Delsie Page 20

  “It looks like the inside of a well, except that they are more usually round.”

  “And much deeper. He would not have had two wells so close together either.” The both stood staring at the contraption, trying to figure it out. DeVigne continued thinking aloud, “There was a lot of talk at one time, about ten years ago, of Bonaparte’s invading England, you recall. This district was thought to be the likeliest point for invasion. Many of the families hereabouts had spots arranged to hide their valuables. I wouldn’t be surprised if Andrew intended hiding the jewelry and plate and so on in these holes. That would have been just after his marriage, when there was still plenty to hide.”

  While they talked, Bobbie had to scramble into the hole and claim it for her own. The footmen, not satisfied with one miracle a day, were busily winding the chain around the other tree and heaving it, too, out of the earth. Bobbie climbed out of the first hole only to hurl herself into the other. Her stepmother, regarding the streaks of dirt on her pelisse, hadn’t the heart to restrain her. She felt the urge to jump into the hole herself. Before many seconds, deVigne found an excuse to do just that, saying he’d help Bobbie get out, but once down in the excavation, he was in no hurry to get out, and began poking around the corners.

  “Look, Mama, I found a bag!” Bobbie called up. In her fingers she held one of the canvas bags, which was well known by now to hold a hundred guineas.

  “Oh, no, not again!” Mrs. Grayshott cried in vexation.

  DeVigne took the bag from the child and lifted her up onto the ground before clambering out himself. “Shall we rob your favorite charity of this one?” he asked Delsie.

  “No, I shan’t keep it.”

  “The boys deserve a bonus for their work. You have twenty-five hundred to give to the purse-pinched schoolteachers—a nice round figure. Let us share the wealth. We will include their labor in filling in the holes.”

  “Yes, a reward for stopping criminals is not uncommon,” she allowed.

  Watling nearly expired with self-importance when he was given the responsibility of passing out the reward, one guinea at a time, with a reminder at each coin that it was not to be wasted.

  “Really, those stone-lined holes are so neatly done, it seems a shame to destroy them,” Delsie said. “Perhaps some flowerpots...”

  “Too much shade,” he advised. “And leaving the trees as they are would be an invitation to the smugglers to return. If I did not stand so deep in disgrace already, I would dare to suggest you have the holes filled in at once and take the boxes off the tree roots to allow them to grow more normally.” When she did not take him to task for this interference, he continued. “As I am in your black books, however, I will leave your common sense to recommend it to you.”

  “I suppose you are right, but it seems a pity.”

  Watling was sent off to the Hall at once for shovels, before she should change her mind. The three family went to the Cottage, but they could not long keep their news to themselves. They had to pile into the carriage to run over the Dower House to tell Lady Jane and Sir Harold the news.

  “Ah, he was using those holes he had dug under the apple trees, was he?” Harold asked. “I should have known it. I recall his having it done at the time of the Bonaparte scare. It quite slipped my mind.”

  His wife turned a fulminating eye on him. “Do you mean to stand there and tell us, Harold, that you knew of those holes under the apple trees all this while, and didn’t bother to tell us?”

  “Of course I knew it. It was no secret.”

  “It was a secret from us,” Jane snapped. “You did not know it, did you, Max?”

  “Certainly not.”

  “I believe you was in London when he had it done,” Harold said vaguely. “Used a design I showed him of an old Roman impluvium, and figured after the scare was over, he’d use them for that again.”

  “What the devil is an impluvium?” Jane asked irritably.

  She heard in great detail, supported with sketches from various books, that an impluvium was a shallow rock-lined pool for catching rainwater in the days of the Roman occupation, and also used sometimes for ornamental purposes, such as decorative fish and lily pads, or for children to wade in.

  “I want a wading pond!” Bobbie said at once.

  “I should like an ornamental fish pond,” her mama took it up. “DeVigne, could you not stop the men before they fill in our holes? If they are left perfectly open and visible, the smugglers would not use them.”

