“Where shall I be going, ma’am?” Jenny raised her head from stitching.
“Only look, Jen, we’ve been invited to Teeve for a week’s visit, and a ball will be held at the end of the week’s time! She specially asks that we come, for dear—” Emily had the grace to blush, and Domenic turned a violent plum color in response. “Specifically for Domenic’s sake, she says.” She passed the card along to her friend, who read it, noting that her name—her own name!—was certainly on the invitation. She smiled uneasily and passed it back to Emily.
“You will come, won’t you, Emmy? And Jenny too, of course.”
Jenny opened her mouth to say that she had thought of returning to Dumsford, and perhaps this was the time to do so; but Lady Graybarr smiled at her daughter and said certainly that she might go—provided that Miss Prydd went along as well.
“Oh, do, Jenny! It would be such fun!” Emily encouraged.
“But ma’am—” Jenny started.
“My dear Miss Prydd, you would be doing me a favor by accepting Lady Teeve’s invitation,” Lady Graybarr insisted. “You will understand why I wish my daughter to have a friend—and an adult!—with her so far from home,” Lady Graybarr said, her voice full of meaning. Emily’s lip trembled briefly, but she added her pleas, begging Jenny to come for her own sake. “For who else could I confide in? And who else will tell me when I’m being a terrible ninnyhammer?”
It was clear that Emily would not be allowed to go unless she was chaperoned, and with little more than a twinge of uncertainty she added her acceptance to Emily’s.
“Then, Emily, write your answer to Lady Teeve so that Mr. Teverley may return with it,” Lady Graybarr said comfortably. Domenic, for his part, was so delighted with this rapid reply that he would have fetched the writing table and sharpened Emily’s pen himself, had not both table and pen been at hand.
When Dom was making his farewells, Jenny hung back a second before joining the other ladies to go and dress. “May I speak to you for a moment, dear boy?” She led him back into the library. “Now please, I don’t wish to be uncivil, but you know there have been passages between your mother and me, and even now that she knows that I am not Emily I doubt that she likes me above half—”
“Ali, but Mother promised me that once Peter explained the situation she saw how wrong she had been and entirely forgave you.”
“Forgave me?” But Domenic had not heard her.
“She said that I was to tell you that she specially asked you to come, so that she might show you how she felt she had wronged you,” Domenic added.
Jenny found this statement a trifle ambiguous. “Dom, I would like to ask you something, and you may resent my asking it—indeed, I am somewhat appalled at myself. But: Do you believe what your mother has said about this?”
Dom shifted a little, looking uncomfortable. “Well, of course I do,” he finally said. “And Peter will be there, and other friends of ours, and you will have a splendid time! Please come, Jen. You know that Emily can’t unless you do—”
“So you’d perjure your soul to have me come?” Jenny’s smile took the sting from her words. “You remind me most forcibly of my cousin William sometimes, Domenic. I will be Emily’s duenna. I only hope—”
“Yes?”
“Never mind, dear. Go along now, for we really must change.”
“Well, I tell you, Jenny, you really are a first-rater,” he cried, and left her to call softly after him, “And you are top-o’-the-trees yourself. Now go!” And she shooed him from the library as she might her cousin William.
o0o
At dinner Lady Graybarr warmed to the subject of dresses, for she insisted that both Miss Prydd and her daughter were to have new gowns for their visit. Jenny protested at this and was roundly told there was nothing for it. “If you are to go among Lady Teeve and her friends and be a support to Emmy, which you know well she may need, I insist that we at least help you in this little thing! After all, Lady Teeve is a stickler, and you will want to be dressed to the nines, if only to make your visit pleasanter.” Jenny reflected that this much was true, and finally gave in to Emily’s teasing and Lady Graybarr’s gentle insistence. “I sense you are a little uneasy about this, my dear, which I don’t understand myself, as I would have been aux anges myself at your age! The least I can do is to help insure that you enjoy this trip. A very little thing!” Against this, Jenny was certainly not proof, and by the end of the supper Lord Graybarr had been soundly bored with the talk of voile, mousseline de soie, and sarcenet.
o0o
The only person who joined in Jenny’s apprehensions was, as she learned later that evening, Peter Teverley, whom she met at the musicale to which she had accompanied Emily and the Graybarrs.
