Alethea led the way again, full of energy, excitement and concern for Henry.
The door to the smaller family drawing room, in one of the older parts of the house, stood open. Alethea did not knock but walked straight in. Then exclaimed, “Henry!” and rushed on.
“Sarah sent me word you were home…” Alethea said as Susan followed her into the Barringtons’ homely drawing room.
The walls and ceiling were covered in wooden panelling, making the room dark, but it had a sense of being frequently used. The walls were full of past and present tales.
“Oh dear you poor thing,” Alethea declared, pulling out a cushion from behind Henry. He sat forward to allow it and looked up at her with a smile of welcome and humour.
He had one arm in a sling, and his feet up on a footstool where Samson rested his head, and his sisters and his mother were seated about him, all sitting forward on their chairs their postures expressing concern, while Henry had been laying back against his bed of cushions looking perfectly content.
There was nothing poor about him, he was busy enjoying every moment of the attention his injury had brought him. A frown pulled at Susan’s forehead. She had a natural empathy for wounded things and people, she could never abide to see anything in pain. She was forever rescuing and nursing injured creatures, to the upset of her mother, who was even concerned about her visiting the sick in case she came into contact with some dangerous illness. Yet her father understood. Twice she had spent the night in the stables with him watching over a foal, encouraging it to take a bottle when it had lost its mother.
Henry’s pretence annoyed her. He did not deserve pity for his foolishness.
When Alethea set the cushion back down, to Henry’s credit, he lifted his feet off the stool and stood to welcome her properly. Samson stirred and rose too. “Alethea.” He nodded his head in greeting, but he did not attempt a bow with his injured shoulder so wrapped up. He did however clasp Alethea’s hand with his free hand and lift it to kiss the back of her fingers. “It is my extreme pleasure to see you again and perhaps the good in the bad of my accident.”
Alethea gave him her flirtatious smile—the smile that made her look her prettiest. A smile Susan had watched practiced before a mirror to achieve its perfection.
Henry’s smile lifted in return, becoming something more personal and his eyes filled with the twinkle they only sparkled with when he looked at Alethea. Alethea had had no need to worry. Henry might wander away but something would always bring him back, and when he came back his eyes said he remembered why he liked Alethea.
For as long as Susan could recall whenever the two of them had come together within half an hour they were whispering conspiratorially and laughing at something shared between them and no one else.
Henry passed his smile on to Susan. His eyes lost their glimmer and his smile twisted slightly giving it an edge of sarcasm. None of his looks were practiced. Henry did not deploy guile or artifice. He was naturally full of rakish charm. Only for Alethea that charm shone, for Susan it mocked.
She gave him a closed lip smile and bobbed a scant curtsy. “Good day, Henry.” Samson slipped his head beneath her hand, encouraging her to greet him.
Henry nodded. That was all.
While he and Alethea had always had an exclusive friendship, he and Susan had shared an undercurrent of hostility—or perhaps on his part it was indifference.
“Good day, Susan.” He still held Alethea’s hand. He looked back at her. “Sit with me.” Then he looked at Susan. “Before you sit would you call for a maid? We’ll have another cup of tea now you are both here.”
She wished to make a face at him for his arrogance but she did not.
“Do not worry, Susan, I shall do it.” His mother rose, “I presume you will both stay to dine with us, so I will need to speak with cook anyway.” She approached Susan and squeezed her hand gently. “Hello, dear.” Then she walked on to call for tea and arrange for them to join the family for dinner.
Alethea sat beside Henry, regaling him with some tale about local society as she undid the ribbons of her bonnet, then took it off and set it down beside her. She stripped off her gloves too, before looking at Susan. “Would you take them for me?”
Without even acknowledging the request Susan moved forward and picked them up then turned and took them out into the hall to find a footman to take care of them. When she did find a man she took off her own bonnet, cloak and gloves.
Alethea had not worn her cloak for fear Henry would be awaiting them in the courtyard and not then be able to observe her figure at its best advantage as she descended from the carriage.
When Susan returned to the room Henry and Alethea were laughing. Susan sat beside Christine, who was also avidly listening to Henry’s conversation. But Henry was her brother, and he had been away for a long time.
The other dogs, Goliath, Hercules and Zeus rose from the hearth rug, and came over to her for a pet, their tails wagging their welcome. Samson had returned to his position by Henry’s feet. He had always had a penchant for Henry over anyone else. Strange dog.
When they drank their tea Susan spoke with Aunt Jane, as the dogs settled back down by the hearth. But afterwards she decided it was time to remove herself. She was not a member of the Henry Marlow Appreciation Society and as the conversation orientated entirely around him she was neither involved nor interested in it. “May I look at the books in the library, Aunt Jane?”
“Of course, dear.”
Susan rose without taking her leave of anyone else, the others were intently absorbed in some droll story Henry was telling about his friends in town. She opened the door and then shut it quietly, wondering whether either Alethea or Henry ever noticed her leave.
She did not care, though, it had always been like that when Alethea and Henry were together. When they’d been young she and Alethea had often played with Henry and Percy, the brother next to Henry in age, when the boys were home from school, and Susan had always trailed behind, forgotten.
In the library, she looked along the spines of the books. She loved Uncle Robert’s library. It had been her sanctuary at Farnborough for years. She came here to be alone. When she had been forgotten, and then finally remembered, this was where people found her.
All four walls were lined with books, floor to ceiling.
Her fingers ran over the bound leather and gilded titles, as reverence swept through her heart.
At the end of the row, on the middle shelf, she came across one of her favourite books, The Native Orchids of the British Isles. She smiled and lifted it out. It was bound in light brown leather, more than a dozen inches tall and a couple more inches wide, and it smelled wonderful. It smelled of the things which made her feel better, security and comfort.
Security and comfort, then, could be found within aged leather and dust.
She smiled more broadly as she carried it over to Uncle Robert’s desk and set it down, then opened it on a random page. Her fingers touched the image, Platanthera bifolia; the Lesser Butterfly-orchid. It looked so dainty, and the illustrator had brought it to life beautifully with lighter colours and deeper shading.
Susan had longed, ever since she was a little girl, to make her own book of painted flowers, the desire for such skill as this illustrator was an ache in her chest. This book had been her inspiration. She had sat in the window seat here and stared at every page for hours.
She sat down in the chair before the desk and turned the pages. The longing to paint like this flourished in her chest again as she considered every minor stroke of the brush.
The images were so beautiful.
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