  “They’re your holes,” he capitulated, and together Bobbie, Delsie and deVigne dashed back to the Cottage. Lady Jane and Sir Harold were not far behind them, to view the impluvia for themselves.

  There was no danger that the work had already been done. A sort of informal holiday had been declared at both the Hall and the Dower House, with every maid and footman who could possibly evade his duties there to see Watling command his crew in the interesting feat of lifting the trees. As the employers were unaware of this holiday, however, the observers drifted off rather quickly.

  “I knew I could smell brandy in this orchard,” Jane declared, sniffing the air.

  “What you was smelling was decaying apples,” her husband pointed out. “They ferment, my dear. You recall we often have a grouse or pheasant drunk from eating them fly against the windows and break his neck.”

  “Yes, and you will have fish drunk from the remains of brandy swimming into the walls of your hole and breaking their necks,” Jane said, to show she was not convinced of any error on her part, “If they have necks.”

  “Fish do not have necks,” Sir Harold informed her, and was summarily cut off when he proceeded to tell her what they did have. The morning was spent in examining the secret hiding place, and as Mrs. Grayshott had no servants at all, the party repaired to the Hall for luncheon.

  “Have you thought of what you will do with the money?” Harold asked Delsie.

  “It will be used for some charitable purpose,” she answered.

  “Oxford could use it,” he suggested. “You might set up a bursary in Andrew’s name, or buy the Tatford Library Collection that is going up for auction.”

  “I like the idea of a bursary,” she said, considering. “To help some poor but bright student further his education. Andrew was a Cambridge man. It ought to go to Cambridge, not Oxford.”

  “I daresay you could get the Tatford Library for twenty-five hundred,” Sir Harold persisted.

  “I wonder if Cambridge would rather have that than a bursary,” was her highly unsatisfactory reply.

  “Cambridge? What would Cambridge want with a classical library? Oxford is the place to study the classics,” he said.

  “Then I shall make it a bursary,” she decided, appearing not to notice that his aim was to secure the money for his own school. “The Andrew Grayshott Memorial Bursary it will be called.”

  Sir Harold opened his mouth to object, but was interrupted by his wife, who suggested “the Brandy Bursary” would be a suitable nickname. Discussion then turned on providing Mrs. Grayshott with some temporary help till she managed to hire servants, and deVigne offered the resumption of Nellie’s and Olive’s services.

  “I’ll send a footman over so you have a man about the house,” Jane added.

  With this settled, it was time for the Grayshotts to go home. Miss Milne and Bobbie were called, and Jane and Harold went back to the Dower House.

  As the carriage wended its familiar way down the lane to the post road, Delsie said to her stepdaughter, “Are you happy to be coming home at last?”

  “Yes, but I’ll like it better when we’re all living together at the Hall. Uncle Max has five kittens in the barn.”

  Max cleared his throat, and ran a finger around his collar.

  “What do you mean? We are not moving to the Hall,” Delsie said to her daughter.

  “Uncle Max says we are. Didn’t you, Uncle Max?”

  “That is not exactly what I said,” he parried.

  With a barely co
ncealed smile, Miss Milne said that perhaps Lord deVigne would give Bobbie one of his kittens.

  “I don’t want one. I want them all,” she replied.

  “Precocious. You are turning into a woman already,” her uncle complimented her.

  At the Cottage, Miss Milne took her charge upstairs, and Mrs. Grayshott at once rounded on deVigne. “You know I promised Andrew faithfully I would look after Roberta. I hope you have not been giving her the idea she is to go to you. I don’t know how you think I should allow it, when the main reason I married Andrew was to provide a guardian for her.”

  “You were not listening very carefully. What she said was that we would all be living together at the Hall.”

  Having a very good inkling as to his meaning, the widow blushed up to her eyes, and pointed out that such a scheme was entirely ineligible, for a widow in no way related to him to be moving into a bachelor’s establishment.

  “That is true, and we would have to arrange some relationship,” he answered reasonably.

