Authors: Cynthia Bailey Pratt
“Clarendon’s?”
“Yes. You know it? Are you bookish, too?” From her expression, it was obvious that Blanche thought “bookish” was not at all what she expected from so dashing a figure.
“Only slightly,” Nick said reassuringly.
“I suppose it’s not so bad in a man,” Blanche replied generously. “It’s different for a girl. Rietta’s only happy when she’s reading some dusty book. They make me sneeze.”
* * * *
As agreed, Nick met David in a public house around the corner from the Ferris home. David already had a pint of black beer before him, the lacy foam clinging halfway down. He waved Nick over and before Nick reached him, the second half of the pint was gone. “Landlord, two more,” he called.
Nick sat down across from David at the dark wood table, covered with an interlocking pattern of rings from countless glasses of stout.
“Drink up,” David said. “Get the taste of that cat-lap tea out of your mouth.”
Though it was a little early for Nick, he drank. “I’ve traveled a long way through the world and never had better beer than from home.”
‘Teach you not to leave it, then.” He put his elbows on the table and leaned forward, dropping his voice to a conspirator’s whisper. “Your wooing seems to have begun well, Nick. She cannot tell if she likes you or despises you.”
“That’s a good beginning?”
“Sure, man. Now you can nudge her in the way you want her to go. It’s easier dealing with the darlin’s when they don’t know their own minds. Once she’s made up her mind about you, you don’t have a hope of changing it.”
“I don’t know if I’ve decided about her. She doesn’t seem to be as evil-tempered as you suggested.”
“You saw the best side of her, then. Perhaps I’m asking too much of our friendship. I shouldn’t ask you to bind yourself for life to a woman of such vile temperament.”
“I didn’t come for your friendship’s sake, David. I must marry sooner or later. Why not a woman of some property? I could go farther and fare worse than with this one.”
“But without love?” David asked.
Nick laughed lightly. “I don’t believe in it. I’ve seen women of every variety under the sun and never met one to whom I could say ‘I love you’ and mean it for more than a fortnight. No, a wise man marries for sensible reasons and he marries a sensible woman. Rietta Ferris is such a woman.”
“You’ve come back a cynic.” David shook his head and drank. “You’re wrong, Nick. When I’m with Blanche, I’m a new man. A better man. She’s so sweet and unspoiled—.”
Nick stared at David, amazed that any infatuation could so blind a man to a woman’s faults. Perhaps underneath her flirtatious mannerisms and heedless indiscretion was a sweet girl, but unspoiled? Considered coolly, Blanche Ferris was probably the prettiest creature Nick had ever seen, but she’d never make anything but a perfectly maddening wife. He’d as soon marry Lady Macbeth.
“I still don’t like the thought of my best friend marrying a termagant on my advice,” David said.
“Absolve yourself,” Nick said, summoning the landlord. “I did not decide until I saw her that I would have her to wife.”
“You think her so beautiful, then?”
“No, as I said, I want a sensible woman. She’ll be glad enough to marry me, if the rumors have frightened off all the other men. Every woman wants to marry.”
“What if the rumors are true?”
Nick shrugged and drank. “What’s a temper? I have a temper myself. If I can school myself to keep my own, I can soon teach her. My mother will still rule Greenwood, just as she does now. My wife will soon learn that I won’t hear any criticism of my mother or my sisters. Let her rage; I’ll ignore her. If she screams, I’ll walk out. Does she throw things? I’ll see to it that they are her own and not replace them. When she sues for peace, I’ll treat her well. She’s not a fool. She’ll find it easier to be sensible.”
“Better you than me.”
“It’s not so difficult. If her father had acted so, she would have been married long ago.”
“Just as well then that he did not. Or you’d still be searching for your ‘sensible’ bride and Blanche would have been married long ago to someone less deserving than myself.”
Nick couldn’t help himself. “Are you certain she’s the wife for you? If marriage to Miss Ferris will be difficult, what about your future life? She cannot have ever learned economy, and as for prudence ...”
David looked black for a moment, then relaxed. “None of that matters to me beside my love for Blanche. So she doesn’t fit your notions of a sensible bride, I don’t feel the need for such a one. A man and woman need passion between them if their marriage is to be successful. Without it, what have you to sweeten the dry crust of everyday living?”
“I may have come back a cynic, David, but you’ve turned into a poet. Is it love that worked the change?”
