by Joan Smith
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Chapter 2
My mother and I have only been living in our present home for three years. It is a charming place, as seen from outside. It bears a strong resemblance to Anne Hathaway’s cottage, complete with timber and plaster facade, some ornamental brickwork on the sides, a thatched roof, and leaded windows. All this charm is much prettier to look at than to live in. Rodents are much attracted to the thatched roof. Rain does not evaporate so quickly from thatch as from slate, either.
It is damp, and the damp invades the upper story of the house, bringing with it a certain musty odor that is pervasive. The leaded windows, though they sparkle like diamonds, are not so large as windows ought to be. Insufficient light enters at every room. In winter, our rooms look strangely circular, the corners lost in shadows.
We have tried a dozen stunts to overcome the gloom of the interior. Our most effective remedy to date is to paint any nonvaluable piece of furniture light and bright. A pale lemon yellow was our choice. Many cabinets, tables, and the dining room chairs now stand out starkly against the age-dimmed paneling of the rooms, more starkly than I had hoped.
When my father died, three years ago, it was necessary for us to vacate the rectory to make way for the new incumbent. As Hettie had married Lord Peter some years before, Menrod took into his head to do something for us, and gave us the cottage at a nominal cost. The place is called Lady Anne’s cottage, and sits on one corner of his vast estate.
I was disappointed he had not let us have one of his other homes instead. There is a fine Dower House, but he has his dowager stepmother living there; there is also a very nice gatehouse, but the gatekeeper lives there. There are any number of tenant farms, all inhabited by tenant farmers. The only other one we might have come into was a gracious, modern red brick home just at the south edge of his estate, facing the Kennet River. He moved his summer mistress into it at the same time he gave us Lady Anne’s cottage.
I let on to Mama I am as happy as may be here, but in fact, I have had a plan of escape brewing for a year now, ever since we heard word from India of Lord Peter’s and Hettie’s death in a boating accident. That was a great tragedy for us. Hettie was my only sister, and my dearest friend. Though she had been in India already for seven years, I felt as close to her as ever. She was a marvelous correspondent. I can close my eyes and see her home there, know all the bizarre entertainments she enjoyed, her new friends, the Indian customs.
When she had her first child, she called her Gwendolyn, after me. Two years later, she had a son, named Ralph, after Peter’s father. It had been agreed between us sisters, though never revealed to Mama, that I would go to India to be with her for her next lying-in. She hinted at a surfeit of gentlemen looking for an English wife. I don’t know that I would have been happy living in India, but I would dearly have loved to see it. I have never been farther east than to London, forty miles away. Living on this small island, surrounded by water, I have never seen the sea. I had a holiday sixty miles west of here, at Bath, one summer when my mother was feeling poorly. An invalid mother is not the jolliest travelling companion.
My plan for escaping Lady Anne’s cottage centers around Hettie’s children. They are to be shipped home to England. I thought we would have seen them before now, but it was necessary to wait till some suitable person could be found to accompany them home, then to arrange passage, and so on.
If I were Menrod, I think I would have bestirred myself to go after them, as he enjoys trotting all around the globe, but his lordship did not see fit to do so. He was busy restocking his coverts at the time. When they do eventually return, it is my plan and ardent hope they might be placed with Mama and me. Lord Peter had some money, so a house will be adequately provided. I will be aunt, friend, companion, governess, nanny—whatever they require. It strikes me as a marvelous plan.
Mrs. Pudge once told me, in a fit of poetry induced by my having lost a beau, that God forgets to be gracious to some of his flock. I feel I am one of His forgotten ones. He showered the daughters’ share of beauty mostly on Hettie, forgetting to give me my dimples and curly hair. He had forgotten to give me either a fortune or a husband with one. What He gave me instead was a fairly short temper, and a reason to wonder why He had bothered to create me at all. Now the wisdom of His plan was revealed. This was why I had been born, to be here when the children needed me. I had a purpose, a need to fill at last.
The only remaining item to be settled is to discuss it with Menrod, who will be in charge of managing their monies. No doubt he will be greatly relieved we are willing to tend the children. As he likes to be free to dart to Scotland for the trout fishing, Brighton for the water, the Cotswold Hills for hunting, London for the Season, and the continent for chasing women, he will be happy to know the children have a good home.
The long-awaited letter telling of their arrival came the second day Everett and the carpenters were at the cottage working on the box stairs. To that time, they had made a colossal racket and mess, disassembling the wall panels. Everett has some pieces of wood he is drawing a design on for the bottom panel, to hide the rough step-ends. This occupies most of his time, and all of our dining room table, which is where he has elected to do his calculations and design. Mama and I now take all our meals in the breakfast parlor, which is no more than a corner nook by the window, overlooking the rose garden.
The letter was written by a Mr. Enberg, a friend of Peter’s, telling us he was leaving India with the children the next week, to return to England on the East India Company ship. The letter was three months old, which made it probable they would be arriving within the next week or so. It had taken Hettie eighty-five days to get there. He would take the children to London. He had also written to Menrod, who would presumably meet them there, as he had not asked us to.
