by Joan Smith
You may imagine my reaction to this, especially after that episode in the garden. Fortunately fury held my tongue frozen, but Mrs. Irvine answered unconcernedly. “I own I am surprised. I made sure he would go to her room. The hussy is certainly legging it after him very hard.”
My heart was banging in my breast. He had sat smiling so warmly at breakfast, promising a reward for our forbearance. If he thought I would forbear this lechery, he had another think coming. To flaunt his affair, with the dinosaur Eldon in the house, to say nothing of his own daughter and me! Hanging was too good for him. Every instinct urged me to pack up my bags and leave the house on the instant. I would not be able to see the man without scratching his eyes out. Yet how could I explain my sudden decision to Victoria and Mrs. Irvine?
“I’ll get my bonnet and pelisse,” Victoria said, and rose. She had been saying something to me, but in my state of distraction I hadn’t heard a word.
“No!” I exclaimed. She looked over her shoulder, surprised. “We—we have to leave, Victoria,” I said, and looked a warning to Mrs. Irvine.
“Oh, no!” Victoria exclaimed, her face clenched in chagrin.
“No, Jennie,” Mrs. Irvine said. “You are thinking of Marndale’s little warning to me. I thought nothing of it. I did not take offense in the least.” She turned to explain to Victoria. “Your papa was not happy with my little outburst last night, but I don’t think he wants us to leave.”
“No, he doesn’t!” she said emphatically. “In fact, he said that after the Eldons and the Bathursts leave, we will all—”
No mention of Lady Pogue leaving! If he thought my chaperone and I were going to provide a respectable window dressing for his affair with Lady Pogue, he was very much mistaken. “We really must be going. Something has come up,” I said, and jumped up on the instant to open the clothes press and started grabbing my gowns from their hangers.
“But the wilderness excursion! We haven’t had that yet,” Victoria said, close to tears. “Where are you going? I don’t understand. What has happened to upset you, Jennie?”
“Nothing. It is just past time we were getting on. Marndale is too polite to say so, but he would prefer that we leave.”
Mrs. Irvine sat with her tongue between her teeth, looking and thinking. When she spoke her usual common sense was revealed. “If you just want to keep me out of Eldon’s way, let us have our excursion now. Victoria has made all the plans for the dinner party and dance.”
“I couldn’t let Papa down,” Victoria said. “This is the first time he has ever asked me to help him.”
“It won’t be the last,” Mrs. Irvine assured her. “And you already have helped him. You have made all the arrangements.”
“Victoria is right,” I said severely. “This is not the time for the excursion.”
“But when will we have it?” Victoria asked, close to tears.
“I don’t know, Victoria. Perhaps some time ...” I could hardly think, much less speak, for the pictures swirling around in my head. Lady Pogue, slipping down the hall in her nightdress. Was Marndale listening for her at the door, waiting to draw her into his arms?
“Could you wait a little longer if we went on the excursion today?” Victoria asked.
“Yes. No–I don’t know.”
“We’ll do it today and be back Sunday afternoon. You can leave for London on Monday. Will that do, Jennie? It will keep Mrs. Irvine and the Eldons apart.”
I didn’t know whether I wanted to go with her or not. I truly did not want to disappoint Victoria. Perhaps some mean corner of my heart wanted to vex Marndale, to show him I had more influence over his daughter than he. I would show him as well how little I thought of his dancing party. I would prefer a night in the wilds. Perhaps I even wanted a last possibility of seeing him again. In any case, I agreed.
“Be sure you ask your papa first,” Mrs. Irvine reminded Victoria as she ran from the room.
“This is a harebrained notion, our running off as if we were criminals,” she said when we were alone. “It is none of your concern if Pogue hopped into his bed last night.”
“That is not of the least interest to me one way or the other. You know why we must leave—because you cannot hold your tongue in polite company.”
“I might in polite company. Eldon is another matter. And that is not the real reason for this mad dash. I daresay Marndale won’t let his daughter leave at this time.”
Victoria was soon back. “Papa thinks it an excellent idea, Jennie.”
