A Country Wooing

by Joan Smith

“I should be flattered. We were never accustomed to many calls from you. Does this mean you are turning over a new leaf, becoming sociable?” she asked archly. She hoped this would lead to setting the date for his ball.

  “It ill becomes the lord of the Hall to be a surly hermit. May I come tomorrow?”

  “Anytime. We are usually home and never bar our door to callers from the Hall.”

  “That dilutes my victory, Anne,” he teased her. “I shall leave before you ask me to bring Aunt Tannie and the children along.”

  There was no mounting block, and though Anne was perfectly capable of mounting Mrs. Dobbin by herself, she assumed Alex would offer her a hand.

  It wasn’t till then that she noticed he held his left arm at an awkward angle. “Alex, are you all right?” she asked.

  “I’m fine,” he said at once, and tried to assist her, but it was obvious the effort caused him pain.

  “I trust you haven’t been moving furniture again,” she said with a sapient look.

  “No, mud, which is a deal heavier. As Robin saw fit to tell you I moved Charles’s bed, he should have told the reason. It was the mattress I objected to, Anne, not the former occupant. I would have liked to sleep in the bed of my father and grandfather. Since I was wounded, however, I have to sleep on a very firm bed. The springs in that old four-poster are a hundred years old. Truth to tell, I’m no longer comfortable smothered in dusty bed canopies either. I like to feel the air move around me. It lets me know I’m alive.”

  “That wasn’t the impression I got from Robin.”

  “It is not the one I gave. I don’t like being an invalid. Everyone’s concern for my shoulder is already a nuisance to them. Must I burden them with my bad back and my nightmares—?” He stopped and gave her an impatient frown.

  The pain was visible on his face, pinching around the eyes and mouth. What horrors had he been through, that had left him so ravaged? “Oh, Alex, I’m sorry,” she said impulsively, and reached for his hands. He clutched at her fingers, holding them in a painful grip. She could feel the metal from her ring pressing her other fingers. She noticed Alex was looking at it.

  “What grand occasion were you anticipating, all alone in the meadow?” he asked.

  “Grand occasions are few and far between. If I am to wear my ring at all, I must wear it just anywhere—to the meadow, the village....”

  When he lifted his eyes, they stood still a moment, just looking at each other. There was some scalding tension in the air, some feeling so intense it startled her.

  “You—you had best get home,” she said breathlessly.

  “Yes, but tomorrow I’ll call on you, as I promised.”

  “All right.”

  She watched as he awkwardly mounted his bay, using only one hand, and rode away. She was still there five minutes later, staring after him, with a little smile lifting her lips. As she stood thinking, the smile vanished. She shouldn’t have been so hard on Alex—cutting up at him for having muddy boots, when he was only doing what he had to do. It was none of her concern if he didn’t want to sleep in Charles’s bed, for that matter. But he behaved as though it were her concern. He looked as if ... How foolish of her. It was spring—that was the trouble.

  Such a beautiful, sunny spring day. She buried her face in the flowers and gave a little laugh of pure joy.

  Chapter Five

  In anticipation of Alex’s call the next morning, Anne had her hair teased into a basket of curls in a fashion not usually attempted but for a party. She felt strangely disappointed when he had still not arrived by mid-afternoon. It began to look as though he had truly reverted to his old way of neglecting them. She thought she must have read too much into that interlude in the meadow. It was just the beauty of the spring day that lent the incident that special air. At four, Robin cantered up and lounged into their saloon to make his brother’s apologies.

  “Congratulations. I see you’ve slipped the leash,” Anne said.

  “I’ve been let off. Alex is sick as a dog.”

  “What is the matter?” Mrs. Wickfield demanded.

  “He called Palmsey to have a go at his wound. He’s pretty well knocked up after the sawbones’s visit,” he explained.

  “How is his wound?” Anne asked eagerly.

  Robin shivered. “Ugly! His shoulder looks like a raw beefsteak. I had no idea it was still open. It became infected again on the boat, but it couldn’t have been very well healed to have broken out like this. Palmsey cauterized it. I very nearly passed out, for he made me hold Alex down. You could smell the burning flesh; I even heard it sizzle. I shan’t tackle a rare steak for a few days, I can tell you.”