“My dear Prydd.” He took her by the elbow and led her away from her friends. “I can only suppose you have taken leave of your usually excellent senses.” Jenny blinked at him, too startled by his blunt speech to make a reply. “I don’t know who concocted this harebrained scheme, but you must admit it is spectacularly ill-advised.”
Unable to stop herself, now that her wits were somewhat recovered, Jenny smiled at him and protested, “Spectacularly? Surely not on such a grand scale! Perhaps a little ill-advised—”
“Damn it, Prydd, I am not joking,” Teverley snapped. “I’m sorry, I have no right to speak to you in such a fashion. But have you no idea of what my esteemed aunt will do to you—try, at least, to do to you? The mind reels. She’s a marvelously inventive woman when her ire’s roused, and you, my very dear Miss Prydd, have roused her ire—spectacularly.”
“And are you to tell me, as Domenic did—or very nearly—that I was at fault for that, and that Lady Teeve can only forgive me for my rudeness and insufferable ill-conduct?” Jenny’s smile became sharp, a little dangerous. “If I roused her ire, as you say, it was only because I would not admit to being Emily—for which you cannot fault me, surely!—and because I saw, and still can see, no reason to be insulted and bluntly called a liar without at least defending myself. And rather mildly, too!”
“I grant you every right to feel injured,” Teverley agreed, more quietly. “But why in God’s name are you exposing yourself—hell, throwing yourself directly in the path of further insult? My aunt knows more ways to make people wretched—all with seeming civility, which makes it the very devil!”
“Mr. Teverley, your aunt has very civilly asked Emily and me to be her guests at Teeve for the space of a week. Now that she knows that I am not trying to entangle Domenic, I imagine that she will pay me no further attention. Indeed, I am hardly worth her notice. Aside from which,” she continued, as Teverley seemed likely to contradict her statement, “she instructed Dom to assure me that she wished to make up for the slights that she had dealt me. And if her basis for disliking me was her fear that Dom would grow to have an attachment for me—the greatest nonsense in the world—then it may well be that she will attach her dislike to Emmy, as that is where his real attachment lies. And that child is in no way up to your aunt’s weight.”
“So you intend to play sacrificial lamb and draw Lady Teeve’s fire from Emily to yourself?” Teverley scoffed.
“Certainly not. But she may need someone there all the same.”
“Prydd, I did not take you for a fool,” Teverley murmured.
“Perhaps I am not one.” She looked at him coldly. “Perhaps your predictions of gloom are simply idle frettings. Emily has accepted the invitation, and come next Tuesday we leave for Teeve. And I hope to have a pleasant, uneventful time there.”
“Well, my dear, should you find that you need some assistance, I shall be there as well. And if you decide not to make the journey, no one will think the less of you for it.”
“What, and give your aunt the point?” Jenny said, so low that he almost did not hear it. “Well, sir, thank you for your offer. I am quite overwhelmed.” And she curtsied and left him without another word. As she was about to reenter the main hall, however, she felt a strong han
d on her arm.
“Prydd—Jenny, have I offended you in some way? I truly did not mean to, you know. But I felt you should be warned of what you were walking into—”
“Believe me, Mr. Teverley,” Jenny replied, very serious now. “I know exactly what I am walking into, and I try not to dwell upon it. But go I must, therefore, it really is no use to warn me away.”
“All right, then, Miss Prydd, go ahead. I only hope that you do not hurt yourself in the doing, or that innocent child.” He looked down at her for a moment, but did not smile, and although he walked with her back to Lady Graybarr’s chair, he did not linger, but made as quick an exit as Jenny herself had tried to do a moment before.
“Well, my dear, have you been having a comfortable chat with Mr. Teverley?”
“No, ma’am,” Jenny replied absently, with perfect truth, and was so preoccupied with staring after the man that she missed entirely Lady Graybarr’s mild look of astonishment.
