“You men are so hard working, you make me feel ashamed of myself,” Clara said. “My great achievement today was dealing with some correspondence. Mama Fernley is demanding to know when we intend to return.” She sighed and added, “I suppose we must go back sometime.”
“You’re welcome to stay as long as you wish,” Charles told her.
“We shall certainly stay until after your picnic,” Clara said.
“You’re having a picnic?” Helen asked with excitement.
“I have no notion,” Charles said. “As this is the first I’ve heard of it.” He turned to his sister. “I’m having a picnic?”
“Yes, you are,” she told him. “I’ve just decided. It will be a lovely event for the entire neighborhood.”
The picnic scheme met with general acclaim, and the remainder of the dinner was spent in suggesting and adopting or rejecting various activities for the gala occasion.
Following the dessert course, the men did not linger long over their port but rose soon from the table to join the ladies in the drawing room. They were soon joined there by the boys, who were looking very pleased with themselves, as well as looking sticky and dusty. Charles reached behind Han’s head and extracted a cobweb from his hair.
“I had no idea that the nursery wing was in such sorry state,” he observed.
Han grinned at him. “The nursery wing is spotless and shines with beeswax. We’ve been exploring the attics. You have quite a quantity of them.”
“Did you find anything interesting?” Charles asked.
“Just old furniture and clothes,” Han said dismissively. “No treasure, not even a mysterious map.”
“What a disappointment,” Charles said.
“Oh, but Charles, Footer says that there are CAVES!” Han said with delight.
“Indeed?”
“Yes, somewhere on your property is the entrance, but Jack doesn’t know where.”
Charles looked to Katherine, quirking an inquiring eyebrow.
“Why yes,” Katherine said in some surprise. “Now that it’s mentioned, I recall Papa saying something about a cave on the old Grey property. I believe he explored it when he was a boy, but I’ve no notion where it is.”
Charles groaned. “Please tell me my property is not a smugglers’ lair.”
“Oh, no such thing,” Katherine said with a laugh. “We’re too far inland for any cave to be useful to smugglers. Closer to the sea, I believe smuggling is a problem, but not here.”
“That’s a relief, anyway,” Charles said.
Katherine frowned thoughtfully. “I’m trying to remember what Papa said about the cave. I was very young, and so he wouldn’t tell me where it was. And then I forgot about it. It was a mine, he said. Tin. Or was it copper? Anyway, that was hundreds of years ago that it was mined, I believe.”
“If we find it, we’ll be smugglers,” Han said positively.
Han moved off then, having notice macaroons gracing the tea tray. Charles looked at Katherine. “Should I worry?” he asked.
“I doubt it,” she told him. “I don’t think anyone remembers where the entrance is and I doubt if the boys could find it. But looking for it might keep them from other mischief.”
“A definite point,” he said. “Looking after a boy is new to me. You seem quite expert at it; I might have to apply to you for advice.”
Katherine chuckled. “But you have one advantage on me, I think. You were once a boy yourself.”
Charles mimed shock at this revelation. “Why, so I was!”
“Most young men would balk at having a vacationing school boy on their hands,” Katherine added. “I think you must be a very good-natured and patient man.”
“Am I?” Charles wondered. “Perhaps so. I don’t mind having Han here. He makes things interesting. I certainly never would have invented floor skating myself.”
Overhearing this, Amanda joined them. “I am determined to try this floor skating before I leave. Oh, dear, now I’ve shocked the vicar.”
Mister Downey was indeed looking a trifle perturbed.
“You are determined to think ill of me,” Amanda added. “I do not intend to remove my shoes here this evening or at any time in a public setting. But if I arranged a ladies-only party to investigate the sport of floor skating, would you approve of that?”
He smiled at her suddenly. “Perhaps approve would be too strong a word, but I would not censure such an event.”
Amanda clapped her hands. “You hear that, ladies?” she said loudly. “Mister Downey would not censure a ladies’ floor skating party. We must make arrangements.”
