Authors: Cynthia Bailey Pratt
Riding on, with a glance back to be sure the carriage had successfully passed a brewery wagon, Nick asked himself why he’d chosen that moment to propose. He found the answer in the conversation he’d overheard her having with her father. His chivalry had been roused by the calm acceptance in her voice when she’d claimed that no man could love her having seen Blanche.
When Mr. Ferris had seconded that comment without a word of comfort, Nick had gone from chivalry to exasperation. How dare the man believe his daughter would only have value to a man so far as she was useful? Even should Rietta’s temper prove as volatile as he’d been told, she had many qualities beyond those of a glorified steward. She had been sweetness itself to his mother and sister. She checked or smiled away Blanche’s childish pouts and yawns. When the maidservant had entered with refreshments, she’d been kind while at the same time plainly expecting good service, unlike Blanche who had been both overfamiliar and contemptuous.
And when he’d kissed Rietta in the night... But such a memory had no place in his thoughts. There, too, he’d allowed a momentary impulse to overthrow his good sense. Nick sighed as he wondered if Rietta’s answer today would have been different if he’d pulled her into his arms before he’d asked. It was a method that recommended itself on many levels. Then he remembered. He would never ask again because he was so very happy she’d said no.
They stopped at an inn halfway home to water the horses and give the ladies a chance to descend for a walk. “The carriage needs new cushions, Mother,” Nick said, helping her step down. He noticed that she moved more stiffly than she had in the morning and regretted carrying her so far for so little result.
‘They’ll do for another year or two. Amelia, pray see if they have tea.”
“Yes, Mother,” Amelia said, then flashed an unladylike grin. “But I expect you to tell me what you said to Nick when I come back.”
“If I wanted you to know, dearest, I would not send you on a bootless errand. Run along.” To Nick, Lady Kirwan said, “Let me sit in the sunshine on that bench.”
When she was settled on the rustic wooden seat, she lifted her face to the sun. Nick saw with a pang that the bright light showed so many more lines there than when he’d gone away. He picked up one of her hands and held it against his cheek a moment.
“She refused you?” Lady Kirwan asked softly.
“She did. It’s all for the best.”
“Why is it?”
Nick drew a heavy breath. “I’d not ask a woman to wed with me if she finds she cannot love me.”
“She said she did not love you?”
“She refused me,” Nick said, feeling that as it was answer enough for him, it ought to suffice for his mother.
“But she did not say so.”
“Yes,” he said, only realizing now that it had hurt him, even as he’d not felt the pain of a wound he’d once received until he’d seen the blood pouring from his side. “Yes, it was almost the last thing she did say to me. ‘Nor do I love you,’ she said.”
“Had you told her that you didn’t love her? ‘Nor do I love you' sounds like an agreement to me. You weren’t such a fool, my son?”
“I didn’t lie to her.”
“No, you wouldn’t do that. I wonder if she would.”
“Lie? I doubt it.”
Lady Kirwan sat silently for a moment, her eyes closed against the sunshine. Not until it had gone behind a cloud, cooling the spot where they sat, did she speak. “I am an old woman and no doubt I misunderstand many things that I hear and see. Yet I remember a great deal and most of all I remember how I used to feel.”
She tightened her hand around Nick’s. “When I sat with Miss Ferris, she spoke to me but she was looking at you. I would swear in church that she loves you. There’s a look in a woman’s eyes when she gazes on the man she loves that cannot be mistook for any other expression. I swear she wore it when she looked on you.”
“Wishful thinking, I’m afraid,” Nick said, his whirling thoughts coming to rest on one point. “She refused me.”
Amelia came out then, bearing a wooden salver carrying three sweating tankards. “Cider,” she said, in answer to their suspicious glances. “It’s fresh. The landlord declares his mother makes it.”
“One can always trust a man’s mother,” Lady Kirwan said, raising her tankard in a pledge and meeting Nick’s eyes.
“Oh, it’s not fair,” Amelia said. “Won’t someone tell me what’s going on? Nick’s not going to offer for that bubble-headed Blanche creature, is he?”
“You didn’t like her?” Nick asked in accents of disbelief. “From this day forward you must be a stranger to me, Amelia, if you don’t acknowledge her to be the most beautiful and sweetest of ladies.”
