Until now.
Clarissa had a long talk with Dr. Lawrence. He had shaken his head ruefully as he said, “Who is to doubt that Lady Kinsford might have produced a child with an oddity or two? I’ve seen it happen more than once. I tend to believe, however, that the present behavior must have some relation to the accident.”
He regarded Clarissa solemnly for a moment, pressing her hand in a kindly fashion. “My prescription for you, my dear ma’am, is some fresh air and a long nap. Promise me you’ll take care of yourself.”
“I promise,” Clarissa agreed.
Aria seemed rather subdued when Clarissa went up to check on her, but perfectly normal. Relieved, she crawled into her own bed and slept until late in the afternoon.
Lord Kinsford arrived in the early evening bearing hampers of food. He had sent a note to Aria advising her to expect this largess, and to advise Miss Driscoll and her household help of there being no necessity to prepare the evening meal. Aria was delighted by the possibility of Kinsford and Miss Driscoll sharing a meal in such a friendly fashion and joined them in the dining parlor in spirits that she attempted to tone down a bit for the occasion.
Looking around the table at the joint of cold roast beef, the roast duck, the pigeon pie, the basket of salad, the stewed fruit, the pastry biscuits, the cheesecake and the plum pudding, Aria exclaimed, “You have done us proud, Kinsford. Mrs. Stalker knows how to prepare a picnic better than anyone on earth! Did you bring wine?”
Her brother regarded her ruefully. “Are you sure you’re not well, Aria?” At the stricken look on her face, he instantly repented his teasing. “I’ve brought it to tempt you, and Miss Driscoll, of course. And yes, I’ve brought wine, though I’m not at all sure whether it would be good for you. I brought lemonade.”
He turned with a politely questioning look to Clarissa. “Oh, I daresay the wine will do her no harm,” she said. “She assures me she has quite tired of ginger beer and lemonade.”
“Mama allows me wine with my evening meal,” Aria informed her brother. “I am, after all, fifteen years of age.”
“Oh, ancient,” he laughed. “However, I feel certain I was drinking ale and claret at fifteen, so how can I deny you such a treat?”
Kinsford poured wine for each of them in crystal glasses he had brought from the Hall. Lifting his glass in a toast, he said, “To Lady Aria’s quick return to perfect health.“ His companions gladly drank to that, though Lady Aria’s eyes sparkled rather suspiciously in the candlelight even before she’d had a sip of the wine.
Aria watched with pride as her brother provided charming dinner table conversation, his topics ranging wide over the spectrum of politics, society and country matters. Aria thought Miss Driscoll seemed to particularly enjoy this display, and when Kinsford called on Miss Driscoll to participate in the exchange, explaining where she had herself learned the pianoforte, drawing, and voice, she readily accommodated him with delightful tales of a companion who sang in the schoolroom at night, and a drawing master who occasionally used his neckcloth to wipe off his paint brushes.
Even as Aria was laughing over this last episode, she saw Kinsford lean back slightly in his chair, having almost finished with his meal, and observe Miss Driscoll with a mixture of playfulness and curiosity on his strong features. “And do I take it that it is your very own Miss Snolgrass who acquaints you with the latest dance steps? Does she pick them up in her wanderings?"
Clarissa, mellow from the wine and easy companionship at the table, incautiously admitted to the truth. “Oh, no. Lorelia has no interest in dance steps at all. It is Steven who has a remarkable facility for picking up the latest dances. Bath is the ideal place to discover what is new, if one cannot be in London.”
Kinsford’s brows had lowered alarmingly. “You mean he teaches you the steps here, in your house?”
The tone of his voice alerted Aria instantly to his extreme disapproval. Recklessly, she interjected, “Well, how else is Miss Driscoll to learn the steps, Alexander? She never goes anywhere. They must come to her.”
Her elders were not distracted by her attempted reason. Kinsford was regarding Clarissa with flashing eyes, and she returned his gaze with cool imperturbability. They were locked in this pose for several minutes.
“How close a relative
is
Mr. Traling?” he finally inquired.
