A Scandalous Plan

by Donna Lea Simpson

  “Never mind, Anthony,” Theresa said, through clenched teeth. “The children are waiting.”

  Though she tried to talk normally over the journey home, she feared that she failed, judging by Angelica’s worried glances. She returned the children and Dora to Meadowlark Mansion.

  Theresa did not descend from the carriage, but as the children headed toward the front door, she said, “Dora, may I ask you something?”

  The girl turned back. “Yes, milady?”

  She gazed down into Dora’s innocent blue eyes. How to frame this question delicately? “Have you ever had any trouble with any of the staff here, say, one of the grooms?”

  The girl colored a bright red and tears welled up into her eyes. “I didn’t do nothin’ wrong, milady, honest. It was that Bill Johnson; he . . . he tried to kiss me, an’ only let me go when young Master Jacob wandered into the stable an’ saw what he was doin’.”

  That explained much, Theresa thought; it explained the original accusation of the “evil eye.” The man had figured to discredit Jacob if he said anything, not knowing, perhaps, that the boy was silent. And now he was angry at losing his job, and all over nothing. And yet he had chosen the most insidious manner of persecuting the child.

  She glanced back at the girl to find her crying.

  “Whatever is wrong, Dora?”

  “I’m going to be sacked now, an’ all ’cause o’ that rotter Bill Johnson.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Theresa said briskly. “Why should you be let go because of an evil fellow like that man? Tell Mr. Martindale I shall be waiting for him tomorrow morning. I am going into St. Mark with him, if he remembers. We can go now, Anthony,” she said more loudly to her driver.

  It seemed that her plan was necessary after all, and since it was already set in motion, she had nothing to regret.

  Nine

  James Martindale dressed unusually carefully the next morning. He remembered the care which Lady Theresa always displayed in her clothing and accoutrements and he did not want to appear less than polite in return. Her opinion of him mattered, if only for his daughter’s sake.

  Angelica did nothing but talk of the lady day and night. It could easily get annoying, except she also had lost much of her sullenness just by Lady Theresa’s involvement in her life, and she voluntarily took charge of Jacob now. It would be churlish not to befriend the lady responsible.

  And so he did not regret the planned trip into St. Mark, even though he had met the two men whom he considered the principle residents, the vicar and the solicitor. He suspected the visit had more to do with her plan to make his family acceptable to the villagers, but it behooved him to get to know Lady Theresa better, for if he did decide to stay at Meadowlark, Angelica would no doubt insist on continuing her burgeoning friendship.

  He pulled his phaeton—a sensible one, not a garish high-perch phenomenon—up to the Leighton home; when a groom came to hold his horses he jumped down just as Lady Theresa came out to meet him. He felt an odd spurt of joy at the sight of her. She was handsomely dressed in a quiet country way, and her movements were tidy too, economical, with no show or flounce like some of the young ladies he had met in London. He had been much sought after by some of the more desperate London belles. Even though he did not go out much in company, he was hunted down like a reticent fox by fathers and brothers by the score. His wealth suddenly made him respectable, even though his money was gained through trade. He might not be suitable for a duchess or an earl’s daughter, but the feminine offspring of barons and knights, squires and even viscounts found him closely enough allied with the aristocracy to burn off the stench of the mill.

  But Lady Theresa was the daughter of the eminent Lord Leighton, earl and widowed man-about-town. It was a sobering thought; he greeted the lady politely but kept that reserve in his tone that he feared he had lost in her company. It would never do to get too familiar. He had started by thinking that she was a husband hunter. Ridiculous and vain, he thought now, looking back at it. He would not now make the mistake of letting her think him a fortune hunter or social climber.

  “Lady Theresa,” he said, taking her hand and helping her up into the carriage.

  “Mr. Martindale,” she returned, folding her hands on her lap as he climbed up into the driver’s position.

