Quiet Meg

by Sherry Lynn Ferguson

  The Honorable Marksley

  Sherry Lynn Ferguson

  This title was previously published by Avalon Books; this version has been reproduced from the Avalon book archive files.

  The proprietors of grand estates usually adopted a formality and consequence comparable to their surroundings. Never before had Charles Cabot been asked to share refreshments out on the lawn.

  The invitation from Sir Eustace Lawrence K.C. caused a comical consternation amongst the household staff. A hastily assembled table, offering drinks and cold savories, soon claimed the long shadow of a beech trunk, for the avenue’s ancient trees had not yet leafed out to dense shade. But the amiable Lawrences, displaying a fondness for the open, bravely settled themselves in the bright March sun. There they persisted, though a fickle breeze threatened to topple their charming party.

  By backing his chair to the same massive tree that sheltered the luncheon, Chas gave himself what little cover was to be had as well as a view of the long stretch of turf abutting the river. His thoughts had focused entirely on the prospect before him-on Selbourne, his newest project, for which he knew he scarcely had time. If Bertram Lawrence had not chanced upon him in town and pressed him to render an opinion, Chas would have considered himself more than reasonably occupied. Still, improving the estate’s grounds had its challenges. There was a promisingly picturesque pool of water in back, and the low hill directly across from him had possibilities … But young Lucy Lawrence’s anxious complaint put an end to his musings.

  “Why must Meg rush home now? She’s been happy with Bitty! Just weeks ago she wrote that she would stay through the summer!”

  “She had no choice.” Louisa Ferrell, Lucy’s older sister, reached to rescue a fluttering letter from the girl’s hand. “Aunt Bitty’s new home in Cheltenham is half the size of Tenby’s. With Mrs. D-sharing, it’s unthinkable that Meg should move with them”

  “But we shall be departing for town by mid April! Surely she can’t intend to stay here alone?”

  “And why should she stay here at all, young lady?” Sir Eustace asked abruptly. Confined to his Bath chair, the burly gentleman still managed to fidget, as though he denied his limitations. Certainly nothing else about the forceful Lawrence patriarch was limited in any way. The glare he sent his youngest was a reprimand in itself. “Margaret is your sister. She is welcome to join us in town ””

  “But she won’t want to, Papa! Not after. . ” Lucy bit her lower lip and glanced toward Chas’s spot in the shade. He directed his gaze once again to the river. “This is my comeout. She knows what this means to me! It would be tootoo much to have everything tattled about again!”

  “And aren’t you just too, too particular,” Bertram teased. “Are you afraid Meggie will squash your expectations? Perhaps spirit away some of your suitors?” He smiled affectionately at his sister. “Don’t be bird-witted, Luce. You shall be the toast of the season. And attention is the last thing Meggie wants.”

  “But she draws it. She cannot help it. She …. Lucy again looked Chas’s way. “Mr. Cabot will think me most ungracious.”

  “Mr. Cabot,” he assured her, “is only ever charmed by Miss Lawrence”

  “Coming at it a bit too strong there, Cabot,” Bertie laughed. “Since you’ve known Lucy all of an hour.”

  “Our guest is too kind, my dear,” Sir Eustace said. “I will not have such talk about Margaret. I’d wish her home today. I have missed her. You should be mindful of my ill health and advancing years”

  Lucy looked concerned, but the others grinned.

  “I thought Meg was expected last Christmas,” Mr. Ferrell volunteered.

  “Oh, but Ferrell, you must remember!” Louisa said. “I did tell you … How Meg stayed on, because of Bitty’s concerns about the move? It’s been most distracting-”

  “Margaret’s been away almost ten months,” Sir Eustace told him. “‘Tis long enough. She must stop hiding.”

  “Meggie doesn’t hide, father,” Bertie said. “She could not hide even if she wished to”

  “And that is just what I dread,” Lucy said.

  “Oh come, Lucy,” Louisa said. “Having Meg back will not make one whit of difference to your season. You shall see.”

  “We are boring you, Cabot,” Bertie claimed. “Here you sit suffering our domestic squabbles, when we sought your help with problems out-of-doors! I cannot believe this aids you in your planning.”

