Blossom Time (7 page)

“Rubbish, use mine. I keep a couple of fellows in London year-round for Aunt Margaret’s convenience. They are sitting on their haunches most of the time.”

It had been arranged that Dick would join them in the garden and invite Sylvester to dinner that evening. He was to leave them alone for an hour first, but as he was eager to get down to the orchard and see to the spraying for greenflies, he went early. Sukey accompanied him. Sandy was at her heels, making life difficult for Snow Drop. The two had not come to terms yet.

While Dick spoke to Sylvester, Rosalind said to Harwell, “Now that no big ears are eavesdropping, may I know what all this new civility is in aid of? Last night you were against my going to London. This morning you are suddenly offering bribes to be rid of me.”

“Not bribes! Rewards. I have been a selfish dog, Roz. I am only trying to make your life in London as pleasant as possible and help the romance with Sylvester along.”

“I don’t need any help with Sylvester.”

“But you do, my sweet idiot. When he said—with a great lack of originality for a poet—that your cheeks were like rose petals, you should have batted your lashes and simpered, not said in that flat voice, ‘That one is a deal pinker than my complexion, I think.’ That was not romantical.”

“I was embarrassed. I’m not accustomed to flattery.”

“Better get used to it. The new coiffure and gowns are charming.” His eyes glanced off her hair and face down to admire the new neckline.

“I wish you wouldn’t stare at my bosoms,” she said curtly, and pulled her shawl together.

“Merely admiring nature’s handiwork. Breasts are the perfect example of beauty and practicality.”

“Spoken like a good dairy farmer. Don’t ever try to become a poet, Harry.”

“I don’t intend to, though it’s not actually necessary for a man to be a fool to be a poet. Byron is quite sane. He gave a dandy speech in the House about the Luddite riots in Yorkshire. Pity he never followed it up with action.”

“Sylvester is not a fool, nor, I hope, am I.”

“I know you’re not. I didn’t see any mention of all that hackneyed twaddle about the Dark Ages and the Renaissance in your poems. They were just pretty verses about nature.”

“Harry! You actually read them!”

“Of course I did. I felt it a duty.”

She just shook her head. “How like you to not even bother pretending it was a pleasure.”

“When have I ever pretended with you? Or you with me, come to that? Between us two, your Provencal roses wear their everyday name of cabbage roses.”

“Only you call them that!”

“I believe in calling a spade a spade. I thought your poems were pretty. Better judges than I say they are something special. I accept their opinion and am truly happy for your success.”

Once Dick had extended the invitation, he could find little to say to Sylvester. He led Sylvester over to join the other group. Sukey followed along, cradling Snow Drop in her arms to protect her from Sandy. Deprived of his amusement, Sandy gave a final bark of disgust and took off in pursuit of a squirrel.

“I have just been inviting Lord Sylvester to take his mutton with us this evening,” Dick said. “I hope you will come as well, Harry.”

“Thank you. I will be happy to.”

“Can I come, Dick?” Sukey asked, pulling at his hand to get his attention.

“Of course not, ninnyhammer, but I’ll have Cook send you up some plum cake if you manage not to rip your pinafore,” Dick replied.

“I want to sit at the grown-up table!”

“When you are a little older, child,” Sylvester said. “Children are to be seen, not heard.”

“That’s silly. What if I want something?”

‘Then you ask your nanny for it.”

“I told you, she’s gone.”

“Surely it’s possible to find a replacement,” he said to Rosalind. “It seems a shame to waste time when a child has so much to learn. They are peculiarly amenable to instruction at an early age, you must know. The child is not too young to begin an appreciation of good literature. I had a dozen soliloquies by heart when I was her age.”

Snow Drop squirmed in her arms and succeeded in hopping down. The tassels on Lord Sylvester’s top boots caught her attention, and she began leaping at them. Sylvester shook his foot to be rid of the kitten.

Sukey let out a holler. “Don’t kick her! Harry, he’s kicking Snow Drop!”

“Do stop your racket, Sukey!” Rosalind scolded. “And take that kitten away.”

Harry picked up the kitten, tucked it into the crook of his arm, took Sukey’s hand, and led her down the path toward a bench under a lilac bush. “Come along, dumbie. I’ll teach you a Shakespearean sonnet. But first we’ll learn the alphabet.”

