Lace for Milady (8 page)

“Yes, all day,” I said firmly.

“And the evening? Are you free for dinner?”

“We are dining out,” I lied amiably. Slack told me later I used a very spiteful tone of voice, but that was only her anger at my rejecting all his offers.

“How busy you manage to make yourself in this quiet little backwater. Morning, noon, and night.”

“Quite so. Taking advantage of the good weather while it lasts, you know, and the roads are passable.”

Slack’s temper came to the boil and then boiled over. “We could cancel tea with Lady Inglewood very easily,” she informed me.

We had no plans for tea with my aunt, no plans of any sort, but this she considered would force me to accept Clavering’s invitation. “I wouldn’t like to do that,” I told her with a repressive stare.

“Surely she would forgive you. You are neighbours. You might visit her any time; I am here only for a few days and would like to see you at Belview,” Clavering said.

I felt a little pang then at my refusal. Really I was very curious to see Belview, and if he would soon be leaving, when might we have another opportunity? I sat undecided, and silent.

"I should think you would be interested to see it, since it is the model of your own home. I had thought to give you a tour of the house. It has some interesting features—a Marine Room with a good collection of shells, and some quite intriguing Roman artifacts.”

“Well, perhaps..."
I said, intercepting a vigorous nod from Slack.

“Your aunt will not mind in the least. It’s settled you come to tea at four o’clock,” Clavering said in a very high-handed manner, then turned immediately to other topics. “As you were away all day, I assumed you did not ride at all?”

“No, I drove over to Eastbourne with Mr. McMaster. It seems a charming city.”

“They have a fair museum,” he answered. I had not seen it, nor heard that it possessed such a place.

“What sort of museum?” Slack asked.

“Oh, a Roman museum, of course,” he answered, as though there were no other kind. “About your grate, Miss Denver, has it ceased troubling you with its noise?”

“Yes, it has been very good lately. Not a sound out of it today. I think it has settled down and am very happy, for we have checked everything from cellar to chimney and can’t see what should be causing it. We were half afraid of ghosts.”

"You believe in ghosts?” he asked, in quite a polite voice.

"Certainly not: It was a joke, though it was a very odd noise all the same.”

"I could swear I heard
voices
when you were in the cellar,” Slack said.

"Where did they come from? What part of the room?” Clavering asked as he arose and walked to the grate. It was Slack who kept speaking about voices. I wished she would let the matter drop, or he’d take us for a pair of nervous spinsters, but, no, she joined him and tried to decide from behind which stone the voices had come.

“It seemed to be more on this side,” she said, pointing to the right-hand side. The fireplace is on the east wall, facing Clavering’s land, as I believe I mentioned earlier. The south wall faces the sea and is all windowed. In the corner between the fireplace and front wall there is a large, nicely carved parson’s bench with a high back. The room is panelled three-quarters of the way to the ceiling, and the bench blends in perfectly with it, being of the same wood and carved in the same manner, with a trefoil design repeated three times at the top of the arched panels, to fill in the point. I have often seen such a design in the pews of old Gothic churches.

“The fireplace itself or the bench?” Clavering asked. I felt he was making a deal too much of her foolish imaginings, and perhaps he knew it, too, for Slack tells me I have acquired a revolting way of twitching my shoulders and pursing my lips at such times of displeasure. If this description is true, and I sincerely hope it is not, I say in my own defence it is a mannerism I picked up from herself. One I always considered the peculiar prerogative of old maids and had determined to avoid.

“A bit in between,” she informed him, and walked to his side. Now I have told you Slack dislikes men, especially masculine men, whereas she occasionally takes a shine to a man-milliner like George, what Papa would have called a “skirter.” Yet another facet of her personality has not been shown. It is about to reveal itself now.
I
think she dislikes real men because she thinks they hate her, or are laughing at her, or some such thing. Only let them show a jot more than the minimum of politeness and she falls under their spell like the veriest schoolgirl with her Italian dancing master. I could see in her pleased glances at Clavering that if I didn’t watch her closely, she would begin touting him up to me as an excellent fellow.

"This is nonsense,” I said firmly, and refused to leave my chair to join them in the search for the echo of an echo.

They both ignored me. “Maybe more from the wall than the grate,” I heard Slack say next, and she began glancing along the panelled wall, as though the imaginary sound may have left a visible trace. And Clavering, who was certainly up to something, went right along with her foolishness, tapping panels and putting his ear to the wall for hollow sounds.