My sinking heart told me I was disappointed. I had thought he would forbid it. Had he not said he was looking forward to dancing with me? But perhaps I misunderstood. “He means just a daylong excursion, with us returning for the dance?” I happened to look out the window and saw the sky was threatening rain. “I doubt we could sleep outdoors tonight. The sky is like lead.”
“No, Papa mentioned that, but he says the weather is clearing. We have arranged that Lady Pogue will be his hostess for dinner. That is probably what he really wants anyway,” she added with a pout. “He says we may stay overnight.”
Frost settled over my heart and chilled my reply. “Then you must speak to the Hubbards and prepare yourself for the outing,” I said, and began my own preparations as soon as she left.
Mrs. Irvine grouched as she changed into her oldest gown and most comfortable walking shoes. “I little thought when you talked me into going to London that I would end up in the bush like a wild Indian.”
“If you hadn’t insulted the Lord Chancellor, we would not be going into the bush.” That brought her grumblings to a halt.
The Hubbards already had a spotted mare called Belle loaded up with cooking utensils and so on ready in the stable. They were a young, rough couple, but full of good-natured raillery. Hubbard wore a misshapen hat pulled low over his eyes. His wife was a buxom girl with blond curls and lovely blue eyes. By the time the necessary food supplies were assembled we three ladies, dressed in our shabbiest outfits and sturdiest boots and worst bonnets, were eager to be off.
I rather thought Marndale might excuse himself from the meeting for a moment to say good-bye and add some warnings for our safety, but he did not feel it necessary to do so, and we did not leave any message for him either.
Lady Pogue and Lord Anselm came to the stable just as we were leaving. She looked lovely in a scarlet riding habit and black bonnet. I mentioned to Anselm that I was a little surprised at his being allowed to escape work.
“I am only a very small cog in the machine,” he explained. “A sort of amanuensis. They will decide what is to be done, and I will write up their report when I return.”
I was a little piqued that Lady Pogue was stealing Anselm as well as Marndale. He, at least, I had thought safe from her clutches and a possible entree into society for me when I reached London. When he asked me to save him a waltz, however, and I told him I would not be home, his genuine regret cheered me.
Chapter Thirteen
As we trudged into the bush I thought much of my future plans. It was impossible now to take an apartment from Marndale. I wouldn’t take anything from him, not the lint from his pocket or the steam from his porridge. In fact, the whole idea of London was becoming a bore. If Lady Pogue’s and Marndale’s behavior was typical of noble carrying-on, I wanted no part of it. I would return to Bath, where my small fortune would go a deal further than it would in London. The saving would allow me to set up a tilbury or phaeton, and I had developed a strong desire to do so since driving with Victoria. I did not mention these plans to either of my companions, however. Some corner of my heart still wanted to go to London and be tortured by seeing Lady Pogue and Marndale making cakes of themselves.
Deep in thought I lost all track of time, but eventually I began to feel the strain of long walking. As we advanced the meadow turned to brush, the brush to a spinney; then it deepened to a forest. It was quite lovely at first in the shady green light, and to make up for my long silence, I made much of the fresh, piney scen
t, and the occasional bit of wildlife in the form of birds, rabbits, badgers, and field mice. Some wild flowers spotted growing in a shadowy glen demanded a few lines of Wordsworth.
A violet by a mossy stone Half hidden from the eye!
“That there’s not a violet, miss,” Hubbard told me. “A violet’s blue or purple. That one’s yaller. It’s what we call a fairy’s slipper.”
“I was quoting from a famous poet, Hubbard.”
“He can’t be much of a poet if he don’t know a violet from a fairy’s slipper. And besides, it don’t rhyme.”
“The violet was meant to refer to a country girl growing up away from society and unappreciated. An analogy, you see.”
“Like my Meg,” he said, casting a calf’s eye at his wife.
“Watch who you’re calling an alogy, Hubbard!”
“Now who’s been writing you poems, Meg?” he joked. He and his wife had a loud laugh at this romantic exchange of pleasantries.
