The First Snowdrop

Chapter 15

Anne did not see a great deal of her husband during the following few days, while she lay in bed, strictly forbidden by the doctor to get up, though she chafed to do so. Merrick visited her twice each day, always for a few minutes only. Each time he asked about her health and made labored conversation before turning to the cradle beside her bed where Lady Catherine Mary Stewart lay, placidly oblivious to her impressive name and title. He would stand gazing down at her, rarely touching the child and never picking her up.

Only once in all the visits did Anne see him smile. He had taken the child's hand in his and spread the tiny and perfect fingers across one of his own. He smiled fleetingly as the baby's fingers curled around his. Anne felt grateful relief. Perhaps his apparently morose mood was due more to indifference than to actual hostility to his daughter. He had not expressed disappointment at her failure to present him with a son.

She expected him to leave within a few days and was surprised when he made no mention of doing so. When she was finally on her feet again, the reason became apparent. The garden that spread from beneath her window was blanketed with several inches of snow. It looked thick enough to make it likely that the roads were near impassable. But she discovered another reason the same day, when she was sitting opposite her husband at the long dining-room table. It was the first time they had sat thus since their wedding night, and she wondered if the same thoughts and memories were plaguing his mind. Apparently not.

"We will have to postpone Catherine's christening for at least a month," Merrick said abruptly, breaking a long silence. "It will be impossible for anyone to travel for at least another few weeks."

"You mean the vicar?" Anne asked in surprise.

"I mean Grandmamma and Grandpapa," he replied. "And I know that Freddie and Ruby wish to come, and I believe some of the others too. I have not heard from your brother yet. I do not know what his intentions will be."

"Bruce?" Anne asked. "You have written to him?"

"Of course," Merrick said. "The birth of a daughter is an important event in our lives, is it not?"

"And Grandmamma is coming? Here?"

Merrick's face relaxed into a smile. "I believe she will," he said. "A reply came to my announcement this morning, quite a prompt response, considering the state of the roads. Grandmamma announced that we were to go there for the christening as everyone always has for any major family event. But on this occasion I plan to remain firm. My own home is the most fitting setting for the christening of our first child. Especially now, Anne. What have you done with the place? It is almost unrecognizable."

"You said I might do as I wished here," Anne said anxiously, "and I have kept expenses to a minimum. In many instances it was just a case of moving things and displaying them to greater advantage. Do you dislike any of the changes?"

"Not one," he said with conviction. "You have changed Redlands from a house to a home, Anne. And the gardener keeps telling me with an air of great mystery and importance that I should just wait until the spring comes and I can see what you have done with the gardens. It seems I have no choice but to do so."

"I do hope you like it," Anne said. "It really looks at its best in the spring when the daffodils are in bloom against the house as well as the bluebells and primroses in the woods. But the formal gardens are my pride and joy. It is with them that I began the changes to Redlands."

"Do you like it here?" Merrick asked, real curiosity in his voice.

"It is home," she replied. "I cannot imagine living anywhere else."

The silence that ensued was not an uncomfortable one. Each was pondering what the other had said. Merrick was amazed to find his wife apparently placid, seemingly contented with her lot. Seeing the house as it was now, completely transformed from the rather shabby gloom that he had always associated with the place, he was not completely surprised that she found it a pleasant home, but her manner seemed to go beyond mere acceptance. He did not find the bitter unhappiness and accusatory glances that he had fully expected. If he could but take the child away from her and allow her to resume the life that she had somehow contrived to make meaningful, perhaps at some time in the future he would be able to forgive himself for his past treatment of her. Perhaps his feelings of guilt would finally go away.

Anne's mind was humming. He was going to stay for at least a month or perhaps longer. He had just spoken as if he were planning to see the garden in the spring. For a few weeks they would be almost like a family. So far there had been none of the impatience and contempt in his manner that she had seen during several of their previous encounters. There was an aloofness, a lack of humor, perhaps, but she would endure that for the sake of future memories. If she could but contrive not to anger him, she would be able to remember for the lifetime ahead these few weeks when they had lived here together, the three of them.

