Madcap Miss Read online

  MADCAP MISS

  Joan Smith

  Chapter One

  Grace Farnsworth ripped the blue feather from her bonnet, tossed it into a dustbin, then retrieved it and stuck it into her pocket. She set the bonnet on her head, rolled back the brim, and surveyed herself in the mirror. Satisfied, she put her fingers inside the band of her blue serge suit skirt, hiked it up eight inches, and rolled it under several times, pulling her jacket down to conceal the resulting lump.

  This done, she examined herself in the mirror and smiled at the results. For the first time in her life she was thankful for her petite body. She did not look a day over thirteen and meant to pass for twelve on the coach, in order to pay the lower children’s fare.

  Grace was neither a nip cheese nor a thief, in the normal way. In her reticule there rested sufficient funds to get a child to Wickfield, with two shillings left over. She had paid full fare from Pevensey to Lewes and would gladly have done the same to Wickfield had she had the money. It was imperative for her to get to Wickfield.

  She had just been summarily relieved of her post as governess to Mrs. Bixworth’s two girls, due to Ellie Lou’s running into the sea while romping on the beach. Naturally the governess was held at fault. She should have been watching Ellie Lou while simultaneously riding herd on Dora, who was intent on making mischief with an unleashed dog.

  Really she was well out of the Bixworth residence, badly as she needed the job. If she had not half wanted to be let go, she would not have flared up at her mistress, telling her that what her daughters needed was not a governess but a sound thrashing.

  She had very nearly got one herself, till she threatened to have the constable down on the harridan’s head. Vulgar, bad-tempered shrew! She would never have to see her red face again—and never get the three weeks’ wages that were owing to her, either.

  No matter. Miss Thomas would put her up till she found a new position. She was a greenhorn to have taken the first thing that was offered, but she had already billeted herself on her ex-governess for a month. Miss Thomas was in straitened circumstances, and Grace, though she was only five feet and one inch tall, ate like an infantryman.

  Miss Farnsworth felt badly about battening herself on Miss Thomas. She had assumed that when her father died, she would come into a comfortable competence. She thought she might have to give up her home, but that she would be obliged to work for her keep never once occurred to her.

  Fortunately her ex-governess and later companion had saved up a nest egg. Miss Thomas had hired a cottage at Wickfield, where she had been born and reared. It was unconscionable to inflict herself on poor Thomas again. She would repay every penny.

  Miss Farnworth’s firm chin jutted out, giving her the air of a stubborn child as she stood looking at the brown-haired, brown-eyed girl in the mirror. After rendering thanks to God for her small body, she added a word on the subject of freckles, highly visible now with the rice powder washed away. She never thought she would be happy for them, the bane of her existence at a time when she had no real problems.

  She picked up her straw case and walked out the door, causing no heads to turn as she left the inn. It was a busy place, where a child could pass unnoticed. In five minutes the stage ought to be leaving. The ticket agent’s only question when she asked in a high voice for a child’s fare was, “Are you traveling alone, missie?”

  “Yes, sir, but only to Wickfield to meet my governess,” she answered, smiling sweetly.

  The stage was ready to leave. The only passenger, a stout matron of middle years, eyed Grace curiously, but soon glanced out the window to view a more interesting sight. A tall, dark-haired gentleman with an angry hue to his face was dashing toward the carriage, waving his hand. “Hold it!” he shouted. “Is there a spare seat?”

  “Aye, mate, you’re in luck,” the driver called.

  The newcomer fished in his pocket, handed up his money, as he had no ticket, and opened the door to enter. The two women looked with interest to see a gentleman of the first stare taking the common stage. As the carriage lurched forward, he grabbed the window ledge. Both women noticed his elegant tanned-leather gloves. “What a bumpy rig!” he said impatiently, setting aside his curled beaver.

  “You wouldn’t be accustomed to the common stage, then?” the older woman asked. Curious as she was, she was made to appear more so by a pair of sharp, snuff-colored eyes that protruded inordinately from their sockets.

