A Loyal Companion (3 page)

I
s there such a thing as hell? What about heaven? Are there sausages there? For that matter, is there a God? Many gods? There used to be pantheons of them, Osiris and Thor, Baal and Vishnu. Gods are immortal, so where did they go?

I wait outside the doors of the Sheltonford chapel every Sunday listening to the psalms and the hymns and the sermons, but I still do not understand this one omniscient, omnipotent being theory. I mean, look around. We've got rabies and hunger and fleas. Shouldn't someone get rid of the cat dirt if they've got the shovel?

Human persons have a great deal of imagination. That's a fact. Think of all their inventions, all their books, a heaven with no dogs allowed. Think about that cockamamie idea they cherish: that some divinity created us… to serve them. What a quirky sense of humor this creator must have had, making an entire horse just so some scribbler could glue his book together, teaching suchamany worms how to spin just so ladies didn't have to wear fig leaves. Hogwash! And what possible use could they have for gnats? Only mankind could subscribe to such a notion.

Yes, they are helpless, so we help them when we can, but that's as far as it goes. We kick dirt on this theory of dominion. Animalkind embraces the mysteries and worships only one religion: survival. My survival, my children's survival, my children's children's …

So I ate a cat.

The honeymoon was over, the nuptial visits to aunts in Scotland and cousins in Ireland were complete. In other words, the bride was in a family way. George was ecstatic; he could be home for grouse season. Jennifer was less thrilled. She'd looked forward to at least another Season in town, this time with the freedoms of a married lady. At last she'd flirt with rakes, gamble at polite hells, wear bright colors. Now she was condemned to making eyes at the footmen and playing whist with her father-in-law. As for clothes, she might as well start ordering tents!

She swept into Deer Park prepared to hate it, and she was disappointed again. The mellowed brick manor house was handsome and set among lovely grounds and well-kept gardens. The furnishings were tasteful and the staff was polite. Even her new sister-in-law was properly deferential, personally escorting her upstairs to Jennifer's spacious and freshly decorated rooms. Jennifer's only recourse was to pick on the dog.

"I'm sorry, Sonia, but I cannot abide dogs in the house."

"Oh, dear, I'm afraid you'll have to get used to them. Father often brings his hounds in, you know." From the look on Jennifer's face, she obviously had not known. Sonia smiled and went on: "Please feel free to call me Sunny as George and Father do. And I'm to call you… ?"

"Jennifer. This will never do. No, Sonia, I have to insist this… creature stays in the kitchens. I'll speak to Father Randolph about the hounds. I'm sure he'll understand. Why, Muffy wouldn't be safe." She shuddered dramatically and clasped her white fur muff more closely to her chest.

Muffy was a white long-haired cat with gold eyes and pushed-in face. She was as fat as she was lazy, content to be hauled around on Jennifer's hand warmer like a dowager on a sedan chair. Jennifer thought the cat and muff, especially when she wore her ermine-trimmed pelisse, gave her a cachet. Her signature, she called it, like Poodle Byng.

"Like Poodle Byng?" Sonia choked, trying to stifle her giggles. Right now poor endangered Muffy was doing a fair imitation of a cushion atop a burgundy velvet-covered slipper chair.

"Oh, I forgot you couldn't be au courant with what's a la mode in Town," Jennifer sniped, recognizing the younger girl's levity, "in notables or fashions."

Sonia fidgeted with the ribbons of her new dimity round gown, which her grandmother had sent down from London and she'd saved for this special day. She didn't reply.

"Nonetheless, I shan't have my dear Muffy distressed by any rowdy dogs."

Muffy had finished her pillow act and was now portraying a Staffordshire porcelain fireplace dog, batting Fitz aside to get the warmest spot on the hearth.

"Fitz is the gentlest creature on earth," Sonia said, scratching behind the dog's ears in consolation. "He would never hurt anything."

"But he sheds! I don't want any awful black dog hairs on my light-colored muslins."

Sonia just looked over to the burgundy velvet chair where white hairs clung like threads on a cutting table. "That's why Fitz is not permitted on the furniture. Nor are the hounds, of course. And we'll just have to make sure Muffy is in another room when Father brings them in. Is there anything else we can do to make you more welcome?"

Jennifer gave up, for now. "How do you stand it in the country, Sonia? What is there to do with all this time?"

