The atmosphere shifted noticeably and the butler’s thoughts were interrupted by the arrival of Lord Baaden-Boomethistle himself, who took a seat next to his shiny young wife, kissing her forehead and gruffly addressing the rest of the room with a general good morning.
“Morning, Father,” said Peregrine, thinking that the old man was looking exhausted. This is what came of robbing the cradle.
Lord Baaden-Boomethistle, in turn, regarded his son. Although he had not for some time been quite certain how to regard Peregrine. Quite often the phrase “pig in a poke” flittered through his mind.
Peregrine was in trouble at University—again. He was probably going to be sent down this time. Lord Baaden-Boomethistle was friends with Peregrine’s tutor and, as a result, he knew more about his son’s problems than he should do. For once, though, he wasn’t certain how to approach the situation. He didn’t want to do or say anything he’d have to apologize for later. Not that apology was a big part of Lord Baaden-Boomethistle’s repertoire at any time.
That a son of his should read Land Economy at University was all right; it was an honorable calling, traditional for a member of the landed gentry, particularly now that Prince William, the duke of Cambridge and probable future king himself, had jumped aboard that blue-blood bandwagon. And it was not as if Peregrine had the brainpower to do much else; the course offered a light workload for those who wanted it, allowing the sons and daughters of the nobility more time for sports, napping, and carousing. Fortunately, other people had already split the atom and suchlike. But it was distressing nonetheless. As the only son of the house, Peregrine had had great hopes pinned on him from the time he was in diapers. Nothing had been too good for him, no spoon too golden; his mother had doted on his every achievement, however trivial. Now the boy’s lack of a life plan for after university was disturbing. He himself, Lord Baaden-Boomethistle, had no intention of shuffling off this mortal coil anytime soon. What was the boy to do with himself for the next thirty years? Comparisons with Prince Charles were inevitable, a man awaiting his chance to do something, and in the meantime not able to do very much so long as his mother sat on the throne. Peregrine was even less well placed, and less well equipped, to have any kind of impact on world or even local affairs.
And what was the matter with his hair lately?
“We’ve had a call from someone in the village,” Lady Baaden-Boomethistle informed her husband, pushing back a strand of her own dark hair. Today parted in the middle and held by a clasp at the back of her head, tresses framed her face like gleaming satin, reflecting the rays of sunlight through the window. “Eugenia Something-Something, and something to do with a duck race. She said Noah of Noah’s Ark Antiques would be in Europe for the duration. Why that’s anything to do with us, I can’t imagine. I said I’d bring it up with you. So I have. Brought it up.” She returned her attention to the horse-racing news. “Grand Red Cayenne won again. I told you we should have bought him.”
Lord Baaden-Boomethistle put down the front section of his own newspaper. “I suppose they’ll be wanting to use the grounds for their duck race. What a nuisance. Litter and children everywhere.”
“Not to mention people in Bermuda shorts who should never be seen in anything less than a tent.” This from Peregrine, and he cast a significant glance at his sister as he spoke, a glance that did not go unrecognized.
Why don’t you just die, she thought. Die.
“I’ll have a word with the vicar,” said Lord Baaden-Boomethistle. “He’s bound to be in touch about it. I am not dealing with some village idiot from the Parish Council or the Women’s Institute.”
“I don’t see why we have to deal with it at all,” said Peregrine. “It’s a duck race, for God’s sake.”
“Because,” sniffed the dowager, smoothing the ruffle of her blue silk blouse, purchased to set off the blue of her eyes, “it is our duty. You should know that.”
“It’s for charity,” his father informed him. “And from time out of mind we have supported these daft little village entertainments. It’s expected of us.”
Hargreaves took the breakfast order of the lord of the house, and took the measure of the temperature of the room, rightly predicting that this would not be a day of fireworks, but a day of simmering discontent. A day like any other, in fact. They would sit around the table, fuming and rehearsing clever retorts they would never dare utter. Lord Baaden-Boomethistle would simply bark his displeasure at any notion he didn’t like, until all resistance was quashed.
