“You got the key from Muffet?” Cressida asked.
The crimson face turned a shade deeper. “There happened to be a spare key. I wanted to go up and have a look for myself, for it bothered me to hear your sleep was disturbed by the bats knocking about.”
“I did not see any bats,” Cressida said.
“That would be because Jennet’s cat got them all.”
There was obviously no point in discussing it further with this accomplished liar. She had not suddenly found a spare key to the attic. She had had one all along. As Muffet also had a key now, however, she would not press the point, but only keep a sharp eye on the attic in the future.
“Let me bring you a nice cup of tea and some of my gingerbread,” Tory said.
Cressida accepted this peace offering, but she knew she had not gotten to the bottom of the strange goings-on at the dower house.
Another dull evening stretched before Cressida and her cousin, alleviated—or, more accurately, aggravated—by the presence of Miss Wantage, who had hobbled to the table for dinner, wrapped in her white woolen shawl, to indicate her status of recuperating invalid. When she was quite well, the shawl would be exchanged for a blue one. Miss Wantage was, of course, interested in their caller, but once she learned he was Lady Dauntry’s godson, she refused to find much ill in him. She was a keen admirer of a title.
“Youth and high spirits go together. ‘To flaming youth let virtue be as wax,’ as dear Shakespeare said.” Miss Wantage was not really so abandoned in her morals as this would suggest. She had once had a sentimental verse published in
The Lady’s Companion,
since which time she was much given to quotations, regardless of their suitability.
“That ain’t what you said when I got sent down from Oxford,” Beau reminded her.
“Nor when Cressida took to wearing moistened gowns that clung so vulgarly,” Miss Wantage agreed, “but playful high spirits of this sort are harmless.”
She then began lamenting having missed the visit to Beachy Head in so pointed a manner, Cressida offered to take her the next day.
“For those silks you brought me, dear—and pray do not take this as a complaint, for I am sure the thought was very kind—but the colors are just a little vulgar. They hurt these poor old eyes. You know I always prefer the less violent pastel shades for my work. That glaring bile yellow and royal blue look so very common in a
piece of embroidery. One does not find them in nature,” she said quite inaccurately.
But there was no arguing with Miss Wantage when it came to embroidery. If the shade “hurt her poor old eyes,” it was vulgar, and that was that.
“Ah, turbot in white sauce again,” was her joyless comment when the fish was served. “How often one is confronted with it in Bath. I had thought we might at least have some different seafood here by the sea, but I am sure Mrs. Armstrong has made the sauce very nicely. Hardly lumpy at all,” she said, poking her fork about with obvious distaste. She took two bites and set her fork down.
“Very likely it is the ferocious wind off the sea that makes the mutton so tough,” was her forgiving comment on the meat.
“An apple tart! How—rustic,” she said weakly when the dessert was served. “I do think it a mistake to serve apples in June. Best wait until July or August, when the first new crop appears. A nice blancmange or syllabub would have suited me better at this time. All that grease in the crust sits heavily on a queasy stomach.”
Before long, the three were installed in the Blue Saloon, where Miss Wantage required a fire to take the “damp chill” off the air. With her woolen shawl tucked around her, she drew out her embroidery, tsked at the vulgar yellows and blues, and asked Beau to thread a needle for her with the last piece of her pale pink thread, for her poor eyes, which could spot lechery a mile away, were worse than useless when it came to threading a needle.
“Now, isn’t this cozy!” she said, smiling at her cousins. “So much better than all the mad dashing about of London. We will get your sallow complexion brightened up in no time, Cressida.”
The only sound in the room for the next minute was the ticking of the longcase clock in the corner and the snapping of logs in the grate.
“One is hardly aware of the wretched pounding of the sea tonight,” Miss Wantage said, poking her needle into her linen. “I was afraid, last night, that I would never sleep a wink until we got away, but tonight it is not bad at all. I have had Jennet move me from that drafty room facing the sea, Cressida. I am sure it is no odds to you where I lay my poor old head. The yellow room will do nicely, and perhaps the racket from the attic will be somewhat subdued in another room.”
“Whatever you like, Miss Wantage,” Cressida said, although she had told Miss Wantage that very morning that she planned to use the yellow room for company. Perhaps she had forgotten. One must be charitable.
