The Headstrong Ward

by Jane Ashford

  “Very well, my lady,” replied the butler, his austere face breaking into an uncharacteristic smile. “And may I add my sentiments to Mrs. Brigham’s. We’re all glad to see you back after so long.”

  “Thank you.” The rest of the party had by now descended. “This is Crane, my abigail.” The servants acknowledged one another warily. “And that is Augustus.”

  Brigham and Fallow gazed at the parrot. “Is it, my lady?” said the former.

  Anne nodded, her eyes twinkling.

  Fallow noticed it first. Summoning a footman to take charge of the cage, he said, “Well, my lady, I thought you were changed all out of recognition, but I see some of the old mischief is still there. Where were you thinking of keeping this, er, creature? In your bedchamber?”

  “Oh, no. The drawing room.”

  Crane stared at her, aghast. The others, blissfully unaware, merely exchanged doubtful glances before moving to follow her orders.

  “Charles is here?” added Anne.

  “Yes, my lady. In the library,” responded Fallow. “Shall I take you there at once, or…”

  “No, I’ll go upstairs first.” It was just like Charles, thought Anne as she walked up the stairs, not to bestir himself and come to greet her. He could hardly have failed to hear her arrival. Well, she could play that game too. She would go to the library when she was ready, and not an instant before.

  But half an hour later, when Anne was walking along the corridor toward the library door, she was stopped by Fallow and informed that Lord Wrenley had been called away by his bailiff. Fallow conveyed his lordship’s apologies and the message that he would certainly join her for dinner, but Anne’s only response was to pick up her skirts and stalk furiously back to her room.

  By dinnertime, she had regained her equanimity. She had also changed into an evening dress of pale violet and allowed Crane to rearrange her curls and place a gauzy wrap over her elbows. As she sat in the drawing room awaiting the viscount, she rehearsed to herself the cool distant way she would greet him. Looking into a mirror on the far wall, she raised her red-gold eyebrows slightly and inclined her head. That should show Charles what she thought of his manners!

  Ten minutes before the dinner hour, the door opened, and Lord Wrenley strolled into the room. Anne had maliciously hoped that he would appear in his riding dress, giving her an opportunity to overlook his gaffe in the most noticeable way possible, but he was impeccably dressed in buff pantaloons and an exquisitely cut dark blue coat. He looked so elegant, in fact, that Anne was slightly taken aback. She had not remembered that Charles was so fashionable. Involuntarily she stood as he came toward her.

  “Anne.” Politely he held out a hand. “You look very dashing. Millington did well by you.”

  Lady Anne, about to give him her hand, snatched it back. “Millington had nothing to do with it!” she snapped, outraged that he should dare to refer to the place of her exile so blithely.

  “Indeed? I admit I wondered how you acquired such a gown at a girls’ school. Have you been raiding the Bath shops?”

  Anne took a deep breath and made a heroic attempt to control her temper. She knew from past experience that if she gave way to anger, she was lost. “Bath?” she replied lightly. “Oh, lud, no. I bought a few things in London before I came here.”

  “London?” Lord Wrenley raised an eyebrow. “Do you mean you have been up to town?”

  “Last week.” Anne continued to speak airily. She sat down again and pretended to be absorbed in untangling the fringe of her wrap.

  “You did not inform me of this.”

  She raised her eyebrows, just as she had practiced doing, and looked at him.

  The viscount frowned. He had emphatically not wanted the responsibility of a schoolgirl ward, but as he had it, he must do his duty. “While you are under my care—” he began wearily.

  “Your care!” interrupted Anne in as biting a tone as she could manage.

  The man looked startled for a moment; then his eyes narrowed and he surveyed her. Anne met them squarely; pale gray eyes locked with violet-flecked ones. She concentrated on putting all her dislike of him in that long glance. “Ah,” he said at last. “So that’s the way of it, is it?” And to Anne’s astonishment and chagrin, he smiled. Perhaps he could find some mild amusement in his new burden, he thought to himself. The girl was almost as easy to bait as Edward.

