A gift of daisies

Chapter 14

Most of the guests had moved back to the ballroom from the supper room long before the orchestra started to play again. The display through the long doors was too spectacular to be missed. Lightning flashed almost constantly, zigzagging in dazzling streaks across the sky, revealing trees and grass being bowed and tossed by the wind. Crashes of thunder came soon enough after the flashes to make it clear that the storm was close and coming ever closer.

More than one lady fortunate enough to have a husband or betrothed to cling to, clung quite shamelessly. Others huddled in groups for reassurance. Even as they watched, the rain swept down. There was no gentle beginning, no warning to anyone foolish enough to be outdoors that it was time to seek shelter, just a sudden and overwhelming downpour. Those who had to travel any distance after the ball was over began to wonder if the roads would be passable. Perhaps they would have to impose on the hospitality of Lord Rivers for the night.

Algernon entered the ballroom from the direction of the main hall. He was looking quite thoroughly disheveled, his normally somewhat unruly fair hair completely wild. Fortunately, his coat was dry. He had reached the house before the heavens opened. He looked around him and made his way to where Lord and Lady Edgeley were standing, seemingly uninterested in the natural fireworks display proceeding beyond the windows. He spoke quietly to them and smiled before turning away and looking around again.

He saw the object of his search almost immediately as Celia appeared in the doorway, her face looking drawn and somewhat frightened. Algernon hurried toward her and took one of her hands in his.

"You need worry no longer, Miss Barnes," he said, squeezing the hand he held. "The foolish girl has gone home."

"Gone home?" said Celia. "You mean to Oakland? Alone? And in this storm?"

"Yes to the first two questions," he said with a slight smile. "But it seems she left quite a while ago with my gig. She will have arrived safely home before the wind really got up, and certainly before this rain. She will be quite safe. There is a houseful of servants to keep her company."

Celia looked uncomprehending. "But why would she do such a thing?" she asked. "She was vastly looking forward to this ball. She was in high spirits-even for Rachel-earlier this evening. And she seemed delighted today by the arrival of Lord Stanford. It is unlike Rachel not to honor her commitment to her partners."

Algernon looked down at her, his smile no longer in place. "I think I know the reason," he said. "Rache told me earlier this evening that she does not wish our betrothal to become official after all."

"She what?" Celia stared blankly at him.

"Please excuse me for a minute, ma'am," he said. "I must see if the orchestra is willing to play some lively tune so that we may start the dancing again. I shall be back to claim our dance."

But when he returned to her side a few minutes later, Algernon did not immediately lead her into a set.

"Would you care to find somewhere quiet to sit and talk?" he asked. "After the excitement of tearing all over the house for the last half-hour looking for Rache, you probably feel more like resting than dancing."

"Yes," Celia said, eyeing two empty chairs close to the door.

But Algernon laid her hand on his arm and led her from the room into the main hall. It was flooded with light. Even the normally shadowed alcoves had been hung with branches of candles. He led Celia into the library and seated her at the fireplace. He did not light any candles in the room but left the door wide open for the sake of light and a measure of propriety.

"I am sorry about you and Rachel," Celia said hesitantly. "I do not understand it. You seem so well-suited. Are you sure that it is not all some quarrel that will be set to rights tomorrow?"

"Yes, I am sure," he said quietly, seating himself in a chair at the opposite side of the fireplace. "Rache was quite clear on that point."

"Is it Lord Stanford?" she asked hesitantly. "But I was so sure that Rachel does not really care for him."

"No, I think he has nothing to do with her decision," Algernon said.

Celia stared into the shadows. She could not see his face clearly, though flashes of lightning revealed that he was looking at her. "I am sorry," she said. "The evening has been ruined for you."

"Not really," he said. "Rache and I are very dear friends. Always have been. But I think it is probably better that it remain that way. I am not sure that marriage would be wise for us."

"But you love each other," Celia blurted, her eyes wide.

"Yes," he admitted, "we do. Like brother and sister. Or perhaps somewhat more than the average brother and sister. But not like husband and wife."

