One gift. That would be all. One gift and no more communication ever.
He spent part of the morning of his first day at home taking his daughter and her dog for a long walk. He promised her that in the afternoon they would ride to Mr. Chamberlain’s house so that she could play with the children.
“I will ride with you, Papa,” she said carelessly.
“Not a bit of it,” he said, laughing. “You will ride your own horse, Pamela. I thought you had recovered from your fears.”
“But I will not have Miss Hamilton to ride on my other side,” she said.
“You do not need any assistance,” he said. “You can ride quite well on your own now. I must see about finding you another governess, one who will enjoy going into Italy with us.”
“I don’t want another governess,” she said. “I want Miss Hamilton.”
“Well,” he said, stooping down to scoop the dog up into his arms to carry through the house and up the stairs, “Miss Hamilton has moved on to another life, Pamela. She is teaching a whole schoolful of children.”
“She didn’t like me,” she said, pouting. “I knew all the time that she didn’t like me.”
He set a hand on her head and rubbed hard. “You know that is not true, Pamela,” he said. “She loved you.”
“Then why did she leave?” she asked. “And she did not even say good-bye.”
He sighed and was glad of the diversion caused when the dog leapt from his arms at the top of the stairs and raced for the door into the nursery. Pamela giggled and raced after it.
He strode outside to the stables and had his horse saddled. And he rode for the next few hours, completely forgetting about luncheon, cantering up over the back lawns, through the trees, past the ruins, avoiding the park at the front of the house.
He tried to keep his mind focused on his plans for the future. He would take Sybil to London before they left England. They would find out what the most skilled physician had to say about her condition and her chances of recovery. And then they would go to Italy, at least for the winter months, and he would make sure that she soaked up sunshine every single day.
She was twenty-six years old. Far too young to die.
It was strange, he thought, how a person could know something perfectly well in the far recesses of the mind, and yet not know it at all. Had he known or suspected that Sybil had consumption? All the symptoms had been there, glaring him in the face. But no one had said anything. He would have thought that the doctor, at the very least, would have informed him.
Thomas had mentioned that perhaps she was consumptive. But he had denied the possibility.
Perhaps his own denials had been similar to Sybil’s. She had known the truth about Thomas all along, she had said the day before. And yet at the same time she had not known, or had denied the knowledge even to her own heart.
She was coughing blood already. That meant that the disease was in its final phase, did it not? That there was no hope of recovery?
But he would nurse her back to health.
If only, he thought, she were willing to accept his care, his companionship, the affection he was still willing to give her. But she was not.
Sybil had always been her own worst enemy, he thought. Undoubtedly her experience with Thomas, a pregnancy outside wedlock, and the compulsion on her to marry Adam though she did not love him had all been searing indeed. He would not belittle the pain she must have lived through. How could he when he was living through much the same pain himself? But she could have helped herself.
If she had really known deep down that Thomas had cruelly abandoned her, she could have made an effort to make at least something of her marriage. She could have lavished all her love on Pamela, even if not on himself. Since all happiness had been taken from her, she could have concentrated on giving happiness to other people.
But Sybil’s character was not a strong one. Had she been given happiness, doubtless she would have remained sweet all her life. But she was a taker, not a giver, and once everything she held dear had been taken from her, there had been nothing left in her life except bitterness and hatred and a desperate reaching out for sensual gratification.
He could only feel deeply sorry for her. And obliged to help her through this new and worst crisis in her life. It would be too sad for her to die so young and without ever having discovered that there was a great deal to give to life.
It was not easy, of course, to turn one’s back on the pains of the past and give all one’s energies to the present and the future. Not easy at all.
He found himself after all turning his horse’s head for the front of the house and cantering over the rolling lawns of the long park. And then galloping, urging Hannibal on to ever faster and faster speed, never quite able to outdistance his thoughts.