Her cheeks burned for a moment and she lowered her head over her plate as she remembered that Alexander had been with her through much of her labor and through the whole of her delivery. It had seemed so natural at the time to turn and see him there, to cling to him during those agonizing minutes while she gave birth. But why had he done it? It was unheard of for a husband even to enter his wife's room during the process of childbirth. But to stay there and witness all! What must the servants think?

Grandmamma was coming and even Grandpapa. Alexander seemed convinced that they would do so, though for years they had hardly ventured beyond the confines of their estate, except for an occasional visit to London, and he had invited the other members of the family too and her brother and sister-in-law. It was all very bewildering. He was making a big event of the birth of this child, and she was not even a son. She had criticized him for many things, even hated him for a few, but she must be eternally grateful for this. His public recognition of her as his wife and the mother of his child could do her nothing but good in the neighborhood, and his recognition of Catherine would be invaluable for the child. If he was angry with her for not giving him a boy, he had certainly decided to hide his anger. Anne stole a look at her husband down the length of the table and found him contemplating her moodily, a glass of red wine twirling absently between his fingers.

The days and eventually the weeks passed almost pleasantly. There were times when Anne could almost imagine that they were any ordinary family. She did not see much of Alexander. Having never taken any real interest in the running of his estate, he was now making an effort to get to know his own property. He spent long hours behind shut doors in consultation with his estate manager, and the two of them several times waded off through the snow, wearing heavy boots and muffled to the eyes in warm clothes.

But there were times when they were together, and they were on the whole surprisingly pleasant times. He visited the nursery more than once each day, and sometimes Anne was there too. He never touched the child when she was there, but once when she entered the room without warning, he was holding the baby in front of him, one hand cupped beneath her head, smiling into her open but unfocused eyes. The smile remained even when he turned to see Anne in the doorway.

"She has my hair," he said, "but she is going to have your heart-shaped face. Look at her pointed chin."

And Anne moved to his side and looked with him at the child. Their arms almost touched. Catherine herself broke the magic of that moment by suddenly flapping her little arms as if she thought she was about to be dropped and beginning to cry. Merrick handed her immediately to Anne, and after watching in silence for a minute or two while she rocked and soothed the baby against her shoulder, he left the room.

They always had dinner together, sitting a ridiculously long distance from each other at either end of the dining table. And they always made conversation somehow. They talked about the house and the grounds, about the baby, about his family. He told her about London, about the Prince Regent and the royal family, about the more entertaining tidbits of gossip. It was on these topics that the conversation sometimes died. It seemed that he suddenly remembered that he lived there apart from her, that he had fled there to escape her at the start of their marriage.

After almost a month of snow and cold weather that kept it on the ground, conditions finally changed and the snow began to melt. For more than a week longer the roads were even more difficult to travel than they had been while the cold spell remained. But eventually the ground started to dry, and then visitors began to come to pay their respects to the viscount, who was very rarely seen in the neighborhood, and to congratulate Anne on the birth of the child. Merrick never avoided these visitors, but seemed almost to enjoy their presence. He always treated Anne with the utmost courtesy and always rang himself to summon the nurse and the baby.

Anne was sorry to see the snow disappear- Now it would be possible for the family members to travel to the christening, and there would be no further cause for delay. Alexander, in fact, set the date one evening while they were at dinner, for a day in the second half of February. It was less than two weeks away. Once that was over, there would be nothing else to keep him there. He would return to his life in London and she might never see him again. She had made the choice the previous year to live apart from him, but now she sometimes wished that she could be given the choice again. It was true that they did not have anything like a close relationship, but the hostility seemed to have disappeared, and it was pleasant to know that she would see him perhaps several times in the course of a day and that they would dine together each night. It would be harder than ever now to be alone again after having spent these weeks with him.

