The Heiress Companion (16 page)

Miss Cherwood, busy directing Mrs. Coffee to establish Mrs.
Cherwood in one of the guest rooms and to make sure her maid and grooms were
billeted comfortably, assumed for the first time in her months at Broak the
mien and carriage of a servant. Lady Bradwell, unaware of the passages between
her son and her companion, assumed that the girl’s sudden depression was
entirely due to her aunt’s appearance, and took an even firmer dislike to the
unpopular Mrs. Cherwood. In fact, the only person in the house who seemed to
rub along at all well with Margaret’s mother was Lully’s sister Eliza. “Which,
when you come to think of it, makes a dreadful sort of sense,” Lady Bradwell
confided to her favorite son. “Dearly as I love Margaret, I cannot help but
wonder how long we are to be favored with her mother’s presence.”

Lyn also had a distracted air, and it took him a moment to
recall what the subject of the conversation was. “O, yes. Odious woman. It’s
luck for Miss Margaret that Ambercot seems determined to stand up for her. Did
you see their meeting, Mamma?”

Lady Bradwell had not been one of the witnesses to Mrs. Cherwood’s
reunion with her youngest daughter, but she had heard all about it. Dorothea
Cherwood, unable to wait until the girl could be roused from her bed, dressed,
and brought down to the saloon where refreshments had been laid, swept past her
niece, up the stairs, trumpeting Margaret’s name. Meg’s maid said later that
the girl had risen from a sound sleep with a look of confusion and distress,
just in time to be swept to her maternal bosom while Mrs. Cherwood made a
romantic and almost unintelligible speech about the strength of a Mother’s
Love.

The household, from scullery to parlor, was displeased by
Mrs. Dorothea Cherwood; that day was a very long one.

It seemed doubly long to Rowena, earnestly pursuing as many
tasks as she could decently find for herself, and to Lyn, who had taken himself
out to waste good shot in firing at pigeons and crows in the long meadow. Lady
Bradwell had descended to greet her unlooked-for guest and, after appraising
the situation, deemed it advisable to stay below and guard her nest, sending
for reinforcement in the shape of Anne Ambercot. Had Mrs. Cherwood been aware
of the stir she was causing at Broak she would have been highly gratified.

When the party convened at dinner Mrs. Cherwood made herself
the focus of attention, or rather, finding herself the focus, made the most of
her position. She lectured Jane Ambercot on the proper upkeep of a young lady’s
hands, recommending frequent applications of lemon juice followed by Denmark
Lotion to remove freckles and preserve a soft and genteel appearance. She
suggested to Mrs. Ambercot, with the privilege of one soon to be related, that
perhaps her turban was a trifle
outré
even
for the depths of rural Devonshire. She made recommendations in the most
confiding manner to Lady Bradwell on a very clever fellow in Eastcheap who did
reweaving, for that little patch of fraying carpet on the third-floor stairway,
and advised her to air all her tapestries with lavender and comfrey. She made
coy remarks to Lord Bradwell and Mr. Ambercot about their nearing nuptial
bliss, and advised Mr. Lyndon Bradwell to take his brother’s lead and follow
suit. When Mr. Bradwell scowled at this, she suggested salts or hartshorn, or a
tisane of chamomile and wintergreen for the headache he appeared to have. And
throughout the meal, indeed throughout the evening, she found fault with
Rowena.

She looked positively hagged. Well, Mrs. Cherwood had always
thought that Renna’s beauty wasn’t of the lasting sort, and see, the girl had
turned down a very advantageous offer which was likely to be the best she would
ever get. She would surely never get another if she continued to deteriorate in
this fashion, poor thing. Did Renna advise Lady Bradwell on the doings of the
servants’ hall? Mrs. Cherwood hoped that Lady Bradwell had her own spies in the
kitchen, then, for while Rowena was a dear girl, she had been brought up so
much abroad, you know, that she really could have no idea of how things were
done in a proper English house. Mrs. Cherwood expressed great surprise that
Lady Bradwell permitted Rowena the management of the house accounts and
tenantry books; surely such things were better left to a factor or steward. A
young female could never really understand such complex matters.

By the time dinner had ended and the ladies, withdrawn to
the drawing room, found themselves stranded with Margaret’s mother, she had
alienated everyone in the house except for Eliza Ambercot. The two of them sat,
an issue of the
Ladies’ Companion
open
between them, and talked of gowns, hair pomade, and gossip.

