The Proposal: Number 1 in series (Survivors’ Club)

Gwen had not known what to expect of Crosslands Park. It must be large, though, she had concluded, if it was to house a sizable number of his family members for almost a week, in addition to her.

It was large, even if not quite on the scale of Newbury Abbey or Penderris Hall. The gray stone house was square and Georgian in design. It was not very old. The park surrounding it was square too and must cover several acres. It was possible that the house was in the very center of it. The driveway that led through the park to the house was as straight as an arrow. There were trees, some of them in copses or woods. And there were lawns, which had been freshly mown. There were stables and a carriage house on one side of the main house and a largish square of bare earth on the other side.

There was something potentially magnificent about it all, and yet it all looked curiously … barren. Or undeveloped was perhaps a better word.

While the other occupants of the carriage gazed their fill and Constance made a few excited comments, Gwen wondered about the original owners. Had they lacked imagination or … what? She knew, though, why the property had attracted Hugo. It was large and solid with no nonsense about it, just as he was.

She smiled at the thought—and clasped her hands a little more tightly in her lap.

This was her test—her test in his eyes and her own.

Come to my world.

She did not know how it would work out. But she had rather enjoyed the carriage journey. Constance, who amazingly had never left London before, was exuberant in her enjoyment of the countryside and every inn and tollbooth at which they stopped. Her mother was quiet but reasonably cheerful. Mr. Germane made interesting conversation. He worked for a tea company and had traveled extensively in the Far East. He was Hugo’s uncle though he could not be his senior by many years.

What was it going to be like spending several days here? How different would he be in his own world and surrounded by his own people? How well would they receive her? Would she be seen as an outsider? Would she be resented? Would she feel like an outsider?

Lily had sat up late with her the night before she left. And she had told Gwen of the struggle she had gone through to transform herself from the wild, illiterate vagabond daughter of an infantry sergeant, wandering about the world in the train of an army at war, to an English lady, under the supervision of Elizabeth, who had still been single at that time.

“There was only one way to make it possible,” she had said at one point. “I had to want to do it. Not because I needed to prove anything to anybody. Not because I felt I owed Elizabeth anything, though I did. Not to win Neville back—I did not even want to do that after I discovered that we were not legally married after all. He was from an alien world, and I wanted none of it. No, it was only possible, Gwen, because I wanted it for myself. Everything else flowed from that. People, especially some religious people, would have us believe that it is wrong, even a sin, to love oneself. It is not. It is the basic, essential love. If you do not love yourself, you cannot possibly love anyone else. Not fully and truly.”

Gwen had known of Lily’s transformation, of course, and of her ultimate remarriage to Neville. She had not known the inner details of Lily’s struggles. She had listened, enthralled. And she had realized why Lily had chosen that particular evening to share her story. She had been telling Gwen that of course it was possible to adjust to a world different from the one with which one had been familiar all one’s life, but that there was only one reason that could make the change bearable or worth making.

She had to want it. For herself.

Yet the change in her case would surely not be so very great. Hugo was wealthy. He owned all this. He was titled.

This was just a house party, she told herself as the carriage drew up to the steps before the house. But she was nervous. How odd. She was always confident and brimful of pleasurable anticipation when arriving for a house party. She loved house parties.

Hugo was at the bottom of the steps. Master of his own domain. He did not wait for the coachman to jump down from the box and open the carriage door. He did it himself and set down the steps and reached up a hand to assist Mrs. Emes to alight.

And then it was her turn.

His eyes locked with hers as he held out a hand toward her. Dark, inscrutable eyes. Hard jaw. No smile.

Had she expected anything different?

Oh, Hugo.

“Lord Trentham,” she said.

“Lady Muir.” His hand closed about hers and she stepped down onto the terrace.

Mr. Germane came next, and he turned to help Constance down. The girl was all chatter and excitement.

There was to be tea in the drawing room in half an hour. The housekeeper was to show them to their rooms so that they could freshen up. But no, not quite. Hugo was to show her to her room.

“I merit special treatment?” she said as she took his arm.

“Yes,” he said.

And that was all he said. She wondered if he regretted inviting her. He could be relaxing now with his family if he had not. There were two wedding anniversaries to celebrate.

The hall, not unexpectedly, was large and square, the cream walls saved from bareness by several large landscapes of indifferent artistic merit set in matching gilded frames. A wide staircase ahead of them ascended to a landing before doubling back on itself in two branches to reach the upper floor. The housekeeper and her group took the right branch while Hugo and Gwen took the left. And then the others disappeared down a long corridor to the left while Hugo took Gwen to the right.