In the meanwhile, there was the christening to prepare for and several guests to cater to. The duke and duchess were indeed coming, and Freddie and Ruby. Alexander had asked her if she would approve of asking the latter couple to be their daughter's godparents. Stanley and Celia were coming too, without their children. And Jack, inexplicably, had dashed off a brief acceptance of the invitation. Most surprising of all, Anne felt, was the fact that her brother and his wife were also coming. It would be the first time she had seen Bruce since her wedding day. It was an exciting time, but the pleasure was always offset by the knowledge that the sooner the event came, the sooner she would lose her husband.

Freddie and Ruby were the first to arrive, the day before they were expected.

"Frederick wished to set out two days ago," Ruby explained to Anne in her rather strident manner when the two were alone. "He was terrified that we would have an accident with the carriage or that the horses would become lame on a lonely country road or that we might have a spring snowstorm or that somehow Alexander had mistaken the date of the christening in the letter he sent us. I persuaded him to wait until today, but it would have been too distressing for him to have to wait until tomorrow. I hope we are not inconveniencing you dreadfully, but I guessed that Alexander at least would not be surprised to see us. I believe Frederick has a reputation for arriving early for important events."

"I am quite delighted to see you both," Anne said sincerely, "and, yes, Alexander has warned me that you might be early. He did think that perhaps your influence would have taken away some of Freddie's anxieties." She smiled.

"Oh, some, yes," Ruby agreed. "But I have no intention of taking over Frederick's life altogether, you know. I am aware that many people think that he is not too well-endowed with brains, and I am perfectly well aware that many people think I married him only because of his position and wealth, but I do not care. Frederick is a precious individual, for all people say, and I am quite willing to put up with his eccentricities and his abominable taste in dress in exchange for his great good nature and kindness." Ruby looked at Anne penetratingly, as if daring her to offer a contradictory opinion.

Anne clasped her hands against her breasts. She did consider hugging Ruby but had second thoughts. Somehow Freddie's wife did not seem quite the kind of woman one hugged impulsively. "Oh, I am so glad," she said. "I love Freddie very dearly and was afraid that he would not get what he deserves in life. I am so pleased that you married him, Ruby."

They found the subject of their conversation in the nursery with Merrick, dangling the baby in front of his face and giggling into her wide, toothless smile.

"She likes me," he said.

"The child is too young to smile. She has wind, Frederick," Ruby informed him bluntly.

"I think perhaps it is your waistcoat that is catching her eye," Merrick said, leaning against the mantel and viewing his cousin and his daughter with an amused eye. "Where did you find that particular shade of orange, Freddie? I'll wager it glows in the dark. Never tell me Weston made it for you."

"Frederick does not even patronize him anymore," Ruby said, advancing into the room and apparently doing a mental estimate of the baby's safety. "If the silly man does not want our custom, then we will take it elsewhere. And that is what we do, is it not, my love?"

Freddie lowered the baby and smiled fondly at his mate. "Ruby told me to set my own fashions if I wish," he said. "She has faith in me. Brains. Ruby has brains like you, Alex. I'm a lucky man to have her. Like you with Anne."

"Yes," Merrick said, his eyes straying to his wife.

Jack arrived before luncheon the following day. He had stayed overnight with friends who lived a mere twelve miles away, he explained. After luncheon he suggested that Anne take a stroll in the garden with him.

"I say," he said when she took him onto the graveled walks among the geometrically arranged box hedges, lawns, flower gardens, and fountain, "what has happened here? The last time I came the whole place looked hopelessly overgrown and dreary. Did you do this, Anne?"

"Yes, I did," she said. "Of course, you are not seeing it nearly at its best. The spring flowers should be blooming within the next few weeks. That is my favorite time."

"Ah," said Jack, leaning toward her and drawing her hand through his arm, "do I read an invitation in those words, Anne?"

She laughed. "Do you never give up, Jack? Would you even know how to talk to a woman without flirting with her, I wonder?"

"I have never felt the urge to flirt with Grandmamma," he said.

Anne laughed again. "I should love you to see the garden in the spring," she said. "If you also wish to do so, you must wangle an invitation from Alexander."