  “Only if you habitually entertain on the lawn,” Chas said mildly.

  “Never,” Sir Eustace conceded. “Uncomfortable business. With all the bumping and rolling to set up here on the grass-what there is of it. Groundskeepers have slacked off for ages. And look at that copse of pines by the river! Grown so tall now they block half the view. Time was I could sit right where you are and see clear to Milford.”

  “I can still make out a good bit of the far bank, sir. But if you prefer to see more of it, something could certainly be done.”

  “By no means let my preferences guide you, Mr. Cabot. I am not long for this world-” This time his family protested, “So you must listen only to the desires of my son and my daughters”

  “I hope to accommodate all of you,” Chas said. “Perhaps you might each choose a direction-east, west, north, and south.”

  “And you mustn’t forget Meggie,” Bertie added. “She is a direction all her own.”

  “She might be our pole-star, then,” Chas suggested, battling an unreasonable dislike for the absent `Meggie,’ “and set our direction when the sun is down”

  Sir Eustace shot him a swift, keen look.

  “You are a poet, Mr. Cabot. I fear you plan to clutter the place with posies and showy statuary”

  Bertie laughed.

  “That is not his interest, father.”

  “Nor is it my intention, sir,” Chas assured him. “I have a fondness for parks. Had your estate here at Selbourne not had sufficient scope, you would have found me unsuited for this commission.”

  “Perhaps you’d have found us `unsuited,’ young man,” Sir Eustace observed, too astutely. “Mind you’re not presumptuous”

  “You cannot snap at Cabot now, father,” Bertie told him cheerfully. “You signed the papers yourself, and you are the jurist! Since he’s pledged to the Duke of Clare come May, you must pocket your pride and let him get on with the matter.”

  “Bertie,” Louisa cautioned, “you sound most uncivil.”

  “I don’t suppose you’d take my daughter Lucinda here off my hands, would you Mr. Cabot?” Sir Lawrence offered blandly. “‘Twould spare me the expense of her season, and help defray some small portion of your crew’s excessive costs”

  “Papa!” Lucy cried.

  Chas smiled at the girl.

  “Miss Lawrence would be a rare prize. But I fear I would have little to offer her at the moment.”

  “Did not your uncle, the Duke of Braughton, just make over Brookslea to you, Cabot?” Bertie winked at him. “With such a sweet property in the family I would be pleased to claim you as a brother-in-law”

  “Do stop this, Bertie,” Louisa said. Young Lucy’s color was high.

  “Were you raised at Braughton, then,” Mr. Ferrell asked, “in Leicestershire? Is it your home?”

  “I spent many summers there, sir, and now exercise some oversight at Braughton. But before school I lived on the Continent, in Austria and Italy. And since university I’ve traveled a good deal. I’ve been back in England only these past two years”

  “You knew Bertie at university?” Lucy asked.

  “Yes, Miss Lawrence. Your brother made quite an impression on me. ‘Twas Mr. Bertram who convinced me my path lay in designing landscape.”

  “And how was that?” Sir Eustace asked, his eyes twinkling.
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  “Your son required a golf course early one morning, sir. Unconscionably early, I regret to say, since he was a bit bosky, the result of a lucky win-” As Bertie grimaced and shook his head, Chas smiled. “In any event, he wished to celebrate. I convinced him that I’d devised a course, thus keeping him from a more ambitious public display. He’s claimed to be in my debt ever since. And I found my calling, which demands more of persuasion than architecture.”

  The others laughed. The tale was a stretch, but held enough of the truth to be credible. It dismissed all the hard hours of study, and all the years of tiring application. His distinguished clients did not wish to hear about the cultivation of his competencies, they wished only to enjoy his cultivated landscapes.

  “You needn’t persuade me this time around, Cabot,” Bertie said. “You can see for yourself the place needs attention.”

  “I frequently must persuade even eager clients, Lawrence. The most unlikely objects can rouse unlooked for loyalties. These beeches, for example,” and Chas gestured to the dig nified gray row behind him. “You’d probably resist their removal.”

