by Rose Vane
Part 2: The Sun God and the Nymph
Chapter Three
It was still with excitement that, next morning, Anne tried on, for what surely must be the thousandth time, the silver hair combs the girls had gifted her with. She clearly remembered His Grace’s words last night. He had not only known of the gift. He’d helped the girls select it. A sudden vision of his hands, touching and appraising the combs came to her mind. She’d often noticed that his hands did not look ducal at all. They were quite large. Strong. Burnt by the sun. Peasant-like, really. The hands of a man spent much of his time outdoors.
Later, as she had happily ensconced herself in the library for what announced itself as a day of total idleness, she was surprised to find His Grace seeking her company.
He must already miss his girls, she resolved, acquiescing to his request of reading aloud to him. No wonder. He adored them and it was his first Christmas without them.
She was somewhat surprised by his request – the English version of Ovid’s Metamorphoses. She supposed however she should have expected it. It was plain that it was a text that he knew well and enjoyed. This was certainly why he had made her a gift of it in Latin.
She chose to read to him about Phoebus falling in love with the nymph Daphne and chasing her through the woods:
“So the virgin and the god: he driven by desire, she by fear. He ran faster, Amor giving him wings, and allowed her no rest, hung on her fleeing shoulders, breathed on the hair flying round her neck. Her strength was gone, she grew pale, overcome by the effort of her rapid flight, and seeing Peneus’s waters near cried out ‘Help me father! If your streams have divine powers change me, destroy this beauty that pleases too well!’ Her prayer was scarcely done when a heavy numbness seized her limbs, thin bark closed over her breast, her hair turned into leaves, her arms into branches, her feet so swift a moment ago stuck fast in slow-growing roots, her face was lost in the canopy. Only her shining beauty was left.”
She went on to read how Phoebus, loving Daphne even in her tree form, decided to turn her into his own tree, called laurel, whose leaves would perpetually adorn his lyre and his head.
She paused, as she heard him remark.
“And she could not escape him even in her tree form. How cruel the gods are!”
“I beg to differ, Your Grace,” she could not resist pointing out. “Gods are just gods. And others only subject to their fancies. I see no particular cruelty in this.”
“So you’re saying that it would have been proper for Daphne to submit to Phoebus? Since he was a god?” he asked her.
She shrugged.
“Perhaps.”
She saw him raise his eyebrows in disbelief, then spied the slow smile blossoming on his lips.
“I am astounded at such words from you, Miss Archer. I never would have thought a woman such as yourself would encourage a nymph to submit to a god’s lechery.”
She laughed. It was so like His Grace to find humour even in a sad story.
“Let me ask you a question,” she then heard him ask. “Pretend you were, let us say, Daphne. Would you have submitted to Phoebus?”
She shook her head.
“But I am not Daphne.”
He persisted.
“But let us pretend you were.”
Anne did not very much like where this conversation was leading. It seemed somehow improper. She dismissed the thought though. His Grace had never been improper to her. His question had been obviously asked out of genuine curiosity.
“I would answer your question in full honesty, Your Grace. Had I been Daphne, I would have submitted to Phoebus.”
“But why? Wouldn’t Daphne want to preserve her freedom and purity for ever? Why should she submit to the mere whims of a god?”
She looked at him, deep in thought.
“Of course, you are right. Since she wanted her freedom and did not love Phoebus, it would have been a betrayal against herself to submit to him. What I was saying though was, had I been Daphne, I would have certainly chosen to love Phoebus.”
Yet again, he raised his eyebrows at her.
“But why? From what I know of Phoebus, he was careless, and cruel and vain. For sport, he sometimes pierced mortals’ hearts with his arrows.”
“Can a god help what he is?” she countered, rather passionately. “I don’t think he can. No more than a predator can help being a predator. I don’t think the Greek gods were either good or bad. I think they just were. Both. Good and bad. And I would have chosen to love Phoebus. Not the cruelty in him, but the light in him. The healing, the poetry, the music. Why…the sun in him.”
She stopped, blushing, suddenly realizing she had given an impassioned speech over a silly matter such as this.
She felt distinctly uncomfortable under his stare.
“So,” he eventually told her. “You are, after all, one of those people who really think passion should burn like the sun.”
She nodded, too embarrassed to continue the conversation. What had gotten into her? She usually was a sensible, level-headed person, past the folly of youth. She was already a spinster of eight and twenty. What must he think of a governess who could teach his daughters such silliness?
