by Jo Beverley
She’d brought Dickon’s picture to the window ledge. At first it had upset her that moonlight leached the color, making him ghostly, but then she found a peace from that. He was gone, and she could only pray that he was in a good place, a true heaven.
He wouldn’t want revenge. “But you’d want Sellerby stopped, wouldn’t you?” she murmured to him. “I fear he’s like a bad dog. He’s learned to bite, and so he’ll bite again—if not me, someone else.”
If you have any power, she thought to him, wherever you are, help us put an end to his menace, and keep everyone safe. I worry about Perry, even though I know he’s alert for danger. I’d worry about Dracy if he wasn’t here with me. Please don’t let danger come to Lizzie and her family.
Moonlight shone on something. For a startled moment she thought it was a sign, a message, but then she saw a splinter of glass remained in the leading around the empty rectangle. Someone had removed the jagged pieces, but they’d missed one bit.
She pulled on it, but it was firmly fixed, and in trying again, she cut her finger. “Idiot,” she muttered and sucked the nick, playing her tongue over it.
That stirred dangerous longings, so she went resolutely to bed.
Chapter 34
Georgia woke early the next morning, before Jane had come with hot water and her morning chocolate. How rarely she’d seen the hour after dawn except through sleepy eyes, and what a waste that was. She flung open both casements of the window to breath the exhilaratingly fresh air, to smile at the birdsong and at the jewel-like effect of dew on spiders’ webs.
It was completely glorious.
Then she became aware of a young man looking up at her, grinning. As soon as she saw him he ducked his head and hurried on. She backed away from the window, but she couldn’t help a chuckle at the gardener’s reaction.
Attracting men.
She reached out for the guilt and sorrow she should feel, but it eluded her. She would try to do better. She would be careful how she behaved with men and flirt only in the most innocent way, and only with elderly gentlemen. As Dracy’s wife.
Lady Dracy.
No more Lady May, and she felt no regret over that.
Lady Dracy, hardworking country wife, wearing sensible clothes…
Most of the time. There would be parties and assemblies, and perhaps even masquerades.
There might be children.
She put her hand low on her body, as if she might be able to sense the truth there. Dracy wouldn’t blame her—she believed him about that—but now she wanted children so desperately. First Winnie’s and now Lizzie’s darlings had stirred a deep longing that could break her if she allowed it.
God’s will, Lizzie would say, but would God punish her for her sins with barrenness?
She shook that away. She’d go out to enjoy the morning beauty.
She pulled open drawers, seeking her jumps and her plain dress, feeling like a girl again, slipping out of the house on some mischief. Soon she was decent and she slipped downstairs, her shoes in hand.…
But of course there were servants up in the house as well, preparing for the day. They dipped curtsies before continuing with their tasks, but she put on her shoes, feeling foolish.
She knew this world from her childhood, but in recent years she’d lived in that other one, the one that went to bed at dawn and woke at noon or later. She’d forgotten the servants’ world that lived life in reverse, like the gardener at Thretford who never smelled the night-perfumed
flowers.
Balance, she thought. There had to be a balance between the two.
She went out through the door in the morning room and down a shallow flight of stairs to the path through the rose garden, where many blooms held a diamond of dew.
The grass was damp, but she walked across it, remembering Winnie’s ball, and the terrace, and ruined shoes. These ones were leather and sturdy. She walked all around the house, feeling simple and free in this newborn world, washed clean, even, as if christened all over again.
Smiling, she returned the way she’d come and entered her room just in time to prevent Jane from crying the alarm.
“Milady, I couldn’t imagine what had happened to you. And there’s blood!”
Georgia looked at the white-painted windowsill. “A very little bit of blood, Jane. There’s a sliver of glass left in the pane, that’s all.”
“Oh, I was so afraid! All these carryings-on, I don’t know. I’ve brought your water, but you’re already dressed!”
Georgia hugged her. “Dear Jane, my apologies for upsetting you, but all is well. I’ll take off these clothes and wash and then you can dress me more becomingly. But after I have my breakfast. I do believe I’m developing a country appetite.”
Jane gave her a look but hurried away.
Georgia ate a hearty breakfast, but she had another appetite. She hungered to be with Dracy. She sent Jane to ask if he was free but received an unsatisfactory reply.
“How dare he be out looking at trees?”
Jane just rolled her eyes.
“Are there no messages from anyone?” Georgia demanded. She needed news from Town.
“I’d have given you them if there were, milady.”
It occurred to her that she’d never sent Dracy a letter—a scribbled note didn’t count—and sat to do so. Saying what? she wondered, stroking her chin with her quill.
