They treated her husband like an old friend rather than a landlord, and were delighted to hear that he had married at last. They all spoke to her, complimenting her on her beauty, and tried to make her feel welcome.
Everywhere they went, he spoke of a big gathering they would have the following week to celebrate his nuptials. It would be in the village hall, and everyone was invited.
Thomas knew his tenants lived well in decent cottages, with fresh running water from indoor pumps, but he warned her that the winter had been a hard one. He was always worried about the possibility of disease spreading like wildfire through the village.
"There is a theory about boiling water before it is drunk to ward off certain contagions, but many of them don't take the trouble. We try to keep the wells and streams sweet, but people will empty their night soil wherever they choose. There's only so much I can do," he said with a sigh. "They are proud, and don't like to ask for help. Despite the school, many of them are ignorant."
"Don't be so hard on yourself. You seem to do more than most landlords. It makes me view my father's cottages with shame," she said truthfully as they headed back to the Castle three hours later.
"Well, now that you're learning too, perhaps you can do something to change it."
She met his gaze and nodded. "I might at that. I'm not that useful, I know, but I can try. I'm an extra pair of hands, if nothing else."
"You're far more than that, as you shall come to learn. Come, let us gallop back," he said with a grin. "I want to see how well you sit."
She was a good rider, but Thomas was magnificent, like a centaur, completely at one with his mount. She found herself asking him for lessons, and they chatted about horses all the way back to the Castle.
"Misty is certainly a beautiful stepper. Thank you for letting me use her."
"No bone-setters and screws here. I'm proud of my horses, though I know an ordinary mount will be just as serviceable."
"You are allowed your little indulgences, so long as you can afford them," she said in a bantering tone.
His emerald gaze daggered her. "Why thank you. Spoken like a true wife."
Her eyes widened. "Oh, I didn't mean-"
But the warm atmosphere which had sprung up between them had already chilled. Drat it all, she had not meant to sound so reproachful.
But his warm, boyish expression had vanished as fleetingly as it had arrived. She wondered what dark place he went to in his mind when his eyes began to glitter so grimly as they did now.
They separated to bathe and change before breakfast, the intimacy of the morning now gone like the mist on the hills. She hurried with her toilette, not wanting him to think her too vain, but he was already half way through his meal by the time she came down. He also frowned at her rather low-cut frock with evident disapproval.
He tried to be cordial at during the meal, but she had the feeling he was forcing himself. He read out from the paper to her, but as she had imagined, much of it was stock and grain prices, topics she had never taken an interest in before.
"Well, since you're so concerned about our monetary situation, I should think you would like to take a more active interest," he said in a flat tone. "Prices are high with the war on, but there will come a time when they will fall very low. We must be prepared for it."
"Please, Thomas, I don't wish to talk of money all the time."
"Well, then, we shall have to start upon your course of study, the better for us to improve our conversation, so that you will find it more to your liking," he said, barely keeping the anger out of his voice.
This only depressed her further, for she had no idea what to do about his suppressed fury. She also felt a fool compared with Thomas and his friends, who came in shortly after from a brisk walk to join them at their repast.
She did try to join in, but it was sad to see that they had so little in common. Or was it that she wasn't willing to make the effort?
She realized that if she took the trouble to listen, rather than try to interject a bon mot all the time, she was quite interested in what they had to say, and was able to learn quite a lot.
After breakfast, Thomas made sure Charlotte was dressed warmly in a thick cloak and boots, and took her out to see the rest of estate in the carriage. She had seen the castle and its surrounds, and he now drew a map for her and wrote in the names of all the cottagers on the properties. She was impressed to see that he knew all their names and exactly where they lived.
He took her around the sawmill, grain mill, the blacksmith's and carpenters, so that she could get her bearings. The estate was completely self-sufficient.
"And I try to run my all my estates along those line as well. No sense in buying it if we can make it ourselves."
She could not fail to be impressed. The tenants were models of industry, and the cottages filled with the fine produce of the workers and craftsmen.
When the people became too old to work, there was a system in place to make sure that they wanted for nothing. Firewood, coal, candles and food were brought for them by the young people, and they were not left alone to pine for company.
Charlotte could see where she could help: visiting, cleaning, and sewing for those unable to do it themselves.
Thomas approved the notion with an appreciative nod, and they returned to the Castle for dinner. She could see he looked a bit doubtful as to her sincerity, but she resolved then and there that she would keep her word and follow through with the proposed scheme no matter what.
The rest of the guests were by now downstairs and exclaiming over the fine weather. The snow had not lingered, and so neither did those who had stayed overnight to avoid the worst of the storm.
Only Thomas's special friends remained to keep them company, and they would be leaving too at the end of the week.