  “Oh!” Anne’s hand flew to her lips, and she turned pale. “How is he?”

  “He passed out, thank Dios. Palmsey got a cup of brandy into him before he branded him. He came around again after lunch, but he won’t be up for a day or two. Imagine his not telling us how bad it is. But Alex was always one to keep things to himself. We should have known when it took him so long to come home. He would have come running as soon as he could.”

  “Good gracious, what has Palmsey to say about it?” Mrs. Wickfield asked. “Is he going to be all right?”

  “Certainly. Palmsey will bring him around. Alex is merry as a grig. His big fear was that he’d loose the arm— they wanted to chop it off at Belem, you know. There’s no chance of that now. With good food and clean bandages, he’ll pull around. He’s pretty disgusted with the thing—Alex, I mean, not Palmsey. I daresay having a real wound is a pleasant change from doling out headache powders for Palmsey.”

  “It’ll slow Alex down,” Mrs. Wickfield said, worried.

  “Devil a bit of it. He’s got his man of business coming to see him tomorrow. He’ll interview him from his bed. He don’t intend to waste a minute. No, it’s the looks of the wound that disgust him.”

  “No one will see it,” Anne pointed out. “He should be happy it’s not his face that’s disfigured.”

  “His wife will see it,” Robin answered. “ ‘How do you offer a charred and mangled old carcass like this to anyone?’ he asked me. Palmsey admits there’ll be a scar.”

  Mrs. Wickfield lifted a curious brow. “Talking of getting married, is he?”

  “He will be, now that he’s head of the house,” Robin allowed with an arch little smile toward Anne, who pretended not to see it.

  A Penholme would not be expected to leave without taking tea—Lord Robin in particular was a veritable sponge—so the visit lasted half an hour. The subject moved on to some repining that the visit to Sawburne must be delayed awhile.

  No call was expected from the gentlemen on the morrow. Mrs. Wickfield mentioned riding over to Penholme in the gig the next morning, but Anne declined such hard chasing as to go after a man who was sick in bed. Aunt Tannie brought the girls to call in the afternoon, so some news was heard. Alex was recuperating from his treatment, and seeing to business, as Robin had said.

  “Might discouraged, he is, I can tell you,” Mrs. Tannie informed them. She was puffing from the exertion of getting her stout frame up the stairs and into a chair. Mrs. Tannie dressed quite independently of fashion, in a boisterously flowered gown of red and white that played awful havoc with her rosy complexion.

  “Things are bad, are they?” Mrs. Wickfield asked.

  “Wretched. Now that he’s home, you know, the tradesmen in the village are sending in their bills. My, such a lot of them. I’m sure we had a dozen there this morning alone. The cobbler—well, boots for the lot of them all these years, and the twins growing so fast they must be shod twice a year. A bill for three hundred from him.”

  “Surely not so much!” Mrs. Wickfield gasped. More than half her annual income seemed a high price for boots.

  “There were still some of Charlie’s top boots unpaid. He ordered a pair with white rims and never did wear them either. His Beau Brummell boots, he called them. Charlie was such a stylish dresser,” she added fondly.

  “Then there
were the miller, the draper, the general store—you might as well say we had the village to call, and poor Alex so fagged he should have stayed in bed.”

  “You never mean he went down to see them!” Anne exclaimed.

  “He’s bound and bent to pretend he’s getting better. That lad will never be whole again. What wasn’t shot away in Spain was burned away by Palmsey. And you’ll never guess what, Alice,” Aunt Tannie continued, hardly stopping to draw air. “The dovecot that holds nothing but swallows—Charles never paid for that. He had it built the year he came into his own. Imagine, five years it’s been sitting in the yard, and us never knowing it wasn’t paid for. The same with the addition he had put on to the stables. I hadn’t the heart to tell Alex, but I was never paid a penny either, and Charles did say I’d get a hundred pounds a year, not that I need it, for I can always charge everything, of course. Still, he said I’d get it. Not that I really expected I would,” she added matter-of-factly.

