Mary Balogh - The wood nymph

Even so, Mainwaring drew his horse to a stop and gazed at the figure in green as she galloped across a field to the east. Melissa was destined to be pleased by his appearance. He was a good-looking man, tall and straight in the saddle, his hair dark and quite long beneath his hat, his face thin and almost austere in expression, yet handsome for all that.

It was strange really, he supposed, that he had been surprised by everyone's attentiveness. He should have learned a year before that a new arrival in a neighborhood was bound to arouse interest and speculation among the families for miles around. It was the home of his childhood and younger manhood that had been the strange one. He had grown up in the Scottish home of his maternal grandfather with almost only the old man and a rather crusty elderly housekeeper for company. They had had virtually no contact with their neighbors and had participated in no social activities. Even when they had gone to church on Sundays they had never lingered to talk with other members of the congregation.

Nothing had changed even when his grandfather had died. He had been one-and-twenty at the time, and he had spent eight more years there, almost totally alone. He had been so used to it, he supposed, that his youth was gone before he had begun to wonder what the outside world had to offer. He was a wealthy man, both as his grandfather's heir and in his own right. He had properties both in the north and in the south of England. He really should visit both.

But first he had gone to London and had lived there for a few weeks in something like shock. He really had not known how to take his rightful place in society. He had found it very difficult to converse with people or to relax and be at his ease. Had he not struck up a conversation with Robert Denning, Marquess of Hetherington, at White's one rainy afternoon, he might well have returned to Scotland and become as much of a hermit as his grandfather had been. Hetherington was his opposite in personality. He was as sunny-natured and as gregarious as Mainwaring was reserved and antisocial. Yet for some reason they had become immediate and fast friends.

Hetherington had gone with him to his southern property, Ferndale, along with a few other acquaintances with whom he had learned to be comfortable. And there he had had his first experience of the kind of welcome a new member of a community could expect to receive. He and his houseguests had become involved in a constant round of activities. Invitations had been endless. And he had enjoyed it all, surprising himself with the sense of belonging that he had felt almost from the beginning.

He might have settled there at Ferndale had it not been for that unhappy experience with Elizabeth. She had been a paid companion at the time, but he had been instantly attracted to her quiet charm and tranquil manner. It was only when he was already in love with her, he was sure, that he had realized just how beautiful she was too. It was only then, too, that he had discovered that by some bizarre twist of fate she was the estranged wife of his friend Hetherington. It still seemed impossible, even now, to believe that such a thing could actually have happened.

In his innocence he had not recognized the fact that love still existed between those two. Although Elizabeth had told him that she still loved her husband, he had tried to persuade her to let Robert divorce her so that she might marry him. Hetherington was no longer at Ferndale at the time. And she had agreed, though he realized now that her acquiescence had been a muddled and unhappy one. So, like a knight crusader, he had ridden off to ask Hetherington for the simple matter of a divorce for his wife.

Mainwaring took one hand from the reins of his horse and ran it along his jaw. He could almost feel that first unexpected punch that Hetherington had thrown in the middle of the drawing room of Hetherington Manor. They had fought doggedly and silently for several minutes before the butler and Robert's secretary had rushed into the room to pull them apart. Hetherington's voice had been cold and expressionless afterward when they were straightening their clothes and wiping blood from mouths and noses.

"Elizabeth is my wife and will remain so, Mainwaring," he had said. "You had best forget her. I will not tolerate your touching her, and if I find that you have already done so, I shall kill you, my friend."

Mainwaring had left without another word, and he had seen neither one of them since. It was not that he was afraid of Hetherington's threats. Rather, he was a man of high principle. If his erstwhile friend chose to claim his wife, he had every right to do so. Mainwaring himself must not interfere.

He had never been back to Ferndale. He had spent the winter and the spring in London, though he had not involved himself to any large extent in the social life there. He had tried to adjust himself to the first real setback that life had offered him. He had never loved before. Indeed, he had had almost nothing to do with women before. Consequently, when he had fallen in love, he had fallen hard. And he had found that it was impossible to forget Elizabeth. He would love her all his life. No other woman could possibly mean anything to him.

Instead of dismounting at the entrance to the earl's house, Mainwaring rode on to the stables. He should have expected the welcome he had been given at Graystone, then. Perhaps its closeness to Scotland had led him to expect that he would have quiet and privacy here. But maybe it was as well that matters had turned out this way. Shy as he was, he really did not wish to be a hermit. He had learned to value the few friends he had made since leaving Scotland, though he had permanently lost the two dearest friends he had had. He had heard since leaving Ferndale that they were together again, Robert and Elizabeth Denning, though he had not tried to contact them.

Being here at Graystone was more unnerving than being at Ferndale had been the year before, though. Here he was alone. The burden of the conversation would be on him. He dreaded the prospect. The earl had said that he had a wife and daughters-Mainwaring could not remember how many. And he had no idea of their ages or matrimonial status.

