by Poppy
"Not for rough country walking, no. Now you stop stamping and glaring, Poppy. You'd have reason to get into a taking if he'd decided your legs were so bad we had to keep you in pantalets until you get your gentleman spoken for and announced. Instead there he is at your feet, so stand on his paper nicely."
Poppy was so shocked at the pair of them she stood up and stayed quietly on the paper while Dex outlined both her feet with his pencil. Then he neatly pulled out the papers, stuffed them in his pocket, and bounced to his feet.
As he picked up his hat and cane, Dex smiled, tawny eyes glinting. "There are no woods pleasantly soft for idling in Cornwall, so I'll make sure these are sturdy. Daisy, you'll hear from Lord Westmoreland."
When the door closed behind him, Poppy stormed. She even managed to squeeze out a few tears. She did not know why Daisy trusted this Dexter Roack an inch. He was devious, cunning, out for something for himself. He was not doing this for them out of a good heart. He wanted something, and somehow they would pay well for all this apparent generosity. He was a banker, a man who made books balance and always in his favor. Somewhere, concealed in this plan to send them to Cornwall,there was treachery and trouble for them.
"He's doing a favor for his rich client, Lord Westmoreland," Daisy said comfortably. ''Two at once, Westmoreland and us."
"Why us?" Poppy broke off and stared at Daisy with sudden shock. She stammered, ''You haven't-you and he--you weren't-you've never even mentioned him."
"I don't shout out the name of every gentleman I meet," Daisy said tartly. "Now wipe that look off your face. I don't deny we've looked each other up and down, him at me and me at him. But he's an unsettled kind of gentleman and not one to consider for a permanent arrangement."
"You would? If he were? Settled."
Daisy fluffed her curls complacently. "He's pleasant," she admitted. "Besides, I believe he's very rich. It's a family bank, you know, with branches all over the world."
''You would," Poppy gasped. "If he offered,"
"We're friendly, but you're the one who's lacking an offer, young lady." Daisy managed a proper, matronly expression. "So don't you go looking gift horses in the mouth. And stop acting so missish."
"You call me missish when he's shipping us off to some desolate place to do his fine Lordship a favor? At our expense? Probably he's using me as a carrot, just as you guessed, and anything could happen to me away off there in a lonely house belonging to a wild young gentleman not even his father can control."
"I'll be there," Andy said.
"Burning it down around our heads."
"Stop screeching like a lunatic banshee," Daisy said. "Lord Westmoreland's boy is in Paris. Dex said so."
"No. He said he was going to France."
"Exactly. And don't muddle your head worrying about his plans. He's always got a dozen irons in the fire, but I don't doubt he has something in mind for you. Maybe he has a rich client who's looking for a pretty young wife and who'll be grateful to the man who helps him. Dex is just keeping you safe. You'll be no good for marriage to anyone if you keep on the way you've been and are spoiled."
"A rich old man. A fat old man. Like Mr. Hammett's friend. With a dozen crying brats. So terrible nobody will have him."
"Now, miss, you stop creating a scene and go upstairs and look over your clothes," Daisy said, impatient at last. "Andy, I'll come up and go over yours. Mrs. Peters will have to wash tonight and iron in the morning."
Poppy grasped at one last small thread of hope. "Maybe Lord Westmoreland won't agree after all. And you don't even know where this place is."
Chapter Seven
"I hate you," Poppy told the sturdy brown walking boots. "I hate you, and I hope you never find Westmoreland's heir and have to come crawling back to England in utter dejection."
Wrapped in her flannel dressing gown against Cornwall's damp and chill, she sat in front of the fire in her room at Sutcliffe Manor and turned the shoes in her hands. They were beautifully made by Dex's own boot-maker, but she would have thrown them straight into the fire except that without them she would have been housebound.
A rocky Elba, that was what this place was. Even while she had packed that evening in London, she had hoped Lord Westmoreland would have second thoughts and be as outraged as she was at Dex's suggestion. They were at breakfast the next morning when the knocker sounded and a man in livery handed Mrs. Peters an envelope. In it were tickets on the night train to Cornwall, but first-class this time, and a cordial note from Lord Westmoreland.
Messages had been sent, and they were expected. The tickets were on that night's train so they could be met at the end of the line in the morning to complete the trip by daylight.
Poppy's heart sank. The end of the line. Where was this place? She knew Cornwall was a long, narrow peninsula, a rockbound coast thrust out into the Atlantic, an old place of superstitions and legends .Strange stories were told about ships trading from Crete; Roman soldiers; King Arthur; and even older people than those, who had left great slabs to mark their burial places. She had heard Cornwall was a wild and foggy place at the very end of England, peopled by miners and seamen who were not like other English.
For once, she missed The Rev, who had told her all that and could have told her more. Then the knocker sounded again, and another messenger had a parcel to give Peters. He was sputtering so much they could hear only part of what he said. "Mr. Roack and his father before him and is Lordship and his father. Never, never, never less than a week for a fitting, not our quality. Impossible. Un'eard of. Bespoke to the gentry, up to the 'ighest, and always delivered as promised."
