Althea (31 page)

He waited for her laughter. There was none.

“Boy, you go to the most confounded lengths to snarl up your
courtship, do you not? I suppose you announced this to Althea? All the tact of
a Piccadilly cutpurse. Thank God you never aimed to be a diplomat — we’d surely
all be French by now.”

“I assume you don’t find this a jest,” he said stiffly.

“What matters it if I do? The question is how it would take
Althea. And if what you have told me of her state last night is true, Nephew, I
cannot conceive that she would see much humor in it. Oh, fiddlestick, must I
conduct your courtship for you? Go to her and speak quietly — quietly, mind —
and don’t for heaven’s sake press on her any suit. Even a heroine must pine for
a little quiet and peace now and again.”

“If that is your prescription, wisest of my aunts, I will
follow it. Perhaps I shall see you later in the evening?”

“But you hope not,” Lady Boskingram retorted to her nephew’s
retreating back. “Give her my love.” When he had gone from the house she gave
vent to an enormous cackle of delight. “Ditched her carriage before he even
knew of her! Oh, Tracy, what was I about to have had a stick of a son like
Richard, when all along it was you I should have been raising?”

o0o

“But both of them are gone, sir,” Maria said peevishly. “And
Ally left me a note filled with the greatest stupidities about how grateful she
was to me and how kind I was and how kind
everybody
was, and that she
hoped I would visit her at Hook Well sometime.... Well, I may be a widgeon,
sir, but I never wrote such fustian in my life.” She folded her hands and
looked plaintively at Sir Tracy.

“You have no idea when they left?”

“The note was found only half an hour ago. Francis told her
maid not to bother her until she awakened, but we are engaged to dine tonight,
so I sent to wake her, and there she was not, and only this stupid note and one
to Banders.”

“Banders?” Tracy asked blankly.

“Her maid. Actually, our mother’s maid, but Althea has been
her pet forever, since Mama was taken from us. The notes were only just
discovered, in any case, for she placed them among the bedclothes, and they
were almost taken to be laundered with the sheets, and then think of the pretty
pass, with ink on my sheets and no idea where Ally had got to.”

“You said your brother had gone with her?” Calendar
interrupted.

“Of course! Papa sent him here to fetch Ally back, although
I had no notion that they would be leaving so soon. Papa is not very good at
managing,” Maria confided, “and I think he wants Ally back to untie the knots
he has got the household into. Ally is terribly smart.” She sighed.

“Your sister seems to be terribly smart about everything
except dealing with a man who loves her,” Tracy said bitterly. “On that score
she is as like to run and hide as to give encouragement.”

Maria clapped her hands gladly. “Then you love her! Oh, I am
so pleased, for she never really thought so: I suppose that is why she’s been
so dreadfully mopey of late. Did you ever tell her so?”

“Did I ever tell her so?” Tracy stared at his hostess with
amusement. “Dear Lady Bevan, even if I never said so in so many words, I should
think that my actions, my very demeanor, would have indicated it to her. As you
say, she is certainly not stupid.”

“No, of course not. But think, Sir Tracy. There was that
stupid Pendarly vowing his devotion when he was all the while engaged to Miss
Laverham — oh you have not inquired for Miss Laverham. She is very well, and
has gone home to her Mama in great spirits. Mr. Pendarly took her home.”

“I am no end relieved to hear it,” Tracy said impatiently.
“But would you have the goodness to finish the thought you began a moment ago?”

“Oh dear, which thought was that?”

Tracy suppressed a shudder of annoyance and told her, word
for word, through clenched teeth, exactly what she had been saying.

“Oh, yes. Well, Pendarly had been hanging after her in the
most flattering way, and he really is terribly handsome, and he may even have
said that he loved her for all I know — and then he betrayed her. So naturally
she could not trust people as easily after such a humiliation. And if you never
told her that you loved her — why, it is really very shocking. How was she to
know you hadn’t decided to marry her for the convenience of it, and because she
suited
you. And Ally didn’t feel suitable for anyone after she had let
herself be made such a game of. Even I saw it — although I didn’t understand all
of it — and I am really very silly,” Maria finished proudly. Tracy watched her
for a moment, dumbfounded.

