by Jane Ashford
Fairclough waved this aside. “That was years ago, and Fenella’s much improved since then. Her grandmother managed to instill some spirit in her. She’s in better looks, too.”
Though this was true, Roger still felt offended for her. Old Fairclough talked of his daughter as if she was livestock.
“I’d sign over all my right and interest in that land to her, once she was a marchioness. She’ll have a third of my estate as well, you know.”
As though this would tempt him. If he needed temptation, Fenella supplied all that in herself, Roger thought. And then marveled at his errant brain.
Fenella entered the room on the heels of his confusion. “I just heard you were here,” she said.
Roger gazed at her. How could he ever have thought this glorious creature bland or forgettable?
Fenella stopped just inside the door, conscious that both her father and his visitor were staring at her, their expressions quite odd.
“We were talking of your marriage,” said her father.
Chatton winced visibly.
“I wasn’t aware that I had a wedding planned,” Fenella said. She managed to keep her voice cool despite the annoyance and embarrassment welling up within.
“You and Chatton. It’s still the best way to resolve this land dispute.”
The first time her father had spoken such words, years ago, he’d been trying to act the patriarch. Now, he sounded like a petulant old man. Fenella would have felt sorry for him, if his revival of the plan hadn’t been so irritating. “The best way would be to forget all about it,” she said. “All this fuss over a strip of land that’s good for nothing but scrubby pasture for sheep. It’s ridiculous.”
“It’s a matter of principle,” her father began.
“No, Papa, it’s pure stubbornness.”
“Don’t speak that way to me, girl. You’ll do as you’re told.”
Whatever made him think so? Fenella hadn’t, even when she was younger and cowed by his disapproval. Didn’t he understand that he had no power over her? Of course Papa didn’t know that her grandmother had given her certain guarantees. She had somewhere to go, should she wish to leave. Her father could rant and rail all he liked; it came down to “sound and fury, signifying nothing.” Looking at his ravaged face, his remaining wisps of white hair, the gnarled hands that would no longer do his bidding, Fenella was silenced by compassion.
“She won’t be forced into marriage with me,” said Chatton. “I won’t have that.”
Did Roger think she needed defending? He was standing very straight, his chin up, gaze resolute, playing the hero. He looked quite handsome doing it. Laughter bubbled up in Fenella’s throat. What a pair of men they were. She choked back the laugh.
“Turning on the waterworks won’t do you any good,” growled her father. “You know I’m not deterred by tears.”
Which was a bare-faced lie, as his expression showed. Chatton looked apprehensive, too. She had to go, before she offended them both with a fit of giggles. Fenella turned away.
As she passed through the door, she heard her father say, “Go and turn her up sweet, Chatton. You must have acquired some address by this time.” Her back to them, Fenella grinned.
Roger caught up with Fenella as she was sending Simpson back into her father’s room. “He’s worn himself out again,” she said. “Try to settle him down.”
The valet departed with a nod, leaving them in the empty hallway.
Roger examined Fenella’s face. He saw no evidence of the tears he’d feared to find. She looked calmly lovely. Indeed, her blue eyes were sparkling with…humor? Had she found that scene amusing? That would be encouraging.
“I could have told you he wouldn’t let go of the border dispute,” she said. “Papa clings even harder to his prejudices now that he can’t leave his bed. He has so little left.”
“I didn’t know he was so ill. He seems to think it’s the end.”
“The doctor agrees,” said Fenella. It was a somber truth that roused an uncomfortable mixture of feelings.
“I’m sorry. I’ll come to visit him again. Unless you think that seeing me would make him worse?”
“No, he enjoys visitors. You could talk about things he did with your father. Before their dispute.” She hesitated, then added, “Some days he may think you are your father.”
Roger nodded, accepting the warning. “I’d gladly take his place to cheer an old friend. They used to fish together, I remember. And sample different varieties of snuff.”
“Whiskey, too.”
“Ah, yes. Rather too much of that, on occasion. My father rode halfway to the border one night on his way home from here. He said his horse finally lost patience and turned back toward Chatton.”
Fenella smiled. “Papa would enjoy hearing that. Thank you for calling on him.”
“I wanted to see you as well.” Roger marshaled his faculties. “To apologize more…effectively.” He had written out and memorized several versions of his apology. He’d taken to doing that in the wake of certain unfortunate incidents where words failed him and disaster ensued.
She looked quizzical.
“I wrote to Doctor Fenchurch and told him I was sorry for my intemperate remarks after…after. And that he always did a fine job. Said he was welcome to share the letter, and I’d be happy to vouch for his skills.” He’d started talking too fast. Needed to slow down.
“Good for you,” said Fenella.
“And I asked Mrs. Burke about Grace. She said Arabella’s maid got a very good position in London and is happier now than she ever was in Northumberland. Do you think I should write her as well?”
“This is not my decision to make.”
“My mother said it might just remind the girl of an unhappy period of her life,” Roger continued. “And it was better to let it lie.”
Fenella nodded. “She would know what’s best.”
“So I hope you see that I truly am sorry.” Roger examined her face, but he couldn’t interpret her expression.
“You don’t have to report to me,” she said.
