Elizabeth Mansfield (13 page)

On these bucolic rambles, Roger Denham rarely joined them, preferring to ride his horse through the countryside. But even he was soon tempted to explore more distant vistas, and when the young squire-to-be, the sober Mr. Woodward, undertook to organize an expedition to see the famous cathedral at Wells, some twenty-one miles to the south, Roger was prevailed upon to make one of the party. The group, which included (besides Woodward and Roger) both the Glendenning sisters, Miss Summer-Smythe, Sir Ralph, and Osbert Caswell, was soon augmented when Lady Upsham and Lady Denham agreed to act as chaperones and Mrs. Peake declared her intense interest in making the trip with them. Lady Denham volunteered the use of her barouche, which, if one of the gentlemen rode with the driver, could seat five. This, with the addition of Roger’s curricle and Mr. Woodward’s phaeton, would be sufficient for transportation, and an early hour on the following Wednesday was decided upon for the start of the journey.

On the appointed morning, Katie-erstwhile-of-the-kitchen arose before the sun, picked up the two dresses she had chosen for her mistresses to wear—they had long since given such decisions into her forceful and capable hands—and made for the little room off the kitchen where an ironing board was permanently set for use. To her chagrin (but not her surprise, since it had happened frequently before) Miss Tristle was there before her, busily pressing the ruffles on her mistress’s voluminous traveling dress. “I might’ve know’d,” Katie grumbled. “Don’t you never sleep?”

Miss Tristle stared coldly at the diminutive wench whom she regarded as a vulgar, encroaching upstart, completely unfit for intimate service to ladies of quality and certainly not equal to herself in the household hierarchy. “You should have done your ironing last night,” she said loftily, placing the flatiron she had been holding on a metal stand, which had been heated by a bed of hot coals, and picking up its twin, which had been warming on the stand.

“So could you,” Katie came back disrespectfully. Miss Tristle was the only irritant in Katie’s new, clean, pleasant existence. The woman had resented Katie’s appearance in the household from the first, although Cook had told Katie how Miss Tristle had complained for days before they’d left London that she didn’t like taking care of Lady Upsham’s two nieces as well as her ladyship. But the moment the toplofty dresser had learned that the Misses Glendenning were arriving with an abigail of their own, her nose had been quite out of joint.

“I do not deign to bandy words with such as you,” Miss Tristle said coldly, pursing her lips primly
and speaking down her rather elongated nose to Katie. “I’m in no mood for squabbles, seeing as I’m not in the best of health this morning.”

Katie pursed her lips and crossed her eyes in a satiric imitation of Miss Tristle’s expression. “I do not deign to squabble wi’ you neither,” she said impertinently. “Howsomever, I ’ave two gowns ’ere what must be pressed, an’ what am I s’posed to do about ’em, eh?”

Miss Tristle was about to retort when a sharp pain in a tooth that had been giving her severe discomfort for the past several hours caused her to drop the iron upon the dress and press both her hands against her cheek. Katie, with her usual presence of mind, snatched up the iron before it could do any damage and placed it on the stand. Then, looking at Miss Tristle with sympathetic interest, she asked, “Took wi’ a toothache, are you?”

Miss Tristle only groaned.

“I know a good remedy for toothache,” Katie suggested.

Miss Tristle sniffed disparagingly and picked up the cloth needed to grasp the iron’s hot handle, the spasm of pain having passed. “I have my own remedy, thank you,” she said slightingly, lifting the iron again.

“It don’t seem to be doin’ you no good, from what I can see,” Katie remarked bluntly. “What is it you’re usin’?”

Miss Tristle was forced to stop her work and clutch her face again. When the pain subsided, she turned to Katie with less assurance. “I learned the recipe from my mother,” she said. “It is concocted of a mixture of honey, juniper root, and rock alum. But I must admit,” she added with a moan, “that it doesn’t seem to be working a bit well.”

“I ain’t surprised. Honey is the most dim-wittedest thing to put on a bad tooth. It’s the sweetness, y’know, what makes the tooth feel worser.”

“Is it indeed?” Miss Tristle asked contemptuously. “And how did you become so expert, may I ask?”

“I know a thing or two,” Katie answered cryptically. “Do you want to ’ear my remedy or don’t you?”

