The Arrangement

by Joan Wolf

  “My thought precisely.”

  “Your wife did not go in for Greek temples or Turkish tents, I suppose?” I asked, conscious that I might be treading on tender ground.

  “My wife did not care for the country at all,” came the level reply. “She preferred to spend most of her time in London.”

  I was silent while I digested this reply. Probably it didn’t mean anything at all, I decided. There were many successful aristocratic marriages where the partners spent a good part of the year separated from each other. It was not the sort of marriage I would have wanted for myself—indeed, it was not the sort of marriage I had had—but it had probably not seemed at all odd to the Saviles.

  “I see,” I said.

  We drove out of the coolness of the woods and onto a wide expanse of grass that was dotted with artfully arranged clusters of trees. Deer and sheep grazed peacefully on either side of the road.

  “Now this is quite lovely,” I said with satisfaction, looking around.

  I felt his eyes on my face. “Yes. It is.”

  I turned to look at him. The intent look in his golden eyes was unmistakable. My stomach turned over. He turned back to his horses.

  “Capability Brown did the original park,” Savile said smoothly, “but I didn’t like the excessively formal look of the trees, so when I inherited I got Humphrey Repton in to thin out the clumps. It looks more natural now and I like it much better.”

  “It is very serene-looking,” I managed to say, looking at the peaceful scene before me. My insides were not peaceful at all.

  He nodded. “I’m thinking of putting up a footbridge from the island to this part of the park to make it more accessible.”

  We discussed this plan with great assiduity as we drove toward the causeway that would take us back to the castle. When we passed through the medieval gate, Savile promised me meaningfully, “After dinner, I will show you the gardens behind the house.”

  Two footmen came out the front door as soon as we pulled up, and one of them went to the horses’ heads to lead them to the stables. Savile and I walked in the front door and I was happy to see that there was no one else in the Great Hall. I needed to steel myself before I met the other household members again, as at the moment I was definitely feeling too vulnerable.

  I turned to Savile and, testing whether what he had said about my access to my son was true, said, “I would like to see Nicky now to make certain that he has settled in comfortably.”

  “Of course,” Savile replied promptly. “In fact, the present is probably a good time, as they will be getting ready to serve dinner in the nursery and all the children should be present. If you come with me, I’ll take you up to the third floor myself.”

  I followed him past the magnificent fireplace and up the Jacobean stairs to the second floor, where we turned right toward the bedroom wing where I was staying. We passed through the succession of small sitting rooms and turned down the long bedroom passageway, which we took all the way to the end to the narrow staircase that was next to my room.

  “This stair goes directly up to the nursery floor,” the earl told me. “I thought you would be comfortable knowing that you were so close to Nicky.”

  I was grateful to him for his thoughtfulness and I could not hold back a smile. “Thank you, my lord.”

  He gave me a long, level look I couldn’t quite read, then said, “Come along with me and I’ll take you up.”

  I put a hand on the banister and then turned to him.

  “Where does the downstairs come out?” I asked, my mind once more running to the subject of escape routes.

  “It comes out right next to my apartment, actually,” Savile said calmly, then began to walk up the stairs ahead of me.

  So then of course I knew why Lady Regina had not wanted me to have this room.

  Chapter Fourteen

  The nursery was enormous, taking up, as I later discovered, almost a quarter of the third floor. My mind was so preoccupied with what I had learned from Savile about the staircase, and what it might mean, that it took me a few moments to look around and get my bearings after we had walked in the nursery door. When finally I noticed my surroundings, I discovered that I was in what looked to be an immense playroom. From the doorway I saw two rocking horses of different sizes, a large dollhouse, an extensive collection of dolls, a corner filled with carved wooden blocks, and a large wooden table in the center of the room.

  Cries of “Uncle Raoul! Uncle Raoul!” went up almost immediately, and as the Austen children made a dash for Savile, I looked around for Nicky. After a moment I saw him in the corner to my right, standing in front of a display of toy soldiers set out upon a large board. Then he looked up, saw me, and came running.

