“Oh, no.” She took his hand. “It was good of you to come. My brother has written of you so often, I feel I’m meeting an old friend.”
Will smiled, a bit nervously, and looked around as if seeking distraction. He nodded toward the toddlers. “And who are these lovely young ladies?”
“My sister Anne’s daughters, Catherine and Marianne, and you need
not
address them as ‘my lady.’ They are almost three. Come here, my dears.” She knelt and held her arms out; the little ones giggled and ran off.” They are contrary little things,” Lady Amelia said, rising. “Nurse has the patience of a saint. The only one they obey without question is Father.”
“Small wonder,” David said. “Why should they rank above the rest of us?”
“Oh, Davy.” She took his arm as though she needed an anchor. “You cannot imagine the change in him. Mark’s death was such a blow, I fear for his health, as well as Mama’s. The doctor has given her a cordial with valerian, to help her sleep.”
“And Father?”
“Out riding now. He always seems to be out of doors, and spends most of the daylight hours riding or walking. So much has changed for him now; all the work he and Mark were doing together....” She gave herself a brisk shake. “But you’ve only just arrived. Come, let us have tea and biscuits, at least. You must be famished after your journey!” She took them each by an arm and led them down the hall.
“Amelia, what happened? Leland told me nothing.”
“An accident, apparently. He was out hunting, with only his dog. Alone, as usual. You know how he likes—liked—”
“To bring something fresh for the pot,” David finished. He had not expected Mark would ever change his habits. “Because Cook loves to improvise.”
“Just so. When he had not returned by noontide, Cook spoke to Leland, and he sent a boy out. They found him near the stream, at the bottom of the embankment, with his dog sitting at the top, waiting for him and whimpering.”
“By the fishing pool?”
“Yes. It appeared he had been on the edge, lost his balance, and fell. His fowling piece discharged—they would only let Father see him, of course, but they said he had a terrible wound in his chest. According to the doctor, it was instantly fatal.”
“A small mercy.” He meant it, too; after spending days hovering between life and death himself when he’d been wounded the year before, it was a bit of comfort to know his brother had not suffered.
“David, what are we going to do? Ronald—”
“I don’t know,” he said, further unsettled by her anxiety. “There’s not much we can do, is there? I suppose he’s been sent for—has he arrived?”
“No, but he might, at any time. He will be insufferable.”
Of that, David had no doubt. “I’m sure Father will keep him in line.”
She shook her head slightly. “I hope so, if he is able. But he—you have not seen him.”
David could not bring himself to believe what she was suggesting. “Is he truly so different, then?”
“Yes. It is ...I expected to see him grow old—that is, I knew he would—but I never imagined this. He has aged twenty years in the past week. I cannot bear to see him so diminished.” She squeezed his arm, and he returned the pressure.
He had come home with the expectation of everything as it had always been—much of it not to his liking, but solid and established. Now, nothing was the same. It was strange and unsettling to have Amelia looking up to him. In his childhood, she had been just enough older to stand as his champion against their bullying elder brother. To have her seeking his aid gave David an inkling of how badly the situation in their home had altered. As the eldest daughter still living at home, he guessed Amelia had been required to shoulder the burden of their aging parents’ sorrow as well as her own.
The children reappeared suddenly, tugging at Amelia’s skirts, and the two newcomers were swallowed up in a cluster of female relations. David could see the confusion on his friend’s face; Will was ill at ease around women at the best of times, never good at remembering names until he had become acquainted with their owners. This little deficiency mattered not at all aboard ship, with its seldom-altered masculine society. An officer who did remember his men’s names was a cut above most, and Will could give the name, function, and sometimes even length of service for all the 300-plus men who’d lived aboard the frigate
Calypso
on which they’d both served. But he’d had years to learn, and this was a very different situation.
