The Arrangement

by Joan Wolf

  THE ARRANGEMENT

  Joan Wolf

  Chapter One

  Some people may say that I am rash and headstrong, but at least I have enough intelligence not to get myself stranded in the middle of a blizzard. This is a comment I have made (rather frequently) to the Earl of Savile, but he seems never to pay it any mind.

  “How was I to know that the benighted inn had burned down?” is his invariable reply. “And if you throw that up at me one more time, Gail, I swear I shall do something you will very much regret.”

  I am getting ahead of my story, however. It begins on a late afternoon in February, in the middle of the aforementioned blizzard. Nicky, my eight-year-old son, and I were staggering from the house down to the stable to take care of the horses, when, through the thickening dark, we saw a coach turn in through the gate of my small establishment. As we stood gaping, it came to a halt some dozen or so feet from where we were standing.

  “Good heavens,” I said to Nicky. “What in the world is that?”

  “It’s a coach, Mama,” Nicky said with an amazement that equaled my own.

  To have a coach come tooling into one’s yard under such circumstances was extraordinary indeed, but even more extraordinary was the voice of the coachman. “Is this the Saunders house?” he shouted down to me, in an accent that was purely Eton and Oxford.

  I had a wood muffler draped like a mask around my face, and I pushed it away from my mouth as I went closer to the vehicle. “Yes, it is,” I screamed back into the wind. “Are you lost?”

  In answer, the coachman swung down from the box. Even though he was covered from neck to ankles in a many-caped greatcoat, he managed to move with athletic grace. “Not anymore,” he said. “I had planned to put up at the Red Lion, but it isn’t there.”

  I had automatically reached up to hold the rein of the left leader when the coachman jumped down, and now he came to relieve me of that task. The first thing I noticed about him was that he was very tall.

  “The Red Lion burned down two months ago,” Nicky offered, his voice floating up from under the wool hat I had jammed over his forehead and ears.

  “So I discovered—rather too late for my comfort, I’m afraid!” the coachman replied.

  At this moment the coach door opened and another man stepped out. “Have we landed straight, my lord?” he asked.

  “It seems so,” the coachman answered in his flawlessly aristocratic voice. “Come to Rusty’s head and we’ll get these horses under cover, John.”

  I felt as if I had landed in the middle of one of Mrs. Radcliffe’s more imaginative novels.

  At least one thing was clear, however. The carriage horses could not be left standing in the wind.

  “Follow me,” I said, and once more raising my muffler to cover my face, I led the way across the stable yard to my rather ramshackle carriage house. As I grasped the door to open it, the wind gusted, almost ripping it out of my hand.

  The coachman’s gloved hand grabbed the door above mine, and with a brief, “Let me,” he opened it without allowing it to slam against the building. Then the men led the horses and the snow-encrusted coach inside.

  Once the horses were standing quietly, the coachman, whom the other man had addressed as “my lord,” turned to me and said, with a gleam of white teeth in the gloom, “You must be finding all this rather odd, Mrs. Saunders.”

  “ ‘Rather odd,’ is an understatement,” I said frankly. “How do you know my name? Were you looking for me, sir?”

  “Yes,” said my unexpected visitor in a deep and extremely pleasant voice, “I was. Allow me to introduce myself, ma’am. I am the Earl of Savile, and I must hasten to assure you that when I set out this morning I had no intention of placing any demands upon your hospitality. As I indicated earlier, I had expected to find accommodations at the Red Lion.”

  The Earl of Savile! The shock of hearing that name almost caused me to miss the rest of his polite little speech.

  What can Savile want with me?

  I was grateful for the dark in the carriage house. It hid the look of terror that I was certain had flashed across my face.

  Nicky asked, “If you really are an earl, then why were you the one driving the coach?”

  “Poor Grove was in danger of getting frostbite, so I took a turn,” came the disarming answer. Once more the earl looked at me. “Dare I hope that you have stabling for my animals, Mrs. Saunders?”

  My body was rigid with fear. I drew a long, unsteady breath and pressed two thickly gloved fingers against my forehead. “Let me think for a minute,” I said, trying to force my brain to function.

