A Most Unseemly Summer

by Juliet Landon

  Aggressively, Fen and Flint lowered their heads, rumbling a threat.

  ‘Good day to you, carpenter,’ Felice said, anticipating the man’s reason for being here. He had probably come to explain about the wood.

  ‘John Life, m’lady. Joiner for thirty years and more.’ He snatched his hat off and then replaced it on a rim of hair. ‘And I’ve come to fetch my lads and my box.’

  To her surprise, Mr Life walked past her to the outer door. ‘Wait, Mr Life!’ she called. ‘Wait! What boys are you talking about?’ But even as she spoke, the truth of the matter dawned on her. ‘I stopped two lads in the stableyard…they had a box…I thought it was mine.’

  With his hand on the latch, the joiner turned, addressing his remarks to the rushes on the floor rather than to the lady of the house. ‘Them tools, m’lady, have been mine all my working life. Made each and every one of ’em myself, I did, when I were…’

  ‘Mr Life…’ Felice attempted to interrupt the flow.

  ‘…an apprentice. And them two lads are mine, too. I’m paid to do a job for Sir Leon, m’lady, not to provide you…’

  ‘Mr Life!’ she yelled at him. ‘They were coming out of my stable! Anyone who enters my stable without my permission will be put to my service and if you keep your damn box there in future I’ll confiscate it, is that clear, as for your apprentices and tools I’ll have them returned to you in due course, now you return the way you came sir.’ Finally stopping to draw breath, she pointed to the opposite door.

  He walked stiffly past her, still grumbling. ‘I shall have to speak to Sir Leon about this…’

  ‘You can speak to the devil himself, Mr Life, but don’t ever speak to me in that tone again. Is that clear?’

  Unperturbed, the clerk of the kitchen, who had been waiting, seized the opportunity, list in hand. ‘M’lady, would you?’

  Felice sighed. ‘Yes, Mr Dawson. Come, we’ll sit over here. But first things first; let me get those lads and tools together again. Have the beehives started producing yet?’

  There were still several areas of production not yet in full swing, one of which was the brewery, and it was while Felice was with her steward, Henry Peale, inspecting one of the outhouses for this purpose that a shadow filled the doorway. Until the thud in her breast had settled, she ignored it, knowing that a confrontation with Sir Leon was to be the inevitable outcome of John Life’s dissent.

  ‘Three hogsheads a month should be enough, m’lady,’ Henry was saying as he turned to look at the intruder.

  ‘A word with your mistress, Mr Peale, if you will.’

  Henry bowed to them both, leaving Felice in mid-sentence to his departing back view. ‘Sir Leon,’ she said, coldly polite. ‘I have already said that I am capable of giving orders to my own servants without your aid, I thank you.’

  He leaned against the door frame, intentionally blocking the light and her escape, his rolled-up shirt sleeves exposing muscular wrists and forearms that sent a new wave of goose-bumps into her hair. His own looked as if he had combed it through with his fingers, making deep furrows from brow to crown. ‘The question is, my lady, whether you are capable of recognising your own servants without my aid. It appears not.’ His tone was bitingly sarcastic.

  ‘I have had a similar discussion with Mr Life, sir, and I don’t intend to repeat it to you. The joiner, his lads and tools have been reunited and I’ve told him to keep his tools out of my stable, that’s all.’

  ‘It was not only the joiner I had in mind. He’s a miserable old fool who finds something to moan about every Monday morning, but he’s the best this side of London and I won’t have him upset or I shall lose him. You’ve already antagonised my steward, now it’s the joiner, the carpenter and the plasterer. Did you have anyone else in mind for today? Some advance warning would be helpful.’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about, sir. Let me pass; I’m busy.’ She knew it was probably the last thing he would do when he came further into the new brewhouse to stand before her, hands on hips, and she saw how the icy sarcasm only thinly veiled his anger.

  ‘Is that so, my lady? Well, then, let me explain. Those women you commandeered to…’

  ‘I did not commandeer them, I simply redirected…’

  ‘…to clean the ground floor were to have been carrying lime for the plasterer who still has a ceiling to finish.’

