Lady Elizabeth's Comet (19 page)

"It will be a crime if you give it up. That's probably the most remarkable achievement in
this family in a century."

"T--truly?"

He said gently, "Don't you think so?"

I gulped. "Yes."

"What region does it lie in? Can I see it without an instrument?"

I drew a long, shuddering breath. "It's very faint. You might pick it out with your glass."
I felt giddy with relief and surprise, so giddy I nearly offered to show him the comet through my
telescope. Something held me back--the ghosts of my prudish governesses? To be alone with
him at night on the platform...no.

I rushed into speech. Before I knew what I was about I found myself telling Clanross
everything--how I had been searching for a new nebulosity and had stumbled on the blurred light
source, how I had tracked it, night after night, how it had finally taken on the characteristic path
and shape. It must have been very dull for him, but he was an excellent listener, not so much
sympathetic as alert. Although he did not ask very many questions, those he asked were
intelligent.

When I ran dry at last I found we had walked all along the margin of the lake, up the
long gentle hill, and past Brecon itself. "Good God, Clanross, ought you to walk so far?"

"One in the eye for Wharton," he said cheerfully. "Don't come the nanny over me now,
Elizabeth. Can you spare me ten more minutes? I have a favour to ask."

"Of course." Mystified, I followed him to the old tackroom by the main stables.

"I've a gift for your sisters, but I thought I should ask your permission first." He opened
the door and was immediately knee-deep in dog.

The blur of yelps, wet noses, and fur resolved into two Irish setter puppies, half-grown
and clumsy with exuberance. I knelt and was instantly licked all over and covered with red
hair.

"No, sir. Down. They're beautiful!" I rumpled their floppy ears. "And exactly like the
girls. However did you find such a perfect match?"

"Quillan had them. He was describing the litter to me one day when he came to oversee
the dredging. I had a vision." Clanross gave me a sidelong glance. "Quillan was very obliging
and promised me two as soon as they were weaned."

I disentangled myself and stood up. "I believe you're indulging yourself in another
spectacle."

His mouth quirked. "It was the thought of all that red hair. I didn't even stop to wonder
whether the twins like dogs."

"Oh, yes, but not lap dogs. 'Nasty, fat things always slavering sweets.'" I gave a fair
imitation of Jean's reaction to Aunt Whitby's pug. "They'll be enchanted with these handsome
creatures. Shall you bring the dogs to dinner?"

"I've engaged your sisters for an afternoon tea, ma'am. They can take possession
then."

He had not expected a dinner invitation. I said meekly, "May I come?"

"To be sure." He gave one of the pups a nudge with the toe of his boot, and it snapped
playfully. "Hush, sir. Manners. We've had the devil's own time keeping them hidden."

When we went out we had some trouble preventing the two rogues from escaping, for
Clanross was still not agile enough to chase puppies. We finally contrived to close the door on
them, both of us laughing and rather breathless.

"I think they'd best live in the stables. Alice sneezes whenever Aunt Whitby's pug
comes."

"Lord, yes. You can keep them up here if you like. There's plenty of room."

"And have Maggie and Jean send me to Coventry? The Dower House stables, by all
means. They'll enliven Victory's existence."

"I hope he survives the shock."

We strolled back toward Brecon. "When is your birthday, Clanross?" I asked idly.

"Why? Am I supposed to hold a public day?"

"Papa always did so."

He was silent a moment. "The middle of January--not an auspicious time for
celebrations."

"Oh, dear, no."

"I could adopt a public birthday, like the king."

"Cheek."

He grinned. "July fourteenth."

"Why...oh. The taking of the Bastille. My word, you do have Radical notions."

"Sometimes." His smile faded. "Good day, Elizabeth. You'll have to write Bevis about
your comet, you know."

I made a face. "Very well."

"What will it be called?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"Your discovery."

I hadn't thought. I said slowly, "Conway's Comet." Our eyes met and we both fell into
the whoops.

"That s-sounds like the B-Brighton coach," I choked, leaning on the marble balustrade.
"Good God, Clanross, what shall I do? I'll have to marry Bevis. Tyrell's Comet sound much more
dignified."

"Tell him that." His smile went wry. "An excellent inducement to matrimony."