After we had done rejoicing, our next business was to discover whether Menrod had received his letter and would be in London to meet the children. I had no idea where he might be in March. Late April would certainly see him in London for the Season, with darts to Newmarket and Epsom for the races. I had some inkling he might be at one of the smaller race meets, the hurdles at Dover or Warwick, perhaps, for he was a keen horseman.
“Let us go up to Dower House and speak to Lady Menrod,” I suggested. “She will know where he is.”
“Mr. Everett knows—he wrote him in London, did he not?”
“Indeed he did, but that was a whole week ago. I’ll speak to him, see if Menrod mentioned his plans. If he is not in London, we will have to go and meet the children, Mama.”
“Oh, dear!” she exclaimed, aghast at the idea. We live less than fifty miles from the city, but do not make the trip oftener than once every two or three years. We have not been there since my father’s death.
I went on the fly into the hallway to put the question to Mr. Everett. “I have no notion where he might be,” he answered.
“He did not mention how long he would be staying in London?”
“Why would he tell me? I have never met the man.”
“You wrote to him. In his reply, I thought he might have said something.”
“I had no reply to my letter. That looks as though he was not in the city at all, does it not?”
“Had no reply?” I asked, staring. “You said he approved of the alterations! You don’t mean you have gone tearing the house apart without his consent? He is as fussy as may be about the cottage, because of its age and authenticity. He wants it kept as a gem of Elizabethan architecture. He would not hear of having the thatch removed and shingles put on last year, when the mice were driving us to distraction.”
“I told him I was doing it. If he disliked it, he would have written.”
“How could he write, if he didn’t have your letter? Oh, Mr. Everett, you had better hammer those panels back on immediately.”
“I had them carted away to my place and burned, out back where the lads are clearing away all the bits and pieces from my own construction. I did not want t
o leave you with the mess.”
“You have saddled me with a greater mess than a few pieces of wood. I dread to think what Menrod will have to say about this.”
“Now, Miss Harris, don’t fret your pretty head. I will handle Lord Menrod if he cuts up stiff over getting a dandy new set of stairs at no cost.”
“I most particularly wanted to have him in a good mood, too,” I said.
This had to be explained to the inquisitive architect. He was displeased at the intelligence. “You mean to live with the youngsters, you say?” he asked, frowning.
“My own sister’s children—what could be more natural?”
“Did she leave them in your custody?”
“I am not at all sure those legal arrangements had been made. Both Peter and Hettie were so young, they were not thinking of their death yet, or planning for it. But there is no one else except Menrod and us. He will not want them.”
“I’d make him take them if I were you, Miss Harris.”
“One does not make Lord Menrod do anything he dislikes. He will dislike very much to have the care of two small children. Of course we shall take them.”
“I don’t know that I fancy...though Oakdene is a great, rambling place. Eighty rooms in all. No, I tell a lie. There are seventy-eight. Still, they would not be underfoot...” he said, in a musing way that showed clearly he had not given up his pursuit of me.
“I do not plan to billet them on you, Mr. Everett. They will stay with my mother and myself,” I answered sharply, and whirled away. Then I suddenly whirled back. “Please restore that staircase to as close a likeness of its former condition as possible, as soon as possible.”
“I’ll do better than that. You’ll be proud of the job, Miss Harris,” he answered with a low bow.
I was too distraught to read the ominous overtones in his speech. To a man who considered Oakdene beautiful, what grotesquerie would constitute a job to be proud of?
I donned my pelisse and bonnet and went straight up to the Dower House to converse with Lady Menrod, in an effort to discover Menrod’s whereabouts. Old Lord Menrod had married a youngish widow in his dotage, and died within a few years. The heir never liked his stepmother. He had her shipped into the Dower House within six months of his father’s death, where she had remained ever since. The rest of the parish took no exception to the lady. She was now in her fifties, an elegant and rather shy dame, who made no demands whatsoever on her stepson.
She was entertaining a guest when I arrived in her saloon. Lady Althea Costigan is some kin to the dowager countess, though not a close relative. She lives in London but spends enough time in our neighborhood that she is considered half an inhabitant. She is a little older than myself—thirtyish, to judge by the fine lines etching their way in at the corners of her eyes. She has pretty auburn hair and striking green eyes. It is mainly her figure for which she is remembered. It is of that fullness just a shade short of stout, most often described as voluptuous.
I explained my business to them and waited eagerly to hear what they could tell me. “I have no idea where he may be,” the Dowager said, with a noticeable lack of enthusiasm.
“When I spoke to him last week in London, he said he was off to the selling races at Brighton, to look out for a filly,” Lady Althea told me.
“Had he heard from Mr. Enberg yet?” I asked, for if he had, he would of course return to London to meet the ship.
“He did not mention it if he had,” she answered.
“Then he had not heard. He would have mentioned such an important matter,” I thought aloud.
Lady Althea and her hostess looked unconvinced. “He might,” the former agreed, “but if I were you, Miss Harris, I would just run along to London to be sure someone is there to receive the children.”
