by KJ Charles
Pat stopped again and turned. Fen was flushed, eyes wide, seeking understanding, and Pat didn’t even realise she’d reached for her hand before she felt the soft, warm fingers grip hers. Neither of them was wearing gloves, and Fen’s skin on Pat’s—
It was only the touch of hands, for all the pressure of Fen’s fingers. It didn’t mean anything.
“I don’t understand how anyone could not see you,” Pat said again. “I don’t see how they couldn’t look. I don’t see how they could stop.”
Fen’s lips parted slightly. They were adorable lips, plump and dark pink, which was an awful thing to notice when someone was upset. She didn’t speak, and Pat couldn’t think of anything else to say. They just looked at one another, fingers clasped, and something fluttered in Pat’s chest like a partridge flushed out of cover.
Fen was engaged to Jimmy. He didn’t even appreciate her. It wasn’t fair.
The moment stretched. Pat didn’t want to break it, had no idea what else to do. Then Fen gave her a sudden, quick smile, and turned to continue walking, and Pat had a fraction of a second to feel the devastating wash of disappointment before a tug made her realise that Fen hadn’t let go of her hand. She hurried to catch up before Fen had to let go and they kept walking under the afternoon sun, in silence, up to the top of the lake nearest the house and then, in unspoken agreement, back around for a second circuit.
It was a lovely lake.
It felt awkward at first to be quiet. Pat was very happy to sit or walk in silent companionship, but many people found that uncomfortable and were desperate to fill the void with noise. She had assumed the voluble Fen would prefer speech to silence, but they sauntered on, and the minutes passed filled with nothing but birdsong and the striation of insects.
“I’ve been rather silly, haven’t I?” Fen said at last.
“Possibly,” Pat said with caution. “About what?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Men. Marriage. Myself, mostly. Goodness, that was alliterative. You’re quite right. If I took myself seriously, I wouldn’t have plunged headlong into one engagement, let alone three. And I shouldn’t stand here—walk here—hoping that Jimmy will realise he isn’t behaving well. He ought to, but since he isn’t, I shouldn’t wait for him to do so, or tolerate it if he doesn’t. Do you think I ought to talk to Jimmy, really, to try and make it work? I shan’t say if you were me, because you wouldn’t be in this position in the first place, but—should I?”
I think you should break it off because he’s too pig-headed to understand what he’s got. I think you should stay here with me, walking in the sun, and come back to a house that isn’t Jimmy’s to sit over tea and cakes, and in the evening...
In the evening, nothing. Pat stepped hard on the thought. Fen couldn’t escape her engagement without consequences: even a wealthy heiress could expect the invitations to dry up if she jilted a third fiancé. Jimmy was a decent man, and if he was a little self-absorbed, that made him no different from anyone else. Pat had no doubt he could become a good husband, if matters were clearly explained to him. Fen would be a countess, a marvellous one who would turn Rodington Court into a fashionable destination, and Jimmy could keep up the estate and the hundreds of people whose livelihoods sprang from it. It was the best outcome for everyone.
“You should talk to him,” she said. “You should tell him what you want and expect. And if he listens, then—then I imagine you’ll be very happy.”
“And if he doesn’t listen?”
“Talk louder until he hears you, I suppose.” She couldn’t resist adding, “And if he doesn’t like what he hears, you’ll have information on which to base a decision.”
Fen glanced at her, eyes glimmering bright. “That sounds terribly sensible.”
“I am sensible,” Pat said. “That’s exactly what I am. I wear Rational Dress and sensible shoes and run a household and make carefully thought-out decisions. I do all those things because they have to be done, but I think people ought to have some frivolity too. Circuses as well as bread. And if Jimmy, or anyone else, tells you that you ought to become serious and competent and sensible, they’re wrong. Lots of us can do that. Very few people make others happy, or care to, and that’s clearly something you do.”
Fen’s hand tightened convulsively. She swallowed, and Pat had a terrible moment wondering if she’d been too much, too outspoken, before Fen replied.
“That is the loveliest thing anyone has ever said to me. Thank you, Pat.”
