Rondo Allegro (61 page)

Emily woke after a restless night of angry dreams. Was she
truly the only person of delicacy and taste in this house? Harriet racketed
about the countryside without the least constraint, the dowager was as vague as
her eyesight, and nobody expected true breeding from a foreigner.

But she
had
expected better of Henry.

His years at sea must have coarsened him to an intolerable
degree. She could not believe how he had played duets with his mother for over
an hour, as Harriet and the foreign woman danced a Sir Roger de Coverley back
and forth over the rug.

Emily looked out the window at the white sky. The weather
could scarcely be called open, but the predicted snow storm was nowhere in
sight. Refusing breakfast, she ordered her maid to put out her riding habit,
and was soon venting her emotions in a gallop over the hard ground as the
clouds pressed down, an endless gray wool blanket directly overhead.

Much as she quarreled with her mother, she still sustained a
driving need to talk to the only person who comprehended, and indeed shared,
her ambitions.

Before she reached the crossroad, flurries began to drift
down, at first softly. Emily ignored it, rather liking more than not the squeak
of snow under the horse’s hooves, and the pure and silent white world. But
before she had advanced very far she became aware that the white world was
closing around her.

Soon, though she would claim to know the road home if
blinded, she felt blind indeed, and fear began to pool within her as the tired
animal struggled against a rising wind and the merciless whirl of great white
clots that stuck to everything.

She had begun to fight against terror when a brief flaw in
the wind revealed the familiar chimneys of the Groves. Thankfully, she traveled
the last distance, drifts reaching almost to her horse’s chest, until she and
her mount shivered their way to the stable.

“What sort of a foolish scrape is this?” her mother greeted
her. “I warned you that Old Dobbin’s corns have been aching this three days at
least, and laugh all you will about rationality, you have known from a child he
is
never
wrong in the prediction of
blizzards.”

Emily did not heed a word. She glanced behind her mother,
saw the door to the morning room closed, and heard the faint tinkle of her
sister’s harp from the room beyond. “Mother,” she said in a low voice, “Henry’s
taste is intolerable, his temper worse, and yet I am in love with him as much
as I ever was. What am I to do?”

Her mother also glanced back to check the door. She had
meant to save her new discovery for some more propitious date, but her pleasure
at having her daughter come to her for advice, instead of quarreling, prompted
her to smile.

“Well, now, things might not look as black as you supposed.
The post has come through, after three days of nothing.” She tapped a sheaf of
letters with a smug gesture. “I have finally received an answer to my inquiry
from the Admiralty. What with one thing and another, the mails from Gibraltar
have been slower than ever, but it was worth the wait. I have learned a thing
or two about that Anna Ludovisi, or Anna Bernardo, as she called herself . . .”

o0o

By nightfall the winds howled, the snow so thick that
nightfall was indistinguishable from day. After Parrette saw Anna dressed for
dinner, she was free to make her way to the stable, which had gradually become
the best part of her day.

The storm was so relentless that she set aside her usual
lantern, knowing that the flame would be snuffed within a couple of paces, and
retreated to fetch a storm lantern.

When she emerged from the closet where such things were
stored, she spied Lady Emily Northcote’s maid, Miss Shaw, sitting alone in the
old linen room. This being the room cleared at the baron’s request for the use
of the servants, as it gained heat from the great kitchen chimney against its
back wall. Presently the footmen would appear, playing cards or reading, and
perhaps others.

Parrette was going to turn away, but hesitated. The others
might come, but she had noticed that they rarely spoke to Miss Shaw, who had
been hired that summer, “the third in as many years,” Polly had said. Did they
ignore her, or did she ignore them?

“Miss Shaw, would you be glad of some company? You can bring
your work basket and sit with us over the stable.”

Miss Shaw, a colorless woman very much in the English style
(that is, complexion, eyes, and hair color looking to Parrette like uncooked
dough), turned her way, startled. “I dare not,” she said in a faint voice. “My
mistress would turn me off for being familiar.” She glanced over a thin
shoulder as she whispered these words.

