He could hardly ask her to leave, however. Sternly checking his thoughts, Frank turned away towards the small downstairs room converted to be his chamber. Lady Constantia had shown no embarrassment at being seen in all her dirt, which made it plain that she regarded him as a friend, not an admirer. And that, of course, was precisely what he wanted. Wasn’t it?
* * * *
At the unfashionably early hour of six, they all gathered around the kitchen table. The white tablecloth was darned, the glasses unmatched, the silver still tarnished, but after the day’s exertions Constantia was too hungry to notice, let alone to care.
Though they dined in the kitchen, Thomas served the simple dinner--a piece of gammon, a dish of mushrooms stewed in butter, plenty of bread and cheese, fresh damsons sent by Lady Berman, ale and cider. After the long, rootless years, three days had not diminished Frank’s relish in the rôle of host in his own house. Constantia smiled at his satisfaction as he made sure everyone had what they wanted.
“Me and Aunt Vickie picked the mushrooms,” Anita announced. “They grow in Uncle George’s field.”
“Uncle George?” Fanny exclaimed.
“It’s all right, Fanny,” Vickie assured her. “Sir George says he’s honoured to join the ranks of Anita’s uncles. We helped to pick the plums, too.”
“You have been busy,” said Frank. “You have all been busy. You ladies shall take a holiday tomorrow.”
“Not tomorrow,” Fanny protested. “The dining-room will be fit to eat in tomorrow if I just--”
“Tomorrow shall be a holiday,” he commanded. “I wish to stay at home without being chased from room to room by hordes of maids with feather dusters.”
Constantia was instantly remorseful. “Oh dear, you must find it dreadfully tiring being out and about all day, Captain. Though I must say,” she added tartly as he helped himself to a thick slice of baked gammon, “you seem very well and your appetite is just what one would wish.”
“My dear Lady Constantia, I was teasing! I am not in the least tired. Roworth does all the driving, and we are constantly invited in for refreshments at every farm and cottage, besides stopping to rest at Netherfield in the afternoons. No, I simply feel you three have more than earned a holiday.”
“Connie and Miss Bannister certainly have,” Fanny agreed, “but I want to keep at it, Frank, and I’ve already asked the women to come in.”
“I believe Mrs Tanner is quite capable of directing the others,” Constantia proposed. Turning to Miss Bannister, she asked, “Do you not think so, ma’am? Indeed, Captain, as she is a widow, you might consider hiring her as your housekeeper.” She guessed from Fanny’s startled dismay that her brother’s need to hire a stranger to run his home had not crossed her mind. “He will have to have a housekeeper when you are married,” she said gently.
“I suppose so, but for now I--”
“For tomorrow, at least,” Felix declared, “you and I are going to drive over to Heathcote. If we don’t set repairs in train soon, we’ll be living with your brother long after we are married. I don’t mean to wait forever.”
“Yes, you two go to Heathcote,” Frank seconded him. “Not that I’ve any desire to be rid of you, but I’m sure Sir George is right to say you ought to have the roof and the windows repaired before winter comes.”
“Sir George says Heathcote had a ghost,” Vickie reported, “but it left when the roof started to leak. He says perhaps it will come back when the roof is mended,” she added hopefully, disregarding their laughter. “He says the Grange never had one, Captain, nor dungeons.”
“I’m sorry to disappoint you, but you relieve me greatly! Your sister is troubled enough by spiders without the fear of coming across skeletons strewn about the cellars. Lady Constantia, will you give me your advice about the gardens tomorrow? I cannot guarantee you won’t meet a spider or two, but I’ll be there to rescue you.”
“I like spiders,” Anita announced.
“Then you must come with us,” said Constantia, “and I shall feel perfectly safe.” Quite apart from the hazard of eight-legged assailants, the thought crossed her mind that a small chaperon would not come amiss.
* * * *
The jungle that had once been the gardens of Upfield Grange provided spiders by the dozen. Anita was fascinated, scurrying from web to web. Constantia preferred the red admiral butterflies swarming about a straggling buddleia, and Anita agreed that they were very pretty. She was thrilled when one settled on her arm. As it slowly opened and closed its patterned wings, she stood quite still and held her breath, her eyes round.
Unfortunately, a patch of nettles also attracted butterflies--and therefore Anita. Constantia’s “Don’t touch!” came too late. Her hands stung, Anita ran to Frank, tears welling from those dark eyes.
“They bited me!”
