“Oh, I’m sure you can do it,” her aunt said placidly. “I’ve no doubt that women could be scholars as well as the men, if not better. But if women allow ourselves to become involved in scholarship, why, who would do the real work?”
Katherine chuckled. “We could make the men do it.”
“Not if we want it done right,” snorted her aunt.
Katherine turned back to Helen. “What were you saying, dear?”
“Now I’ve forgotten,” Helen said.
Katherine smiled at her younger sister. It occurred to her that sweet, credulous Helen would be a perfect model for a gothic heroine. Would Helen have seen through the Baron’s mask of geniality as quickly as she had made Euphonia grasp his perfidy? No, she certainly would not. Katherine resolved to use the Helen test in her future writing and plotting.
“Is Jack not up yet?” she asked.
“Oh, he’s been up for hours,” Aunt Alice told her. “He’s out and about somewhere. Cook says a large bit of cheese and some fresh teacakes have vanished.”
“She’ll have to remember to make enough to provide for kitchen raids while Jack is home,” Katherine said.
A rapid knock on the front door and a commotion in the front hall told them of a visitor’s arrival before the door to the breakfast room flung opened and Julia appeared dramatically. Not waiting to be greeted, she plopped herself into a chair and exclaimed, “He’s come!”
“Who has come?” Katherine asked reasonably.
“Lord Charles! He’s here!”
Aunt Alice peered about anxiously. “HERE? Gracious! Where?”
“He’s arrived at Piddledean,” Julia explained impatiently. “Just showed up at Greymere yesterday and threw Mrs. Purvis into hysterics.”
“With no advance word?” Katherine asked. “That seems odd.”
“Well,” said Aunt Alice comfortably, “I believe we country folk are more likely to take the servants into consideration. They bide with us longer and we come to know them, almost like family. I believe in those grand London houses, there’s so much chop and change in the staffing that a total stranger might bring you your morning chocolate and the ladies think nothing of it.”
“Poor Mrs. Purvis was so startled she dropped an entire armload of laundry,” Julia continued. “But Lord Charles apologized so beautifully that he quite won her over. Every inch a lord, she told the hall, and she won’t hear a word against him, even if he did arrive without a valet and insist on putting himself to bed and dressing himself in the morning.”
“That’s the soldier in him,” Aunt Alice said. “They learn self-reliance.”
“So he has no valet?” Helen asked. A lord without a valet seemed incomprehensible to her.
“Oh, he told Purvis that his batman would be arriving to serve as valet, as soon as he musters out,” Julia told him.
“And quite nice it will be for him to have a familiar face seeing to all his things,” Aunt Alice beamed.
“And he’s brought a boy along with him, some young relative,” Julia added.
“You are remarkably well-informed,” Katherine observed.
“Well, you see, our John Coachman is walking out with Maisie Connor at the Rose and Crown, and she is great friends with Betsy up at the manor.”
“Your information system would be the envy of Lord Wellington!” Katherine said. “And poor Lord Charles! He might as well be living his life on a lighted stage.”
“No doubt he’s used to the attention,” Julia said indifferently. “Betsy told Maisie that he is divinely handsome, so he must be accustomed to being looked at and wondered over.”
“The poor thing,” said Aunt Alice.
“Poor thing?” exclaimed Katherine. “To be young, rich, noble, and handsome? I think I will save my sympathy for those more in need of it!”
Julia stayed some time longer with the Rose ladies, helping herself to a few bites of their breakfast offerings and joining in the wonder and speculation at the long-awaited arrival of Lord Charles, before leaving to make more stops in the neighborhood to spread her budget of news.
As for the man himself, he enjoyed a substantial breakfast and then advised Purvis to send a message for Mister Doakes the steward to call upon him the next day so that they might go over the books and he would begin learning his estate duties. “Today I’ll just tour the house and grounds, I think,” he said.
