“Chris! Oh, there you are still.” Re-entering the room, Ross looked oddly disturbed. “A message for you from your grandfather. My cousin Richard’s room must be prepared … he arrives this evening. And another room—one of the best guest chambers—for our lawyer, Mr. Foxton.”
“Oh?”
“You may well say, ‘oh.’ It could not have come at a worse time. Bound to happen of course, once you arrived. But today of all days.” He took a restless turn across the room, then came back to stand over her. “Do me a kindness, Chris?”
“Of course.” Absurd to be so pleased.
“You’ve been using Richard’s room have you not?”
“Yes.” She had been thinking about this.
“Don’t turn out for him. He’s merely a visitor. Stay where you are.”
“I hardly like to. And—why?”
“As a favor to me. And—blame it on me, if you like. Put him in one of the wings overlooking the yard. Say I told you the northeaster gives him the migraine. Very likely it does. You never saw such a man for looking after himself. Say anything you like. But don’t put him on the front of the house. Or Foxton either. And”—a hand up in warning—“don’t ask me why.”
“Will he be angry?”
“Not Richard. He’s far too complete a lady’s man. Such a perfect gentleman! And such a gossip. Don’t say anything to him, Chris, that you don’t mind having all over town when he gets back.”
Was this another warning? She smiled up at him. “You make me quite long to meet my cousin. But what’s it all about, Ross?”
“The old man’s will, of course. He hasn’t changed it for quite six months.” He smiled his sudden, heart-warming smile. “No use looking so mutinous. He’s quite right to want to put you in. You deserve it for the coffee, if for nothing else.”
“Thank you.” She returned his smile a little tremulously. “But, believe me, I don’t want anything.”
He laughed. “Oddly, I believe you. But try to convince my mother.”
It was another warning. And indeed Mrs. Tretteign was more than usually fretful all day. Christina had begun to hope that she had grown used to her presence and had even begun to forgive her for taking over the housekeeping, and, worse still, making a success of it. Today’s stream of complaints and criticisms undeceived her. Nothing she did was right, nothing she said was welcome. The last straw came when Mrs. Tretteign learned she was not intending to move out of Richard Markham’s room.
“Put Richard in the west wing?” she exclaimed. “What can you be thinking of? He and Ross have had the two front rooms ever since they were tiny. You cannot mean to oust him from his own room.” Not even you, said her tone.
“Ross says the northeaster gives Richard the migraine. Besides, there’s so much to do today. And he’ll be here only a day or two, Grandfather says. He can’t be spared from the Board of Control for longer.”
“Dear Richard.” Luckily, she was easily diverted. “Such a hard worker. Not at all like my Ross. Idling around at home as if the world was his oyster. I warned him that if things go wrong today it will be entirely his own fault.”
“But Ross works harder than anyone. You know he has the entire running of the estate now Grandfather’s confined to his room. And his work with the Volunteers—”
“And his nights out with his drinking friends in Rye,” interrupted his mother. “I know how often he uses the side entrance below his room, if you don’t. I suppose it was his idea to put poor Richard way off in the west wing for fear he prove a less incurious neighbor than you. If word of his carryings-on were to get to Papa I don’t like to think what would be the end of it. Not, of course, that Richard would lower himself to tell tales on his cousin, but it’s just like Ross to think he might. Of all the careless, inconsiderate, reckless sons a mother might be plagued with—”
“Who, me?” Ross sauntered into the room and dropped a letter into Christina’s lap. “For you, Cousin. I did not know you had friends in town.”
“Nor have I.” She opened the short letter and read it rapidly. Then, aware of Mrs. Tretteign’s inquisitive glance, she felt bound to explain. “Merely some business connected with my father’s estate.”
Ross laughed. “Don’t tell me you’re really an heiress, Chris.”
“Don’t you remember? The log cabin and the five cows?
“Will Richard and Mr. Foxton be here in time for dinner, do you think?”
“I’m sure they will, since Grandfather told them to.”