Only Lady Baaden-Boomethistle had a different technique from that of most people, and indeed different from that of her predecessor, in dealing with her husband. The current Lady Baaden-Boomethistle seemed to be secretly amused by everything the lord did, smiling her catlike little smile, flicking her catlike tongue at her lips, and practically purring as he wound himself up more and more over any- and everything. It was impossible to say if this secret hilarity were at his expense or not. Hargreaves suspected it was. But before any of them knew it, the lord’s anger would have been dissolved, or diverted into safer channels. She had that power over him.
A fragment of the famous quotation went through his mind, although he wasn’t sure how apt it was. That she was a braver man than he was, Gunga Din.
Which made no sense at all.
Lady Baaden-Boomethistle now made a beckoning gesture with her free hand and her husband obediently took that hand in his. It was a telling move on her part, less a sign of affection than a statement to anyone watching: See how quickly he does as I command.
The dowager, noticing it, too, did not feel she had imagined this. Bree’s quick darting look in her direction spoke volumes. It was a tiny power play, one of many in their ongoing struggle for supremacy. For the dowager lived on sufferance in the new household established by her son’s remarriage, or at least this was how it felt to her. She had rights by law, of course. They could not just chuck her in the street. But how massive and unseemly a scuffle it would be to assert those rights. How constant the fight was even now. This fear as she grew older was a real thing, a tiger lurking round each corner of the massive house.
The butler leaned over her shoulder to refill her cup. And now Peregrine was whining, letting his unhappiness about something be known—something about borrowing the car—and this unhappiness was framed by a major sulk that was in no way as appealing as Lady Baaden-Boomethistle’s little game of sulking, a game to which Hargreaves had often borne witness. In fact, the butler thought the son’s mewling was the sort of juvenile performance that was sure to backfire eventually. It reminded the faithful servant that the apples in this privileged family had not fallen far from the tree; inbreeding would one day be the downfall of all the gentry.
They were simply impossible—the dowager, Lord Baaden-Boomethistle, and the children, particularly the son—and Hargreaves could not wait for his days of service to them to end.
As Hargreaves moved away from the table to see to the rest of the food, Lady Baaden-Boomethistle’s glance traveled around the room before returning to rest briefly and dispassionately on her aging husband’s red face. It was a look the butler could never quite read, whenever the lady looked at her lord. It seemed to contain affection, but there was something more going on.
He, Hargreaves, would not want to be in the lord’s shoes. Not for all the rich lands and titles and the privilege and everything that went with it. For the lord did not know whom to trust, and he certainly seemed to be trusting all the wrong people.
Now Lady Baaden-Boomethistle was addressing Peregrine in that exasperated tone she often adopted with him. Hargreaves had not caught the topic, but it didn’t matter. She would fillet the boy, regardless.
“You are, I suppose, entitled to your opinions. It would be refreshing if those opinions were original once in a while.”
Rosamund stifled a snort as Peregrine, clearly wounded, wrestled to put on a mask of indifference.
“Lay off,” he said sourly. “You—I say,
you really need to lighten up once in a while.” It was a misjudged accusation and it missed the mark by a mile. “Be more phlegmatic.” Phlegmatic had just turned up, used incorrectly, in one of the papers he was attempting to write for a tutorial. “That means—”
“I know what it means,” drawled Lady Baaden-Boomethistle. “If you get any looser, you’ll dissolve into a puddle of space goop. Oh, wait, I see I’m too late.”
Peregrine, now as red in the face as his father, looked as if he might stand and flee the room. Now Rosamund smothered a laugh. She had to hand it to Bree—she could annihilate with the slightest inflection, the merest lift of an eyebrow. She didn’t need words, but she was good with them, aiming them like little poisoned darts.
As Rosamund, to her sorrow, knew too well.
“Puh-leeze,” said Lord Baaden-Boomethistle. “I thought we had agreed…”
Lady Baaden-Boomethistle subsided with a pretty sulk. This seemed to infuriate Peregrine even more. Bree was at her most appealing when she sulked, her glossy pink lips scrunched into a little-girl pout. It was how Peregrine lost every argument on every subject. She was irresistible to Lord Baaden-Boomethistle when she pulled this stuff, and she knew it. She was irresistible, period.