Parrette’s interest was roused. Was this why Miss Shaw did
not consort with the staff? Polly had made a disparaging comment about Shaw
being above her company.

“Your mistress is not coming back any time tonight,”
Parrette said. “And the kitchen fire is going out, as tomorrow is Sunday.”

Miss Shaw looked longingly at the French maid, who seemed so
interesting, and whose fingers were quite clever. She struggled. Grateful as
she was to have found a good place, she was lonely and miserable. If she
refused, her choice was sitting there and smelling the vile tobacco of the
footmen as they argued over their interminable card games, or retreating
obediently to that freezing room. Both choices were so unappealing that temptation
defeated her. “I will, then. Thank you.”

“Good,” Parrette said. “Two lanterns is better than one. I
do not want to be lost in this evil weather.”

Bundled up, they struggled out into the snow. Parrette knew
exactly where the stable lay, but even so, she nearly led them astray, buffeted
as they were by the north wind; they blundered into the wall around the pump.
Once she identified where she was, she corrected their steps. From the pump to
the wall, and from the wall down the flagged path to the stable, and thence
safety of the cozy stable house fire, and the quiet, steady good sense of John
Cassidy.

Parrette had another reason for bringing Miss Shaw, besides
a care for a fellow creature who was so obviously unhappy. In spite of her own
determination to permit no man beside her son into her life, she had begun
anticipating every glimpse of that handsome profile.

It had begun so innocently. Parrette had felt mildly
vindicated that English speech by the local people left off that impossible ‘h’
sound, like she did. But the Yorkshire
the
flitted by as a barely articulated ‘t’, with other words blended together
in a fashion that had at first made her feel she was learning another language.

In contrast, John-Coachman’s slow, lilting Irish was easy to
comprehend, and a pleasure to listen to. Gradually she found herself listening
to what he said less than how he said it. She distrusted herself for looking
ahead to what any man might say, and yet she would never think of denying
herself the pleasure of these gatherings.

When she and Miss Shaw arrived, shedding snow in clumps, Peg
and Polly were already there with their sewing, the first with linens, the
second with Miss Harriet’s newest set of handkerchiefs. Noll was also there,
sitting by the fire repairing horse tack. Bringing Miss Shaw to add to their
party was a way to add another voice, Parrette thought, to put another obstacle
between her and John-Coachman.

Not that the conversation ever transgressed into the
personal. The closest they ever got was in talking about how they both had a
son at sea, and they had compared notes on how little one heard of their
dangers: Parrette had written to her son, but had yet to hear back, and the
Cassidys had said that they rarely received post more than twice in a year, though
the letters, when they came, might arrive in a bunch.

The conversation was so easy and general that Miss Shaw
began to relax. It was as if the threat of her mistress in the next building
had been removed, enabling her to participate in the conversation, innocent as
it was, as they all went about their work.

When the clock on the mantel tingled ten times, Polly joined
Miss Shaw and Parrette in trudging through the drifts of still-falling snow
back to the house.

Polly followed Parrette to her room, round-eyed with
interest. “How did you get Miss Shaw to speak?”

“I asked,” Parrette said wryly.

“We all tried to talk to her last summer,” Polly retorted
good-naturedly. “She wasn’t having any of us.”

“She said that her mistress might turn her off for familiarity,”
Parrette said.

“Familiarity,” Polly repeated in affront, eyes flashing
wide. “As if Mrs. Diggory wouldn’t turn us off, did we dare! But Ned and Thomas
never come in our way, Mr. Diggory sees to it.”

Parrette said, “Might there be another meaning to this
word?”

Polly shivered in her shawl, putting her mind to the
problem. To her, familiarity meant one thing: walking out with a young man,
which was strictly forbidden. “Could it? All I know is, Miss Shaw is the third
maid in as many years, and that was after Betsy, who grew up in the squire’s
house, and was promoted to lady’s maid. She’s now doing for Jane Rackham, a far
better place, she says.”

Parrette suspected that this conversation was precisely what
Lady Emily Northcote would define as ‘familiarity,’ but she did not like Lady
Emily Northcote, and further, knew that Polly could not be turned off by the
widow. That was now Anna’s prerogative. “Why was Betsy sent away?”

