A Country Wooing Read online

  The combined minds of the Wickfield ladies had not foreseen this degree of condescension, and it was to only an inferior luncheon that the returned hero sat down. At table, the conversation turned from the war to domestic matters. Alex had not discussed affairs with the bailiff or his man of business, had not ridden over his estate nor attended to any of the multitude of matters awaiting his attention.

  “You’ll have plenty to keep you hopping,” Mrs. Wickfield warned him.

  “At least there’ll be no impediment to my doing what has to be done,” he said curtly. Anne gave him a narrow-eyed glance, recognizing in the speech a slur against Charles. Even if it were true, she didn’t feel he ought to have said it.

  “I wonder you ever left, Alex, since you pretty well had control of the estate for Charles when you enlisted,” she said.

  “I had only responsibility, not authority. Now that I’ve enjoyed both, I realize the impossibility of that situation.”

  “I shouldn’t think Charles would have been an unduly hard taskmaster,” she said rather testily.

  Mrs. Wickfield threw herself into the breach. “You’ll have a trip to London and Sawburne as well, to take matters in hand there,” she said.

  “I mean to turn Sawburne over to Robin fairly soon. My father bought it with the second son in mind.”

  “Charles never gave it to you,” Mrs. Wickfield said, nodding her head in approval of what she had heard.

  “He would hardly do so when Alex was leaving for Spain,” Anne pointed out.

  “Why, Alex was here for two years, and...” Mrs. Wickfield became aware of a tension in the atmosphere and let her speech peter out to silence.

  “Charles didn’t intend to deprive me of it,” Alex said, but coldly, as one doing his duty. “He mentioned my having the use of it. I don’t approve of the system of primogeniture we follow in England. If a man has five sons, as my father had, he ought to make some provisions for them all, and not give the lot to the eldest. It’s foolishness to give one man so much consequence and put the others at his mercy, or the mercy of their own wits. Of course, I don’t have anything equal to Sawburne to give Willie and Bung, but I’ll do all in my power to see them started in some profitable career, or try to help them set up a place of their own if that’s what they want.”

  Anne interpreted this to mean he’d make a good marriage. How else did he plan to have all this beneficence to distribute? Her mother said, “Why, Willie and Bung both want to be soldiers, like you. You won’t have to do any more than buy them a commission.”

  “Boys of twelve don’t know what they want. They think it’s all parades and playing with guns. It’s not like that, I promise you,” he said grimly. “I’ll give them a truer idea of what a soldier’s life is like.”

  Willie and Bung were twins, so much alike that their own family had trouble telling them apart. Recently Bung had knocked a chip off the corner of his front tooth. It would not have bothered him a whit if only Willie could have done the same, but till they managed to get an identical chip off Willie’s, their favorite stunt of posing as each other was ruined.

  “When do you plan to turn Sawburne over to Robin?” Anne asked. “We shall miss him when he goes.”

  Alex looked alert at this question and in fact didn’t answer it. “It’s only five miles away. Not too far a distance to travel, if he has some special reason. Has he?” Anne and Mrs. Wickfield blinked a question at each other. Alex’s voice was suddenly thin and cold as ice. “Is he seeing some local lady? He didn’t tell me so. I hope she’s not ineligible.”

  “Oh, no!” Anne said. “Good gracious, he’s only twenty-one, Alex. A bit young to shackle himself for life.’’ She noted, but didn’t mention, the word “ineligible.” It seemed Alex’s ambitions extended to the whole family.

  “Won’t you need Robin to help you at Penholme?” Mrs. Wickfield asked. “It’s been a long time without a master. Robin and Mrs. Tannie do the best they can, but that last crew of bucks Charlie had staying there made a sorry shambles of the place. Shot off their pistols in the armaments room, and the south wall is still full of holes. One of them set fire to his room—the blue suite had its carpets burned. A set of black rags hang at the windows to this day. You’ll need an extra man for the farms. And for the Hall itself, what you need is a wife, my lad,” she said firmly, but was subtle enough not to glance at her daughter.

