A Country Wooing (6 page)

He gazed at the meadow, then up at the cloud-billowed sky, and last, he turned his eyes to the gray walls of Penholme, which soared into the heavens. His face wore a peculiar expression, compounded of nostalgia, impatience, frustration, and determination, “A long time,” he repeated softly.

She felt attuned to this mellower mood. “You always loved Penholme. It must have been awful, being away from home,” she said gently.

He turned and smiled at her. It was the stranger whose brown eyes examined her. She knew before he said a word that he would speak in that new tongue she could not understand but that somehow beguiled her.
“Tiene razón, más estoy mejor, querida. “

“How romantic that sounds. I suppose it only means you must leave to ring a peal over someone at the Hall for wasting time or candles or food.”

“I see Robin has painted me in vivid colors—a deep-dyed villain. I can’t think when he found time to visit you.”

“He wasted only a moment in such dissipation, I promise you. And the picture wasn’t totally black. He was quite flattered that you called him a man. Mama feels you are trimming him into line very well.”

The smile that lit his eyes was no longer nostalgic. There was a spark of mischief in it. “I didn’t foresee any difficulty in bringing Aunt Alice around my thumb. It is her recalcitrant
hija
whose disapproval troubles me—very much.”

“I wish you would speak English,” she scowled, but really it was more a pout than a scowl. Something in him brought out this flirtatious side of her nature.

“You scourged me with Shakespeare. Let me reciprocate the offense by giving you Dr. Johnson. A man with a second language is like a lady with a new petticoat; he is not contented till he has showed it off. I am only doing what I must, you know, by keeping my nose to the grindstone. Soon I shall be free to join Robin in the dissipation of taking tea with you, if you will permit me.”

“I should be flattered. We were never accustomed to many calls from you. Does this mean you are turning over a new leaf, becoming sociable?” she asked archly. She hoped this would lead to setting the date for his ball.

“It ill becomes the lord of the Hall to be a surly hermit. May I come tomorrow?”

“Anytime. We are usually home and never bar our door to callers from the Hall.”

“That dilutes my victory, Anne,” he teased her. “I shall leave before you ask me to bring Aunt Tannie and the children along.”

There was no mounting block, and though Anne was perfectly capable of mounting Mrs. Dobbin by herself, she assumed Alex would offer her a hand.

It wasn’t till then that she noticed he held his left arm at an awkward angle. “Alex, are you all right?” she asked.

“I’m fine,” he said at once, and tried to assist her, but it was obvious the effort caused him pain.

“I trust you haven’t been moving furniture again,” she said with a sapient look.

“No, mud, which is a deal heavier. As Robin saw fit to tell you I moved Charles’s bed, he should have told the reason. It was the mattress I objected to, Anne, not the former occupant. I would have liked to sleep in the bed of my father and grandfather. Since I was wounded, however, I have to sleep on a very firm bed. The springs in that old four-poster are a hundred years old. Truth to tell, I’m no longer comfortable smothered in dusty bed canopies either. I like to feel the air move around me. It lets me know I’m alive.”

“That wasn’t the impression I got from Robin.”

“It is not the one I gave. I don’t like being an invalid. Everyone’s concern for my shoulder is already a nuisance to them. Must I burden them with my bad back and my nightmares—?” He stopped and gave her an impatient frown.

The pain was visible on his face, pinching around the eyes and mouth. What horrors had he been through, that had left him so ravaged? “Oh, Alex, I’m sorry,” she said impulsively, and reached for his hands. He clutched at her fingers, holding them in a painful grip. She could feel the metal from her ring pressing her other fingers. She noticed Alex was looking at it.

“What grand occasion were you anticipating, all alone in the meadow?” he asked.

“Grand occasions are few and far between. If I am to wear my ring at all, I must wear it just anywhere—to the meadow, the village....”

When he lifted his eyes, they stood still a moment, just looking at each other. There was some scalding tension in the air, some feeling so intense it startled her.

“You—you had best get home,” she said breathlessly.

“Yes, but tomorrow I’ll call on you, as I promised.”

“All right.”