“Poor sweetheart.” Incautiously he picked her up. He drew in his breath sharply and his face paled.
“Let me see.” Constantia hurried to take the child from him. He had been so much improved, so full of energy, the past few days, she had almost forgotten his injuries. So, evidently, had he.
She examined the red rash on Anita’s hands. “Don’t cry, darling,” she said, “it was just the nettles stinging. It will soon get better, I promise. Dock or dandelion, the juice of either will soothe it.”
Frank looked around vaguely. “Is there any here?”
“Plenty! Both are common weeds and of weeds you have a most excellent crop.”
“I do, don’t I? Ah, that yellow flower is a dandelion, isn’t it?”
Anita was intrigued by the white juice squeezed from the dandelion, and by Constantia’s explanation that the jagged-edged leaf looked like a lion’s teeth. Then Frank found a dandelion clock. In blowing away the seeds, Anita forgot the nettlerash.
“I daresay she’s spreading next year’s crop of dandelions,” Frank said with a sigh. “Still, there are so many it hardly matters. I can see it’s going to take a hell of...a vast amount of work restore the gardens.” He held back a branch to allow Constantia to proceed along the path.
“Yes, I’m afraid so. You will need dozens of gardeners to make any impression in less than several years.” Emerging from a pink wilderness of rosebay willowherb, she found herself at the edge of the park, at the top of the slope leading down to the bridge over the stream.
Dropping the remains of her dandelion clock, Anita ran to take her hand. “Can we go to the bridge, Aunt Connie? Please?”
“Yes, certainly.” She glanced back at Frank. “I shall take her, Captain, if you wish to go and rest awhile.”
“No, I’ll come. It will be good to walk properly after floundering through the jungle, and I don’t think there’s any point struggling any further.”
“Rather than trying to prune and weed, you may find it easier to clear everything and start anew. That way, you will only need to hire labourers for the present, not skilled gardeners.”
“Labourers are hard enough to find, let alone gardeners, or grooms, or indoor menservants.” He frowned as they started down the hill. “It seems all the local men either have work on the farms or have left the area in search of work. You have had better luck with hiring maids.”
“For the most part, yes, but we cannot find a cook who admits to being competent at more than the plainest of fare.”
“We have been eating well,” he said, surprised.
“Compared to what Fanny has told me of the wretched provisions you had in the Spanish mountains, perhaps! But unless you mean to be a recluse, your neighbours will expect the owner of Upfield Grange to entertain in reasonable style.”
“A recluse! Good Lord, no.”
Constantia smiled. “I thought not. So a decent cook must be found, by an advertisement in the newspapers if necessary.”
“Not to mention a butler and footmen, I suppose.”
“One or two. And you ought to have a gentleman’s gentleman.”
“I don’t want a toplofty valet like your brother’s Trevor peering over my shoulder!”
“Then we shall try to find you someone more agreeable. I am not sure how to set about hiring a valet, but Felix will probably know, though he has had Trevor since he left school.” She hesitated. “I sound like a horridly managing female, do I not? I hope you will tell me if I encroach.”
“My dear Lady Constantia, I have asked for your advice. A fine fellow I should be to complain when you give it.”
More than his words, the warmth of his smile reassured her. His eyes crinkled at the corners when he smiled, in the most delightful way. She noticed that his threadbare coat no longer hung on him as on a scarecrow: his shoulders, though they still pained him, had filled out. Before Quatre Bras, he must have presented a vigorous, stalwart figure.
His quizzical look made her flush. To excuse her staring, she said, “Since you have asked for my advice, I will be so bold as to say it is time you augmented your wardrobe.”
“Or replaced it?” he said with a grin.
“Or replaced it,” she agreed, and turned her head away before asking what now seemed a shockingly personal question: “Do you still perform Mrs Cohen’s exercises...Anita, wait!”
The child had run ahead, and the bridge had only open wooden rails on each side. Now, as they approached it, Constantia saw a shabby man plodding down the opposite slope. Tales of tramps and gypsies and kidnapped children raced through her mind. Picking up her skirts, she dashed after the little girl.
“Anita, come back!”
But after pausing on the bridge and staring at the man, Anita sped on. “It’s Hoxins!” she cried. “Hoxins, it’s me!”
Behind Constantia, Frank exclaimed, “By Jove, so it is!”