Chapter Eleven
Tuesday morning Emily Pellering and Miss Prydd, together with one of the maids and an enormous pile of bandboxes and trunks, were loaded into one of the Teeve traveling chaises (“Imagine having more than one!” Emily had whispered) and the party set off toward the North Road, Cumberland, and Teeve. Jenny had slept badly the night before—indeed, every night since her last interview with Teverley. Emily had teased to know what was bothering her dearest Jenny, but Miss Prydd remained stubbornly silent, and at last Emily gave up. Now the two of them sat watching the city disappear, and the fields begin to take the view; Emily bubbled with an excitement that, despite her fatigue and her misgivings, Jenny could not but find somewhat infectious. Even the little maid, a dab of a child in a fresh dress and shiny new pelisse, glowed with importance at her adventure with the two Young Misses. Jenny began to think that perhaps, despite her pessimism and Peter Teverley’s, Emily and Domenic were right, and the excursion to Teeve would be merely a week’s pleasure and excitement in the country. Aside from which, there would be no end to the stories such a week would furnish for the nursery at Winchell. She had written her aunt to tell of this latest invitation, and had received back a letter full of praise for Lady Teeve and her family, and counseling that her Dearest Jenny must not fail to be one of the party.
“I begin to think that we shall come aright after all,” she murmured to herself.
Some hours later, stiff and chilled to the bone with traveling, she could not summon up quite the same enthusiasm. She had twice requested that the driver stop at a posting house to permit them to refresh themselves, but the man had insisted that his orders were to make no stops. Jenny tried not to regard this as a sinister omen, and when, finally, the carriage began the long mile to the main house at Teeve, she was so relieved and happy to have at last arrived that she abandoned all misgivings at once and was as ready to be delighted as Emily herself.
They were shown to their rooms by a very superior servant and told that, when they had refreshed themselves, Lady Teeve would greet them in the green room below—they had only to ask a maid for the direction. A fire had been laid in her room and water was poured and steaming in the basin. Jenny removed her bonnet and set about repairing the ravages of travel to hair, face, and hands; after a moment she decided to change her dress as well, for the gown she had worn was hopelessly travel-stained and wrinkled. She chose one of the new gowns that were Lady Graybarr’s gift—a gray muslin over blue, trimmed sparingly with blue ribbon and touches of lace. Meeting Emily in the hall, the two gathered their courage and descended into the green room.
Lady Teeve was certainly awaiting them—with six or seven other people. The fragile, sweet-appearing old lady, charmingly dressed as usual, rose to greet her guests and was smoothly, sweetly, and a little unconvincingly welcoming to Emily. Her welcome to Jenny was just as smooth and genteel—with a hint of condescension that indicated that she, her household, and her family were doing a great favor to this poor, plain nobody, and that proper appreciation of this fact was expected. Then she forgot Jenny entirely and made a great point of introducing Emily to her other guests.
The portly, red-faced man in the sky-blue, old-fashioned coat, creaking a little (could he be wearing stays, as the prince was said to do?) was Lord Teeve. His welcome of both girls—for he made a point of including Jenny as sincerely as his wife had excluded her—was courtly. He ignored the look of irritation with which he was favored by his wife. A little behind him sat a pretty girl, poorly dressed and with a nervous, discontented look, who was introduced as Miss Mary Quare, companion to Lady Teeve. She obviously understood the lay of the land, for her greeting to Emily was all that was charming, while she ignored Jenny with a positive gleam of pleasure. Lady Teeve went on to say that she knew—and here she tittered slightly—that there was no need to introduce her son Domenic to Miss Pellering. Dom smiled and made his bow to both ladies, but said nothing, obviously overpowered by his mother’s presence. The last three of the party were introduced wholesale as the Brickerhams: Sir John and his sisters, Joanna and Sarah. Sir John appeared the picture of a young squire—plump, somnolent, indolent—until he opened his mouth. His speech was a total contradiction, brisk and cordial. Like Lord Teeve, he included both women in his smile and acknowledgment. His sisters were dark, pretty girls in identical dresses, which made it, at first, quite difficult to tell them apart. The elder, Miss Joanna Brickerham, followed her hostess’s lead and welcomed Emily but somehow forgot to include Jenny; Miss Sarah Brickerham smiled tremulously at both newcomers and said nothing.