  “Mr. Laurence,” said Fallow from the doorway, and the Reverend Laurence Debenham walked into the room.

  His brother greeted him cordially. “And here, you see,” he added, “is little Anne back from school.”

  His tone made this introduction almost insulting, and Laurence frowned at him before coming to shake Anne’s hand. “How are you?” he said. “I am very pleased to see you home. And may I say that I am exceedingly sorry I never visited your school. If I had known—”

  “Anne does not wish to talk of school,” said Charles. “You are being clumsy, Laurence. You should rather compliment her on her gown. She has been up to London adorning herself for our meeting.”

  This was too close to the mark for comfort. Anne colored a little and looked down. There was no one on earth as abominable as Charles, she decided. She remembered that odiously mocking tone only too well.

  “To…to London?” Laurence seemed at a loss. “Well, ah, to be sure, it is a lovely dress. You look very, er, striking, Anne.”

  “Fie, Laurence! A sickly compliment. You can do better than that.”

  “I know very well I am not pretty,” Anne was goaded into saying. “You needn’t make up compliments for me.”

  “No, you aren’t,” agreed Charles, causing Anne to draw herself up very straight. “But I am surprised to discover that you have a quality worth twice that. Laurence was actually quite right. You are striking. You have a presence.”

  Before Anne could recover from her astonishment, Fallow came in to announce dinner. Lord Wrenley offered his arm, and she took it, still speechless. As they started toward the door, there was a scuffling sound from the corner of the room, and a raucous voice croaked, “For God’s sake, get me a drink!”

  The viscount stopped short and looked around. “What,” he said, “was that?”

  Anne gazed up at him, her chin high. “My parrot. Augustus.”

  “Your…parrot?”

  She nodded.

  “Does he often say such things?” inquired Laurence with concern.

  “Oh…oh, no.”

  Lord Wrenley did not take his eyes from Anne’s face, and she reddened slightly again under his amused and speculative gaze.

  “Because, you know, it could be dashed embarrassing,” continued Laurence. “And not fit for your ears, besides.”

  “Damn your eyes!” exclaimed Augustus.

  “Here, now, really. Where did you get that bird, Anne? You must have been grossly deceived. We will dispose of it for you, won’t we, Charles?”

  Before Anne could voice the protest that rose hotly to her lips, the viscount said, “Dispose of Anne’s pet? Whatever can you be thinking of, Laurence?”

  “But…but the thing…Anne can’t have known…”

  Lord Wrenley met the girl’s eyes once again. “Oh, I think she did. I believe you underestimate her, Laurence.”

  “But, Charles…”

  Anne frowned uneasily up at the viscount.

  “Blighter!” screeched Augustus emphatically.

  Three

  The following afternoon, Lady Anne sat alone in the drawing room at Wrenley, her expression profoundly thoughtful. It now appeared to her that she had been inadequately prepared for her homecoming, and she had retired here to order her impressions of the past evening and morning and, if possible, to revise her plan of campaign. Charles was out, and Laurence had returned to his own home at the village rectory. She did not expect to be disturbed.

 
For some time, the only sound was the ticking of the clock on the mantel. Anne stared blindly up at it, chewing on her lower lip, an aid to concentration which had been repeatedly condemned at Millington, without noticeable effect. At last she rose and began to pace about the room. Her sudden movement startled Augustus in the corner, and he squawked.

  The girl walked over to his cage. “That’s all very well,” she told the bird, “but I am not certain now that you will serve, you know.”

  The parrot gazed at her from one malignant green eye.

  “Charles was amused by you,” continued his mistress. “I swear it was amusement. And I am not trying to amuse him. Quite the contrary!”

  “Give us a drink, sweetheart,” urged Augustus.

  Anne smiled. “Yes, well, perhaps you are comic. But I did not expect Charles to think so. If I am to give him his own again, as I am determined to do after the way he has treated me, I must find some other methods. The matter is more complicated than I realized.”

  “Lackwit!” screeched the parrot.