After another moment Miss Wantage cast a reproving look on her youthful companions. “The devil makes work for idle hands, children. Why do you not try a piece of embroidery, Cressida? Time to begin accumulating your hope chest. You never know, you might nab someone yet, as you still have not put on your caps at five and twenty. I donned mine at twenty-one. By that age a lady knows. And you, Beau, can you not stop fidgeting? It is so common. You have not so much as opened the journal you brought from Beachy Head. A gentleman ought to keep himself au courant with what is afoot in the world.”
Beau’s lips clenched. He rose and said, “Excuse me, ladies. I have to write a few letters.” Then he fled the room.
Cressida had no sooner picked up the journal and begun to glance through it than Miss Wantage set aside her embroidery. “Oh,
you
are reading the journal,” she said in a thin voice. “I had wanted to glance at the court news, but pray do not let me interrupt you.”
Cressida counted to ten and handed over the journal. “I shall get a book from the library,” she said, to escape.
“You will find nothing worth reading there, Cressida. I took a peek in this afternoon while you were out. If you want something to read, I have Hannah More’s latest book of essays here in my sewing basket. Very uplifting, to see someone taking a thought to the evils of mankind. Perhaps you will read it to me while I stitch. Reading maketh a full man.”
“I thought you wanted to read the court news.”
“ ‘Vanity of vanities; all is vanity.’ Ecclesiastes, I believe. One feels the attraction of court. I own it is a weakness, but we are only frail human flesh after all. We might profit from the essay on idleness,” she said with a pointed look.
Cressida read two pages, after which time Miss Wantage smiled a painful smile. “It is well you have independent means, my dear, for you would never do as a ladies’ companion. You really ought to try to cultivate your voice a little. I believe I shall turn in now. I cannot think what has given me back my headache.”
So saying, she picked up the journal and left Hannah More’s essays behind. While Cressida was still drawing a sigh of relief, Beau’s head peered around the corner.
“Is she gone for the night?” he asked.
“Yes, to bed, thank goodness.”
“What a take-in, Cousin Alice telling me Miss Wantage was down as a nail. She is nothing else but a Jeremiah in skirts. Alice said it only to be rid of her.”
“And who can blame Alice?” Cressida said with feeling. “I warned you what she was like. This was a wretched idea, coming here, Beau. It makes me appreciate Brighton.”
“And London, or even Tanglewood. Tomorrow we shall call on the Brewsters, if they don’t come here first.”
“I mean to call on Lady Dauntry and speak to her about Melbury as well, in case anything is missing from the house.”
As she spoke, the door knocker sounded. Cressida’s expression of ennui faded, to be replaced with an ill-concealed smile of anticipation. Dauntry!
E’er long, he was shown in. “What a delightfully domestic scene,” he said as his eyes alit on Hannah More’s latest tract, “The diversity of your interests astonishes me, Lady deCourcy. I had not taken you for a reformer.”
“It belongs to Miss Wantage,” Beau said. “You have not had the pleasure of meeting Cressida’s chaperon.”
“Pleasure!” Cressida said in astonishment. “The woman is a public nuisance. She does nothing but scold and carp on nothings.”
Dauntrys nostrils pinched in disapproval. “That is poor reward for the lady, after she has been kind enough to leave her home and chaperon you for the summer, Lady deCourcy. It would be more proper for you to behave in a manner that does not cause her to scold.”
“I am not quite ready to join the Clapham sect,” she replied in arctic accents. “Won’t you take a seat, milord, or did you come only to take up where Miss Wantage left off?”
“I would not dare to presume so far on your patience.” He sat down, turning to face Cressida. “That sparkle in your eyes tells me it is my turn to receive a scold. And the servants’ grapevine tells me why. I understand you have suffered a call from Melbury.”
She was sorry he had taken the wind out of her sails. “Indeed we have, and impersonating Mr. Brewster, if you please.”
“He is a wretched fellow. If he comes again, send him up to the castle. I had thought we were rid of Melbury for the summer. I bribed Cousin Beatty to invite him to Bath just after Tony’s wedding. How did you catch on to Melbury so quickly? But my wits are gone begging. Tory, of course, would have told you.”