  ‘I thought…’

  ‘Which I told you when I showed you the rooms yesterday. And what’s more, the workmen on the ground floor are still fixing the shelvings and fittings and they don’t need women sweeping round their feet while they’re doing it.’

  She blushed, biting her tongue on the reply.

  ‘So if you must indulge your passion for cleaning everything in sight, would you mind starting at the top of the house with your own servants, not mine? I can’t afford to lose my best plasterer at this point. And the next thing…’

  ‘I don’t want to hear about the next thing,’ she croaked, trying to push past him.

  But he side-stepped, barring her way with one hand against the wall. ‘The next thing is that the carpenter does not have an unlimited supply of wood to be carted off for your pleasure. He has to account for every plank, every nail, every…’

  ‘Oh, for pity’s sake, spare me!’ Felice said. ‘I don’t need the carpenter’s damn wood, or his nails. There are plenty of trees hereabouts. We’ll manage well enough, I thank you.’

  ‘Don’t think it,’ he said, dropping his hand. ‘No one fells a tree here without my permission.’

  ‘Except me, Sir Leon. I have Lord Deventer’s permission to obtain whatever I need to prepare the house for summer, and if you refuse to supply me with what I need I’ll get them elsewhere. My own carpenter knows how to…’

  ‘What?’

  She walked past him to the door. ‘…to fell a tree.’

  Roughly, her arm was held, and she was swung against the wall to face him again, this time in the full blaze of his anger. ‘You did what? You gave orders? What orders…where?’

  ‘I…I don’t know. Wherever.’ Her eyes skimmed the door at the sound of shouting. The door was pushed back with a sharp crack on to the wall. Her arm was released.

  Henry Peale reappeared, flushed and breathless. ‘Sir Leon! My lady! There’s a fight…a brawl…they’re trying to stop James and the lads from chopping the…’

  He got no further, pushed aside as Sir Leon leapt through the doorway and across the courtyard, already running as he called, ‘Where, man? Show me where they are.’

  Picking up her skirts, Felice ran after them with Fen and Flint prancing alongside, yapping with excitement. Between the kitchen garden and the cemetery on the north side of the church, a line of ash trees had barely opened their leaves to make a delicate screen and it was here, much too close to the high wall and to the men who cleared the ground of rubble that the carpenter and his lads were in bloody conflict with each other. Both parties had axes and spades and both were using them to enforce their intentions, already resulting in cuts to foreheads, bleeding noses and lips, several broken teeth and tools. The fact that all six were Felice’s own servants made the situation even more ludicrous: she would have preferred a display of amity amongst her own household, at least.

  By the time she reached them they had been flung bodily aside by Sir Leon and Henry Peale, whose authority the men dared not challenge, and now they were scattered, dripping with blood and sweat.

  Sir Leon was bawling at James as Felice approached. ‘What in heaven’s name d’ye think you’re doing, man, felling a tree near a wall like that without ropes? What if it’d fallen into the garden, eh?’

  ‘It would not, sir,’ James said, holding a hand to his bleeding ear. ‘We’d have had it falling the other way.’

  ‘And how many trees have you felled in your time? Can’t you see that you’d have taken the top of the wall off? Go, take your lads and stick their heads under the pump, then wait for my man to come and tend you. You’
ll need a stitch or two if you’re to keep your ear.’

  ‘There’s no need for your help, sir,’ Felice said. ‘My ladies and I can do all that’s necessary.’ It was not the best choice of words.

  ‘I’m sure you can, lady. It’ll take you all afternoon to do what’s necessary here, by the look of things. Thank God they’re your men, not mine.’

  She took the chastened men into the servants’ hall, remonstrating all the way, yet knowing that it had been her own failure, her own over-eagerness, which had been at the root of the problem. So keen had she been to appear efficient that she had not stopped to consider every implication, and now it was her incompetence that had impressed Sir Leon most. And she had wanted to impress him, indirectly.

  ‘I’m ashamed of you, James,’ she said, unfairly.

  ‘I could have done it with no damage. Now what are we going to do about the furniture?’

  ‘Never mind that. What are we going to do about your ear?’