Having turned his horse over to the care of a groom in the earl's stables, Mainwaring checked the folds of his neckcloth and fall of lace over the backs of his hands and strode across to the main door. There was no point in delaying the moment any longer. Perhaps the next visit would be easier, once he had got through this one.

***

A stream wound its way through the dense trees and wild undergrowth that formed the western border of William Mainwaring's property. It gurgled past some large stones that had somehow embedded themselves along its path, and it played with some leaves and twigs, which had fallen from the trees that overhung its waters, twirling them, stranding them against a stone for a few teasing minutes, and then carrying them onward again. Most of the trees were old and gnarled, uncared for. But the very wildness of the scene had its charm.

At some time in the past, a gamekeeper's hut had been built in a small clearing on the bank of the stream. There had been no gamekeeper employed for many years, and the hut was old and dilapidated. The wooden walls and roof were bleached and weathered; the door hung crookedly on its hinges and had been wedged shut at an awkward angle. Long grass and weeds grew up all around it, and there was only the faintest trace of the path that had been worn to its door.

Yet Lady Helen Wade was clearly familiar with the scene. She entered the clearing on foot and walked without hesitation to the hut. She wrestled with the door for only a few moments before it swung open with a loud squeak. Clearly she was accustomed to its awkwardness. She disappeared inside.

A few minutes later a completely different young lady emerged from the hut. This girl wore a shapeless cotton dress, which was too short for her. It reached barely to her ankles. It covered her to the neck, but its sleeves, which were meant to reach the wrists, ended just below the elbows. It had been washed and bleached so many times that it was almost impossible to say which shade of blue or green it had once been. Light tawny hair fell in loose and tangled curls over her shoulders and partway down her back. The girl was barefoot. In one hand she held a leather-bound book.

Helen crossed to the stream and stood staring down at its moving waters. She tested the water with the toes of one foot and seemed to be satisfied with her findings. She lowered herself immediately to the thick grass of the bank, hitched her skirt almost to the knees, and lowered both feet into the water. She swished them around for a while, enjoying the delightful coolness after the confined heat of her boots.

She looked around her at the wildflowers that were almost lost in the long grass, at the heavy summer foliage of her favorite tree, the old oak, which grew close to the bank, and up to the sky, which still swirled with heavy clouds. She breathed deeply of the heavy summer scents of it all and closed her eyes with a smile of satisfaction. Oh yes, it would be worth every moment of that scolding she was bound to be subjected to.

Finally Helen opened her book, a much coveted copy of Mr. Wordsworth and Mr. Coleridge's Lyrical Ballads. Soon her mind was in a totally different world, a world

Where Alph, the sacred river, ran

Through caverns measureless to man

Down to a sunless sea.

Everything was forgotten: her feet gradually growing colder and colder in the water, the grass and trees around her, the clouds growing heavier with the promised rain, her father's drawing room where the rest of the family was gathered, and Mr. Mainwaring.

“A ladies' man," said the Earl of Claymore.

"A most genteel sort of a man," said the countess, "though his manners are a little stiff."

"Very handsome," sighed Lady Melissa Wade, "with those brown eyes and that dark hair. And so very tall!"

"Toplofty!" said Lady Emily Wade decisively. "The man thinks himself superior just because he has acquired some town bronze."

Helen heard all four opinions of Mr. Mainwaring during dinner that evening. Their new neighbor dominated the conversation, even if the opinion of him was not altogether favorable. She gathered that he had not shown sufficient interest in her father's talk of horses and hunting. It was shocking enough for even a lady to admit to the earl that she had never hunted and, indeed, even disapproved of the sport'. But for a man to do so was clearly a testimony of his basic effeminacy. Mr. Mainwaring had even dared to express sympathy for the fox!

"It is surely not unmanly to hate killing for the sake of killing, is it, Papa?" Helen was unwise enough to ask.

"We all know your strange views, child," he grumbled. "Can't think where you acquired them. Certainly not in this house. I am certainly thankful you did not turn out to be the son I hoped for. I should not be able to hold up my head in the neighborhood. Feeling sorry for the poor fox, indeed! The animal is a nuisance, child, with no right to live. Its only use in life is to provide pleasure to the hunter."

Helen nodded her head to the footman who was offering her wine. She did not this time answer her father. There was no point in doing so. It was always useless to try to discuss any topic with him. He took any disagreement with his opinion as a personal affront. But she did find herself warming unwillingly to the neighbor whose acquaintance she had avoided during the afternoon. The man could not be all bad if he had the courage to oppose blood sports in an age when the willingness to hunt was a badge of manhood.

She soon understood the differing opinions of her sisters. Emily had sung for him, accompanying herself on the pianoforte. She was generally accounted the best musician for miles around. No entertainment was complete without a musical selection from the eldest Lady Wade. But Mr. Mainwaring had not appeared suitably impressed. He had apparently nodded his approval and complimented Emily on the song, but he had kept his seat and he had not smiled. And he had committed the unforgivable sin of expressing interest in Melissa's watercolors when Mama had mentioned them to him. And he had spent all of five minutes with his head bent over the pictures after the younger sister had been sent to fetch them.