While enjoying the conflict, still Rosamund cursed the day Bree had come into her father’s life, cursed the day her mother had died, cursed Bree for being Bree, with her effortless and deadly charm. Her father didn’t stand a chance with her in his life, in their lives.
The dowager was thinking, meanwhile: This Bree creature is such a step down from the first wife. Step? Make that a falling off a cliff. She is the daughter of a groom. She grew up in a stable. Not an ounce of blue blood in her veins, certainly not like her predecessor.
Why, oh why, had her son thrown them all into it like this? He could have had his pick. He didn’t have to foist this … this trollop on all of them.
It was going to end badly. Anyone could see that.
The dowager set down her empty cup and gathered herself to leave. She had agreed to help feed the homeless later that morning in a church in Monkslip-super-Mare. Well, not feed them so much as show up and offer encouragement. Dabbing at her lips with her serviette, she stood and announced as much to the others.
“I wouldn’t,” said Lord Baaden-Boomethistle, “encourage them if I were you.”
“I meant,” she said, “encourage the volunteers. Show the flag. Let them know the family stands behind their little humanitarian efforts, however pointless they may be.”
“Good,” said her son, with a wink at his wife. “The poor we will always have with us. No need to encourage them.”
His wife stood also. “I promised to drop by, myself. Perhaps I’ll see you there.”
“Me, too,” said Rosamund. “And I was planning to do more than just show up looking good,” she said pointedly. “I shall go in there and get my feet dirty. It wouldn’t hurt either of you to do the same.”
At a look from her father, she subsided.
No need for Rosamund to ask either woman for a lift. In her grandmother’s case, it almost certainly wouldn’t be offered.
And Bree Baaden-Boomethistle went almost everywhere on horseback.
Chapter 3
LADY BOUNTIFUL
The event the dowager had mentioned at breakfast was the weekly Bowls for Souls luncheon for the poor.
Although people were astonished to hear it, Nether Monkslip had poor people. Well, sometimes just the one: Roger Hayden, who had raised being unemployed to a noble calling, complete with slogans (“Down with Corporations and GMF”). Still, he was what they had, and the mission of the church dictated that he could not be excluded from the table.
Nearby Monkslip-super-Mare had many more poor people, and eventually the food service had drifted and finally settled where the need was greatest, without any ecclesiastical posturing over boundaries.
These occasions were as much beneficial to the volunteers as, one supposed, they were to the recipients of the largesse. The chatter as the volunteers worked, stirring soups and building sandwiches, was nonstop, the sounds of gossip filling to the edges of the room. So dense and excited was the hubbub that only snatches could be overheard:
“She planted her beets during a waxing moon. Anyone could have told her—certainly Awena could have told her—she had it all wrong. They’ll never thrive now. You plant lettuce during a waxing moon, not beets.” …
… “The Ladies of Perpetual Help have hidden my shoes somewhere again. Lately Maria is more like La Belle Dame Sans Merci.” …
… “Did you say you could volunteer to teach the sewing classes? It’s been ever so popular with the women from Pakistan and Afghanistan. It builds their trust, you know.” …
… “Those children and that practically feral mother of theirs. Who’s raising those kids is a mystery.” This was Suzanna Winship, never one to use the soft-pedal on her pronouncements.
“Tildy Ann seems to be raising herself. And her brother.” …
… “Awena is like the Melanie of Nether Monkslip. You know, Melanie in Gone With the Wind. Impossibly good. That our dishy vicar fell for her—well, I guess I’m not surprised.” (Suzanna again.) …
… “Have you seen the baby? Is he gorgeous or what? All that dark hair!” …
… “What on earth was she wearing? A shroud?” …
… “It was definitely not Sandra he was with.” …
… “But Elka needs to take a firm stand. Tell that son of hers which end is up and all. Be strong.”