  “Of course he’ll pay you,” Anne said, but the complete pessimist knew better. She gave Anne a sorry, disillusioned look and launched forth on another sea of complaints.

  After Dr. Palmsey had dropped in for a chat on his way to the Hall to check on his patient, he said ever so politely to Mrs. Tannie on his way out that he wouldn’t bother sending his bill for a bit, till his lordship was feeling stouter. He mentioned the girls’ measles, Robin’s sprained ankle, and Mrs. Tannie’s own rheumatism—all services rendered without payment. Though he reaffirmed there was no hurry, it was clear that he expected his money soon.

  “I begin to think we’ll all land in the poorhouse,” Aunt Tannie declared, and had to revive herself with a good strong cup of tea and two scones before she could continue her litany. “According to Robin, the rents ain’t coming the way they should be, either.”

  A pile of tradesmen’s bills was an unpleasant welcome but could hardly be more than an embarrassment to the lord of Penholme. Not even Anne felt any real disquiet.

  On the third day, Alex was sufficiently recovered to leave the house but was not well enough to ride his mount. He came to Rosedale in his late brother’s curricle, with his batman, Lehman, at the reins. As well as a spanking team of grays to pull the sporting carriage, there was a handsome bay mare being led behind it. This was tethered to the mulberry tree in the front yard, and Anne was invited out to see it as soon as Alex had made his bows to the ladies.

  During the time of his recovery, she had decided she must be a little kinder to Alex, at least till she came to know him better. He couldn’t help not being Charles; it was unfair to judge him against a paragon. She would get to know him for himself.

  “Oh, you’ve brought Lady to visit,” she said, wondering why he should have done so, as she was not saddled, and the fact of his arm being in a sling made it unlikely he meant to ride.

  “I’ve brought her to stay, if you’ll have her.”

  “To stay? Alex—this is not a gift! I can’t accept her. It’s too much. Oh, you thought I was hinting!”

  “She’s of no use to us. Not frisky enough for Rob or me, and too much for Loo to handle.”

  “Sell her, then. She’ll fetch a good price. From what Aunt Tannie tells us, you can use the money.”

  “You must cut everything she says in half. You would think she were Mrs. Job, the way she wails and moans. I’ve already sorted out the cattle and sent off to auction what we don’t need. Robin and the groom have taken them over to Eastleigh today. We’ve cut down from two dozen nags to ten. They’re to pick up a pair of ponies for the girls. Lady’s a beauty, Anne. Don’t you like her?”

  “She’s adorable, but I can’t accept such a gift,” she said calmly but firmly.

  Alex made a dismissing wave with his free hand. “She wouldn’t bring what she’s worth at auction, and after giving the barn its commission, what would be left? I want you to have her. Very likely Charlie bought her with you in mind.” His bright eyes held a question as he looked steadily at her.

  “She wasn’t bought for me. He had her for a year and never mentioned such a thing.”

  “I don’t know what else he had in mind, buying a lady’s mount,” he said reasonably.

  “He had a great many ladies visiting. No doubt he got her to have a spare there in case any of his guests wished to ride.”

  “She’s too fine an animal to use as a spare, for just anyone to ride.”

  “Charlie liked the best,” she reminded him.

  “That’s why I thought she must be for you,” he answered in a rallying way that might have been a joke, though there was enough admiration in his regard to cause some doubt. “Quite sure she wasn’t?”

  Anne felt a flush brighten her cheeks. “Positive. Charles never offered me Lady or anything else. Any other mount, I mean.”

  Alex looked at her for a long moment before saying, “I see.” She had the feeling there was more being discussed than a mount, and his next question confirmed it. “Never offered you his name either, Anne? I’m sure it was his intention to do so. Did you refuse him?”

  It was hard to read his expression. It was intent, and he was keenly interested in her reply, but what else was in it she could only guess. “He didn’t offer the name or the mount. I’ve already told you I should have refused the latter.”

  “And the former? The name?”

  Anne would no more have refused an offer from Charles than she would have cut off her arm, but she felt a sudden disinclination to say so. Just why she hesitated to confirm what was a pretty well known suspicion was unclear to her. Perhaps it was no more than pride. “We ladies like to keep our secrets,” she said with a little toss of her shoulders. The motion held a touch of flirtation.

