Wayward Winds (42 page)

 82 
Another Offer

March 1914 arrived. Mrs. Thorndike was scheduled to sail in two and a half weeks. Amanda still had not made up her mind what to do.

An invitation came. The return address read Curzon Street. Amanda opened it to find a formal dinner invitation in celebration of her twenty-fourth birthday.

She smiled to herself. No one at the Halifax home even knew she had a birthday approaching. Leave it to Cousin Martha to remember.

Amanda sat down and, still holding the invitation, looked quietly out the window. She had gradually come to that lonely point in her life where another birthday only served as opportunity for melancholy reflections. She had done her best to put it out of her mind. But she could hardly prevent awareness of what another birthday signified. Unthinking Mrs. Thorndike, who probably thought she was nineteen or twenty, had blurted out the other day, “I would have died not to be married at twenty-five. Dear Mr. Thorndike came along when I was twenty-one, just in time to prevent me from a spinster's fate.”

It wasn't as if Amanda was anxious to marry, or terrified of spinsterhood for that matter. Still, it would be nice, she thought, to have people around when the day came, even if it was Cousin Gifford's family. She sent back a return acceptance that same day.

Her thoughts still full of Mrs. Thorndike's offer, as well as her own diminishing prospects for the future, four evenings later Amanda walked up to the familiar stone house on Curzon Street. Martha had
offered to send a car, but the day was warm for this time of year and the streets were well lit. She paused briefly on the walk, glancing up at the structure. This had once practically been her second home. She had to admit those were happy days. But now it looked foreign and forbidding. What had happened? she thought to herself.

Martha had tried so hard to be her friend . . . why had she allowed that friendship to slip away? This past year or so she had spurned Martha's every advance, and had not seen her more than a half dozen times. Where had the time gone? She thought of all the meaningless drives, shopping excursions, luncheons and teas, and even more meaningless conversation. How could she have filled her days with so much emptiness?

Suddenly Amanda felt very, very lonely.

Why had she allowed so many things to slip away? London had certainly not turned out to be all that she had hoped.

But enough of that! It was her birthday.

She drew in a breath of resolve and walked the rest of the way to the front door. Slowly she lifted the iron knocker and let it clang the announcement of her arrival.

Martha herself opened the door.

“Oh, Amanda dear,” she syruped in gushy exuberance, “how beautiful you look . . . come in!”

“Show her to the formal sitting room,” Amanda heard Gifford's voice from somewhere in the house. “I'll be in momentarily.”

Martha led the way and Amanda followed. No sooner had they entered the room, however, than Gifford's voice sounded again, this time beckoning his wife.

“Do wait just a moment, dear,” said Martha. “We shall be in quickly.”

Martha disappeared. Amanda began to stroll absently about the sitting room, which she had been in but once before. She knew it was used only on the most special of occasions. Her eyes fell disinterestedly upon an ornate oak side-by-side secretary, whose top shelf was cluttered with Martha-ish trinkets. A portrait of Gifford and Martha hung on the wall behind it, the images presenting the distinguished couple to notably better advantage than their living counterparts. A childhood portrait of Geoffrey beside it was hardly recognizable as the fat little boy Amanda had known.

Amanda turned back into the room, her eyes now falling upon a folded and yellowed newspaper sitting on one of the low tea tables in front of the couch, curiously out of place in the midst of such expensive decor.

Amanda could not prevent her eyes from wandering to it as she approached, then sat down on the couch.

Why—

She could hardly believe her eyes!

—it was the issue of the
Sun
which had caused Ramsay such trouble . . . opened and folded back to the very page of the article!

For an instant Amanda was confused. What a remarkable coincidence. That
this
newspaper with
this
article would be here at such a time. And two years old!

Gradually the incongruity of its being displayed in such a prominent place began to dawn on her . . . in the very room to which she had been ushered and left with nothing to do.

Amanda glanced about. Not a book, not a magazine was in sight.

There could be no other explanation but that it had been
purposefully
put here, knowing she would eventually see it.

Cousin Gifford always had a motive. But why now, why tonight . . . why on her birthday?

Or maybe, she thought, it was Geoffrey's doing. It would be just like him to try to rub her nose in Ramsay's past difficulties. She knew Geoffrey was jealous of him.

Absently she picked up the newspaper and read through the brief article again. A momentary reminder surged through her of the pain it had first caused to read of Ramsay's alleged illicit liaison with a German mistress.

She heard footsteps approaching. Quickly she set the account back down on the table. She did not want to be caught having taken the bait. She rose as Gifford and Martha entered.

“Ah, Amanda, my dear,” said Gifford, “how lovely you look. A wonderful birthday to you!”

“Yes, happy birthday, Amanda!” echoed Martha.

“Thank you . . . thank you both,” replied Amanda. “It was very thoughtful of you to remember me.”

“I can't imagine what's keeping—” began Gifford.

“—ah, here he is now!” he added as Geoffrey now entered the room, appearing oddly out of sorts, almost nervous.

“Hello, Amanda,” he said. “Happy birthday.”