Clarissa looked disposed to refuse an answer to this question, but Aria pleaded silently with her to speak. With a sigh, Clarissa said, “He’s a second cousin. One of my few living relatives. He should have inherited at least a nominal share of Pennhurst, as the only living male. My father left both of us rather stranded.”
Aria breathed her relief.
No one
could possibly see anything wrong in such a connection. Rather the reverse. There was every reason for Miss Driscoll and Mr. Traling to share this painful burden of being dispossessed. Aria turned to Kinsford, expecting to find him satisfied. But his frown remained. Nevertheless, he picked up the thread of a former piece of conversation, elaborating quite unnecessarily on the management of his succession houses, as he proceeded to finish his meal.
This confused Aria. She knew Kinsford wasn’t happy, but he obviously intended to say no more about the matter of the dancing instruction. Aria quite liked the idea of Miss Driscoll and Mr. Traling waltzing about the sitting room of Miss Driscoll ‘s cottage, with perhaps Miss Driscoll herself humming some Viennese waltz as they swung to and fro. When she and Will took instruction, Miss Driscoll played the pianoforte and hummed as well.
After a while Kinsford turned to his sister and said, “You seem to have eaten your fill, my dear. And you are looking quite tired. Perhaps you had best go up and climb into your bed. The last thing I intended was to overtire you.”
Though she was indeed exhausted, it was not this which determined her to obey her brother on this occasion. With a quick smile of thanks to Clarissa, and an instruction for her brother to come to her later, after his port, she meekly let herself out of the dining parlor, (almost) closing the door carefully behind her. She would be able to see Miss Driscoll, but not her brother from her vantage point outside the room. She would, however, be able to hear both of them, as she clearly did now.
“How could you say that in front of my sister?” the earl demanded, real feeling in his voice. “She’s hardly of an age to hear such disclosures."
“Such disclosures?” Clarissa repeated, incredulous. “Just what do you think I was saying, Lord Kinsford?”
“I am referring to your dancing with your cousin, of course. Alone, unchaperoned, a man and a woman in each other’s arms. Hardly the type of behavior one would expect from a person of your birth.”
Clarissa pushed aside her second, half-full glass of wine. “Tell me, Kinsford, exactly what you expected me to say when you asked if Lorelia Snolgrass had taught me the dances. You knew Lorelia didn’t exist..."
Though Miss Driscoll continued, Aria lost track of the conversation for a moment. Lorelia Snolgrass did not exist? But how extraordinary! And how very clever of Miss Driscoll. Really, Aria had had no idea how decidedly enterprising her instructress was. Certainly Miss Driscoll would not cavil at a little playacting on her own part.
Kinsford’s thundering voice brought Aria’s attention back to the scene in the dining parlor. “I expected you to say something in keeping with your Snolgrass story. To play along with the deception, because we are both aware of it now. God knows I didn’t expect you to confess to improper behavior in front of a fifteen-year-old!”
“Lady Aria was perfectly satisfied with the truth of the situation,” Clarissa retorted. Aria could see her shoulders shrug helplessly. “Why, to one of her age, a second cousin is quite as unremarkable as a brother, and certainly she learns her dances with Master William all the time.”
Aria felt sure this was another argument which would calm the earl’s excitement, but no. “He might as well be a stranger for all the propriety your dancing with him has,” Kinsford insisted. “No young woman of your age could possibly believe it is acceptable behavior to do any such thing.”
“There you are quite out. I most certainly do believe that I have done nothing the least bit wrong, and I will not have you judge me by some ludicrous standard of appearances. This is
my
cottage, and
my
village and I dance with
my
cousin. For God’s sake, Kinsford, he’s married.”
“And you are a spinster!” Kinsford flung his napkin away from him in disgust. “What would happen if one of the villagers happened by your window when you and your
cousin
were dancing about, locked in an embrace? Surely you can see the damage that would do!”
Clarissa rose from her chair and stood with arms folded across her chest, glaring down at him. “Yes, indeed, I can see it. And do you know, I do not care a whit! And you have yourself to thank for that, Kinsford. It was your example which determined me early on to pay no heed to the gossips and grumblers. What possible difference could it make if they suspected the worst? Do I have a reputation to lose? Would their shunning me be any more difficult than my losing my place in county society?”
