by Joan Smith
Every dish set before me brought up some happy memory of a meal shared with Norman. A great ball of misery stuck in my throat, like a physical thing, impeding the passage of food. Now when I looked into the mirror I saw a pale woman with hollows at the back of her cheeks. Her dark eyes looked sad. When she tried to smile it was a travesty. The only emotion other than grief that came easily, it seemed, was anger. Why had He done it? It wasn’t better to have loved and lost. It was ever so much worse. I was never mean and miserable before I met Norman.
But I must overcome this angry grief. The Blythes had kindly invited me to Blythe Wyngate to meet them, to stay with them, and I would be a civil guest and relation, and perhaps a resident. I wouldn’t try to forget Norman. Why should I? He was the best thing that had ever happened to me. Instead I would discover things about his youth, for really he had told me remarkably little about it. I would make a friend of his half-brother, Homer, who resembled Norman enough to be entirely pleasing to me without in any way exciting those stronger feelings I had formerly enjoyed. He would be like a brother. While I stared unseeing at the reflection in the mirror, a discreet tap was heard at my door.
“Come in,” I called.
It was a female servant asking me if I could spare a moment to go to see Lady Blythe. I did not, at that time, think of myself as Lady Blythe. I knew she referred to Homer’s mother, and went with curiosity to meet her.
Chapter 2
Lady Blythe the elder endeared herself to me at once by exclaiming, “Oh my, aren’t you pretty!” as soon as I stepped to her bedside. I have a little weakness for vanity, engendered and increased by my late husband’s high praise. Before Norman, I never considered myself beautiful.
The dame had some fading traces of beauty herself. Her hair was gray, but the black hairs mixed with white showed it had once been ebony. The bones were superb—high brow, sculptured nose, high cheekbones, and a strong chin. The flesh was somewhat wilted, but the dark eyes were still lively, and the rouge pot had bestowed some temporary color to her face. She had performed a careful toilette: her hair was nicely groomed, and she had an elegant mauve mohair shawl around her shoulders. I was happy she was not a whining sort of invalid, as I had been imagining.
“Do come in and sit beside me, my dear,” she urged, pointing to a chair. “These old eyes don’t see so far as they used to. I have a pair of spectacles, but am much too vain to wear them in front of a new acquaintance. Later on, you will see me in them.” They rested on her bedside table.
“I am happy to meet you,” I said. She lifted her cheek to me for a little kiss. I was strangely moved by the gesture, I had never kissed a woman’s cheek before—had never had a good enough friend to do this. The cheek was smooth and soft, and a pleasant floral smell emanated from her.
“And I am delighted to meet you, Davinia. May I call you Davinia? I have got our relationship all figured out. I am your stepmother-in-law. Isn’t that dreadful? Either title by itself is enough to sink me, but we shall forget all about relationships and be plain friends, if you please. Female company is sadly lacking in this house. My name is Thalassa. My mama ought to be horsewhipped for it, but I had an aunt by the name with piles of money, you see, who had to be catered to. She married a broken-down horse trader when she was forty years old, and left every penny of it to him, so I have had a life of suffering for naught. I call myself Thal, and hope you will do likewise. I was called Lassie when I was a girl, but never could abide the name. What do folks call you?”
“Norman called me Davie.”
“I shan’t trespass on that name,” she said, with great understanding. “We were all shattered to hear of Norman’s death. So sudden, and unexpected. What caused it, or is it too painful to talk about?”
“Ignoring it doesn’t make it go away. Of course you are curious, and I don’t mind talking about it; Norman died in his sleep. The doctor thought it was heart failure.”
“That’s all?” she asked, her mobile brows rising high.
“What do you mean?”
“He was young to die of heart failure! Had he had attacks before? Had he been exercising violently, under any great strain?”
“No. He rode pretty hard that afternoon, but seemed only pleasantly tired at dinner. In the evening he worked on his book—on Roman antiquities in Britain, you know. He was quite an expert.”