Biting her lip, she wrote,
My dearest Dracy,
I am quite bereft that you prefer trees to me, and you’d be justly served if I were to address you as Humphrey at all times. That would steal your dark demeanor, would it not? I shall expect more careful attendance in future.
For now, I will insist that Lizzie teach me frugal household management. I believe people can subsist entirely on offal and potatoes if necessary.
Your helpmeet in training,
Georgia
She folded it, but following the maiden’s game, she drew a little heart by the join before dripping wax there and pressing on her seal. She glanced at Dickon’s picture, for she’d done that during their courting time, but she no longer felt any conflict there. Dickon and Dracy were very different, but she felt they’d have liked each other if they’d met, because they were both honest and kind at heart.
She gave the letter to Jane, to have it placed in Dracy’s room, then sought out her friend. She found her in the stillroom, looking through a book.
“Frugal housewifery?” Lizzie asked. “You know how to run houses, extravagantly or economically.”
“But I’ve not practiced the latter. Beyond some girlhood lessons, I’ve never managed a stillroom. I had none at the London houses, and at Maybury, the dowager ruled there. What are you doing?”
“Looking for a cure for the evil sleep.”
“Whatever is that? A poison?”
Lizzie looked up. “What? No, of course not. The evil sleep is an affliction of pigs, and there’s a case at the home farm. The pig sleeps too much, especially in the middle of the day.”
“That could describe Father when he’s rusticating.”
“Georgie! I don’t suppose your father neglects his food so he’s in danger of starving to death.”
“Quite the opposite. What’s the cure?”
“I know I have something here. Ah, stonecrop. Come, we’ll collect some.”
Georgia went off with her friend but noticed the man who followed. One of the outriders, keeping an eye on her in case Sellerby attacked. In her new, brighter world, the very idea seemed ridiculous, but she was glad he stayed in sight.
They found the yellow flowers on a wall near the orchard and gathered a basketful, then carried their haul to the farm.
“Why isn’t the farmer’s wife doing this?” Georgia asked. “It was that way at the Maybury home farm. The still room at the castle was used for household concoctions.”
“Mistress Pennykirk is an invalid—a tragic fall, which has left her crippled and melancholic—and her daughters are young
. So I help in such matters.”
Farmer Pennykirk was a short-legged, robust man who seemed weighed down with care. He was truly grateful for their help, as was his poor wife, who sat in a chair by the fireplace, bolstered with cushions and with a rug over useless legs. She was eager to do her part by bruising the flowers in a big bowl, encouraging her two young daughters to help.
A young maidservant was cutting up some bony meat for a stew.
Lizzie went off with the farmer for some other ingredient.
Some flowers spilled on the floor, and Georgia returned them to the bowl. “I’m sorry for your injury, Mistress Pennykirk.”
Tears started in the woman’s eyes. “I’m such a trial to everyone, your ladyship. I sometimes wish I were dead, and that’s the truth.”
Georgia almost said something bracing, but her heart knew better. “Perhaps you would feel better if you were a little more mobile. I’ve seen some chairs with wheels. With one of those, you could at least push yourself around the kitchen. And perhaps with a low table you could do some of the things you used to do, like cut up meat.…Oh, I’m sorry, I’m afraid I have a managing disposition. I shouldn’t try to rearrange your life.”
“Oh, no, your ladyship,” the woman said. “If such things were possible, it’d be a godsend!”
“Well then, a lower table should be easy enough to arrange, perhaps even to sit in front of your chair. As for the wheeled chair, when I return to London I’ll see what I can learn.”
Lizzie returned with a pungent mash and added it to the bowl. “When that’s thoroughly mixed, it will be ready. By God’s blessing, the pig will recover.”
“Thank you, your ladyship,” Mistress Pennykirk said. “And to you, your ladyship.”
The woman had tears in her eyes. Georgia only hoped she could make good her promises. As they left, she asked, “Are you sure that potion will work?”
“It works some of the time, which is the best anyone can hope for.”
“I wish there were a cure for paralysis. Sometimes life seems so unfair.”
“Which is why we should count our blessings—and not seek out suffering,” Lizzie added pointedly. “Are you going to marry Dracy?”
Georgia felt herself blush. “I rather think I am.”
Lizzie hugged her. “I thought as much. Torrismonde’s very impressed with him, you know. Sadly lacking in knowledge, but keen to learn.”
“He says I must visit Dracy before committing myself. He assures me it’s a dreary mess. What if I can’t face that? Truly, I don’t think I could marry into dire poverty, no matter how I loved.”
“The Dracy estate can’t constitute dire poverty, and if it’s run-down, you’ll have a home to improve. You’ve always delighted in that.”
“Not one about to fall on my head!”