“You mean, ma’am, that she honestly thought I would offer
for her simply to get myself a housekeeper and furnish myself with an heir? I
must be mistaken in your family: I cherished the idea that your sister was
passably intelligent.”

“Oh, but it’s the smart ones that always end up in a coil,”
Maria assured him.

“Lady Bevan,” Tracy insisted sweetly, “do you think that I
should go after her or not? I have the most striking vision of my wedded life:
pursuing my notional bride over the countryside.”

Maria considered. “Could you follow her very slowly? If she
could have a few days back at Hook Well with Papa to realize how awful he and
Merrit can be when one is confined to their society — I love them both dearly,
but they can be a dreadfully trying, even to a nature as sweet as Althea’s. And
if you do go, will you take her a note from me? I really cannot use the gowns
she left for me — with my coloring, can you imagine a mulberry satin pelisse
fitted in sable, or yellow muslin with sand-colored ribbons? She
must
come back to town or the waste of those gowns will quite break my heart.”

“I would be delighted to carry your note.” Tracy smiled.
“How long do you think I should give her to consider her situation?”

“Well, you know best how long the trip into Lancashire will
take you. I suppose two days will suffice. She did cry over the note that she
left me, and that I think is an excellent sign, do not you?”

“If
you
think it is, I shall bow to your knowledge,
ma’am. I have very little idea if it is or no.” He raised his eyes heavenward.
“Thank God a man need only once go through this business of courtship. I could
never survive a second essay. You see, your sister will have to take me.”

“Oh.” Maria considered this. “Do you know, no one has ever
told me I had any knowledge. It’s rather nice. But please do call before you
leave and I shall have my letter ready for you.”

o0o

Sir George Ervine took an unaccustomed seat in the office of
his house, one morning, several days after he had dispatched his son to plead
for his sister’s return. He did not expect their immediate appearance, but as
he eyed the number of papers upon the desk, he could not keep from hoping that
Althea could be persuaded to leave the dissipations of her town life with
reasonable alacrity — the business of running a household was turning out to be
more complex than he had ever imagined. So he sat in the office and tried to
look as if he were not only busy, but busy with something he fully understood.
The effort was hardly successful.

“Father, what are you doing here, of all places?” The voice
was, unbelievably, that of his daughter. She stood in the doorway, dressed in a
modish but somewhat rumpled traveling suit, her hair differently arranged from
when he had seen her last, but with a familiar look of tolerant amusement on
her face.

“Althea, my dearest child!” Sir George sprang up from the
desk and embraced his returned lamb. “You are made so fine I hardly recognize
you.”

“And you are grown so busy I hardly recognize you. Sitting
in the office on a fine morning like this when I am sure you had much rather be
out riding. Oh, shame, Papa, it is quite out of your character.” She clucked
chidingly as she went toward the desk, untying her bonnet strings in a
businesslike fashion. “I see that some work has piled up for me to tend to —
how
thoughtful
of you to save it for me, Papa dear.”

Sir George smiled fondly. “Well, I know you never did like
others meddling in your accounts so I tried to keep as much intact as I could
for you, m’dear.” He cast a look of impatience toward the door. “Are you much
fatigued from your journey, my child?”

“I slept the greater part of it, much to poor Merrit’s
disgust; be is upstairs changing from his clothes now, but I expect he will be
down in a moment. Perhaps,” she said wickedly, “you would care to sit with me a
while and explain what changes you have made in my organization while I was
gone?”

Sir George coughed nervously, acutely aware of an
overwhelming desire to remove himself from the office as soon as possible. “I’d
be delighted,” he lied. “But perhaps now is not the proper moment. I was just
about to ride into the village — got some urgent business there, and —”

“Enough,” Althea conceded. “Papa, I can see the office holds
no particular charm for you. Go, and I will see if I cannot manage to untangle
what is here on my own.”