Celia said nothing for a while. Her hands twisted in her lap. "But you agreed to become betrothed," she said, "a mere few weeks ago."

"Foolish, is it not?" Algernon said gently. "I remember Rache when she was ten years old and all skinny arms and legs and eager eyes. I knew then that she was very dear to me. Oh, I felt very superior and protective with a year of university behind me, of course. But that affection has never faded. Or hers for me. Under the circumstances I suppose it was natural for several people to assume that we would marry one day. But deep and lasting affection is not necessarily the same emotion as the love one hopes to have for a spouse. Since our, er, unofficial betrothal, we have both discovered persons who would be far more suitable partners."

Algernon watched quietly from the shadows as her eyes widened again and her face took on comprehension. "Rachel loves someone else?" she asked. "But that cannot be. Who?"

"The Reverend David Gower, it would seem," Algernon said.

Celia stared. "She is my closest friend," she said eventually. "How is it that I have not noticed?"

"I think perhaps because she has been trying to hide the fact even from herself," Algernon said. "I was taken totally by surprise too, and usually I know what is going on in Rache's mind. We are close friends."

"Are they to marry?" Celia asked.

"When I asked the same question, she told me merely that David will be leaving here soon after all the guests have gone," Algernon said. "I take it there is to be no marriage."

"No, they would not suit," Celia said. Then Algernon watched as a frown drew her brows together. She stared down at her hands, not speaking for a long while. "What a foolish thing to say," she continued. "Of course. But of course. He is what has been missing from Rachel's life for as long as I have known her. Rachel has always needed a cause, you know. Yes, Mr. Gower is just the sort of man to whom she would attach herself. With great devotion. And for life. But they are not to marry?"

Algernon shook his head, though he did not know if she could see the gesture, as he was sitting totally in shadow, his back to the door. She looked at him for a while and then simultaneously with a flash of lightning her head jerked downward. There was not enough light for him to see if she had changed color.

"Did you just recall the rest of what I said?" he asked.

She did not answer. But she did not ask him to explain his meaning.

"I love Rache," Algernon said quietly, "and had she not spoken tonight, I would perhaps have felt honor-bound to contract a betrothal with her soon. If that had happened, I would have devoted most of the energies of my life to seeing her happy and protected. But I would always have known that I had wished to pursue the acquaintance of the woman with whom I might have been happy for the rest of my life."

Celia looked up, an agony of embarrassment in her face. "My lord?" she said.

"Algernon."

"Algernon." She lost her courage suddenly, looked down, and jerked to her feet. "I must return to the ballroom," she said. "It will not look good if I am missed."

Algernon too got to his feet. "It seems almost in bad taste, does it not," he said, "to pay my addresses to a lady a mere few hours after another has released me from a sort of promise? But you are to leave the day after tomorrow, Celia, and who knows if there will be any opportunity tomorrow to have a private word with you? I must speak now."

"No." Celia looked at him again, her eyes not quite steady on his face. "It is just that you are naturally disappointed over Rachel. And you must know that I like you and admire you, my lord. That is all it is."

"Algernon," he corrected. "And that is not all it is, Celia. You have such a poor opinion of yourself, do you not? You cannot imagine that a man could love you and want you for his wife?"

"Not you," she said. "Oh, not you, my 1...Algernon. You are so very… handsome. You… Oh, no, you could not possibly love me."

"But I do," he said. Her hands were like two blocks of ice when he took them in his own. "I have known for some time that you are the lady I would want for my wife if I were entirely free to choose. You are quiet and gentle and sensible, Celia. And quite lovely. I find you lovely. I want you, in every way it is possible to want a woman. And now I am quite free to tell you so. Will you have me, my dear?"

"Oh," she said, and her hands moved convulsively against his, "I shall wake up in a moment and find that this is all a dream. And I shall laugh at my own foolishness."

"Shall I pinch you?" he asked, smiling down gently at her. "I love you, Celia, and I want you to be my wife. My baroness. Lady Rivers. I want you as my companion, my confidante, my lover. Will you?"