The architect, Gwen thought, must have had a problem drawing curves. And yet there was a certain splendor about the house. It gleamed with cleanliness and smelled faintly of polish. Paintings similar to those in the hall lined the walls. It was all somehow rather impersonal, like a superior hotel.

The sound of voices, some quiet, a few more animated, came from behind closed doors.

Hugo stopped and opened a door at the end of the corridor. He drew his arm free of hers and stood back for her to step inside. He had not spoken a word the whole way. He had not even inquired about her journey. He looked quite morose too.

“Thank you,” she said.

Then he surprised her by stepping into the room behind her and closing the door.

Did he not realize …?

No, probably not.

Besides, his being here with her was not so very improper. Another door, presumably leading into a dressing room, was slightly ajar, and she could hear her maid busy within.

“I hope you will like the room,” he said. “I chose it for you because of the view, but then I realized that really the view is quite dismal. There has been no chance to plant the flowers, and last year’s were all annuals and have not come up this year. I’ll put it right by next year, but that is not going to help while you are staying here. I ought to have put you somewhere else—with a view down over the drive, perhaps.”

He had crossed the room while he was speaking and was gazing out through the window.

Even now, Gwen thought as she set her bonnet and her gloves and reticule on the bed, she could be fooled into thinking that Hugo’s morose looks denoted a morose mood. Yet all the time, while the carriage had approached, while she had descended, while he had escorted her up here, he had probably been consumed by anxiety.

She went to stand beside him.

Her window looked down upon that huge square patch of bare earth she had seen from the driveway. From up here she could see that the soil had been turned over and weeded in the past few days. Beyond it there was bare lawn with trees farther out. She might have laughed if she had not feared hurting him.

“I thought you would not come,” he said. “I expected to open the carriage door to discover only Fiona and Constance and Philip within.”

“But I said I would come,” she said.

“I thought you would change your mind.”

“If I had done that,” she told him, “I would have let you know. I am a—”

Lady, she had been about to say. But he would have misinterpreted the word.

“Yes,” he said, “you are a lady.”

His fingertips were spread over the windowsill. He was looking out, not at her.

“Hugo,” she said, setting a hand lightly on his arm, “don’t make this a matter of class. If any of your family had changed their minds for some reason, they would have let you know. It is simple courtesy.”

“I thought you would not come,” he said. “I braced myself not to see you.”

What was he saying? Actually, it was pretty obvious what he was saying and Gwen slid her hand from his arm. Her heart seemed to be beating in her throat more than in her chest.

She looked back through the window.

“There is so much potentiality there,” she said.

“In the garden?” He turned his head briefly to look at her.

“The park is mainly flat as far as I could see when we were coming up the driveway,” she said. “But look, there is quite a dip beyond your flower patch. You could have a small lake down there if you wished. No, that would be too much. A large lily pond would be better, with tall ferns and reeds growing beyond it, between it and the trees. And the flower bed could be reshaped a little to curve down toward it with shrubs and taller flowers to the sides and shorter flowers and ground cover within and a path winding through it and a few seats to capture the view. There could be—”

She stopped abruptly and felt embarrassed.

“I do beg your pardon,” she said. “The flowers will be lovely when you have planted them. And the view is really not bad as it is. It is a country view. There is no sea in sight and no salt on the air. I far prefer the country inland. This is lovelier than Newbury.”

Strangely, she was not either lying or simply being polite.

“A lily pond,” he said, resting his elbows on the sill and gazing outward, eyes narrowed. “It would look grand. I have always thought of that dip in the land as an inconvenience. I have no imagination, you know. Not for things of the eye, anyway. I can enjoy them or criticize them when I see them, but I cannot imagine them. I can see all those paintings on the walls, for example, and know they are rubbish, but I cannot imagine the sorts of paintings with which I would replace them if I removed them all and consigned them to the rubbish heap. I would have to wander about galleries for the next ten years picking and choosing, and then perhaps nothing would match anything else, or else they would look all wrong in the rooms where I had decided to set them.”

“Sometimes,” she said, “having everything matching and symmetrical is no more pleasing to the eye or to the mind than barrenness. Sometimes you have to trust your intuition and go with what you like.”

“That is easy for you to say,” he said. “You can look out that window and see a lily pond and a curving flower garden and plants of different kinds and heights and seats from which to enjoy the view. All I see is a nice square patch of earth just waiting for flowers—if I just knew what flowers. And a troublesome dip of lawn beyond it and trees in the distance. I could not even think of a path on my own. Last year when all the flowers were blooming, I had to walk all around the edge of the bed to see them or else come up here to look down on them.”

“But what a glorious sight it must have been.” She set her hand on his arm again. “And sometimes one brief and glorious splash of color and beauty is enough for the soul, Hugo. Think of a fireworks display. There is nothing more brief and nothing more splendid.”