Lady Clara laughed. “I will be your hostess but will not take part myself. I think if Mama Fernley were to learn of me doing any such thing, to the potential endangerment of the Heir, she would have me clapped into Bedlam.”
“I should like to try it,” Helen said, eyes shining. She turned to Katherine. “Oh, do say you’ll permit it, dear Kitty! You know how much you enjoy skating on the pond in the winter.”
“Well,” Katherine temporized. “We’ll see. Perhaps it might be something we could do.”
Aunt Alice snorted. “When I slip on a floor, it’s purely by accident,” she said.
“You ladies must give me advance warning when I am to be exiled from my home for your party,” Charles said. “I will seek refuge with Mister Downey, if I may.”
“You would be most welcome,” the vicar replied. “I can give you a tolerable sherry and we can exchange notes about the vagaries of womenfolk.”
“For shame, Mister Downey!” cried Amanda. “It was not, after all, a woman who invented the sport.”
“Very true,” he admitted, with a slight bow.
Soon after, the party broke up and the guests departed.
FIFTEEN
“What an agreeable evening!” Aunt Alice began, as the carriage bore them back to Rosebourne. “I must charge Mrs. Gage to obtain that syllabub recipe by any possible means. And Lord Charles! How I enjoy looking at a handsome man.”
“I myself am agreeably surprised with him,” Katherine admitted. “I believe I held his handsomeness against him and assumed him to be spoiled, or a scoundrel along the lines of Mister Wickham. But I find him to be a man of sense, who thinks just as he ought on matters of importance.”
“Well, I am disappointed in him,” Helen said. “Surely a man that handsome, and a lord and a soldier beside, should be more romantical and heroic. Lord Charles seems like any other householder.”
“I think, Miss Helen,” suggested Rupert, “that you are mistaking a lack of an adventure for a lack of a hero. I suspect that any novel’s hero, however romantical he might be, would not be posing and declaiming while resting at home between adventures. It would make him appear nonsensical.”
“He could at least tell us about the battle,” Helen pouted.
“And boast about how he won the day for Wellington?” Katherine suggested. “What a coxcomb he would be! And yet if he told of his involvement with becoming modesty, you might again disparage him for being too prosaic. There is no pleasing you.”
Helen said no more on the matter. Reality was quite a tedious business, it seemed.
In the Greymere drawing room, the residents felt the approach of bedtime, but staved it off with random comments and desultory conversation.
“I must say,” Lady Clara remarked. “I could see no indication of an understanding between Mister Downey and Miss Rose.”
“No?” Lord Charles asked. He was leaned back on a settee with his feet stretched toward the fire and his hands laced behind his head.
“I looked for it particularly,” Clara added.
“He offered and she refused him.” This unexpected remark came from Han, who sat beside the tea tray constructing a tower from the remaining macaroons.
“What?!” exclaimed Charles.
“How do you know that?” Clara asked. “Did Jack tell you?”
“Nobody told me anything,” Han said with a contemptuou
s shrug. “I could see it. I thought it was rather obvious.”
“You saw it in their eyes, I suppose,” said Charles.
“Yes, of course.”
“What is it that you see?” asked Charles in some exasperation, “and why don’t other people see it?”
Han thought for a moment before replying. “With him, I saw hurt and a touch of anger,” he said at last. “She appeared to be sorry for his hurt, but knowing she could do nothing else. As for why other people don’t see it, I can only assume it’s because they don’t look.”
“I think I’m going to start wearing a veil in your vicinity,” Amanda observed.
“As for me,” said Lady Clara, “I will probably begin peering sharply into the faces of everyone I encounter to see if I can see these things.”
Meanwhile, the Fordice ball had gone on as planned, and while Lady Fordice was disappointed and her eldest daughter infuriated by the absence of the party from Greymere, no ball could be considered a failure when it provided both waltzing and champagne, and Julia could not despise an event when she was the prettiest girl there. Her ladyship’s reception rooms were full as was her daughter’s dance card, and that would have to suffice.