“Like you with your daughter, you mean?” said Suzanna, rushing in to defend. She and Elka might squabble on occasion, but there were times for a united front. And the woman with opinions about Elka had a teenaged daughter who famously ran amok in Staincross Minster the minute her mother’s back was turned, although Suzanna diplomatically, for once, forbore to point this out. “Elka is tougher than anyone in the village. And harder working. She just has a soft spot for her son, that’s— Step lively, here comes the first round.”
Heads turned and faces broke into smiles at each new arrival at the door. The deserving poor were shown into a room where half a dozen large tables had been set for them.
Chanel Dirkson arrived late, running awkwardly on sensible sandals she was not quite used to. Like something a shepherd would wear, thought Suzanna. Clearly, Chanel needed to be taken in hand. She was new to the village, a forty-something writer of self-help books who, like so many lately, had come seeking the bucolic peace of Nether Monkslip. She fell into conversation with Suzanna as they organized sandwiches on trays, for she and Suzanna had become fast friends, despite their outward differences (Suzanna glamorous, and Chanel, despite her namesake, pastoral). Both women had moved to Nether Monkslip from London, although Chanel had arrived there by way of Wiltshire. As she pointed out, “People everywhere have problems, so I can offer advice from anywhere I happen to live. It’s just that in London, they tend to have problems with traffic and parking. I’m looking for the real problems, if you know what I mean.”
“Parking situations can lead to murder,” said Suzanna. “I could cheerfully throttle the next person who cuts me off in traffic. Of course, for real traffic, you have to drive to Monkslip-super-Mare.”
“Precisely,” agreed Chanel, smoothing the nap of her tunic-style blouse. She always wore all-organic clothing—cotton, linen, and very expensive—and little to no makeup. As Suzanna had observed, this made her fit right in with the granola-crunching, fruit-canning, bean-sprouting ethos of Nether Monkslip. Chanel’s features reminded Suzanna of a Madonna in a Russian Orthodox icon. There was a downward curve to her eyebrows when she was in repose that made her look sad; it matched the often-downward curve of her mouth. Whatever wisdom Chanel had to impart, it seemed to have been hard-won.
“What are you working on now?” Suzanna asked politely, not really caring. She got her fill of writerly talk at the legendarily contentious meetings of the Writers’ Square, of which Chanel h
ad thus far resisted becoming a member. “Can we get some more cheese over here?” Suzanna yelled over her shoulder. Turning back to Chanel, she muttered, “Typical. Eugenia is never around when you want her. And you so seldom want her.”
“They—the publishers—want a novel based on my newspaper columns. A sort of Bridget Jones meets Heathcliff, as it was described to me. But I’m not sure. I’m strictly a nonfiction writer.” Chanel’s expertise was in sternly removing the blinders from the eyes of the star-crossed lover, for handing out no-nonsense advice of the “get real, he’s a loser” variety. Her newspaper columns had spawned several advice books, of none of which, judging by the titles, did Suzanna feel the need to avail herself. Books like Ten Warning Signs He’s a Sociopath and Before You Meet His Mother were, in Suzanna’s estimation, for rank amateurs at play in the fields of love. Still, the books sold well; judging by appearances—that organic stuff really did cost the moon—Chanel was comfortable, if not wealthy.
“Sounds interesting,” murmured Suzanna. “Are all the tomatoes gone?”
“What I’m working on right now is a chapter about dealing with difficult people,” Chanel continued, glossing a slice of whole-grain bread with French mustard and neatly stacking layers of cheese and lettuce on top.
“Hmph. You’ve come to the right place. But ‘Go sit by someone else’ would be my advice. The world is full of people, and life is too short.”
Chanel laughed. “That’s probably a very good distillation of what I recommend. However, sometimes—sometimes people come into your life whether you want them to or not. And stay there. Just leaving them alone is not always an option. Haven’t you ever had a difficult boss?”
“Several. I just ignored them until they quit.”
Again, Chanel laughed. It was a good laugh that reached those rather sad eyes and made them shine. Unbeknownst to Chanel, Suzanna was already sizing her up for sister-in-law potential. Her brother, Dr. Winship, had been single too long.
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