Poppy's first impulse had been to run to the door and throw the parcel after the messenger. But she opened it and found that the boots were perfect-strong, but as soft as the skin of her hands, boots that should last half a lifetime. She packed them and seethed again when another messenger arrived with books for Andy.
He went whooping around the house talking at the top of his lungs about the gentleman of gentlemen who had enclosed a note saying more books would be sent from France to Cornwall.
On the train Poppy was almost speechless with suppressed emotion. Never before had she felt at once so helpless and so angry. She had ten shillings in her purse, and she could not think of a single way she could earn more to support herself, even if she had been willing to abandon Andy. She was being shipped off to Cornwall like a brown paper parcel neatly done up with string, to be held until Daisy or that conscienceless Dex could find some even deeper hole in which to bury her.
For once, she and Andy were not in perfect harmony. He thought the first-class carriage very grand, even though it was cold, and he could only sit and hold the books he could not read in the dark. He was still wild with anticipation when they arrived in the morning. Poppy stumbled out onto the platform and, through a fine mist of salty rain, saw a huddle of houses dropping down to a small harbor. She took a deep breath and clapped her handkerchief over her nose. The place reeked of fish. Then she saw the carriage and knew it was all going to be worse than she had dreamed. That lumbering, springless style was at least thirty years old, and the coachman's livery was creased and faded from being folded away and plainly had been cut for a larger man.
The coach jolted along a road that ran between marshy moors. Only a few stunted trees and tangles of brambles and rocks broke the barren desolation. The few poor cottages were widely scattered. On the last miles of the ride, the rain turned into a heavy fog, and Poppy could only see that they had left the road and were driving on a weed-grown path along a high ledge that dropped off abruptly. She could hear the sea below pounding heavily on the shore. She could not count the miles in this place without landmarks, but she knew they were on a long, isolated point of land thrusting out into the sullen sea. They were indeed exiles.
The house, a massive pile of gray rock, emerged through the drifting streamers of fog and loomed darkly against the colorless sky. No lights showed, except a flickering yellow glow as the heavy fro
nt door swung slowly open.
Poppy stumbled from the carriage, thinking only of a warm fire and something hot to drink. Trying to control her chattering teeth, she walked into a dank, cold, enormous hall lit by candles that wavered wildly in the draft. A tall, lank woman with black hair pulled back from her sallow face held a six-branched candlestick. An immaculate white lace apron over her black lace dress proclaimed her the housekeeper.
"One moment," she said as they stood shivering, stiff and sore from the jolting. "I am Mrs. Wilkins, the housekeeper. Before you go to your rooms, I wish to acquaint you with certain rules I have established in accordance with His Lordship's wishes for your comfort and safety."
Poppy listened, numbed past speech by exhaustion and shock. So Andy could work at the manor smithy on such days as the traveling smith was there and otherwise could occupy himself in any pursuits proper to a young gentleman, such as reading in the library or rambling no farther than an hour's stroll away. It was easy to get lost on the moors. He and Poppy might also attend services in the manor chapel when the curate from the nearest town found it possible to hold them. Under no circumstances were they to go out in a boat with any of the fishermen who had cottages along the shore of the estate. They were to avoid all old mine structures or holes in the cliffs, as the abandoned tin workings were crumbling and extremely dangerous. Andy nodded and yawned as Mrs. Wilkins turned her sharp, disapproving gaze on Poppy. She was welcome to ride wherever she liked, and she could have her choice of any suitable horse in the stables. Poppy's shoulders sagged. That could only mean there was nobody interesting, possibly not even a village, within easy riding distance. She also, Mrs. Wilkins went on, was welcome to walk along the shore, although she would see for herself that the rocks and riptides made swimming impossible. Poppy felt colder than ever. Somebody had briefed Mrs. Wilkins well. This woman was an enemy, a jailer, barely disguised in her rustling black silk dress and fine lace apron.
Mrs. Wilkins finished her speech. Both of them were to appear promptly at table for midday dinner and tea and be in their rooms by nine in the evening. For today, a light meal would be served to them upstairs, and hot water would be brought for bathing.
By the time she stumbled up the wide stairway and along the broad upper hall behind a plump, pleasant-faced maid who had appeared out of the darkness, any pleasure Poppy might have felt in her large, luxurious room was smothered under a slowly growing icy resentment. She looked around indifferently. This comer room must have been furnished for a daughter of the house, with its pretty blue curtains, matching bed canopy, and heavy, patterned, blue rug, but they might as well have put bars on the windows and labeled it a nursery or a jail. She was neither an infant nor a criminal.
Dorcas brought pitchers of steaming hot water to fill the hip bath, unpacked hastily, and hurried off to attend Andy. Poppy was so determined not to allow herself to be imprisoned here that she barely listened to Andy's excited chatter when he came in to share their meal. The food, served in front of the blazing fire, was ample and delicious, with hot Cornish pasty and fresh berries accompanied by heavy cream. Poppy ate it as indifferently as if it had been sawdust until she noticed the heavy silver. That would be worth something in London.