David’s cheeks flushed. “I have written an ode or two to my love. Why not? Poetry is every man’s birthright.”
“Well, come down from the heights and be practical. Tell me where I may meet Mr. Ferris.”
“Here.”
Nick coughed as the beer caught in his throat. “Here?” he asked, his voice a notch higher than usual.
“This is his favorite place to stop in for a pint when Rietta lets him have pocket money.” He looked around the barroom, the dim lamps reflecting poorly off the dark paneling. The small round windowpanes let in little light and let out nearly none of the smoke from the white clay pipes sprouting from the lips of half a dozen or so working men taking refreshment. “But I don’t see him now.”
“That,” said a voice from the darkness, “would be because I’m sitting behind you, David Mochrie.”
Nick’s first glimpse of the man he had all but decided to make his father-in-law did not augur well for the future. Mr. Ferris’s nose twitched when they met, as if sniffing for money.
His hand was damp, though in fairness that might have been the condensation from his glass.
The three men sat down together. “Am I to understand, Sir Nicholas, that it is your wish to marry my dear little Rietta?”
“I cannot deny that I have something of that in mind. I have only just met the young lady.”
“She’s a rare one. Not many girls are so serious-minded. She’s not one to throw her cap over the windmill.”
“I admire her for that quality.”
Mr. Ferris’s eyes disappeared when he smiled. “You’ll find her a careful housekeeper. I’ve never encouraged her to waste money.”
“You have obviously been a dutiful father.”
“It hasn’t been so easy, a man raising two daughters alone. M’wife—God rest her—was a Browne. You have some connection with that family, I believe.”
So Mr. Ferris had checked on his family connections, had he? Nick glanced at David, who mimed innocent confusion. “Distant cousins only.”
“Ah, the Tribes intermarried so! Important to keep good bloodlines, but all the more important to bring in fresh stock from time to time. There’s little difference between improving a herd of sheep and people, Sir Nicholas.” Mr. Ferris chuckled, shaking the crumbs of snuff loose from his waistcoat.
“Or horses,” David said, grimacing.
“Ah, you gentlemen would know more of that than I would. Landlord!”
“No more for me,” Nick said. The taste of the beer, the smell of the smoke, and Mr. Ferris’s peering eyes and confidential tones combined in a whirl. He seemed to hear the faint whisper of a martial chorus and to see in the smoke the faces of his old mess mates. Someone laughed loudly, sounding just like Freddie Frobisher. Freddie had been shot through the ribs and had laughed and told jokes before he’d died.
“I am interested in your daughter, Mr. Ferris. However, a choice of wife is not entered into lightly or unadvisedly. I shall wish to see more of her.”
“Come to dinner today. Just ‘catch as catch can,’ but Rietta sets a good plain table. You, too, Mr. Mochrie.”
Nick stood up somewhat abruptly. “You’re very kind; I should be honored. Good day, sir. David.”
On the street, the fresh breeze from the bay revived him. He no longer felt as though he’d be sick, but was still shaken. Ghosts were all right in their proper places-graveyards by witch light, long halls in deserted castles— but they had no business leering over sticky beer glasses in respectable pubs.
David had followed him outside but, thankfully, seemed to notice nothing amiss. “You mustn’t mind Mr. Ferris,” he said. “He’s not a bad old stick once you come to know him. If he was a bit overfamiliar just now, it must be the excitement.”
“Excitement?” Nick echoed.
“Well, it’s not every day a man lands a title for a daughter he’s long thought unmarriageable.”
“I don’t understand you, David. Miss Ferris is an intelligent young woman, passably pretty, and more than a little charming. Yet you speak of her as though she were possessed of ten thousand furies.”
“Just wait till you see her scold some poor serving wench for a fault. Don’t make up your mind till then. For my own sake, I’d have you marry the girl tomorrow. But you’re my friend and I’ll not see you enter into such a predicament without your eyes being wide open.”
* * * *
Nick supposed he should have told David that Blanche would be alone at the milliner’s. He had guessed that David, for all his confidence in the eventual happy outcome of his courtship, was not the favored one.
Blanche’s pleased reception of him after having met him only once told Nick that his star was ascending in her eyes. No doubt she’d already created some fantastic deeds of heroism for him, turning him into a dream warrior from a fairy tale.
She’d been on the watch for him, obviously. He’d no sooner emerged from the twisting alleys of medieval Gal-way than he heard his name shrieked as though by an operatic seagull. Blanche trotted up the street toward him, one hand holding on an untied hat. Her smile was brilliant.