  “There is no way it could be arranged.”

  “One suffers to think of a schoolteacher having so little use of her wits. It could be arranged very easily by our marrying.”

  “You would do anything to get hold of Roberta!” she accused him.

  “Yes, I am quite determined to get my clutches on Roberta!” he agreed, smiling. “I am resigned to having that charge thrown at my head every time you feel out of sorts, which happens remarkably often, by the by. But so long as we both know it is merely a stick to beat me with, I am willing to accept it.”

  “I wonder at your lack of propriety! Andrew scarcely cold in his grave—”

  “He must be cooled down considerably. It is December, after all.”

  “I was speaking metaphorically.”

  “That’s what I get for making up to a schoolmistress. How long must we wait?”

  “Till hell freezes over.”

  “That should cool him down all right. Do you mean we must wait out the whole year?”

  “I meant nothing of the sort!”

  “Good, I think six months more than enough myself.”

  “You know I didn’t mean that.”

  “I am ravished at your eagerness, but really we ought to wait till you are at least in half mourning, don’t you think?”

  “You are being purposely obtuse. I can’t possibly marry you! Two marriages in one year. It is monstrous.”

  “True, but it is already December, and will soon be next year. We’ll consign your nominal marriage to Andrew to this year, and—”

  “Yes, I see what you are about. Trying to rush me into it again, before I have time to think. Don’t forget to point out all the advantages that will accrue me. A domineering, mulish husband who doesn’t even stick at drugging and kidnapping me, a vastly superior home, a title—”

  “You’re doing a pretty good job of convincing yourself. Only think, never again to be called by the odious name of Mrs. Grayshott. That must bear heavily on the side of the advantages.”

  “We would be laughingstocks in the village,” she objected weakly, and looked hopefully to him for refutation.

  “They could well do with a few laughs in Questnow. Things are remarkably flat in the winter. Of course it bothers me enormously what Mr. Umpton and Miss Frisk think, and I’m sure you too shrink from doing anything they would dislike.”

  “It would almost be worth putting up with you to see Umpton stare.”

  “No price is too high to pay for that sort of a treat. We’ll call on him together, and both watch him stare,” he answered gravely, his lips only a little unsteady.

  “I said almost worth it. Jane warned me—not that you haven’t already locked me up in a room and beat me.”

  “No, no, not beat! Be fair. A crack on the skull is not a beating. I save that for after the wedding. Or were you speaking metaphorically again, referring to my having bested you in the matter of rooting you out of the Cottage last night?”

  “You cheated anyway.”

  “I took a slightly unfair advantage.” He advanced toward her and removed the driving cape from her shoulders, tossing it on a chair. “I don’t mean to do so again, Delsie,” he said, looking at her intently, with all the levity gone from his voice. “I was horrified when I saw what I had done to you last night. Indeed, ever since this smuggling business reared its ugly head I have regretted dragging you into it.” He touched the plaster on her forehead, and ran one finger slowly down her cheek. “Can you forgive me for that?”

  “It was an accident. I know you didn’t do it on purpose.”

  “But I did it, and I shan’t forgive myself. I was afraid I’d hurt you badly—”

  “Don’t be ridiculous—a mere bump on the head,” she laughed unsteadily.

  “You are generous, but I vowed I would make it up to you.”

  “Is that why you are offering for me?” she demanded.

  “You are foolish beyond belief,” he said angrily, and pulled her into his arms. “I am marrying you because I don’t want you to leave us, ever. Because I have never been so happy as since you came to us. Because I love you, Delsie Sommers.” He looked hard at her face for a few seconds, then closed his eyes and kissed her. When he released her several moments later, he added, “And I am conceited enough to think half your fits of pique are due to loving me, despite your own better judgment.”

  “I am not really Delsie Sommers anymore,” she answered dreamily.

  “You are, really,” he disagreed firmly, and bent his head to kiss her again.