She watched as he awkwardly mounted his bay, using only one hand, and rode away. She was still there five minutes later, staring after him, with a little smile lifting her lips. As she stood thinking, the smile vanished. She shouldn’t have been so hard on Alex—cutting up at him for having muddy boots, when he was only doing what he had to do. It was none of her concern if he didn’t want to sleep in Charles’s bed, for that matter. But he behaved as though it
were
her concern. He looked as if ... How foolish of her. It was spring—that was the trouble.

Such a beautiful, sunny spring day. She buried her face in the flowers and gave a little laugh of pure joy.

Chapter Five

In anticipation of Alex’s call the next morning, Anne had her hair teased into a basket of curls in a fashion not usually attempted but for a party. She felt strangely disappointed when he had still not arrived by mid-afternoon. It began to look as though he had truly reverted to his old way of neglecting them. She thought she must have read too much into that interlude in the meadow. It was just the beauty of the spring day that lent the incident that special air. At four, Robin cantered up and lounged into their saloon to make his brother’s apologies.

“Congratulations. I see you’ve slipped the leash,” Anne said.

“I’ve been let off. Alex is sick as a dog.”

“What is the matter?” Mrs. Wickfield demanded.

“He called Palmsey to have a go at his wound. He’s pretty well knocked up after the sawbones’s visit,” he explained.

“How is his wound?” Anne asked eagerly.

Robin shivered. “Ugly! His shoulder looks like a raw beefsteak. I had no idea it was still open. It became infected again on the boat, but it couldn’t have been very well healed to have broken out like this. Palmsey cauterized it. I very nearly passed out, for he made me hold Alex down. You could smell the burning flesh; I even heard it sizzle. I shan’t tackle a rare steak for a few days, I can tell you.”

“Oh!” Anne’s hand flew to her lips, and she turned pale. “How is he?”

“He passed out, thank Dios. Palmsey got a cup of brandy into him before he branded him. He came around again after lunch, but he won’t be up for a day or two. Imagine his not telling us how bad it is. But Alex was always one to keep things to himself. We should have known when it took him so long to come home. He would have come running as soon as he could.”

“Good gracious, what has Palmsey to say about it?” Mrs. Wickfield asked. “Is he going to be all right?”

“Certainly. Palmsey will bring him around. Alex is merry as a grig. His big fear was that he’d loose the arm— they wanted to chop it off at Belem, you know. There’s no chance of that now. With good food and clean bandages, he’ll pull around. He’s pretty disgusted with the thing—Alex, I mean, not Palmsey. I daresay having a
real
wound is a pleasant change from doling out headache powders for Palmsey.”

“It’ll slow Alex down,” Mrs. Wickfield said, worried.

“Devil a bit of it. He’s got his man of business coming to see him tomorrow. He’ll interview him from his bed. He don’t intend to waste a minute. No, it’s the looks of the wound that disgust him.”

“No one will see it,” Anne pointed out. “He should be happy it’s not his face that’s disfigured.”

“His wife will see it,” Robin answered. “ ‘How do you offer a charred and mangled old carcass like this to anyone?’ he asked me. Palmsey admits there’ll be a scar.”

Mrs. Wickfield lifted a curious brow. “Talking of getting married, is he?”

“He will be, now that he’s head of the house,” Robin allowed with an arch little smile toward Anne, who pretended not to see it.

A Penholme would not be expected to leave without taking tea—Lord Robin in particular was a veritable sponge—so the visit lasted half an hour. The subject moved on to some repining that the visit to Sawburne must be delayed awhile.

No call was expected from the gentlemen on the morrow. Mrs. Wickfield mentioned riding over to Penholme in the gig the next morning, but Anne declined such hard chasing as to go after a man who was sick in bed. Aunt Tannie brought the girls to call in the afternoon, so some news was heard. Alex was recuperating from his treatment, and seeing to business, as Robin had said.

“Might discouraged, he is, I can tell you,” Mrs. Tannie informed them. She was puffing from the exertion of getting her stout frame up the stairs and into a chair. Mrs. Tannie dressed quite independently of fashion, in a boisterously flowered gown of red and white that played awful havoc with her rosy complexion.

“Things are bad, are they?” Mrs. Wickfield asked.

“Wretched. Now that he’s home, you know, the tradesmen in the village are sending in their bills. My, such a lot of them. I’m sure we had a dozen there this morning alone. The cobbler—well, boots for the lot of them all these years, and the twins growing so fast they must be shod twice a year. A bill for three hundred from him.”