  “Two of our stalls are empty, Mama,” Nicky said helpfully.

  I came to the unwelcome conclusion that I would have to offer Savile shelter. Much as I wanted to do so, I could not throw him back out into the storm.

  “I suppose I can open up two more stalls if I put my ponies at the end of the aisle behind a rope,” I said to the earl curtly. “If you will unharness these poor beasts, I will endeavor to create some room for them.”

  The Earl of Savile appeared not to notice my inhospitable manner. “You are very good,” he said. He had stripped off his gloves and was blowing on his hands.

  I left him to his job as Nicky and I once more fought our way out into the blizzard.

  * * * *

  Settling the horses proved to be little trouble. My groom, Tim Haines, had mucked out all the stalls before he had gone home a few hours earlier, so Nicky and I had only a little picking out to do. I moved the ponies, put fresh straw in the four empty stalls, and when the men came in leading the tired carriage horses, I had a place to put them. My horses lifted their heads from the hay I had just given them to watch the arrival of the newcomers, then went back to the main business of their lives. The two ponies I had put together in a straw-bedded area at the end of the aisle were exploring their new home with a succession of enthusiastic snorts.

  “God knows what mischief they will get into,” I said to Nicky as Fancy poked her nose inquisitively over the rope that I hoped would keep her from roaming the aisle. “Are you certain there is no tack around for them to chew on?”

  “I didn’t see any, Mama, and I looked.”

  “Very well, then let us return to the house.” I looked up at the man who was standing next to me and asked shortly, “Have you eaten?”

  He began to rebutton his greatcoat. “Not since breakfast, Mrs. Saunders.”

  “You must be hungry, then,” I said.

  “I rather fear that I am,” he replied apologetically.

  I pulled my muffler up over my face, shoved Nicky’s hat back down over his ears, and said to the men, “Come along, then.” We ducked out once more into the snow.

  Mrs. Macintosh must have been looking out the window for us, because she opened the door before I had a chance even to lay a finger on the latch.

  “Get you on in here, lassie, before you turn into a block of ice,” she said. “Master Nicky, take off that coat and hat and leave them right here at the door.”

  The four of us stamped our feet to knock away the snow before we entered the dark, shabby front hall of my rented house. Mrs. Macintosh regarded with curiosity the two men who accompanied me and said, “Did you lose your way in the snaw, gentlemen?”

  Savile removed his hat and looked down at the small Scotswoman, who did not stand as high as the top button on his coat. “I beg your pardon for this invasion, ma’am,” he said, “but I was planning to put up at the Red Lion and discovered—too late, alas—that it no longer exists.”

  “My lord, this is my housekeeper, Mrs. Macintosh,” I said woodenly. “Mrs. Macintosh, the Earl of Savile and his coachman, Mr. Grove, will be staying with us for the night.”

  Mrs. Macintos
h’s pale blue eyes bulged when I said the earl’s name.

  Savile said with disarming courtesy, “How do you do, Mrs. Macintosh. I wonder if I might remove my greatcoat?’

  “Of courrrse you must remove your coat, my lord!” Mrs. Macintosh replied immediately, rolling her r’s in the true Scottish fashion. “You and Mr. Grove must be starrrving from driving through that dreadful snaw.”

  “You have hit the nail straight on the head, ma’am,” the earl replied. “Starving is the appropriate word, isn’t it, John?”

  “That it is, my lord,” Grove replied fervently.

  “Well, dinna ye fret,” my housekeeper graciously assured my unwanted guests. “There is plenty of supper for everyone.”

  I said, “I’ll show his lordship and Mr. Grove to the two bedrooms at the end of the passage, Mrs. Macintosh.”

  The housekeeper gave me an appalled look. “You canna put his lordship in sich a room, lassie!”

  Her Scottish accent always grew more pronounced when she was upset.

  “Please don’t worry about me, ma’am,” Savile said charmingly. “I shall be grateful for any space you might be able to spare.”