  I reached out my arms for him and he hugged me around the waist, but then he pulled away from my arms. He looked up at me, his eyes bright. “Theo has put together a whole map of the Battle of Waterloo using toy soldiers, Mama,” he said in a rush. “You can see the English and the Prussians and the French and all of their positions!”

  He had my hand now and was tugging me in the direction of this military shrine.

  A little girl’s voice cut through the noise in the room. “Up,” it demanded. “Uncle Raoul! Pick me up!”

  “I sometimes wonder if you have legs, Caro,” Savile said humorously, but when I turned to look he had a golden-haired little girl riding on his shoulder with her hands tucked securely into his.

  “She’s such a baby, always wanting attention,” Charlie said scornfully.

  “She is, after all, only three years of age,” Savile returned mildly. His voice changed subtly. “I hope you are well, Miss Elleridge?”

  “Thank you, very well indeed, my lord,” came the gentle feminine voice. “It is always wonderful to see how much the children love you.”

  I looked at the woman who had to be the girls’ governess. She was of indeterminate age, with soft, faintly wrinkled skin and a cap worn over her neat mouse-colored hair. Her eyes looked intelligent, however. And kind.

  “And if you look here, Mama, you can see the Belgians under the Prince of Orange,” Nicky was saying.

  “This is all very interesting, sweetheart,” I said.

  “Come and make your curtseys to his lordship, girls,” the soft-voiced Miss Elleridge said, and three small girls who had been standing in the corner stepped forward.

  These had to be George’s daughters, I thought, and I stopped even pretending to listen to Nicky as I looked at the products of the union that should never have happened.

  Mercifully, the girls looked like their father and not like their mother. Much as I hated George, I had to admit that he had been a good-looking man. The three little girls who stood so shyly in front of Savile were pretty and blond, and, from the hesitation I heard in their voices, they were also as insipid as their father had been.

  “Good afternoon, my lord,” each one said as she curtseyed.

  The youngest, who was probably younger than Caroline, peeped with a mixture of curiosity and envy at Savile’s niece, then lowered her eyes.

  “Good afternoon, Maria. Good afternoon, Frances. Good afternoon, Jane,” Savile returned gravely. He lifted Caroline down from his shoulder in a froth of petticoats. She started to protest, but Miss Elleridge took her hand and said firmly, “Come along, Caroline. I want to fix the ribbon in your hair.”

  “Mama!” Nicky said. “You’re not listening to me.”

  I gave him a guilty smile. “I must confess that soldiers are not of the greatest interest to me, sweetheart. I’m sure that these are all perfectly splendid, but…”

  I felt Savile come up to stand behind me. “I have found over the course of my life that ladies are rarely interested in toy soldiers, Nicky,” he said.

  “I like toy soldiers, Uncle Raoul,” Caroline declared, pulling away from the governess as soon as Miss Elleridge had finished with her ribbon. She shot a defiant look at her brothers, who looked disgusted. “I like soldiers much better t
han dolls.”

  “And you, Jane?” Savile asked. For the first time I noticed that he was holding the hand of George’s youngest. Or rather, she had her little fingers tightly wrapped around his thumb.

  She said in a firm little voice, “I like dolls.”

  The firm voice surprised me and I looked at her again. Her eyes were brown, not blue like the two older girls’, and her babyish chin had a determined tilt to it.

  Perhaps this one is more like Harriet, I thought.

  “Well, there are certainly enough toys in this room to occupy the lot of you,” I said pleasantly, looking around. “Actually, it seems to me as if there are enough to occupy every soldier on Theo’s board.”

  Lady Regina’s children and Nicky laughed. George’s children regarded me solemnly.

  “There are more toys in the cupboards, Mama,” Nicky informed me, pointing to the old oak cupboards that lined the walls of the room.

  “Shall we show her?” Theo asked, exhibiting all the signs of proud ownership.

  “I should love to see your toys,” I said.