“If it’s to lay roasted turnip parings behind the ear, I’ve already tried that, and it didn’t help, either,” Miss Tristle told her, the discouragement and suffering in her voice softening the unfriendliness of her words.

“I ain’t never ’eard such gammon as that!” Katie declared. “No, mine is a simple ’erb wash. I’ll make it for you after we’ve got our ladies off, if you’ve a mind to try it.”

A simple herb wash had a soothing sound. Miss Tristle nodded almost gratefully. She hastily completed her work on Lady Upsham’s dress and turned the irons over to Katie with unmistakable eagerness, even offering to help by smoothing ruffles and folding ribbons. But Katie, her object won, generously urged Miss Tristle to snatch a few minutes rest before her mistress should wake and demand her services. Miss Tristle, feeling an unexpected spark of affection for the hitherto despised kitchen girl, smiled as warmly as her sour disposition and her aching tooth permitted, clutched her cheek, and left Katie to her work.

The results of Katie’s labors with the irons were much admired, first by Letty and Prue and then by their aunt. Lady Upsham smiled with satisfaction to see how fresh and lovely Letty looked in her dress of white cambric with its rows of red flowers embroidered at the hem and the red satin sash tied in a fetching bow at the back. And Prue, too, was a credit to her, looking charming in her yellow-and-white striped dimity with its perky ruffle at the neck. She was so pleased with her nieces that she uncharacteristically complimented them both on their appearance. Katie, who hovered near the door to
see them off, grinned with pleasure when Letty waved a happy goodbye and Prue gave her a congratulatory wink. Then Katie hurried off to the kitchen to brew her herbal concoction for the suffering Miss Tristle.

The meeting place for the members of the expedition was the square at the back of Bath Abbey. Before the hour of eight had struck, a number of the adventurers had assembled, bearing baskets, parasols, lap robe,s and shawls in abundance, for early September weather was unpredictable. No sooner did Letty and Prue make their appearance than everyone began a subtle but purposeful maneuvering for advantageous seating in the carriages. Lady Upsham immediately claimed a place beside Lady Denham in the barouche. Letty, determined not to ride with Roger, attempted to follow her aunt, but Millicent promptly declared that she had promised the two remaining seats to Mrs. Peake and Brandon. To Millicent’s chagrin, however, Prue, with a mischievous twinkle (and blithely ignoring the pleas from all the gentlemen for her companionship), asked Roger if she might join him in his curricle. Whether her motive was to tease her swains or to help her sister she was not sure. What Roger felt, no one could tell. He merely threw Letty a quizzical look and smilingly helped Prue to climb into the curricle.

Mrs. Peake took her place in the barouche, but before Brandon could follow her, Roger approached him and offered to let him take the ribbons of the curricle. “What?” Brandon asked in pleased surprise. “Do you mean it? Would you really let me handle your grays?”

“Why not? They are quite well trained, you know,” Roger said.

“But … but they’re the most beautiful set of matched grays I’ve ever seen,” Brandon said in awe. “If they were mine, I don’t think I could bear to let anyone else touch them.”

“I hope you’re not trying to tell me that you’re cow-handed with the ribbons,” Roger said.

“Oh, no!” Brandon assured him hastily. “At Oxford, I’m considered to be rather a creditable driver. I’d take very special care, if—by your leave—you are truly in earnest about letting me take the reins.”

Roger assured him of his sincerity with a warm smile and helped him into the curricle. Brandon’s face glowed with pleasure, not only at the prospect of driving the beautiful grays, but of showing off his prowess before none other than Prudence Glendenning herself.

Lady Denham, meanwhile, enticed Sir Ralph to ride alongside her coachman with the promise that the coachman would give him the reins from time to time. With excitement equal to Brandon’s, Sir Ralph jumped up on the box in happy anticipation. Gladys Summer-Smythe, who had been following Sir Ralph around the square with doglike devotion, eagerly took the one vacant seat in the barouche, having decided that being near her “Rabbit” was worth enduring the company of the three chaperones. That left Roger, Osbert, and Letty to take their seats in William Woodward’s phaeton. Osbert helped Letty into the phaeton and followed after her. Roger took his place on her other side, Mr. Woodward climbed onto the driver’s seat, and the entire cavalcade set off on the twenty-one mile trip to Wells.