“Because her ladyship caught Lord Northcote following after
Betsy up the stairs one morning, when he thought her ladyship was gone calling,
and she came back to change her hat. Betsy was in a wax—tried to put him off—but
it was she who had to go. The same happened to Miss Porter, the governess, and
right after that the next lady’s maid, but
she
was pert, and Mrs. Diggory said she was making eyes at him,” Polly said. “We
all thought, good riddance to bad trouble, for she was on the catch for Ned,
too.”

“And then?” Parrette asked.

“Her la’ship discovered the next one sitting over tea with Miss
Cooper.” She named the elderly maid who had been taking care of the dowager for
thirty years, who customarily sat with Mrs. Diggory in the housekeeper’s
sitting room. “It being her night off.”

“That would be this familiarity, I suspect,” Parrette said.

Polly’s eyes widened. “A good gossip over tea is
familiarity? The things you learn! All I know is, Mrs. Diggory said we mustn’t
be anything but polite to anyone new come to do for
her
. And a shame, too, because until
you
came, Miss Shaw had the neatest way with repairing lace, and
can turn a seam so you scarcely notice it’s there. But we dursn’t speak to her,
not if it was ever so.”

o0o

The next morning, when Anna went up to give Eleanor her
lesson, she discovered Justina and Harriet dancing about the crowded room.
Watching the child’s quick steps, an idea occurred to Anna.

At first Justina had sometimes tried to sing because her
sister sang, but she was either too young to land on the note, or she hadn’t an
ear, and Eleanor fretted that Justina was dragging her off key. Now Nurse kept
her aside, and Anna had noted that mutinous little face. It wrung her heart,
making her feel guilty that she was giving the one sister something and denying
the other.

After the singing lesson, she went to Justina, who was listlessly
cutting up paper. “Would you like to learn to dance?” she murmured.

Justina’s eyes widened. She bridled, and said in a shrill
voice, “Harriet teaches me.”

That voice sounded unpleasantly like Mrs. Squire Elstead.
Wondering if she was deepening her error, Anna said, “That is good. If you do
not want lessons with me, it is fine.”

Justina held onto her resentment for two heartbeats. As Anna
began to turn away, she said quickly, “I want lessons.”

“Then come with me.” To Nurse, she said, “I will bring her
back.”

She took Justina’s thin little hand in her own, and led her
through the upstairs to the old wing, and thence to the gallery. As soon as
they entered this long, shadowy room, bisected by occasional slants of light,
the little girl shivered. “I’m cold. I hate this place.”

Anna was now feeling that sick sense that she had made a
grave error. But she draped her cashmere shawl around the little girl, who
preened, running her fingers over the soft fabric. Anna said, “Watch me. If you
want to learn this, I will teach you. If you do not, then we will return to the
schoolroom.”

Giving her legs a couple of quick swings to ease tight
muscles, Anna moved to the center of the room, and then danced down the middle,
combining the leaps and twirls she had performed over and over with Lise and
Ninon, and then ended with the Spanish
zarzuela
.

Then, warm and breathless, she returned to Justina, who
flung off the shawl as if it were an old rag, and demanded, “Teach me
that!
”

“I could try,” Anna said. “But can you do this?” She stood
in third position, her feet turned out in a line.

Justina struggled to emulate, her balance wobbly.

“Then this?” Anna lifted her leg straight up.

Justina tried to kick, and nearly fell. Her brow drew down,
and her lip quivered.

Anna pointed to her feet. “All dancers begin with the simple
steps, and then you learn and build strength.” She recollected her early days,
the painful struggle, and resolved to stick with the basic five positions.
“They do them again and again, until they are perfect. Exactly the way you
practice your alphabet, that one day you might write letters beautifully.”

Justina was silent, struggling with disappointment that she
was not to get taught that beautiful whirling dance. But at least her sister
was not getting this much!

So she obediently mimicked each of the five basic steps, and
the proper way to get to each.