  * * * *

  For the next forty minutes I was taken on a tour of the nursery toys. Savile sat on an old settee by the window with Jane on his lap and George’s other girls on either side of him and talked to them while Charles and Theo and Nicky and finally Caroline showed me what was in the cupboards.

  The first cupboard Charlie opened for me was filled with educational board games and I believe I looked at every one of them. I looked at backgammon and chess and learned in detail how many times each of these games had been played by the Austen boys and who had beaten whom and how.

  We moved on to other cupboards, which held a variety of items such as balls, carved animals, drums, kaleidoscopes, skipping ropes, tops, and toy boats. Some of the toy sailboats were quite magnificent, and when I heard that the boys sailed them on the lake, I heard again a warning note in my brain.

  “Nicky does not know how to swim,” I said. “If you boys are going to be around the lake, you must be certain he does not go into the water.”

  Nicky gave me a look that said, Traitor.

  “You don’t know how to swim?” Charlie asked my son.

  Nicky gave me that look again. “No,” he admitted starkly.

  “We’ll have to teach you, then,” Charlie said. “I’ll ask Uncle Raoul to have the pool in the bathhouse filled.” He looked at me. “It’s where we all learned to swim, Mrs. Saunders. It’s not deep, so it’s quite safe.”

  I was quite certain that I didn’t want Nicky being taught to swim by boys his own age, but from the look on my son’s face I knew that this was not the time to say so. I said instead, “Are there no girls’ things in this nursery other than the dollhouse and the dolls?”

  The boys immediately lost interest in showing me the toys.

  “Of course there are, Mrs. Saunders,” said Miss Elleridge, stepping forward. “In fact, the girls and I were just to the village today, where we picked out quite a large collection of paper dolls. And this cupboard over here holds the toy tea sets and some material and silks and designs for making samplers.”

  “I didn’t go to buy paper dolls,” Caroline informed me. “I don’t like them.”

  “I did not tell Miss Elleridge to buy them for you, Caro; I told her to buy them for your cousins,” Savile said, “Unlike you, Maria and Frances like cutting out paper dolls.”

  “How do you know what they like, Uncle Raoul?” Caroline demanded.

  “I asked them,” Savile returned mildly. He looked at Miss Elleridge. “Where is Mr. Wilson? I should like to introduce him to Mrs. Saunders.”

  “Lady Regina asked to see him for a few minutes, my lord. I expect he shall be back shortly.”

  Savile lifted Jane from his lap and set her on her feet in front of him, then he stood up. Maria and Frances rose as well, and I noticed how they stood as close to him as they could get without actually touching him.

  “Come along, Nicky, and we’ll show your mother your bedroom,” Savile said. “By then, Mr. Wilson should have returned.”

  We went through a large schoolroom, where there was a big round table that was so old it looked as if it had grown out of the floor like a mushroom, and down a narrow passageway.

  “The playroom and the schoolroom are the focal point of the nursery, and there are four passageways leading away from them, rather the way spokes come out from the center of a wheel,” Savile told me. “The passageway we are presently in has all of the boys’ bedrooms off of it, as well as the bedroom and sitting room for their tutor. The opposite passage has the same for the girls. Then there is a passageway with rooms off it for the nurserymaids, and the fourth passageway is the infants’ nursery.”

  Savile Castle was well set up for children, I thought. Of course, for a family to still be around after almost eight centuries, the production of children would have to be one of their priorities.

  I thought about John Melville’s comment to me about the unlikelihood of Savile’s marrying again and wondered if perhaps Savile’s cousin and heir was indulging himself more in hope than in reality.

  I was glad to see that Nicky’s bedroom was not very different from his bedroom at home—in fact, it might even have been a trifle smaller. He would have been very uncomfortable if he had been put into an elegant room like mine.

  As I listened to my son chattering away, I admitted for the first time that Savile had been right when he said that Nicky would be better off in the nursery with the other children.

