by Gail McEwen
Baugham sat on his horse after having driven him hard over the fields up to the highest fell in the neighbourhood and looked down at the rolling landscape below. Far away he could see the hazy contours of a church spire and a few dark spots gathered around it. Clanough.
“No,” he muttered. “I will not. If there is news, he will tell me himself. I know he will.”
IT WAS AN EXCELLENT AND rational resolution to stay away from any potential source of news on the matter, and it took him a further day to find an even more rational and excellent reason to break it. He had a packet from London; no letter from Darcy, alas, but there was a bundle of newspapers. Also, Mrs McLaughlin had given him a foul look when he came home that morning with two partridges tied together over his shoulder.
“I will take them to someone who will appreciate them then,” Lord Baugham announced a little too merrily for Mrs McLaughlin to take as an insult and she quietly packed the birds up for him without comment.
But his expectations were cruelly disappointed and his cunning strategy wasted. It had started out well enough, with Mrs Tournier joining him after a little waiting in her parlour. He had a chance to look around him during that time and, to his surprise, noted that she seemed to have taken her work and her usual personal belongings elsewhere. The writing table held neither the familiar chaotic correspondence, newspapers and periodicals of the Mistress of the house, nor anything that looked like her daughter’s drawings and paraphernalia. Instead there was one sheet of paper, a few well-sharpened quills, an unopened inkhorn, and a thesaurus lying at aesthetically pleasing angles and looking like they had hardly been touched at all.
He was intrigued, but had no time to express his curiosity before Mrs Tournier followed his gaze and promptly stated that he was admiring the physical expression of a mind so convinced of its own perfect reasoning, it could not produce one piece of evidence or argument of its genius to convince the world’s doubters.
Baugham understood and quickly steered the conversation elsewhere and into more pleasant areas. When he inquired after Miss Tournier, however, he was informed that she had gone out on an extensive walk and should be back later. He took the news with what he supposed was indifference, feeling neither disappointed nor relieved.
They spent a very rewarding quarter of an hour as Mrs Tournier gratefully perused the periodicals brought by her guest, pointing out her acquaintances in the latest edition of the Chronicle, enlightening him as to whose output was worth his time and then moving on to the latest speculations on the war and its impact on domestic affairs, including Lord Sidmouth’s latest statements in Parliament.
Baugham enjoyed himself very much during those few minutes, but it was not to last. Once Mrs Higgins brought in the tea, Mr Pembroke joined them. He was astonished that the man would have the nerve to show himself at all after behaving so rudely at the Tristams, but he appeared to think nothing of it, rubbing his hands in anticipation and confessing he was starving for some cake and cold cuts, apparently in that order, for he made himself very much at home by helping himself to a large slice before sitting down very close to his lordship and leaning in confidentially.
“I say, I think I will somehow contrive to have you invited for tea every day for the remainder of my stay. The offerings today are much more suitable than what is customarily laid out.” He lifted his chin and sniffed the air disdainfully. “Unfortunately I cannot say as much for the tea . . . but do not despair, I have discovered a way to make it nearly tolerable.”
He raised his voice and addressed Mrs Tournier, who was then pouring. “Just half a cup, my dear, as usual.”
Lord Baugham was affronted for the lady at his tone and term of address and he could see her lips were so tightly pressed together they were beginning to go white. He stood and quickly crossed the room to take his cup from the lady. The question of cake caused a brief internal debate, but in the end he accepted the offered piece graciously, in the same spirit with which it was given.
He was in the delicate process of deciding just how to prepare his tea when Pembroke sauntered over to claim his half cup. With a wink directed at Baugham, he lifted the sugar dish and raked a prodigious amount directly into the cup. Next he added cream until it nearly reached the rim. Leaning in once more to his lordship, he muttered, “There now. Almost tolerable,” before returning to his seat with a generous helping of cold cuts as well.
