Carola Dunn (13 page)

He really was behaving very oddly. Miles was about to challenge him to explain when the door opened again, to admit Mrs Chidwell, Lady Philpott, and Aubrey.

Euphemia Chidwell, dressed in purple as always, bore down upon them like Lord Byron’s wolfish Assyrian upon the fold. Her teeth were bared in an improbable beam of pleasure, her eyes hard and calculating behind her lorgnette.

“Well, Miles,” she said with an awful gaiety, “is not our little Nerissa a beautiful sight in her new attire? Positively alluring, I vow. In fact, irresistible!” Her elbow, sharp despite the padding on the rest of her, nudged him in the ribs and he winced as she added in a sly whisper, “A tempting morsel to a dashing blade like yourself, no doubt.”

“Miss Wingate is at last dressed as befits her station,” he said, coolly reproving.

“Very proper, cousin,” Aubrey deigned to bestow his approval. “One would not be ashamed to be seen anywhere with you.” His corset creaked as he turned to Miles. “Your coat is not badly cut, Courtenay, for a provincial tailor. Naturally I have mine made in London, by Nugee. At least, I did,” he reflected, recalling his changed circumstances. He retired to the far end of the room to brood in silence upon his wrongs.

“It is quite monstrous,” said Lady Philpott in a voice quivering with reproach, “that my poor boy is no longer able to dress as befits his station.”

“Now, Jane,” Mrs Chidwell chided, “you know we all agreed to let bygones be bygones.”

“I’m sure it is nothing to you, Euphemia, if my unhappy children are turned out of doors as paupers...”

Seeing Nerissa looked distressed, Miles drew her away and asked her about the denizens of the York Playhouse. The rest of the family soon came in and they went in to dinner.

Nerissa was used by now to presiding over the dinner-table. She did her best to see that everyone’s likes and dislikes were catered to, and judging by the number of dishes sent back empty, she succeeded.

Nor had anyone objected to her substitution of a pleasant landscape for the painting of the dog with the dead duck in its mouth.

Among the reams of advice puzzled out from Mama’s much-crossed letter was a caution to seat compatible guests next to each other at her dinner parties, with due regard to precedence. Fortunately she did not have to worry about such matters for the moment, with only the family present. They sat where they chose, regardless of precedence and compatibility. So far, thank heaven, Cousin Euphemia had not quite come to blows with Cousin Raymond.

They were on the verge of battle again, Effie laying down the law on some church matter and Raymond pugnaciously quoting the prayer book to refute her. Nerissa met Miles’s eyes, at the far end of the table, and he rolled them comically. Wishing she could sit next to him, she signalled to the rest of the ladies. Euphemia was forced to abandon her dispute and to retire with them to the drawing room.

According to Miss Sophie, Sir Barnabas had been able to quell the combatants with a glance. Nerissa’s only recourse was to remove one of them. In six months they would both leave the manor--sometimes six months seemed forever!

“You learn very fast, dear,” Miss Sophie congratulated Nerissa as they sat down together on a love-seat. “Already you preside at the table as if you had been bred to it.”

“Do you think so?” she asked, pleased. “There is such a great deal to learn. I am quite comfortable with Cook and Mrs Hibbert now, but Snodgrass still puts me in a quake, I confess.”

“Oh, but I, too, find him utterly intimidating, quite like dear Barnabas at his grumpiest.”

“I have not found Tredgarth grumpy, though, as you warned me he can be. He is quite willing to grow flowers for me. If it is fine tomorrow, I shall walk into the village and see if anyone can spare me some seeds and bulbs. I must go anyway. Now that I have lady-of-the-manor clothes, it’s time I found out what the lady of the manor can do to help the villagers.”

“Do you think you ought to, dear?” said Miss Sophie dubiously. “Of course, one contributes cast off clothes and sends a footman with soup when there is sickness, but neither Effie nor Jane has ever become personally involved.”

“Mama is most particular in her letter that it is my responsibility to become acquainted with the tenants and their needs. She even asks after some of the people she knew long ago.”

“Dear Anthea!” Miss Sophie exclaimed and made no further objection to Nerissa’s plans. “Pray do not forget to take your abigail with you.”