“I’m hungry,” Mrs. Irvine announced. “When do we stop to eat?”
“When we have appreciated a little more of the wilderness,” I told her.
“This is not what I’d call wilderness. I can still see smoke from Wycherly’s chimbleys,” Hubbard said. “I go farther than this on my afternoon stroll.”
“So this is where you peel off to!” Meg exclaimed.
“Just having a peek to see if you’re meeting poets by them mossy stones.”
“Oh you!” She gave him a playful swat that sent him reeling.
“They’re newlyweds,” Victoria explained in an aside.
A loud clap of wings and a swish of leaves in a tree overhead caught our attention. “That there’s a partridge!” Hubbard exclaimed. We watched it soar into the air.
“Lovely!” I exclaimed. No quotation came to mind.
“Don’t I wish I’d had my gun cocked,” Hubbard said with a regretful shake of his head.
“We are not here to slay wildlife but to admire its beauty,” I informed him. “If we had fresh snow, I could point out how one tells what animals have passed by their tracks,” I mentioned to Victoria. Underfoot the ground was slippery with fallen needles withered to brown, and dead leaves.
“We don’t need no snow to tell the air is growing black with midges,” Meg Hubbard said, batting them away from her face.
Deep in the forest the air was thick with insects, mostly midges. “Here is how we take care of that,” I said. I had taken the precaution of getting some cheese cloth from Wycherly, which we arranged over our bonnets and tied under our chins. This held off the midges but hampered vision. Vision did not hamper Hubbard’s lessons, however. He knew the birds by their song.
“The songbirds of summer have arrived,” I said. “Listen to that sweet warbler.”
“That there’s not a warbler, miss. It’s a chiff-chaff,” he told me.
“I know a willow warbler to see it,” I objected. I was the teacher! What did this ignorant servant know?
“Chiff-chaff,” he repeated. “Listen now. Two notes, that’s what you’re hearing. That there’s a chirp, not a warble.”
“But how cleverly he changes his two notes.”
“Aye, the chiff-chaff chirps sweet, but she don’t warble.”
Hubbard continued to correct my every assertion. Willow-wrens were not wrens but dunnocks. My blackcaps were his garden-warblers. “Do you see a black cap on that bird?” he demanded.
“No, I see a brown cap, for it is the female of the species.”
“Don’t you see the bits of green and yaller on it? Garden-warbler,” he said in a voice that brooked no argument.
“Hubbard is not wearing his veil. That is why he sees more clearly,” I mentioned to Victoria, for I did not want her to get the idea I was as ignorant as I felt.
When Hubbard announced, “Sedge-warbler,” I was sufficiently cowed that I did not deny it.
“A bit of a comic, that fellow. Only hear how he mimics the blackbird. I daresay we’re nearer his nest than he likes. He’s serenading us so we won’t find the wee ones. We’d best step careful.” I paid little heed to this and continued forging ahead.
A little further along Mrs. Irvine stumbled into a rabbit hole and wrenched her ankle. “It’s this curst cheese cloth that makes everything blurry,” she complained. She gamely insisted we carry on, but it was clear that every step pained her. Hubbard removed part of Belle’s pack and put it over his own shoulders to allow Mrs. Irvine to ride on the back of the saddle horse. I believe she had an even more miserable morning than the rest of us, but she did not complain except of hunger. “I wish I had finished my breakfast. I am ravenous.”
“This must be excellent for the character, for it is so very miserable,” Lady Victoria said weakly. Glancing at her, I noticed the child was strained with fatigue, or perhaps it was only the cheese cloth that painted her face white.
I was bone weary myself by that time and began looking about for a suitable place to stop. We wanted a fire to make tea, and that required a clearing to prevent setting the forest ablaze.
It was impossible to get much idea of the weather in the forest, with treetops forming a more-or-less impenetrable roof over our heads. I only knew that I was deuced hot, with perspiration beading under my hat and veil and dripping down on my forehead. It was the pattering of drops on the leaves above that alerted us to rain, for no water had gotten through yet.