The intruder’s presence — for despite the fact that he himself was the visitor, Baugham could not think of Pembroke in any other terms — put a damper on the conversation and soon he, in what would be a humorous turn were he not so annoyed, resorted to the very question Darcy put to him a few days earlier, through rather the same clenched teeth.
“And just how long will it be before you travel to Edinburgh, Mr Pembroke?”
Pembroke leaned back with an inexplicable, self-satisfied smile. “Actually, I will be leaving the day after tomorrow. Poor Mrs Tournier will be deprived of all her company almost at the same time.”
“I am sure,” Baugham addressed the lady, “that you do not look upon having only your daughter for company as any sort of hardship.”
“Not at all,” was the terse reply.
With a rather irritating smirk on his face, Pembroke raised his cup and emptied it. Baugham watched in disbelief as he returned to the tray, served himself another helping of cake and reached again for the teapot. He was aware of Mrs Tournier’s seething resentment as she sat in her chair, strategically placed as far away from the tea tray as it was from the writing table, but she neither spoke nor reacted to Mr Pembroke’s elaborate display of another splash of tea followed by a good dollop of cream and several spoonfulls of sugar.
“Such a dreary day,” Pembroke said, moving his spoon lightly back and forth in the liquid. “So fatiguing to have nothing to do. What does one do with oneself in such beastly weather in this tiny corner of the world anyway?”
Baugham could not remove his eyes from Mr Pembroke’s light grasp on the spoon and his ineffectual blending that seemed to go on and on without any attempt at reaching the bottom of the cup, but just swirling around in the liquid on the surface.
“Just stir it!” he impulsively thought, not realising he had uttered it out loud until Mrs Tournier looked up and the ghost of a smirk moved across her face.
“I beg your pardon?” Pembroke stopped his movements and stared at his lordship.
“Nothing,” Baugham muttered. “I . . . I was thinking of . . . what to do. When the weather is like this. Stirring things . . . up. So to speak.” And he went on vigorously stirring his own very sugarless and creamless cup.
“Stir things up?” For some reason Pembroke’s smirk returned. “Hm, sounds . . . intriguing. Perhaps I might just take your advice, my lord.”
Baugham refused to acknowledge him with anything but a thin smile and for a while the clinking of china and the ring of silver was all that could be heard. He tried to resume his conversation with his hostess, but apparently she had no stomach for discourse in the presence of her guest. Therefore the topics remained the difficulty of the weather, the difficulties of the conveyance of the mail all the way from Edinburgh and the difficulty of living with the burden of talent generally.
It did not take long until Baugham had had enough. At the earliest possible moment he rose in order to excuse himself, but there he was pre-empted by Mr Pembroke.
“You must excuse me,” he said languidly, “I think I shall take myself upstairs and rest for a while before dinner. No, my dear Mrs Tournier, please do not exert yourself, I shall take my last cup of tea with me, that will be quite sufficient.
Mrs Tournier’s cold eyes followed him as he piled the rest of his dishes on the cushion beside him with a clatter and rose, heading for the tray once more.
Baugham turned to Mrs Tournier. “Thank you, madam,” he said curtly. “Most sincerely. Until next time.”
He cut off Mr Pembroke’s advance, sweeping past what was left of the display of tea
, snatching the sugar bowl from the middle of the left-overs and, without so much as a glance at Mr Pembroke, stalked out of the room, headed for the kitchen and thrust the sugar bowl into the hands of the astonished Mrs Higgins.
“Hide it,” he said. “And if anyone other than Mrs Tournier asks for it, tell them I took it with me.”
Then, without waiting for a reply, he swept out the door in long and urgent strides and within minutes he was galloping the long way back to Clyne.
IF ONLY HER ARMS WERE an inch or two longer, much embarrassment and discomfort might have been very easily avoided. As it was, Holly was presently perched precariously on a stone, leaning out over the bank of the Kye River and reaching across for all she was worth for a bit of tangled line.