Sonia didn't know how to answer, since studying with Miss Merkle, running the house, looking after the tenants, helping at the Sunday school, and keeping Papa company seemed to leave no free time at all. She was hoping George's wife would take over some of the responsibilities, but didn't want to discuss housekeeping on Jennifer's first day. She tried to remember what Catherine liked to do. "We have a lovely pianoforte, and a good library, and the church is always needing new altar cloths." No response. "We go riding, of course, and walking, and visiting with the neighbors. They are so anxious to meet you, I'm sure the vicar's wife and the Minch sisters will be over for tea Sunday."

"The… vicar's wife and the Minch sisters?" Jennifer threw herself on the bed. Sonia sank down on the rug between the cat and the dog, stroking both. She missed Jennifer's look of disgust.

"Oh yes, they run the lending library. And the postal office." Jennifer moaned, and Sonia hurried on: "We have card parties and dinners, and informal dances sometimes when there is company for the hunt. And there are assemblies over in Seldenridge, the nearest town of any size"—Jennifer brightened—"once a month."

"Oh." Jennifer stared up at the swagged canopy over her bed. "At least you have linendrapers and dressmakers, don't you?"

Sonia busied herself retying Muffy's bow, barely whispering: "Just the Minch sisters."

Jennifer shrieked.

"But they get all the latest fashion journals from London, or Papa could have them sent with his newspapers, and… and there are lots of shops in Seldenridge. You could ride there anytime you want. George said you were a bruising rider. That's what first attracted him to you, he told us at the wedding."

Jennifer sniffled. "The physician said I mustn't ride anymore!"

"Then you can take the pony cart. Or maybe George will buy you a curricle of your own. Father says I am too young."

"I don't know how to drive a cart," the bride wailed. "I never needed to know, in the city."

Jennifer was sobbing now, and Sonia was patting her hand, pouring tea, ringing the bellpull. Fitz pushed the door open and left. "Oh dear. Don't cry, Jennifer. Please. I know, I'll teach you to drive. Then you won't need to call out half the stable staff every time you want to buy a new ribbon or go visiting. It'll be our surprise for George. What do you think of that?"

Sonia was thinking that George was in for more than one surprise. She was also wondering where she was going to find time to teach her bubble-headed new sister-in-law how to handle the ribbons. Anyone who would name a cat Muffy…

Jennifer sat up and clapped her hands. "How absolutely perfect! You shall teach me how to drive, and I shall teach you how to dress like a lady!"

Oh dear.

The new Mrs. Randolph—Mrs. George belowstairs and in the village—grew about as content as she grew competent at the reins. Coco, the old mare who was used to finding her own way home from the village while Miss Sonia drove with her nose in a book, seemed to have forgotten which foot went where. She did manage to find every rut and bump on the road to the village, however. When Jennifer finally reached Sheltonford, she was usually too queasy to step down outside the tiny emporium.

"Too high in the instep," Miss Petronella Minch declared.

"We won't call again," her sister, Miss Marietta Minch, added.

"But Miss Sonia serves such a lovely tea."

At first Sonia tried to keep Jennifer busy with driving lessons, renovations to the nursery, introductions to the local society. She even agreed to be poked and prodded and pinned into a new wardrobe of sheer muslins and soft silks, just so Jennifer could have the pleasure of talking fashions and fabrics for endless hours. Sonia still preferred her kerseymeres and calicos for the long walks and comfortable times she managed to fit in. She thanked her lucky stars that Jennifer slept late in the mornings and rested after lunch, so Sonia could get her own chores done. George's wife refused to look at the menus or go over the household accounts with Sonia, saying: "Oh no, you're still the daughter of the house and still your father's hostess."

As Jennifer's shape got more unwieldy, though, her temper grew more
uncertain. She took her pettishness out on George when he was available, so he made himself less available, checking out new breeds of sheep in Weymouth or Wales or the West Indies, for all Sonia knew! With George off on his trips, Sonia was left to bear the brunt of Jennifer's spite, until Squire Randolph had the downy notion of inviting Jennifer's stepsister to Berkshire.

"You remember, that quiet gel from the wedding, Leah."

"Papa, you are brilliant! She seemed so pleasant and mild-mannered. Perhaps she won't mind Jennifer's megrims."

"I don't think she was very happy in London; might be glad for the change."