"I must confess," he said, "that this relationship of yours definitely intrigues me. I admitted defeat last spring only because I thought you two were patching up your differences. Then you left alone, and Alex was not worth talking to for the day before the rest of us left. Then I heard through a circuitous route that you were with child. And now Alex has been here for weeks. So what, Anne? Are you finally together, you two?"

"We are married whether we live together or not, Jack," Anne said evasively. "So you must start treating me like a cousin, if you please, instead of one of your flirts."

Jack sighed. "Do you at least have some neighbors with unmarried daughters?" he asked.

Anne laughed.

Bruce's wife was a surprise. Anne had not met her before. She had expected a plain and practical girl, rather like Freddie's Ruby, perhaps. Ethel was, in fact, a tiny and very pretty girl with masses of dark hair and large eyes to match. She did not say very much, and Anne gathered from the little she did say that she was not overintelligent. But she was a remarkably good-natured girl and smiled a great deal. She appeared to worship Bruce and gazed askance at anyone who opposed his opinions.

She seemed awed by the superior company in which they found themselves, especially after the arrival of the duke and duchess late in the day, and frequently escaped to the nursery to play with Catherine. She confided to Anne, when the latter found her there on one occasion, that she thought herself to be in a delicate condition. But she had not told even Bruce, believing that he would have forbidden her to come if he had known. And she had so looked forward to meeting her sister-in-law and her new niece.

The duke had to be helped into the house by two footmen and complained gruffly about the rigors of travel when winter was hardly over. But he had been in the house barely a half-hour when he insisted on climbing the stairs with the aid of his cane to view his new great-granddaughter. He would not hear of having her brought down to the drawing room.

"Children are too often lugged around and put on view for everyone's admiration," he said, growling to Jack to pass him his cane and puffing to his feet. "If people want to see 'em, they should be the ones to do the traveling."

But when he came back downstairs, the duchess was at his side, Catherine in her arms.

"She was crying," Her Grace said, "and Nurse insisted that there was nothing wrong except that the child has had too much excitement and too many visitors in the last day or two. But I could not leave the little mite like that. See what you can do with her, Anne, dear."

But it was Merrick who reached for the baby and soothed her against his shoulder as the child sucked loudly on a mouthful of his neckcloth. The duchess looked from him to Anne, who was pouring tea, nodded briskly, looked significantly at her husband, and helped herself to a scone.

"Let someone revive the conversation in this room quickly," Jack said languidly, lowering his teacup to the saucer, "or Grandmamma will be suggesting that we prepare some theatricals for the christening party. I assume you have arranged such an occasion, Alex?"

The next few days were busy ones for Anne, who was unused to entertaining in her own home. They were happy days. She felt thoroughly part of Alexander's family and had passed the stage of being either cowed by the duchess's brisk manner or awed by the duke's surface gruffness. She felt unexpected delight in conversing with her brother now that her days were no longer ruled by his gloomy outlook on life.

She was excited by the day of the christening and by the extra entertaining that had been organized for the occasion. Lady Catherine Stewart behaved herself in a manner very nearly fitting to her station. Waving arms and feet succeeded in bunching the gorgeous christening robe around her waist on more than one occasion, and she beamed toothlessly-all except a skeptical Ruby insisted that it was her first real smile-when the vicar poured water over her head instead of maintaining an expression of cool disdain. But she did not cry or disgrace herself in any other way.

Only one cloud hung over those days as far as Anne was concerned. All the guests were to leave three days after the christening. And then there would be nothing to keep Alexander at home. On the following day, or very soon afterward, she was convinced, he too would leave and she would be left to try somehow to make something meaningful of the years ahead with Catherine. She would have the rare letter from him probably, and doubtless she would hear news of him occasionally from people like Sonia, who still resided in London. But it was not likely to be the kind of news that she would welcome. The name of his newest mistress, perhaps. So she clung to these final days greedily, willing time to go slowly.

By teatime on the third day following the christening, they were alone again at Redlands, the three of them.