  I did have two decent bedrooms, which I used for clients, but as I was in the middle of painting them, they were not fit to be occupied.

  “The rooms at the end of the passage will do fine,” I said impatiently to my housekeeper. “Please bring some hot water up for our guests now, Mrs. Macintosh. You can put linen on the beds after dinner.”

  Nicky spoke up in a plaintive voice, “I’m starving too, Mrs. Macintosh. Will dinner be ready soon?”

  “It is ready now, laddie,” the little Scotswoman said, her face softening as it always did when she looked at Nicky. “Go along upstairs with you now and change your clothes.”

  “I believe that is good advice for us all,” I said briskly. “If you will follow me, gentlemen, I will show you to your rooms.” As Mrs. Macintosh went to the kitchen for hot water, I escorted the men upstairs to the bedroom floor.

  I had been renting Deepcote for the past eight years, and, despite my annual requests, the landlord had not seen fit to do anything about refurbishing the house, whose interior had become irretrievably shabby about fifty years before. When my husband was alive we had decided on Deepcote more for its decent stabling and its proximity to London than for the beauty of the living quarters.

  Suffice it to say that the Earl of Savile did not appear impressed with what he saw of my home. He was too polite to comment, however; he merely passed into the frigid, spartan room I had assigned him and assured me he would be downstairs in a trice.

  I was sure he would be. The room contained one bed, one battered armoire, and one hard chair, certainly nothing to tempt him to linger.

  I went to my own room, in which Mrs. Macintosh, bless her, had kindled a big fire, and began to take off the warm wool dress I had worn to take care of the horses. It had some hair on it, so I did not return it to the wardrobe but laid it over a chair so I could brush it later. Then I took out one of my more decent-looking afternoon dresses. I had no intention of dressing up in evening garb for the sake of the Earl of Savile.

  What can Savile want with me?

  I walked to the window and pulled aside the threadbare crimson drapes. The cold air that had been trapped between the window glass and the drapes rushed out at me, and I shivered. Outside, it was now completely dark. I could hear the howling of the wind and the swish of the snow as it brushed against the leaky glass panes of my window.

  I shut the drapes and went back to the fire to finish dressing. I was running a comb through my close-cut black hair when there came a knock on the door of my bedroom. I opened it to find Mrs. Macintosh standing on the threshold.

  “Lassie,” she said worriedly, “his lordship’s coachman will eat in the kitchen with Macintosh and me, but where is Master Nicky to have his meal?”

  Nicky had been eating with me in the dining room since he was three years old.

  “Where he always eats, of course,” I said.

  “But, lassie, his lordship willna expect a child at the dinner table.”

  This was unarguably true. In his lordship’s world, children ate in the nursery. Perhaps, occasionally, they might be allowed to join a family party, but never would an unrelated child of Nicky’s age sit down at the same table as the Earl of Savile.

  Mrs. Macintosh said, “Canna Mr. Nicky eat wi’ us in the kitchen?”

  “No.” My voice was adamant. “Nicky will eat in the dining room tonight, Mrs. Macintosh.”

  While it was perfectly true that Nicky had taken his evening meal with the Macintoshes on the very occasional evenings when I had guests, I thought it was one thing for him to eat with a couple who were almost grandparents to him, and quite another for him to eat with some strange coachman.

  I have to confess, the thought that my son’s presence would effectively prevent the earl from stating his business to me during dinner was another reason for my decision.

  When Mrs. Macintosh seemed inclined to try to persuade me, I cut her off. “This is Nicky’s house, Mrs. Macintosh, and if the Earl of Savile does not care for the company of an eight-year-old boy, then he may find his dinner elsewhere.”

  Mrs. Macintosh looked at my face, sighed, and went away.

  I slapped the comb down on my scarred dressing table and went out without bothering to consult the mirror that hung on the wall.

  I went directly to the kitchen and found Mr. Macintosh presiding over the ancient stove. The Macintoshes had been the caretakers of Deepcote when Tommy and I had first taken it, and at that time Mrs. Macintosh had been the cook. Then Mr. Macintosh had an accident that left his left leg crippled. The property’s owner had been ready to fire the couple, as Mr. Macintosh was no longer able to perform the physical labor he was employed for, but I had volunteered to pay for a daily man from the village to do Mr. Macintosh’s chores.