However, the next morning when Nerissa was ready to leave, clad in her new red cloak and stout new walking-shoes, she had sudden qualms. To thrust herself upon several dozen strangers, she wanted more company than just Maud. Miss Sophie was no walker. Raymond Reece was the obvious choice, but she still did not trust him to guide her aright. She’d ask Miles to go with her.

“Mr Courtenay has rid out with Mr Bragg, miss,” Snodgrass informed her. “The bailiff, that is.”

Nerissa was surprised. Miles had told her he meant to master the estate accounts, but she had assumed his interest lay solely in ensuring he was not cheated. To go off with the bailiff suggested he wished to take a more active part in managing Addlescombe.

But he was a city-dweller, a gamester and a rake, a self-confessed wastrel. No doubt he needed to check that matters on the ground corresponded with the reports in the account books. Nerissa wondered whether he could distinguish a field of wheat from a field of barley any better than she could. At this time of year they were all ploughed up anyway so he might as well have stayed at home and gone with her to the village.

Disappointed, she set off with Maud, unaware of Sir Neville reluctantly sneaking along behind.

* * * *

“I shan’t do it again, I tell you, Euphemia,” Sir Neville blustered. “Can you imagine what a nodcock I must have looked when that drunkard Bedford came upon me sneaking behind his privy? He invited me to make use of it.”

“Oh no!” Jane moaned. Sir Barnabas grinned.

“And all she did was chat with the villagers,” Neville went on. He gave Effie a poisonous glance. “It was before you moved in or you would recall that her mother was the same, always poking and prying into the affairs of the lower classes. The older people remember her well.”

Yes, thought Sir Barnabas sadly, he had taught Anthea a feeling of responsibility towards her dependents if not towards her rank. It had been a mistake to invite Neville to live at Addlescombe. He had hoped, on his wife’s death, that his sister-in-law would be a mother to Anthea, but Jane had never had the least interest in any but her own children.

Little wonder that Anthea had been eager to leave home, yet she had turned down more than one respectable offer to run off with that penniless, lowborn, disreputable mountebank. Unforgivable!

His choler revived, he drifted after the three to the dining room, where a luncheon was set out. Here he found another cause for irritability. He missed his vittles, dammit if he didn’t!

Miles was hungry after a morning spent on horseback. He spared a glance for Nerissa--her rosy cheeks and sparkling eyes suggested she too had been out and about--and then applied himself to a plateful of cold meat, pickles, cheese, and treacle tart.

When at last, his appetite satisfied, he looked up, he found her watching him.

“I trust all is to your liking?” she asked teasingly.

“Excellent. Only one thing missing.”

“Missing? Oh dear, what?”

“Not really missing, but I have a fancy for pigeon pie, and Bragg says the pigeons were a serious pest when the winter wheat was sown. I believe I shall take a gun out this afternoon.”

“I’ll join you,” Matilda grunted.

Nerissa seemed surprised, but she said readily, “Cook will be glad of some pigeons, I daresay, and she asked just this morning whether you mean to provide any pheasants. But Miles, I’d like a word with you in the library before you go out. Mr Harwood, also, if that will be convenient, sir?”

“Certainly, Miss Wingate, I am at your service.”

Intrigued, Miles followed Nerissa and the lawyer to the library. What had prompted her to take charge? She didn’t appear vexed or distressed, simply serious.

The library had become something of a refuge from the rest of the family, who had been accustomed to avoiding it in Sir Barnabas’s day. Nerissa had had the dead fish picture replaced by a charming portrait of her mother in a riding habit, rescued by Mrs Hibbert from the attics. A vase of autumn leaves stood on the long table.

Nerissa seated herself behind the desk and invited the gentlemen to take chairs opposite her. Miles hid his amusement at her businesslike air.

“I wish to consult you,” she said, “because I cannot spend money without Mr Harwood’s approval and I should prefer to have Miles’s agreement.”

“You want a new carriage,” Miles guessed.

She bent a frown upon him. “Pray do not be facetious, Miles. I was in the village this morning and I discovered that several cottages had their roofs damaged by a gale last month. As my grandfather was dying, nothing was done about them, but they must be re-thatched before winter comes.” She turned a severe gaze upon the lawyer. “Surely, sir, this is an allowable expenditure. I understand Sir Barnabas, whatever his treatment of his relatives, always took good care of his tenants.”

“Pshaw!”