She slowed her pace as the stranger stopped, a huge grin splitting his unshaven face. Anita dashed into his arms and he raised her high over his head, then set her on his shoulders and continued down the hill, his step jaunty.
“Hoxins?” said Constantia uncertainly.
“Corporal Hoskins, my batman.” Frank, too, was beaming. “A splendid fellow. How the dev...on earth did he find us?”
He hurried on. Constantia lingered on the near side of the bridge and watched the meeting of the two ex-soldiers. She was not surprised to learn that Frank had been the kind of officer who earns his troops’ loyalty--and to whom they turned in times of trouble, she discovered as they came closer.
“So you see, Cap’n, sir, I did hope as you might have a spot o’ work for me.”
“Corporal, there’s no one I’d rather employ.”
“There’s just one thing, sir.” Hoskins blushed a fiery red. “I don’t s’pose you remember Henriette?”
“I ‘member Henriette,” Anita assured him.
“The cook at our Brussels lodging? Hoskins, you never...!”
“Man and wife, sir. She’s waiting at the inn in the village, being as she ain’t what you might call much of a walker.”
“Congratulations, Corporal! Lady Constantia?” Frank turned a laughing face to her. “Hoskins has solved two of our problems at one blow. Behold my gentleman’s gentleman, and his wife is an excellent cook.”
Corporal Hoskins was not exactly what Constantia envisaged as a gentleman’s gentleman, but then, Frank did not want one of that starchy breed. Nor was she quite used to being formally introduced to servants, but she recalled Fanny’s telling her how Hoskins had helped nurse Frank when he was first wounded.
He further endeared himself to her when Frank told him she was Felix’s sister. “Lord Roworth?” he said. “The finest of fine gentlemen, m’lady. I don’t know as Miss Fanny and me could ‘a’ pulled the cap’n through wi’out his lordship.”
“Hoxins, Hoxins,” Anita cried from her perch on his shoulders, “Uncle Felix is going to be my papa and then Aunt Fanny will be my mama.”
“Is that so, missie? Well now, I’d a notion the wind were blowing thataway.” He winked at Constantia. “I’ll be that glad to dance at Miss Fanny’s wedding.”
She smiled at him as they continued towards the house. “Indeed, Corporal, you come at a most opportune moment. How did you find Captain Ingram?”
“That were his lordship’s doing, my lady. Afore quitting Brussels, he gave me Mrs Cohen’s direction. Me and Henriette, we went to Nettledene and she weren’t there--well, I can tell you that gave me a nasty turn. But seeing as his lordship sent us, the folks there told us where to find her in Lunnon. A right kindly lady, Mrs Cohen is, my lady. She’ll be a friend o’ yourn?”
“I hope she will be one day.” Constantia no longer had the least intention of letting her parents’ prejudice stop her from knowing Miriam Cohen.
“She put us up in her own pa’s house,” Hoskins continued. “She’d just got a letter from Miss Fanny saying as the cap’n was here in Hampshire, and Mr Cohen gave me and Henriette our fares for the stage. So here we be.”
“And here, I hope, you’ll stay,” said Frank. “What’s more, you’ve given me a bang-up notion. No doubt there are plenty of soldiers discharged from the army without family or money or work. Lord knows, Fanny and I nearly found ourselves in that case, but thanks to Roworth and the late Duke of Oxshott we’re in need of servants instead. I’d like nothing better than to take on some of our fellows, if only we can find them.”
“I knows where to look for a couple o’ the lads, Cap’n, and they’ll likely know more.”
“Artirelly,” insisted Anita, a true child of the regiment. “Artirelly’s best. Did you know Miss Bannister’s artirelly, too, Uncle Frank?”
“She is?” he said, startled.
After a moment’s puzzlement, Constantia burst into laughter. “You are quite right, Anita, of course she is. Her papa was a canon. With one
n
,” she explained to Frank. “A cathedral clergyman.”
Frank grinned. “That just goes to prove artillery is best. Do what you can to find some of our fellows, corporal, and I’ll hire them.”
“Splendid!” Constantia clapped her hands. “With a household staffed by soldiers, you and Fanny will have nothing to fear from the odious duke.”
* * * *
The cleaning was done at last. Constantia and Fanny decided to go into Winchester on a preliminary foray to investigate the shops and tradespeople. New furniture was needed; new upholstery for old furniture; new bedding, especially for the servants’ quarters; paint and wallhangings; linen, china, and glassware; and, last but not least, new gowns for Fanny and above all a new bonnet.