David made the introductions as briefly as possible. Anne—Mrs. Clive Gilliam—mother of the twins and second of the family’s four daughters, and Eugenie, the youngest of his sisters, looked as though they might be mother and daughter, both fair-haired and poised, with wide-set blue eyes. Though David was fond of them both, he was ten years Anne’s junior and eight Eugenie’s senior; the gap meant that he’d never had a friendship with either of them like the one he shared with Amelia. The one brunette among the ladies was his cousin, Jane Winston, daughter of his mother’s elder brother, who had come to live at Grenbrook a year or two previously. Though Amelia had mentioned family troubles, she had not gone into detail in her letters. Jane was pleasant-looking rather than beautiful, with dark brown eyes that seemed to see everything in depth. She was also very quiet, unlike the cheerful, ebullient girl David remembered from his childhood. Her hair was dressed neatly, and she wore a simple grey gown, appropriate garb for mourning a cousin. Jane seemed happy to see him, though, and put in a word now and then—when his sisters were quiet long enough to give her a chance.
Anne had been married the year Eugenie was born, and her Army-Major husband was, as David had thought, presently stationed in India. A skilled hostess, she engaged Will with the sort of polite interrogation that ladies used to draw gentlemen out. For Commander Marshall, bold in battle but shy in social settings, this was a very good thing.
David noted with mild amusement that little Genie, though he would not be so unkind as to call her that to her face, was studying Will as though he’d been ordered up for her approval. Amelia had mentioned in her last letter that Eugenie, still the baby of the family at fifteen, was chafing at her schoolgirl status. But Will was surely safe from her feminine wiles; Amelia said that Genie had set her cap at a title. Since she was still too young to be brought out at the next Season, she would have plenty of time to decide how she might achieve that goal.
As he sat there, with baby Catherine on his knee and Marianne similarly situated on Will’s, David considered one of the things he had missed most about his home—the wonderful food. Tea piping hot and fresh-brewed, served with real Devon cream, the fresh bread—”soft-tack” was how he thought of it, now—the thin tangy slices of ham cured in their own smoke-house instead of salt pork of indeterminate age, laden with brine.
He had been so long at sea that he had lost the habit of ordinary meals until he had been wounded the previous year. The months of convalescence at his cousin’s home in Jamaica had ruined his appreciation for shipboard rations, and even that had not been the food that said, “home.” Even as his mind continued to worry, his body relaxed in the familiar atmosphere.
But the ladies’ conversation reminded him of those things he did not miss. Without being asked, Anne and Amelia provided an exhaustive catalog of the disposition of the rest of the family. No doubt it was meant to serve as a sort of social briefing for Will; it was thoughtful of them to consider that. And David needed to know such details as well—at least some of them.
Lady Virginia, Mark’s new-made widow, had suffered a collapse and was keeping to her rooms. Her three daughters were indeed staying in London with their maternal grandmother. There was some explanation of being fitted for mourning dress, but David had the uncharitable suspicion that Patience, Prudence, and Verity—ill-named, he had always thought—had been as happy to stay with their Stafford relations as the Archers had been to surrender them. The young ladies had always been keenly aware that their father had wanted a son and got them instead, and the knowledge had somehow spoiled their temperaments. It was unkind to think such things of fatherless girls, but David was relieved to know that the visit would be free of his nieces’ airs and pouts.
“Will we see Mary and her family?” he asked, when both his sisters paused for refreshment.
“Not unless you have time to pay her a visit in London,” Anne said. “She’s gone to be with her eldest, Susannah, who has just given birth to a son. You are a great-uncle now, as well as an officer!”
David fell back in the chair, as much as he could with the child perched on his knee. “Why do I suddenly feel so ancient?”
Anne smiled, and even the somber black of deep mourning could not dampen her genuine pleasure. “You should have seen Mama when she heard the news. She has always been so happy to be a grandmother, and now she would not change places with the Queen!”
“Don’t breathe a word to Mama,” Amelia added quickly, “but Father has arranged to have a miniature painted of the first great-grandchild—and a grandson, at that! It was before the accident, of course, but he knew it would be some time before Susannah and the child could travel. I hope the artist works quickly. Nothing can console Mama over losing Mark, but a new baby brings such hope.” She touched her elder sister’s hand. “I am so glad you brought your little ones, Anne.”
