Amanda Scott (21 page)

“I don’t know,” Anne said. “He thought it wrong to do so while the family remained in deep mourning.”

Lady Hermione chuckled. “He can hardly insist that is still the case, not when he’s been married a full month and more.”

Thoughtfully Anne said, “I don’t know that I can convince him to open the house on a regular basis yet, but I wonder if he might not agree to a public day. I know, at home, we have them at least twice a year, at midsummer and Christmas. Perhaps …”

“The very thing,” her two companions agreed in unison.

Anne and Lady Hermione took their departure a few minutes later, arriving back at the Priory shortly before the dinner hour. When Anne invited Lady Hermione to stay for the meal, she accepted with alacrity, but added, laughing, “I’ve no wish to wear out my welcome here, you know, and already Ashby looks at me in annoyance when I arrive and demands to know if I’ve taken to haunting houses in my spare time. Today he wanted to know if Wilfred had thrown me out in order to entertain houris in my absence. As if Wilfred would do any such thing!”

Anne smiled at the sally. “You will not wear out your welcome, ma’am, on any account, and I doubt that there can be many houris in Derbyshire, even if Viscount Cressbrook were the sort to indulge in such entertainment”

“Men will always find entertainment, particularly when left to their own devices, which Wilfred has been for far too long.”

Anne took her upstairs so they might tidy themselves, and when they entered her dressing room, she saw that the servants had been hard at work. The room was as neat as a new pin, everything was in place, and the effect was everything she had hoped it would be.

In place of the gaudy red, purple, and blue carpet lay the lovely Aubusson with a muted floral design in shades of pale pink and blue, with pale yellow accents. Pale blue curtains to match framed the windows. In her bedchamber the bed had been spread with blue satin and rehung with cheerful curtains embroidered with flowers, birds, and butterflies in a modern Chinese pattern.

“Much better than the red velvet,” Lady Hermione said, giving her cloak to Maisie, who had been waiting to assist them. “Don’t you agree, Maisie?”

“Oh, yes, ma’am, and not a quibble from anyone, Miss Anne, not even Mr. Bagshaw. I do think it’s pretty now, and a much more becoming style for you. Them heavy dark colors made you look washed out and pale, and no lady ought to look anything but her best in her own bedchamber and dressing room.”

“Indeed,” Anne said, gazing about in pleasure. Hearing a familiar mewing sound, she turned and greeted the little cat, which had apparently followed them from the dressing room. “Hello, Juliette, I hope you approve of all these changes, too.”

“She don’t, Miss Anne. She spent most of the afternoon with Lady Sylvia and Nurse Moffat, reading fairy tales.”

Anne picked up the kitten and began stroking her before a prickling sensation between her shoulder blades caused her to turn and say, “Sylvia, darling, I do wish you would not move quite so silently. If I were given to spasms, I am persuaded that you would have given me several by now, the way you pop up where no one was before. Pray, make your curtsy to Lady Hermione.”

Sylvia obeyed at once, and then Anne handed her the kitten while she let Maisie tidy her hair. Since Lady Hermione was unable to change her dress, Anne decided not to change hers either, and so was soon ready to go downstairs. She stood up to let Lady Hermione take her place at the dressing table.

Maisie said, “Miss Anne, if you would like to speak to Jane Hinkle before you go down, you have sufficient time, I think.”

Encountering a speaking look from Lady Hermione in the glass, and aware that Maisie was determined to act as Jane’s champion, Anne said quietly, “Where is she now?”

“I told her to wait in the sitting room at the end of the gallery,” Maisie said. “There must be a good twenty minutes before they will ring the bell, Miss Anne.”

Still hesitating, Anne said to Lady Hermione, “I ought not to run off and leave you, ma’am.”

“Poppycock. Sylvia and Maisie are all the company I need until I am presentable, and then, if you still have not returned, I shall simply go downstairs and annoy Ashby until you come down.”

“Sir Jacob Thornton is most likely with him, ma’am, from what I hear,” Maisie said, “and Lord Michael, too, of course.”

“And His Grace, as well, don’t forget,” Anne said.

“No, ma’am.” Maisie shook her head, casting a warning glance toward Sylvia, who had moved away to the window seat with Juliette.

“Oh, dear, then he is in the briars again,” Anne said, keeping her voice low. “How bad was it, Maisie? Do you know?”