Mrs. Purvis insisted on providing an escort for the house tour, eager to answer any questions his lordship might have and learn how he liked to have a house managed. Han lounged along on the tour. They found their new residence to be a comfortable old house, with furnishings too old to be fashionable and yet not old enough to be picturesque. While well-maintained and not neglected, the house nonetheless bore the atmosphere of a house that had not been inhabited for some years. Mrs. Purvis felt it too. “Ah well,” she said. “A house needs a family, doesn’t it?”
“Indeed it does,” Charles agreed.
“I suppose you’ll be starting your own family some day soon,” Mrs. Purvis suggested enticingly.
“Some day, no doubt,” Charles said without encouragement.
Mrs. Purvis made several more remarks about families and the joys that little ones bring to a home, but gleaned no new information from her employer. Undaunted, she moved on. “And visitors! I declare, a house like this needs company, cries out for it, seems like. Callers and house parties.”
“That would be more work for you, Mrs. Purvis,” Charles said with a grin.
“Oh, lord love you, sir, what else are we here for, if not to do our best with the tasks provided to our hand? What’s a little more work, after all, for a spot of interest and liveliness?” They were traveling along the long wide hall that she had called the Long Gallery, and she added, “Fair gives me the creeps the way your footsteps echo in an empty old house.”
“We shall have to liven things up for you,” Charles promised.
She gave a comfortable chuckle. “You shall do just as you please, my lord. Just having a master in the house to do for makes a wonderful change, I assure you of that.”
“How long has it been since the house was lived in?” Han asked.
“Oh, years, sir!” Mrs. Purvis said. “The last resident was old Mister Grey, Hiram Grey, he was the last of the family what built the manor. He was in his eighties when he finally passed on, and he never married. Disappointed in his youth, some said. That was a good sixteen years ago. Then the property was bought by a Mister Billings, but he never lived here. His wife didn’t like it, said it was too far from London and damp. Which it isn’t, sir, I give you my word! The house was rented a time or two for a year or so at a time, but yes, it was Mister Grey who was the last permanency, you might say. The neighborhood will be glad to see the place lived in, and that’s a fact. Will you be spending much time here, my lord? I know you’ll want to be in London for the Season, like.”
Before Charles could answer, they heard hasty footsteps coming up the stairs. “Mrs. Purvis?” a voice called, and then Betsy came into view. “Oh, Mrs. Purvis,” she gasped, out of breath. “Purvis sent me to find you, that he did, and of course his lordship too.” Here she sketched a hasty curtsey before hurrying on with her message. “A caller for his lordship, it’s Mister Downey!”
“Evidently a person of some importance,” Charles guessed.
“The vicar!” Mrs. Purvis told him, moving the group toward the stairs.
“Oh, mustn’t keep the vicar waiting!” Charles agreed. “Where is Mister Downey to be found – Betsy, is it?”
“Yessir,” Betsy said, flustered. “Betsy it is, and as for Mister Downey, he’s in the morning room.”
By the time he reached the door to the morning room, Charles realized that he’d lost Han somewhere along the way. He entered the morning room and found there a young man rising to his feet and bowing a greeting. “Mister Downey, I believe?” he said. “Good of you to call! You’re remarkably well-informed.”
Downey grinn
ed. “No more well-informed than most,” he said. “If there’s a resident of Piddledean and the surrounding countryside unaware that Lord Charles Ramsey has arrived, I would be most surprised.”
“Indeed?” Charles said, raising his eyebrows. “You surprise me. But perhaps I should have realized. As a younger son, I am not used to my movements being of interest to anyone.”
“You’re in a different sphere now, my lord,” the vicar told him, “and the master of Greymere will be a person of great importance. I came today to introduce myself and see how I might assist you in settling in.”
“The introduction itself is a fine start,” Charles told him, “and if you would also introduce me to the major families of the neighborhood, that would be an excellent thing.”
The two young men assessed one other silently as they spoke, and both were favorably impressed. Mister Downey beheld a man of manly, open countenance, with none of the haughtiness that sometimes accompanies high birth, nor yet any of the coarseness that was the occasional attribute of the military man. Lord Charles was pleased to find that the vicar was young and personable, and did not show any obvious signs of canting fanaticism or censoriousness. Both men reached the same conclusion – ‘a fine addition at any dinner table’.
