Fortune's Mistress (16 page)

“
They are trying mine,” she said darkly.

He raised his eyebrows. Though he did not wish anyone ill, he had hoped, unwisely it now seemed, that the children abed might be less trouble to his housekeeper than they were afoot.
“What have they been about?”

“
Eating!” she pronounced. “They do not have the appetites of sickly children, for all they cough and sneeze. This is the fifth tray I have carried up this day. Why do they not sleep, like other invalids?”

Venables laughed.
“I see they are not on the verge of turning up their toes!”

“
No, indeed,” blowing a stray wisp of graying hair out of her eyes, “although I may do so well enough before this day is done!”

He shrugged off his coat and hung it over the stair rail.
“Here,” he said, reaching for the tray. “Rest yourself. I shall carry it up this time.”

As he made his way up the stairs, he could hear a low whispering coming from the chamber the girls shared. He stood outside the door for a moment, listening. Charlie and George were closeted there as well. What were they up to now? A few words drifted toward him in Jane
’s soft Scottish lilt, “... then ‘tis best we dinna wait till that baby’s born.” Then one of the boys seemed to second her suggestion. His curiosity racing, he cleared his throat, waited for silence, and entered the little room.

All four of them, he noted, had runny noses, and greeted him with a simultaneous sniffle. Venables set the tray on a table and surveyed his charges. Their eyes flickered one to the other. Clearly they were up to something, despite their shared malady.

“Have you brought more scones?” George asked, his eyes wide and innocent. “And lots of cream? Last time there was not enough cream.”

“
I see you are becoming accustomed to this life of ease,” Venables said, schooling a smile into a grim line.

“
Let me feel your foreheads.” He did so, noting they were all as cool as cucumbers. “As I suspected, you are clearly on the mend.”

“
Aye, ‘tis so,” Charlie sighed. “Mrs. Maiden has already told me more than once today that ‘tis only the good dies young.”

“
And you are looking forward to living to a ripe old age, are you?”

“
Aye, but come to think of it, Mrs. Maiden must be very wicked then, doctor, for she is so old she creaks when she walks.”

Venables was forced to cough up his sleeve to hide his laughter, for the sound of Mrs. Maiden
’s rusty stays did indeed echo through the passages. “Ahem,” he managed. “Let us have no talk of who is and who is not wicked, for you must know that age is nothing to do with it. There is no reason to be looking forward to your dotage.”

“
Is that what we’ve got instead of scones?” Charlie asked incredulously. “But I asked especially—“

“
Hush,” the doctor chuckled. He lifted the cloth from the tray. “Mrs. Maiden, as you can readily see, is the soul of goodness. Here are sufficient scones and cream and strawberry jam for all of you to make yourselves exceedingly sticky.”

When they were busily munching away, he said quite casually,
“Suppose you all tell me what you were plotting just now?”

The boys, intriguers of old, maintained sur
prised expressions with admirable tenacity, but Jane swallowed backward with surprise and had to be clapped upon the back quite soundly, to check her startled coughing.

“
Looby,” Charlie hissed under his breath.

She shook her red curls and made a face at him.
“I couldna help it,” she snapped back.

“
Girls never can,” he said disgustedly. “It was plum mad I was to ever think I could trust— “

“
Aye,” she interrupted, “you’ve said it yourself, you’re a bedlamite—you and that brother of yours. Crazy as March hares, the two o’ you.”

“
Hey now!” Charlie objected, clearly pained to be included in this invective. “I didn’t say nothin’, you—you—orphan!”

Jane
’s eyes flashed. “Becky ‘n’ me’ll have our own plan, and we needn’t be bothered wi’ the likes o’ you. It’s not orphans we’ll be much longer, and you needna think you’ll be included.”

The threesome looked daggers at one another, while Venables, much intrigued, waited for their explanation. It was not forthcoming. All this while, Becky had said nothing, merely glanced from one combatant to the next, as if she were nothing more than a polite observer at a game of shuttlecock which had got out of hand. She shook her head ruefully at them. Then she glanced at the doctor and tugged at his sleeve.

“A word wi’ ye, sir?” Becky whispered.

Until this moment, the child had never before addressed him beyond an occasional monosylla
ble. She must consider the import of what she had to convey to be earth-shattering indeed. He nodded a fraction in her direction, then addressed Charlie and George.

“
Come, boys. Off to your own beds. You have commiserated with the young ladies long enough, and all of you need to rest, if you are to recover your strength.”

“
But the scones is here!” Charlie protested, much aggrieved.

“
To the contrary,” the doctor frowned at him. “They are mainly inside of you and George. Now run along.”

When he was left alone with the girls, Jane stared exasperatedly at Becky and whispered,
“What d’you think you’re about?”

“
Good sense,” the other retorted in her whispery little voice. “We are already discovered— ‘tis best to lay the matter before him.”

Jane rolled her eyes, but when she glanced up at the doctor who stood observing them in an extremely interested manner, she grinned wryly and said,
“If you must know, doctor, we been busyin’ ourselves at arrangin’ your life for you!”

He lifted his brows at the revelation of the children
’s meddling, and shuddered to think what they must have in mind. If they had their way, he suspected they would beg him to close his surgery and open a confectionery in its stead. In the end, however, curiosity won out over the inclination to adjure them to mind their own affairs, and at last he managed a fairly steady, “Pray tell?”

“
‘Tis like this,” Jane began. “ ‘Twas easy enough to decide you must marry Mrs. Glencoe, for ‘tis clear you’re of a mind with us on that, but it was the when and how gave us all fits.”