Amelia looked at him with a tinge of fearfulness, then she saw the wink he threw their mother. “Ah, brother,” she said in the throbbing tone of an actress in a French tragedy, “throw me not into the bitter snow merely because I tell you that Blanche is a spoiled, petulant baby.”
Nick laughed, too. “But beautiful, you must admit that.”
“Oh, yes. A pattern card of perfection and I’m jealous of her dressmaker. But if I thought you were planning to marry her, you wouldn’t have to throw me into the snow; I’d leave of my own accord and take Mother and Emma with me.”
“You don’t think Emma would like her, either?”
“It’s hard to tell with Emma. She might, but Blanche wouldn’t like anybody who didn’t wear trousers.”
“Amelia!” Lady Kirwan said, half shocked, half laughing.
The girl looked a trifle embarrassed but added, “It’s true. All she did was talk about clothes and conquests. I haven’t many of either and want no more than I have, thank you very much.”
“I haven’t seen all your clothes,” Nick said, “but I fancy I’ve seen your conquest.”
“Oh?” The doubtful note came again into his sister’s voice though her expression gave nothing away. Nick remembered that she did not know him well enough to predict his attitudes.
“Daltrey’s handsome enough to turn any girl’s head,” Lady Kirwan said.
“Is he?” Amelia said. “I’ve never noticed his face particularly.”
“Come now,” Nick said.
She looked him full in the eyes. “If good looks were everything, Nick, you’d be marrying Blanche Ferris instead of Rietta. You looked past the beauty to find the goodness. Why not believe that Arthur’s face means little to me beside the goodness of his heart and the intelligence of his mind?”
“I do believe it I also believe,” he said, loath to wipe the dawning smile from her lips but thinking it too cruel to leave her in hopes, “that a marriage with a former tenant would bring you nothing but sorrow.”
“So it is to be rank for me? Who, Nick? What prince on which charger shall I choose for my husband? We’ve no money to dower me and Arthur will take me as I am.”
“Hush, children,” Lady Kirwan said. “An inn yard is no place to discuss such business. As for you, Amelia, kindly stop bandying young ladies’ names in public. If you were a man, Nick would have to call you out for it.”
Nick relaxed his shoulders. “I’m sorry, Amelia. Sorry for everything.”
“ ‘Tis Father that should be sorry, Nick. It’s none of your doing. I’ll call Barry from the taproom and we’ll be on our way home.”
In the carriage, Amelia leaned forward to ask in a low tone what her mother had thought of Miss Ferris.
“There’s no need to whisper. Nick cannot hear you.” She looked out the window at him, riding so straight and tall, and wondered why men, even the best of them, seemed to thrive on making quite simple things so unnecessarily complicated. “I thought Miss Ferris a most prettily behaved young lady. She will make Nick an excellent bride.”
“I agree with you.”
“Oh, then I know it’s all right,” Lady Kirwan said, showing a dimple in a cheek that should have been too thin to display such a thing.
Amelia rolled her eyes. “Anyway, at least he’s not being such a ninny as to fall in love with the other one. Though, in justice, I have to say she is pretty, but I think Rietta shows more countenance.”
“She has character.”
“You only say that because she likes to garden.”
“Love of gardening demonstrates that a person has patience and hopefulness and isn’t afraid of difficulties. These are excellent character traits.”
“Heavens, I shall have to learn to love it myself.”
“They’ll serve you well in whatever direction your life may take, Amelia. There is great comfort in raising a garden, almost as much as I have found in my children.”
Amelia slipped across to sit beside her mother. Taking her hand, she stroked it affectionately. “I can’t help loving Arthur, Mother. If you only knew him ...”
“I should be happy to meet Mr. Daltrey, dearest. Just as I was happy to meet Miss Ferris. But a man may marry in a lower degree than himself. The woman is raised to his position. But when a woman takes a husband of lesser degree, she is degrading herself.”
“I know it,” Amelia said, her tone resigned. “I do know it. But to judge Arthur merely by his position is to miss his finest qualities. If love of gardening demonstrates nobility of nature, how much more noble must be a man who truly loves to farm?”
Lady Kirwan laughed softly. “Defeated by my own arguments. What a pity you cannot enter the law, my love.”
As soon as they arrived at Greenwood, Lady Kirwan guessed there was something wrong. The house servants stood clustered together on the front steps, talking in whispers.
“What is it?” she demanded, throwing open the carriage door.