  “No, thank God. My carriage fell into a rut and lost a wheel a mile down the road. No excuse for such wretched roads. The wheeler had nothing to fit. It could be as long as a day before ...” The man had the distracted air of speaking to himself. He stopped midsentence and gave a weary sigh.

  “You call these bad roads!” the pop-eyed woman declared in a disparaging way. “You ought to take the trip in early spring. A regular pothole alley. Where are you going to, then?”

  He looked surprised and not pleased at the question. Unaccustomed to this low means of travel, he had no notion of the swift camaraderie that burgeoned between fellow travelers on the common stage. “Wickfield,” he answered curtly, then turned to glance out the window.

  “How about you, missie?” the matron continued, turning to Miss Farnsworth.

  “I am going to Wickfield, too.”

  “There’s a coincidence for you. So am I. The stage goes all the way to London. It will go empty if they don’t pick up fares at Lindfield or Horsham. You’re young to be racketing about the countryside alone, missie.” She scrutinized Grace closely.

  “I only came from Lewes, to visit my governess.”

  “What’s her name? I know everyone at Wickfield.”

  Grace thought it unlikely this mushroom would know her genteel Thomas, however, and gave her name.

  “Never heard of her,” the woman admitted with an air of regret. “I’m Mrs. Sempleton myself. Very pleased to meet you, I'm sure. My man runs the cobbler’s shop. Makes and mends boots, shoes, and slippers, and does it very well, too. He made these,” she informed Grace, sticking out a sturdy shoe. “He’ll fix you up in jig time if you find a sole flapping on you or a heel run down.” Her bulging eyes fell to examine her companions’ footgear.

  Grace pulled her slippers under the seat. Her lady’s slippers she had not been able to change. “My name is Jones, Grace Jones,” she offered, to divert the cobbler’s wife from what obviously interested her.

  “You shouldn’t be traveling alone, missie. But there, there’ll be someone to meet you, of course?”

  “Of course.”

  While the woman began rooting in her capacious bag, Grace turned to examine the other traveler. He was staring out the window, wearing an expression of concentration that bordered on a frown. He was not a dashing buck but handsome in a mature way. His dark hair was cropped short, his face weathered to tan.

  Looking at him in profile, she admired his strong nose but could not see his eyes. He seemed to be in his late thirties and had the settled, solid look of a married man. Or perhaps it was just the absence of any attractive female companionship that caused his disinterest. His jacket and boots, she noticed, while of good workmanship, did not aspire to the highest kick of fashion.

  He glanced at Grace and smiled. His eyes were light gray, finely lined at the edges. She thought he had a kind, understanding face. “I daresay this is your first trip alone, eh?” he asked in an avuncular tone.

  “Yes, sir,” she said smiling, remembering to use her high voice.

  “How old are you?” he asked companionably.

  “Going on thirteen, sir.”

  “I have a daughter your age,” he told her.

  The pop-eyed woman stirred, ready to rush in, and the man resumed his gaze out the window. Before long the stage drew up at a crossroads
and stopped. “What the devil is going on?” he grumbled. “We’re not going above five miles an hour. We’ll never get there at this rate.”

  “This is where they pick up meat for the inn at Wickfield,” Mrs. Sempleton informed him. She craned her neck to see half a dead cow, covered with buzzing flies, being put in the basket and covered with straw.

  The man’s nostrils pinched in distaste. “I must be sure not to eat at the inn,” he said.

  “You don’t live in Wickfield, do you, Mr.—?” Mrs. Sempleton asked, impressed with his genteel disgust.

  “Whewett is my name. No, I don’t live there.”

  The protruding eyes seemed to demand more information. “Just visiting, then,” she urged.

  “Yes, my wife’s grandmother, Lady Healy.”

  “I never heard of any Lady Healy in Wickfield,” she told him. Her eyes held a hint of disbelief. “Me and my man have lived there fifteen years, but I never heard of any Lady Healy.”

  “She has not lived there for well over fifteen years, and was not Lady Healy when she did. She was a Brougham by birth.”

  “Not one of the Broughams from Willowcrest!”

  “Yes, Sir Harold’s daughter.”