“He must be a rich man if even London lawyers jump to his bidding.”
“You’d think so, but—I wonder …”
“What do you mean, Ross?” His mother’s voice was sharper than usual. “What are you trying to suggest?”
“Why … that Grandfather’s famous meanness may have a more practical basis than we have suspected. I don’t altogether like the way things are going on the estate. It’s not like him to starve his land.”
“And he has been? Ross, you alarm me unspeakably.”
“I rather thought I would,” said her son.
To Christina’s amazement, her grandfather sent for her that afternoon and announced that he would come down to dinner for the first time since she had arrived. “Are you sure you are strong enough?” she asked.
“Of course I am, girl. I’ve always been strong enough for what I want to do. When I’m not, I hope I’ll be dead. You’ve ordered a full dinner, I hope, that won’t shame us before those Londoners? I won’t have it thought we don’t do things in proper style, even if we do live miles from anywhere. Tretteign Grange has always had a name for hospitality … it shan’t lose it under me.”
Since these were the first visitors who had entered the Grange since her arrival, she could not help but find this faintly comic, but “No, Grandfather,” she said meekly.
“‘No, Grandfather.’” It amused him to exaggerate her faint trace of an accent. “Sound meek, as a mouse, don’t you, miss? And keeping your own counsel all the time. I’ve seen you sit there and think about us.… don’t think I haven’t. What have you decided, hey? What d’you think of your Cousin Ross?” And then, mercifully, before she had contrived an answer. “What do you think of me, for the matter of that? And—I wonder—what will you think of our city beau, Richard? As for the dinner—I will say for you, it won’t shame us, no need for me to ask. D’you know what we’ve saved since Mrs. Emeret left?”
“Yes, Grandfather.” Her sparkling eyes challenged him to imitate her.
“I thought you did. No fool, are you, girl? Worth both your cousins put together, and you can tell ’em I said so. Can’t think how your father came to get you, but I’m grateful to him just the same. Never thought I would be. Oh, tell Parkes we’ll have the champagne from the far end of the wine cellar—he’ll know which one I mean. And plenty of it. You’re going to need it. And now—I’m tired.”
She was too busy for the rest of the afternoon to waste much time in speculation about what he had said to her. By the time the rooms in the west wing were ready and the table laid in the big draughty dining room they had never used since she came, the shadows were closing around the house.
“It’s lucky we keep town hours.” She had met Ross in the main hall.
“Yes, they’re later than I expected. Perhaps they have lost their way, like you.”
She flashed him a darkling glance. “I do hope not! Grandfather orders full dress by the way.” For Ross was still in blue coat and buckskins.
“I was just about to say the same thing to you.”
“Thank you! I am on my way to change now.” She brushed past him and ran lightly up the stairs to her room. Why did she let him irritate her so? She lit the candles on her dressing table and surveyed herself impatiently in the glass. Her stuff dress was as plain as a dress could be, and as uncompromising. Well, she had intended it to be. The muslin Betty had laid out on her bed was little better and she shivered as she thought of the draughts in the big dining room. With a l
ittle, impatient gesture she picked up the dress, moved over to the big mahogany wardrobe and reached far to the back. There! She brought out a calico bag and tenderly removed a deep-red velvet dress from the hanger inside it. Holding it up against her she returned to the glass. Yes, champagne might not help, but this would.
Betty tapped at the door ten minutes later. “I’m so sorry I’m late, miss …” And then, “Ooh, just look at you!”
“Do you like it?” She had finished brushing her dark hair and smiled at Betty’s reflection beside her own in the glass.
“Like it, miss? I should just about think I do. You look different, somehow”—she reached for a word—“stately.”
“Thank you.” She picked up a thin gold chain from which hung a miniature of her father. “Fasten this for me, would you, Betty?”
“Gladly, miss, but won’t you be cold in the dining hall?” Her glance rested on the white expanse of shoulder revealed by the low-cut gown. “Take a shawl, do.”