If she thought about it at all, Rowena was rather more
grateful than not for her aunt’s arrival, as it gave her something to think of
beyond her own misery. She was not up to retaliating for the slights heaped
upon her, but now and then the absurdity of the situation dawned on her,
asserting itself in a faint, self-mocking smile. Mrs. Cherwood never saw the
smile, and believed smugly that a life in service was humbling her intractable
niece.

Lyn, stationed across the room from Rowena and Margaret,
would have liked very much to offer the elder Miss Cherwood the same sort of
protection that Ulysses Ambercot had extended to his betrothed. Indeed, shortly
before dinner he had met Rowena en route to her room, and asked, or rather
tried to ask, if there was anything he could do to help her.

“With what, Mr. Bradwell?” Miss Cherwood asked dully.

“Rowena, look.” She did not. “Confound it, Renna, I’m every
kind of fool if you like, although I still maintain —”

“I really don’t wish to listen to this, Lyn,” she said
wearily. “If you meant to ask if you could help with my aunt, I don’t see how.
If you pay her too much attention it will make her worse than with none at all.
I can handle her. At least Meggy don’t have to go back there for any length of
time. Aunt Doro is so thrilled at marrying off her last daughter that she’s
practically ready to marry Meg from your dining room. For your mother’s sake I
would advise you to discourage her in that notion as soon as possible.”
Dropping something close to a housemaid’s bob, Rowena escaped him. They had not
spoken since.

The evening was, if possible, longer than the long day had
been. Mrs. Cherwood protested herself charmed with everything, joined in a game
of whist, advised, uninvited, upon a game of backgammon, and boisterously
queried Margaret from across the room as to what she was doing. When, shortly
before ten, Rowena gathered up her tambour work and needle and very firmly
suggested to Lady Bradwell that it was time she made her farewells and retired,
Mrs. Cherwood said good night to her hostess in forthright fashion, her sharp
eye missing nothing of Rowena’s solicitous care for her mistress.

“My dear, do come in and sit awhile,” Lady Bradwell
entreated when they reached her room. “I don’t think you need return downstairs
again, unless you really wish to do.”

Rowena smiled faintly. “Am I that obvious, ma’am? Your wish
is my command, of course.” She sat heavily on a chair near the bed and rang for
Taylor.

“Thank God Margaret takes after your side of the family, my
love. What a fright of a woman! Although I should not say so to you.”

“My dear Lady B, when I have been filling you full of the
most outrageous calumnies against my good aunt for all these months! You needn’t
scruple to tell me if you merely agree with me.” Almost, Rowena had regained
her own old tone. But not quite.

“My dear, is it only your dreadful aunt’s arrival that has
you so knocked up?” Lady Bradwell asked solicitously. “I suppose I ought not to
ask that either, but I dislike to see you so mopey. What’s blue-deviled you?
Yesterday you seemed full of smiles, or was that only for Jack and Jane?”

“Yesterday I
was
full of
smiles,” Rowena agreed. “Today I’m not so. I suspect I am only tired, ma’am.
And Aunt Doro’s presence here is something of a strain.” Miss Cherwood bent her
head to examine a cross-stitch on her embroidery.

“And on Lyn as well?” Lady Bradwell asked shrewdly. Rowena’s
head snapped up. “O, come, child, credit me with a little intelligence! I can
see something, after all. What has that wretched boy done to hurt you? Or, is
it you has hurt him?” The older woman’s tone was level; there was no sound of
recrimination in her voice, certainly nothing to send Miss Cherwood into a fit
of tears. But in a moment the companion had dissolved into sobs, struggling to
breathe as much as to stifle the unexpected outpouring of her misery. When she
was a little more in command of herself Rowena realized that she had been
seated on the bed next to her mistress, and had been crying very noisily onto
that lady’s shoulder, soaking through a Norwich shawl and the fichu of her
evening dress.

“I d-d-do beg your pardon, ma’am,” she gasped at last. “I
don’t normally make a cake of myself in this fashion.”

“Since you have never done so before I am inclined to believe
you,” Lady Bradwell replied drily. “Don’t be such a peahen, child. I shan’t
melt under a few tears. Now, are you going to be a good girl and tell me what
sort of May game you and Lyn are playing at? He hasn’t —”

“What?” Rowena asked damply.