After assuring her guests that dinner would be served shortly, Lady Teeve drew Emily aside to speak with her, “for I have had no chance to become acquainted with this dear child,” she announced to the room at large. Dom gave his mother a resentful look for preempting his privilege, but a wise look from his father, and a request from his mother that he show dear Miss Brickerham (meaning Miss Joanna) the new books that had only arrived that day from London, kept him silent. For herself, Jenny was content to sit quietly and observe the others in the room. Lord Teeve had begun an animated conversation with Sir John about a tenant farmer he was having trouble with, and Miss Quare tried to interest Miss Sarah Brickerham in comparing embroidery patterns.
When the door opened and Jenny looked up, expecting a servant announcing dinner, it was Peter Teverley. As their eyes met and he smiled a smile that resolved the quarrel that had darkened their last meeting, Jenny felt the familiar, startling jolt in her stomach.
“Peter, my dear, do come and talk with us,” Lady Teeve commanded from the other end of the room, in a voice that brooked no refusal. He did, on his way past her chair, stop to offer a few words to Jenny.
“Courage, my Prydd,” he murmured. “Aunt won’t let us talk together—she thinks we are in league.” He smiled for the general company and went to join his aunt and Emily.
Jenny pondered this cryptic, ridiculously cheering message for a few minutes, until a footman appeared to announce that it was, indeed, time for dinner to be served. Lady Teeve rose, offered her arm to Peter Teverley, and then requested that Domenic take Emily in. “Teeve, please take Dear Joanna in to dinner, and Sir John, if you will favor your sister?” She swept from the room leaving Jenny and Miss Quare to make their own way into the dining hall. Miss Quare favored Jenny with a particularly disdainful and unpleasant look but said nothing, bundling her embroidery away and following after the party.
The dining room was smaller than Jenny had expected for the size of Teeve, but Sir John Brickerham, seated next to Jenny, explained that there was still another dining room, considerably larger than this one, used only for dinners of state. Jenny professed herself suitably impressed, but Sir John only laughed and told her that she needn’t be. “They rarely use it, you know, since Teeve don’t care for large gatherings the way Lady Teeve does.” Grateful for even this small show of friendliness, Jenny smiled at him and then felt Peter Teverley’s eye fall on her from above her at table.
He needn’t loo
k so dour, she thought. And forgot about it in her amazement at the size and extravagance of the dinner, which would have impressed her even in London. “Lady T dined at Carlton House some months back, and spends her time trying to compete where any sensible mortal would gladly fall behind,” Sir John whispered, as a baron of beef, pheasant pies, a soufflé of mushrooms and cheese, a sautéed sole, and peas in sauce béchamel, and several dishes of vegetables were removed with a leg of venison, currant tarts, ragout of veal parisienne, and potatoes and onions in a casserole. Lady Teeve, at the head of the table, glowered at Sir John, but whether it was for his friendliness to Miss Prydd or his derision of her table, Jenny could not tell. The frown lasted only a moment, for when Sir John resumed a conversation with Emily, on his left, Lady Teeve appeared satisfied again, and except for an occasional, timid smile from Sarah Brickerham, and the black looks with which she was favored by Miss Quare, Jenny finished her meal in undistinguished silence.
Emily, for her part, seated between Domenic and Sir John, was seeing Dom in a new, slightly unfavorable light. While he had been her hero, she had overlooked his lack of years and his devotion to herself (Teverley’s indifference, while more frustrating, was generally more intriguing) and his occasional lapse into schoolboy cant. But under his mother’s eye Domenic was a different person altogether: someone’s Son. Emily watched as Lady Teeve reminded Domenic several times not to spill his wine, or to cut his fowl into such large pieces; she encouraged him to eat a soufflé of spinach by promising him that he might have apple tart afterward, and each time she spoke to him her voice acquired a peculiar, cloying sweetness. No matter to Emily that Domenic, with masterful forbearance, put up with his mother’s misbehavior and politely ignored her whenever possible; she saw him reduced to the category of Boy, one who was instructed as to which vegetables to eat, and who might at any moment be banished to the schoolroom to learn his manners. Disgusted by this new aspect of her hero, Emily turned to begin a conversation with Sir John, who was pleasant enough, and even had a certain wry turn of conversation that baffled Emily completely, and thus reminded her of Teverley. But every few minutes her eyes would wander to Teverley as he sat conversing with Joanna Brickerham.
My Dear Jenny Page 12