The men sat comfortably across from one other as Mister Downey described the village and population. Downey himself was an Oxford man, appointed to the living at Piddledean four years ago by Charles’ own father. “Heavens, is the parish in my gift?” Charles asked. “I would have thought surely the squire would be the man.”
“The Grey family long predated the Fordices,” Downey explained, “and Greymere having the gift of the parish is a holdover from those times.”
“Did you know my father?” Charles asked.
“No, sir, we never met,” Downey said. “When it was explained to him that the living at Piddledean was vacant and he had the gift of it, he deferred to the bishop to make the selection.”
“Quite sensible,” Charles approved. “I hope you are quite comfortable in your duties and plan to remain with us a good long while?”
Downey smiled. “I’m quite satisfied with my situation, my lord.”
“Good!” Charles said. “My brother has a number of parishes in his gift, and he tells me that when a living falls vacant, it always astonishes him to learn how many previously unmet cousins he has that have just recently discovered a vocation for the church.”
Downey chuckled. “When would you like to make calls?” he asked Charles.
Charles thought for a moment. “Tomorrow I’m promised to my steward, and I’ve no notion how long that will be. So perhaps the day after?”
Downey nodded agreement.
Then Charles said, “Only, perhaps we should call on the squire today? I gather he’s quite the important man in the vicinity, local magistrate and justice of the peace, all that? Wouldn’t do to be behind hand in making his acquaintance.”
And so it came about that while the squire’s eldest daughter was going about the countryside spreading the news of Lord Charles’ arrival, her younger sisters were sitting sedately in their own morning room, making the acquaintance of the man himself. When she returned home and learned that she had just missed Lord Charles, who had been brought by the vicar and remained for a full thirty minutes, she could have cried with vexation.
“Oh, how sad for you that you missed him!” cried her sister Evelyn with a sugary sympathy so patently false that Julia would have boxed the chit’s ears if their mama had not been sitting right there. “But don’t worry; I shall introduce you to him when next we meet, so you will soon have his acquaintance.”
“Too kind,” gritted Julia, glaring daggers at her sister. Mama’s attention being elsewhere, Evelyn grinned at Julia and stuck out her tongue.
“A charming gentleman,” Evelyn said, parroting the encomiums she had heard her mother use. “Quite well spoken and not at all high in the instep.”
“He admired Gracie very much,” said Priscilla the youngest girl, “and asked to be considered for one of her pups when they’re born. Now that he’s a country gentleman, he will need a gun dog, he said.”
Gracie, lolling on the hearth, raised her head at hearing her name, but when no treats or attention seemed forthcoming, went back to sleep.
At dinner that evening, Mrs. Fordice went to work on her husband, pointing out to him how crucial it was that theirs should be the first dinner party to welcome their new neighbor to the community. Julia was relieved when Sir Robert showed no reluctance, in fact, fully supported his wife’s contention that their position in the neighborhood required them to not be behindhand in the offer of hospitality. So Evelyn met him first, Julia told herself. Evelyn was just out, and still quite awkward, not to mention spotty. If she could just contrive to meet the man before he met the Rose sisters, that was the main thing.
SIX
“A good beginning, I think,” said Charles at the dinner table. “I met both the vicar and the squire, so that was a good day’s work.”
Han was unimpressed. “My achievements were more to the point,” he said. “I met Mrs. Spelling, your worthy and talented cook, and think we’ve become great friends. She gave me a lengthy discourse on her ceaseless battles against pantry mice. Later, I found a most excellent cat in the barn and imported her into the kitchen, so I think Mrs. Spelling’s troubles are well on their way to being solved.”
“A cat?” asked Charles. “That might be a problem. Why, I’ve just spoken for a puppy today.”