“You rightly pointed out my failings.”
“How smug you make me sound.”
“You weren’t. More admonitory.”
She made a rejecting gesture. And yet there was a glint in her eyes. Could she be finding a hint of the ridiculous in this conversation, as Roger was? “So there’s just you left,” he said.
“Left?”
“To receive my apologies for maligning you.”
“Maligning? How grand.”
That was the word, Roger thought. He’d written it down. Hadn’t he? He couldn’t look at his notes just now. But that was it. Yes. He hadn’t mistaken it. “Perhaps you know what I mean?” he said stiffly.
Fenella nodded. “I accept your apology. Consider the matter closed. We needn’t mention it again.” She smiled. “And I hope you don’t mean to become utterly humble.”
“What?”
“You were always a wild, free spirit as a boy.”
“I was an insufferable puppy.”
“That too.”
Roger laughed. She joined him. He felt as if a great weight had lifted off him. “About the other thing,” he dared to say then.
“Thing?”
“Our fathers’ misguided plan to marry us.”
“Oh, that thing.”
She looked rueful and amused and completely lovely. “Why did I refuse, back then?” Roger pressed his lips together. After all his preparation, a string of words had popped out of his mouth ahead of conscious thought. Did this happen to other people?
“You were horrified,” said Fenella.
“What?”
“Horrified,” she repeated.
“That seems too strong a word.”
She shook her head. “No. It’s quit
e apt. You made your opinion very clear when we met at the Duddo Stones, the day after they’d commanded us to marry.” Fenella paused as her mind conjured up that dreadful afternoon, as it could still do in crystalline detail. She’d ridden away from home, even though she was afraid of riding back then. She’d had to get away from her father’s shouting. The ride had been aimless and sometimes frightening, and when the circle of ancient stones had risen before her, she’d practically fallen off her mount to sit among them. She’d been trying to get up the nerve to remount and head home when Roger had come thundering along on one of his terrifying horses. He’d looked half-demented, with blood trickling down the side of his head.
“We met at Duddo? That can’t be right. What were you doing there?”
Clearly, he didn’t remember the scene that was engraved on her memory. Fenella was glad, actually.
“I’d been out riding like a lunatic that day,” Roger continued. “I know that. Blaze finally turned and tried to bite me when I whipped him on. He tossed me off. I fell and hit my head. I don’t even know how I got back into the saddle.”
Fenella nodded. That fit with his state when he’d galloped up. He’d slid off his horse and fallen bonelessly to the ground.
“Someone helped me. Was that you? My recollection of that afternoon isn’t clear.”
“Yes,” said Fenella. She’d been frightened and clumsy, but she’d bound the cut on his head with a bit of cloth torn from her petticoat.
“I could never recall who it was afterward. I thought of it like a visitation from the fair folk in their ancient ring.”
He gazed at her. Such a different look from that long-ago afternoon, Fenella thought. Then, his eyes had burned with outrage as he raved about the fate planned for him, about the ignorance and tyranny of parents. She’d hated the shouting, cringed under it. Fenella felt a pang of sympathy for the girl she’d been.
“I do recall seeing you at church though. Back then.”
That had been two miserable days later. Her father had filled them with discord.
“I was rude to you.”
He’d been beastly, scowling at her in front of everyone. And the neighborhood was well aware of the painful situation, thanks to her father’s intemperance.
“I think I said I’d rather marry—”
“A sheep.” It had hurt, then. “A ‘sodding’ sheep.” Fenella snorted. “I’d never heard that word before. Your intent was clear, however.”
“I was an abominable sprig. Shall I remind you that I’m sorry?”
“That was a different apology.”
“True. I wonder how many I owe you?”
A laugh escaped Fenella, clearly surprising him. “I did tell you I’d rather become a nun than marry you,” she said. A weak riposte, she thought; she’d do much better today. But his sodding-sheep comment, with all those friends and acquaintances looking on, had been the last straw. It had sent her home to pack her things and sneak off to her grandmother. Which had turned out to be a splendid thing to do.
“You did?”
She nodded.
“Good for you. I don’t suppose I heard you. I rarely thought of anyone but myself in those days. I imagined that I knew everything, when in fact I knew nothing. Will you accept my belated apologies for that slur as well?”
And she’d run from marrying this man, Fenella marveled. But, no. He hadn’t been this man, at the time. This man was dangerously alluring. He inspired an impulse to lean closer, to run a fingertip along his cheek, perhaps. What would he do? She could hardly resist the impulse to find out.
A housemaid appeared at the end of the corridor. “There you are, miss. This just arrived for you.” She held out a folded note.
Fenella stepped back.
“I should go,” said Roger.
He sounded breathless. Yes, he should go. The situation was getting out of hand. Fenella nodded.
“I’ll come again.”
Unsettled by how much she wanted him to do so, Fenella sent him off with the housemaid to retrieve his hat and leave her home. Could anything be more foolish than mooning over a man she’d run away from a few years ago? How her father would laugh if he found out. Laugh and then argue for his marital plan until he drove them all mad. Fenella shook her head. They’d been through that fiasco. She’d refused to be pushed even then, when she was timid enough to jump at shadows. She certainly wouldn’t be now. And Roger had compared her to a sodding sheep.
