Madeleine Robins

by The Heiress Companion

  “Rowena!”

  She regained her control. “Don’t say anything. I’m not finished yet. I have practically thrown myself at you this morning, not once but twice. Three is reported to be the charm. Do you want me, Lyn, and do you want me enough to disregard my fortune, or my lack of fortune, or your lack of fortune? You’ve said we would not starve if I married you — which is all I ask. I can consign my money to the devil happily if need be. But if you cannot accept that, I will not trouble to humble myself further.”

  “Rowena? God, don’t you understand what I’m afraid of? If I were to come to feel that I’d taken advantage of you — I couldn’t — damn it, I don’t know what to tell you.”

  “Remains only for me to act then,” she said with a lightness she was far from feeling. The tea in her cup was cold and very bitter. “I’m sorry, Lyn. I could have married you and forgotten about the tiresome money entirely. I was quite serious. I’d have lived in a cottage, on broth and bread for the rest of my days, if you’d offered them to me. That’s how foolish I am. But if you cannot do the same, forget that I mentioned it. Forget I — forget I ever came down to breakfast with you. I could have married you with or without the money, but I will not marry you against your will, and certainly not if you’re afraid to become some sort of villain by it.”

  She rose from the table and walked deliberately from the room.

  For a moment Bradwell simply sat, watching, unable to believe what he and she and they together had done. Then, “Rowena!” He sprang from his chair and went to peer out into the hallway. She had vanished. He returned to the table to sit among the wreckage of his forgotten breakfast, head in hands, damning himself for every kind of fool imaginable.

  o0o

  Rowena had not retired to her room to be haunted there by the sight of that brief note — his first and last love letter to her — and her dreams of the night before. Instead, she went into the office and made herself ferociously busy with accounts and inventories. When she heard the door to the breakfast room open and close, and the sound of boot heels vanishing toward the courtyard door, she breathed a little easier and relaxed her grip on the pen between her fingers, feeling the blood flow again. She was too angry to cry, too shattered to do anything but play at toting up rows of figures. In a flash of humor she thought wryly, I shall have to redo all this work tomorrow in any case. But the thought of tomorrow was unpleasant enough to be relegated to the same blackness as the thought of Lyn and the scant day of happiness they had shared.

  After a while — perhaps an hour or more, although Rowena’s sense of time had seemingly deserted her entirely — there was a timid knock on the door and Drummey appeared.

  “I beg your pardon, Miss Cherwood, but there is a woman — a lady at the door, who says that she is Mrs. Cherwood.” His tone betokened utter bafflement, and his slight stress on the word lady said worlds for Drummey’s opinion of the visitor, whatever her birth.

  “Mrs. Cherwood? O no, it couldn’t be!” Rowena collected herself. “Thank you, Drummey. I shall join her directly in the green saloon. And will you send to see if Miss Margaret has arisen yet?”

  “I had taken the liberty to do so, miss,” he assured her, his tone implying a sympathy he could not openly offer.

  “Thank you, then.” Rowena stood to collect herself. In her own mind she imagined she looked a harridan, but the mirror returned the image of a tall, handsome woman, quietly but elegantly dressed in green servant, her dark hair in an informal classical knot atop her head. Her expression was sober, but only her eyes betrayed her inner turmoil and shock. “I shall have to do,” she admonished her reflection, and left for the green saloon.

  A woman was waiting for her there, examining a Chinese vase and, by the look of her, appraising it for every sixpence of its worth. She was short, stocky, with grizzled hair under an elaborate poke-bonnet, and a ruddy complexion fought unsuccessfully with her puce traveling gown. Even that garment’s exquisite tailoring could not hide the defects of a stubby figure and short neck, and Rowena, taking in the sight of the lady, spared a moment to be thankful for Ulysses Ambercot’s sake that Margaret resembled the Cherwoods rather than her mother’s family.

  “Good morning, Aunt Dorothea,” she said quietly. The woman turned.

  “Rowena, my dear!” she said in enthusiastic accents. “But how very poorly you look!”