“It was the metal in the chimney expanding with the heat,” I said.

“The fire wasn’t lit the first time,” Slack reminded me. “Could it have come from the bench, I wonder,” she went on, enjoying very much showing me she had Clavering’s attention. Oh, yes, he would be a paragon before she went to bed that night. If he went much further, she’d be trying to tell me the swarthy old gypsy was handsome.

“Maybe if we moved the bench away from the wall..." she said, already placing her hands on one end to assist the Duke of Clavering to move my furniture about, and likely discover a roll of dust and a ridge of grime behind it.

“It doesn’t move. It’s built in,” he told her.

I don’t know why it should have annoyed me so much that
he
knew things about my house I didn’t know myself. “Nonsense, of course it moves,” I heard myself say. And
I
was the one who wanted this folly stopped.

He didn’t say a word but lifted his black brows at me and put his two hands around the corners of it and began pulling and heaving. It was awkward to get a good hold on it, because it went right to the floor; it was not on feet.

“All right. Please stop before you pull it loose from the wall!” I said angrily, for it was perfectly plain that if that ox couldn’t budge it, it didn’t budge.

“Really, I think the voices came from a place closer to the fireplace,” Slack then said, unwilling to have her moment of glory shortened.

"I begin to think they emanated from your head, Slack.” I said. She had become so infatuated with her new beau that she didn’t bother to reply, but only smiled at Clavering in a way that said as clear as day, I must humour the moonling.

Clavering too decided to humour me, and they both took a seat. “Well, I believe the Duke has earned a glass of wine, Priscilla,” Slack told me.

“I hope a guest in my house doesn't have to earn a glass of wine by rearranging my furniture,” I said, quite curtly, and she was off with a swish of her black skirts to get not only wine but macaroons, nuts, and dried cherries. This was treatment reserved for her special pets. It was not just any visitor—duke or no—who was favored with the dried cherries. Even George in his heyday never got so much as a glimpse of them. They were from her own private store. The nuts and wine and macaroons were household stock, but the cherries were kept in a tin box in Slack’s own room. She must have flown up those stairs on wings of delight, for she wasn’t gone a moment yet had assembled the feast from three different corners of the house.

Clavering proceeded to put on a performance that was as disgusting as anything I have witnessed in my life. “I am worried about you two ladies alone here and at the mercy of the smugglers,” he said, dipping into the cherries.

“Officer Smith assures us there is not the least danger,” I told him.

“Oh, poor Smith. He never catches anyone, so refuses to believe the smugglers are active.”

“I understand he caught a boatload about a week ago,” I said.

“Caught them bringing two kegs down from Romney. Some catch! It’s time I replace him.”

“Have you been put in charge of customs?” I asked him.

“I have always had a hand in it, and in most local appointments,” was his insolent reply. “I think I shall send two of my stout footmen down here at night to watch over the place for you.” This was said to Slack, intimating no doubt to that besotted ninny that he didn’t want a precious hair of her head touched.

“We have a butler and two footboys, as well as the groom. Thank you all the same,” I told him.

“Still, I’ll send my men down to give them a hand. Your butler is old, and your footboys and groom only boys.”

“I would much prefer it if you keep your footmen at home.”

Again the two exchanged that smile of toleration for the moonling, and Clavering hunched his hulking shoulders, taking another fistful of cherries. The pair then went on to a discussion for which I can find no other word than flirtation. Before I knew what was happening, Slack, usually so discreet, was telling the private details of her life, which involved in no small degree those of my own. I had the pleasure of hearing that I was not a
bad
child to mind, though always self-willed and headstrong to an extraordinary degree. I was a quick learner but would not apply myself unless goaded unmercifully.

“I don’t envy you your task, ma’am,” he told her, and held his glass out for her to refill to the brim. I wouldn’t have been surprised in the least had she dashed to the cupboard for a larger glass. Slack’s pets are force fed. It is the manner in which she shows favour.

I heard her tell him all the intimate minutiae of our lives, Mama’s dwindling separation from her family, Papa’s summer visits and eventual death, the advent of Mr. Higgins, whom she had certainly never told
me
she disliked excessively. “He
drank,”
she said with the strongest tone of disapproval, while jealously watching Clavering’s glass to see if it would hold another drop.