It sounded so miraculously simple—"just run along to London.” Running off to London I could not do alone, and to move Mama in that direction would take one of Mr. Congreve’s rockets at least. Then too, there was Mr. Everett, ripping the house apart during our absence. I had no accurate idea of when the ship was to arrive.
Suppose I got there a week early, and had to put up at an expensive hotel during the interim. The alternative was to send Mr. Pudge. I could think of no other. It was not the problem of my hostess, however, so I accepted a cup of tea and made a brief social visit of it.
“Don’t vex yourself, Miss Harris,” Lady Menrod advised. “My stepson will handle it. If he did not receive the letter himself, his man of business will have done so, and made all the arrangements. Menrod does not leave anything to chance. He is quite a perfectionist.”
“He will be at the Manor for the children’s arrival, to see them,” Lady Althea added, while a calculating light shone in her eyes.
“You may depend upon it. Menrod always does the right thing. Maybe that will convince you to prolong your visit, Althea,” Lady Menrod suggested, with a twinkle in her dark eyes,
I had not realized before that moment that Lady Althea came to visit her relative with any other end than friendship in view. The last speech awakened me to the realization she was throwing her cap at Menrod. A perfectly suitable match it would be, too. I wondered she had not pulled it off long ago. She must have timed her visits poorly, to have failed in her goal.
I was so preoccupied with worrying about meeting the children, that my attention wandered from their conversation. As soon as politely possible, I took my leave, to return home and discuss with Mama what ought to be done. She was all for letting Menrod handle it, but the awful suspicion would intrude that Menrod was not infallible. Suppose he did not handle it, then what? Were we to leave two children stranded on the docks of London?
Mr. Everett, running back and forth from stairs to dining room table, caught the gist of our conversation. Being as encroaching as a mushroom, he did not hesitate a moment to offer his services.
“I’ll just nip down to London and deliver the youngsters for you,” he told us.
“That would give us time to prepare the nursery rooms for them, to air the beds, and make sure everything is ready,” Mama said at once.
“I would not like to have them met by a stranger,” I objected.
“No, really! Stranger indeed! You are too hard on me,” Everett declared.
“You are a stranger to them yourself, Wendy. We all are,” Mama pointed out, quite correctly.
Mr. Everett was hardly of a nature to frighten them out of their wits. He was friendly, fatherly, in a way.
The trip represented such a high hurdle to me that in the end I allowed myself to be talked into accepting yet another favor from Mr. Everett.
“Very likely Menrod will take care of them,” I reminded him, for to have him fighting with his lordship or his emissary in front of the children was a fearful conjecture. “If he is there, or if he has sent his man, you need do no more than say good day to them. It is a hard trip to take, with a possibility of its being entirely unnecessary.”
“It happens I had to go anyway. It is nothing but a pleasure to me, to be able to serve you.”
I feared he was telling another lie, but he did not correct himself on this occasion. Later I went to check out his progress on the box stairs. Nothing had been done, though a large sheet of wood lay on the dining table, the outline of the steps drawn on it with a black grease pencil, ready for sawing.
“Remember, the panel is not to be cut, Mr. Everett. We want it right back up to the ceiling,” I reminded him. “Can the carpenters go ahead with it during your absence?”
“Certainly they can, and will. It will be done before you can say one, two, three.”
All his help earned him an invitation to take potluck that evening for dinner. It was the first time he had sat down to a formal meal with us. Mrs. Pudge was in the boughs with us for asking him. Ever since Hettie married Lord Peter, she has had ideas above our station. She thinks we are royalty, or nobility, at least.
“What will his lordship think of you entertaining commoners?” she asked
, a fire burning in her blue eyes, her chin wagging.
About twenty years ago, my father gave her a Psalter for Christmas. It, her Bible, and the Pilgrim’s Progress are her library, sitting in state on her bed table, when they are not in her hands. She has them nearly by heart, and is liberal with her condemnations against the ungodly, and the unnoble.
“How should he know, Mrs. Pudge?” I asked.
“The scandal mongers won’t be slow to trot to him with the news. Bad enough the heathen sits down for tea three times a week, without having a place at our table.”
She does not have that degree of respect for Lord Menrod that the above would indicate. He too is frequently amongst the godless, but she has learned the trick of dividing her enemies against each other, in an effort to bring us all to justice.
“They will have a long trot, for no one knows where he is.”
“Aye, a long trek, whetting their tongues like a sword all the way. Will he be carving the roast, your Mr. Everett, or will I have Pudge to do it for you, as usual?”
“Let Pudge do it. It might put ideas in Mr. Everett’s head, to sit carving the roast at the head of the table.”
“You’ll never let him sit in the master’s place!” she gasped,
“No, no—it was only a manner of speaking. Put him at Mama’s right.”
“It’s a sad and sorrowful day,” she grieved. “You’ll be a proverb in the countryside, taking your mutton with the creature. As to them steps he is destroying in the front hallway, I hope you can keep the sight from Lord Menrod, or he’ll cast you into the desert, without a bone to gnaw on.”
“Have you anymore abominations to threaten us with, or will you go now and get the dining table cleared away, Mrs. Pudge?”
She glared once, then strode off, her chin waggling about heathens coming into their inheritance.