“No, thank you. I’ve worn this dress on colder nights than this.” For a moment, her eyes clouded with tears as she thought of the last time she had worn it. But she had promised herself not to look back, not to think about Father, most of all not to think about his death. She rose from her stool, and the heavy velvet sighed around her. “What’s that?”
“It sounds as if they’ve come, miss. They won’t half have to hurry changing if they’re not to be late for dinner. And the fur’ll fly if they are.”
“I’d best go down and hurry them. I’m sure my aunt is not ready yet.”
“Not her.” And then, on a note of pure joy, “I just can’t wait till she sees you, miss.”
Pausing at the top of the big stairway, Christina saw that Ross had changed even more quickly than she had. He was below her in the hall, greeting a large man and a slight one, both heavily coated against the cold November air. Now he looked up and saw her. “And here is our cousin. Chris! You will make me ashamed not to have gone the whole hog and worn knee breeches.”
If she was disappointed at his reaction, she took care not to show it, and imitated his rallying tone. “Nonsense. You know perfectly well you said the other day your court dress no longer fits you.”
“Ross never would take the trouble to look a gentleman!” The slighter of the two strangers advanced to the foot of the stairway. “Cousin Christina, I am enchanted to make your acquaintance. But why did nobody tell me?” With a courtly gesture, he picked up her hand and kissed it. “If I had known, I should have been down here long since to pay my respects.”
“Known?” She was still a step above him on the stairs, which accentuated her impression of his neat slenderness.
“That you were a beauty, Cousin. I can understand that my aunt might not have thought fit to tell me, but I take it ill of you, Ross.”
Christina laughed. “Don’t blame him, Cousin Richard, he never noticed.”
“Shame on you, Ross! But I can believe it. He thinks of nothing, that great cousin of ours [why the little pause on the word cousin?] but mulch and drill and the price of wool. Am I not right, Cousin Christina?”
“Entirely right.”
She turned from greeting the lawyer, who was a large middle-aged man with a look of professional competence. “And now, if you gentlemen will excuse the reminder, we dine at six, and my grandfather wishes to see Mr. Foxton first.”
“Does he, by Jupiter! Then we must make haste, Foxton. I hope that man of mine has my things ready for me. The usual room, Cousin?”
“No. A million apologies. I am in your room. I have put you in the west wing, with Mr. Foxton.”
“I am honored beyond measure. Come, Foxton, I’ll show you the way.”
The food was delicious, the champagne flowed freely, but the dinner could hardly be called a success. Old Mr. Tretteign, huddled in his huge, draught-excluding wing chair at the head of the table, ate only a mouthful here and there and sipped at his champagne as if he thought it might poison him. Mrs. Tretteign, sitting on his right, was terrified of him as usual and could merely stutter answers to the few questions he barked at her. Christina, on his left, had her cousin Richard Markham on the other side, and found herself the object of his assiduous attention. Full of praise for the cuisine, he pressed her to try a bite of this or that side dish with the composition of which she was already extremely well acquainted. And all the time he kept up a continuous flow of what she assumed to be London conversation—and very small talk indeed it seemed to her.
He knew exactly when the king had last quarreled with the queen, and which of the princesses he liked to have about him. He had a new version of the story of the mad king going to open Parliament and proposing to address them as “My lords and peacocks.” “I had it from an absolutely unimpeachable source—he’ll never be right in the head again.” He was full of unimpeachable sources and Christina was content to let him talk on until he turned to the subject of America. “You must be glad to be safe away from there, Cousin.”
“Oh, why?”
“Well …” He looked about him importantly. “All friends here, of course, and it’s pretty much of an open secret anyway. A friend of mine’s a close friend of Anthony Merry—our ambassador at Washington, you know. He thinks Civil War may break out there at any moment.”
“Civil War? In the United States? But how fantastic! Why, pray?”