  So the couple had stayed, but Mr. Macintosh had become severely depressed by his uselessness. It was his wife who had suggested that he assist her by taking on the cooking.

  The man had proved to be a genius. The simple soup that he was serving this evening would be hearty, filling, and have such a symphony of flavors that you would dream about it as you drifted off to sleep. I almost wept with joy as I inhaled the aroma coming from the stove.

  “I hope you don’t mind being saddled with these extra mouths to feed, Mr. Macintosh,” I said.

  “Of course not, lassie. Janet tells me that we have a lord come to dinner?”

  “The Earl of Savile. He’ll eat in the dining room, of course, but I’m afraid that you and Mrs. Macintosh are going to be graced with the company of his coachman.”

  “That is no a trouble, lassie. The gentlemen may be accustomed to fancier fare, but there is plenty of soup and bread to fill their stomachs.”

  I looked at his narrow, dark, intelligent Scottish face. “They will dine like kings, and you know it,” I retorted.

  He smiled.

  The kitchen door opened and John Grove stepped inside. “I hope I am in the right place?” he asked apologetically.

  “Come in, man, come in,” Mr. Macintosh said hospitably, and I left the two men to get acquainted and went on down the hall to the drawing room.

  How to describe my drawing room?

  Once, more years ago than I care to contemplate, the drapes had been yellow. Once the upholstery had not been threadbare and the stuffing had not poked out of it in unfortunately strategic places. It is true that the walls were freshly painted, but tonight the warm golden color I had thought so pretty seemed only to point up more sharply the travesty of the furnishings.

  Most of the time I did not notice the defects of the room quite so vividly. Perhaps I was conscious of them tonight because they contrasted so strongly with the tall, slim figure of the Earl of Savile, who was standing before the blazing fire dressed in pantaloons and a long-tailed coat of fine blue cloth, with a pristine white necktie arr
anged around his throat. This costume was morning dress, not evening dress, of course, but he looked as out of place in my decayed room as a Thoroughbred would look in a pigsty.

  I looked at my decidedly out-of-fashion afternoon gown and thought gloomily that I probably looked as drab and unattractive as my surroundings.

  Nicky had preceded me and was standing next to the earl in front of the fire, talking animatedly about his pony. He looked very neat and I was thankful to see that he had put on his church clothes.

  “There you are, Mama!” he said when he spied me standing at the door. “I have been telling his lordship all about Squirt.”

  “That is nice, Nicky,” I said. “I believe dinner is ready.”

  “Oh good,” Nicky said happily. “Shall I go and help Mrs. Macintosh?”

  “Yes, sweetheart, if you please.”

  I glanced quickly at the earl and said, “If you will come with me, my lord?”

  We walked out of the drawing room and progressed, side by side but not touching, to the room that lay directly next to it off the central hall of the house. As soon as we walked in the door I noticed that Mrs. Macintosh had put out wineglasses. I never had wine with my meal.

  I gestured the earl to the seat at the head of the small table and sat down. Nicky came into the dining room carrying a bottle of wine.

  “Mrs. Macintosh found some old wine of Papa’s,” he said brightly as he set the bottle on the table in front of Savile. He turned his beautiful little boy’s face to the earl and said blithely, “Won’t that be nice?”

  “Very nice,” the earl said in his deep and courteous voice. “I shall appreciate a glass of wine after a day spent fighting the snow.”

  Mrs. Macintosh appeared carrying a tureen of soup, which she placed in front of me. As she returned to the kitchen to fetch the bread, Nicky came to stand beside me so that he could carry the bowl of soup I was filling to our guest. Then he returned for his own bowl.

  Mrs. Macintosh returned with the bread as I was filling my soup bowl. Nicky looked at me, waiting expectantly. I folded my hands, bowed my head, and said, “Thank you, Lord, for your gifts of the day and for this food which we are about to eat.”