I touched his arm. "Thank you for hearing me out."

"Your servant, my lady. I'd like to read your monograph some day."

"You may have five copies for the Brecon library."

"Signed?"

"Of course."

"Thank you. I'll have them bound."

I was still afizz with laughter when I reached the Dower House, but an evening of
wrestling with my epistle to Bevis cured me of comedy. I finally gave it up. Speech is more
tactful than writing, after all.

* * * *

Jean and Maggie were wild with excitement the next morning and some of their spirit
entered me, too. I happily companioned Alice and Miss Bluestone to Brecon when the hour
finally came. The girls raced ahead of us, skipping and chattering, primed for a surprise.

"Have you seen Clanross's gift?" I asked Miss Bluestone.

Her eyes twinkled. "No, and pray do not tell me what it is, my lady. I like a surprise of
all things. I'm sure it will be splendid."

Alice sneezed. The flowers were too much for her.

I looked up at the magnificent marble pile of Brecon. Clanross could have bought the
girls rubies. I said slowly, "No, it's not splendid. Just...right."

"That's what I meant." Miss Bluestone walked beside me, placid, admiring the
rhododendrons, now at full bloom. I wondered if she were happy. I wondered what she thought
of all of us, but I didn't ask.

Instead I asked, rather harshly, "Miss Bluestone, what will my sisters do when Clanross
leaves?"

She stopped, considering, then moved on. "In the autumn? I daresay they'll write him
long letters. Very good for their spelling. I'll ask him to correct them."

It was a comic but practical notion. Typical. I had to smile, but I pursued my point.
"They're attached to him."

"I understand you, my lady. Pray don't trouble yourself for them. They want his
continuing interest. I believe they'll have it. He is a steady sort of man." Clanross had won Miss
Bluestone's allegiance long ago. He had mine, too, I realized abruptly. He had won it without
trying the previous day.

* * * *

Tea was brief--not surprisingly, considering the girls' anticipation. Clanross did not
teaze them overmuch. When their impatience began to show through the gloze of manners, he
caught their eyes.

"If you'll go down by the fountain in the formal garden Sims has something for
you."

Jean and Maggie excused themselves with muffled shrieks and shot down the stairs like
meteors.

Miss Bluestone, Alice, Clanross, and I followed at a more sedate pace.

The union of dog and mistress was definitely affecting and, in duplicate, very funny. If
Aunt Whitby, despite her beaked nose, bore some small resemblance to her pug, there was no
doubt Clanross had found the exact match for my sisters. Redheaded, Celtic, and full of
spirits--all four of them. Miss Bluestone was completely disarmed. She laughed till her eyes streamed,
and I think Clanross enjoyed her response almost as much as the girls'.

They thanked him without self-consciousness and returned to their romping.

We watched the girls for awhile in silence. Then Clanross said abruptly, "Next year
they'd be insulted."

"What do you mean? Good heavens, you're right. They'll turn sixteen. Very grown up
and haughty. I'm not sure I can bear it."

The thought made me feel antique. I remembered the twins' appearance on the scene
very well and my Papa's ill-concealed chagrin. "Both of 'em girls." I had been twelve, no
thirteen, a great gawky hoyden and given to collecting rocks. My governess, unlike Miss
Bluestone, had frowned on unladylike clutter. Why she objected to rocks I don't know. I might
have taken to snakes or beetles.

"What are their names, Clanross?" Maggie ran up, breathless, followed by one red
puppy. Girl and dog looked up at Clanross with much the same expression. The puppy's tail
thumped.

Clanross's mouth quirked at the corners, but he answered her gravely. "Sims has been
calling them Niño and Niña. You needn't be bound by that, though."

"Nina." Maggie tested the word on her tongue. "What does it mean?"

"'Boy' and 'girl' in Spanish."

Maggie's face fell.

"Not very exotic," Clanross said sympathetically. "They're Irish gun dogs. Does that
help?"

As Maggie ran off to tell Jean of the latest crisis a thought struck me. "Boy and girl.
Good God, sir, do you realise what you've wrought?"

"There should be no more than half a dozen of them by the time the twins make their
come-out." He gazed at a point some feet above the fountain.

I began to laugh. "I may reconsider your offer to keep them in the Brecon stables,
Clanross. Half a dozen? Poor Victory."