  “I knew him well. Many’s the time Mr. S. has made up a pair of top boots for Sir Harold. A very long foot but narrow. A regular ruler. He’s been dead many a long year, poor soul.”

  “Yes, Lady Healy’s brother John inherited the estate. He died a few months ago,” Mr. Whewett explained.

  “It was the heart that took him,” she agreed, nodding. “As he was a bachelor, Willowcrest belongs to this Lady Healy now, then, does it?”

  “Till she disposes of it.”

  “You never mean Willowcrest is up for sale!” Mrs. Sempleton exclaimed, delighted to have fallen into such a wonderfully enlightening conversation.

  “Not yet, but I fancy it soon will be.”

  “So you’re married into the Broughams,” the woman continued, wanting to get all details straight.

  “That’s right,” he answered curtly, then turned to resume his gaze out the window.

  Almost at once the carriage drew to a halt again, this time in front of a farmhouse. “Does this rig stop at every tree?” Whewett demanded.

  “Parcel for Mrs. Gibbons,” Mrs. Sempleton told him. She rolled down the window to take a good look at the box being run up the walk to the house. “Looks like a hatbox. She’d never order a hat at Lewes. It’s old clothes from her sister, that’s what it is. We’ll get a glimpse of it in church on Sunday.”

  Whewett stared, too astonished to be as annoyed as he felt he should be. Her attention again turned to him. “Are you making a long visit at Willowcrest, Mr. Whewett?”

  “Only a day or two.”

  “It ain’t likely we’ll have the pleasure of meeting you, for Willowcrest is a good five miles from town. If you need anything in the way of a boot or shoe--”

  “Yes, quite,” he said, cutting her off. “I’ll remember.”

  Mrs. Sempleton was reduced to chatting the rest of the way with a schoolgirl. “So, you’re visiting your governess. Seems to me, you’re young to be finished with her.”

  “I am not finished with her. She’s on holiday.”

  “Seems a funny thing for a young lady to go visiting alone.”

  “Mama is—having a baby,” Grace explained, reaching for the first excuse that came to mind.

  “And the governess would go running off. I know just how it is. A baby, eh? Have you got any other kiddies at home?”

  “No, this will be the first after me. I hope it’s a boy.”

  “Boys are nasty things. What do you want one for?”

  “Because girls talk too much,” Grace answered, smiling ever so sweetly.

  Mr. Whewett glanced at the girl, with the suspicion of a smile on his lips. “Tell me, Miss Jones, as you are about my daughter’s age, how is your French coming along?” he inquired. “The reason I ask is that I fear Augusta, my girl, is lagging in hers.”

  “We have got up to subjunctives,” Grace replied with a noticeable lack of enthusiasm, engendered by her memory of trying to teach the Bixworth girls.

  “Already! You are doing well.”

  “Miss Thomas speaks French fluently.”

  “Is she a Frenchie?” Mrs. Sempleton demanded.

  “No,” Grace said, and immediately turned back to Whewett. They chatted awhile about her lessons. He found her a bright, precocious child, possessing more countenance and knowledge than Augusta. She seemed quite mature; he supposed that she had been given considerable independence. He would no more let Augusta go alone on the stage, for instance, than he would fly. Did he keep her too protected? His sister often told him so.

  After another mile the conversation flagged, and he sat deep in thought. Mrs. Sempleton put her head close to Grace and whispered, “Don’t take up with strange men, missie. I’ll look after you if he tries anything.”

  The coach was small, and while Mr. Whewett did not hear all, he heard enough that, combined with Mrs. Sempleton’s menacing looks, he understood her. He looked at the little girl, who glanced back with a trace of laughter in her eyes.

  That one silent glance established between them the realization that their traveling companion was an interfering gudgeon. For the sake of peace in the carriage Whewett paid no more attention to either female, except for an occasional surreptitious look at the girl.

  She reminded him of someone—who was it? Not Irene. Was it Dolly? Yes, by God, Dolly Fraser! He hadn’t thought of Doll in nearly a decade. What had happened to her? Ran off with some soldier, if memory served. He looked at the girl again, just to determine she was too old to be Doll’s daughter.