Mr Harwood whipped out a handkerchief, buried his face in it, and sneezed an unconvincing sneeze. Miles was pretty sure the irascible exclamation--that was no sneeze!--had not been produced by the lawyer, but there was nowhere else for it to have come from. He was almost ready to believe the manor was haunted, except that he didn’t believe in ghosts.

“Excuse me,” said Mr Harwood, tucking away his handkerchief. “Indeed, my dear young lady, the roofs must be mended. Mr Bragg and Mr Reece both did mention the matter to me, but I fear it slipped my mind in the press of urgent business attendant upon Sir Barnabas’s demise. Mr Courtenay, you have no objection, I am sure.”

With Nerissa’s grey eyes regarding him with mixed command and appeal, Miles could not have objected had he wanted to. “Lord, no. Have the thatcher in as soon as possible, while this fine weather holds.”

“I shall go and speak to Mr Bragg at once,” said the lawyer, and trotted off.

“So you ventured to the village,” Miles said. “All went well in spite of the neglected damage?”

“Yes, almost everyone seemed pleased to see me, especially those who knew Mama. And do you know, Miles, everything Cousin Raymond told me was true. He appears to be genuinely concerned for his flock. I suspected he might have misled me and I was so afraid of doing everything wrong.”

“You should have asked me to go with you.” Yet in fact he was pleased that she had not. The morning’s expedition had done wonders for her self-confidence.

“I looked for you, but you had already gone out with Mr Bragg, to inspect your flocks. I was quite astonished. Has he taught you to tell the sheep from the cows?”

“My dear girl, I have known a sheep from a cow since I was in leading strings. I was not bred up to live by the turn of a card. I expected to inherit the family estate and I made sure I learned how to manage it.”

“Oh, I’m sorry!” Nerissa exclaimed, at once abashed, commiserating, and curious. “I thought you a thoroughgoing Town beau. What happened?”

“My father had not my interest in the land. He preferred the thrill of venturing all on the turn of a card. When he died, the place had to be sold to pay his debts.” Miles made no attempt to hide his bitterness, though always before he had tried to conceal it, even from Gerald Thorpe. “Despite my juvenile efforts, the estate was so run down by then that it brought in very little.”

“And you were left to live by your wits?”

Her evident sympathy soothed him, enough to allow him to essay an ironic grin. “Fortunately I inherited more skill and luck with the cards than my father ever had. I cannot say I don’t enjoy the excitement of gambling, but I had rather by far expend my efforts on the humdrum tasks of agriculture. I must inherit Addlescombe!”

“You will want to live here? Oh dear! I supposed we should sell it at the end of six months.”

“Never! Don’t fret, Nerissa, we shall contrive. You shall have the money and I the land, or I shall pay you rent for your share of the estate. Harwood will work out some equitable division.”

“Yes, of course.”

“It’s dashed lucky you don’t want to live here, too. That would make matters difficult!” His words did not noticeably cheer her, so he went on, “In the meantime, enjoy Addlescombe while you can. You have a riding habit now. When shall I give you your first lesson?”

* * * *

Nerissa nearly succeeded in persuading herself she didn’t care a bit if Miles was glad she didn’t expect to live at the manor with him. He was quite right, it was out of the question, unrelated as they were, especially since Mama and Papa showed no desire to give up acting.

It wasn’t exactly that she didn’t want to live at Addlescombe. As time passed she took pleasure in running the household, helping the tenants, even in planning a flower garden though she might never see it bloom.

She decided to take his advice and enjoy Addlescombe while she could.

Her first riding lesson had to be postponed, however. Miles had forgotten that she needed a side-saddle. He ordered one from the saddler in Riddlebourne, but by the time it was delivered the weather had broken. A week of wind and icy rain kept even Matilda indoors.

With everyone confined to the house, tempers frayed. To escape, Nerissa started to explore the shelves in the library. Simply handling the soft, calfskin bindings was a pleasure.

She came across a history of Britain, and was fascinated by the differences between its version and Shakespeare’s of the life and death of kings. It was heavy reading, though, so she sought out lighter works when she wanted to retire early to bed with a book.

To her disappointment, if not surprise, Sir Barnabas’s library was devoid of novels. She found a shelf of travellers’ tales, several of which proved amusing. It was among these that she discovered a set of volumes entitled The Arabian Nights Entertainments: Excerpts Translated from the Arabic. At least, she did not so much discover it as have one of the volumes thrust into her hand.