“It can’t be as bad as that. It probably needs a thorough cleaning and some coats of paint, and then it will be ready for you to make beautiful.”
“With virtually no money.”
“A challenge,” Lizzie said. “I do not doubt you.”
Georgia held on to that thought as they returned to the house, and then went to her room to write some letters. She would write to Lord Rothgar about wheeled chairs, for he was interested in many devices besides automatons. If he didn’t know about such things, he’d know who did. However, that reminded her that she’d not sent a report to Diana Rothgar about the water situation at Danae House.
She was in the middle of that letter when someone knocked at the door. She opened it herself and found Dracy there. She couldn’t help but smile, and he smiled back.
But he sobered. “A letter from your brother. The plan is in hand.”
She pulled him into the room and shut the door. “What does he say?”
“Read it.”
Strange events at the Cocoa Tree last night, where there was a considerable company, including Waveney, Brookdale, Sellerby, and others, all gathered to hear more of the rumor that Sir Charnley Vance has been discovered to be dead and buried in an unmarked grave. No one speaks of anything else.
“Sellerby,” she muttered. “Of course he couldn’t stay away.”
“Especially not when rattled by the news. It improves.”
It seems to be true, for the undertaker remembers the well-built corpse with the significant attribute, and he also noted a long scar on the corpse’s thigh, which many know to have resulted from a riding accident some years ago.
Georgia looked up. “Is the scar real?”
“I assume so. Convenient.”
“It really was Vance. Sometimes I think we’ve invented it all.”
There’s a lively search to find his remains, but how anyone hopes to identify one skeleton from another, I’ve no idea, nor the point of it. The inquest said suicide, so he can’t be reinterred.
No sooner had this tale built up steam, but Henry Dagenham comes in with news of a letter he’d seen that very afternoon at the offices of the Chief Justice where he works…
“Dagenham’s a friend of Perry’s,” Georgia said.
“Convenient again.”
“Or reason to choose the device.” She read on.
… a letter written by Vance a year ago. He claimed that he couldn’t reveal more or lose his position, but that the letter cast doubt on the judgment of suicide, and that Vance feared an enemy. An enemy he named. Dagenham even hinted that Lord Mansfield has set in hand questions about Vance’s movements after the duel, and placed where he might have met his end.
“Spoken in Sellerby’s presence! Oh, I wish I could have seen his face.”
“Sick as a dog,” Dracy said. “Read on.”
Speculation ran wildly, but with no conclusion, for Vance was a man disliked by many and feared by some. Of course the Maybury duel was mentioned, but as the letter had been written before the event, his death could not be revenge. As well for me, who could be seen as a suspect there!
All will be revealed, I’m sure, and in the meantime people are fleeing Town. There’s sickness in the air, which afflicts rich or poor. Lord Sellerby left the club early last night looking unwell. It’s to be hoped he is not attacked by it.
Your servant, sir,
P. Perriam
Georgia refolded the paper. “That all happened last night. Sellerby could have killed himself by now. I wish I knew. I wish I knew.”
“Your brother will write as soon as there’s news.”
“The fastest courier takes nearly three hours.” She eyed him. “We could return to Town.”
“No, Georgia. If Sellerby is still resisting his fate, he’s particularly dangerous.”
“Oh, damn you, but you’re correct. Now, I suppose, we must go down to dinner and pretend none of this is happening.”
“I think it’s best not to share these stratagems with your friends. They’re honest people.”
“And we are not?”
“You can certainly be cruel. Would you really call me Humphrey?”
“If sufficiently provoked.”
He grinned and kissed her. “You’re a remarkable woman, Georgia—soon, I hope, Dracy.”
She kissed him back, but as they left the room she said, “Only think, if you were a duke’s younger son you’d be Lord Humphrey. No hiding it at all.”
“But in that case,” he said, “you’d soon be Lady Humphrey. How would you like that?”
“I’d have to achieve a title for you in order to be saved!”
After dinner Dracy went off with Torrismonde to go over accounts, so Georgia suggested she and Lizzie do the same thing.
Looking on from the side, she pointed out some errors. “You need to keep your columns more neatly. Your figures tend to drift.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Lizzie said with a look.
“I like numbers,” Georgia said. “They’re precise.”
“Mine aren’t.” Lizzie pushed the ledger over to her. “You look at that while I go over the inventory.”
Georgia began but said, “I w
onder what state the Dracy accounts are in.”
“A magnificent mess, I’m sure.”
Georgia smiled at the thought. Lizzie rolled her eyes but chuckled.
Georgia enjoyed putting Lizzie’s ledger in order, and when she was with Dracy again, she asked, “Is the bookkeeping at Dracy in a shameful state?”
“Completely neglected for years. Now, what has you looking so cheerful?”