  They were interrupted by the sound of feet thumping on the stairs and Bobbie came into the room. “I heard somebody coming,” she said.

  “Your hearing is definitely impaired,” deVigne told her, displeased at her arrival.

  “No, it isn’t. I hear very good.”

  “Very well,” Delsie corrected automatically.

  “See, Mama says so too. But you want to get rid of me so you can be alone with Mama. I heard Sally say at the Hall you’re always running to Mama.” On this remark she ran to the door.

  “I have been found out,” he informed Delsie. “Even the servants and a child see through me. ‘Always running to Mama.’”

  “She shouldn’t be gossiping with the servants.”

  “Only eavesdropping. Sharp as a tack, our Bobbie.”

  It was soon clear her hearing was also sharp. There had been a cart driven up outside, unheard by the two in the saloon, who were so happily occupied otherwise. It was Delsie’s ex-students, come to inquire whether Mrs. Grayshott still wanted their services. These were gratefully accepted, and it was arranged for the girls to return the next morning with their belongings to take up work at the Cottage.

  “Word must be out that we no longer run a smuggling den here,” deVigne said.

  “How flat it will be, with no pixies in the garden and no bags of gold regularly deposited under the tree.”

  “We shall do our poor best to keep you entertained, Miss Sommers.”

  “Mrs. Grayshott.”

  “How strange, now that you are about to be rid of the name, you develop this inexplicable passion for it. I wish to forget I ever cajoled you into marrying Andrew. Though I suppose otherwise I should never have come to know you. I had no suspicion, to see you in the village, that we should suit in the least. A regular little nun, I thought. Jane is wiser. Nonesuch, she said, and she was right.”

  “Lady Jane will not be happy with this business. She has picked out a Miss Haversham for your wife, and I hope she will not be too disappointed at your refusing to have her.”

  “Miss Haversham?” he asked, frowning. “She is sixty-five, give or take a decade.”

  “No, no. It must be a different Miss Haversham, a younger one.”

  “The younger one is sixty-five; she has an elder sister eighty or so. Where did you get this idea?”

  “She told me.”

  “The old terror!” he exclaimed, laughing. “She has been trying to ma
ke you jealous. Observing my penchant for your company, as did the servants, she wanted to give you a nudge.”

  “The sly creature! Let us not tell her we are to be married, and watch her finagle.”

  The secret lasted less than halfway through dinner that evening. Jane first observed that the two had dispensed with formal names and titles and were on a first-name basis. When deVigne inadvertently mentioned, during a discussion of hiring a housekeeper, that her services would be very temporary and Mrs. Lambton would be good enough for a few months, she was onto them, but kept up the game.

  “A few months? Oh, she is young enough to last a few years, Max.”

  “I meant years,” he said, with a conscious look at Delsie, who smiled sheepishly.

  “Of course you did,” Lady Jane smiled knowingly. “Why should Delsie only require her services for six months, till she is out of deep mourning? Dear me, there could be no reason. None in the world. It is not as though she will be leaving the Cottage.”

  “Certainly not,” Sir Harold added foolishly, the only one at the table who had not perceived what was going on before his eyes. His wife turned a withering look on him.

  “For, of course, you will not be leaving us,” Jane continued, her irony becoming stronger by the moment.

  “Oh, no,” Delsie agreed.

  “Or moving to the Hall,” Jane said at last, with a piercing observation of the pair of culprits.

  “Miss Haversham would not care for that,” Delsie answered her with an innocent smile.

  “Miss Haversham?” Harold asked in confusion. “Why, what is it to her? Nosy old biddy. As to moving to the Hall, it is out of the question, of course. Quite out of the question. Not the thing at all.”

  “Harold, you ninny,” Jane said baldly. “They are to be married!”

  “Who is to be married?” he demanded in vexation. “Miss Haversham is too old to marry anyone. Old as the stars. Older.”

  “Not her, Max and Delsie,” Jane explained.

  “Eh? Both of them? Who are they marrying?”