“Hullo, I’m so glad to see you! The fiend of a milliner has brought out half a dozen hats, any one of which I’d absolutely die for, and I can’t decide which one I should buy.”
“I thought you’d had one in mind,” Nick said, allowing her to take possession of his arm. She leaned on him as though she was unable to walk unassisted, despite just proving the opposite.
“Oh, yes, but I looked such a hag....”
“You never could,” he said gallantly, knowing what was expected of any male in Blanche’s vicinity.
“Flatterer. But there’s another one lined in crushed velvet that really is a marvel. Come see.”
Nick spent fifteen minutes in the shop with Blanche, approving each hat in turn. He confessed himself unable to choose among them. “Yes, it is difficult,” Blanche sighed. “Let me see that satin straw again.”
“If you’ll excuse me a few moments, Miss Blanche,” Nick said. “I’ll go down the street to the confectioners. I’ve been dreaming of Mr. Morton’s caramels these past four years.”
“Oh, aren’t they wonderful?”
“Would you accept a box from me?”
She laughed. “My sister tells me it’s wrong to accept gifts from men, but a box of caramels isn’t exactly a diamond necklace or something valuable, now is it?”
“Has a man offered you diamonds?”
“Not yet,” she said, half lowering her eyelids and looking as transparently sly as a kitten stalking a bowl of milk. Nick laughed and she pouted. Then, catching a glimpse of herself in the mirror, she leaned forward to admire her looks while Nick excused himself.
Clarendon’s bookshop was a three-story building painted in chocolate picked out with cream. When he pushed open the door, a gust of dusty, slightly stale air surrounded him. He inhaled with pleasure. The only smell that spoke more enticingly of adventure was the sea on the morning of an embarkation.
From the dim depths, a small, bent Figure appeared, pushing up a pair of sliding steel-rimmed spectacles. “Good afternoon, Mr. Clarendon.”
“Who is it? Sir Nicholas, home from the wars?”
“That’s right, sir. It’s good to see you.”
“And you, sir. Come, that copy of Pliny you wanted is waiting for you.”
“Good Lord,” Nick said. “I asked for that years ago.”
“It was a trifle difficult to come by, but there was a sale of the late Lord Hardy’s library in 1812 and he had a copy. Quite clean, barring a trifle of foxing on the title page, but you’ll not mind that.”
“Not at all. Tell me, is Miss Ferris somewhere about?”
Mr. Clarendon’s jaw was slack, but his eyes behind their panes of glass were sharp. “Miss Ferris? She is a friend of yourself, Sir Nicholas?”
“I hope that she may be.” He bore up under the bibliophile’s study.
“Novels. Second floor to the rear.”
“Novels?” Nick didn’t like the sound of that. His sisters were fond of “horrid” books that left girls’ emotions unsettled.
“She is engaged in reading the newest book by the author of
Sense and Sensibility.
I’m afraid Mr. Ferris doesn’t approve of novels, either, so I permit Miss Ferris to read here.” He pulled his watch from his vest and clucked his tongue. “Kindly tell her that it is nearly one o’clock, if you please. She shouldn’t be late.”
“Yes, of course.”
“Thank you. I shall wrap up Pliny for you, Sir Nicholas.”
She sat, half hidden by the wings, on a worn velvet armchair, her cheek leaning on her hand. A slight smile touched her lips as though what she read pleased her. The sunlight streaming in from the window behind her lit the golden dust motes that swirled about her like Titania’s fairies.
Nick drew back into the shelves. He thought about what he was doing and why. He’d already exceeded his own bounds of taste and propriety by kissing her hand. A gentleman treated an unmarried lady always with courtesy and respect. He’d clung to that code in the midst of fleeing civilian populations and in noisy taverns, only to abandon it in a Galway drawing room. Did money mean so much to him? Was he such a mercenary beast that he’d drag an innocent woman into marriage with him just to achieve financial security?
Taking a second glance at Rietta, he knew he had no right to use her in such a way. David would have to wait for another suitor to remove the obstacle she represented.
He could have sworn he made no noise, yet she looked up. Seeing him, her full mouth tightened as if she forcefully restrained her impatience. The faint sound of her resigned sigh reached him and some resolve within him hardened. She had no gift for concealing her feelings as other women did. Was this the secret of her poor reputation?