**
As Christmas Eve was nearing, Henry found that Miss Archer’s company was diverting. He also found that he did not mind spending Christmas Eve in Miss Archer’s company. In the absence of his girls, her presence was definitely preferable to that of other persons of his acquaintance. And it was in her presence that he managed to stop ceaselessly wondering in what precise manner Jane and Georgie would be amusing themselves this Christmas.
Besides, Miss Archer was the person with whom he could talk of Jane and Georgie. It was in her presence that he found himself reminiscing of the days when the girls had been younger.
They both decided that Christmas had always been an auspicious time for the girls. It was Easter that had always brought the most unfortunate of accidents.
“I dread to remember that Easter night, five years ago, when both girls were seized by that dangerous fever. And Dr Bailey saying that Jane may not last the night…” Anne told him, as they were sharing tea in the library.
“I felt I could murder him right then and there, although, in truth, he’d done everything he could,” Henry said, raking a hand through his hair, and really shuddering to remember how desperate that night had been.
“Yes, I recall”, Miss Archer nodded. “I saw Your Grace go as white as a sheet and clench the fists. I really feared you would strike the good doctor.”
“It would have been to no avail,” Henry bitterly smiled.
“And the vigil that followed – which was most terrible. I was watching Georgie, who also was not well, while Your Grace was watching Jane.”
“I was listening to her breathing. I was horribly afraid she would cease to do so,” he said in a low voice.
He raked a hand through his hair.
“To this day, I am thankful for the miracle of her having survived.”
Miss Archer smiled.
“All’s well that ends well. Still, she gave us quite a fright. After she had recovered, it seemed I had forgotten how to sleep. Even weeks later, I would wake up in the middle of the night and go to her room, just to assure myself that she was well,” she confessed.
“I did that too”, he said.
“I know,” she told him. “I saw you, Your Grace. Somehow, it set my mind at ease that someone else was also watching.”
He looked at her in surprise and some displeasure. He’d never been referred to as “someone else”, when it came to his girls. He was their father.
He suddenly realised that she had not meant this as a slight. She really cared for the girls. As if they were her own blood. He’d always known she was very fond of them. However, he had never thought to probe how deep her attachment to them really was. But he should have certainly expected it. Today he’d found out that Miss Archer was one those people who honestly believed in the power of love.
He wisely steered the topic towards other memories.
“What about that Easter when Georgie nearly broke her neck falling off the horse I had expressly forbidden her to ride?”
“Thank God she only sprained her wrist!” she said with feeling.
“Yes, well,” he said drily. “Thank God for the sprained wrist, because she most certainly would have gotten a whipping otherwise. As you know, I’ve never whipped either of them in my life, but that day, I came very close to doing it…”
She gave a short laugh.
“I remember. And truth be told, I would not have said anything to deter you, although I myself would never employ such discipline. That day however I also felt she deserved a good whipping.”
“Yet she got away with it. As Georgie always does,” he complained. “Sometimes I really wish she would be more like Jane. I’ve never in my life thought of whipping Jane. ”
He smiled ruefully, then brightened.
“But then again,” he said, “Most of the times I’ m truly thankful that she is just as she is.”
“Well, Your Grace, after all, your daughters are both like you,” Miss Archer said, with a warmth in her voice that he did not miss.
“How so?” he inquired, somewhat puzzled. “I always thought neither of them was like me.”
“But, think, where from does Georgie get her love for wild rides and for the outdoors? And whose dry sense of humour has Jane inherited?” she asked him with a smile in her voice.
Having said this, she paused, as if embarrassed to have addressed him in so familiar a manner. She was probably right. They had never been quite so familiar with each other, in spite of their long acquaintance.
Still, Henry found that he wished this familiarity to continue. What harm would there be in it after all? It was not as if they would have the opportunity to spend any time alone together after this Christmas had passed.
“It seems,” he said, “that you know a good deal of my life and habits, Miss Archer. And I know next to nothing of yours.”
He was quite astounded by the flirtatious tone his own voice had taken. Whatever had happened to the clipped ducal tones he always employed in the presence of his employees?
He was astounded by his improper behaviour – so astounded that it caused him to stare at her in earnest, as if he were seeing her for the first time in his life.
Her answer was however nothing but proper.
“There’s nothing more to know than you already do, Your Grace. For the past eight years, the girls have occupied my entire life.”
Henry lowered his gaze, not wanting to be caught staring at her. Because it was now, as Christmas Eve was nearing, that he finally realised that Miss Archer was an exceptionally good-looking woman. And he chastised himself. He chastised himself for fully acknowledging it now, but not only. He also chastised himself for not fully acknowledging it until now.