  Mr. Wilson was in the playroom by the time we returned, and I was relieved to find that he did indeed seem a sensible, trustworthy young man. His hazel eyes met mine directly and his smile was full of natural good humor. I managed to get him aside for a few minutes to inform him that Nicky did not know how to swim, and he assured me that he would be particularly vigilant whenever the boys were in the vicinity of the lake.

  Then it was the nursery dinner hour, and Miss Elleridge, in the nicest possible way, made it plain that Savile and I were de trop. Three nurserymaids were clearing the large table in the middle of the room and setting out china and silver plate when the earl and I went back down the staircase that led to the passageway next to my bedroom.

  The earl did not stop to chat. “Our dinner will be served in an hour,” he said briefly. “We’ll gather in the drawing room as usual.”

  “Yes, my lord,” I said formally, and turned aside to open my bedroom door. When I turned back to close it, he had disappeared, his feet perfectly silent on those conveniently carpeted stairs.

  * * * *

  I wore my old yellow muslin evening dress to dinner. There was nothing I could do to improve its looks; it would have to serve as a regular alternative to my blue. I simply had nothing else.

  The maid whom Lady Regina had sent to help me dress looked at it with an incredulity she tried without success to disguise.

  “I know,” I said gloomily. “I actually do have one very nice evening dress, but as I can hardly wear it every night, this one is going to have to be put back into service.” I stood in front of the cheval glass and smoothed the muslin over my hips. The plain scoop neck and puffed sleeves looked pitifully out of date.

  “You could tie a velvet ribbon around your neck, ma’am,” the maid, whose name was Mary, suggested. “That has become very fashionable lately, particularly if you have a pin to attach to the ribbon.”

  I gave her a pleased look. “I do have a pin,” I said. “It’s a small cameo brooch that once belonged to my mother.”

  “Let me go and get some ribbon, ma’am, and we’ll see how it looks,” Mary suggested.

  Mary’s arrangement actually looked quite nice, and consequently I went down to the drawing room with a little more confidence than I might otherwise have felt.

  All the Melvilles with the exception of Savile were gathered in front of the bronze statue of King James. The first person who saw me when I walked in the door was Roger Melville. He smiled at me, his b
lue eyes celestial.

  “Mrs. Saunders, how wonderful to see your lovely face. We have all grown extremely tired of what is a relentlessly family party and are thrilled to have a non-Devane amongst us.” He paused, then added guilelessly, “Oh dear, perhaps I should not have said that.”

  I felt myself grow rigid at the implication that I might be a family member through my relationship with George.

  “Roger,” John Melville said warningly. He turned to me. “How did you enjoy your tour of the estate today, Mrs. Saunders?”

  I drew a deep, steadying breath. “I was very impressed, Mr. Melville,” I said. “His lordship started off by explaining that the Savile park is not as extensive as the parks of other, newer country homes, but that certainly did not seem to be the case to me.”

  “You have, of course, visited at so many country homes,” Harriet said sullenly.

  Everyone ignored her.

  “Dear Raoul,” Lady Regina said with a chuckle. “In his heart he thinks that everything about Savile Castle and its environs is perfect. I have seen him look down his nose at utterly magnificent vistas while he muttered to me under his breath, ‘And they call that a lake?’ ”

  I laughed, and at that moment Savile walked into the room. Our eyes met across the gathered company and I wondered that everyone present did not feel the sparks that instantly leaped between us.

  Powell appeared in the doorway almost immediately after the earl. “Dinner is served, my lady,” he announced correctly to Regina, and we began to line up for the nightly procession into the dining room.

  The earl escorted Harriet, whose waistline was noticeably larger when she heaved herself out of her chair; Roger escorted Lady Regina, who appeared much more mobile than Harriet even though her waistline was almost as large; and the ever-pleasant John Melville got me.

  “Any news from your father, Harriet?” Lady Regina asked courteously when we were all sitting around the table in the family dining room and the soup course was being served.

  “Yes, I received a letter from him today,” Harriet said. She peered eagerly into her soup plate to see what it contained, then picked up her soup spoon. “His business is taking longer than he thought and he is going to be delayed a few more days.”