Lately to Holly, any day, or afternoon, or hour without rain was an occasion to escape outside to walk and think and plan. This afternoon she took the opportunity of what promised to be an extended period of clear skies to make the long trek to gather the last Agrimony plants of the season. And just in time too, she reasoned, because the icy wind that blew through her cloak told her a hard frost was on its way, if not tonight then very soon. She drew it tightly about her and pulled the hood down as far as she could as she made her way rapidly to the quiet pool near the river that bordered the Clyne grounds. Yes, she knew that she was, strictly speaking, trespassing, but she reasoned that it was not her fault that the Agrimony grew on Lord Baugham’s side of the river. Also, she rationalised, she had collected it every year since she had found it growing wild there. Was she supposed to just let it go to waste because his lordship felt peevish about it? A brief irritation flashed through her as she found herself having to justify an action that she had never before thought twice about.
However, Holly had more important matters to think over and, despite her wicked intentions, the long walk was welcome for the opportunity to do so in peace. As unpleasant as she anticipated it would be, her trip to Edinburgh with Mr Pembroke was settled. There she would deliver her finished work to Sir John and bring home a very welcome remuneration. He would be more than pleased with them, she knew, and she was sure she could enlist his help in obtaining introductions to other scholars and scientists who might be in search of an illustrator. She also had plans to look up Dr McKenna, remembering his promise to engage her as soon as his funding materialised. She was certain that something fruitful would come of her efforts. Edinburgh was bustling with discovery, knowledge and the brightest minds of the time — where else was opportunity to be found if not in such a place?
She was, however, not nearly as sanguine about informing her mother of her planned journey, or her means of travel. She would tell her tomorrow, Holly decided, giving her as little time as possible to fret and stew.
At last she found herself at the pool and to her dismay she realised that she had left her basket behind in her hurry to get out of the house. She gathered as many plants as she could carry back herself and sat on the bank to braid it into a bundle, but the stems were wet and muddy; her hands were numb from the cold and her fingers were clumsy. Just then she spied a discarded length of fishing line she thought she might use to tie it off instead, tangled in the rushes along the bank and she climbed down to grab it.
If only her arms had been an inch or two longer, she would have been able to reach it without stretching so precariously far out over the water. She had just brushed it with her fingertips when the inevitable happened. She lost her balance and, before she felt herself sliding down the muddy and wet slope towards the river on her rear with her skirts folding up in the mud and dirt underneath her, she had the most undignified collision with the ground.
The oaths Miss Tournier yelped while sliding downwards, just barely managing to halt her progress by clutching onto a few wilted tufts of grass and digging her heels into the wet riverbank before more of her was bound for the ice cold water, were definitely not of the approved variety for a young genteel women, but they were in French so she at least sounded quite sophisticated to her rural surroundings. She did not feel so, however, when she crawled up on the bank again on her hands and knees muttering the same obscenities between her teeth.
“Home,” she muttered. “I have no choice, I must go home directly. Oh . . . Maudit!”
Having been vulgar enough to forget her anger and feel rather audacious instead, she calmed down and scrambled to her feet, sighing and shaking her wet skirts. The shortest way, she decided. Her toes were already losing their feeling in the soaked boots.
BAUGHAM DROVE HIS HORSE HARD over the fields and kept his eyes fixed as far ahead as possible. It had been an unmitigated disaster! What misguided, foolish, insane notion had convinced him he needed to risk his perfectly organised life at Clyne for tea and conversation at Rosefarm Cottage? He intensely regretted having set foot in that house today. Well, ever, really! Fair enough, the game they were welcome to and Mrs Tournier’s face as he forgot himself from Mr Pembroke’s fiddling with his tea had been rewarding, but other than that . . .
Baugham felt like pounding his head against something hard. How dim-witted was it permissible to behave in the face of, admittedly, hazardous provocation? What had that imbecile said? He was leaving the day after tomorrow. Well, he would return after that to apologise to Mrs Tournier.
That damn, stupid, infuriating, selfish pup . . .
