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"Thank you." Priscilla smiled. But her face was very pale for all that.
Chapter 17
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Edgar gazed upward through the window of his bedchamber. By some miracle the sky was clear again.
But then it was Christmas. One somehow believed in miracles at Christmas.
"Come here," he said without turning. He knew she was still sitting on the side of the bed brushing her
hair, though her maid had already brushed it smooth and shining.
"I suppose," she said, "the Christmas star is shining as it was when we walked home from church a
couple of hours ago. I suppose you want me to gaze on it with you and believe in the whole myth of
Christmas."
"Yes," he said.
"Edgar." He heard her sigh. "You are such a romantic, such a sentimentalist. I would not have thought it
of you."
"Come." He turned and stretched out one arm to her. She shrugged her shoulders and came. "There." He
pointed upward unnecessarily. "Wait a moment." He left her side in order to blow out the candles and
then joined her at the window again and set one arm about her waist. "There. Now there is nothing to
compete with it. Tell me if you can that you do not believe in Christmas, even down to the last detail of
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that sordid stable."
She nestled her head on his shoulder and sighed. "I should be inItalynow," she said, "cocooned by
cynicism. Why did I go toLondonthis autumn, Edgar? Why did you? Why did we both go to the
Greenwalds' drawing room that evening? Why did we look at each other and not look away again? Why
did I conceive the very first time I lay with you when I have never done so before?"
"Perhaps we have our answer in Christmas," he said.
"Miracles?" The old mockery was back in her voice.
"Or something that was meant to be," he said. "I used not to believe in such things. I used to believe that
I, like everyone else, was master of my own fate. But as one gets older, one can look back and realize
that there has been a pattern to one's life  a pattern one did not devise or control."
"A series of coincidences?" she said.
"Yes," he said. "Something like that."
"The pattern of each of our lives merged during the autumn, then?" she said. "Poor Edgar. You have not
deserved me. You are such a very decent man. I could have killed you this afternoon. Literally."
"Yes," he said, "I know."
She turned her head on his shoulder and closed her eyes. "She is very courageous," she said. "I could
never do what she did today. She did it for him, Edgar. For Gerald."
"Yes," he said, "and for their son and their unborn child. And for herself. For them. You were wonderful.
I was very proud of you."
She had taken Priscilla Stapleton about in the drawing room at teatime, introducing her to everyone as
her stepson's wife, her own manner confident, charming, even regal. She had scarcely left the woman's
side for the rest of the day. They had walked to and from church with Sir Gerald and his wife and shared
a pew with them.
"But I did nothing," she said. "Everyone greeted her with courtesy and even warmth. It was as if they did
not know, though I have no doubt whatsoever that they all did. She Edgar, there is nothing vulgar in
her at all."
"She is a lady," he said.
"Gerald is happy with her." Her eyes, he saw, had clenched more tightly shut. "Heis happy. Is he, Edgar?
Is he?" She looked up at him then, searching his eyes.
"I believe," he said, "the pattern of his life merged with the pattern of hers in a most unlikely place,Helena.
Of course they are happy. I will not say they are in love, though I am sure they are. Theylove deeply.
Yes, he is happy."
"And whole and at peace," she said. "I did not destroy him permanently."
"No, love," he said. "Not permanently."
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She shivered.
"Cold?" he asked.
"But I might have," she said, "if he had not met Priscilla."
"And if she had not met him," he said. "They were both in the process of surviving,Helena. We do not
know how well they would have done if they had not met each other. Perhaps they were both strong
people who would have found their peace somehow alone. We do not know. Neither do they. I do
believe, though, that they could not be so happy together if they merely used each other as emotional
props. But they did meet, and so they are as we see them today."
She withdrew from him and rested her palms on the windowsill as she looked out. "I will not use you as
an emotional prop either, Edgar," she said. "It would be easy to do. You organize and fix things, do you
not? It comes naturally to you. You have seen that my life is all in pieces and you have sought to mend it,
to put the pieces back together again, to make all right for me. You took a terrible risk today and won 
as you almost always do, I suspect. It would be easy to lean into you as I was just doing, to allow you to
manage my life. You can do it so much better than I, it seems. But it is my life. I must live it myself."
He felt chilled. But he had said it himself of her stepson and his wife  they could not be happy together if [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]