  Anne grimaced at him. “Unfair! How was I to know anything, after being shut up for years and years at school? It is true I visited the Castletons, but I never met anyone like Charles there.” She paced a bit more. “I admit I am at a stand. I don’t see just how I should proceed. The thing to do is draw back a little and consider and observe. It will take a bit longer, but I shall find a way to show Charles.” She smiled thinly. “Indeed, I shall.”

  Augustus merely croaked in response.

  “Laurence is kinder, I think,” mused Anne. “I believed him when he said he would have come to visit me. And he never teased as much as Edward. I shall leave him alone.” She put an elbow on the mantelshelf and leaned there. “He is engaged, you know. He promised to bring his fiancée to call on me as soon as possible. He hoped we will be great friends. Isn’t that kind of him? Miss Branwell is going to London for the season also.”

  Augustus, profoundly uninterested, was cracking seeds from his dish and scattering husks over the carpet.

  “Yes,” finished Anne. “I shall wait until we are settled in London before I make my big push. By then I should know what is best to do.”

  Hearing footsteps approaching the room, she removed her elbow from the mantel and went quickly to an armchair. Fallow came in, looking concerned. “Excuse me, my lady, but a, er, visitor has arrived, and I am not quite certain…”

  Fallow was never uncertain in the matter of visitors. “Who is it?” asked Anne curiously.

  “It is a…a lady. She gave her name as Mariah Postlewaite-Debenham. She said she had no card. I was not informed…”

  “Oh, that is Charles’s second cousin. She is to be my chaperone. He told me last night. But she is not supposed to arrive until next week. I’m sure he meant to tell you.”

  “Indeed. Perhaps she mistook the date.” Fallow was clearly offended by his accidental ignorance.

  “She must have. Bring her up here. I shall welcome her alone.”

  “Yes, my lady.”

  In a few moments, he returned, followed by one of the tiniest women Anne had ever seen. Mariah Postlewaite-Debenham could not have been even five feet in height, and her other dimensions were correspondingly slight. Rising and holding out her hand, Anne felt a giant. Her new chaperone had the Debenham coloring, a bit faded now, but not the nose. She wore a very plain gown of buff kerseymere, and in general looked like the sort of self-effacing, quiet person who is never remembered from one meeting to the next. Her manner as she looked about the room, a combination of vague surprise and disinterest, merely added to this impression.

  “Good day,” said Anne. “I am Anne Tremayne. Welcome to Wrenley.”

  Miss Postlewaite-Debenham raised pale gray eyes to hers. “Thank you, dear,” she replied in an unexpectedly collected tone. “I am earlier than I said I would be, but the blight killed my pansies, and I saw no reason to linger.”

  “Oh. Ah…of course. Sit down, please.”

  “Well, for a moment, perhaps. But I want to walk around the park before teatime. Lord Wrenley said there were some remarkable perennial beds. Indeed, he assured me one was at least fifty years old.” She drifted over to the front windows and looked earnestly out, as if in search of this fabulous bed.

  “D-did he? I take it you are interested in gardening, ma’am?”

  Miss Postlewaite-Debenham waved this aside as if unanswerable. “Call me Mariah, dear. You will have to. Postlewaite-Debenham is such a ridiculous mouthful. I always thought poor Mama misguided when she insisted upon it. And now I think I will go out, if you will excuse me.”

  “But…that is…wouldn’t you like to see your room, or…or anything?”

  The older woman seemed to really look at Anne for the first time. “What is the matter, dear?” she asked kindly. “You seem uneasy.”

  Anne, utterly disconcerted by this time, merely stared at her.

  “Didn’t Lord Wrenley speak to you about me?” continued the other.

  “Oh, yes. He told me you would be my chaperone for the season, and that you were his cousin.”

  “Tch. He promised me that he would explain my position before I arrived. It was clearly agreed upon.”