“He used to go on a dig once in a while with Jarvis. I remember once he brought me some bit of flint or an old coin to admire. He was not—now, pray do not take a pet, my dear, but he was not drinking heavily, by any chance?”
“Oh no! A few glasses of sherry, drunk slowly during the course of the evening. Two, I think. Norman never drank more than was good for him.”
“I am happy to hear it. Naturally we all wondered what could have caused it. We thought, having nothing else to think, that he must have fallen while drunk, or some such thing. Your letter, you know, only said that he had died suddenly. Homer wrote asking if it was an accident, you perhaps recall, and you assured him it was not, but didn’t explain what had happened.”
“I’m sorry I left you in confusion. I was very busy at the time, with arrangements to be made, and also very disturbed in my own mind. That was poorly done of me.”
“You must have been totally distracted, poor child. You should have let Homer go to you, as he wanted to.”
“It is a long, wearying trip, and to what purpose, Thal? He was already dead and buried. The business affairs to be attended to were to be done here.”
“Homer will go into all that with you soon, when you are recovered from that grueling trip. There is no real consolation one can offer at such a time as this. I often wonder, while I lie here through the long days, why God decided to throw me from a horse and destroy my spine. Well, He did it, and no doubt He had his reasons, but at times we mere mortals would be happy for some elucidation. You may be sure it is all for the best. That’s what I tell myself. I don’t always believe me, but I try to. It is the only way. Otherwise we would grow into angry beasts, hating God and the world and everyone in it. Don’t let that happen, child. You are much too young, and pretty.” She looked at me closely, with that same curiosity and surprise I had seen in her son’s eyes. Had my angry grief left its traces on me?
Soon she spoke on. “You have your youth, your health, a home where you will always be welcome. Let it be enough,” she said softly, patting my hand.
Her words, revealing how well she understood my mind, were some consolation. I vowed I would try to match her bravery, and her optimism. I blinked away a tear. I was suddenly aware that she was squeezing my hand very hard. She was still strong, though an invalid.
“Time is the best healer,” she added gently. “Mind you, a little glass of wine helps in the off moments. Shall we? No, you are wanted below for dinner. I shall have a glass by myself, and dip into this charming novel Homer has found for me. Charles Dickens. He’s a wonder, that man. A gift from God to us poor invalids. So prolific one can hardly keep pace with him. I am reading about Little Nell, and feel myself fortunate compared to her. If she dies, I shall write Mr. Dickens a stiff rebuke. Surely he could not be so cruel. And if you know, pray don’t tell me. Homer always does.”
“I haven’t read it. I must go now. May I come back tomorrow?” There was no charity in the request. I liked the woman very much. I had a feeling I had found a new friend.
“You never have to ask, Davinia. Mi chambra, tu chambra. I don’t know if that is proper Spanish, or even if it is Spanish at all, but you know what I mean. The door is always open.”
“Happy reading.”
I left, my heart a little lighter. What a difference one single friend who understands can make. I even imagined I had found a mother at last. She would not have offered her cheek to just anyone.
* * * *
They set an elegant table at Wyngate. Silver and crystal sparkled on the linen cloth. A floral centerpiece of flowers not in season told me there was a conservatory somewhere on the
grounds. The china was patterned with dainty roses, gold rimmed, delicate and fine. The cups were fluted. My eyes were nearly as busy as Mrs. Winton’s in assessing the table. Besides the two gentlemen met when we entered, there was an unknown female there. She was introduced as Miss Dennison, which alerted me to her identity. Norman’s mother’s maiden name was Dennison. This then was his Aunt Millicent, who made her home at Wyngate.
“So you’re Norman’s lady,” she said, smiling brightly. She looked positively ancient. A thin fringe of aging yellow hair hung over her brow; the rest of her hair was knotted into a tight ball on the top of her head. She had a wizened, wrinkled little monkey face and bright brown eyes. Her shoulders were frightfully hunched, throwing her head forward at a perilous angle, as though she might tumble to the floor at any moment. “He had good taste, hadn’t he, Homer, eh?” she asked, smiling wickedly.
