Intolerable Civility

Chapter Seven: Ogre in Disguise

David and his sister were never very conversational at the best of times. When, in the early hours of the morning, they left the assembly hall and got into their mother's coach to go home, they said barely a word to each other for some half-hour. Laurie sat opposite him, with her arm against the window, staring out into the dark of the countryside. David was busy enough with his own thoughts that it was some time before he realized that she, too, had something weighing on her mind.

"Is it Wynn?" he asked.

"Hah!" Laurie scowled. "I wasn't thinking of him at all til you mentioned him."

That was a lie. She hardly stopped thinking of him. David watched her face under the colourless light of the moon. Shadowed and thinly lit, the unpleasant sharp lines at the edges of her eyes disappeared. It had been Wynn who put them there. Until she married him, Laurie had been bright and laughing and carefree. Wynn had made her laughter bitter and dimmed her brightness.

"Paul's the only one of us who made a good marriage," David said. "He chose well."

Laurie laughed. "I would not call it that! Not even by comparison to us. Annabelle is the stupidest woman I ever laid eyes upon. I would rather be afflicted by cruelty than stupidity."

Wynn had been clever, at least. David had to admit that. Clever enough that no one had suspected the kind of man he really was until it was far too late.

"Do you ever miss him?" he asked.

Laurie's eyes were black under the moonlight. She kept his gaze for an uncomfortable amount of time. "Why do you ask?"

"I don't know. I just thought... I mean, it wasn't all bad, was it? You did love him."

"Once. Before I knew him." She gave him a bitter smile. "But that isn't really love. It's just an illusion. You would know."

But it hurt the same way. And if he had not really been in love with Catherine, then he had never been in love. There had simply never been anyone else for him.

"I'm happy to hear you're out of it now," Laurie said after a while.

"What do you mean?"

Laurie looked back out the window, as though she could not meet his eyes. "You never consummated the marriage."

David tried to cough and swallow at the same time, and ended up choking. Laurie made no effort to help him as he recovered.

"She told you?" he managed.

"Of course not. I put two and two together. She's not seen your scar. But I am glad, David. I was worried, when you brought her here, that you were still under the illusion of love."

"I'm under no illusion about her. Trust me, I see her now for exactly what she is. She tried to lie to me tonight. She pretended she was ill so we would leave. But I could feel her insincerity in the way she touched me." He shuddered. "Why is it so easy to see now, when for the four months of our engagement, I was blind?"

"Hm." Laurie tapped on the edge of the window. "I question your vision, then and now. You're too honest to easily tell truth from lies. And she had a dizzy spell when we were playing cards."

"Did she?"

"I don't think she was acting. But a dizzy spell is nothing. I'm glad you did not coddle her and go with her. She and her gorgon can manage."

"I didn't think she was actually unwell — if I had..." For a moment, David felt a stab of concern. He suppressed it: if she had not lied tonight, she had certainly lied to him before, and a dizzy spell was hardly deadly. "...I must do my duty by her."