  Fascinated, Anne could not stop staring at her diminutive companion. “Perhaps he meant to do so. We did not expect you until…”

  “Yes, I see how it was. Well, it is vexing to have to repeat it all again, but I suppose it can’t be helped.” With a regretful glance out the window, Mariah walked over to the sofa and sat down. “Now, you mustn’t be offended by what I am about to tell you, dear, because it has nothing to do with you, but as I told Lord Wrenley, I was very reluctant to leave my own house and come to stay with you in town. Indeed, I refused, until he insisted he could find no one else. I do understand that you must have a chaperone, and I am prepared to do my best for one season—no more. I am not fond of company; my garden is enough to content me, as I think it might anyone. And I came only on the understanding that I should be free to bring some of my plants and things along and tend them for part of each day.”

  “In…in London?” managed Anne.

  “Lord Wrenley promised to set aside a room for my plants in his town house. It is very awkward, of course, but I must do my duty to the family. I have made arrangements for some of my things to be taken there after we arrive.”

  “I…I see. I apologize for being the unconscious cause of…”

  “No, no. You mustn’t feel that way. But it is best to have everything clear, is it not?”

  Anne nodded. “Do you mean to accompany me to parties and…and that sort of thing?”

  “I shall do whatever is necessary,” replied Mariah Postlewaite-Debenham in the voice of a much-tried martyr.

  “Th-thank you.” Anne was by now exerting every effort not to laugh.

  “But as I told Lord Wrenley, I will not spend half my days primping and trying on gowns. You must take me as I am.”

  With this, at least, Anne was wholly in sympathy. “I shall certainly do that,” she replied.

  Mariah surveyed her approvingly. “There! We shall get on very well, I’m sure. You seem a sensible girl. Are you at all interested in gardening?”

  “I fear I have never done any.”

  “Yes, but would you like to, that’s the point?”

  The fanatic light in her eye made Anne cautious. “I really think I prefer riding,” she answered meekly.

  “Horses? I see.” Her tone implied that she saw a great deal, and did not much care for the vision. “Well, I must go out to the park. If I don’t return in time for tea, send someone after me, dear. I am always forgetting the time.”

  Thinking this an ominous trait in a chaperone, Anne nodded. “Shall I ask Fallow to summon the head gardener to show you about?”

  “The head gardener?” tittered Mariah. “No indeed! I haven�
�t yet come to that.” And before Anne could do more than wonder what she could possibly mean, she was gone.

  The girl sat down with a bump. “Well, Augustus, what do you think of my chaperone? It will be an interesting season.”

  The parrot, uncharacteristically, said nothing.

  By teatime, Anne was feeling rather bored. Charles had not come in, and there had been no further sign of Mariah. For a girl accustomed to having a large group of young ladies to talk to, it seemed a very slow afternoon. Anne resolved to ask Charles about a mount as soon as possible. She would not mope about in this foolish fashion another day. And immediately after tea, she would take a brisk walk.

  With Fallow and the tea tray came diversion, however, in the form of Laurence Debenham, his fiancée, Lydia Branwell, and Lydia’s mother. Anne was at first delighted. Laurence had painted a glowing picture of Lydia at dinner the previous evening, and Miss Branwell initially seemed to justify it completely. She was a fine-looking girl, not as tall as Anne, but above medium height and with a better figure. Her hair was a lustrous black and her skin very pale. She held herself well up, a habit that her arched brows and aquiline nose seemed to emphasize. Her eyes were an alert hazel.

  They all sat down, and Anne moved, a bit uncertainly, to pour the tea. Indeed, she had almost asked Mrs. Branwell to perform this service, but the older woman sank into her chair with such self-effacing timidity that she changed her mind. Laurence, after a quick glance about the room, was at once up again and striding toward Augustus’s corner. “Is this the cover for the cage?” he asked after a moment’s search.

  He looked so uneasy that Anne had to suppress a smile. She nodded.

  “Laurence tells me,” said Miss Branwell, “that your parrot has been taught some, ah, indelicate expressions.” Her voice was low and musical, and she spoke slowly, carefully enunciating each word.

  “I fear he has,” agreed Anne. “I…I hope I may wean him from them.”

  Lydia Branwell shook her head sadly. “I so disapprove of that sort of thing. Men have a duty to treat dumb animals with consideration and restraint. I think there should be laws against abusing them; those who do so deserve prison.”