By absenting himself from the ball, Mister Grimthorpe experienced an increase in value in Julia’s estimation. Once a handy tool to make another man jealous, his absence lifted him to the level of worthy prey. He now seemed to her to be sophisticated and exotic, the gentleman about the Town with, what’s more, a wealthy bachelor uncle. As for young Mister Grimthorpe, he basked in Miss Fordice’s admiration, and began to think himself a very desirable connection and to regard her as a most discerning young lady.
When he first arrived in Piddledean, he was struck by Miss Rose’s beauty and admired the uncomplaining way she shouldered the family burdens. But gradually he became disenchanted with her. She spoke to him without deference, as if she considered herself his equal. She gave her own opinions at least equal weight to his, and wasted no time on the flattery that many considered an intrinsic element in relations between women and men. Moreover, her written account of the final confrontation between the dastardly Baron and the stable boy prince turned out to be infinitely superior to his own suggestions on that front, something he publicly acknowledged gracefully, but inwardly found hard to forgive.
But in Miss Fordice’s company, he felt himself a very clever fellow indeed. It was intoxicating.
One evening at dinner, Aunt Alice suddenly said, “Mister Grimthorpe, I have begun hearing your acquaintance with Miss Fordice described as a courtship.”
He carefully placed his fork onto his plate. “Have you indeed?” he asked politely.
“I have,” she confirmed. After a moment’s hesitation, she went on, “I have no standing in this matter, of course, but as a friend and as your hostess, I felt that I should mention it. If you intend nothing more than a country flirtation, I think that would be taken very ill. Very ill indeed.”
Katherine listened to the exchange with astonishment. She was in the process of copying out the new Mrs. Wilson novel in a fair hand, making minor edits and corrections as she went, and now realized that she had been blind to actual events happening right under her nose.
“But what if my intentions were more serious?” Rupert asked. “How would that be viewed?”
Aunt Alice beamed. “Of course, everyone loves a romance.”
“My birth is good, but I’ve no independence,” Rupert said cautiously.
“You have expectations,” Aunt Alice reminded him.
“Would Sir Robert consider it an impertinence?”
“A gentleman wishing to pay honorable attention to a lady can never be an impertinence,” Aunt Alice said. “I cannot say how Sir Robert would respond to such an offer, nor how Julia feels about the matter. My concern was lest a country misunderstanding of Town manners might be making more of a flirtation than was truly there, causing insult where none was intended.”
“I see,” said Rupert thoughtfully. In fact, he had befriended Miss Fordice with no thought other than to enjoy her company and to allow her flattering attention to sooth his masculine pride subtly wounded by Katherine’s brisk no-nonsense treatment. “Could I support a wife, though?”
“I’ve no notion,” Alice told him. “But it’s common knowledge that Miss Fordice will have a settlement of ten thousand pounds. Sir Robert has mentioned it often enough.”
“Has he indeed,” Rupert said. The subject turned to other matters. But late that night, secure in his own bed, Rupert stared up at the ceiling and considered the matter seriously. While he originally had no thought of a match, now the prospect began to appeal to him. He imagined himself returning to London, bearing with him the long-delayed Mrs. Wilson novel. He would be a hero to his employers and gain some satisfaction thereby, but the glow from that achievement would be short-lived and he would return alone to his rooms with no one to admire him. But! If he returned engaged to a baronet’s daughter…
Rupert’s Uncle Basil had been counseling marriage for some little while now, promising to ‘come down handsomely’ to assist the happy couple set up their own establishment. But in London society, Rupert was a very small fish indeed, scarcely a minnow in that vast pool. Among the young ladies of London, he did not have either the charm or the wit to make up for his lack of fortune or elegance of form. It seemed to him now that this unsought opportunity almost compelled him to fall in love.
The next time he was in Miss Fordice’s company, Rupert watched her closely to see if she was one of those who saw a courtship in their dealings. The warmth of her smile, the way she dropped her eyes and blushed at a compliment – it didn’t take him long to realize that he was indeed in the midst of a courtship and a successful one at that. The realization was so flattering that it took little effort for him to come to the conclusion that he was indeed a man deep in love.