  “Carpets and draperies won’t take much mending,” Alex answered. “It’s the home farm and the tenant farms I’m worried about. I haven’t had a look around yet. I know the man I hired for Charles before I left didn’t stay long. I understand a Pat Buckram is acting as bailiff nowadays. Robin was overseeing things as best he could, but he’s still green. I shan’t send him to Sawburne till he’s dry behind the ears.”

  “It’s a good thing you’re back,” Mrs. Wickfield declared, and seemed in much of a mind to go on disparaging Charles, till Anne stopped her.

  “There’s no need to go into all that, Mama. What’s done is done.”

  “Best not to speak ill of the dead, so I’ll say no more about it,” her mother agreed. Alex sat like a jug, not condemning but not saying a word in Charles’s defense. “I can just imagine the excitement at the Hall when you arrived last night, Alex. Willie and Bung have lived at the roadside for three days. Set up a little tent with a flag on top and didn’t stir from it from morning till night, so as to see you come home.”

  “They nearly pulled me bodily from the gig when they recognized me. I borrowed the gig from the inn in Winchester, for I took the post down from London. They were disappointed I didn’t arrive at the head of an army, or at least mounted on a steed. I had no cattle or carriage in London and didn’t want to buy any till I got home and saw what was in the stable.”

  “That was sensible.” Mrs. Wickfield nodded and thought to herself that it was not the way Charles would have arrived. He’d have bought the flashiest nag he could find and hired an army to come after him.

  “I shouldn’t think you’d have to buy any horses or carriages,” Anne said. “Robin is always complaining of the number of mounts in the stable. There seem to be plenty of carriages for everything.”

  “I was amazed to see an even two dozen nags, with only the twins and Robin riding. And with all that horseflesh, there’s nothing for the girls to ride. I must get a pair of ponies for Loo and Babe. Do you still ride, Anne?”

  “Yes, still the same horse. Mrs. Dobbin is approaching my age, twenty-two, and is about ready for pasture.”

  “What she’s ready for is the glue factory,” Mrs. Wickfield declared.

  “Lord, are you still coaxing that old nag along the roads?” Alex exclaimed. “Why don’t you get yourself a real mount?”

  “Mounts cost money. We aren’t the Penholmes, you know, to be throwing it around as though it were hayseed.”

  Alex stared in surprise. “Surely you can afford a decent mount.”

  “Of course we could—if we thought it took precedence over having food on the table.’’ Alex gave a guilty look at his plate, and she laughed. “No, really, we are not quite so hard up we begrudge you your mutton.”

  “You’ve no idea what’s happened to money, Alex,” Mrs. Wickfield said. “They blame it on the war, but it’s the merchants filling their pockets, if you ask me. Mrs. Perkins—from the general store, you know—has set herself up a carriage and team, and she need not bother letting on she isn’t putting half the increased price in her pocket. You have only to look at the Anglins—retired merchants from London, and millionaires. They’ve built a castle to rival Penholme. We who are living on a fixed income must make and mend as we can. We are getting pretty good at mending. Anne even took the hammer to her own slipper yesterday, to save paying the cobbler.”

  Alex laughed, thinking it a joke, but was soon told otherwise. “It’s no laughing matter!” Mrs. Wickfield scolded him. “We used to be able to afford a trip to Bath or London once in a while, but with what money is worth today, we’re lucky
we can keep a gig to drive to Eastleigh.”

  A frown settled on Alex’s brow as he listened. “Is it really that bad? Aunt Tannie has been reading me a list of woes, but I confess I paid her little heed.”

  “You’ll see for yourself,” Mrs. Wickfield continued, happy to air her grievance to a new audience. “Servants’ wages are so high I threaten to turn maid myself. With the merchants able to offer them a fortune, we must do likewise or scrub our own floors. Our maid demands thirty-five pounds a year, if you please. We decided between us, Annie and I, that for that sum we could well make our own beds and run a dust cloth over the furniture.”

  “You have only the butler and cook, then?”