From behind his back, he pulled a single red rose. A bit woodenly he shuffled forward and handed it to her.

Shuddering inside, though doing her best not to show it, Amanda smiled and took it from him, then retreated a step.

“That's lovely!” sighed Martha.

“Let us adjourn to the dining room, shall we?” said Gifford as the effusive, benevolent host. He offered Martha his arm. She took it and they led the way. A bit awkwardly, Geoffrey again closed the gap between them and likewise offered his arm. Reluctantly Amanda took it, and they followed the parental couple out of the room.

Dinner proved a stiff and formal affair. It had been obvious from the moment of her arrival that each of the family had dressed up for the event. Amanda could hardly believe all this was merely for the benefit of her birthday. Two bottles of expensive wine stood uncorked and ready. From the kitchen came the aroma of
duck à
l'orange
.

“Amanda dear,” said Martha as Louisa began serving the first of several courses, “we haven't seen much of you. I've missed you.”

Even as Amanda did her best to blandly reply with untruths about being busy and time flying, suddenly Martha appeared old and pathetic in her eyes. Had Martha aged so much in a few short months? Or were her own eyes seeing things that much differently? She had almost been part of this family for a while, going everywhere, doing everything, with them. But she was twenty-four today. No more thoughts filled her dreams of coming out and attending society functions, of being the debutante, the belle of the ball. If she went around now, people would talk behind her back—twenty-four and unmarried, just as Mrs. Thorndike had said, one step from spinsterhood. Who had she been trying to fool with all that activity? London society hadn't been her world any more then than now.

“How is your father these days?” asked Gifford.

“I really couldn't say,” replied Amanda.

“I see in the paper that he is to be in London next week—something about that electrical commission he is involved with. Do you plan to see him?”

“I doubt that will be possible.”

Across the table, Geoffrey kept staring at her with an expression Amanda wasn't sure she liked. But he said little. At least that was a relief.

Dinner endured, they retired again to the formal sitting room. The newspaper had miraculously disappeared from the tea table. Tea and small cakes were served. Martha babbled. Gifford waxed ponderous, chiefly on the many difficulties facing young people in these difficult times, and the necessity of marrying well, with sufficient financial stability to ward off hardship. Geoffrey continued to remain silent.

After about thirty minutes Gifford shifted in his chair and cleared his throat significantly.

“Come, my dear,” he said to Martha, “the young people want to be alone.”

Amanda could feel her skin beginning to crawl. Gifford and Martha rose and left the room with many additional birthday wishes. Amanda wondered if she caught a brief wink from father to son. If so, Geoffrey gave no indication of response.

Geoffrey sat silent, the effects of the pre-dinner brandy and pep talk from his father both wearing off, and the dinner wine serving to subdue rather than invigorate him. But if he didn't do it, his father would berate him. Slowly he rose and paced about a bit. With his back still toward her, he finally began to speak.

“Amanda,” he said in quavering voice, “I know I haven't always been as kind as I ought to have been . . .”

As she sat listening, Amanda was beginning to feel a distinctly strange and horrible sensation.

“ . . . was a positive cad when we were young,” Geoffrey went on, his voice growing more smooth but no less detestable in her ears as he turned to face her.

“ . . . realize it now . . . but I hope you will be able to . . .”

Amanda was trapped and knew it. She could do nothing but sit and listen, though the terror of what she was afraid she had gotten herself into prevented her from remembering a fraction of his words.

“What I am trying to say—”

Geoffrey paused, obviously frustrated with himself for being so nervous. His sweaty hand now began fishing about the outside pocket of his coat.

“Well . . . I will let this say it for me—” he added.

He now withdrew his hand, clutching some small object. He held it toward her. It was a tiny black box. Geoffrey opened it.

Amanda's horrified gaze fell upon a monstrous two-carat diamond ring.

“—I am trying to say,” struggled Geoffrey, “that I want you . . . to be my wife.”

The words stunned Amanda with such force that her face went immediately white. All she could do was sit in abject disbelief. Had she actually heard what she thought she heard!

She returned Geoffrey's gaze as if mute. He
couldn't
mean it! It wasn't possible. After several long and excruciating seconds, Amanda found what little remained of her voice.

“Geoffrey . . . are you actually
proposing
to me?” she stammered.

“Yes, of course—what else could you call it when a man asks a woman to marry him? I am asking you to be my wife.”

Again Amanda returned his words by staring back in a renewed trancelike stupor.

Geoffrey, while one side managed to convince himself that she
had
to accept, another side was almost shocked that she seemed to be taking it so well. He half expected her to fly off the handle. But she was sitting there very calmly. That mere fact, notwithstanding her ashen look and non-reply, encouraged him to heightened boldness.

“Here,” he said, “try it on.”

He removed the ring from the box and took a step forward as if to take her hand in his and slip it on the dainty white finger himself.

In no more than an instant or two of time, now slowly the words from the
Sun
article began to filter back into Amanda's brain.

. . .
reporter's allegiances have come under close scrutiny. According to high-placed anonymous sources at the
Bank of London, Halifax was seen aboard the German gunboat—