A Country Wooing

by Joan Smith

  The twins, Bung and Willie, pelted forward to boast of the new suits ordered for them, real suits, with shirts and cravats just like a man’s.

  “And sleeves with three-inch hems on the cuffs,” Alex added, “so I won’t have to order new ones in six months.”

  “Children are so inconsiderate, they will just go on growing out of every stitch they own.”

  Babe came forward to grab Anne’s hand and said in a confiding tone, “Alex is going to take me to Eastleigh and buy me new slippers. Blue patent ones, like yours, but I can’t wear them.”

  “Very wise. Wearing slippers is hard on them.”

  “Except for church and parties.”

  “When you pull the sole off, you must bring them to Cousin Anne for mending. What did Loo get from the fortune? I see your brother has been busy getting rid of every penny of it.”

  “Loo’s getting shoes, too, and we’re getting a new governess. One that talks French.”

  “Chère moi! How exciting.”

  “I had to invent some excuse to be rid of Miss Pruner,” Alex explained. “She doesn’t speak French—or hardly proper English, for that matter. I’ve done as you suggested and made my presence felt in the schoolroom. After three complaining visits, she felt a strong urge to visit her mother. As her wedding is imminent, she shan’t be returning. Fortunately, I had enough money to pay her off. I’ll let the girls holiday till August, then find a suitable lady to replace her.”

  “Send Loo over to Rosedale if you want her to get started on French. Other than the subjunctive and irregular verbs, I’m quite a dab at it. It is a pity so many of the French verbs are irregular.”

  “You’re busy enough, Anne. You’re already teaching your backhouse boy and doing some of your own work around the house now.”

  “I see what it is. You think that only because I can’t speak French myself I am in no position to teach another, but you’re quite out. It would be an excellent way for me to learn it.” She looked to the doorway and uttered a startled “Oh!” as Lord Robin strolled in, sporting an elegant blue coat of Bath cloth, a rose-sprigged waistcoat, fawn trousers, and shiny Hessians.

  “Quite the tulip since he got into Charlie’s wardrobe,” Alex commented.

  “That accounts for his grandeur. What a turn he gave me. He looks so terribly like Charles, doesn’t he?” The words were out before she remembered Alex disliked that subject, especially in the way of approval. But it was impossible to act as though Charles had never existed. “I didn’t notice it before, in his ordinary clothes. He’s done something to his hair, too, hasn’t he?”

  “He went to a stylish barber in Winchester and got a Brutus do. All the crack.”

  “Very chic.” As her eyes ran over this apparition, Robin finished his greeting to her mother and advanced to her.

  He raised his hands and executed a mincing pirouette. “Just look. Don’t touch!” he said in a mock-haughty tone.

  “How can I be expected to keep my hands off such a dashing blade? You will be positively ravaged, Robin, if you go into society looking so irresistible.”

  “Not at all. I’ve developed a sneer to go with the outfit. Freezes ‘em dead in their tracks. Tell her, Alex.”

  “He was turning every head in Winchester, I promise you,” Alex agreed. “They hadn’t seen such a popinjay there before. Mistook him for a dandy.” If this was a posthumous jibe at Charles, Alex’s smiling face didn’t reveal it.

  “This is only one of my lesser ensembles,” Robin warned her.

  “For your lesser friends, such as I?” she quizzed.

  “I’m introducing you to my new style by degrees. Wait till you see me rigged out in Charlie’s black monkey suit for the assembly in Eastleigh. We really ought to have kept a diamond stud to do it justice. Weston, you know—the finest tailor in London. And once winter hits us, it’ll be the sable-lined cape. I might go up to London and become Prinny’s new adviser. He’ll mistake me for the lord of the manor.”

  “You certainly look like him,” Aunt Tannie said from across the room. “The late lord, I mean. You are the picture of Charles. Don’t he look like him, Alex?”

  It wasn’t necessary for Alex to reply. Mrs. Tannie had come forward to examine the apparition more closely. “You nearly gave me an apoplexy when you came mincing in, fine as nine pence. Clothes make the man, eh?”