  As things turned out, she and the maids had just begun to make bandages and to bathe wounds when Adam Bystander brought two servants with salves, a basket of moss to pack the cuts, styptic made of egg-whites and aloes bound with hair to stop the bleeding, and a jar of theriac, which Felice had always known as treacle. According to Adam, it was good for anything from burns to bronchitis.

  With the mess washed away, the actual damage was much less than at first appeared, and even James’s ear was stuck back together again with every prospect of success.

  Adam Bystander was a good-looking young man of solid build, with crinkly hair the colour of hazelnuts and amused brown eyes that searched with a bold confidence whenever he listened or spoke. It was this quiet self-possession that Lydia found particularly attractive, even though they had spoken little when they had walked side by side yesterday. His fingers were skilful with the men’s wounds and soon the tasks were complete, the debris of surgery cleared away.

  Adam placed a hand over Lydia’s wrist in full view of the others. ‘Tonight?’ he said, softly. ‘You’ll be there?’

  Lydia blushed, glancing at her mistress. Felice nodded. ‘Yes,’ Lydia said. ‘I dare say.’

  Felice thanked the young men and sent them back, barely able to conceal her wretchedness at the way her good intentions had fallen, one after the other, like a row of ninepins. Still smarting from Sir Leon’s latest tongue-lashing, she went back to the brewery where she could cool off, alone. Her own workers would keep the affair to themselves and eventually dismiss it entirely; they would never lay any blame at her door. But that was small comfort when one person in particular whose good opinion she had hoped to gain now held her in the utmost contempt.

  It was Marcus Donne who came to the rescue, news of the latest affray having travelled fast across the ruins of Wheatley. Marcus was always avid for news. He appeared as Felice emerged from the new brewhouse and walked by her side into the vast kitchen garden where clearance had resumed after the fracas. There would be no escape from his enquiries, she knew that. Bracing herself, she tried to make light of it but he was trained to notice every detail: he was also determined to make what capital he could out of his lovely companion’s problems.

  ‘You’re upset, dear lady,’ he purred. ‘I can see it in your eyes. Don’t allow him to affect you so. You did your best. No one could have done more. How were you to know what his plans were?’ And so on.

  ‘I could have asked, I suppose.’

  ‘He’d not have told you. Anyone can see he’s in no mood to co-operate. I suppose he was still angry about the apprentices.’

  ‘He told you what happened…yesterday?’

  ‘By the time I reached the guesthouse it was everywhere. Was he very severe? I know he can be.’

  ‘He was angry. He had every right to be.’

  ‘You’re too fair, my lady. But then, he’s your guardian and I suppose you feel an obligation to be loyal to him.’

  ‘He’s what? My guardian? God’s truth, whatever next!’ She stopped in her tracks and stared at the fair-haired man with the disarming blue eyes. ‘Where did you get that notion, for pity’s sake?’

  ‘From him, my lady. Why, have I said something to upset you?’

  ‘No, Mr Donne, nothing at all, but I’d like you to know that, whatever Sir Leon tells you about any relationship, guardianship, custody or understanding, it has absolutely no foundation in fact. Lord Deventer has not appointed him to any position except that of surveyor. He is not my keeper and I am not his responsibility. I owe him no obedience or favours of any kind except to keep out of his way. There, now, does that explain things, or have I missed something out?’

  ‘Whew!’ Marcus Donne stroked his chin, making a mental note of the exact blue of the whites of her eyes, and of the slightly swollen lids. Last night’s, he judged, being expert at such things. ‘Yes, indeed it does, my lady. In which case you will perhaps be free to accept an invitation to accompany me to the May Eve bonfire tonight. We’re both strangers here so we may as well stick together. Yes?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, with rather more force than was necessary.

  ‘Good. Then I shall collect you at dusk. Now, will you show me the new bit of wall? Ah, there it is with a door to the river path. How convenient. The men will soon have this place tidied up.’

  Felice stared at the patch where flattened stems looked as if someone had rolled on them, and her hand automatically closed over the silk pouch hanging from her waist. Inside it nestled a tiny gold object in the shape of a spear-head. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I’m sure they will. The sooner the better.’

