Simply Magic

Her eyes twinkled into his, and they all laughed.

“I came to attend a wedding breakfast a few days ago,” he explained, “and stayed on for a few days before returning to London.”

They chattered amiably for a few minutes before Edith set a hand on his sleeve.

“Peter,” she said, “I must ask, though it does seem impertinent. The lady you were escorting last evening-she was not…Could she possibly have been Susanna Osbourne, by any chance?”

It was impossible to avoid answering such a direct question.

“Yes,” he said. “I ran into her this summer and again at the wedding breakfast. The bride is a friend of hers while the groom is my cousin’s brother-in-law.”

Edith’s hand tightened on his arm.

“Oh, she is alive, then,” she said. “I have always wondered.”

“She disappeared,” Lady Markham explained, “after her father died. None of our efforts to find her was successful, though we were quite frantic. We never heard of or from her again. It was all very distressing on top of everything else, as perhaps you remember, Whitleaf. Or perhaps not. You were away at school at the time, I believe. Susanna was only twelve years old, far too young to be out in the world on her own. But what could we do? We had no idea where to start looking, though we did look for a long time.”

“Well,” Peter said, smiling, “now after all this time you may take comfort from the knowledge that she did survive.”

“Where is she living or staying, Peter?” Edith asked eagerly. “I would love to call on her, to speak with her. We were the dearest of friends. We were almost like sisters. It broke my heart when she disappeared.”

“Perhaps,” he said warily, looking apologetically from one to the other of them, “she ran away and stayed away because she felt a need to break the connection with her father’s employers. Perhaps the memory of anything or anyone to do with him is still just too painful. Perhaps she felt she had good-”

“And perhaps,” Edith said, smiling ruefully, “you are too much the gentleman to betray her trust, Peter. We understand, do we not, Mama?”

“You see,” he said, “it took her a while during the summer to tell me who she was even though she had recognized me, or at least my name, immediately. And even then she would tell me only that her father had died at Fincham-of a heart attack, she led me to believe. It was Theo who told me the truth about his suicide after I went home. I suppose it is understandable that Miss Osbourne may not want any reminders of that time.”

And a distinct possibility had struck him. Had she seen Lady Markham and Edith last evening and recognized them? Was that why she had been in such a hurry to leave the Abbey as soon as the concert ended, even though she had appeared to be enjoying the evening immensely until then?

“But we never understood her leaving,” Lady Markham said with a sigh. “She was only a child and her father had just died. We had always treated her well, almost as if she were one of our own, and Edith positively adored her. One would have expected her to turn to us for comfort.”

“If you see her again, Peter,” Edith said, “will you ask her if I may call on her? Or if she will call on me if she wishes to remain secretive about her exact whereabouts?”

“I will ask,” he promised. But he could not resist asking another question of his own.

“ Why did Osbourne kill himself?” He addressed himself to Lady Markham. “Did you ever find out?”

She hesitated noticeably.

“I am surprised,” she said, “that you did not even know of the suicide until Theo told you recently. You were fond of Mr. Osbourne, as I recall, and he of you. However, I suppose it was to be expected that Lady Whitleaf would want to protect you from such a harsh truth, and she would have sworn your sisters to secrecy. As for William Osbourne’s reason for doing what he did, that died with him, the poor man.”

“He did not leave a note for Lord Markham?” Peter asked.

She hesitated again.

“He did,” she said. But she did not elaborate, and he disliked intruding any further into a subject on which she was clearly reluctant to talk. It must, of course, have been a remarkably distressing episode in her life. He did, however, ask one more question.

“Did he also leave a note for Sus-For Miss Osbourne?” he asked.

“Yes, he did,” she said.

“Did she read it?”

“Both notes were folded neatly inside the final updated page of a ledger inside the drawer of his desk,” she told him, “and were understandably not discovered until after his burial. By then Susanna was gone without a trace. It would be as well to leave it at that now, Whitleaf. It is an old, unhappy story and best forgotten. But it does have a happy ending of sorts after all. Susanna is alive and apparently well. Is she? Well? And happy?”

“Both, I believe,” he said.

He knew that he had made her very unhappy during the summer. Even now he liked to believe that the prospect of saying good-bye to him again saddened her. But honesty forced him to admit that she lived a life that brought her security and friendship and satisfaction and perhaps even happiness. He was not necessary to her life. She could live very well without him. He had not lied to Lady Markham.

It was a humbling thought-that Susanna did not need him, that last evening she had actually refused his marriage offer, which from any material point of view must be seen as extremely advantageous to her. She had told him he needed to learn to like himself. Before saying good night to him, she had removed her glove and touched his cheek with gentle fingertips-as if he were the one who needed tenderness and comfort.

As if she were the strong, secure one.

He took his leave of Lady Markham and Edith after promising to call upon them in Laura Place before he left Bath. A few minutes later he left the Pump Room and walked back to his hotel for breakfast.

18

Some days in November could still retain traces of the glory of autumn and even a hint of a lost summer, though the trees were bare of leaves and the plants of flowers. But usually such days came at a time when duty forced one to remain busy indoors, enjoying the weather only in the occasional glance through a window.

This particular Saturday was such a day. But this time Susanna was able to enjoy it to the full. It was games day, and the whole morning was spent outdoors in the meadows beyond the school with those girls who chose air and vigorous exercise over embroidery and tatting and crochet. As often happened, Susanna gave in to the urgings of the girls and her own inclination and joined in the games herself with the result that her cheeks were glowing with color by the time she led the two orderly lines back to school for luncheon. And though she was breathless, her body hummed with energy.

And the morning exercise was not all. The afternoon offered a rare treat-a walk, perhaps in Sydney Gardens, which were close by but rarely visited because of the admission fee-and with a