He turned his head at last and looked at her.

It was a long look, which she returned. She could not read his eyes.

“Welcome to my home, Gwendoline,” he said softly at last.

She swallowed and blinked several times. She smiled at him.

And wondrously, miraculously, he smiled back.

“I must go down,” he said, straightening up, “and meet everyone in the drawing room. You will come down when you are ready?”

“I will,” she said. “How will you explain my presence?”

“You have taken Constance under your wing,” he said, “and have enabled her to attend a few ton entertainments, as befits her status as my sister. My relatives are both amused by and impressed with my title, you know. But they are not unintelligent people. They will soon understand, if rumor has not already reached their ears, that you are here because I am courting you.”

“Are you?” she asked him. “The last time I saw you, you said quite definitely that you were not. I thought I was invited here to court you or at least to discover for myself why it is impossible for you to court me.”

He hesitated before answering.

“My relatives will conclude that I am courting you,” he said. “Everyone loves what appears to be a budding romance, especially when a family member is involved. Whether they are right or whether they are wrong remains to be seen.”

But perhaps his relatives would not love this particular budding romance, Gwen thought. They might well resent her. She did not say so aloud, though. She smiled again.

“I will be down soon,” she said.

He inclined his head to her and left the room. He closed the door quietly behind him.

Gwen stayed where she was for a short while. She thought back to the day on the beach in Cornwall when she had felt that tidal wave of loneliness. If she had not felt it then, would she have felt it ever? And, if she had not, would she have stayed safely cocooned in grief and guilt that had grown so muted that she had not even realized how they had paralyzed her life? Strangely, it had been a comfortable cocoon. She half wished she were still inside it, or that, if she must have been forced out, she had then proceeded to meet the quiet, comfortable, uncomplicated gentleman she had soon dreamed up—as if any such person really existed.

But she had met Hugo instead.

She shook her head slightly and made her way to the dressing room so that she could wash and change and have her hair freshly brushed before stepping fully into Hugo’s world.

Fiona’s parents were feeling somewhat overwhelmed, Hugo soon realized, and sat in a sort of huddle with their own family members. Even Fiona’s in-laws must seem like grand persons to them, and he knew they looked upon him in some awe.

Too late he realized he should have instructed his ever-resourceful butler to find someone to look after the two boys during the house party. They were sitting on a sofa with their parents, the younger squashed between the two of them, the elder on the other side of his father.

Hugo’s own relatives were boisterous, as they usually were in company with one another. But perhaps there was a little self-consciousness added today as they were in a strange place and there were other people present who were virtual strangers.

Fiona sat by the fireplace with Philip. Her mother was gazing wistfully at her.

Constance was flitting about from group to group, her arm through Gwendoline’s. She was introducing her to everyone as the lady who had presented her to the ton, the lady who was her sponsor. It was Hugo who ought to be making the introductions, but he was happy that Constance was doing it for him and unwittingly making it seem that indeed Gwendoline had been invited for her sake.

Ned Tucker stood behind the seated group of his friends from the grocery shop and looked good-humoredly about him. Hugo had wanted to invite him just to discover what, if anything, existed between him and Constance. And her grandmother had made it easy for him. When he had gone to the grocery shop to issue the invitation, Tucker had been with them, and Constance’s grandmother had laid a hand on his sleeve and told Hugo he was like one of the family. Hugo had promptly included him in the invitation.

And Hugo, observing the groups around him, realized that he was part of the scene too. He was standing there in the midst of it all, like a soldier on parade. He wished he had some social graces. He should have learned more while he was at Penderris. But he had never needed social graces to mingle with his family. He had never known a moment of self-consciousness or self-doubt when he was growing up among them. And he did not need social graces to mingle with Fiona’s family. He merely needed to show them that he was human, that in reality he was no different from them despite his title and wealth. Or perhaps that was what social graces were. There was Gwendoline, Constance’s arm still through hers, talking with Tucker, and all three of them laughed as Hugo watched them. Gwendoline did not have her nose in the air, as she had with him on occasion, and Tucker was not bobbing his head and tugging at his forelock. Hilda and Paul Crane got up from their seats and joined them, and then they were all laughing.

Hugo had the feeling he might be scowling. How was he to bring these separate groups together, make a relaxed house party out of it? Really, it had been a mad idea.

He was rescued by the arrival of the tea tray and another, larger one bearing all kinds of sumptuous looking goodies. He turned to his stepmother.

“Will you be so good as to pour, Fiona?” he asked.

“Of course, Hugo,” she said.

