Simply Magic

“Yes, that would be pleasant.”

Their footsteps slowed and then stopped altogether before they turned onto Daniel Street.

“Susanna,” he said, his hand covering hers on his arm, though he did not turn his head to look down at her. “I want you to know before I leave that I do care for you. I know you do not like me half the time or approve of me the other half, but I do care. I think we were friends once. I think in many ways we still are. But when we became more than friends on that one afternoon, it really was more. I was not just a lustful man taking advantage of being alone with an innocent woman. I cared for you. I know you do not want me or need me. I know you are happy with the life you have. But I think perhaps in some way you have cared too, and I wanted you to know that…Well. Was there ever a more muddled monologue, and just at the time when I most wanted to be eloquent and say something memorable?”

“Oh, Peter,” she said, clinging to his arm, “I do like you. Of course I do. And of course I approve of most of what I see in you. How could I not? You are always so very kind. And I care for you too.”

“But not enough to marry me?” he asked her, still not looking at her.

“No.” It was easier just to say no than try to explain-it was impossible, anyway, to explain all her reasons. “I do thank you, but no, we would not suit.”

“No,” he said softly, “I suppose not. I will leave you here, then.”

“Yes.” Panic grabbed at her stomach, her knees, her throat. She slid her hand from his arm.

He turned then and took both her hands in his, squeezing them so tightly for a moment that she almost winced. He lifted them one at a time and set her gloved palms to his lips.

He raised his eyes to hers-and smiled.

“An already glorious November day has seemed warmer and brighter because of your presence in it,” he said, misquoting his very first words to her. “Thank you, Susanna.”

And so he drew a smile from her even though her heart was breaking.

“Foolish,” she said. “Ah, foolish.”

And somehow they both laughed.

“Good-bye, Peter,” she said.

And because she could not bear any more, she dashed with ungainly haste around the corner and up to the door of the school, and she lifted the knocker and let it fall with more force than was necessary.

She glanced toward the corner as Mr. Keeble opened the door, but there was no one there. She stepped inside, and the door closed behind her.

And now it seemed to her that there was nothing left to live for. Nothing at all. She was in too much distress to notice the melodrama of the thought.

I want you to know before I leave that I do care for you.

Mary Fisher, one of the middle school boarders, was on her way up the stairs. She turned back when she saw who had come through the door.

“Oh, Miss Osbourne,” she cried, all excitement, “we and Mr. Upton have made the changes you wanted to the sketches for the scenery and finished them. They are ever so gorgeous. Do come and see.”

“Of course. I can hardly wait. Lead the way, then, Mary,” Susanna said, smiling brightly as she pulled loose the ribbons of her bonnet. “Have you been working all afternoon? How splendid of you.”

I want you to know before I leave that I do care for you.

… before I leave…

And now he was gone.

20

Peter went straight from Bath to Sidley Park-to stay.

Will you do one thing for me? And this was it. She might never know he had done as she asked, and how his coming here could benefit her anyway he did not know. But here he was. He loved her, and so he had honored her final request.

He hoped that love would go away again as suddenly as it had come. He did not like the feeling at all. It was a dashed miserable thing, if the truth were known.

His mother was ecstatic to see him. She scarcely stopped talking about Christmas, which would be absolutely perfect now that he was home to enjoy all that she had planned for him. Four of his sisters-Barbara, Doris, Amy, and Belinda-were to come to Sidley Park for Christmas, all except Josephine, in fact, the middle one in age, who lived in Scotland with her husband and his family. And of course the presence of four sisters was going to mean too the presence of their spouses and children-nine of the latter among the four of them. And because it was Christmas, numbers of their in-laws of all ages had been invited too. None of his uncles-he had made himself clear to them five years ago, though in the intervening years since he had seen them occasionally in London and learned to be cordial with them.

And of course the Flynn-Posys were coming for Christmas.

Well, he would endure it. He would even enjoy it. He would establish himself as host.

His mother took him into the dining room the day after his arrival and explained to him all that she planned to have done in there for his comfort and delight.

“I’ll think about it, Mama,” he said. “I may have some ideas of my own.”

“But of course, my love,” she said, beaming happily at him. “Whatever you want provided it will not ruin the overall effect of what I have planned. How lovely it is to have you home again.”

He left it at that. It had never been easy to talk to his mother-it had always seemed something akin to dashing one’s brains against a rock.

Will you talk to your mother, Peter? Really talk?…Tell her who you are. Perhaps she has been so intent upon loving you all your life that really she does not know you at all. Perhaps- probably-she does not know your dreams.

He had never really talked to his mother, or she to him. He had confronted her once, of course-ghastly memory-but they had both been horribly upset at the time, and they had not used the opportunity to open their hearts to each other, to establish a new and equal relationship of adult mother and adult son.

That would change. He would talk to her. He would hold firm against her iron will. It just seemed somewhat absurd that the provocation was probably going to be a lavender dining room.

He spent a good deal of the time before Christmas away from the house. He liked to go and sit in the dower house, sometimes for hours on end, lighting a fire in the sitting room and enjoying the peace he found there. He had always loved the house, and it had always been well kept even though it had been inhabited during his lifetime only by the girls’ governesses and the tutors he had had before going away to school and sometimes during school holidays. It was a small manor in its own right and was set in the middle of a pretty