Gypsy Heiress

by Laura London

  I shook my head, unable to share my friend’s excitement. “I’m not fond of the hunt, Ellen. I never seem to be able to shed a feeling of sympathy for the animal.”

  “Oh, Liza, I understand, I really d-do,” Ellen said warmly. Then she stopped, and a troubled look came to her face; she turned and walked to the fireplace, stooping to pick up a feather which had drifted to the floor.

  “Ellen, whatever is the matter?” I asked.

  She rolled the feather between her hands and said in a low voice, after glancing around the room, “Liza, I know this may seem like quite an unusual observation, but has it occurred to you that th-this animal seems to have a propensity for attacking people who stand in th-the way of Isabella’s ownership of Chad Hall?” She clenched her hands in distress. “It’s a t-terrible thing to insinuate, I know, and I d-don’t mean that Isabella herself would ever…”

  I fairly leapt from my chair and the heavy old book went banging to the floor from my lap. “Do you mean to say that my life was in danger in the woods?”

  “I d-don’t know, Liza. But I think Brockhaven does! D’you remember the night at dinner when you told about the strange animal? Brockhaven had John Stewart and a group of armed men out the next morning beating the woods. And he’s m-made rules saying you c-can never go anywhere unaccompanied by a groom. He w-was n-never that way before; he n-never insisted that my mother keep such a close watch on me, for instance; rather he w-was quite lenient. I think he knows something about it th-that he isn’t saying.”

  Perhaps she was right about Brockhaven. I could see what she meant. There had been a certain watchfulness, too, from certain of Lord Brockhaven’s servants here, as if it was important to make sure frequently of where I was. Did they think someone might try to do me harm? And if so, then who? Like Ellen, I could never imagine lovely, passionate Isabella at the center of some dark plot for my murder and no one else had a reason to wish me ill, surely. Useless, less than useless, to ask Brockhaven, who would have told me by now if he wished me to know. It was as though Ellen had pulled away a dark veil and revealed a mute enigma wrapped in a second shroud of mystery. Or perhaps it was all fancy, and the animal in the woods had been a badger, as Robert thought, and Brockhaven had sent men to the woods only as a precaution, and to comfort the maternal fears of Lady Gwendolyn. And, of course, the servants stared at me. I was new and different and therefore of interest.

  I said thoughtfully, “Ellen, it seems so—so farfetched to me. If there was the faintest grain of truth to it, though, we couldn’t possibly go into the forest that night, for not only would my life be risked, but yours as well.”

  “That’s just it,” cried Ellen triumphantly. “Liza, May Day is the s-safest night of the year for us to be abroad, because that’s the l-last night anyone would suspect we’d be out.”

  I couldn’t help laughing. “You feel that anyone would assume we’d have the sense to stay snug in our beds…?”

  “Instead of wandering a w-woods filled with rakish sorts participating in things which it is n-not fit to mention!” she finished with a grin. She appeared to be applying herself further to the pros and cons of her idea while she spun the bookstand idly with one finger. “I wonder, Liza,” she said finally. “Do you think that Robert’s read that b-book?”

  I didn’t make the error of supposing she meant the book on supernatural phenomena. “I don’t know. Why don’t we ask him?”

  “I wouldn’t doubt he’d turn us s-straightway in to my mother. Mostly he thinks I’m a b-baby… I wonder, Liza. D-did you remark the name of that volume?”

  “The Adventures of Countess T.,” I responded helpfully. “It’s there; no, you’re passing it. You put it back on the first shelf.”

  “D-did I?” she said with careful disinterest. She went back to her feather picture, poured some water into a basin, and worked at her sticky fingers with a tiny chip of soap. “Really,” she said as she scrubbed, “I don’t know why m-men would want to have a b-book like that around. It’s d-disgusting, isn’t it?”

  “Very,” I agreed cheerfully, coming over to inspect her picture. The rabbit in her picture looked rather like an irritated mole. Aloud, I said, “You know, Ellen, rather than calling this a forest scene, I think you should tell your aunt that this is a picture of the Eygptian pyramids. See the shape of the trees?”