Han waved a fork in unconcern. “A puppy? That is no problem. I’ll back my kitchen cat to explain the facts of life and the pecking order in this house to any puppy you might choose to bring in. Oh, and I say! I’ve learned that Rosebourne is just on the other side of the village. Might I invite Footer Rose to come over tomorrow?”
“Footer Rose?” Charles asked.
“Jack Rose,” Han explained. “The fellows call him Footer because of his enormous feet, you see.” He thought for a moment and then added conscientiously, “Not that they’re actually enormous, but we pretend to think they are. He outgrew his socks last term so the chaps rag him about it rather.”
“I see,” said Charles, grinning in memory of his own school days.
“Nicknames are quite a feature of school,” Han went on. “I’m called Inky, for the drawing, you see. Footer is a great fellow and is teaching me how to be English.”
“But you are English,” Charles pointed out.
“Indeed, I am,” Han agreed. “But that doesn’t mean I know how to be English, exactly. There’s quite a lot to it.”
“Ah,” said Charles. “Well, you may certainly invite Footer over. Make yourself at home.”
The next morning, a folded note rested beside Jack’s plate at the breakfast table. He found it when he sat down with his loaded plate, and tore it open curiously. “Famous!” he exclaimed around a mouthful of ham.
“What is it?” Katherine asked.
“Chew, swallow and then speak,” added Aunt Alice.
“It’s Inky Cooper!” said Jack, after he’d swallowed his bite. “He’s here. Staying at Greymere and invites me over.”
“Really!” said Aunt Alice. “Why, how nice for you!”
Katherine lifted a finger to gesture to the maid attending the breakfast table. When the girl came over, Katherine murmured, “Who brought that note, Sally?”
“Why, it was Bill, miss,” Sally said. “The undergroom, you know? Over at Greymere?”
“Thank you,” Katherine said, and Sally returned to the sideboard. So it seemed that the note was genuine and that the legendary Inky was in residence at Greymere.
Katherine said, “I’ll walk you over later, Jack.”
Jack looked puzzled but shrugged. “If you want to,” he said.
“May I come?” asked Helen excitedly.
“No,” said Katherine curtly. Helen looked about to protest, but Katherine quelled her with a significant glance.
Later, when Jack had bolted his breakfast and left the table, Helen made her objection. “Why can’t I come? I want to meet Lord Charles too!”
“I’m not going to meet Lord Charles!” Katherine said. “Single women calling on a single man? It won’t do. No, I intend to just have a private word with Purvis and ensure that Jack is expected and that his visit won’t be an imposition, that’s all.”
Several hours later, Katherine set off down the lane with Jack, carrying her market basket so she could visit the shops on the way home. She listened to Jack’s chatter about school and his friends, glad that she hadn’t expressed her doubts about “Inky”. After all, if he were staying at Greymere, perhaps some of his stories were true.
“What are your plans today?” Charles asked Han as they rose from a late breakfast.
“I expect Footer to come by,” Han said. “I thought we’d just explore. We can’t really plan any adventures until we know what we’re dealing with.”
“Schoolboys planning adventures,” mused Charles. “Why does that prospect fill me with alarm?”
Han just laughed. “More dangerous than Waterloo, I daresay. What will you find to do?”
“I’ll be closeted with my steward, learning what all I have here and how things work. Sounds tedious, but it must be done. And then the vicar for dinner, don’t forget.”
The two wandered out into the front hall, feeling aimless. Both of their agendas depended on the arrival of another. Han idly scuffed the floor with the toe of his shoe. Then he grinned and sat down on the floor. “Might as well give it a try,” he said, removing his shoes.
Han made several gliding slides up and down the hall, while Charles watched, feeling very adult and responsible. Then he shook his head, muttered, “Why not, after all?” and sat down on the steps to remove his own shoes. The two were soon gliding and twirling up and down the hall.
The door to the servants’ area opened and Purvis peered out in wonder. The door closed silently, to open a few moments later so that Mrs. Purvis and Mrs. Spelling might observe this strange behavior.
Katherine, When She Smiled Page 6