“Excellent taste. We have placed you here on my left, Aunt Millie,” Homer said, helping her to her chair. She dragged her feet along the carpet at a laggardly gait. “And you, Davinia, on my right,” he added, drawing my chair out.
“We’ll share him,” Millie said, laughing.
Before she could say more, Jarvis spoke up. “We are uneven. We ought to have had Cousin Bulow to dinner.” He held Mrs. Winton’s chair while he spoke.
“He has promised to come tomorrow to meet Davinia,” Homer said, taking his own place at the head of the table.
“I get to say grace. You promised, Homer,” Miss Dennison said, like a child. “You said if I’d take a bath I could eat with Norman’s wife, and if I put my teeth in, I could say grace.”
“Please go ahead,” Homer said, exchanging a mortified look with his Uncle Jarvis, while I swallowed a smile at his predicament. Senile relatives can be such a nuisance in a polite household, but I was happy to see she was tolerated with kindness. It spoke well of the family’s generosity. Homer threw one brief glance at me, to see how I was reacting. I smiled my compassion at him, my understanding and approval. Meanwhile, Millie began her grace.
“Thank you, God, for this lovely looking meal,” she said, eyeing the table greedily. “May the roast be moist and the taties dry. May the sweets be choice, and the spirits high. There, I composed that specially for you, Davinia.”
“That was lovely. I am honored,” I told her.
“Why, you’re quite a poet, Miss Dennison,” Mrs. Winton remarked, with great condescension.
“I am a genius,” Miss Dennison replied, in the same spirit. “Get cutting that roast up, Homer, and don’t give me the burnt end either. I can’t chew it with these demmed new teeth. I like mine pink and tender. Jarvis, pass along the horseradish and mustard or everything will be stone cold. Davinia, the first glass is for you,” she said, lifting her wineglass and gulping thirstily, after which she smacked her lips.
“We are beginning with fish this evening,” Homer told her, in a repressive manner.
“Damme. You can leave me out. I don’t want my throat full of bones that keep me coughing all night. I’ll have some of that bread and butter while the rest of you have fish. Pass the bread, Jarvis.”
That was the end of Miss Dennison’s conversation for several minutes. While the rest of us ate fish and made small talk, she gorged on three slices of bread and butter, but still had her plate under Homer’s nose the instant he hit pink meat in his carving.
“More, I can handle three slices since you’re shaving them so thin,” she told him. “No, better make it two. I want to leave room for the sweet. We are having a berry trifle, Davinia. I helped cook to make it. I whipped the cream all by myself.”
“That’s nice. I like trifles,” I told her, pretending to find nothing amiss in her outspokenness.
“You must watch your figure, Miss Dennison, or you will become stout,” Mrs. Winton chided.
“Watch your own. You’d make two of me, with fat left over,” Miss Dennison told her bluntly, and truthfully too.
“Aunt Millicent, that will be enough,” Homer said sharply. “You had better apologize to Mrs. Winton.”
“Sorry dear. Only fooling,” Miss Dennison said, and laughed slyly.
“That is quite all right, Sir Homer,” my companion said. “I take no account of such things. We met a little idiot boy in the roadway just as we came in. Woodie, he said his name was,” she added, to show the family in what light she considered Miss Dennison.
Jarvis leapt at the excuse to change the subject. “Durwood is the lad’s name,” he told her. “He has been as you saw him since birth, poor fellow. They never could teach him to read or write, but he is perfectly harmless, you know.”
“I can read and write, if that is what she’s getting at!” Millicent said loudly.
“Your meat is growing cold,” Homer told her.
“How old is the boy?” I asked, to forestall Millicent’s next remark.
“Thirty-six or seven. Thereabouts,” Jarvis said.
“We took him for a very child,” Mrs. Winton exclaimed. “He is small.”
“Body and mind, both were held back,” Jarvis told us, with a sad shake of the head. “He has spent his life in idleness. It’s all he is good for.”