“He hasn’t asked you — no, he wouldn’t do such a thing. He’s
not so lost to the proprieties, even if he is sometimes a clodpole. If he’s
been a trifle maladroit, my love, you should remember that he hasn’t been home
in so long he’s probably forgotten how to treat a civilized woman.”

“My dearest Lady B, you don’t imagine that Mr. Bradwell
offered me a carte blanche, do you?” Shakily at first, then more heartily,
Rowena began to laugh. Lady Bradwell regarded her companion with something like
alarm. “O, O dear! No, ma’am, I am sorry. I assure you I’m not run mad.” Rowena
began to compose herself. “I ought not to laugh at it,” she said at last.
“In fact, Mr. Bradwell’s scruples border on the exquisite! So far from
offering me a straw marriage, he has withdrawn an offer of real marriage so
that he can not be accused of marrying me for my fortune!”

Louisa Bradwell gaped at the younger woman.

“No son of mine,” she said at last, “could say anything so
fustian!”

“I am devastated to correct you, ma’am, but a son of yours
has done so. If you please, I am Cophetua and he the beggar maid. Or man,
rather. He won’t have it bruited about that he married me for my money.
Granted, I’m far from being a pauper, but if he had asked it I would have
consigned the money to the devil; at least, I think I should have done,
although it seems like a stupid thing to do. Do men always
expect these absurd sacrifices of one?”

“But couldn’t you talk him out of the notion, Renna?” Lady
Bradwell asked pleadingly. She had woven a daydream about her companion and her
younger son, and the children seemed determined to destroy it for her.

“I assure you, I tried, ma’am. I tried to joke him out of
it; then I tried to argue the notion from him. No help for it: He is determined
that both of us shall be miserable. Perhaps it is better that you find someone
else for my position, ma’am.” Miss Cherwood’s voice quavered on the edge of
tears again.

“If that is what you truly wish, I shall make arrangements,”
Lady Bradwell said astringently, in a voice that barred tears. “But I dislike
to think of you returning to live with that dreadful woman again.”

“Aunt Doro? Perish the thought, ma’am. If you can give me a
good letter of reference, I surely can find another position in a short while.
And perhaps Aunt Anne and Lully and Jane can put up with me for a time until I
do.”

“I still think it the foolishest thing I have ever heard of.
Rowena, do you love Lyn?”

“At the moment,” Miss Cherwood assured her employer evenly, “I
could watch him being drawn and quartered. And applaud.”

“Of course you could.” Lady Bradwell was sympathetic. “But
do you love him?”

Rowena sighed heavily. “Yes, I love him. God knows why, for he
is the stupidest, proudest, most unreachable — drat him, I do love him. I think
I must be completely insane.”

“And he loves you,” Lady Bradwell stated, as if trying to
solve a difficult puzzle.

“He said so,” Rowena returned dully. “That was the excuse he
gave for breaking off our silly little understanding.”

“Well, then.” Lady Bradwell sighed contentedly. “I think we
should be able to contrive reasonably well. Don’t be in too great a hurry to pack
up your bags, child. You may drop a few hints, if you wish. No, better. Ask
Anne Ambercot if you may come and stay with her for a short while in the near
future. Surely that will get back to Lyn and —”

“Machinations, Lady B? I don’t want Lyn by tricks.”

“Not tricks, dear. But sometimes one does have to stimulate
a man’s thought processes by dealing him a shock. Let me talk to Lyn. I vow I
shall not let him know what you have told me. I should rather like to hear my
own son convict himself of pomposity and stupidity from his own mouth. Now,
girl, it is time you were in bed.”

Indeed, Rowena was exhausted. For the first time since her
arrival at Broak months before, it was Miss Cherwood who was taken to her room
by her mistress and ordered to sleep.

o0o

With Rowena gone from the drawing room, a slight edge of
Mrs. Cherwood’s triumph was gone, and she became a little less strident. Only a
little less. Lyn, Lord Bradwell, and Ulysses Ambercot had withdrawn from the
room, and Jane and Margaret deliberately set themselves up in a conversation on
neighborhood charity that was so unexceptionable that Mrs. Cherwood could not
object, and so uninteresting that Eliza had no inclination to join in. The two
outcasts of the party, completely unaware of their ostracism, continued
together, talking of bonnets, town scandal, and finally, deliciously, of the
romances at Broak.