Jennie About to Be (15 page)

“No, I'm not delicate,” said Jennie.

“She's no flower of the south, Christabel,” Nigel said. “She's Northumbrian, from the edge of the North Sea.”

“A farm, wasn't it?” said Christabel carelessly. “I heard something of the sort.”

Jennie considered telling her in broad Northumbrian that she was really a dairymaid in disguise, but just then dinner was announced. It was excellent, flawlessly served by the waxwork butler and the maid, whose discreet rustle as she whisked around the dining room, pale as milk under the stiffly ruffled cap, depressingly spoke London. The two would come alive in the kitchen, Jennie knew, and what would they be saying? She wished she could be a mouse in the corner.

Except for Archie's accent, Scotland was held at bay outside the windows, and inside here was London at second hand without the salt and spice and refreshing vinegar of the Highams. Christabel wanted to talk about London, and Jennie considered she was doing well by mentioning the Drury Lane Theatre fire, the opera, the newest display at Madame Tussaud's, and the rage for the Scottish poet Walter Scott. But Christabel soon dismissed her as useless; she hadn't moved in the proper circles, and how could she? Her people were in
trade
. Christabel turned to Nigel with a wintry smile and began asking him about people of whom Jennie had never heard.

Archie attended as voraciously to his food and wine as if he'd just been released from a prison diet of bread and water. Jennie was glad to concentrate on her own food, while Nigel rambled on about Society like some old beau who lived out his days among his clubs, dances, race meetings, Bath, and Brighton. Christabel devoured it as avidly as her husband ate his dinner.

Jennie drifted back and forth between dismay, when she looked longingly out at Scotland past the bolted windows, and fascination when she saw Archie forking food into his mouth like a cowherd forking hay into a manger; then amazement took over at Nigel's new incarnation. She was afraid that she might soar off into uncontrollable laughter at any moment. How could she ever survive this evening?

We needn't stay too long
, she promised herself.
She thinks I'm delicate. If I say I have a headache, she'll be pleased she was right, and she'll go to bed tonight believing I'm too frail to bear a living child
.

The awful tide of risibility subsided. Christabel was now saying fretfully, “
I know
he must be at the castle by now, and we're being deliberately ignored.”

“He was still in London when we left it,” said Nigel. “He was at the wedding.”

“He
was
?” Christabel put down her knife and fork.

“Oh, yes, he wobbled in on the arms of his son and daughter-in-law and managed to receive almost more attention than the bride. Rank has its privileges.” Nigel chuckled. “He left the wedding breakfast very drunk.”

“How did
she
look?” Christabel asked jealously.

“Not in the family way, dear sister. But I know, and Archie knows, that there is absolutely no way short of wholesale murder to eliminate all those tiresome cousins between Archie and the earldom.”

Archie haw-hawed. “Quite right! Diabolical plot, poison rings, hired assassins—” He exploded again and had to gulp down a glass of wine to stop the cough.

“And supposing it did work, Christabel,” Nigel said. “Then I would have to eliminate Archie. I rather fancy myself a peer, and Jennie would make a deuced fine countess.”

Archie turned his pale blue eyes on Jennie. “She would at that!” He gave her a horsy grin, and she expected she'd get used to all those yellow teeth.

The dessert was a rich trifle, and afterward the women went to the drawing room. Christabel came only a little higher than Jennie's shoulder, and she was overweight, but she compensated by walking as if she wore a peeress's velvet and ermine over her sage green crepe and had a small black boy to carry her train.

Jennie prayed that the men wouldn't be too long, but she knew there was estate business to discuss. She sat opposite her hostess in a brocaded fauteuil twin to Christabel's; the coal fire burned jet and ruby in the steel basket grate. Christabel worked at a tapestry on a frame, and Jennie tried to think of something to talk about. A hideous possibilty attacked her; Christabel might expect her to be at her beck and call as a companion.

Perhaps if she acted stupid as well as delicate, Christabel would give up that idea. But it was impossible to turn bland and insipid and keep it up; besides, Christabel might like it.

