The Forest - Edward Rutherfurd [333]
The succeeding days went off well enough, though. When it was sufficiently warm, in the mornings, they took the children to see the sights, or to walk round by the river to view the splendid wooded slopes of Beechen Cliff. Another day they went out of the city to wonder the splendour of Prior Park, past which much of the stone for the building of the city had been brought on a specially constructed railway track which, being on a long incline, operated by the force of gravity. Mr Grockleton was much taken with this.
Mrs Grockleton was thorough. Soon Fanny felt she knew the city as well as most visitors: handsome Queen Square, the Circus, the elegant Pulteney Bridge designed by Adams, the Assembly Rooms, upper and lower, and the Royal Crescent, where one walked on a Sunday, to be seen. There was no defined social season at Bath, for with people going there all year round it was always a season of a kind. The place was very agreeable, on the whole, even if they didn’t know many people. At the end of the first week it rained, almost continually, for three days and Fanny might have felt a little depressed if she had not received a most loving letter from Louisa saying that she and her brother were planning to make a short visit to Bath themselves, to enjoy her company.
It was halfway through the second week when the strange little incident occurred. Having spent an hour or two playing rather listlessly with the Grockleton children in the house, Fanny had gone down to the centre of the town alone. There were shops in the arcaded streets selling every kind of luxury, but her attention had been especially taken by one window in which there was a fine display of Worcester china. The set, which was decorated with depictions of English landscapes in the classical style, had seemed so appropriate in this English Roman spa that she had decided to come back and peruse it at her leisure. And, for quite half an hour, the listlessness she had felt almost disappeared as she inspected one charming scene after another. At last, however, she emerged and started to walk up the hill.
She had only gone a little way and come to an intersection, when, a couple of hundred yards away down the street on her right, she saw Mr Martell. He was stepping out of a carriage. He turned, with his back to her, and handed down a very handsomely dressed young lady. A moment later they entered a large house together.
Mr Martell. Her heart missed a beat. With a lady. Why not with a lady? Was it Mr Martell, though? She hadn’t actually seen his face. A tallish, saturnine man, dark-haired. The carriage, drawn by four beautifully turned-out horses, certainly belonged to someone rich and aristocratic. The way he moved, the general look of him were so exceedingly like Mr Martell that she had assumed it must be he. But then, she reflected, Mr Martell had a double in an old picture; there could be other visitors to Bath who resembled him.
Was it Mr Martell? She felt her pulse quicken sharply. She wanted so much to know. She hesitated. What would she do if she encountered him? Would they speak? Would she speak? What could she say to Mr Martell and a handsome young lady? If he was staying in Bath, would they meet, or would he move across the upper horizon of the city, from one private house to another, hidden from her view?
Since he is living in a world quite beyond mine, where he has certainly no further desire for my company; since his heart is probably engaged by now; and since, besides, he is a Penruddock, with whom I cannot and do not wish to have anything to do, she thought, these speculations are quite useless. The only thing is to move on.
She didn’t. Looking around for an excuse, she found a view to admire and lingered there several minutes, in case he came out. After all, he might have been returning the lady to her house. But no one emerged. The carriage remained where it was. After a further pause she began to walk along the pavement towards it. She was only curious, she told herself,