“Bad enough,” the maid said grimly, “not that your father or brothers would not have done the same, Miss Anne, and well you know it, if any one of you had taken out a half-broke team of horses and a racing curricle and scraped paint off the sides, trying to drive to an inch, which His Grace can’t do, as he’s proved today.”

“Oh, no,” Anne said, remembering certain unpleasant episodes at home when her brothers had attempted similar feats with similar results. “What did his lordship do?”

“Tore a right good strip off His Grace, by what Jane heard,” Maisie said, “and not just with his tongue neither. That lad will be dining off his mantel tonight, and maybe tomorrow as well. At all events he won’t be at dinner, because his lordship told him he didn’t want to see his face till tomorrow, if then. And there’s more, Miss Anne. There’s been a new tutor hired for His Grace.”

“Good gracious, Maisie, how do you know that? I’m sure no one said anything to me about a new man.”

“No, they wouldn’t, for Mr. Foster said the letter just came today by the afternoon post. There was two for you, as well, one from Lady Harlow and one from Miss Catherine—Lady Crane, I should say. But as to the tutor, my lady, by what Mr. Foster was able to make out from what Lord Michael said to him, though no one suitable responded to his lordship’s advertisements, a fellow name of Pratt were recommended to him by Lady Harlow, and the man has agreed to come at once. He’ll arrive in just a day or two, Mr. Foster says.”

“I see,” Anne said. “Well, no doubt, that will make matters easier for everyone.”

“Certainly it will,” Lady Hermione said. “What that lad needs is proper direction and a bit of good old-fashioned discipline.”

Seeing a look of doubt on Sylvia’s face, Anne said with a smile, “If Mr. Pratt is young and good at his job, darling, and Andrew takes a liking to him, it may prove a very good thing.”

She could not see that her words convinced the little girl, but since it was extremely difficult to coax someone who did not respond verbally, she left Sylvia to Hermione and Maisie to look after, and went to find Jane Hinkle.

Jane was in the sitting room, just as Maisie had said, engaged in dusting pictures and porcelain that were already gleaming from earlier efforts. Turning with a start when Anne entered, she said, “Oh, my lady, I do hope you won’t be cross with me for waiting here, but Maisie—that is, Miss Bray—said I might, and I did so want to thank you properly for what you did for me.”

“You are welcome, Jane,” Anne said calmly, gesturing toward one of the chairs near the fireplace. “Draw that chair up and sit down, for I do have something to say to you that I ought to have said before, and that is with regard to Mrs. Flowers. She is not, I’m afraid, a suitable person for you to know. If you are going to remain in this house, you will have to forgo her acquaintance.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Jane said, sitting stiffly on the edge of her chair. A glimmer of amusement lit her eyes, and she added, “In the event, it would be difficult for me to continue the acquaintance when for a full month I am forbidden even to leave the house.”

“Yes, I know,” Anne said, “but you must realize that you are fortunate indeed to be allowed to remain here.”

“Yes, my lady, and that is why I felt obliged to explain certain matters to you which I have kept to myself till now.”

“Indeed?” Anne raised her brows. Once again, her impression of the young woman altered slightly. She had recognized Jane as a superior servant, and had wondered more than once how it was that she, who had not been raised at Upminster, had come to work at the Priory. “Where do you come from, Jane?” she asked abruptly.

“Gloucestershire, my lady.”

“Good gracious, what brought you so far into Derbyshire?”

“That is what I mean to tell you, ma’am, but—and I know I have not the least right to ask this of you—it is my hope that you will agree—Oh, dear, I did not realize how difficult this would be. I haven’t the least right to ask, nor you the least cause to agree to keep mum, but the fact is … the fact is I was not quite honest when I applied for work here, ma’am.”

“I cannot promise to keep your secrets,” Anne said gently, “but I will hear what you have to say, and I’ll help you if I can.”

“I have done nothing wrong, ma’am, except I was not entirely forthcoming when Mr. Bagshaw and Mrs. Burdekin interviewed me.”

“Both of them?”

Jane smiled. “Mrs. Burdekin first, and then when she had decided I might do, Mr. Bagshaw spoke with me. I believed then and still do, ma’am, that the final decision was his.”

“And what did you not tell them?” Anne asked, conscious of the passing minutes.

After a brief silence, Jane said, “I had a sister, my lady, who married poorly—a Derbyshire man, he was—and when her husband abandoned her, she sought work here in this house.”