"Oh," she said again. It sounded more like a wail than an exclamation. "I have loved you so very much. I have been so envious of Rachel. I never dreamed that you could feel the same way about me. You love me? You really love me?"

Algernon clucked his tongue with mock exasperation and jerked on her hands suddenly. "I must kiss you," he said. "Ever since I kissed you in the rose garden I have been obsessed by the need to do so again. And to hold you close to me, Celia. Ah, yes, I knew you would feel like this. So slender and so beautiful. Will you let me kiss you?"

"Algernon." She whispered his name and looked up at him in wonder. She made no attempt to push away from him. Her breasts pressed against his satin evening coat, her thighs against his.

He kissed her lips tentatively and raised his head again to look down at her. "How could I not have known I loved you the first moment I saw you?" he said in wonder.

But he did not wait for her answer. He was too busy kissing her hungrily, his heart singing with the almost instant realization that he had been right about her inner passion. She was molten beneath the pressure of his hands, arched into his body, taut with the desire to be taken closer. There was nothing of the shrinking, timid virgin in her response to him. He opened his mouth over hers, nibbling at her lips with his teeth, ready to resume a more chaste kiss if she took alarm. But she moaned, wrapped her arms around his neck, and parted her lips beneath his. Algernon relaxed his control and responded to her surrender. Only the almost subconscious knowledge that the library door was wide open behind him kept the embrace from progressing completely beyond the bounds of propriety.

"There," he said against her hair a few minutes later. It smelled clean and fragrant. "Now you will have to marry me, Celia. Your honor has been quite hopelessly compromised. And would be much more so if only I had had the good sense to close the door when we came in here. God, how I want you."

"Algernon." She buried her face against the high starched collar of his shirt. "I am the most fortunate of women. I will always try to make you happy."

"There will be nothing easier, my love," he said. "You will not even have to try. But tell me: how are you planning to make me happy-as my wife? Is it too much to hope?"

"Oh." She jerked back her head and looked up at him. "I have not answered you, have I? The answer seems so obvious to me that it hardly needs to be stated. Yes, Algernon, of course I will marry you. Oh, of course I will. And what a wonderful dream this is. Usually one awakens just before the really good part."

Algernon chuckled. "I am afraid it is time to wake up for now," he said, "much as I regret having to do so. I seem to recall signing Miss Higgins' card for a set sometime after supper. And I have only just realized that the storm is still raging. What an unusually long time it is lasting."

"I had not noticed either," Celia said. "How safe I feel here with you, Algernon."

He hugged her to him once more. "Shall we keep our secret for a while?" he suggested. "Perhaps it would even be a good idea for you to return home as planned in two days' time. I shall follow after you within a few days so that I may talk with your father, as is only proper. Will he approve of me, do you think?"

"Oh, yes," she said. "Papa will love you." She giggled suddenly. "He will approve, anyway."

"I am going to work on making you laugh more often, Celia," Algernon said, lifting her hand and placing it formally on his sleeve before leading her back into the main hall. "You are quite hopelessly adorable when you do so. Not that I have an easy time resisting you even when you are as serious as a judge, mind you."

The wind was howling outside the cottage. Lightning was flashing and thunder crashing almost incessantly. At any moment the rain was going to lash down. Mr. Perkins and the children had come in from outside and had disappeared into the inner room, where the youngest children had been sleeping for some time. Mr. Perkins had hovered in the main room, it was true, looking down at his wife in acute distress, but when she tensed again against pain, he turned and almost staggered into the room with his mother and children. Only the two older daughters remained with David to tend their mother as best they could.

David was scarcely aware of any of these happenings. His starched collar had been shed long ago. The top button of his shirt was undone. His damp hair had been pushed back from his forehead so many times that it was thoroughly disheveled. His shirt and knee breeches, so carefully tended for the past few years so that they might last, were creased and stained.

He was sponging off Mrs. Perkins' hot face yet again with gentle hands. He was smiling down into her tired eyes.