Pulled by irresistible currents, she walked to the end of the corridor and looked out the window. Roger was mounting his horse on the sweep of gravel before the front steps. In the saddle, he paused and looked back. Fenella couldn’t judge his expression from this distance, but he sat there for a full minute before he turned his horse and rode away. She would have given a good deal to know what he was thinking.
“Sodding sheep,” she muttered, a warning reminder. The note crackled as her fingers closed into fists.
Shoving the past aside, Fenella opened the missive and read it. Harold Benson wondered if she might know of a boy who could take a part in their Lindisfarne pageant. A lad of ten years old or so would be perfect. The message was disingenuous. Mr. Benson knew she had a nephew staying for the summer holidays. Clearly, he intended John for the role. Wondering why, when he must have a number of boys to choose from, she read over the description of the scene. Ah, that was it. Laughing, she went in search of John.
Ten minutes later, Fenella knocked on the closed door of her sisters’ old playhouse. The little building, built for Greta and Nora when they were small, nestled among flowering bushes at the back of the Clough House garden. Fenella couldn’t count the times she’d been denied admittance, and then lurked in the undergrowth trying to overhear her sisters’ secrets, before she stopped trying.
“Come in,” called Greta’s son.
With a tiny, ridiculous thrill, Fenella bent under the low doorway and entered.
John sat on a stool before a wooden table holding some botanical specimens. He’d removed the frilly curtains that used to hang at the windows, Fenella saw. Most of the scaled-down furniture was gone as well. She wondered where he’d put it. What had been a girlhood bower was now neat and functional. Fenella checked for snakes. She didn’t see any. But she asked to make certain.
“No,” replied John. “I haven’t found any worth keeping so far. And I’ve nothing to keep them in. You can’t just shut them in a dark box.”
Fenella was reassured by this sign of compassion. John worried about the well-being of reptiles, at least. “I came to ask if you would take a role in the historical pageant on Lindisfarne Island at the end of the month.” It would be just before he needed to return to school.
“Pageant? Like a church pageant?”
“A bit like that, yes.”
“I don’t think I can act.” John looked uneasy.
“It’s hardly that. More like posing, really.”
“Are you in it?”
“Yes.” A vivid memory of being hefted over Roger’s shoulder intruded. Warmth washed over Fenella.
“What would I have to do?”
“You would be a boy receiving a homily from St. Cuthbert.”
“Homily. That’s a kind of sermon?”
John was really quite intelligent. Fenella wished he was just a bit more sweet-tempered. “Shorter than that.”
“That sounds pretty limp. I don’t think I want to.”
“You did offer to help me should I need it,” Fenella said.
“Does this help you?”
Really very intelligent, Fenella thought, because strictly speaking, it did not. But Mr. Benson would nag, and she thought it might be good for John to join a group effort. Still, she wouldn’t lie to him. “I’ve been asked to help,” she said. “And so I’m trying to do so.” There was also deceit by omission, Fenella thought. That wou
ldn’t do. “You would have to be covered in mud, apparently,” she added. “And a bucket of water would be thrown over you at the end.”
Oddly, John’s expression brightened. “Right over my head?”
“I suppose so.”
“Ha.” He smiled at the thought. “All right. I’ll do it.”
Boys were just odd, Fenella thought as she turned to go. “There’s a rehearsal tomorrow afternoon.”
“Rehearsal? Do I have to memorize? I’m no good at memorizing.” John looked anxious again.
“Your role is silent,” replied Fenella. It seemed that way from the description, and she would see that it was.
John nodded, relieved.
A knock came as Fenella was about to open the playhouse door. It signaled the arrival of Tom, the guest without a surname from Chatton Castle, and the little structure was very full all at once. John appeared delighted to see the older boy, however. “We’re going to search the garden for adders,” he said.
“Adders?” Fenella didn’t like the sound of that.
“They’re the only poisonous snake in Britain,” said John.
“What?”
“They’re not very poisonous,” the boy went on. “Not like a cobra or a black mamba. Their bites don’t kill you. And they’re fairly rare. I don’t suppose we’ll find any.” He sighed.
Fenella noticed that Tom was looking at her. There was something very reassuring in his homely gaze. “Just looking,” he said. “We ain’t going to touch ’em.”
“Well—” John began.
“No touching of the poisonous snakes,” Tom interrupted. “That was the agreement.”
“Right,” said John.
“Right indeed,” said Fenella. She fixed John with a stern gaze. Then she took Tom’s nod as a promise.
Six
If someone had suggested, even a month ago, that a rehearsal for a historical pageant would feature as one of the high points of his week, he would have scoffed, Roger thought. But that was how he felt as he arrived at the village hall and watched Colonel Patterson marshaling his motley monks. The bark of his commands was still more suited to a parade ground, but Roger supposed that monks might have stood at attention now and then. Some of them. Hadn’t there been warrior monks? Perhaps not monks. Anyhow, it didn’t matter. The pageant needed a leader who could whip a group into shape, and Patterson was certainly that person.