“I collect that she is no longer here,” Anne said, watching her closely and seeing pain in her eyes. “Where is she now?”

“I did hope Mrs. Flowers might be able to tell me that,” Jane said quietly. “That was why I visited her yesterday, but perhaps I had better begin at the beginning.”

“Perhaps you had,” Anne agreed. “How did you come to know Mrs. Flowers? I am told that she …” She let her words trail to silence, unable to put the thought into words.

Jane smile wanly. “I had a letter from Molly, saying her husband had abandoned her but not to worry because she’d been taken on as a chambermaid here. She’d done similar work in Gloucester, ma’am, at the same house where I worked before I came here, and I knew she was a good worker, so you can imagine my shock when she wrote again some months later to tell me she’d been turned off without a character. Still, she said not to fly into fidgets, that she’d landed on her feet, so to speak. She wrote that bit as if it were a joke, and I didn’t understand then, but I’m afraid I do now, for Mrs. Flowers said it was not on her feet that Molly worked.”

Jane was staring at the cold fireplace now, and Anne hesitated to urge her to continue, for it was obvious she was with her sister again in her mind, if nowhere else. At last, Jane looked up and said, “It was hard at first to learn anything. The servants here are as close as oysters, and the villagers not much better, but I began to hear about Mrs. Flowers and how she knew what became of such young maids, and so I went to see her. I had to wait for her. She only came in a few minutes before I had to leave. I truly did mean to be back here by seven, ma’am, and would have been but for taking the wrong fork in the path from the village. I thought I were taking the one along the river, but it doubled back and crossed to the other side at a little arched bridge. I ran then as if a dozen bandits was chasing me, but I missed my time, though not, I swear, by as much as Mr. Bagshaw said. His watch must not be in good order, ma’am, though I did not dare say that to him.”

“But what did you learn from Mrs. Flowers?” Anne asked.

Jane hesitated. “I don’t like saying this about my own sister, but what with what she’d wrote in her letter, and what Mrs. Flowers said … She said maids hereabouts who get turned off by their employers end up at a place called the
Folly,
ma’am. Used to run such a place herself in Chesterfield, she said, and knew how such things were done. I didn’t know what she meant at first, but she laughed when I asked her—said it were plain I didn’t hail from London, that another such house once floated on the river Thames. She said they call the
Folly
a … a pleasure boat.” Jane looked directly at Anne then, with a quizzical expression on her face.

“That boat tied up north of the village,” Anne said slowly. “No one mentions such things to me, of course, but I saw it when I went aloft with Lord Ashby, and again once or twice when we’ve gone into the village. I’m afraid I paid it little heed. You fear your sister might have sought employment there?” When Jane nodded, she said, “But surely, if she were so near, you would know by now. Would not someone have informed her of your presence?”

“No, ma’am, because not knowing what to expect when I came here, I said nothing to a soul about Molly. Folks here knew her as Molly Carver, you see, so no one would suspect Jane Hinkle of being her sister, and no one except Maisie has even been friendly to me.”

“I see.”

Jane bit her lip. “Molly was used to write me weekly, ma’am. Her letters stopped coming, sudden like, as if she’d dropped down dead. That’s my greatest fear, of course, and why I had to come. My only hope now is that she felt so besmirched when she saw what she’d got into that she couldn’t bear to keep writing to me. She was—is—younger than I am, you see, and was not always as w-wise as she ought to be, though our father, God knows, exerted himself to teach us both. But she was a good girl before this, ma’am.”

“Does Maisie know all this?”

“No, ma’am, only that I had personal reasons for coming here. I did not want her to feel she need keep secrets from you, my lady, but if you do not object, I do mean to tell her the whole.”

“I have no objection,” Anne said, “but if you were hoping for sage words of advice from me, I must disappoint you. Unless you are willing to put the matter before Lord Michael—”

“Oh, no, ma’am, I dare not! I can go back to Gloucester if I am turned away, but I don’t want to go without knowing what became of Molly, and I won’t have the means to keep looking for her if Lord Michael turns me off. And he would, you know. For all that you may understand my feelings, it is unlikely he would do so. He’d most likely think me unsuited to work in his house, and be incensed to find I’ve repeated such a sordid tale to your ladyship. And, after all—” She broke off, flushing deeply.