“Well, it’s true. And why ought you or anyone conform to a particular idea of how you should be? There’s no shortage of any kind of people, so we might as well let each other be ourselves.”
“Yes,” Fen said intensely. “That is absolutely right. Why should one woman not be a serious vegetarian, and another a champion shooter, and a third a fluffy sort of—”
“—delightful person to be with,” Pat put in.
Fen dimpled. “And the fourth a drug fiend, I suppose, but one must take the rough with the smooth.”
“Maybe Lady Anna wouldn’t be a drug fiend if Haworth wasn’t such a dreadful specimen.”
“It just goes to show, one must marry with care,” Fen concluded. “I can’t tell you how much better I feel for talking it out. Thank you for talking to me, Pat. Thank you for noticing.”
“Of course,” Pat mumbled. She was trying hard not to notice the increased pressure of Fen’s fingers on hers. “Any time.”
“Oh,” Fen said after a few quiet moments. “Have you been to the gazebo?”
“I haven’t.”
“It’s lovely. This way.” Fen tugged her off the lake path through a stand of trees. After a few moments in the dappled shade of the woods, they came out under the sky, and Pat caught her breath at the vista as the land opened up in front of them.
“Glorious.”
“Isn’t it? And one can sit and appreciate the view out of the sun. Jimmy showed me.”
Pat preferred walking and sunshine to sitting and preserving her complexion, but Fen’s company trumped the rest. She followed her to the indicated summerhouse, which her housekeeping eye noted as needing a lick of paint, and they seated themselves on wrought iron chairs.
“That’s better,” Fen said. “I don’t envy you the prospect of spending all day marching over the moors.”
“I love it. I do a lot of walking at home. Or, I did.”
“Do you have to stop?”
“I have to leave. It’s my brother’s house, of course, and now he’s married—”
“They’re throwing you out?” Miss Carruth sat very straight, eyes sparkling with indignation. “That’s horrible!”
“Of course they’re not. They both asked me to stay. But I’ve been running the house on Jonty’s behalf since I was a girl, which was all very well when I was mistress of the place, but that’s Olivia, his wife, now. If I stay I’ll end up acting as housekeeper, because I’m an awfully managing person. That wouldn’t be fair to Olivia in her new home, and it wouldn’t be fair to me.”
“Oh, I see. So what will you do?”
“I don’t know. Good heavens, I am tired of those three words,” she added with feeling. “Bill and Jonty keep asking me, but I simply don’t know. I have to find some sort of purpose, though; I’m not ready to fill my idle hours with trivia. I want something to do.”
“What sort of something?”
“I thought I might teach shooting,” Pat said. “If one had a school, just ladies, so they could practice without men offering comment... It’s just an idea. I’ve some money of my own, I wouldn’t need to make a fortune, but it would be an occupation. I’ve had an occupation all my life and I don’t know what to do with myself now it’s gone.”
Fen’s face was such a picture of sympathy that Pat had to look away. “That seems dreadfully unfair.”
“It can’t be helped. Jonty is entitled to marry and I hope they’ll be very happy. But it did remind me that I have no place in the world. It’s an odd feeling to find myself
uprooted.”
“You don’t seem rootless,” Fen said. “We’re rootless, Daddy and I, because he’s risen out of his sphere. His family are embarrassed to mix with a very rich man and the people we do mix with tend to look down because of where he came from. I’m betwixt and between. Whereas you seem to know exactly who you are.”
“I did. I’ve a family line that goes back to the Plantagenets. I had a house to run and a lot of brothers to look after. And now Jonty has Olivia, and I barely see Bill any more, and it’s not my house, and the Plantagenets aren’t much of a comfort under the circumstances. I need to find a life of my own, only I don’t really know what that ought to look like, and I don’t want to end up a put-upon companion, or one of those unwanted elderly spinsters always in people’s way. Sorry,” Pat added. “I’m pouring all my troubles into your lap and they’re really very insignificant.”