  The group looked predictably shocked.

  “Surely … surely you jest, Mr. Cabot,” Louisa Ferrell said in a strangled voice.

  “Yes, Mrs. Ferrell. But I make my point. You may believe you give me license, but I know that in your hearts such is far from the case, hence the many hours to survey what now exists and to obtain your approvals. Nature is resilient, but does not adjust well to abrupt changes” He patted the smooth gray trunk behind him. “Before I tear down your copse of offending pines, Sir Eustace, I shall try to give you some concept of the likely result-so you might object”

  “Do you make the drawings yourself, Mr. Cabot?” Lucy asked.

  “Many of them, Miss Lawrence. But I have draftsmen do much of the preliminary recording from surveys, to line and rule measurement. ‘Tis painstaking work, and I have done enough of it in my day. Now I prefer to render the visuals.” Even as he spoke, he pulled a folded piece of paper from his waistcoat and, placing it on his knee, rapidly sketched the view to the river in a few bold pencil strokes. He passed it toward Sir Eustace and Miss Lucy.

  “Astonishing,” Sir Eustace murmured.

  “Why, you’ve simply removed the lower branches of the pines, so that Papa can see Milford,” Lucy exclaimed. “How clever!”

  “Cabot has always been clever,” Bertie said with satisfaction. “I told you so.”

  “Perhaps less clever than cautious, Lawrence. As you see, I move in increments.”

  “Margaret draws,” Louisa remarked idly, as she fingered the sketch that had been passed to her. She had not addressed anyone in particular, so Chas did not respond. He was developing an antipathy to a complete stranger-to Margaret Lawrence, who sounded so willful and proud. The girl’s preferences seemed to demand too much consideration from her pleasant family.

  “Come, Cabot,” Bertie said, rising purposefully from his seat. “We have at least another hour left of good daylight. Let us make an effort to see a bit of the place before you head on to town”

  “You must show him the office as well,” Sir Eustace said. “Mr. Cabot, I have arranged for you to stay with us when you are here. ‘Tis an apartment in the East wing. We must not have you languishing at the Buxley inn. You will always be welcome to join us”

  “I thank you, sir. Ladies-Mr. Ferrell.” Cabot bowed. “It has been a pleasure.”

  “Oh, but Bertie, I wish to come as well,” Lucy protested.

  “Perhaps next time, Luce. We are riding, for which you are neither dressed nor much inclined. I promise nothing momentous will be decided this afternoon. Father, Ferrell.” With a salute to his family, Bertie led Chas away from the table and a pouting Lucy.

  “She was welcome to join us,” Chas told him.

  “Lucy is a pest, Cabot. You will find her constantly underfoot. I advise you to discourage her early and often. The little minx is already half in love with you. Did you not see her making sheep’s eyes at you across the table?”

  “As a gentleman I would never say. .

  “Oh, you saw all right. Don’t let her start. Else in a week’s time you’ll be running to me begging, `Oh, what is to be done with little Lucy?’”

  They laughed as they reached the stable and their mounts.

  Chas was at home in the saddle; he had been riding all his life. He was surprised that Bertram Lawrence did not appear as thoroughly at ease.

  “I know you are a bruising rider, Cabot, but I’m only minimally better on a horse than the average,” Bertie confessed. “Father was a legend, as you must know, and now Meggie matches him. But I consider myself a fair hand with the ribbons, if you recall”

  “I do indeed. And now may I express a preference for starting off down the avenue to the gate? ‘Tis the equivalent of opening the front door.”

  They set off along the carriageway, between the magnificent beeches. Chas would have preferred to tour alone, but the suggestion would have seemed churlish. Bertram Lawrence was, and always had been, genial company; he would ramble on with only the occasional acknowledgement.

  Chas was largely free to do what he did so well-listen to the land. After years of practice his ability to absorb a place was intuitive. His eye quickly gauged elevation and hollow, sun and shade, exposure and shelter. In a familiar county like Berkshire, where he knew the soil and flora, he could save himself and his men weeks of measurements and testing, simply through close observation on a few pleasant walks or rides. Only bad weather had ever made such initial tasks uncomfortable.