"Very educational," Miss Bluestone said firmly. Alice sneezed.

* * * *

The birthday dinner was something of an anticlimax but pleasant all the same. The girls
had to be restrained only twice from dashing out to the stables to inspect their puppies. We talked
dog for quite a while and then, as was usually the case when Miss Bluestone was about, travel.
Clanross had the edge there. He had seen a great deal of foreign service.

"Were you ever in Ireland, my lord?" Miss Bluestone's mind was still on the dogs.

"Mostly in Kildare," Clanross said. "It's flat country but green. Beautiful horses and, er,
handsome women." I watched with some amusement as he hastily edited his recollections for a
female audience.

"Are they very strange?" Maggie, eyes wide.

Clanross raised his brows. "Irish women?"

"No," she said impatiently. "That is, yes--the men and the women. Are they wild and
gothick, and do they drink strange spirits and dance jigs?"

"People are much the same anywhere--wild and gothick and doing odd things all the
time."

Maggie flushed and grinned, but pursued her course. "What about names? What were
the ladies called?" She was still searching for an appropriate name for her wee bitch.

"Mostly Sarah and Elizabeth and Maria."

She made a face. "Too tame."

"Certainly too tame for a gun dog. I'm not being very helpful. Has Jean picked a
name?"

"Yes," said Jean in throbbing accents. "Tom." She was still in the throes of calf love and
quite tactless with it.

Clanross flushed. "An unusual choice. It's more often associated with cats than with
dogs, I believe."

That threw both girls into the giggles, and Alice turned the subject by asking Clanross if
he knew the Finches of Fermoy. Clearly, he did not, but he listened to her blessedly brief list of
Irish connections with his usual courtesy, and then Miss Bluestone asked him if he had sailed to
South America from the Cove of Cork.

It seemed he had. I hadn't known that. The Southern Cross! The Magellanic Clouds! I
began interrogating him about the appearance of the southern sky, Maggie and Jean expressed
curiosity about monkeys and parrots, and Miss Bluestone about exotic plants. He replied
tranquilly. We finished our meal before we knew it.

Indeed, the whole evening passed pleasantly and quickly. The girls had to show
Clanross their other gifts. Mine--I had given them Mr. Scott's poetry--seemed to me much less
imaginative than Clanross's dogs or even Miss Bluestone's carefully potted sequoia seedlings,
and I began to wonder why. I liked my sisters, but I daresay I didn't think about them very much.
At least Scott's poetry was a cut above the identical reticules Alice gave them.

Clanross left early, promising to help the twins find an appropriate site for the giant
redwoods on the morrow. Perhaps he saw that I wished to go up to my telescope. I was almost
sorry to see him leave. We all accompanied him to the door.

"He moves much easier." Alice sneezed.

"Hydrotherapy," Miss Bluestone uttered. "Lady Jean, I wish to speak to you." Miss
Bluestone no longer employed the girls' style except when their behaviour offended her. I
fancied Jean was about to hear a lecture on the impropriety of her dog, however well bred,
running about using the earl of Clanross's Christian name.

Since their mother's death the twins had been shunted from Anne to Kitty to me. I
daresay they had felt extraneous. When Papa died and I was found to have possession of the
Dower House, Kitty threatened to dump them on me without ceremony. I resisted but finally
gave in. I knew very well what I had felt. Now I began to consider the girls' feelings.

Was Clanross's idea a good one? If--when I married, to set up the Dower House as my
young sisters' home? All kinds of objections might be raised, not the least of which was what his
bride would say if he married and brought her to Brecon. Would she relish acting the stepmama
to five wild damsels, left over, as it were, from the previous regime--even in separate
households?

Clanross ought to marry, I decided as I prepared once more to ascend to my telescope. I
would find him a bride. Not a ninny like Cecilia. Someone who would love my sisters and make
them happy. And Clanross, too, of course. Where could I find such a paragon?

Aunt Whitby descended on me a full month after Willoughby left. To my surprise, she
did not bring Cecilia with her.

"Has Cecilia gone home to mama?"

Aunt snorted. "Can't stand the woman. No, Cecy's still at Briarlea with the young
surgeon at her heels. I'll be glad when they're wed."