She hurried Andy back to his room to read his books. Then ignoring her exhaustion and her soft, turned-down bed, she sat staring into the fire. She must think more and harder about something she could do to make herself independent. Somewhere there must be work she could do.
She wanted decent work. She would not condemn herself to the life-in-death of the streets or a factory. No wife or mother would take her into a respectable household in any capacity. What else was there? Methodically she reviewed the places she had been and the positions in which she had seen women employed. Then she jumped up, eyes blazing with triumph.
That summer by the shore, she had seen dozens of old women, most of them hard-faced and obnoxious, and each of them had had a captive companion at her beck and call. At the time, she had tried not to watch the poor wretched creatures running their legs off on silly errands and listening meekly while they were berated for imaginary faults, for she could picture no more horrible existence. But they at least were free to change one tyrant for another and one town for a new place if the situation grew intolerable.
All at once, she was afire with the idea. She had noticed the old women liked drab, browbeaten companions. They had all looked alike, with sagging shoulders, shabby clothes, downcast eyes, and faces that were only a jumble of the usual features. That could be achieved. The ballet dancers had talked endlessly about tricks of makeup they used in their character roles.
Sagging shoulders were easy. A dress bunched around the middle would conceal her figure. Her brilliantly shining hair was most of the trouble. Hair could be dyed. She caught a bright curl in her fingers and looked at it regretfully, trying to imagine it a dull black. Perhaps dyeing would not be necessary. If she cut it short, a drab brown wig would cover it. The girls had always mentioned how arched brows and color accentuated the eyes. She could shave her brows off and pencil an ugly line Iowan her brow.
She could do all that and appear the ideal companion. She was sure those old ladies had enough trouble keeping the miserable creatures in their bondage that they did not ask too many questions. Once she had worked as a companion, she would get a written character reference to show as proof she had been respectably employed. If she had one that could be traced, she could add a few more, for she would write them herself and sign them with names she knew could not be verified. With three or four good letters, she might be able to aspire to a position as a governess.
All she needed was money to get away and live on until she could find her old woman. She had ten shillings, and that should pay the fare to some sizable town. For the rest, this house must be full of small valuable items she could load into her portmanteau. She could easily carry twenty or thirty pounds of silver such as they had used this evening. That would bring a nice sum. And let Dexter Tremayne Roack answer the questions and replace it if His Lordship made an uproar.
Poppy giggled, then yawned. Everything was going to be all right, and she was ready for a good night's sleep. Tomorrow and for a week or so, she would pretend to be content and throw them off guard. When she did run for it, they would not suspect anything was wrong until she was hours gone and well away.
In a week of riding as far as a horse could carry her between meals, she discovered what she had suspected and was glad she had allowed herself some time. Sutcliffe Manor was on a large, rockbound point of land jutting out into the turbulent sea. A few fishermen's shacks nestled among the rocks on the long shoreline, and a few more small, isolated cottages housed workers on the estate. In all her riding, she had not reached the limits of the vast Westmoreland holdings or seen any sign of a village.
She had never dreamed such a lonely, unpeopled place existed in all England. A few small fishing boats tossed on the rough waters. Rutted, weedy lanes wandered between the cottages, where she sometimes glimpsed a woman or child working in the garden. Stone fences marked off random fields where sheep and horses grazed on the scanty vegetation. For miles around, little life stirred. When she fled, she could only follow along the shore until she came to a village and hope she could find a public stagecoach there to a larger place where she could disappear before she was missed.
Andy was poor company. When he was not at the smithy, he was absorbed in his scientific books. He read them over and over again. Then, with bits of metal he shaped at the forge, he attempted to reproduce some of the things illustrated. He was so completely happy and busy she knew she could leave him there contented until she herself was settled.
She explored the mansion, but the mantels and tables held none of the fine china and silver decorative pieces she had expected. She spent time in the library with its handsome row of five French windows opening out on a terrace. A fire always burned in the fireplace at the west end, although the one at the east end was never lit.
She hoped for something to occupy the long evenings, but the shelves were discouragingly overcrowded, yet empty of anything she wanted to read. They were filled with handsomely bound volumes, many in embossed leathers, but most of the books were in Latin, Greek, or German, and quite beyond her. A few treatises on farming were almost as incomprehensible. She found an old copy of Mrs. Trollope's Domestic Manners of the Americans and two books by Mr. Thackeray, but they did not appeal.
That evening Poppy was desperate for something , fill the empty hours, so she crept downstairs into the library after she was supposed to be in bed. She looked with surprise at a handsome silver tray, filled with heavy decanters and silver goblets, set out before the fire. As far as she knew, nobody had visited the manor since they had arrived.
The rustle of heavy silk skirts warned her but not in time to move away from the loaded tray. Mrs. Wilkins put down a plate of rich cakes and frowned at her across the tray.
"You are supposed to be in bed, miss."
Rage flared through her veins. She was a guest here, and this woman was only the housekeeper. "I did not know you were entertaining here--and so handsomely." She lifted one goblet and admired it mockingly.