“This is a very elegant room,” she remarked, not insincerely; with its proportions, its many windows, its linenfold paneling and beautifully decorated ceiling, it had been elegant before Christabel had stuffed it full like a shop.

“An oasis in the desert, it's been called,” said Christabel complacently. “There is not one great house for miles around that displays the taste and refinement of this one. The nearest is Roseholm, and they live like paupers there, and savage ones at that.
I've
spared no expense, nor needed to.”

And thinks it's cruel hard that she doesn't get a title for her money
, Jennie thought. “Who is that over the mantel?”

“Linnmore's father.” She called Archie by the name ofhis property, as was the local custom, but she Anglicized the pronunciation. “And Nigel's, too, of course,” she added. Unwillingly, Jennie was sure.

The painter must have been a romantic, or else the earlier Linnmore had been strikingly handsome. He stood against a background of black hills and clouds purple with distant storms, but in the foreground sunlight illuminated the tall dark man. His eyes gleamed in the shadows of his bonnet; he looked austere but serene. He wore a kilt of green, blue, and black tartan, and a plaid of the same was wrapped around him and over his left shoulder and arm, leaving his right arm free. That hand rested on a deerhound's head, and another deerhound lay at his feet, chin on paws; both dogs gazed luminously out at the two women. The man wore diced hose and buckled black shoes, and he stood amid heather in its rosy-purple August bloom.

For Jennie, he was worth the whole evening so far, and she hated to look away from him. She said finally, “He looks every inch an earl, or what you think an earl should be, but very seldom is. Much more so than the present one.”

“
He's
a disgusting old reprobate!” Christabel snapped. She too stared up at the portrait, and Jennie suddenly felt sorry for the dumpy, overdressed woman. How she must resent the very existence of Nigel and Jennie. If ever, by the most farfetched chain of coincidences, this branch succeeded to the title, it would probably be so long from now that Nigel would be the earl, or his son would be. Jennie had no desire whatsoever to be a countess, but it would be tactless to say so and thus underline the truth that Christabel's greed for it was eating at her like a malignancy.

“That was a most delicious meal,” she said. Christabel brightened.

“I pay my chef a good deal to stay in this barbarous country,” she said. “And he has three days in Inverness every three months and a holiday in England every six months.” She laughed affectedly. “I'm always surprised when he comes back. He knows he has me quite at his mercy. But one must expect to pay well for the best.” She sighed. “Your woman is an adequate plain cook, I believe. You may be able to teach her more. They were all Grant's people, you know, and if you have any doubts about them, we shall find a way to replace them.”

“He asked them to stay on to help me, and the least I can do is give them a fair trial. I like Morag already; her smile and that soft Highland voice are quite delicious.”

“You will soon learn not to trust those smiles and voices. These people are peasants, my dear. Of the better sort, of course,” she added. “They can be trained into passable servants if you can break them of being too familiar. They have some curious beliefs. They don't understand that gentlefolk are a race apart, for instance.” She added with conscious magnanimity, “Some of the men make excellent soldiers, once they accept discipline.”

“Why did Mr. Grant leave?” She hadn't intended to ask it.

“He wished to emigrate,” said Christabel, plunging her needle into the tapestry hard enough to dispatch either the nymph or her tame unicorn.

“I must warn you about the climate here, Eugenia. It is very harsh for the complexion. You should go out in the wind only when it is absolutely necessary, and always shade your face from the sun. I have a very good mixture made up for me by an apothecary in Inverness, to soften and purify the skin.” She looked appraisingly across at Jennie. “You have the sort that is all very well now, while you are still young, but soon it will begin to weather most unbecomingly.”

You hope
, Jennie thought. “I shall remember your advice, but I need to be outdoors. Whatever would I find to do indoors all the time? Before the children come,” she added with a spark of malice.

“My dear girl, you have a household to run and servants to oversee, and yours need more than most. Every corner of your house should bear inspection at any time.”

How boring, with the moor waiting just over the ridge.

“You must do fine needlework,” Christabel continued. “There is nothing more womanly, nothing more appreciated by a homecoming husband, than a wife bent over her work in a spotless room.”