“Nonsense.” Fen leaned forward in a rustle of cloth, putting a hand on her knee. “Of course they’re significant. It must be horribly difficult and disconcerting—and I know what you mean about wanting to find something to do. I do, except all I’m fit to do is marry somebody and I haven’t even done very well at that. Whereas you’re wonderfully capable and you have ideas. I think the shooting school is a marvellous plan. I shall be your first pupil and give a testimonial.” She squeezed Pat’s knee. Pat’s thigh tensed in instinctive response; she prayed Fen didn’t notice. “I am sure you’ll find your place once you decide what you want it to be. And I dare say that seems awfully daunting when you’ve always had a place and never had to think about it, but you aren’t in a rush, are you? You can take a few months to learn how not to live your old life, before you decide what the new one ought to look like. And once you’ve had some time to not be Pat who looks after her brothers, that might make space for Pat who’s going to do something else. Does that make sense?”
She was positively clutching Pat’s knee with her earnestness now, and Pat had to pause for a moment to take in the sensation, and the meaning of the words, and the fierce interest. “It makes the most sense I think I’ve ever heard,” she said at last. “Really, it does. I’m not fond of putting off decisions, but you’re exactly right.”
“Maybe you should decide not to do anything, then. Set yourself to actively not do things. Wake up in the morning and make a list of idlenesses, all of which must be strictly ignored before dinner-time.”
“I might have to do that,” Pat admitted. “Thank you, Fen. That really does help. You’re very acute, I think.”
Fen positively glowed. Her eyes were bright, her mouth was a perfect curve of satisfaction, her hand was warm on Pat’s knee, and if Jimmy Yoxall had appeared at that moment, Pat might have been tempted to shove him into the lake.
CHAPTER SIX
After such a day, Pat could not muster any enthusiasm about going down for dinner. She had had more intense conversation over the course of a few hours than she usually had in a month, not to mention the extraordinary one she’d overheard. She would have liked to retire to bed with a plate of sandwiches and a chance to think: to cherish that time with Fen around the lake, to consider both of their predicaments in the light of their talk, and mostly to recover her moral strength. She found people far more exhausting than any bodily exercise, and the prospect of two hours of conversation over a meal with Maurice Haworth followed by tea with the ladies felt like a burden she had no desire to lift. She just hoped the evening would be less unpleasant than the previous night.
But Fen would be at dinner, so Pat dressed as best she could. If she’d owned a gown that could be called frivolous she might have selected it to demonstrate solidarity, but she did not. She donned her best necklace, a seed pearl choker that had been a gift from Louisa, and toyed with the idea of asking the maid to arrange her hair into something more elaborate, but lost her nerve. It was only an informal party. Bill would think she’d run mad.
Her reluctance delayed her to the point that she was the last into the drawing-room. Everyone else was there, everyone was silent, and the atmosphere as she walked in had all the joie de vivre of a thunderstorm.
Preston Keynes even looked thunderous. He was standing in a corner with Miss Singh, shoulders hunched aggressively. Miss Singh’s face was blank in the sort of way that made Pat think she was trying very hard not to let her feelings be seen. Lady Anna’s eyes were bright, her facial muscles tight, and she spoke to Jack Bouvier-Lynes in a rapid, high-pitched tone that would doubtless have sounded natural at a Chelsea cocktail party. Bill and Jimmy stood with Fen and the Countess. Jimmy looked strained; their hostess had spots of red on her cheekbones; Fen was smiling, but her cheeks were scarlet, and not in a pretty way.
Maurice Haworth and the Earl were together in the centre of the room, angled as if speaking but too far apart from one another. The Earl’s face was tense. Haworth was smiling.
Pat straightened her back as she came in. “I’m terribly sorry; am I late?”
“Not at all, Miss Merton,” the Earl said with hollow heartiness.
“Ah, Diana, the huntress,” Mr. Haworth said with his curling, nasty smile. Pat gave him a rapid once-over. She knew nothing about the drug habit, but anyone could see there was something wrong with the man. She put it down to a twist in the head, herself. Maurice Haworth liked to make other people unhappy, and that wasn’t a symptom of any drug she’d ever heard of.
“My name is Patricia, Mr. Haworth,” she said briskly. “How’s the weather looking for tomorrow, sir?”
“Windy,” the Earl returned. “I fear we must expect storms later in the week.”