  Ellen, drying her hands on her apron, looked over my shoulder to view her handiwork. “You’re right, it d-does. But what’s the rabbit, then?”

  “The Sphinx,” I said. “You see, if you add a turkey feather here, like so, and a bit of crow down…”

  “That’s wonderful! Much m-more original than a f-forest, don’t you think?” Ellen glanced back at the bookcase. “Liza, don’t you think women should t-take some kind of action about men reading b-books like that?”

  “Destroy them, you mean?”

  “Oh, no. We couldn’t d-do that. My father would turn over in his g-grave at the thought of a book being destroyed! I d-don’t think we should do anything so drastic.”

  “Oh. Well, I suppose we could just”—I waved my hand and lifted my eyebrows—“carry it away. To the sunroom, for instance. There’s never anyone in there at this hour.”

  Ellen was quick to enter into the spirit of the idea. “I’ll bet it would fit behind a copy of Young Ladies’ Household Companion. I d-do think we should read it so w-we can learn what we are struggling against.”

  With this praiseworthy object in mind, we proceeded to the sunroom to follow up on the adventures of the Countess T., the slim green volume concealed under a stack of commendable books for young ladies whose excellent authoresses would have been much surprised if they had known they were being used for such a shady purpose.

  We had just broached the third chapter, which concerned the Countess’s encounter with the ninety-two-year-old Caliph of Baghdad, when Lord Brockhaven came in upon us. He was carrying a blue ledger, his purpose evidently to check some correspondence filed in the bound volumes of household records which filled the better part of a long cabinet in the room.

  His inky curls were a bit more disarrayed than usual, which meant that he had been up working since early this morning, and I remember Mr. Cadal’s repeated assurance to me that I could never have found a more able or intelligent guardian to have the charge of my land. I wonder if it wearied him, to have that charge on top of his own property, but there was no trace of tiredness in his taut, healthy skin and athletic strides. He hadn’t been in to breakfast with Lady Gwen, because he had no jacket covering his thin lawn shirt, and the collar lay open without the respectability of a neckcloth. Gwen had forbidden him to appear at breakfast in that condition, saying it was too hard on her nervous sensibilities, particularly at an early hour. He had laughed at her, of course. Secretly I agreed that she was quite right.

  He gave Ellen the faint, uncritical smile he reserved for her, and looked at me with all the affection one would reserve for the doorknob. Ellen, who says that nothing makes her more nervous than awkward silences, straightway piped up, “Good m-morning, my lord.”

  It’s not hard to irritate Lord Brockhaven. “How many times do I have to tell you that I wish you would call me Alex? I’ve only been an earl for two years! Someday I’m going to be standing in the path of a falling boulder and you’re going to call ‘Jump, my lord,’ and I won’t know who you mean. Did you know you have two goose feathers sticking to your hair?”

  “Yes, sir. Liza’s tried to g-get them out; they s-seem to be stuck fast. We are going to t-try soaking them out this afternoon.”

  “Well, I’m glad to hear it. If that doesn’t work, you should paste more on because two look ridiculous. I hope this isn’t some new fashion in female ornament.”

  “N-no. It’s from my feather picture, the one you b-brought the eagle feathers for when you w-went to the lakes last fall.”

  “Oh, yes,” he said, opening the sliding cabinet door and scanning the volumes. “The feather picture. I remember last year when you
made the colored sand arrangement and spilled a cup of rosined sand on the piano keyboard. When you had your lesson that afternoon, it took us an hour to pry your Italian piano master from the keys.” With deliberate civility he said to me, “How did you like your first taste of our polite society?”

  “I thought some members were more polite than others,” I said, trying to match his casual tone.

  “Very subtle,” he said, pulling a bound volume of correspondence from the pile, one marked 1806–1807 in gilt letters. “Gwen must be teaching you about the gentle reproach. I expect you didn’t like me threatening to beat you.”

  “It’s not so much that I minded you threatening to beat me,” I said sweetly, “but when you specified that it would be with pleasure…”

  Brockhaven gave me one of his smiles that makes my heart feel like it’s going to collapse. “Do you think it was because I felt my authority was being questioned?”