  It emboldened Alex to adopt a similar tone. He inclined his head to her and said, “I think you would have made a charming Lady Penholme.”

  “I see what it is. Dissatisfied with a mere three sisters, you wanted another.’’

  “No, I didn’t want that at all, I promise you.” His smile faded as he stood gazing at her. When he spoke again, he was deadly serious. “Did you love him?” he asked simply.

  With equal directness, she said, “Yes, very much. All the girls were fascinated with Charles. Oh, I know his reputation smacked of every sin in the Bible, but rakehells are attractive to women, you know.”

  “They make fine daydreams, but less fine husbands, I daresay.”

  “It was just a daydream, so there’s no point discussing it further.”

  Alex nodded silently. The ensuing pause was long and uncomfortable. Unable to sustain the tension, Anne sought to lighten the mood. “I love Lady, too, but I could not accept her from either Lord Penholme.”

  He hunched his shoulders. “She’s no good to me. I held her back from auction for you. It’s more bother than it’s worth to take one mount over to Eastleigh another time. Come now, accept her. You’ll hurt her feelings. She’ll only be eating her head off in my stable, with no one to exercise her. See how frisky she is—dying to be ridden.”

  It was a sore temptation, the more so as there was really nothing wrong in accepting a gift from the Hall. There were precedents aplenty—in fact, Mrs. Dobbin had been a gift from the old earl. But somehow Anne was not happy to accept one from Alex.

  “You can’t possibly be getting a decent ride on your old Dobbin,” he persisted. “Lady likes you—see how she’s nuzzling your shoulder.’’

  “So would she be nuzzling you if you massaged her neck on this side,” Anne said, laughing. “But we are retrenching. When Mrs. Dobbin cocks up her toes, we shall be glad. Her formidable appetite is eating us out of house and home.”

  “So are we retrenching at the Hall. A new regime has set it, if you don’t know it already from all my complaining relatives. You must have heard of the affair of the threadbare linen. I’m only trying to get you to take on the feed of this glutton,” he said.

  “You did not use to be so stubborn, Alex. I see your trick. Next you will send those ravenous twins down
to batten themselves on us. Thank you, but I really cannot accept your gift.”

  Far from pokering up at the charge of stubbornness, he appeared pleased with it. “I shan’t sell her. May I leave her here for you to use till Loo grows into her?”

  She tossed up her hands in surrender. “Very well, I’ll say yes, before you’re put to some other lying shift to force her on me, since it’s clear you mean to have your way.”

  “You see how quickly the title has gone to my head. I expect folks to cater to my every whim. Next thing you know, I’ll be expecting you to jump to your feet when I enter the room.”

  “I should be happy to do it if this is the way you pay your toadeaters. She’s a beauty, Alex. Thank you for being so imaginative in your insistence.” As she patted Lady’s muzzle, the sun caught the marquises in her ring, reminding her of that other gift.

  “Should you be out in the sun so long, Alex? Would you like to go inside?”

  “I’m fine. Let’s walk a little,” he suggested. “It’s such a fine day.”

  They left Lady behind and strolled around to the garden, back through the orchard. Again Alex put his hand on Anne’s elbow, not moving it till they came to a stone bench and sat down. He gazed into the sun-dappled roof of leaves with a wistful smile.

  “I missed three seasons of blossoms. Three springs—the finest time of the year. I love to see the petals blowing in the air, like snowflakes. It’s strange, the things you miss when you’re away from home. You can’t think how often I imagined it, when I was slogging through swamps, being eaten alive by flies and lice, or trekking over some rough mountain with the sun burning my eyes. It hasn’t changed. That’s the miracle. It’s still so green and cool and fresh, just as I remembered it. Next year the petals will form again, and fall.”

  She studied his rugged profile, which gazed unblinking at the trees. His rapture imbued them with some special charm. Three years—three of his best years, and hers. “Why did you go Alex?” she asked softly. “It was very sudden, wasn’t it?”

  “No, I was five years working up to it, actually.”