room along. The guest room, where Rene had been located, was around the corner, at the end of the hall. None of the rooms on either side of him were occupied. Nor was the room across the hall. If they were to be together, and she was to get the real details of what had transpired, then she would need to go to him.

After the house had gone to bed, and everything was in darkness, Liv crept down the hall in her cotton nightdress and bare feet. Her hair was hanging loose; just the way she knew Rene liked it. The candle in her hand flickered hazardously, as one chilly draft after another caught at it. Oh, for the wonders of electricity, she thought passingly. Doing what she did now would have been so much easier in New Atlantis.

When she reached his door, she turned the handle carefully, and then slipped into the dark bedroom. Rene had pulled back the heavy velvet curtains, and she could see the full moon above the tree line, so big it looked to be falling toward them. She knew that men would walk on the moon in the 1960s and that it was not made of cheese, or any other myth or nonsense she had been told as a child. It was a bare and arid world with no “gravity”, and the face she could see was the immense pox marks made by asteroids that had crashed into its surface. It was rather sad to lose the romance of the moon by reducing it that way.