  It seemed to me that his anger of the previous night had more to do with the fact that I was talking to Vincent than the fact that I was questioning his authority. It also seemed politic not to say so, because if he wasn’t going to explain his behavior last night, he certainly wasn’t going to do so this morning. My conversation with Robert popped into my mind like a worm suddenly appearing in a half-eaten apple. Could it be that in his talk with Brockhaven last night in the library Robert had taxed Brockhaven about the precise nature of his intentions toward me? Could that account for Brockhaven’s tautly constrained amiability? He was an amazing man in many ways, able to push one away as deftly with his good humor as with his bad, and all for a secret motive that you may not see until much later. Reasoned judgment looked back on our argument last night over Vincent and I began to wonder if even that had been a smokescreen for something else. What would he think if he knew what Ellen was planning for May Day? What would he think if he knew I had fallen in love with him?

  I had to answer his question. “I think that may have been a part of it…” Hesitantly I added, “Does this mean we are less angry with each other now than we were?”

  He gave me a lopsided grin. “Oh, certainly, my pet. Let’s be moderate. I’ll make you a peace offering. My brother mentioned that you’d like to visit Chad.”

  “Yes!” I said, surprised that he would bring it up with such complaisance.

  “Gwen will arrange with Vince and Isabella for you to visit one day next week.”

  “Oh, thank you!” I cried, feeling my skin pink up with pleasure. I had been so certain that he would say no to Vincent’s idea, that I could scarcely believe his words, especially after his patent hostility to my encounter with Vincent. “I should so much enjoy seeing where my father spent his childhood! It’s very good of you to consent! Lord Brockhaven, about last night…”

  Brockhaven glanced again at the volume in his hands before snapping it shut with one hand and sliding it back into sequence. He came across the room to lean easily on a chair arm near me and said, “Liza, about last night. You realize, I’m sure, that your cousin Isabella has what Gwen likes to call a hasty temper and a strong instinct toward possession? If she had come upon you in the corridor last night, alone with her husband, there would have been a scene that would have kept the county in gossip for weeks.”

  Ellen was frowning at me with some concern. “Mother did tell me that you and Lord Brockhaven had argued, Liza, but I didn’t feel right about bringing it up unless you did first. Were you alone with Vincent in the hall? Oh, dear. Alex is right! Isabella g-gets so jealous, which is a smart bit of hypocrisy when it is s-she—ahem! What I mean to say is, Vincent knows what Bella is. Why w-would he have kept Liza talking with him, knowing there’d be a scene if Isabella saw it? It’s not at all like him! He’s usually so careful about that kind of thing.”

  “He has his reasons, I imagine,” Brockhaven said dryly.

  More than that, Lord Brockhaven could not be prevailed upon to say, and I felt gauche and ashamed of my angry response to his intervention. Ellen was no prude, and if she thought I shouldn’t have been in the hall with Vincent, then I must have been in the wrong. Later, in my bed that night, I would remember this conversation with disquiet. Brockhaven’s explanation didn’t quite fit with things he had said during our argument at the Perscoughs and the discrepancies would disturb me; but that morning I felt only sheepish and annoyed with myself.

  As usual, my thoughts were an open door to Brockhaven. He gave the bridge of my nose a careless brush with his fingertip, saying, “Don’t look so distressed, child. It wasn’t so bad, as it happened. I was just keeping an eye on you, which is my responsibility after all.”

  He looked at the pile of books that Ellen and I had scattered on the side table. “Come to think of it, the housekeeper did tell me that you two were on your way up here with a stack of improving literature.” He leaned forward to read the titles, “Tatting for the Beginner; On the Appreciation of Floral Beauty; Sermons for the Bedridden; and last, though I’m sure by no means least, we have Mrs. Hobbs’ Educatorium.”

  Brockhaven’s unwelcome interest in our reading matter caused Ellen to quickly snap shut the Ladies’ Household Companion on her lap, trying to conceal the book which had really been occupying our time. It was an unfortunate gesture. The hidden volume made a starkly obvious lump and Ellen’s expression of alarm was a dead giveaway.