"It might be that she wasn't happy with Jennifer, but I'll write this very morning. Oh, I hope she comes, don't you, Father?"

Miss Leah Corwith came, and with her soft-spoken ways, charmed everyone, even Jennifer for a while, for Leah was able to relate all the news from London. She kept up a large correspondence, so was au fait with the latest on-dits. Miss Corwith pleaded to assist Sonia with the household, for she was used to keeping busy, she said, and felt like a hanger-on otherwise. She was a skillful whist player and an enthusiastic if not expert rider. She even liked dogs. Sonia and the squire and George and the staff thought Leah was wonderful; Jennifer thought she was useful.

Now that Leah was here to take over the drudgery of a chatelaine, Jennifer didn't have to be so tolerant of Sonia. She saw no reason why the heir's wife shouldn't sit at the head of the table or take precedence going into dinners with company. The villagers should not call during Jennifer's established nap time, nor ask for Miss Randolph. The servants should take their orders from the future mistress of Deer Park Manor, not from some half-grown hoyden whose hair was always falling down and whose gloves were always soiled, when she remembered to wear them at all. Mrs. George gave up trying to make a lady out of that sad romp. She even stopped advising Sonia about her clothes, after all the gentlemen noticed and admired the forward chit—and made Jennifer feel more like a bloated cow than ever.

Jennifer knew better than to complain to George or Father Randolph about Sonia—she saw the way they fawned on the girl—but she did not hesitate to complain about that dog.

The dog was spoiled, the dog was ungoverned. He was no proper pet for a lady of fashion, and he was certainly not a proper chaperon. Sonia had no business running around the countryside like a veritable draggle-tail gypsy with nothing but a mongrel for escort. She and that flea-hound were going to land them all in the scandal-broth. Besides, the dog was always underfoot. Jennifer could trip and lose the child. Fitz had to go.

George went to his father, and the squire went to Sonia, after a quick helping of Dutch courage from the brandy decanter.

"Give me a pregnant bitch or a mare in foal, poppet, I know what to do. But women get queer as Dick's hatband. It's more'n a man knows what to do."

Sonia had her arms folded over her chest and her chin thrust out.

"It's only till after the baby comes, Sunny."

"If Fitz goes, Muffy goes." She turned on her heel and left.

Squire had another glass of brandy. This was going to be one very long pregnancy.

Miss Sonia tried, she really did. She stayed in her room, she stayed in the kitchen, she even stayed in the schoolroom. Fitz stayed with her, of course. She stayed out of the house till her nose turned blue and icicles hung off Fitz's fur; then she stayed in the warm stables, drying and brushing the dog till there wasn't a loose hair to fall out of that animal for a week. Jennifer took to putting her hands over her protuberant belly every time she saw Fitz, protecting the unborn babe.

Matters came to a head the day Jennifer refused to go to church in the family carriage if the dog came along, even if Fitz rode with the coachman as he'd done since her arrival.

"It is not seemly," she said, waving her fur muff around. "I refuse to be a laughingstock in the village where I expect to live the rest of my life." And she sat right down on the hall bench, put her muff on the floor beside her, and started untying her bonnet.

The servants disappeared. George was scarlet-faced with embarrassment, and Miss Corwith was suddenly memorizing her hymnal. The older Randolph looked beseechingly at his daughter. Sonia looked back at her father, and for the first time saw not a hero, not a god, just an ordinary, peace-loving, incompetent male. She looked outside; it was raining too hard to take the pony cart. She looked at the clock; they were already too late for her and Fitz to walk. She looked at Fitz; yes, he'd race them to town no matter what, meet them on the church steps, and likely shake raindrops all over Jennifer's ermine-edged pelisse. "Very well," she said, gesturing for them all to precede her out the door, and quickly. "Fitz stays home. This time." She never looked at Jennifer at all.

Squire invited the Pinkneys to take luncheon with the family after church. The Pinkneys were prosy old windbags, but a man couldn't be selective when he was looking for a smoke screen. Before they were all out of their carriages and inside the door, General Pinkney was bending George's ear with the same old tales of the Mahratta Wars. Mrs. Pinkney was giving Sonia and Miss Corwith her interpretation of the vicar's sermon. The host followed last, escorting his daughter-in-law at her slower pace. It wasn't until they were all gathered in the hall to hand over their wraps that Fitz came slinking down the stairs.