Letty glanced surreptitiously at Roger settling himself comfortably beside her and was almost certain that his eyes held a mischievous gleam of triumph. But nothing in his manner or conversation was the least bit out-of-the-way. He complimented Mr. Woodward on the balance of his carriage, admired Osbert’s yellow pantaloons, which he assured him were all the crack in London, and nodded in polite agreement when Osbert said in his flowery way that Letty was as pretty as the roses on her dress. Much of the conversation during the first hour of travel was made by Mr. Woodward who, because he had instigated the expedition, felt it incumbent upon himself to point out the various places of interest along the way and to find something attractive about every vista they looked upon.

For a while, Osbert kept his eyes on the curricle just ahead of them, wishing it was he and not Brandon who sat beside Prue in that elegant, graceful curricle. But before long Brandon let the horses have their heads, and the curricle passed the barouche, which had led the way, and pulled out of sight.
Having nothing better to do, Osbert found himself glancing more and more often at the subdued young lady seated beside him. The sun cast glinting highlights on Letty’s hair, which was pulled back from her face and bound up in a knot at the back of her head, but Osbert noticed that little tendrils of sunlit curls had escaped their bonds and framed her face with entrancing charm. He noticed, too, the natural and delicate high color of her cheeks, the slender curve of her neck, and the whiteness of the skin he could glimpse beneath her décolletage. Prue was quite forgotten as he gazed at Letty in dawning adoration. Suddenly he remembered a new poem he had composed the night before, which now rested in his coat pocket. It had been written to Prue, but if he remembered it rightly, it was general enough to apply to
any
lovely young lady. With a broad smile, he turned to Letty. “I say, Miss Glendenning, would you care to hear a poem I’ve penned just for you?”

Letty started. “For me?” she asked in surprise.

“Yes, indeed. I’m a great admirer of yours, you know.”

At this, William Woodward turned around in disgust. “I thought it was Miss Prudence you was nutty on,” he remarked forthrightly.

Osbert glared at William furiously. “Why don’t you tend to your driving?” he muttered savagely.

Letty, suppressing a smile, looked down at her hands. But Roger was too amused to let the matter pass. “You are not being kind to our poet, Mr. Woodward,” he said. “A true bard must be given the freedom to take inspiration from any number of sources. He needn’t be inspired by only one female.”

“Exactly so,” Osbert agreed with alacrity.

Mr. Woodward shrugged. “If you want to encourage his nonsensical rhyming, it’s nothing to me,” he said placidly and turned back to his horses.

“I, for one, am quite agog to hear your verses, Caswell,” Roger said encouragingly. “With Miss Glendenning’s permission, of course.”

“
By my leave,
Lord Denham?” Letty couldn’t resist saying, hoping the teasing reference to Brandon’s excessive formality would not be lost on Roger. They exchanged a smiling glance.

“By your leave, ma’am,” he responded readily, with a nod of the head that signified
touché.

“Of course you may read your poem, Mr. Caswell,” Letty said, resuming her demure demeanor.

Osbert unfolded his paper and, enunciating carefully, gave his poem its first reading:

“Well, that’s it. It don’t do you justice, ma’am, of course, but I hope you liked it.”

“Do her
justice
!” exclaimed William, turning around again. “It ain’t got anything to
do
with her! Does she have copper curls? I ask you, does she?”

Roger’s lips twitched. “It’s … er … poetic license, Woodward. A poet may use poetic license in these matters.”

“And how about ‘azure orbs’?” Woodward demanded. “Are they poetic license, too?”

Roger was sure he heard a gurgle from Letty’s throat. It took all his willpower to control the laughter welling up inside him. “Yes, indeed,” he answered manfully.

“And how about ‘imploreth’?” Woodward persisted, preferring the teasing they had given to Osbert at his last poetic reading to this politeness. “Are you trying to tell me you liked ‘dare not to
imploreth
’?”

Roger choked. “It was … certainly ingenious,” he managed.

“Thank you, Lord Denham,” Osbert said, pleased. “Though I’ll admit the last stanza is a little weak. I had a bit of trouble with that one.”