sister-probably meant to serve her some trick and did not think of all the possible consequences.'
Louisa smiled, and Charles felt her hand tremble in his. He released it slowly and reluctantly.
“Why didn't you send a message for me?” he said when he had found his voice.
“But I did! I told Jim to tell you, you must go on!'
“That-” Charles frowned at her. “I disregarded that, of course. But why didn't you send for me, or give the bailiff my name? Something to delay his taking you until I arrived?'
Louisa coloured. He could see he had injured her pride.
“Did you think I would use your name and risk embarrassing you?'
Charles was touched. That she should consider both him and his name so much as to endure imprisonment alone made him admire her beyond belief. Her selfless actions made him begin to question his own worth-and not for the first time since he had met her. He was relieved, at least, that his suspicions about her had resolved themselves before he knew the whole story. In doubting her at all, even for a moment, he had grotesquely wronged her. He felt ashamed.
“You place too high a value upon my reputation,” he said, “and not enough on your own safety.'
But Louisa's spirits had lifted. The knowledge that she was not to pass six months, or even one night, in this gaol seemed to have cleared them, and she no longer needed his comfort. Charles had found her subdued, but now she was ready to take advantage of her experience to further her knowledge.
He prepared to start the long drive back to Snaithby to make his explanations to Miss Conisbrough. By the time he had left, lost in his own sober reflections, Louisa, with pen and paper borrowed from the warden, had started writing down her ideas for reform of prison life.
Because of the season, it took all day for Charles to complete his mission. Miss Conisbrough was at home, and after listening to his carefully edited story, was eager to be of assistance. She thought the whole episode a great joke, however, and delayed Charles needlessly with all her teasing. Knowing Ned and his propensity for inappropriate hilarity, Charles could not have been surprised. But he chafed inwardly throughout what seemed an interminable time for Ned's sister to write a letter to the magistrate withdrawing her charges.
Next, he was obliged to wait for the magistrate, a local squire, to return from his round of afternoon calls. After Charles explained the misunderstanding, however, the man still hesitated. He seemed to think some impropriety must have been attached to the affair, and he questioned Charles in an uncomfortable manner. Only Charles's rank, and the indisputable evidence of Miss Conisbrough's letter, finally persuaded him to issue a release.
Charles hastened from there to the gaol in Selby and presented the warden with the signed papers. But, by now, it was far past dinnertime and growing dark.
Somehow, after he had handed Louisa into the carriage, he so far forgot himself that he sat beside her on the bench.
Louisa regaled him with all her observations on prison life, and Charles listened, conscious all the while of her presence next to him, of her delicate scent, and of her leg brushing lightly against his.
As she chatted on, stopping only to yawn, he smiled to himself in the dark, thinking that only Louisa would come away from such an experience eager to challenge the world. But even she eventually felt the toll of such an emotional day. When he said little in response to her ideas, she soon fell silent, as well. After a while, her head began to bob, and Charles gently put one arm about her and drew her nearer to rest against his shoulder.
They came to the inn, and after all the bustle and confusion of their arrival, he did not see her again. Nan and Sammy seemed to have erased all memory of the suspicions they had harboured. Nan swept Louisa up to her room with promises of warming pans and a hot dinner sent up if she wished.
Knowing she was tired, feeling wrung out himself, and perhaps seeing the wisdom of these arrangements after their recent intimacy, Charles made no attempt to change them. He ate a lonely meal beside the fire in his room with only Eliza for company. But in spite of his dog's most hearty efforts, she could draw little from him other than a few absent-minded strokes.
He went to bed to the sound of the Old Lad's Passing Bell, the tenor bell in the parish church, tolling once for every year since Christ was born. Its final knell was timed to ring in Christmas Day, to keep Satan away from the Snaithby fold for one more year.
Charles fell asleep, relaxed and comforted by the knowledge that Louisa was safe.
The next day, Charles slept late and then came down the stairs with an anticipation he had not known in years. It was Christmas morning. Nothing for him to do today, when all travel was forbidden, except to enjoy the warmth of the inn, the embellishments he and Louisa had made to their own parlour, Mrs. Spadger's good food and her family's high spirits, and… Louisa.
Eliza tumbled head over heels down the steps in front of him. Charles reached the ground floor, then he peered into their private parlour and received a shock.
Louisa was standing on her tiptoes, fully square under the mistletoe, her hand in Jim Spadger's, his eyes open and eager.
An angry “Louisa!” escaped Charles's lips.
She jerked her hand from Jim's with a startled glance. The boy, too, looked anxious. Jim bowed himself quickly from the room.
Charles closed the door after him, his blood churning heatedly, and to a degree he had never known.
“Whatever's the matter, Charles?'
He whirled on her. “What's the matter! I lecture you over and over again about propriety, and you ask me what's wrong? Louisa-how could you encourage that boy? Have you no proper feelings?'
She went pale. “I am afraid,” she said quietly, “I do not know your meaning.'
Charles took a hasty turn about the room and then stopped in front of her. “Louisa,” he said, taking her by the shoulders to shake her, “has it entirely missed your notice that that boy is nursing a tendre for you? You were standing here, right under the mistletoe! If that is not an open invitation, I do not know what is!'
Louisa flushed. Her fair skin was infused with a rosy colour, whether from anger or embarrassment, he did not know.
“Do you think that Jim-” She could hardly go on. Tears formed in her eyes, and disgusted with himself, Charles drew back his hands.
He stared at the floor and growled, “Heathen custom! Why it should be observed, I cannot imagine!'
Louisa was silent. Charles refused to look at her. As he stood there, not saying a word, his anger quickly ebbed.
When it had passed, he began to wonder at himself. What could have possessed him to react so strongly? He attributed it to-he
With painful courage, he ventured one look at her face. Louisa appeared collected, but the red rims of her eyes belied her composure.
“You blame me,” she said quietly.
Charles started to open his mouth to apologize, but she surprised him and said, “Perhaps you should.'
He stared at her intently. “Louisa, I didn't mean-'
“You thought that I was shamelessly encouraging Jim. Well, perhaps you should when you consider my elopement. After all, I certainly encouraged Geoffrey. If he had ever attempted to kiss me, I am certain I should not have shied away. But he did not, and so I discovered he did not love me. And how are you to know that I would not encourage anyone, when the truth of the matter is that it distresses me to think that perhaps I am incapable of inspiring affection in a gentleman.'
Charles gaped at her. “Do you mean to say you think you are undesirable?'
She raised her chin. “It is possible, is it not?
“No, it's not possible.'
They were still standing under the kissing bough, but Charles was completely unaware of that when he took her