No one stepped forward until she’d made a second demand. Austin, the children’s old nurse, dipped a curtsey, her old knees creaking audibly. “M” lady, it’s Miss Emma.”
“Emma? What about her? Where is she?”
“I dunno, m’lady. Nobody knows.”
“What’s wrong, Mother?” Nick said, swinging down from the saddle.
“I don’t know.” She glanced up at the windows. “I feel... Find Emma.”
“She left a paper on her bed,” piped little Lydy, Barry’s niece. “Pinned to her piller.”
“I’ll go,” Amelia said, jumping down. Even hampered by her skins, she was still as fast as the coltish girl she’d been. She ran up and down again in seconds, though it seemed a long time to Lady Kirwan.
Amelia gave the note to her mother, but without her spectacles the page was a mere blur of blotted ink. She passed it to Nick, saying, “It’s not... she hasn’t done anything
..."
She could hardly breathe while he read the letter. She was dimly aware that Austin rounded on the others, scolding them for their curiosity, ordering tea and whiskey, sending the youngest ones away before they could do more than whisper their conjectures of suicide, while allowing the older servants, members of the family all, to slay.
“It’s all right. Mother. She’s gone to say good-bye to Robbie Staines. I'll ride over and bring her back.”
“Thank heaven,” Lady Kirwan murmured, even as she sought her heart with her hand.
“Come in and have some tea, Mother,” Amelia said. “Help me, Nick.”
Together, they settled her on the sofa. Austin whispered something to him and he nodded. “What is it?” Lady Kirwan called.
“Nothing, Mother. A letter came for me.”
“More trouble?”
“More nonsense.”
“What did Emma really write, son? Give me my spectacles and the letter.”
“I’ll tell you. She says she’s going away with Robbie, even without money, for she cannot let him go alone. But I’ll stop her and bring her back. I promise. I’m not having Robbie Staines as a brother-in-law, even if it is only in America.”
* * * *
Late that evening, Mr. Ferris sat, half strangled by an overelaborate striped cravat and tall-pointed collar, in a drawing room far more lavishly appointed than his own. The walls and draperies were bright green satin, echoed in the cushion beneath him. A riot of half-read books, open boxes of candy minus the choicest morsels, and exotic flowers drooping for lack of water surrounded him. Until he’d blown out a few, the heat from several dozen candies had made him feel quite faint, the hot wax combining with the scents of flowers and her own perfume.
He heard a step outside and straightened up even more. The door opened. The owner of the house came slowly over the threshold, her skirts rustling with silk unseen. “Mr. Ferris,” she said, her red lips parting in a smile that showed her tiny white teeth.
“Mrs. Vernon.” His own voice fair shook with the pleasure of seeing her, his plump black-haired witch. She allowed him only one kiss on her cheek, which disappointed him. “Mrs. Vernon?”
“Oh, well, there.” She kissed him on the mouth with an “mmm” of pleasure. “Now, no more. ‘Deed, you hardly deserve that of me.”
Sometimes she would play at being injured so that he could pet and pamper her into a more compliant mood, but there was nothing teasing in her glances tonight. She seemed almost sad, as she poked around in a box of chocolates with one finger. She chose one and bit into it, making the same humming sigh she’d given when she’d kissed him.
Mr. Ferris gazed at her adoringly. She was on the short side, perhaps not more than five foot one. The high-waisted fashions did not suit her rather waistless figure, but she wore them with such an air that one did not notice the deficiency. She emphasized a pair of full breasts to the point where they all but spilled over the top of the inadequate lace frill sewn to the front. Once, when she’d had a drop too much to drink, he’d put his head on her warm, soft breast and she’d not minded, stroking his temple with her cool fingers until the carriage reached her door.
Thinking of that evening, Mr. Ferris took Mrs. Vernon’s hand and led her to sit beside him on the settee. “What’s amiss, love? Servants give notice?”
“Oh, I don’t mind that. There’s always another maid to be had. I’d like a French one but things have grown so shockingly dear I’m sure I could never afford to pay her salary.”
“If you’d only allow me....”
“Now, we’ve done that and I’m not saying it again. I pay my own way so long as I’m a widowed woman. If I was your wife, it’d be a different tale.”
“You know how I want that. It’s all I do want. To spoil you.” He kissed her hand. ‘To adore you.” He kissed her wrist. “To make you happy.” He kissed the bend of her elbow and would have continued higher if she hadn’t pushed him away.