And it struck him that she was enjoying herself as a person of importance to everyone in the room, since as his stepmother she was in a sense his hostess. It had not occurred to him that he would need one. But of course he did. Someone had to pour the tea and sit at the foot of his dining table and stand at his side to greet the guests from the neighborhood when they arrived for the anniversary parties in a few days’ time.

“Thank you,” he said, and he took it upon himself to circulate among his guests, distributing plates and napkins before he carried around the plate of goodies and persuaded everyone to take one or two.

Meanwhile Cousin Theodora Palmer, recently married to a prosperous banker, carried a cup of tea to everyone as Fiona poured, and her sister-in-law, Bernadine Emes, Cousin Bradley’s wife, crossed the room and spoke to the little boys. Her own children, she told them, together with some of their cousins, were having tea in a lovely big room up in the attic. And after they had finished, their nurses were going to take them out to play. Perhaps Colin and Thomas would care to go with them?

Thomas half hid behind his father’s sleeve and peeked out with one eye. Colin’s face lit up with eagerness, and he looked to his father for permission.

“We do not have holidays often, do we?” Hugo heard Bernadine saying to Mavis and Harold. “Neither do our children. We might as well all enjoy this one to the full while we may. There are two nurses, both thoroughly trustworthy. The children obey them and adore them. Your boys will be quite safe with them.”

“I am sure they will,” Mavis said. “We do not have a nurse. We like to keep our children with us.”

“Oh, so do I,” Bernadine said. “They grow up so fast. When I had my first …”

Hugo opened the drawing room door, beckoned one of the new servants, who was hovering outside, and told him to inform Mrs. Bradley Emes’s nurse that she needed to stop at the drawing room on her way outside with her charges in order to collect two more children.

Gwendoline was talking with Aunt Rose and Uncle Frederick Emes, and Cousin Emily, aged fourteen, was gazing at her in awe. Constance was leading her grandparents toward Aunt Henrietta Lowry, his father’s widowed eldest sister, matriarch of the family.

Rome was not built in a day, Hugo thought without any great originality. But it was built. And perhaps his house party would not be an unmitigated disaster. He was probably feeling awkward and anxious only because Gwendoline was here and he wanted everything to be perfect. He would not be worrying if she were not here, would he?

He went to talk to Philip, who was part of neither larger group but seemed perfectly comfortable anyway as he looked down at Fiona pouring second cups of tea.

They made a handsome couple, Hugo thought in some surprise. Philip and Fiona, that was. Now there was a thought. Perhaps he would turn into a matchmaker in his dotage.

They must be pretty close in age too.

And then tea was over and the trays were removed and Hugo explained that everyone was at liberty to remain where they were or to remove to their bedchambers to rest or to wander outdoors for some fresh air.

Most people dispersed. Fiona’s mother and father circled the room slowly with Aunt Henrietta, admiring the paintings. Constance went outdoors with a large group of young people that included several of the Emes cousins, Hilda and Paul, and Ned Tucker. Gwendoline was talking with Bernadine and Bradley. Hugo joined them.

“I’ll take all the children to see the new lambs and calves and foals tomorrow morning,” he said to Bernadine. “There are some chicks and kittens and pups too. I think I would have thought I had died and gone to heaven if someone had done that for me when I was a child.”

“We all remember your strays, Hugo,” Bradley said, laughing. “Uncle used to sigh when you came home with yet another bedraggled wall-eyed cat or skeletal three-legged dog.”

“The children will love it,” Bernadine said. “Just do not, I beg you, Hugo, allow any one of them—especially one of mine—to persuade you to allow them to take a puppy or a kitten or a lamb or two home with them when they go.”

Hugo laughed and caught Gwendoline’s eye.

“Perhaps you would all care to come and see the lambs now,” he said. “They will still be out in the pasture.”

“Oh, Hugo,” Bernadine said with a sigh. “The journey was a long one and the country air is killing me—in a thoroughly good way, I hasten to add. And our children are off playing. I am for my bed until it is time to dress for dinner.”

“Brad?” Hugo said.

“Another time, perhaps,” Bradley said. “I ought to walk off that extra cream cake I could not resist, but that bed in our room is beckoning very insistently about now.”

“Lady Muir?” Hugo looked politely at her.

“I will come and see the lambs,” she said.

“Ah,” Bernardine said, “Lady Muir is being polite. You would soon learn to be more selfish if you spent more time with us, Lady Muir.”

But she laughed as she took Brad’s arm and moved off with him without waiting for an answer.

“Sometimes,” Gwendoline said, looking at Hugo, “I think I already am the most selfish of mortals.”

“You don’t have to come,” he said.

“Don’t start.” She laughed and took the arm he had not yet even offered her.