And where was Miss Tournier — the usual terrorising guardian of the sugar bowl — in all of this? Not that her presence could have made any difference to the dreadful overall experience, but she might have saved him from losing his temper and being forced to take matters into his own hands. Out walking? For the better part of the day?! How selfish! In fact, wasn’t she obliged to rather stay home and help her mother withstand that cretin in the parlour than skip around the countryside like a schoolgirl? There might be visitors — like him! What about their acute pain in being subjected to such company without a moderating force present? And at the expense of newspapers and partridges! Really, it was most inconsiderate!
HOLLY WAS COLD TO THE bone and no amount of rapid walking would warm her up, it seemed. Her gloves had fallen and were lost forever, but despite that fact, she stubbornly held the scraggly, but hard won, bundle of vegetation tightly to her chest, which in turn made her cloak all the more muddy and cold. Her hood came untied and fell back from the wind, her hair escaping and blowing into her eyes and face; her ears burned, her head ached, but she was too clenched against the cold to be able to contemplate stopping to tie it back again — if she could even get her numb fingers to move well enough to work the strings. All her attention and energy was focused inwardly as she concentrated on moving her stiff and frozen feet forward one step after the next, so she did not hear the sound of the galloping horse as it rapidly came toward her. All she could see was the few feet of lane in front of her and all she could think of was the fire in Mrs Higgins’ kitchen.
In the middle of most unkind thoughts about daughters taking selfish long walks at the expense of suffering mothers and innocent gentleman visitors, Baugham spotted a familiar figure coming out of the woods. His woods!
“But of course!” he said through clenched teeth and approached her. “Miss Tournier!” he called, not in greeting but in demanding tones. “I wonder,” he said cynically, noticing the distinctly miscoloured back of her clinging skirts, “did you find the water in my river very wet?”
She looked up in disbelief, not only that he should come upon her once again in the same embarrassing predicament, and worse, but that he should speak of it in such a callous manner. Of all the insensitive, self-centred . . . the French oaths threatened to bubble out again, but she swallowed them down. She could not quite swallow the sentiment that accompanied them.
“I beg your pardon, sir. Do you worry that I carry too much of it away with me?”
“Not at all, I assure you. Only that you perhaps carry it away a bit too often.”
“In that case, you are right. I can see where it would be doing you a great dea
l more good were it still in the river rather than soaking my boots and skirts. You must forgive my selfishness.”
She tried to stomp away, but the brief pause had already stiffened her muscles and the short steps she could manage caused a searing pain in her frozen feet.
“Oh really!” Baugham said impatiently, but not without appearing to feel some pity for her situation. “That won’t do! You’ll be frozen through before you get over the field.”
He jumped down and reached out his hand to her in an impatient gesture to help her into the abandoned saddle. “Didn’t anyone ever tell you you’d be better off at home, where you could be of real use and out of danger in such weather and at this hour?”
The look this observation earned him made him step back instinctively. He had seen that expression before and on several occasions it had been followed by a hard slap to a cheek. Fortunately for him, Miss Tournier did not seem willing to let go of the muddy bundle clutched so tightly to her chest. Instead, she turned her shoulder away from his offered hand with a jerk.
“As a matter of fact, no!” she sputtered. “No one has had the effrontery to so openly contradict the teachings of my parents that I may know and follow my own mind!”
“I beg your pardon,” Baugham continued with his eyes hard as steel and devoid of any emotion. His voice grew icy and his demeanour impossibly stiff and remote as he fixed his eyes on his horse that fidgeted nervously in the presence of such unbridled hostility between the two. “I seem to be labouring under a misapprehension regarding your sensibilities. I was under the impression that directness and even rudeness was a sign of affection and respect in your family.”
Her eyes narrowed into angry slits, fueled as much by embarrassment as anger, she snapped, “My lord, your misapprehension is grave indeed if it leads you to presume that you have either the ability or the right to make judgements on the basis of a few week’s acquaintance! How dare you presume to possess such knowledge concerning my family?”