“I know the alphabet, Harry. Will you teach me to curse? Roz says you’re good at it.”

“My vocabulary is extensive to be sure, but I fear you’re a little young for advanced cursing. ‘Deuced’ is the farthest I go with minors.”

“I already know that, and ‘tarnation’ and ‘zounds.’ I learned them at the stable. ‘Deuced’ is not cursing.”

Something twisted in Rosalind’s breast when she saw Sukey and Harry, with the white kitten frolicking in his arm, walking hand in hand down the path, talking nonsense. The sun shone full on them as they left the garden. Harry’s dark head was inclined down toward Sukey’s tousle of curls, which shone like a golden halo. The notion of good and evil did not occur to her on this occasion.

When Sylvester began to boast how he had translated Cicero at the age of eight, she could hardly suppress a yawn. She wanted to run down the path after Harry and Sukey, and play with the kitten.

Chapter Seven

Although the social life of Apple Hill was not dull, Rosalind was not accustomed to entertaining both morning and night. Lord Sylvester and Harwell had to be offered wine and biscuits before leaving that morning, which made the afternoon doubly busy in preparing for the dinner party.

At Dick’s suggestion, done to please Annabelle, it had been enlarged to include more guests and some dancing after for the younger folks. A large party, Annabelle decreed, must include Lady Amanda Vaughan. Annabelle had a great hankering after titles. Dick, thinking to help his sister, took the misguided notion of asking Annabelle over to give her a hand.

“Oh, you are planning to serve turbot and mutton again, are you?” was her comment when Rosalind outlined the main features of the menu. “I hope Lord Sylvester does not find it hopelessly rustic. I had thought you might be serving lobster and perhaps a ragout to impress him. Or oysters. Oysters would be a pleasant change.”

“Cook is making her mulligatawny soup,” Rosalind said apologetically. Annabelle had experience of London cuisine and was therefore listened to with interest.

“Pity there would not be time to make a turtle soup. It is all the crack in London, but one must make arrangements for the turtle days in advance. Well, so long as you are not serving apple tart and cheese for dessert.”

Here, at least, Rosalind felt she was on firm ground. “No indeed. Cook is making a Chantilly, and the gardener has some melons in the conservatory that he tells me are ripe enough to serve.”

“That is a good start,” Annabelle allowed. “Is there time to prepare an ice?”

“I fear not. It is only a simple dinner party, Annabelle. You know it takes an age to make ices.”

“I doubt Lord Sylvester is accustomed to simple meals. We shall call it potluck. That is the excuse for country fare in London. Let me make up a centerpiece for the table. I am a bit of a dab at that.”

Rosalind heaved a sigh of relief as she sent her troublesome helper off to the garden, armed with shears and a cutting basket. The elaborate centerpiece that was eventually placed in the center of the table hardly suggested a potluck dinner. It was quite two feet high and half again as wide. It would be impossible for the diners to see the company seated on the other side of the table. Yet it was certainly a striking arrangement, almost a miniature garden, with lilies and ferns and roses and foxglove and a bit of everything else in the garden.

“Monsieur Gervase, in London, gives lessons to ladies in flower arranging,” Annabelle explained, after she had accepted praise for her handiwork. “He particularly liked my originality.”

“It’s lovely, Annabelle.”

“And I have made up corsages for you and me, Roz. Yours is in your room. I used white roses, as I wasn’t sure what gown you planned to wear. You wore your pink one last night, so I assumed it would be the green you always wore last spring.”

Rosalind planned to wear the pink watered silk again, but she thanked Annabelle for the corsage.

Annabelle looked around the dining room and said, “When I take over as mistress of Apple Hill, the first thing I shall do is have this room done over. I don’t know how you can stand such a gloomy place, Roz. I always feel I am eating in a pit when I take dinner here. I shall throw a bow window out, just there on the east wall, to let in the light and give a view of the gardens. When I have these dark varnished walls painted in some light color, the room will be quite nice, don’t you think?”

Rosalind did not think Dick would want the wall torn apart with a bow window, but she was determined to be agreeable. “The room is certainly dark,” she said. “Let us put a brace of candles on either end of the sideboard for tonight to brighten it up.”