“This is all we needed,” Mrs. Irvine moaned.
Turning to solace her, I did not notice that the ground before me was swampy. I sunk to my ankles in black, muddy water and emitted an unladylike oath.
“I warned you to look sharp for the water,” Hubbard crowed. “Your sedge-warbler wouldn’t be nesting far from water, though he will move a ways off from it upon occasion.”
“I thought your father recommended this route,” I said to Victoria.
“He wouldn’t know it is so wet. He never comes here himself.”
“He has sent us picnicking in a bog.”
She gave me a rebuking look. “I expected more fortitude from you, Jennie,” she said primly, and began a dainty detour around the boggy bit of ground. I followed, firmly put in my place.
I determined not to let my ill-humor with Marndale ruin this outing, which had so long been looked forward to. “We are all tired. It is time to stop for tea,” I announced. “Let us find a clearing.”
“A clearing? We’ll be soaked alive if we get out from under these branches,” Hubbard grinned.
The others heaved a universal sigh of relief that we were to rest at least. Right on top of it came a mighty crack of thunder. Belle reared up on her hind legs, leaving Mrs. Irvine sitting in the water cursing like a Tar while the nag bolted. Pans and pots rattled at Belle’s sides as she fled. But the swamp provided soft falling, and I knew Mrs. Irvine was not seriously hurt at least. Recovering the horse was more important.
The wretched animal cantered forward amidst the trees, showing us a bold swish of her tail as she fled with all of us who were still able-bodied in pursuit. She ran till she came to a stream, which she leapt across only to stumble in the bog on the other side. She rolled over on her back, whinnying fiercely. I felt in my bones we had crippled one of Marndale’s nags, to put the cap on this wretched day. On top of the rest the bag of food the animal was carrying was soaked. Water streamed from the oilskin bag.
Hubbard and his wife helped the wildly whinnying mare up and out of the mire. Her eyes rolled alarmingly, and her coat was dripping with black water and covered with bits of decaying vegetation. We were all in a similar state by the time Victoria and I went back and pulled Mrs. Irvine from the bog. I never felt so uncomfortable and bad-tempered in my life. Our shoes and stockings were squelching. Sodden skirts and petticoats flapped about our ankles, hampering every step.
“We’ve run aground now surely,” Mrs. Irvine declared.
“We should be so lucky as to have hit dry land! I hope you are carrying the tea, Hubbard,” I said through c
lenched teeth.
He was enjoying my disgrace thoroughly. “Aye, and a morsel of bread. My Meg’ll build us a bit of a fire. I’ll just shoot us a hare and skin her and we’ll eat.”
“That grizzly performance will hardly be conducive to eating.”
“I thought we was roughing it.”
“Bread and tea will do if that is all that remains of our food,” I said. Another ominous rattle of thunder sounded, but the rain did not penetrate our leafy roof.
“Nay, you call this roughing it?”
Victoria looked at me askance. “I thought we were to live at least partially off the land,” she reminded me.
“It is a little early for berries or fruit. On the seminary outing it was later in the year. There is obviously nothing to harvest here unless you wish to eat grass.”
“We could grab a handful of that there watercress from the stream,” Meg Hubbard suggested. We all went forward to the stream, where Meg lifted her skirt to form a basket and began snatching at little green leaves growing at the water’s edge. When I saw which plants she was harvesting, I joined her and pointed out to Victoria that watercress made a dainty sandwich.
“There are tadpoles here!” Victoria exclaimed.
“By all means catch them if you feel like eating tadpoles.”
“I’ll go forward a ways and find a dry spot for to build a fire,” Hubbard told us. “An arch like in the tall trees will keep us from lighting the entire forest. Lucky I kept the tinderbox dry. I know you would have warned me never to carry the tinderbox anywheres but next my heart wrapped up in oilskin if you’d thought of it, miss.” His sly eyes glinted maliciously beneath his misshapen hat.
“Mind you use only dry twigs for the fire,” I said, hoping to redeem my sagging reputation.