“Because of this incredible bargain President Jefferson has struck with France over Louisiana. What is it the Federalists say? I have it: ‘A stack of dollars three miles high for an enormous desert.’ They don’t like it, Cousin, and can you wonder? What with that and a freak of a President who knows no better than to receive our ambassador in an old coat and moccasins! I have it on the best authority that Merry thought him some kind of a servant at first.”
“The best authority?” She kept her voice sweetly cool. “I suppose you must mean Mrs. Merry, Cousin. I have heard stories about her, too. But we won’t go into that. As for Louisiana, do you realize that Mr. Jefferson, a great man, moccasins and all, has secured a million acres for us at three cents an acre? And without shedding a drop of American blood?”
“Dear me.” He looked comically taken aback. “I had no idea you were a political bluestocking, Cousin. And one of Mr. Jefferson’s democratic republicans, I take it? And, doubtless pro-French as well? Ross, do you think it is safe for you to harbor such a firebrand here on the invasion coast?” His voice was only half teasing and Christina felt bound to answer him.
“Just because I am devoted to Mr. Jefferson does not mean I like Bonaparte any better than you do, Cousin. Though if you ask me, there’s not much to choose between French and English so far as we Americans are concerned. You both stop our ships and take our seamen—not to mention our goods. But, just wait—I tell you a time is coming. Do you know we are building three hundred ships a year? Well, work it out for yourselves.”
“Not warships, I hope, Chris.” Ross had been following the conversation closely from his end of the table.
“No, not warships, trading vessels. Jefferson is a man of peace, everyone knows that. Though, mind you, we showed what we could do when the dey of Algiers insulted our flag.”
“Yes,” said Ross thoughtfully, “you did at that. I can see you’re right, Richard, we’ve a dangerous politician in our midst. Let us by all means respect the Stars and Stripes or who knows what ghastly fate may befall us?”
Mrs. Tretteign had been growing increasingly impatient with the line of conversation. Now she leaned forward across old Mr. Tretteign, who seemed to have dozed off in his chair. “Politics!” she said. “Most unsuitable in a young lady, my love, and so, I am sure, your cousins would agree. But tell me, Richard, what’s new in London fashions? I’m positively starved for information down here.”
He was delighted. “You could not have come to a better source, Aunt Verity. The dear Duchess of Devonshire was talking to me only the other day about the changes she has seen in her time. Poor thing, she’s brea
king up fast. They say she is oceans deep in debt again. Well, no wonder, the way she plays!”
“But what changes, Richard? We are quite Gothic, you know, down here in the country. I have been trying this age to persuade Christina that she should order herself some new gowns, but she is almost as obstinate as Ross—just look at him!”
“But that is quite the thing, Aunt. I have only put on full dress out of deference for my grandfather. It would be considered quite antediluvian to wear it in town for a small family dinner like this. Delicious though it is …” This for Christina, just as his previous remark had been carefully aimed at his grandfather.
Old Mr. Tretteign opened his eyes. “If you have nothing better to talk about than clothes, Mrs. Tretteign, I suggest that it is time you and Christina left us to our wine. As for you, Richard, it is news to me that you are coming out as a Whig.”
“A Whig? Why, Grandfather, whatever gave you that idea?”
“The general tenor of your conversation, to which I have listened with considerable interest. Spending your time—and your money, I wager—at Devonshire House, are you? And picking up their bits and pieces of gossip as gospel? Well, don’t come crying to me for an increased allowance when you run into debt. I suppose you want the Prince of Wales for regent, hey?” And then, while Richard was still searching for an answer, “No, no, don’t tell me. I’d rather not know.” With an effort he rose from the big chair. “Your servant, ladies. We will join you almost at once for a family conference.”
Inevitably, it was Richard who sprang to his feet to open the door for his aunt and cousin, while Ross merely watched quizzically from his side of the table. “We must talk more, much more.” Richard contrived to delay Christina for a moment as she passed him. “You must enlighten my ignorance about your remarkable country, Cousin Christina. In the meantime, allow me to thank you for the most delightful meal I have ever eaten in this house.”
Watch the Wall, My Darling Page 6