By the time the ladies went abovestairs to dress for dinner, Rosalind had a nagging headache. It was not improved to see the corsage Annabelle had left for her. It was not so much a corsage as a bouquet of roses, liberally backed by asparagus fern. When she pinned it on her gown, the weight of it pulled the material out of shape. She removed half a dozen rosebuds and pinned the corsage back in place.

Sukey came to her room before she went downstairs. “Dick says I can come down and watch the dancing for a little while,” she said.

This was nothing new. Sukey had been in the habit of coming down to watch the dancing for a year now without offending provincial notions of propriety. But Rosalind felt that Sylvester would dislike it, and after spending an afternoon with Annabelle, she was more determined than ever to ingratiate him.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea, Sukey,” she said. “In London, children don’t go to grown-up parties. Lord Sylvester will think it uncivilized.”

“I hate Lord Sylvester.”

“You don’t hate him. You shouldn’t say such things.”

“Yes, I do. He kicked Snow Drop. And he’s silly. Silly Sylvester. He talks too much. I want to go watch you dance. Dick said I could.”

“Well, perhaps just one dance—from the doorway. Don’t be chasing about the room.”

“I won’t. Thanks, Roz.” She hugged Rosalind, doing some damage to the corsage in the process. “I’ll tell Dick you said I could come.”

“Minx! You conned me!”

“Did not! Dick said I could go if you said it’s all right. I’ll tell him.” She danced out of the room, golden curls bouncing.

Roz just shook her head. At least Sukey wouldn’t be a problem in London. Dick was her legal guardian, and she would remain at Apple Hill. But she’d miss Sukey. Of course, she would visit home often. Apple Hill wasn’t that far from London. And Dick would bring Sukey to visit her, too. When Sukey was older, she could make longer visits.

A memory of Harry and Sukey, walking hand in hand down the garden path in the sunlight, flitted through her mind, bringing a sad smile to her lips. She would miss Harry, too. He would be at the Abbey for most of the year.

She shook the wisps of regret away and went belowstairs to greet the guests. They were all old friends and neighbors. Annabelle’s parents were there, along with the vicar and his wife and couples from nearby estates. Rosalind had to endure a deal of joking compliments on her first appearance in print. Her friends treated it with embarrassment, as if she had taken a tumble from her mount, or been caught tying her garter in public.

Sylvester, on the other hand, was shown great respect. A lord was novelty enough, but a lord who wrote poetry and edited a magazine and wore an orange jacket (Sylvester called it bronze) was unique. Lord Sylvester, bent on acquiring subscriptions for
Camena,
was at his most charming. There wasn’t a soul who escaped without promising a subscription, even Mrs. Hardy, the late vicar’s widow, who prided herself on never reading anything except the Bible.

The two-foot centerpiece did not prevent Lord Sylvester from talking to the table at large. His fluting voice carried above and around the mini-garden of roses, lilies, and ferns. It would be difficult to say which of his dinner companions, Lady Amanda or Miss Fortescue, was more enthralled. They both hung on his every word.

Annabelle was eager to learn more about Sylvester’s family. To this end, she sat with Lady Amanda while the gentlemen took their port.

Never one to beat about the bush, she asked bluntly, “What can you tell me about Lord Sylvester’s family, Lady Amanda?”

“I have known the Dunstons forever. Old Dunston, the marquess, owns half of East Sussex. Of course, his elder son, Moffat, will inherit the title and Astonby Hall, but I should think Sylvester will come into something very worthwhile. He will be a good catch for some wide-awake lady. There are no girls in the family, you must know. Sylvester, as the second son, should get his mama’s dot. Twenty-five thousand, I believe it was. The estate in Surrey might very well go to him as well, from his uncle Cyrus. Cyrus Staunton was minister of war for the Tories a few decades ago. He picked up a dozen sinecures at court.”

Annabelle didn’t know what a sinecure was, but as they grew at court, she felt they must be something good. “Lord Sylvester will live in London year-round, I should think,” she said.

“You couldn’t drive him out with a team of horses. His head is full of nothing but causing a stir with his poetry and magazine. Byron, the scoundrel, has a good deal to account for. I expect Sylvester will grow out of it, but he will never be satisfied to rusticate. He is a city creature. He lives in the family’s London house. Dunston is too old to make the trip for the Season. Even Moffat seldom takes a Season, now that he is shackled.”