“
Indeed? And how is it you come to know my mind to such a surety?”

Jane snorted derisively.
“ ‘Tis easy enough to see, if a body walks about with her eyes open. When you drive by her cottage, you slow down and stare like there was a street fair to be found behind the wall.”

Venables felt the heat rise under his collar. Did he do so, truly?

“What’s more,” she went on, “when you sit with us there, you keep watch on her like a puir dog under the table— and see nothin’ else. Why, three times Charlie has pinched George under your very eyes, and you’ve not seen.”

Could this be true?
Very likely, for he was quite fascinated by Mrs. Glencoe. But to think he had imagined he guarded his conduct with some care. The lady’s preoccupied manner and sometimes faraway look had allowed him to let down his guard. Jane’s eyes were sparkling mischievously at him. He sighed inwardly. Perhaps no amount of circumspection could hide what he felt from eyes determined to see.

“
‘Tis the same with her as well.” Jane allowed her words to hang in the air a moment. Then the child yawned and stretched. “I think I’ll be havin’ a bit of a nap now,” she said.

Little wretch! He knew she was trying to lead him on—and was succeeding.

“Finish what you’ve begun,” he said, stifling a groan.

Casting him a sidelong glance, she said,
“Surely t’ heaven you’ve noticed it yourself!” Beside her, Becky giggled. “But no,” she continued, shaking her head. “How could you? For ‘tis
after
you’ve left she stares out the window, and does not hear our questions for all we repeat them time and again.”

“
And so,” Becky whispered, looking up at him with her huge eyes, “ ‘tis clear you must marry her.”

“
Aye,” Jane nodded emphatically, “and before she has that baby.”

It had taken no small amount of circuitous questioning before Dr. Venables could decipher the reasoning behind the girls’ enigmatic pronouncement on his affairs. He had turned the matter over in his head all that night and into the morning, as he embarked on his daily journey through the countryside. He was considering it still when he found his way later in the afternoon to the residence of the Reverend and Mrs. Waller.

He entered with some diffidence, for he had of late spent so much of his time at Rosewood Cottage as to
have become a near stranger at the parsonage. Still, the Wallers greeted him warmly, drew a chair for him by the fire, and made him very much at home.

“
It is good to see you, doctor,” Mrs. Waller told him when he was seated. “Enos and I have missed your company sorely.”

“
Indeed,” the reverend agreed with a self-deprecating smile. “Suzannah does not care to discuss theology with me, you see, and the servants become quite distressed when I talk to myself.”

Venables laughed. He had missed the Wallers
’ companionship more than he had imagined.

“
You think he is jesting, doctor,” Mrs. Waller interjected, “but many’s the time I have threatened to purchase a talking parrot for my husband, that he might have some discourse.”

“
Come, my love,” her husband returned, “you know I do not like to hear my own words repeated to me. I must be argued with! Now, doctor, I must show you an edition of the works of Duns Scotus I have been poring over. He makes an interesting argument that— “

“
Please, Enos!” Mrs. Waller interrupted, casting a long-suffering look in Venables’ direction. “Not until we have given the good doctor some tea!”

“
I am sure the doctor will be most interested, Suzannah. Just a moment, Venables,” he said, rising, “and I shall fetch the particular volume from the bookroom.”

When the reverend had gone in search of his
book, Mrs. Waller shook her head and smiled. “I shall be surprised, indeed,” she said, “if my husband does not lose himself in its pages and forget about us entirely.”

“
We shall know in a half hour or so,” Venables teased. “He seems to have mended well. I do not think I can betray the least sign of a limp.”

“
He took your advice to heart,” she laughed. “The notion of staying rooted in his library to spare his ankle appealed to him enormously. He was so caught up in his studies, that he forgot entirely to write his sermon one Sunday and delivered one
extempore:
it was quite brief, but exceedingly well received. I think he may have learned that a few words from the heart are more convincing than hundreds of lofty sentiments.”

With that she turned the conversation to news of the neighborhood: a farm had changed ten
ancy, and the banns were to be read for a number of young couples, but the district’s most significant news was that a member of the gentry was stopping at the inn.

“
Such visitors are so rare as to attract as great a crowd as a Punch and Judy show,” Mrs. Waller said with a shake of her head. “I have been receiving all manner of reports on the poor gentleman’s carriage and horses— even how many bottles of claret he consumed at dinner last night!”

“
It is to be hoped,” the doctor commented, “he is able to conduct whatever business brought him to these parts and take his leave, before he is entered as one of the sights in the guide book.”

“
And before Charlie and George discover a way to charge their fellows a penny apiece to have a look at him,” she added with a spark of humor. “Speaking of which, how does Mrs. Glencoe fare with the children?”

“
Very well indeed. It is become a perfect little world for them at Rosewood Cottage. Mrs. Glencoe, the soul of patience, allows them to run tame there. However, all of the children— Charlie and George included— are learning their letters and numbers.”

Mrs. Waller very nearly choked on her tea.
“Do not tell me those rapscallions have embarked on the road to scholarship! What is our dear Mrs. Glencoe’s secret?”

The image of Marianne rose up before him. What could she command that any male would not be happy to perform?
“I believe,” he said, after a moment, “it is a combination of their having fallen a little in love with her—and knowing they have outworn their welcome at any other house in the area!”

She cast her eyes heavenward and nodded.
“That is so, I am afraid. After their last visit here, our Haggerty threatened to give in his notice if they were not at once drawn and quartered!” Then her eyes twinkled at him. “It is a good thing my husband was able to convince the poor soul to moderate his view. I cannot think the magistrate would have supported Haggerty in the matter.”