Suddenly Archie neighed out in the hall, and Jennie heard beauty in the sound. At the first sight of Nigel in the doorway she wanted to throw herself at him and take him home to bed.

Nigel stayed behind to amuse Christabel while Archie took Jennie on a tour of the house, beginning with the library which adjoined the dining room. Buoyantly he referred often to her as future mistress of it all. It would be a pleasant house with more life in it and a few less inanimate objects, but she didn't want to be rushed into planning the future before she'd slept one night in her own house. Besides, her living here would mean he'd be dead; had he no misgivings about that? But if this was his way of making her feel accepted and welcome, she appreciated his kindness. She looked for things to admire, found them, spoke of them, and his pleasure was worth her effort. She began to find him rather endearing.

After a series of crowded yet lifeless chambers, the billiard room was a relief. It was
used
; it had a comfortable shabbiness. “I get Armitage up here to play with me now and then,” he told her in a loud whisper. “Shocks Christy, but she pretends it doesn't happen. A shark at billiards that man is. A shark in butler's clothing. I'll have a fair chance with Nigel.”

“And with me, too,” said Jennie. “My father taught us all.”

“Capital, capital!” He clapped his hands. “Women
should
play. They hunt, play cards; why not billiards, too?”

The light was almost gone when they came into the long gallery of family portraits. He showed her where hers was to hang. “We'll have to tie Nigel down and have
him
done, to be opposite you. Perhaps he'll consent to it now. Elusive fella. Always wriggly as an eel, the dear laddie.” They laughed in shared love for Nigel.

She wondered if she'd have the opportunity to spend some time here when the light was good, so she could really look at all the portraits of Nigel's and her children's ancestors. Would Christabel permit her to be as free in the house as Archie was promising? Leading her away from the gallery, patting the hand he'd drawn through his arm, he was offering her the unrestricted use of his father's library; he'd heard that she was a bookish miss. “Mind you, I don't hold that a disadvantage in a woman if she likes to dance,” he told her earnestly. “You do like to dance, don't you?”

“I love it,” she assured him.

When they returned to the drawing room, Nigel was standing on the hearthrug under his father's portrait, wearing an expression of strained geniality. When he saw Jennie, it changed to rejoicing. He came to her in two long strides, holding his arms out, and she went into them.

“Isn't that a lovely sight?” Archie cried. “Ah, to be young and in love, and in the month of May!” Christabel ignored the brief embrace as if they were committing an indecency. They kissed as chastely as brother and sister and separated.

“Now, Jeannie, my lass,” said Archie, rubbing his hands, “let us hear some expert fingers on the pianoforte.”

“Her name is
Eugenia
.” His wife rebuked him again.

“She'll always be Jeannie to me. Come along, my dearie.” A bony hand gripped her elbow, and she was escorted to the piano. She didn't mind. It was out of Christabel's frosty ambience and near a bay window where she could look out down the long slope of darkening lawn to the spectral glimmer of the daffodils through the twilight. The piano was slightly out of tune, but the little Scarlatti melody tinkled charmingly in the drawing room. Nigel stood behind her, his hands lightly on her shoulders. Christabel, as well as Jennie could see her through the crowd of objects, was frowning over her work. The butler (the billiards shark) had come in and was lighting the candles.

“Sing for your supper, Nigel,” Jennie said.

“That's right, that's right!” Archie slapped him on the shoulder. “It's grand having this young life in the house, isn't it, Christy, my dear?”

“Please don't call me Christy. The woman at the home farm is called Christy.”

“And Christabel's such a musical name,” said Jennie at her most winsome. Her sisters would have found it a bit too much. “Nigel?”

She played the opening bars of one of Robert Burns's songs, “Sweet Afton,” and Nigel obliged, with no false modesty. Burns was a favorite of his, and he sang several songs. They finished with “Green Grow the Rashes, O,” which had Archie capering around the piano in a dance of his own and clapping his hands. Over by the fireplace Christabel, apparently deaf as a post, placed one careful stitch after another. Tea was brought in, and the parlormaid was sent to break up the musicale, but Archie wasn't ready yet.