All my damping remarks, glances at the clock, and comments that it was getting rather late went unheeded. Before long Mr. Hemmings, my old beau, was dragged forth. There, the name is out. Edward Hemmings, from Wilton, now married to Edna Billings, who was fortunate to get him, smoked jackets and all. And may she never lay an eye on this story. Clavering nodded with polite interest and asked Slack, with never so much as a peep in my direction, why I had seen fit to decline his offer. “Just not the marrying kind, like myself,” Slack said with a smirk.

“You were made for marriage; it is a crime to deprive some gentleman of your company,” he contradicted baldly. Then at the end of her saga he posed the question that enshrined him as her new patron saint, Saint Clavering. “Now how does it come that such a charming lady as yourself is not married yet, Miss Slack?”

Yet! As though at fifty she is likely to make a match. And she, who has never had a beau in her entire life, simpered, “I guess I just never met the right man.”

“I have no opinion of your Wiltshire gentlemen. They are singularly slow to have let you escape thus far,” he said with a gallant bow and another handful of the cherries, which cleaned out her plate. “But it is early days yet for a young lady like you. You will have Miss Denver’s saloon cluttered up with every Benedict in the community if I know anything.”

“You will find the competition lively, Your Grace,” I told him. “Would you like me to leave so that you can get right on with the offer tonight and beat the crowds to it?”

He laughed lightly and actually
winked
at Slack.

“Not a bad idea,” he replied. “But then I wouldn’t want to deprive you of her company. You are fortunate to have found yourself such a treasure.”

You may be forgiven for thinking I have overlooked some references to myself, at only twenty-five, being still eligible for marriage. None were made. Twenty-five was much too old, but fifty was next door to infancy.

Finally he arose and said, “I look forward with the greatest pleasure to seeing you both at Belview tomorrow. Are you sure you wouldn’t like me to send, my men, Miss Denver?”

“It’s not a bad..." Slack began.

“Quite sure, thank you,” I cut in.

“A demain,
then,” he bowed and was off, at a good pace considering the quantity of wine, cherries, and other food he had taken aboard.

“Well, he seems very nice,” Slack told me with a loose-lipped grin that brought forcibly to mind my cousin George.

“You are a fool,” I told her, and walked from the room before I said a good deal more which I would regret. But like any young thing with a new beau, she wished to talk about him, and came into my room before retiring.

“Did you notice, Priscilla, he didn’t once mention buying Seaview tonight?”

“Even the simple can be taught if one has the patience to repeat herself often enough. Let us hope he has learned I have no intention of selling.”

“Well,
I
think he is very civil.”

“Do you, Slack?
I
think he is very sly. Good night.”

She took the hint and left.

Chapter
Six

The autumn, so far from being wet and cold, was one of very good weather, better than is normally encountered on the coast, I was given to understand. The next morning was bright and bracing, not cold, but pleasantly brisk. It was ideal riding weather, and my first activity after breakfast was to go to the stable and again be hoisted on to Juliette’s back. My knee had recovered from its little twist, and I had no intention of acquiring another injury, so followed Clavering's advice and walked around the garden, under the stern eye of Jemmie, the stable boy, swollen to a huge proportion by the importance of the duty fallen on his slender shoulders. "Jus straighten your shoulders a mite, miss,” he would suggest, while regarding me intently. This was my worst fault, a hunching forward in fright and in readiness to grab the mane in case of trouble. It was very dull, seven times around the garden at a walk, with seven injunctions to straighten my shoulders. The walking pace increased slightly with each circuit—Juliette’s idea, I must admit. She was more bored with this sluggardly performance than I. Finally I gave her a touch of my heel and she trotted. Five times around trotting (with straight shoulders) and I touched her side again, bringing her to a canter. This, I felt, would be my preferred pace. It was smoother than the trot, and fast enough to be exciting without causing the terror of a gallop, with heels flying and mud divots being thrown up behind us. Actually I was petrified of the canter, too, at this stage, but felt that with time I would master it and go cantering into the village or through my aunt’s park at a respectable gait. At eleven o’clock Lord Inglewood arrived for his morning’s flirtation and was sent by Slack to the garden to watch me perform. I assumed that George had been dethroned with the coronation of Clavering as King Flirt.