by M C Beaton
‘I’ll be able to tell everyone how I entertained a real lady, so t’won’t be wasted. Now sit down in that chair and keep warm.’ She picked up Abigail’s muddy clothes and bustled off. After some time, she came back, lifted the now boiling kettle off the fire and proceeded to make a pot of tea, shaking the leaves into the pot from a little twist of tissue paper.
‘Now what was you doing of, walking on your own like that, my lady?’
The desire to confide in someone was too much for Abigail. ‘I am newly wed, on my honeymoon,’ she said. ‘I had a row with my husband.’ And she burst into tears.
‘There, now. Mercy me. Did he beat you?’
‘No, no, nothing like that,’ said Abigail, scrubbing at her tears with a corner of the quilt. ‘He criticized my mother.’
‘Oh, you’ll need to get used to things like that, my lady. They never likes the mother-in-law. Did he have reason?’
‘He said she was a miser.’
‘That be cruel. Not as if it’s true, now is it?’
‘Well, as a matter of fact, it is. I think . . . I think I grew angry because I owe him so much. I had little dowry to offer and had created such a scandal that I thought no one would want to marry me.’
‘I tell you, my lady, gratitude do cause a mort of rows. But you must get used to rows. They’re part and parcel of marriage.’
‘But he said he loved me,’ wailed Abigail. ‘He should not be nasty to me if he loves me.’
‘Oh, well, it is a pity they’re human just like us. I tell you, if your good lord don’t know where you are, he’ll be worried sick. The sun’s hot now and I sponged down your gown and hung it over the bushes. ‘Twill be dry in a trice. I can’t do anything about your bonnet. You finish your tea and get dressed again and I’ll walk you back. Where are you staying?’
‘The Eagle.’
‘That’s where we’ll go and as fast as possible.’
Abigail, as she hurriedly dressed, was beginning to become alarmed. What if Rupert had decided he had made a mistake and had gone off and left her? From hating him and wishing she had never married him, she was now back in love, and more deeply than before.
When she left the cottage with Mrs Plumb, she was hard put not to take to her heels and run. Mrs Plumb, a plump, comfortable sort of woman, walked with a slow, rolling gait. Abigail was increasingly alarmed to find out how far she had walked from the town. As they approached it, the noise of the fair reached their ears.
And then, with a lurch of her heart, Abigail saw Lord Burfield striding out along the road towards her, his face grim. She flew towards him and straight into his arms, crying, ‘Oh, Rupert, I am so sorry . . . so sorry.’
‘You minx,’ he said, giving her a little shake. ‘You frightened me to death.’
Abigail told him breathlessly of the carriage which had soaked her and of Mrs Plumb’s kindness, ending with, ‘And I drank her precious tea and I know she must have been saving it for something special.’
‘Mrs Plumb can have a whole case of the finest tea,’ he said, holding her close. He bent his head and kissed her passionately. Mrs Plumb heaved a romantic sigh and turned and walked back home. She knew they had forgotten her very existence. But she was to learn that such forgetting was only temporary when a whole tea chest of tea was delivered to her the following day, along with what seemed to her dazzled eyes like a twoyears’ supply of groceries, with goods such as white flour, sugar, salted hams, and every imaginable delicacy.
Barry was pleased to see them return together and disappear up to their room. He was even more pleased to learn later that they were to return to London, which meant he could leave for the country.
‘We will never, ever quarrel again, Rupert,’ said Abigail passionately as she lay in his arms that night.
‘No, never,’ he agreed.
But of course they did, for they were very much in love.
The Beverleys were finally settled back at Brookfield House, along with Barry and Miss Trumble. Mannerling, they learned, stood empty, apart from a caretaker and his wife, awaiting its next owner.
For some reason she could not explain to herself, Miss Trumble drove herself over to Mannerling one day. As the little Beverley carriage rolled up the drive, the house lay before her, gracious and elegant in the sunlight.
‘Whoa!’ she said to the horse, stopping the carriage in front of the main door. The door was standing open and there were faint sounds from the kitchens, showing the whereabouts of the caretaker and his wife.
Miss Trumble walked into the great hall. Sunlight was filtering through the cupola above the staircase and sending rainbow prisms of light down from the great chandelier.
The governess looked about her. ‘Nothing to worry about,’ she said aloud. ‘Nothing more than a great pile of bricks and plaster.’
A sudden gust of wind blew the great main door shut behind her. Above her the chandelier began to revolve slowly, the crystals sending down an eerie tinkling sound.
Miss Trumble was suddenly aware of an almost tangible feeling of menace. She ran to the door and twisted the handle and tugged at it furiously, suddenly terrified that she had been locked in by supernatural forces. But the door suddenly swung open and she was free and out in the sunlight.
I am become fanciful in my old age, the governess chided herself as she drove off.
But she could not help noticing that the day was still and warm, with hardly a breath of air. Certainly no wind. No wind at all . . .