"It should not be long now, should it?" he said. "Your mother-in-law has said that it is usually not long after the water has broken."

Thank goodness for that quavering and constant voice from the inner room, David thought. Without its direction he would not have even known about the breaking of the water before birth. He certainly would not have prepared for it by settling layers of rags over the mattress.

"It has never been this long, Reverend," Mrs. Perkins said. "I am sorry. I don't seem able to do anything to help you." And then she shut her eyes tightly and arched her back against yet another onslaught of pain.

Thank God it was this long, David thought, feeling a pang of guilt over wishing an extension to the agony of the poor woman before him. Would the midwife never come?

The swift knocking on the door that ensued seemed an answer to his prayer. David felt his shoulders sag with relief as one of the girls ran to open the door. Rain lashed against the window at the same moment, almost as if a giant hand had hurled a mammoth pailful of water against the cottage. But he did not turn. He was still clasping Mrs. Perkins' hand and murmuring soothing words to her, waiting for the now familiar signs of the subsiding of the pain.

"Oh," a breathless voice said from behind him, "just in time. I am so glad there was a light in your house still, Tess. I hope you do not mind my coming in."

David turned sharply, and his eyes met the startled glance of Rachel. She was dressed for the ball, with no cloak or bonnet. Her hair was blown into wild disarray.

"David?" she said. "What is it? Is someone sick? Oh. It is Mrs. Perkins' time?"

The voice of old Mrs. Perkins came from the inner room. "Is that you, my lady?" she called. "You had best come in here. That is no place for a young lady to be. I am afraid we are crowded, but you must have the chair."

"Where is the midwife?" Rachel asked, ignoring the voice. "Has she not been sent for?"

"She has been busy all day attending another birth," David said. "She is supposed to come as soon as she is able."

"But she will not come now," Rachel said. "Listen to that rain, David. And the wind. Travel will be impossible for several hours at least."

"Go into the other room, my lady," Mrs. Perkins said weakly. "Oh, Reverend, I'm so sorry." She began to gasp again, and David turned back to her.

"Please to go inside, my lady." Mr. Perkins had emerged from the inner room, looking rather like a ghost, Rachel thought. "I shall go and see to your horse."

Rachel stared guiltily as he opened the door and had it almost whipped from his hand. He disappeared outside. "David, do you have any experience in this?" Rachel asked when he had finished talking to Mrs. Perkins and was dabbing at her face with a cloth.

His soft laughter sounded genuinely amused. "It is not part of the training of a clergyman," he said, "though perhaps it should be. Go on into the other room now, Rachel."

"No," she said. "You need help. Let me do that, David."

She reached out a hand for the cloth, but he dropped it hurriedly into the bowl in order to take the hand of Mrs. Perkins, who, to Rachel's horror, turned rigid and even redder in the face. She began to moan and bite on her lower lip, which was already looking swollen and bruised.

"Let the sound out if you must," David was saying to her. "Scream if it will help. We will endure it, and the children have company."

Mr. Perkins had just come back in from outside, looking drenched to the skin.

Rachel dipped a finger into the bowl, found that the water was tepid, and hurried over with it to the pail that stood beside the door. By the time Mrs. Perkins had again relaxed, Rachel was back at her side with fresh cold water. She knelt and began to sponge off the hot, tired face and neck. She turned her head and smiled at the two young girls, who were hovering at the foot of the mattress, their eyes wide with tiredness and fright.

"Have you been helping?" she asked. "How very brave of you. I think you deserve a rest. Would you like to go in and join your grandmama or perhaps go up to the attic to lie down? I shall help the Reverend Gower now. I shall call if we need you. All right?"

Lil almost sagged with relief and even Tess put up no argument. They both disappeared up the ladder into the attic, taking no light with them. Indeed, they needed no light. The lightning was still almost incessant.