“As am I,” said Lady Anne. “Nurse is a treasure, but I’ll be pleased to see them coming to know their family...and friends.” She turned to Will, who was absently feeding Marianne bits of a currant scone as though she were some sort of featherless parrot. “Are you certain she’s not a bother, Commander?”
“Not in the least,” Will said gamely, wiping small sticky fingers with his clean handkerchief. “As long as she prefers the refreshments to my buttons. It’s kind of you take in a wanderer this way. If not for your hospitality, I’d have been cooling my heels in Portsmouth for at least a month. Thank you so much!” Will gave one of his rare smiles, and David could see his sister melt.
“It is our pleasure, Captain. From all my brother has said, we’ve you to thank that he’s still among the living!”
“I can say the same of him, a dozen times over,” Will said. He looked embarrassed. “It’s not the sort of thing one tallies at the end of the day.”
“Not the done thing at all,” David said, trying for levity. “Even if one were petty enough to keep count, judging the value of one thing versus another would be tedious. Say Captain Marshall put a Frenchie to the sword just as he was aiming for my brisket, and I pulled him out of the way of a falling bit of yardarm, that’s one potentially serious wound balanced by one potential concussion or possibly cracked skull.... No. It would be too silly to keep score.”
“And after a few years, pointless.” Will added.
“My mind refuses to admit the hazards you gentlemen face,” Lady Anne said. “War is dangerous, of course, but to dwell on the details is more than I could endure. Although my husband writes to me of his successes, I know there must be much he never sees fit to share...and I am grateful for his discretion. I am content not to know too much.”
“But it must be so exciting!” Lady Eugenie leaned forward, fluttering her lashes at Will. “Did that really happen—the Frogs, the falling yardarm?”
“Any number of times, my child.” David received the expected glare for the endearment. “And eventually it ceases to be exciting and becomes just a part of the job. May His Majesty’s Navy be preserved from midshipmen who sign aboard for the excitement!”
“Indeed,” said Will. “Though it’s best that they come aboard with enthusiasm, for they have much to learn and they must learn quickly. But it’s a gallon of drudgery to every pint of excitement. For some of our young gentlemen, the most terrifying battles are with chalk, slate, and navigational calculations.”
Lady Eugenie frowned at that, and David grinned. “Not your sort of study, Genie. And you would not enjoy a battle. You would be tucked away belowdecks, as safe as might be, with naught to do but endure the cacophony above.”
She frowned prettily. “Very well, then. I promise I’ll not run away and join the Navy.”
“I am sure His Majesty would be all gratitude if he but knew,” he responded.
“His Majesty would not think well of a young lady who entertained such hoydenish aspirations,” Lady Anne said with a quelling look at her youngest sister. “Really, Eugenie, such foolishness is unbecoming.”
“I
think
the gentlemen knew that I was speaking in jest,” the girl said with excessive dignity.
The situation was shaping in a direction David had seen a score of times before—Anne waxing heavy-handed in what she considered to be her duty in their mother’s absence, Eugenie feeling obliged to point out that Anne was not, in fact, her mother, nor was her opinion required or desired. Amelia intervened before things came to that pass, as was her right since she was the one most often tasked to keep her younger sister in hand. “Well,
I
think our brother and Captain Marshall have their fill of tea and gossip, don’t you? Your rooms will be prepared by now, gentlemen. Would you care for a bath and a rest before supper?”
“Yes, Lia, thank you,” David said quickly, and transferred Catherine to Eugenie’s lap, while Anne retrieved her other daughter from Will’s. “Am I in my old room?”
“Yes, of course. Captain Marshall—it
is
Captain, is it not?” She looked to Will. “My brother said that when you have your own ship, you are addressed as Captain, not Commander. Which do you prefer, sir?”