One had to wonder why he had been created. Another mystery, to add to Thalassa’s accident, and Norman’s death.
“What was your own line of work, Mr. Blythe?” she enquired, as inquisitive about a house of strangers as though they were to be her intimates for the next few decades.
These people meant more to me, however, and I listened with interest to hear his answer. “I am a retired politician, ma’am. I spent the active part of my life at Westminster.”
“Then you would know our Queen! Davinia has a great fondness for her. What is she like?”
“She was a gay, charming lady in her youth. She settled down very fast after she married Prince Albert and began her nursery. But she never let her growing family or anything else interfere with duty. They do say she feels her loss very much. I haven’t seen her for over a year now. I wrote her my sympathy, and have a note back from her. She says she never will recover, and I believe her.”
“Foolishness,” Miss Dennison told us, her eyes flashing. “The dead are dead, and no amount of moping and whining will bring them back. What she needs is a new husband, and I hope she makes it an Englishman this time.”
It was unlikely that a lady of Queen Victoria’s years would be looking about for another husband, but Miss Dennison’s eyes had soon turned to me, to include me in her advice. “You will enjoy to meet Cousin Bulow tomorrow, Davinia,” she added, in what seemed to me a most pointed way.
Dinner passed with no more outrages from the dame. Sir Homer was polite but rather quiet. His eyes were busier than his tongue. He listened and looked—mostly he looked at me. I began to wonder what was amiss with me, that he so often stole glances at me. Was my face dirty, my hair mussed? I thought not; there was no air of disapproval about him. His first curiosity and surprise were softening to approval, or so I thought.
When we left the table, we women retired to the gold saloon, where Mrs. Winton busied herself quizzing Miss Dennison, and receiving very little information for her trouble, save what she could pick up from oblique comments. But then she is good at that.
“Maybe Homer will loosen the purse strings, now that you are here,” she said, after a perfectly audible belch had escaped her.
“The house is run in a high style,” Mrs. Winton told her. “Everything is shipshape. The table well set, many servants, from what I can see. That topiary must require a deal of work.”
“He threatens to let it go back to nature, but his own mother put her foot down there. It was used to be his father’s pride and joy, you know. Unnatural, I call it. If you are interested in a real garden, Davinia, I shall show you my herb garden. Soon it will be in bloom. Then I shall be busy. Meanwhile, I must get to work in my laboratory. I’ll show it to you another time. I’m too busy tonight. Homer says I mustn’t take my teeth out in front of you eith
er, and they ache. The tooth drawer made them too tight. You have a good sound set of teeth. My, so pretty. It’s going to be fun watching them.”
“My teeth?” I asked in confusion.
“Eh? No, no, Homer and Bulow. They will be at daggers drawn over you, so pretty. I used to be pretty once. Good night. Sleep tight.”
“Good night, Miss Dennison,” I said.
“Good night to you too, Mrs.—what was the name again, dear?”
“Winton. Mrs. Winton.”
“Never heard of them, but good night anyway. Homer said to be polite.”
Mrs. Winton rolled up her eyes at the departing form, which moved at a livelier gait than before. “I cannot imagine why they let that one roam free to insult their guests. She belongs in a padded room.”
“She’s harmless.”
“She is offensive to anyone of any sensibility. You must use your influence to have her kept out of company’s way after you are settled in, Davinia. The house needs a woman’s hand. I shall go up and say how do you do to Lady Blythe. I want to make her acquaintance before I leave, and she might be abed tomorrow morning. Reverend Clark will want to hear about her.”
I was sitting alone when the gentlemen returned from the dining room. Jarvis soon excused himself. “I usually puff a cloud after dinner. You will excuse me, Davinia. We old gentlemen become set in our ways. It takes very little to put us out of humor. Homer will entertain you.”
“Don’t interrupt your usual schedule for me. I don’t have to be entertained, but I would be happy to become better acquainted, Homer,” I said, turning to include him.