  Chapter Ten

  The welcome accorded Mrs. Dorothea Cherwood on her arrival at Broak could best be described as cordially distasteful. Lady Bradwell and her sons, as well as Anne Ambercot and her children, had heard enough of the new arrival’s past antics to be guarded, at least, in their welcoming. Margaret, for all she tried to act the dutiful daughter, was stopped from slipping quietly into the role by Ulysses, who took matters in hand with a tact Rowena would have thought above his touch, and made it clear to Mrs. Cherwood with words unspoken that her daughter was now his fiancée, and not to be ill used, even by her mother. After a quick appraisal of a situation that necessitated her arising earlier than she had in years, Lady Bradwell decided that it was safe at least to leave Meggy to Lully’s devoted care. It was Rowena for whom the lady was truly concerned.

  Miss Cherwood, busy directing Mrs. Coffee to establish Mrs. Cherwood in one of the guest rooms and to make sure her maid and grooms were billeted comfortably, assumed for the first time in her months at Broak the mien and carriage of a servant. Lady Bradwell, unaware of the passages between her son and her companion, assumed that the girl’s sudden depression was entirely due to her aunt’s appearance, and took an even firmer dislike to the unpopular Mrs. Cherwood. In fact, the only person in the house who seemed to rub along at all well with Margaret’s mother was Lully’s sister Eliza. “Which, when you come to think of it, makes a dreadful sort of sense,” Lady Bradwell confided to her favorite son. “Dearly as I love Margaret, I cannot help but wonder how long we are to be favored with her mother’s presence.”

  Lyn also had a distracted air, and it took him a moment to recall what the subject of the conversation was. “O, yes. Odious woman. It’s luck for Miss Margaret that Ambercot seems determined to stand up for her. Did you see their meeting, Mamma?”

  Lady Bradwell had not been one of the witnesses to Mrs. Cherwood’s reunion with her youngest daughter, but she had heard all about it. Dorothea Cherwood, unable to wait until the girl could be roused from her bed, dressed, and brought down to the saloon where refreshments had been laid, swept past her niece, up the stairs, trumpeting Margaret’s name. Meg’s maid said later that the girl had risen from a sound sleep with a look of confusion and distress, just in time to be swept to her maternal bosom while Mrs. Cherwood made a romantic and almost unintelligible speech about the strength of a Mother’s Love.

  The household, from scullery to parlor, was displeased by Mrs. Dorothea Cherwood; that day was a very long one.

  It seemed doubly long to Rowena, earnestly pursuing as many tasks as she could decently find for herself, and to Lyn, who had taken himself out to waste good shot in firing at pigeons and crows in the long meadow. Lady Bradwell had descended to greet her unlooked-for guest and, after appraising the situation, deemed it advisable to stay below and guard her nest, sending for reinforcement in the shape of Anne Ambercot. Had Mrs. Cherwood been aware of the stir she was causing at Broak she would have been highly gratified.

  When the party convened at dinner Mrs. Cherwood made herself the focus of attention, or rather, finding herself the focus, made the most of her position. She lectured Jane Ambercot on the proper upkeep of a young lady’s hands, recommending frequent applications of lemon juice followed by Denmark Lotion to remove freckles and preserve a soft and genteel appearance. She suggested to Mrs. Ambercot, with the privilege of one soon to be related, that perhaps her turban was a trifle outré even for the depths of rural Devonshire. She made recommendations in the most confiding manner to Lady Bradwell on a very clever fellow in Eastcheap who did reweaving, for that little patch of fraying carpet on the third-fl
oor stairway, and advised her to air all her tapestries with lavender and comfrey. She made coy remarks to Lord Bradwell and Mr. Ambercot about their nearing nuptial bliss, and advised Mr. Lyndon Bradwell to take his brother’s lead and follow suit. When Mr. Bradwell scowled at this, she suggested salts or hartshorn, or a tisane of chamomile and wintergreen for the headache he appeared to have. And throughout the meal, indeed throughout the evening, she found fault with Rowena.