  It did not usually take Felice so long to be dressed, nor would she have made quite so much effort for Marcus Donne if there had not also been another’s interest to hold. Naturally, she would not admit it, but her heart knew why she was taking so much care and why her mind was already racing ahead to find a chink in the surveyor’s implacable exterior that would allow the point of a dagger to penetrate. She smiled at her reflection in the silvered mirror, recalling how Sir Leon’s apparent weakness was to have his orders contravened.

  In the last light of day, the bedchamber of the Abbot’s House came alive with softly glowing reflections on its patterned ceiling, tapestried walls and multi-paned windows that shone like jewels. Some had coloured glass at the top that cast pools of colour on to the rush-strewn floor, catching the toes of her soft red leather shoes with patches of amber and blue. There was now no sign of the previous mess: her flute and sheet-music lay tidily upon the chest, her writing table and prie-dieu stood to one side, her bed now hung with pretty but faded curtains and an oddly ill-matched but favourite coverlet. It was her own room, private and cherished.

  She smoothed her hands down her bodice and tiny waist, turning sideways for a reflected view of the green-blue shot taffeta. ‘Thank you, Lydie and Elizabeth,’ she said to the two admiring maids. ‘Now go and get ready, quickly.’ She dabbed rosewater on to her wrists and neck, well satisfied.

  The two deerhounds rose to their feet as the maids disappeared into the adjoining bedchamber that had once been the abbot’s small chapel. Their heads were lowered, watching the door to the stairway with pricked ears, their whip-like tails beginning a slow swing that gained speed as the door opened.

  ‘Mr D—’ Felice began her greeting before her smile faded. The tall powerful figure of Sir Leon took her so much by surprise that he had time to close the door before her heart could regain its natural rhythm. The large chamber appeared to shrink. She turned away to hide the sudden flush of confusion. ‘My entrances and exits may be somewhat dramatic, Sir Leon, but at least they give you some warning, which is more than can be said for yours. Do you never knock?’

  He chuckled. ‘No, not on my own doors, my lady. Do you?’ He looked around the chamber with approval, this time. ‘You’ve made some progress in here since my last visit. Pity the same can’t be said of everything else, but I believe you’re beginning to see who’s in charge here, so we’ll soon be working well togethe
r.’ His patronising tone raised her hackles immediately, as he had known it would, but he gave her no time to defend herself. ‘First thing tomorrow—’

  ‘Sir Leon, if you will excuse me, I’m preparing to go to the bonfire. It had occurred to me that you might have come to apologise, but I’m obviously being far too optimistic. May we discuss business some other time, do you think? Tomorrow morning, first thing?’

  ‘Apology?’ His laugh was deep and rich. And genuine. ‘Ah, no, lady. Not after I saved so many of your men’s lives. But certainly we can talk in the morning, if you prefer. My men will be waiting at cock-crow, but I shall instruct them to knock first, of course.’ With that mysterious announcement he turned towards the door. ‘Have a pleasant evening.’

  ‘Er…wait! Please.’

  His hand paused upon the latch. ‘Yes?’

  He held her eyes and, even from that distance, Felice understood that here was something significant thinly disguised as the ordinary discourse of colleagues. Yet nothing about this man had been ordinary, so far, especially not his exceptional charisma which was all the more potent for being totally natural, as unlike Marcus’s posturing as it was possible to be. Or Timon’s quiet charm, for that matter. ‘Mr Donne will be calling for me,’ she said, for want of something better to say.

  ‘Yes, I know.’

  ‘Well, yes, of course you would. I expect he told you that we spoke this afternoon.’

  Sir Leon removed his hand from the latch and strolled across to the deep window-seat where he sat, filling it with his frame. With his back to the fading light, his dark head was surrounded by a pink glow that caught his chiselled features like a crag at sunset. He rested his hands on his thighs, his feet wide apart. ‘He told me. Yes. Which is why I’m here. But it can wait. I didn’t want to take your servants completely by surprise, that’s all.’ His tone was deceptively agreeable.

  Completely at a loss, Felice shook her head. ‘Please make yourself clear, Sir Leon. Is this some new chastisement you’ve devised because of what happened today?’