  They rode to the gate, went out along the road paralleling the river, considered the hedges and trees hiding the house from public view, then reentered the grounds to set off across the deer park. Chas realized the property was more extensive than he had at first supposed, and said as much to Bertie.

  “It’s about twelve hundred acres, Cabot. But we don’t intend you to do much over to the west, the grazing and so forth, and certainly not the tenant farms,” though Chas knew full well that alterations to one area tended to require answering attentions in others, even those a landholder might dismiss.

  As they rode, Chas’ imagination was engaged at least once in attempting to picture the wayward Margaret Lawrence.

  “Is Miss Margaret your older sister?” he asked.

  “Meggie? Oh no, Meggie is the middle-between Louisa and Lucy. She’d be-twenty now. Just this month, as a matter of fact.” Bertie fell silent. Again Chas had the impression that the young lady, or at least the thought of her, oppressed the family.

  “Miss Lucy seemed upset at her return,” he prompted, irritated with himself for troubling to pry.

  “Lucy is a silly goose who can think only of her comeout. Even if Meggie’s letter did just arrive today, Lucy should not have been quibbling. Meggie will not return for weeks yet, I’ll wager. Probably not before you’ve finished with us”

  “Lawrence, I mentioned this project will continue long after my planning is over. Well into the fall, at least.”

  “I know, I know. But I meant you are unlikely to cross paths with my sister this spring”

  Bertie sounded relieved, but Chas had to wonder if that was the assurance he had sought. He still could not picture the creature.

  “Meggie planned the kitchen garden for our cook many years ago. Should you wish to change it, Cabot, you may face some opposition there. Come to think of it, I might object to that myself! But I shouldn’t imagine you will wish to change it. ‘Tis the only comfortable spot out-of-doors. I’ll show you before you leave this evening”

  Chas halted his horse to look toward Selbourne from the height they had reached about a mile from the house. The small hill afforded the finest vista he had yet seen of the place, but there was no easy route from the house and no spot of repose from which to enjoy it.

  Selbourne itself was imposing, with its weathered gray stone and sturdy formality. Chas appreciated that it was properly scaled for its site
. In the shape of a flattened H, with east and west wings, twinned chimneys and limited ornamentation, the house had clean, pleasing lines. Jones was said to have designed at least part of it; the family was not certain. It had been built for the ages, regardless. But the best views at Selbourne, as Chas had reason to know, were from inside the house-to this promontory in the east, across the park to the river in the south, past the rolling fields and farms westward, and back to the flanking wooded hills of Burley to the north.

  He asked Bertie about the uses of the property-the paddocks and stables, the farms, and the family’s own entertainments-all of which he supplied with humorous asides and a degree of frustration.

  “‘Tis a bit of a ruin, Cabot. I told you so in town. You must consider it yours ! No one has done much to the place since the lanes and gates went up with the house. The head gardener is elderly and tyrannical. I await his abdication. Anything you find acceptable is probably mere happenstance”

  “Does your father take a daily constitutional? He says he cannot run the chair out on the lawn”

  “He goes to the stables, to see his pets. On occasion he has ventured down to the river gate, but he is otherwise restricted to the house. His confinement is a great distress to him, Cabot. He was always a vigorous man, and a devoted horseman.”

  On the way back to the stables they passed the entrance to the kitchen garden at the northwest corner of the house. Though the light was fading, Bertie suggested they take a quick look. Chas handed his reins to a groom, then followed Bertie to an iron gate set in a high stone wall.

  He was astonished by what lay beyond-easily five thousand square feet of carefully plotted parterre, lime and dwarf fruit trees, clipped box hedges, trellises for vines, a small central pond and, along the north wall, a tiny teahouseshielded from stronger winds, but open to the sun. The kitchen garden, cradled within the old walls of a former stable yard, was a surprising, welcome relief from the rest of Selbourne’s spare setting. Even now, in early March, low bulbs and sweet peas bloomed amidst subtly hued cabbages and herbs, adding vitality and color to the gray surroundings.