  She looked positively hagged. Well, Mrs. Cherwood had always thought that Renna’s beauty wasn’t of the lasting sort, and see, the girl had turned down a very advantageous offer which was likely to be the best she would ever get. She would surely never get another if she continued to deteriorate in this fashion, poor thing. Did Renna advise Lady Bradwell on the doings of the servants’ hall? Mrs. Cherwood hoped that Lady Bradwell had her own spies in the kitchen, then, for while Rowena was a dear girl, she had been brought up so much abroad, you know, that she really could have no idea of how things were done in a proper English house. Mrs. Cherwood expressed great surprise that Lady Bradwell permitted Rowena the management of the house accounts and tenantry books; surely such things were better left to a factor or steward. A young female could never really understand such complex matters.

  By the time dinner had ended and the ladies, withdrawn to the drawing room, found themselves stranded with Margaret’s mother, she had alienated everyone in the house except for Eliza Ambercot. The two of them sat, an issue of the Ladies’ Companion open between them, and talked of gowns, hair pomade, and gossip.

  If she thought about it at all, Rowena was rather more grateful than not for her aunt’s arrival, as it gave her something to think of beyond her own misery. She was not up to retaliating for the slights heaped upon her, but now and then the absurdity of the situation dawned on her, asserting itself in a faint, self-mocking smile. Mrs. Cherwood never saw the smile, and believed smugly that a life in service was humbling her intractable niece.

  Lyn, stationed across the room from Rowena and Margaret, would have liked very much to offer the elder Miss Cherwood the same sort of protection that Ulysses Ambercot had extended to his betrothed. Indeed, shortly before dinner he had met Rowena en route to her room, and asked, or rather tried to ask, if there was anything he could do to help her.

  “With what, Mr. Bradwell?” Miss Cherwood asked dully.

  “Rowena, look.” She did not. “Confound it, Renna, I’m every kind of fool if you like, although I still maintain —”

  “I really don’t wish to listen to this, Lyn,” she said wearily. “If you meant to ask if you could help with my aunt, I don’t see how. If you pay her too much attention it will make her worse than with none at all. I can handle her. At least Meggy don’t have to go back there for any length of time. Aunt Doro is so thrilled at marrying off her last daughter that she’s practically ready to marry Meg from your dining room. For your mother’s sake I would advise you to discourage her in that notion as soon as possible.” Dropping something close to a housemaid’s bob, Rowena escaped him. They had not spoken since.

  The evening was, if possible, longer than the long day had been. Mrs. Cherwood protested herself charmed with everything, joined in a game of whist, advised, uninvited, upon a game of backgammon, and boisterously queried Margaret from across the room as to what she was doing. When, shortly before ten, Rowena gathered up her tambour work and needle and very firmly suggested to Lady Bradwell that it was time she made her farewells and retired, Mrs. Cherwood said good night to her hostess in forthright fashion, her sharp eye missing nothing of Rowena’s solicitous care for her mistress.

  “My dear, do come in and sit awhile,” Lady Bradwell entreated when they reached her room. “I don’t think you need return downstairs again, unless you really wish to do.”

  Rowena smiled faintly. “Am I that obvious, ma’am? Your wish is my command, of course.” She sat heavily on a chair near the bed and rang for Taylor.

  “Thank God Margaret takes after your side of the family, my love. What a fright of a woman! Although I should not say so to you.”

  “My dear Lady B, when I have been filling you full of the most outrageous calumnies against my good aunt for all these months! You needn’t scruple to tell me if you merely agree with me.” Almost, Rowena had regained her own old tone. But not quite.

  “My dear, is it only your dreadful aunt’s arrival that has you so knocked up?” Lady Bradwell asked solicitously. “I suppose I ought not to ask that either, but I dislike to see you so mopey. What’s blue-deviled you? Yesterday you seemed full of smiles, or was that only for Jack and Jane?”

  “Yesterday I was full of smiles,” Rowena agreed. “Today I’m not so. I suspect I am only tired, ma’am. And Aunt Doro’s presence here is something of a strain.” Miss Cherwood bent her head to examine a cross-stitch on her embroidery.

  “And on Lyn as well?” Lady Bradwell asked shrewdly. Rowena’s head snapped up. “O, come, child, credit me with a little intelligence! I can see something, after all. What has that wretched boy done to hurt you? Or, is it you has hurt him?” The older woman’s tone was level; there was no sound of recrimination in her voice, certainly nothing to send Miss Cherwood into a fit of tears. But in a moment the companion had dissolved into sobs, struggling to breathe as much as to stifle the unexpected outpouring of her misery. When she was a little more in command of herself Rowena realized that she had been seated on the bed next to her mistress, and had been crying very noisily onto that lady’s shoulder, soaking through a Norwich shawl and the fichu of her evening dress.