Aria wanted to run to her and put her arms around her and protect her. Miss Driscoll, though her stance was fierce, seemed uncommonly vulnerable. Surely Kinsford would see that.
“You would know the difference soon enough,” he retorted, rising now to stand and face her across the table, eyes narrowed. “You would know when they cut you direct, when the good women of the village refused to speak to you. And you would certainly not have the children of the gentry pouring into your cottage for lessons.”
At length, in a flat voice, Clarissa said, “Well, it hasn’t happened. If anyone has seen me dancing with my cousin they must have written it off to my eccentricity and not my immorality, as you have. I presume they find me far too old and uninteresting to elicit such thoughts.”
“Old!” he scoffed. “Don’t be foolish, Clarissa. You are not nearly old enough or plain enough to be free from such talk. You are merely lucky that you have so far avoided it.” He suddenly reached across the table and touched the white cap perched on her hair. “This won’t protect you. Promise me you won’t let Traling visit you unchaperoned.”
Clarissa reached up and tugged off the offending cap. “I cannot promise you any such thing. You don’t seem to understand, Kinsford. My life is very circumscribed. I cannot and will not allow it to become any more so.”
Aria felt a thrill of excitement at both of their exchanges. Something, some subtle current, was at work here but she could not precisely say what it was. Kinsford had called her Clarissa; Miss Driscoll had removed her cap. And shaken out her hair, almost as a challenge, Aria thought. And then she heard Kinsford say, in his stiffest voice, “Very well. I’d best say good night to Aria.” Whereupon she dashed on tiptoe for the stairs.
Chapter Fourteen
While Lady Aria slept late the next morning, Clarissa found it difficult to stay in bed until dawn. She had been shaken by the interview with Kinsford, in several ways. Though she knew he had the weight of standard wisdom on his side, she could not see changing her habits and patterns just for the sake of appearances. On the one hand, she could lose her livelihood; on the other, her self-respect. One had to take a few risks in life to make it mean more than drudgery. And Steven. Surely he needed her support now more than ever.
Clarissa was not able to look directly at those last few moments with Lord Kinsford, when he had called her by her name. When they were young he had called her Clarissa. When he had kissed her, her name had whispered on his lips. Surely there was nothing to be made of his backhanded compliment about her age and attractiveness. Still, there had been a moment when he had seemed open to her, when he had seemed to want to reestablish that less formal relationship they’d had when they were young. He had asked her to do something for him, and she had wanted to please him. Only what he asked was too much.
Unsettled, Clarissa urged Max from his cozy spot beside the sleeping Lady Aria. A walk would do them both good. The minute she opened the front door he started barking with delirious excitement. “That’s enough,” she said firmly, tightening the lead so he had to walk near her. He trotted along then with the plume of his little tail waving back and forth, quite content. Clarissa let her mind drift away from the present as they traversed the lane and then the path across the fields.
She had learned, years before, how to achieve a measure of tranquility when her situation was in fact rather distressing. When her father had gambled, when he had died, when she had found herself alone and frightened, she had learned to let her mind wander to a safe place, where it was always spring and she was happy.
The difference between me and Lady Kinsford,
she thought ruefully,
is that she tries to inhabit such a place all the time and I acknowledge that it is only a brief escape.
And it was easier for her to find this escape when she was outside, walking briskly around the countryside.
The blackthorn of the hedgerow was a mass of white blossoms and the delicate pink flowers of dog-rose pushed their way along side of it. On the other side of the path, at the edge of the pasture, were bright yellow celandine and purplish lady’s smock. A pink-breasted linnet sang atop a bright green bush.
Clarissa drank in the smell of new grass and the scent of the spring flowers. The tightness in her chest and shoulders eased as she swung along, humming softly to herself. It was a glorious day, spring was well under way, and she could believe that Lady Aria would be all right.
Max barked vigorously at a hedgehog unwise enough to show its nose at the side of the dirt path.
Instantly the prickly little animal wrapped itself into a ball and Max alternately charged and retreated, puzzled and frustrated by the alarming spines he encountered. Clarissa laughed and dragged him away. “Leave the poor creature alone, you silly animal. He’s not doing you a bit of harm.”