  “Butler?” Mrs. Wickfield stared. “Nobody but lords and merchants has a butler. We have cook and a backhouse boy, who looks after the stable and does a bit of gardening and tends the fire. Just a boy, you see, so we don’t have to pay the tax on him. He’s ignorant as a whelp. Annie is teaching him to read and cipher. We pay him fifteen a year, and like him a deal better than Mary, for she turned into such a flirt, there was no standing it. She’s gone up to Penholme to distract your footmen there and keep them from their chores. I told Aunt Tannie the girl is useless and certainly not needed at the Hall, but it went through her like a dose of salts. Charles hired a dozen girls after you left. Of course, the local girls do look to the Hall for work.”

  “Yes,” Alex said doubtfully. “I thought there was an unconscionable crowd of servants hustling around, but I supposed they were all coming out of the woodwork to get a look at me.”

  “So they were, I expect,” Mrs. Wickfield agreed. She found nothing unusual in the remark, but to Anne it sounded again unlike Alex. Some new consequence had come to him as a result of his inheritance, or perhaps it was the effect of the army. It would never have occurred to Lord Alex that the girls were coming forth to admire him. Her thoughts were turned from this by Alex’s next statement.

  “We’re having a party at the Hall this evening in honor of my return. Just a small party—my family and you, if you will do us the honor.”

  Enthusiastic acceptances were given, and very soon Alex rose to take his leave. Mrs. Wickfield disappeared again, leaving Anne to show him the door. When he opened it, sunlight streamed in on them, throwing his lean cheeks into shadow and accentuating the lines from his nose to his lips. He reminded her of the carvings of saints and martyrs seen in churches. There was an austere look about him. The war must have been horrid.

  “Are things really as bad as your mother indicated?” he asked.

  “We’ve never gone to bed hungry. I think you have, Alex.”

  “War is ... different. I hadn’t thought things would be so desperate at home.”

  “Hardly desperate. I hope you will tell me all about Spain sometime. I’m sure you had more dangerous adventures than stealing donkeys and hiding yourself in a flour bag.”

  “I plan to forget all that. This is a new beginning for ... me.”

  There was a little hesitation before that last word. The intent, conscious beam in his eyes suggested a different word. “A new beginning for us” would have given a more suitable reading. Then he smiled, squeezed her fingers, said, “Hasta mañana, querida,” and left.

  She laughed in surprise to hear an old friend suddenly crop out into a new language. “What does that mean?” she called after him. The words, though totally unintelligible, had an alluring sound.

  “It means I’m very glad to be back. Very glad, Annie.”

  She closed the door and turned to see her mother hovering at the bottom of the stairs. “He’s changed, don’t you think?” Anne asked pensively.

  “I’m glad to see he’s come out of himself a little. He didn’t use to stay to lunch. I half wish he hadn’t taken it into his head to do it today. An omelette and cold cuts, and he looking as though he could eat a horse. We’ll do better next time.”

  “If there is a next time. This may have been his ceremonial call.”

  “He’ll be back. Alex won’t waste much time to find a mother for the children and a proper mistress for the Hall. You’ll have to look sharp and move fast to nab him. At least he never was one for throwing his cap at all the girls.”

  “But he’s changed. You must have noticed, Mama. All that talk about people wanting to ‘get a look at him.’ He’s very much aware of his worth.”

  “The man’s not an idiot. Nor is he the type to be running to London to marry an heiress. You have the inner track, having known him forever.”

  But Anne didn’t feel she knew him at all. What sparse knowledge she’d ever had of Lord Alex hardly seemed to apply to Lord Penholme. He was an intriguing stranger, and even spoke a new language. Travel was broadening, folks said, and it had changed Alex in some undefinable way. He looked harsher, more self-assured. He showed a latent anger toward Charles that she had not seen before he left. This annoyed her, but other thoughts soon pushed it from her mind. Something in this new old friend made her very much aware of herself as a woman. She remembered that long hug when he had arrived and the soft beam in his eyes when he had taken his leave in Spanish.

  She shook away these vague thoughts. “You sound mighty eager to be rid of me, you unnatural mother,” she joked.

  “I’m only forty-two. Maybe I’d like to see you settled to try my hand at a beau.”

  “The butcher has been giving us the best cuts in the shop for a year now. I think you might have him if you played your cards right.”

  “It’s not the butcher I have in mind. We owe the draper more, and he, of course, is a very fine gentleman. He hardly ever spits on the floor like the butcher, and he has a charming flat over his shop. I would make a suitable Mrs. Mumbleton, don’t you think?”

