It was doubtless self-pity at first. Here she was, a bride on her wedding night, alone in a strange bed in a strange house, her marriage unconsummated, her husband goodness knew where, and her mother far away and probably fast asleep and not even dreaming of her.
But soon enough it was for Ralph she wept, and it was at this stage of the crying session that her sobs tore most painfully at her chest. What had she done to him? It was true that he was a young, unassertive, inexperienced boy. But did those facts make him automatically despicable? Did they give her the right to scold and humiliate him? And she had done both. He had been nervous, but then, so had she. And he had been so gentle with her earlier that day and for the last month, believing her to be a shy young girl.
He was a kind and a gentle man. She was sure of it. She could almost imagine how he would have behaved had she allowed him to complete that act he had begun earlier. His inexperience might have caused him to hurt her, but afterward he would have held her and soothed her. He probably would have stayed in her bed for the rest of the night, sheltering her and comforting her. If only she were the sort of girl he had thought her! He would make a wonderful husband to such a girl. He would be loving and protective and considerate. And there was nothing unmanly about such qualities.
And the poor boy was shackled to her. Poor Ralph. She would destroy his manhood with her impatience and her incautious tongue and her thoughtless, hoydenish behavior. She would make him feel inadequate. He would have no one on whom to lavish the love and the care that he was full of. They had been married for fewer than twenty-four hours and already she had gone a good way toward destroying him. How must a man feel when his wife's criticisms and complaints rendered him incapable? And she had done that to him. On his wedding night.
Georgiana was not used to such introspection. She had developed the habit of believing that people who did not behave boldly and with an unconcern for the conventions were weak and of no account. She was accustomed to laughing at such people with her friends. She could not laugh at Ralph. He did not deserve scorn. She wept for him, long and painfully.
Poor Ralph. He deserved so much better than she. Oh, poor boy!
And thus she awoke the following morning, after only four hours of sleep, feeling as if her head had been replaced by a pumpkin. She rang for her maid.
Both Ralph and Gloria were in the breakfast room when Georgiana finally came downstairs and found the room with the help of a footman. Her heart sank. She had hoped that she was late enough to have avoided them. Gloria did not rise. She merely smiled and bade her sister-in-law good morning. Ralph jumped to his feet and came striding toward her. He was looking very pale, Georgiana noticed in one hasty glance, and very youthful. He looked as if he might have been wearing his riding clothes all night. His hair was more rumpled than usual.
Good morning, Georgiana," he said, taking her hand in his. His face flushed as he spoke to her, but he did not avoid contact with her eyes. "Did you find your way easily enough? I should have come to fetch you. But I did not wish to awake you."
Memories of the night before crowded between them like a fiery wall.
"Have you been riding, Ralph?" Georgiana asked as cheerfully as she was able. "I should have liked to come with you. I need some fresh air after spending most of yesterday cooped up inside a carriage."
"But of course we will go riding," he said, squeezing her hand and smiling down at her. "I promised yesterday, did I not, that I would show you the grounds and the estate today?"
He had said it when he first entered her room the night before. They both remembered as he spoke the words, and their eyes slid away from each other.
"Perhaps you do not feel like doing anything quite as strenuous as riding Georgiana," Gloria said into the silence, unconsciously winning the undying gratitude of her brother and his wife. "I shall be walking over to the vicarage later with some flowers for the church. Would you care to join me?"
Georgiana withdrew her hand from Ralph's with careful unconcern and went to sit beside her sister-in- law at the breakfast table. "Perhaps some other time, Gloria," she said. "I want to ride with Ralph this morning." She frowned with discomfort when Gloria colored, smiled, and looked down at her empty plate.
It would have been a great deal easier to have gone with Gloria, Georgiana thought an hour later as she adjusted her riding hat to her liking over her smooth hair, which had been tied loosely at the nape of her neck. The last thing she wished to do this morning was to have to face Ralph. His night had clearly been more sleepless than hers. He had looked downright haggard in the breakfast room. She was still feeling guilt-ridden even after some sleep. She was also feeling a little angry. Why should she find herself in the position of feeling responsible for the feelings of a sensitive boy? She had not asked for this marriage. She had not forced him into it. Was it her fault that his confidence in himself was such a fragile thing?
She made a face at herself before turning away from the mirror and drawing on her leather gloves. The fact was that she did feel guilty. She was going to have to do something to restore her husband's sense of manhood, though she could not for the life of her think how she was going to do it. It was an unpleasant task she was setting herself, and she had much rather not have to face him this morning and make conversation with him. But she was never one to shirk something that must be done. The embarrassment of being alone with him again would only grow worse if it were postponed. She picked up her riding crop and left the room.
"I have had Flora saddled for you," Ralph said a few minutes later when she joined him in the stables. "She is quiet and will not fuss at a stranger on her back. You need have no fear."
Georgiana looked with disgust and indignation at the plump little mare with the sidesaddle.
"Well," she said, hands on hips, "yours makes her look like a pregnant cow. I would deem it a cruelty to ride such a sorry creature."
Ralph laughed. "Have I offended you?" he asked. "I really did not know if you were an accomplished rider or not. You seem so small and so shy, Georgiana, that I guessed you were not. I am wrong, am I not? And I might have known it. Quiet people usually like to get away on their own, and what better way to do it than on a horse's back. Am I right?"
Georgiana leveled a thoughtful look at him. "Yes, you are right about one thing," she said. "I was shockingly rude just now, was I not?"
He laughed again and his whole face lit up with delight, she noticed with interest. "You must always say what you feel with me," he said. "Only so we can grow close as a husband and wife should."
The smile faded during the awkward little pause that followed his words, and he turned away to summon a groom to return Flora to her stall and bring out a more mettlesome mount.
Georgiana had planned to bring up the topic of the night before as soon as their ride began. Since it so obviously loomed large in the consciousness of both, she might as well bring it out into the open. But Ralph had clearly planned the conversation too. From the moment they left the stable yard he did not stop talking. He pointed out to her everything there was to see in the extensive grounds around the house. She soon knew the name of every variety of bloom that grew in the formal garden throughout the year. It seemed to her that she was given the history of every tree within sight and a description of how each had been used in childhood games. Soon they were beyond the gardens and riding along a dirt road between fields that were almost ready to be harvested.
For once in her life Georgiana kept quiet. It was almost as if her behavior of the last month had become a habit. She let him talk. Let them be well beyond the house before she forced him to discuss what was uppermost in both their minds. But, she thought ruefully a few minutes later, she had always been right to believe that if one did not tackle an embarrassing topic immediately, it became very much harder to do so later. When Ralph suggested that he take her to meet some of his laborers in the village, she readily agreed.
It was immediately apparent that only the women and children were at home in the small cottages clustered together in a rough circle around a well. The harvest had begun early on one of the distant fields, Ralph explained. Children, in various stages of undress and grubbiness, were playing intensely in the dirt outside their doors. A small group of women was gathered at the well. A few more appeared in the doorways as the sound of horses' hooves drew their attention.
Georgiana was surprised to note that all of the women smiled at their approach. Some of them called greetings. On her father's estate she always stayed as far away from the workers as possible. It was not that they were openly hostile. Rather, they lacked all expression whenever she was forced to be close to them. But she had always sensed hostility. The children here stopped their play to gaze curiously at the new arrivals. One child ran up to Ralph, grinned up at him to reveal two missing front teeth, and shyly stroked the toe of his boot.
"Hello, Will," Ralph said, smiling down at the child. "Now did I imagine it, or did you really run all the way over here without once limping?"
"I ain't limping, y'r lordship;" the boy said. "See? It's all better." He lifted one skinny bare leg off the ground.