“Oh, no. Your servant went along with the game—despite your high opinion of her,” Cressida informed him.
“We met Allan Brewster in town,” Beau said, and gave some details of the encounter. “I say, Lord Dauntry, would you like a glass of wine? Or a cup of tea? The tea tray ought to be arriving any minute.”
“I dropped in only to explain—and apologize—for Cousin Melbury.” He pulled at his collar, glancing at the raging fire in the grate.
“Oh, don’t go!” Beau exclaimed. “We are as dead as doorknobs here. Don’t mind the fire. We can remove to the other side of the room. It is Miss Wantage, you see. She is always freezing. She will be cold in Hades—not that she will go to Hades, but if she makes it through the pearly gates, it will be no heaven for me.”
Cressida noticed that Dauntry did not chide Beau for speaking ill of their chaperon. Why did he feel free to criticize her, and not Beau? Dauntry looked a question to Cressida. “Do stay,” she said with an air of indifference. Then added, “Unless you are en route to some other social do, of course.”
He rose and offered her his hand to remove to the far side of the room. The tea tray arrived, and Cressida occupied herself with the pouring, while Dauntry admired the ladylike movements of her delicate wrists and fingers.
“No moonlight waltzing party this evening,” he said. “But if you have so soon discovered the limits of your own resources, why did you not attend the party at the vicarage?”
“Because I did not feel like it,” she replied with a glare that dared him to object.
“If you have had enough of your own company and are ready to meet the local society, Mama has planned a small dinner and rout party for next week. We would be honored if you would attend.”
“I should say so!” Beau exclaimed. “We are finding our own company pretty dull, I can tell you.”
“We were not meant to live alone, cut off from society,” Dauntry said forgivingly. Especially such charmers as Lady deCourcy. She was looking particularly well now that she had put off her sulks.
“What I ought to have done was set up a course of study and brought some books with me,” she said, “for I know I am as ignorant as a swan when it comes to weighty matters like politics. I went to the House once and could not make heads or tails of it.”
“Nor can I, half the time,” Dauntry admitted. “As to your course of reading, I fear you will find nothing of an improving nature here. Cousin Annie was the last occupant. Gothic novels were her main vehicle of culture. I have a fair to middling library at the castle. You must feel free to visit it. I am not as familiar with the library as I ought to be. I spend most of my time in London.”
“Are you here for the whole summer?” Cressida asked, and listened with interest for his reply.
“I shall be back and forth as necessary. I hope to spend the weekends here at least.” He noticed her smile at his answer. Despite her expressed wish for privacy, Lady deCourcy was not immune to dalliance.
“We shall have a picnic one Saturday,” she said.
“But not this Saturday, I hope, or I shall miss it. I must go to London tomorrow.”
“Next weekend, then, weather permitting.”
“My yacht will be here by then,” Beau said. “Don’t count on me, unless you want to have your picnic aboard ship.”
“You know Miss Wantage would not step foot aboard the
Sea Dog,
Beau,” she chided.
“Precisely! We don’t want her Friday face complaining of gales and drowning, to say nothing of sand and ants. What good is a picnic without sand and ants?”
“Did you plan to supply sand and ants aboard your yacht?” she asked.
“Wind and waves will do as well. So long as it ain’t just sitting at a dull table.”
“One other reason I called,” Dauntry said, turning to Beau. “I wanted to warn you to keep your yacht away from the cottage. There are rocks close to the surface there. They are not visible in the dark water. I have the place marked out with buoys, but really you are better to keep away from it entirely.”
“I thank you for the warning, sir.”
Dauntry noticed Cressida’s interest when he mentioned the cottage. He had hoped that subject was at an end, but within two seconds she had begun pestering him again.
“If you plan to spend most of the week in London, will the cottage be empty?” she asked. “Come now, Dauntry, don’t stare!” she added with a quizzing smile. “It was you who intimated you had a friend installed there. As you so kindly pointed out, I am not a deb. Surely you would have more opportunity to visit your Mend five days a week in London than only two on the weekends.”
“I am kept pretty busy in London.”
“The House will be in recess come July, if it is not already.”