  “I d-d-do beg your pardon, ma’am,” she gasped at last. “I don’t normally make a cake of myself in this fashion.”

  “Since you have never done so before I am inclined to believe you,” Lady Bradwell replied drily. “Don’t be such a peahen, child. I shan’t melt under a few tears. Now, are you going to be a good girl and tell me what sort of May game you and Lyn are playing at? He hasn’t —”

  “What?” Rowena asked damply.

  “He hasn’t asked you — no, he wouldn’t do such a thing. He’s not so lost to the proprieties, even if he is sometimes a clodpole. If he’s been a trifle maladroit, my love, you should remember that he hasn’t been home in so long he’s probably forgotten how to treat a civilized woman.”

  “My dearest Lady B, you don’t imagine that Mr. Bradwell offered me a carte blanche, do you?” Shakily at first, then more heartily, Rowena began to laugh. Lady Bradwell regarded her companion with something like alarm. “O, O dear! No, ma’am, I am sorry. I assure you I’m not run mad.” Rowena began to compose herself. “I ought not to laugh at it,” she said at last. “In fact, Mr. Bradwell’s scruples border on the exquisite! So far from offering me a straw marriage, he has withdrawn an offer of real marriage so that he can not be accused of marrying me for my fortune!”

  Louisa Bradwell gaped at the younger woman.

  “No son of mine,” she said at last, “could say anything so fustian!”

  “I am devastated to correct you, ma’am, but a son of yours has done so. If you please, I am Cophetua and he the beggar maid. Or man, rather. He won’t have it bruited about that he married me for my money. Granted, I’m far from being a pauper, but if he had asked it I would have consigned the money to the devil; at least, I think I should have done, although it seems like a stupid thing to do. Do men always expect these absurd sacrifices of one?”

  “But couldn’t you talk him out of the notion, Renna?” Lady Bradwell asked pleadingly. She had woven a daydream about her companion and her younger son, and the children seemed determined to destroy it for her.

  “I assure you, I tried, ma’am. I tried to joke him out of it; then I tried to argue the notion from him. No help for it: He is determined that both of us shall be miserable. Perhaps it is better that you find someone else for my position, ma’am.” Miss Cherwood’s voice quavered on the edge of tears again.

  “If that is what you truly wish, I shall make arrangements,” Lady Br
adwell said astringently, in a voice that barred tears. “But I dislike to think of you returning to live with that dreadful woman again.”

  “Aunt Doro? Perish the thought, ma’am. If you can give me a good letter of reference, I surely can find another position in a short while. And perhaps Aunt Anne and Lully and Jane can put up with me for a time until I do.”

  “I still think it the foolishest thing I have ever heard of. Rowena, do you love Lyn?”

  “At the moment,” Miss Cherwood assured her employer evenly, “I could watch him being drawn and quartered. And applaud.”

  “Of course you could.” Lady Bradwell was sympathetic. “But do you love him?”

  Rowena sighed heavily. “Yes, I love him. God knows why, for he is the stupidest, proudest, most unreachable — drat him, I do love him. I think I must be completely insane.”

  “And he loves you,” Lady Bradwell stated, as if trying to solve a difficult puzzle.

  “He said so,” Rowena returned dully. “That was the excuse he gave for breaking off our silly little understanding.”

  “Well, then.” Lady Bradwell sighed contentedly. “I think we should be able to contrive reasonably well. Don’t be in too great a hurry to pack up your bags, child. You may drop a few hints, if you wish. No, better. Ask Anne Ambercot if you may come and stay with her for a short while in the near future. Surely that will get back to Lyn and —”

  “Machinations, Lady B? I don’t want Lyn by tricks.”

  “Not tricks, dear. But sometimes one does have to stimulate a man’s thought processes by dealing him a shock. Let me talk to Lyn. I vow I shall not let him know what you have told me. I should rather like to hear my own son convict himself of pomposity and stupidity from his own mouth. Now, girl, it is time you were in bed.”