  What interested him more was the possibility that she might be his and Dolly’s daughter. Dolores Fraser had been the toast of the tavern, his one straying from the halls of rectitude. No, certainly the girl was too old to have issued from that liaison. Indeed there was no reason to think any child had come of it. The memory of Dolly beguiled the remainder of the trip very pleasantly for him, though Mrs. Sempleton could not trust those occasional glints of interest at Miss Jones from under his half-closed eyelids.

  Whewett left the carriage the instant it stopped and went to the stables to arrange the hire of a carriage. Mrs. Sempleton was surprised to see that no one met Miss Jones. Before she could express her astonishment, Miss Jones went darting down the street with her straw case in her hand, apparently knowing exactly where she was going.

  It looked as though the child was wearing a pair of heeled slippers. Her eyes must be failing her. As the matron puffed her way home to her rooms above the cobbler’s shop, she forgot Miss Jones, but she remembered to tell Mr. S. she had met a fellow connected with the Broughams, and likely as not, Willowcrest would be up for sale soon.

  “Is that so?” he asked dully. The sale of a large estate was of little interest to him, and that, too, was forgotten in the important announcement that the price of tanned leather had risen, again.

  Chapter Two

  The straw bag was heavy, and Miss Thomas’s cottage well removed from the coach stop. Miss Farnsworth’s arms were sore and her legs tired by the time she found the pretty rose-bordered cottage. She sighed with relief as a vision of her dear Thomas’s face loomed in her mind, swiftly followed by the vision of a cup of tea and some food. Morning was long past, and breakfast had been scanty. She set the case down, gave the brass knocker two bangs, and turned the knob, planning to hop in and surprise her friend.

  The knob turned half a twist, then stopped. The door was locked. She hit the knocker again, and later again, but soon realized that Miss Thomas was not at home. After thinking for a moment, she went next door to make inquiries.

  “Miss Thomas?” the servant asked, frowning. “She’s gone to visit relatives somewhere—a cousin feeling poorly, I believe. We’re not well acquainted yet. I really couldn't say where she's gone or for how long."

  “Oh, dear!” Grace said.
Her mind ran swiftly. She would have to break in and stay at Miss Thomas’s cottage till she could get in touch with her.

  “I’ll tell you who could help you out is the couple she let the house to,” the servant continued, happy to assist the child. “They’ll be coming this afternoon. They will know where she is gone, likely.”

  “Thank you, ma’am,” Grace said, her heart sinking as she walked slowly away. She went back to Thomas’s doorstep and sat down to think. She couldn’t even break in and stay alone. Why had not Miss Thomas let her know? The letter was probably in the mail this minute, and when it reached Bixworths’, they wouldn’t know where to forward it.

  She was tired, hungry, and very worried, but she could not sit all day on the doorstep. She thought of her two shillings, grateful for them. She could at least have a cup of tea. Lifting the heavy case, she turned her steps back to the high street, stopping at the first tea shop she came to, for she could not carry the straw case another foot without doing permanent damage to her arm.

  The establishment was more elegant than she had thought from its plain exterior. Whether even a cup of tea was within her means was doubtful. After a careful scan of the menu, she decided a child could dispense with a pourboire and used all her money to order tea and a sandwich. This done, she sat back to look at the customers. They were not particularly interesting. Mostly females in groups, taking a break from their shopping. There was one man in the corner with his nose stuck in a journal. Perhaps one of the women could tell her if anyone needed a governess. Her plan of screening her next employer flew to the winds. When her tea came, she drank and ate hungrily, then sat on, unwilling to leave the comfortable place. She had no idea where she could go.

  The man in the corner put down his paper, glanced impatiently at his watch, then began to lift the paper again. He seemed to be waiting for more time to pass. He took a disinterested look around the shop before he resumed his reading.

  A flash of recognition lit his eyes as he spotted the girl from the stage. Odd she was alone. Whoever was to have met her had not shown up apparently. With a thought of his Augusta, he felt a rush of concern for the girl. She looked ready to burst into tears. He laid down the paper and strode over to her.