“Oh, what a shame!” Pat exclaimed. “At the very start of the season. Rotten luck.”
“The consequences of our location. We’re as prone to bad weather as any Scottish house—more, perhaps. It’s not unknown for us to be cut off by flash floods.”
“Really?”
“There are two rivers coming down from the high ground to the north, you see, and when there has been a dry spell followed by torrential rain, the results tend to be spectacular. We plan for it, of course; we shan’t run out of supplies.”
“Thank goodness,” Pat said. “One wouldn’t want to be reduced to eating one’s fellow guests.”
The Earl gave a hearty laugh, but Maurice Haworth’s eyes lit up. “What an idea, Miss Merton. I wonder who we should cook first? You and my dear wife have too little meat on you for a satisfactory meal, I think, whereas Miss Carruth would be rather a rich feast under any circumstances. And the flavour of Miss Singh’s flesh—”
“What a very peculiar subject for a drawing room.” Pat spoke with all the ice at her command, and Haworth actually stopped in his tracks, probably reminded of his old nurse. She didn’t give him any time to recover, but turned to the Earl. “We must take advantage of the good weather as it lasts, then. May I ask what ground we’ll cover tomorrow?”
The Earl’s eyes had flickered to Haworth, a tiny fearful movement, but he made an effort at joviality as he replied. “We’ll go in the direction of Trinder Wood first. I think we can promise you some good coverts.”
“Oh, excellent,” Bill said at her shoulder. “I had some marvellous shooting there two years ago, I don’t know if you recall, sir?”
His cheerfulness sounded forced to Pat’s sisterly ear. He was probably angry, as well he might be, and she felt a little glow. Perhaps everyone else in this house was intimidated by the loathsome Haworth, but if the man chose to tangle with the united Mertons he’d find out his mistake.
The Earl sounded distracted as he set out their route for the next day. Pat kept her eyes fixed on his face, attempting to demonstrate her absorption in shooting to the exclusion of all else. She could feel Haworth’s gaze on her skin and knew a decided sinking sensation when it was time to go into dinner.
Buck up, girl, she told herself as she seated herself opposite him. If nobody else is going to put him in his place, you can show Fen how it’s done.
The meal began, if not well,
at least adequately, with a manful effort by Preston Keynes to start a conversation by offering, apropos of nothing at all, an anecdote about a visit to a theatre he’d made earlier in the year where a man had had to be removed for shouting Irish Nationalist slogans.
“Oh, we saw that show,” Bill said. “Jimmy and I. No Irish nationalists then, though. It was a good piece, I thought.”
“Jolly good,” Jimmy said, so flatly that it caused an embarrassed silence. This time Mr. Bouvier-Lynes leapt in with a story about a well-known actress that got a few laughs, although it caused the Countess to purse her lips. Miss Singh restored decorum by speaking with knowledge and surprising animation about the work of George Bernard Shaw, a playwright whose intellectual pretensions were over the heads of most of the party.
“I saw Captain Brassbound’s Conversion,” Fen offered unexpectedly. “That’s Mr. Shaw, isn’t it?”
“One of his comedies. Did you like it?” Miss Singh asked.
“It was very...” Fen hesitated. “Thoughtful. It had more talking than I expected for a play about lady explorers and smugglers and Moorish castles.”
“Were you hoping for melodrama?” Miss Singh’s smile robbed the words of offence.
“Yes, honestly, I was,” Fen said. “I like spectacles and adventures and excitement and sweeping passions. And chariot races! Jimmy took me to see Ben-Hur at the Savoy, you know, with the race and the horses, and it was desperately thrilling, wasn’t it?”
There was a pause. Pat couldn’t see Fen, on Jimmy’s other side, without leaning forward in an ill-mannered way, but she could well imagine her smile faltering. She wondered if she ought to kick his ankle, even as Bill said, “Was it, Jimmy?”
“What?”
“Miss Carruth was just saying how you took her to Ben-Hur and that it was thrilling.” Bill’s voice had a decided edge. “Did you enjoy yourself?”
Jimmy’s lips parted. He didn’t reply.