  “A common misconception, ma’am,” Robin told her. “These duds wouldn’t look anywhere near so fine on a donkey or a pig. It’s the man who makes the clothes.”

  “The clothes are in some danger of making this man into a jackass,” Anne warned.

  “Now that’s just your jealousy speaking. You know once I go on the strut in this rig, the ladies will be all over me. You’re afraid I won’t have time for you.”

  “Cut to the quick!” she said, clutching melodramatically at her heart. “The day will come when those fine Hessians, too, wear thin. Then we’ll see you crawling back to your old friends, begging for a new half sole.”

  “Don’t hold your breath. I have half a dozen pairs as good as this. No, sir, I’m set till I manage to nab an heiress.”

  “You might look higher than Miss Maggie Anglin if this is the style you mean to present,” Aunt Tannie suggested.

  Impatient with this subject, Alex said, “Did we tell you Rosalie and Exmore are coming to visit tomorrow? My return is the reason given, but I suspect it was timed to coincide with the spring assembly. You ladies must come to dinner while they’re with us.”

  “You must all come to Rosedale, too,” Mrs. Wickfield said. “We haven’t done a thing to welcome you home, Alex.”

  “No, no. You can’t be entertaining with no help,” he said quickly.

  “We still have Cook.”

  “And our backhouse boy to raid your poultry house for food,” Anne added.

  “Why, we can send down a batch of servants to lend you a hand,” Aunt Tannie offered. “The crew here seems to keep multiplying. As soon as a footman marries, he brings his wife to work, and the wife has a sister, and before you know it, we’ve got a whole new family underfoot.”

  “Why don’t you let some of them go?” Mrs. Wickfield asked.

  “Jobs are scarce,” Alex said vaguely.

  “So is money, and servants must be paid.”

  “They’re not paid much. I was embarrassed to hand them their wages. Of course, they get their room and board. Food at least is plentiful. How do you refuse a job to one of your own tenant farmers’ girls?”

  Aunt Tannie turned a knowing eye on him. “That means you’ve hired Mollie Prawne, I suppose?”

  Alex shrugged. “What could I do? Prawne has six children at home to feed. They look like skeletons. She’ll only be getting twenty pounds a year.’’

  “Why, we could afford her,” Mrs. Wickfield said. “Our Mary demanded thirty-five, which is why we had to let her go.”

  Alex looked a question at Anne. “Could you afford Mollie?”

  “Mama is in charge of the big finances. I only have to worry about my own two hundred and fifty a year. If she says she can afford her, goodness knows we could use her.”

  It was arranged on the spot between Alex and Mrs. Wickfield, and without a word to say about it, Mollie Prawne was exchanged.

  Penholme had indicated that eating with the children was an experience not to be repeated, but when high tea was served, the twins offered their arms to their sisters, and the whole family went to the dining room. The youngsters had received a stiff lecture that they were to be seen and not heard. They behaved well for ten minutes, but then their patience gave out and the remainder of the meal was as boisterous as before. There was no talk of the boys becoming soldiers, however. Bung had decided that he would be Prime Minister, while Willie spoke of riding the horses at Astley’s Circus.

  Aunt Tannie bemoaned the state of the blue suite, saying it was too bad they hadn’t time to get it fixed up before Rosalie’s arrival.

  “Rosalie is family,” Alex said. “W
e don’t have to put on airs for her. Exmore is a man of the world. It will not be news to him that our pockets are to let. I daresay it’s buzzed all over London by now. I must get up to London very soon and see just how I stand with creditors there.”

  “Get yourself some new jackets while you’re in town,” Aunt Tannie suggested.

  Alex said nothing, but he looked interested. It was only natural that a young bachelor would want a new set of clothing after three years in uniform, and Anne assumed that if the finances were in order, he would return as fine as Robin.

  Though it was only high tea that was served, it was served in the dining room, and the gentlemen remained behind for port. When they rejoined the ladies, Robin went to sit beside Anne. It was natural he should choose the younger lady, but on this occasion she rather wished he had not. Especially when Alex gave a dissatisfied look at them and went to join Aunt Tannie and her mother.