Then she would only have Thomas and his sister for company, though they had all agreed that they would continue to rehearse their play with a view to putting it on in the parish hall at the end of February.
"It will be rather splendid," Jonathan said with subdued excitement. "I do so love a good play."
"And are so talented at acting," Sarah said with a fond smile.
"I imagine you all have a great deal of practice putting on such performances?"
"Yes, all of the Rakehells, at school and college, and even those of our set who were in the Army. Jonathan was the toast of the mess for his prodigious abilities," Thomas revealed.
Charlotte looked at the handsome young vicar with renewed interest. No one in her family usually did more than tolerate clergymen, since more often than not they were just inconsequential younger sons of not very prominent families.
But there was something so lively about Jonathan Deveril, he could not fail to be welcome wherever he went. And his family could not be all that obscure if he had such an excellent education and he was on such intimate terms with the Duke.
"Now, Thomas, don't forget to mention your own part in the amateur theatricals. And the fact that you are blessed with an excellent memory as well."
Thomas bowed to his friend humbly.
Clifford laughed. "And I make up a very poor third. Though I have to say I'm very lucky at cards." He winked at his wife. "But Thomas's popularity was equally prodigious. He always made sure the men in his care were fed and occupied. For cricket, croquet, greased pig chases, you name it, Thomas was our man."
Charlotte giggled. "Greased pigs?"
"Aye, he would buy one, let the men chase after it, and whoever caught it got first choice of the roast meat afterwards."
She looked slightly shocked. "I thought you didn't approve of hunting? That's what you told my father."
"To hunt for a creature you have no intention of eating is a sin. To while away the grim hours and keep the men I was responsible for fed and healthy, that was not."
"And speaking of," Sarah said, trying to diffuse the mild tension in the air, "why don't we finish eating and then plan our entertainments for the rest of the d
ay?"
"Good idea," Thomas said, taking his new bride's arm with a bow. "I promise, there won't be a greased pig in sight."
She smiled up at him, and the tense moment dissipated like dandelion fluff. She simply had to trust him, not always look for faults, hypocrisy. They were wed now, after all. There really was nothing else to do but make the best of it.
After they had eaten, Charlotte expressed a desire to see her aunt's new abode, which they had passed in their travels, but had not stopped at given the early hour.
"I need to make sure that she's well, and does not want for anything."
"You will forgive me if I don't go with you, my dear," Thomas said curtly.
"I would be happy to accompany her," Sarah offered kindly.
With a stranger in tow, her aunt could not behave too badly. Charlotte accepted the offer gratefully, and Thomas ordered the carriage around, with an admonition to not be too long.
Charlotte felt as though she were escaping from a prison. She had never had to accede to anyone's wishes before. Her father really had been most indulgent, and her aunt careless.
Thomas, on the other hand, wanted and indeed expected every day to be filled to the brim with useful and purposeful activity.
She just wanted to sit and contemplate the enormity of what she had done. And, if the truth be told, daydream a bit about the confusing man she had married. He could be so charming one minute, and so aloof the next.
Well, she did not blame him for being cross with her aunt. In fact, the lovely little cottage he had put her in was more than she deserved. Yet she did nothing but complain about how small it was.
It actually had four downstairs rooms, and four upper ones, thus being far larger for one person than was warranted, though perhaps not as great as having the run of her old house, or the Castle.
Yet to hear her aunt complain as they moved from chamber to chamber, one would have thought she had been put in a coalhole.
Finally she had to say, "But Aunt Margaret, I can see nothing wrong with it." She indicated with a wave of her hand the charming, spacious sitting room in primrose and gold.
"The size of each room is ample, the cottage modern and clean. Is it not better to have your own establishment, than to have to be dependent upon myself and my husband for everything?"
"In a house the size of the Castle, no room can be found for me?" her aunt demanded.
"It's not that. It is simply impractical to have you there with us. I don't want you to trouble yourself over my comings and goings any longer. I am a grown woman now."
"Aye, you'll be growing soon enough," her aunt said with a sneer at her stomach.
"I've done nothing wrong," she hissed, hoping Sarah had not heard.
"So you say, but I know differently. Once you've tasted the joys of Venus-"
"I refuse to listen to any more of this disgusting talk." She gathered her cloak and gloves, and pushed past Sarah and out the front door.
Her aunt's shrill voice demanded that she come back, but she stepped into the carriage without a moment's pause. Angry tears wet her cheeks as she demanded the driver take them home as soon as Sarah stepped up.
The older girl did so nimbly, but not soon enough for Charlotte. All the way home, her aunt's shrill tones echoed in her ears...