With an alacrity almost unbecoming in a gentleman of his
years and dignity, Sir George sprang for the door. Althea watched his exit
bemusedly: she was depressingly certain that soon enough she would be frowning.
She had slept almost entirely through the journey homeward — had insisted that
they make no overnight break in the trip. By traveling in this fashion, Althea
found that she was largely able to avoid thinking of her London stay. Now, by
immediately plunging into the fascinating task of trying to unsnarl her
father’s accounts and the domestic crises of Hook Well, she hoped to further
delay those thoughts. By contrast with her remembrances of the last few
interviews she had had with Calendar, even the running feud between the cook
and the butler was a matter for celebration.

She had not had the opportunity to sort out the bills at the
desk, let alone turn her attention to paying them, when the door opened and
disclosed Cook, two housemaids, and the youngest of the gardener’s sons, all
apparently come to give evidence against Firth, the much maligned butler. Cook
preferred to wait until the others had done to parade her woes, but Sarah and
Annie had tales to tell that made that loyal, elderly retainer sound like the
greatest fiend in history, and as for Davy, who generally transported his
father’s flowers from hothouse to kitchen, he had a tale that should have made
Althea’s hair white with horror at what he had submitted to by way of beatings,
scoldings, and threats. Since Althea was reasonably sure that all three of them
had deserved any and all scoldings received, she clucked, nodded, promised
nothing, and dismissed them from the room under the impression that they had
accomplished their purpose.

“Well, Miss Ally,” Cook said when her supporters were gone,
“you may turn the others aside as hasn’t the grievances I have, but you shall
have to listen to how that man has used me.” Althea did not seem impressed by
the direness of this tone, so she tried a different tack. “But hasn’t Miss Mary
been feeding you down there in London? You’re peaked and thin as a pole. You’ll
just go to bed with a bowl of my barley water and gruel this very instant.”

“Cook, I am no thinner than when I left, Maria fed me more
than well, and if you think to turn me up sweet with gruel and sympathy, you
have sadly forgotten me in my absence, so pray go on with your accusations. The
stories I have heard so far do not convince me of anything but that Firth has
been sadly outnumbered in this household.”

Cook, much aggrieved by this address, plunged into her
story, which was the most complex of the accusations, involving, as nearly as
Althea could tell, Firth’s refusal to allow Cook to defend herself when Sir
George sent some of her gruel (ordered on Doctor Phillips’ instructions as a
cure for the master’s gout) back to the kitchen with a message both insulting
and untrue regarding Cook’s culinary skills. If only the sainted Lady Dorothea
was still among them, Althea was assured, she would never have brooked such
treatment of such old and devoted servants.

By the time this diatribe came to an end, Cook was nearly
drowning in her tears, and it took almost half an hour for Althea to calm her,
assure her that her sacrifices would not be overlooked, and that she would
attempt to live up to her mother’s standards as a housekeeper, with the help of
those old and devoted retainers who still recalled that worthy lady. This last
comment was not overlooked by Cook, who resolved at once to be Althea’s
preceptress in all things; with a sense of mission she departed for her
kitchen, tears dried, cheerfully unaware that Althea had promised no action
against her arch enemies Sir George and Firth.

o0o

Within three days Althea had finished the worst of the
office mess, to the occasional accompaniment of quarrels from the servants’
hall and her brother and father’s bickering over everything from backgammon to
the sugar in their tea. The music of home, the tranquility she had longed for
in London, was now becoming the same old commonplace drone: her father’s
prosing and her brother’s wheedling. This was, she reflected grimly, the price
one paid for refuge. This morning, however, with her figuring done, Althea felt
it time to make a tour of the house and see what had been most grossly
neglected. Since this was likely to be a messy chore, she donned her oldest,
most faded gown, made a turban for her hair with a scarf, and ascended to the
attic to begin there.

As she had expected, all was in a disarray ranging from mild
to severe. She had had the foresight to equip herself with tablet and pen, to
make notes of what stood most direly in need of repair. By noon she had swept
through half the house, and had begun to work on the public rooms below. With
reckless abandon she noted chairs that needed reseating, drapery beyond all
hope of repair, and rugs that needed immediate attention. She knew her father
would rebel vigorously at the cost of the work she planned, but while she still
had some power as returned prodigal, she intended to make use of it.