  “Unexceptionable,” Anne agreed blandly. “Then I could afford that piece of white crepe I’ve been eyeing this past month, for I shall expect a good family discount once you are keeping shop, Mama.”

  She thought of the white crepe with a wistful longing. How elegant she would look if she could wear it to Penholme Hall for this evening’s family party. She pulled herself up short on the thought, for it wasn’t Robbie or Aunt Tannie or the children she pictured admiring her. It was Alex.

  Chapter Three

  The ladies from Rosedale owned a carriage, but for the past six weeks it had sat in the stable, awaiting a new wheel. Unless a trip could be made in a gig, they remained at home. They often went to the Hall in the gig, and were surprised to see a carriage drive up to their door. Alex had sent Lord Robin to fetch them.

  It was not Robin’s jet-black hair or his blue eyes and long lashes nor even his resemblance to the late Charles that made him a favorite with Anne. Having known him from the cradle, she was heedless of his appearance as he was himself. She valued him for his undemanding good nature, which was always happy to accommodate itself to circumstances.

  “Hello, Aunt Alice, Annie.” He smiled. Mrs. Wickfield was in fact his second cousin, but everyone from the Hall called her Auntie. “Alex has taken the cork-brained notion you’ll freeze to death driving home in the gig, and sent me down for you.”

  “Cold in May? I cannot think so,” Anne said, laughing.

  “No more than can I,” Robin agreed. “I daresay Alex finds anything below a hundred cold, after frying in Spain. Dark as a blackamoor, ain’t he? And skinny as a rail.”

  Robin’s unseeing eyes ran over Anne’s best rose silk gown without approval or the opposite. She picked up her white shawl, its fringe completed, and was ready for the trip.

  The change of carriage was agreeable to Mrs. Wickfield, who preferred a closed vehicle after dark. “How did Alex know our carriage had fallen apart?” she asked.

  “He must have been to the stable this morning, I suppose. He has eyes like a lynx, especially for things gone to ruin. I didn’t realize the Hall was such a shambles, till he began lamenting. Have you heard the news?”

  He didn’t wait for an answer but rushed on with his announcement. “He’
s going to give me Sawburne. We’re riding over soon to have a look around. Lord, I nearly fell over in shock when he told me. I made sure he’d drag his heels, as Charlie did when Papa died. I am to leave as soon as I learn how to command the whole fort by myself. He means to take the reins,” he added, suiting the metaphor to his own preference.

  “How soon?” Anne asked.

  “A few months, as soon as we’ve become reacquainted and set Penholme to rights. I shall be lonely as a lobster. I’d like to take Willie and Bung with me, but they’d never leave the hero. Of course, Alex will be over often to steer me straight. I can learn a lot from Alex. He knows more about farming than any of us. He’s been going over accounts with his man of business all afternoon and is dismal as dust about the mess things are in. Poor Buckram has had his ears singed so often they’re smoking. My own are feeling hot. It seems Buckram is a bit of a bandido. However, I wrote Alex that we were going to rack and ruin, so I guess he ain’t too surprised.”

  “I hope he gets the black curtains in the blue suite fixed up,” Mrs. Wickfield said.

  “No, sir, it’s the tenant farms he’s all het up about. They haven’t been bringing in anything like they should. He was nagging Charlie to do tiling and fencing and I don’t know what-all before he left, but he never could get him to spend a sou on repairs, and the things still haven’t been done. Now the actual houses are caving in besides—something about water seeping into the foundations. I daresay it will cost a monkey to fix. Sawburne’s as dry as a board,” he added complacently.

  This sort of talk occupied them till they reached Penholme. It was like entering a second home, and a more attractive one than they left, entering the gold saloon at Penholme. The ravages of time and neglect were not so apparent in this front room. Golden draperies were less susceptible to discoloring than some shades, and the timeless Oriental carpets wore well. Aunt Tannie had ordered that the girls polish the fine old furnishings, and the oil paintings on the wall were still magnificent. The upholstered pieces were past their prime, but with so many people occupying them, their condition was seldom apparent.