Emboldened by this realization and encouraged by his lady’s smiles, Rupert solicited Sir Robert for permission to pay his addresses to the squire’s daughter, and permission given, made his offer in form. Less than a week after Aunt Alice’s dinner conversation, the Roses’ house guest was an engaged man.
And with her change in status, Julia came back to the realization that Katherine was her dearest friend. She was an engaged lady now, and poor dear Katherine still unclaimed and unsought. Julia felt secure now that she had won the competition that Katherine didn’t even realize they were waging, and if she wished to remind Katherine of her victory, she must spend more time in her company. Her calls at Rosebourne became more frequent and her conversation often embellished with the phrase “Rupert says” and plans and schemes for her removal to the great metropolis.
Katherine was happy for Julia. Every as a child, Julia had been fascinated by London and would come back from the family’s occasional trips there full of boasts of all the marvels she had seen. A triumphant Julia was better company than a jealous Julia, and Katherine allowed her the triumph. Evelyn whispered to Helen that Julia was becoming insupportable at home.
The ladies’ floor skating party somehow expanded to include, not merely the ladies from the Greymere dinner party, but the Fordices and the Massinghams as well. Aunt Alice and Lady Fordice came along to sit along the wall and urge caution when the younger ladies became too wild.
The party was a thorough success. With no young men to attempt to impress, the young ladies soon abandoned all thoughts of elegant behavior and reverted for a time to the brash girls they had been a few short years ago. Servants belowstairs stared wide-eyed at one another at the sound of shrieks of laughter from above.
“Someone is going to break a leg,” said Mrs. Spelling with a sniff.
“Ah, well, if they do, they do,” Mrs. Purvis said. “Nothing you or I can do to stop it.”
But when the ladies ceased their exertions to partake of a cold nuncheon, they proved to be substantially intact with no need for medical attention, though Miss Helen had a fine bruise forming on her e
lbow and Miss Sylvia Massingham was rubbing her posterior in a most inelegant fashion.
“Well, Miss Katherine,” Amanda said, taking a seat beside her. “You quite left us all in the shade. I am totally cast down; I expected to be the best at our new sport, but you showed us all the way.”
Katherine, her face pink with exertion, smiled. “It was exhilarating, wasn’t it?”
“Just wait till next year,” Lady Clara said. “Fernley Park has a marble floor. Once this little fellow” with a gesture to her abdomen “is in the hands of his nurse, I’m going to startle Mama Fernley with my derring-do.”
“I wonder if I can convince Mister Grimthorpe that we need a townhouse with a marble floor?” put in Julia, who hadn’t alluded to the fact that she was now an engaged lady for almost an hour.
Conversation turned to the upcoming Greymere picnic, which would be the last social event before the Fernleys took their departure. It was a highly anticipated occasion. Julia said, “I’ve convinced Mister Grimthorpe that he can’t return to Town before the picnic.” Katherine suppressed a smile, knowing well that nothing would induce Rupert to leave Piddledean until he had a completed Mrs. Wilson manuscript secreted in his luggage.
“What of you, Mandy?” Lady Clara asked. “Will you be coming with us to Fernley Park, or shall you return to Bath?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Amanda said with a strange smile. “I enjoy Piddledean so much I might find a way to remain. Perhaps take one of those dear little cottages on the High Street, you know how I dote on them.”
Katherine said seriously, “I don’t know that any of the High Street cottages are available.”
Amanda gave a little trill of laughter. “We shall see. Or, as Clara says, I might go to Fernley. I haven’t decided yet.”
The gentlemen of Greymere returned from exile to find the ladies flushed with exertion and hilarity. Lady Clara performed for them her impression of Julia Grimthorpe nee Fordice as an awe-inspiring, turbaned society matron, adding, “Mark my words.”
Katherine, When She Smiled Page 16