  Robin immediately began an amusing exposition on the selling of Charlie’s effects, and before long she was laughing to hear how Alex had scooped the whole lot back into the box when the man, mistaking them for a pair of flats, had offered a mere thousand pounds.

  “I believe he thought we’d pinched the stuff,” Robin rattled on. “You should have seen Alex get on his high ropes. Sounded for the world like Papa in a huff. ‘The Penholmes of Penholme Hall are not accustomed to haggling. We ought to have taken these few trifles to Sotheby’s,’ he said. That made the old fellow look sharp, I can tell you. He stuck his loupe in his eye, and it nearly fell out from shock when he ogled the emerald tie stud. Jove, I bet Alex wished he could have kept it.”

  “He was never one for dolling himself up in jewels and finery.”

  “He never had the chance, had he? He’s a Penholme, you know. There’s a streak of the peacock in us all, no denying. He’d have decked himself out if he’d ever had two pennies to rub together. He always had to wear Charlie’s reach-me-downs. He said, when I asked why he didn’t grab himself a new pair of boots from Charlie’s lot, that he’d felt the pinch of Charlie’s boots for the last time. Said it in a bitter way, though he tried to hide his feelings.”

  “Your mother was always fond of Alex. Could she not have done something for him?”

  “She did the best thing, as it turns out. Set aside what monies she could keep her hands on and left it to Alex when she died. It was all that allowed him to buy his commission and outfit himself for the army. Charlie wouldn’t give him a penny, after Alex running Penholme for him for eighteen months. Lord, what a time it was. A fight every time Charlie deigned to come home. He’d rip up at Alex for the dwindling income, and Alex would shout at him that he needed more money to do this and that about the place. But in the end, Charlie could always turn Alex up sweet. Tell him he couldn’t get on without him. He’d give him the money next quarter or next year or what have you. Charlie had a lot of charm. Maybe too much, but in the end, Alex finally saw through him.”

  “He left because of Charlie’s selling the Leicester place, you mentioned.”

  “The groundwork was set before that. Alex was driven to his wits’ end. He said there was no point his trying to hold things together if Charlie was determined to put us all in the poorhouse. He didn’t even have the decency to tell Alex he’d sold the Leicester place. Alex learned it from his agent and thought at last that he was going to get money to handle matters here, but it turned out it was only to pay gambling debts. He saw he’d have to make his own way in the world, for it was clear as a peddler’s pikestaff by then that Charlie had no intention of turning Sawburne over to him. Alex even felt that the Hall might be lost in the long run, and—oh, you had to be there, Annie. I think Alex felt he had to build up something to look after the family, a career for himself, in case the worst happened. Mind you, he didn’t tell me that in so many words, but he was really the one we looked to as a father. He didn’t actually say so. He didn’t say much, really. Well, he couldn’t. He was demmed near bawling when he said good-bye to me, if you want the truth. You know how his jaw and throat muscles kind of clutch into a knot when he’s beyond words.”

  Anne listened reluctantly, not wanting to believe, but Robin’s forthright story had to be true. Every fact substantiated it. Her wonderful hero, her beloved, shining Charles, was a miserable, selfish fool. How could she have been so unseeing? How had she admired Charles and his “charm,” which was just another word for not caring, for selfishness? Worse, how had she never appreciated that quiet Alex was the real man of the family, the master—in all but authority. How different things would have been had he been born the elder son. But he was the eldest son now. It wasn’t too late.

  “We aren’t usually excluded from family gossip at Rosedale. How does it come no one told us about this?”

  “Folks like to hide their troubles, I suppose. Rosedale was like an oasis, Annie. It was nice to go there and just get away from the squabbling. Then Alex left after ringing such a peal over Charlie, I still hear it in my sleep sometimes. Irresponsible, he called him. Not worthy to bear the title of Penholme. If the girls ended up on the street and the boys in Newgate, it was on Charlie’s head. His rant seemed to have some good effect, for a while. Charlie talked about trying to bring himself around, but as you can see, nothing came of it. He fell in with the racing set and squandered whatever more he could get his hands on. You were well out of it, I can tell you. Of course, Papa had already made inroads on the estate before Charlie took over. It ain’t fair to put the whole of it in Charlie’s dish.”