On old Mrs. Perkins' instructions and some weak affirming murmurs from her daughter-in-law, David had gathered up the remaining pile of dry cloths that the girls had set on a chair and brought them over to the bed. He and Rachel spread them in a thick layer on the mattress. A smaller pile was left beside the bed for wrapping the baby after the birth. Rachel stared at them and realized suddenly and for the first time exactly what was about to happen. But there was no time to panic. Mrs. Perkins was moaning beside her. Soon she would need the mercy of the cool cloth again.

Over the next hour Rachel forgot the storm, the imminence of birth, and all else in her efforts to relieve the mother's pain.

"It's time," the woman said at last with some urgency. Her breathing quickened. "It's time, Reverend. Where is the midwife?" The last words were almost screamed as Mrs. Perkins gripped the sides of the mattress and bore down against her pain.

David's eyes met Rachel's across the bed. He was looking very pale, she noticed, but not panic-stricken. He looked quite in charge of the situation. She forgot that he had no more experience than she with such an event. She looked calmly to him for instructions.

"Grip both of her hands, Rachel," he said, "so that she can push with more force. I will receive the baby. Mrs. Perkins senior has given me full instructions on how to proceed."

Rachel obeyed without question and watched quite calmly the preparations David made as surely as if he had delivered a hundred babies.

And then, quite unaware of the pain in her hands caused by Mrs. Perkins' viselike grip, she watched in growing wonder and awe the slow miracle of birth. And finally there was the moment when David held in his hands the tiny red and slippery child, and it cried without any encouragement to take its first breath. The newest Perkins boy had made his appearance.

Mrs. Perkins relaxed her hold on Rachel's hands and reached out her arms. She was laughing weakly, her whole attention focused on her son. "Oh, give him to me," she said.

Rachel reached for some warm cloths in a daze and wrapped them around the tiny, noisy little bundle before placing it in the mother's arms. As she crossed the room to fetch warm water in the bowl, she noticed with puzzlement that David was still busy. It was not over yet. Old Mrs. Perkins was calling instructions from the inner room, and the new mother was adding details.

And then it was all over and Rachel was able to take the baby in trembling hands, wash him off gently with the water, and wrap him in the remaining clean cloths before handing him again to his mother, who was covered up and smiling tiredly, her eyes following every move Rachel made with her precious bundle of humanity.

And then Rachel called in Mr. Perkins, and he came, pale and trembling, and stared down in humble timidity at his wife and son. David was beside the door washing off his hands and rolling down his shirtsleeves. Rachel followed him there. Their eyes met and held.

"David," she said. "Oh, David. How very wonderful." Her eyes were brimming with tears. Had she been able to see clearly, she would have seen that his were brighter than usual too.

Neither knew afterward whether he offered his arms or whether she came into them unbidden. But in his arms she was, and they leaned against each other, weak with the wonder of the miracle they had just witnessed and participated in to a small extent. He held her head against his damp shoulder and Rachel breathed in the smell of perspiration, surely more wonderful than any perfume at that moment.

"How very privileged I have been," he murmured against her hair. "Most men experience only the guilt of having caused their women's agony and then the pride of parenthood. I have seen the wonder of pain turned to joy, Rachel. How good our Lord has been to me."

"David," she said. "Oh, David." Foolish to say his name over and over again. But messages passed without the medium of words. They looked into each other's eyes eventually and smiled, a totally unself-conscious look of deep and mutual love.

Mr. Perkins had taken his new son into the inner room to be inspected by his grandmother, and Mrs. Perkins was shyly trying to attract the attention of her doctor and nurse. Now that it was all over, she was flustered and apologetic. It took all of David's gentle reassurances to restore her calm joy in what she had just accomplished.

David and Rachel spent the next couple of hours talking in low voices to old Mrs. Perkins and her son. The new mother was enjoying a well-earned sleep, and her new son had decided to cooperate. None of the other children had stirred during the excitement of the birth or afterward. The storm eventually passed over, and an hour later both David and Mr. Perkins thought that perhaps a vehicle as light as Lord Rivers' gig might be able to travel the road back to Oakland. David would drive Rachel. He would not hear of her going alone.