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Charlotte had been greatly distressed by her visit to her shockingly worldly aunt. It was some time before she regained sufficient equanimity to rejoin her guests in the reception rooms downstairs.
To her relief, Thomas did not press her for details, merely looked at his wife appraisingly throughout supper. She participated desultorily in the general talk of the three Ws as Jonathan Deveril put it, the weather, the war, and the wedding.
But even their favorite topcs could scarcely contain his eagerness to start rehearsing the play She Stoops to Conquer.
She had to stand up to practice with Thomas, but felt as though they were miles apart, so preoccupied was she with her aunt's strange behavior.
One would have thought she would be thrilled at her good fortune. Instead she acted as though Charlotte had done something disgraceful by marrying, when eloping would have been so much worse as to be almost unimaginable to Charlotte now. How could the woman have encouraged her to behave so badly?
Gradually, however, Charlotte had to pay more attention to the play so as to not show herself up completely in front of the others. At least it was very amusing, and it was nice to be physically close to her husband. He would touch her lightly, casually, and she would thrill at the contact. It was a sweet torture to be with him thus.
"All right, once more, from the beginning," Jonathan commanded.
Thomas and Charlotte took their places, and she began.
"I vow, Mr. Hardcastle, you're very particular. Is there a creature in the whole country but ourselves, that does not take a trip to town now and then, to rub off the rust a little? There's the two Miss Hoggs, and our neighbor Mrs. Grigsby, go to take a month's polishing every winter."
"Ay, and bring back vanity and affectation to last them the whole year. I wonder why London cannot keep its own fools at home! In my time, the follies of the town crept slowly among us, but now they travel faster than a stagecoach. Its fopperies come down not only as inside passengers, but in the very basket."
Charlotte blushed as red as a peony, wondering if the clergyman had intended the play as an oblique moral lesson to her for her worldly ways.
"Ay, your times were fine times indeed; you have been telling us of them for many a long year. Here we live in an old rumbling mansion, that looks for all the world like an inn, but that we never see company. Our best visitors are old Mrs. Oddfish, the curate's wife, and little Cripplegate, the lame dancing-master; and all our entertainment your old stories of Prince Eugene and the Duke of Marlborough. I hate such old-fashioned trumpery."
"And I love it. I love everything that's old: old friends, old times, old manners, old books, old wine; and I believe, Dorothy," he said, taking her hand, "you'll own I have been pretty fond of an old wife."
Charlotte pretended to be offended with his affectionate ways, though inwardly she thrilled at the warm caress of his thumb upon the back of her hand.
"Lord, Mr. Hardcastle, you're for ever at your Dorothys and your old wives. You may be a Darby, but I'll be no Joan, I promise you. I'm not so old as you'd make me, by more than one good year. Add twenty to twenty, and make money of that."
"Let me see; twenty added to twenty makes just fifty and seven."
"It's false, Mr. Hardcastle; I was but twenty when I was brought to bed of Tony, that I had by Mr. Lumpkin, my first husband; and he's not come to years of discretion yet."
"Nor ever will, I dare answer for him," Thomas said with a shake of his head, in a mournful tone which suited the character admirably. "Aye, you have taught him finely."
"No matter. Tony Lumpkin has a good fortune. My son is not to live by his learning. I don't think a boy wants much learning to spend fifteen hundred a year."
"Learning, quotha! A mere composition of tricks and mischief."
Charlotte hesitated, but then recalled her line and delivered it perfectly. "Humour, my dear; nothing but humour. Come, Mr. Hardcastle, you must allow the boy a little humour." She took his hand and he tried not to smile down at her.
"I'd sooner allow him a horse-pond. If burning the footmen's shoes, frightening the maids, and worrying the kittens be humour, he has it. It was but yesterday he fastened my wig to the back of my chair, and when I went to make a bow, I popt my bald head in Mrs. Frizzle's face."
Charlotte too stifled a smile, impressed with her husband's acting ability. "And am I to blame? The poor boy was always too sickly to do any good. A school would be his death. When he comes to be a little stronger, who knows what a year or two's Latin may do for him?"
"Latin for him! A cat and fiddle. No, no; the alehouse and the stable are the only schools he'll ever go to."
"Well, we must not snub the
poor boy now, for I believe we sha'n't have him long among us. Anybody that looks in his face may see he's consumptive," Charlotte said, trying to sound for all the world like and indulgent and doting mother.
"Ay, if growing too fat be one of the symptoms," Thomas retorted in character.
"He coughs sometimes."
"Yes, when his liquor goes the wrong way," Thomas returned with a sarcastic roll of his handsome emerald eyes.
The Rakehell Regency Romance Series Boxed Set 1 Page 53