  They finished talking and sat silent for a moment while Anne absorbed all this unknown background. She looked up to see Alex gazing at her. He rose and came toward them. “What has put you two in the hips?” he asked. “You look as though you’re in attendance at a wake. Don’t you know a gentleman is supposed to entertain a lady, Robin?”

  “Robin has made himself extremely interesting,” she said.

  “It would be his resemblance to his late brother that accounts for it, no doubt.”

  “Only a superficial resemblance,” Robin said, displeased with the comparison, and Anne now understood why.

  “Sit down,” she said to Alex.

  “I was about to, but I had the feeling I might be de trop at this tête-à-tête.”

  “No, I am the one who is de trop, “ Robin said. He rose with a smile and a gallant bow and went to tease Loo.

  “Now, where did he get that idea?” Alex asked.

  “Your sneer might have led him to it, or perhaps it was the way you pulled him out of his chair. Robin is sensitive to hints.”

  Alex smiled and took up the vacant seat. “What were you two talking about?’’

  “The past,” she said, studying him. It wasn’t only the Peninsula that had etched those lines in his forehead. They must have already begun to invade before he had left. What a horrible time Charles had led the family, and he always so charming and cheerful in public.

  “That’s French for Charlie, I assume.”

  “You’re worse at the language than I am. Come down to Rosedale with Loo and we’ll all learn the bongjaw together. I believe the French call the past le passé. “

  “Then it cannot refer to Charles. Nothing passé about him.”

  “Alex, why didn’t you tell me....” She stopped, realizing that a party was not the time or place for a serious discussion.

  Alex ignored her half question. He looked across the room, then turned back in a moment with a whole new expression on his face. He was polite and smiling. “How are you and Lady getting along?”

  “Famously. Lady and I have reached a better understanding than a certain gentleman and I. How long will it be till you can ride? Does your wound still bother you much?”

  “Only when I exert it. It will be a few weeks yet before I can ride. I’m looking forward to riding with you.”

  He was willing to discuss the present and the future as agreeably as anyone could wish, but any slight reference to the past, and especially Charlie, closed
him up like a clam.

  Anne and her mother left before dark settled in. Alex said he would send word over to them when Rosalie arrived. When Anne lay in her bed, she reviewed her conversation with Robin—all those startling revelations about Charles and Alex. She regretted all the unkind things she had said. She no longer wondered that Alex occasionally let fall a gibe against Charles; she only wondered that he didn’t shout from the rooftops what he had had to put up with.

  Charles had used her badly, too, leading her on just enough to keep her interest alive, when he had no intention of marrying her. If it weren’t for that, she might have fallen in love with Alex ages ago. But he was home now, and Charles was gone. It wasn’t too late. It was time for them both to let go of old passions, old loves, and old enmities and get on with the future.

  Chapter Nine

  It was Mollie Prawne and not a footboy who brought news of Rosalie and Exmore’s arrival the next day. She was sent down in a gig from Penholme just after lunch and delivered her precious news while she bobbed a curtsy to her new mistress. The Wickfields were requested to go up to the Hall as soon as it was convenient, but with a new servant to be shown her duties and her way around the house, “convenient” was not very soon.

  Once Mollie was settled in, Anne and Mrs. Wickfield made their grandest toilette, knowing that even their grandest was inadequate to impress a fashionable young duchess with an eye that could spot a remodeled gown at sixty paces. Both ladies admitted to feeling foolish setting forth in a gig in broad daylight, rigged out in their evening dresses, but the invitation included dinner, so it was either that or darting home to change in a few hours.

  The duchess sat alone with Aunt Tannie when the Wickfields arrived. Rosalie was as beautiful and trim as when she had been a maiden, in spite of her having borne two children. Her black hair was twisted in a Grecian knot, an elegant topping for her splendid rose gown. She was of the same strain as Charles and Robin, with the same large and lustrous blue eyes, heavily fringed with black lashes.