“Surely not so much!” Mrs. Wickfield gasped. More than half her annual income seemed a high price for boots.

“There were still some of Charlie’s top boots unpaid. He ordered a pair with white rims and never did wear them either. His Beau Brummell boots, he called them. Charlie was such a stylish dresser,” she added fondly.

“Then there were the miller, the draper, the general store—you might as well say we had the village to call, and poor Alex so fagged he should have stayed in bed.”

“You never mean he went down to see them!” Anne exclaimed.

“He’s bound and bent to pretend he’s getting better. That lad will never be whole again. What wasn’t shot away in Spain was burned away by Palmsey. And you’ll never guess what, Alice,” Aunt Tannie continued, hardly stopping to draw air. “The dovecot that holds nothing but swallows—Charles never paid for that. He had it built the year he came into his own. Imagine, five years it’s been sitting in the yard, and us never knowing it wasn’t paid for. The same with the addition he had put on to the stables. I hadn’t the heart to tell Alex, but I was never paid a penny either, and Charles
did
say I’d get a hundred pounds a year, not that I need it, for I can always charge everything, of course. Still, he said I’d get it. Not that I really expected I would,” she added matter-of-factly.

“Of course he’ll pay you,” Anne said, but the complete pessimist knew better. She gave Anne a sorry, disillusioned look and launched forth on another sea of complaints.

After Dr. Palmsey had dropped in for a chat on his way to the Hall to check on his patient, he said ever so politely to Mrs. Tannie on his way out that he wouldn’t bother sending his bill for a bit, till his lordship was feeling stouter. He mentioned the girls’ measles, Robin’s sprained ankle, and Mrs. Tannie’s own rheumatism—all services rendered without payment. Though he reaffirmed there was no hurry, it was clear that he expected his money soon.

“I begin to think we’ll all land in the poorhouse,” Aunt Tannie declared, and had to revive herself with a good strong cup of tea and two scones before she could continue her litany. “According to Robin, the rents ain’t coming the way they should be, either.”

A pile of tradesmen’s bills was an unpleasant welcome but could hardly be more than an embarrassment to the lord of Penholme. Not even Anne felt any real disquiet.

On the third day, Alex was sufficiently recovered to leave the house but was not well enough to ride his mount. He came to Rosedale in his late brother’s curricle, with his batman, Lehman, at the reins. As well as a spanking team of grays to pull the sporting carriage, there was a handsome bay mare being led behind it. This was tethered to the mulberry tree in the front yard, and Anne was invited out to see it as soon as Alex had made his bows to the ladies.

During the time of his recovery, she had decided she must be a little kinder to Alex, at least till she came to know him better. He couldn’t help not being Charles; it was unfair to judge him against a paragon. She would get to know him for himself.

“Oh, you’ve brought Lady to visit,” she said, wondering why he should have done so, as she was not saddled, and the fact of his arm being in a sling made it unlikely he meant to ride.

“I’ve brought her to stay, if you’ll have her.”

“To stay? Alex—this is not a gift! I can’t accept her. It’s too much. Oh, you thought I was hinting!”

“She’s of no use to us. Not frisky enough for Rob or me, and too much for Loo to handle.”

“Sell her, then. She’ll fetch a good price. From what Aunt Tannie tells us, you can use the money.”

“You must cut everything she says in half. You would think she were Mrs. Job, the way she wails and moans. I’ve already sorted out the cattle and sent off to auction what we don’t need. Robin and the groom have taken them over to Eastleigh today. We’ve cut down from two dozen nags to ten. They’re to pick up a pair of ponies for the girls. Lady’s a beauty, Anne. Don’t you like her?”

“She’s adorable, but I can’t accept such a gift,” she said calmly but firmly.

Alex made a dismissing wave with his free hand. “She wouldn’t bring what she’s worth at auction, and after giving the barn its commission, what would be left? I want you to have her. Very likely Charlie bought her with you in mind.” His bright eyes held a question as he looked steadily at her.

“She wasn’t bought for me. He had her for a year and never mentioned such a thing.”

“I don’t know what else he had in mind, buying a lady’s mount,” he said reasonably.

“He had a great many ladies visiting. No doubt he got her to have a spare there in case any of his guests wished to ride.”