  Lord Brockhaven was not born yesterday, and he also happens to know Ellen rather well. He directed one sardonic glance at her, lifted the Ladies’ Household Companion from where it reposed in her lap and gently shook out the pages. The Adventures of Countess T. fell out with a plop, and Ellen put it into his commandingly outstretched palm with a stiff, scared look.

  Brockhaven’s eyebrows shot up when he saw the title. “Oh, Lord. You have been into mischief, haven’t you?” He flipped it open and read the first page. “Do you know, it sounds vaguely familiar. I seem to recall reading it with Dain Bredon when we were thirteen. Is this the one with the Prussian officer?”

  Ellen hesitated, took her bottom lip between her teeth, and nodded.

  “And who else? The French foot juggler? I see. When it comes to improving literature, I don’t think that the two of you are improving the same areas that Gwen thinks you’re improving.”

  “Are you g-going to tell her?” asked Ellen, gazing up in hopeful solicitation.

  “God forbid,” said Brockhaven. “I can’t imagine myself finding the tact to describe to Gwen just what it is that happens in the plot.”

  Chapter Nine

  No government spy, no ruthless conspirator had ever connived an escape with more verve and imagination than Ellen had in her May Day arrangements.

  First there had been the horses. Ellen was sure that her pretty mare, Wendy, would be recognized anywhere, and Kory had already gained a local reputation. How many stallions stood as high as a cottage, and had a coat the color of pitch? Four shillings had bought the silence of a local farmer and the loan of two of his most disreputable dobbins. From the ready exchange of communication between Ellen and the farmer, I decided that she had done business there before.

  The clothes we wore were Ellen’s, from fancy dress parties and suitably altered. She was Noah’s Ark without the ark headdress and its painted wooden giraffes. The gown was long and white, and we spent an afternoon cutting off pairs of animals and the dove of promise from the shoulder. For me, there was a costume Ellen had worn two Augusts ago to a fête in Bath, and even without changing it as much as a tuck, there wasn’t anyone in the county who would know it. It was a pretty dress with a red and white striped skirt and red tunic, with a black velvet bodice trimmed with red, so I didn’t mind a bit becoming the Goat Girl. For our faces, Ellen possessed two of something called “the loo mask” which were made of velvet and covered the top half of our faces except our eyes, and so when we were completely dressed in our costumes, masks, and two cloaks (bribed away from the serving maid), we looked comfortably absurd. I believe we would have stopped there but, since the book
recommended the addition of flowers to the hair, nothing less would do than for Ellen to dig through her wardrobe and find two wreaths of artificial flowers, bluebells twisted with fern that she had worn playing one of the fairies in A Midsummer Night’s Dream at a private revel. The bluebells seemed appropriate to her, since it was the fragrance I wore always, from a recipe made especially for me by my grandmother to celebrate my ninth birthday. It was particularly fortunate, said Ellen, that she had two wreaths, having lost one, bought another, and then found the original.

  The meat was a little harder to get, and the opium a nightmare. As it turned out, Ellen was able to buy a joint of beef from the farmer with whom we had conducted our other underhanded dealings, but people who will sell two young women an amount of opium are few and far between. Even if both Ellen and I pretended headaches for a week, besides making Gwen suspicious, we wouldn’t have been able to save enough, and we couldn’t steal it from her locked cupboard for fear the blame should fall on one of the servants. Notice that I have said we wouldn’t dare to steal it from her. I am very ashamed to admit that we did steal it. I know there is nothing more detestable than the criminal who protests he was pushed into his crime by a forceful partner, but the truth is that I never would have gone along with the idea if it hadn’t been for Ellen. She refused to go into the woods without the meat, and there was no sense taking the meat unless it had been treated with the opium. I knew that if we didn’t go out May Day Eve, Ellen would consider her entire spring a loss, and I think I’ve mentioned before that I’d rather do anything than disappoint Ellen. Besides, and I confess this in all cravenness, Ellen assured me that if we were caught in the theft, Brockhaven would bribe us out of jail, and I knew she was right.