  There was silence while he negotiated the tricky exit from the property along the winding lane and through the stone pillars that demarcated the Leighton property. When the silence stretched as they rode along the well-kept road toward St. Mark-on-Locke, he glanced over at her. Tension was indicated in her stiff posture and rigidity.

  “My lady, I . . .” He faltered to silence, but then frowned and started over. “I would be sorely remiss if I did not tell you of the improvement I have seen in Angelica’s manners since she has been spending more time with you. I thank you for it. Her mother would be proud.”

  She was smiling when he stole another glance, and she chuckled. “You might not be so pleased with me if you knew her behavior was encouraged by selfish concerns. I told her that if one is polite, one is more likely to get what one wants from people.”

  He laughed out loud and it felt good. For the first time he noticed the long hedgerows that hemmed in the lane and the birds that jumped from limb to limb within them. A butterfly crossed their path. “Perhaps it will become a habit for her.”

  “That is my hope,” she said primly. She looked over at him. “You spoke of her mother. What was Mrs. Martindale like?”

  “Mary was the daughter of the man who took me into his business and taught me everything. I did not think of marriage at first, though . . . well, she later told me that she fell in love with me very quickly.” He rolled his shoulders, embarrassed by that confession and not sure why he made it. “She was intelligent, quick-witted, handsome, older than me by several years. Some called her stout, but she was a pretty woman and carried it well. I took her home once and I am afraid my father and brother hurt her deeply. They were insulting about her antecedents and behavior, which was forthright and honest, but not genteel. I have not been back since.”

  “I understand your anger at your family,” Lady Theresa said. “They should have been more kind. But shouldn’t Jacob and Angelica know their grandparents?”

  “My mother died before I married Mary. And my father . . . he would not understand about Jacob.”

  “You have fought many battles for your little boy. I honor that.”

  He cast a sideways glance at her, grateful for her forbearance and gentle reply. “You’re the first person I have allowed this close to the children who didn’t tell me what I should do about them. Everyone has an opinion. Most think I should send Jacob away and Angelica to a school.”

  “Of course Jacob should stay with you, and Angelica shouldn’t go to school yet unless she wants to. Do you truly know what she wants?”

  “To stay with me and Jacob.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “I remember what it was like to be sent off to school,” he said, grimly staring at the road ahead. They came out of the shade of the hedgerow into the sunshine.

  “You had a bad experience. But are you sure Angelica will not feel differently?”

  “What has she said to you?”

  “About school? Nothing. But I don’t think you should assume her feelings based on your own experiences.”

  “I have been doing that, haven’t I?”

  “Yes. It’s natural, I suppose, to see our children as extensions of ourselves, but they are such different creatures, aren’t they? I always marvel at how different children can be from their parents.”

  “What should I do?”

  “She’s an intelligent girl; I would just ask her, if I were you. But you must do what you think right.”

  He gazed over at her for a moment, still primly sitting, feet together, hands clasped. “You who have no children are very good with them. How is that?”

  She frowned and shook her head. “Before this I w
ould not have said I was especially good with children. I haven’t had much to do with them. But it seems to me that if you remember your own childhood you can deal with them very well.”

  “And you haven’t forgotten your own childhood.”

  “How could I? I had the best of mothers and fathers; it was a happy time.”

  “Tell me about your mother?”

  And she did for the half hour it took to go the rest of the way into town. He smiled at some of her tales and began to see how the daughter was a melding of the mysticism and delightful quirkiness of the mother and the solid, kindly goodness of the father. Her faults, he opined, were a tendency to interfere in people’s lives, and perhaps that she thought she knew best in most situations. But those could not be considered dire faults, could they?

  The village of St. Mark, he had noted on his previous visits, was laid out in a roughly triangular pattern, with a large village green in the center, where a well took pride of place. The Locke, a river that was sluggish in midsummer but from what he had heard turbulent and quick in spring, ran behind one row of shops. They passed over it, the fishy odor wafting up to them in the open phaeton, and entered the village.

  He noticed her tense as he drove the carriage into the yard of the Goose and Feather, but he thought nothing more of it when they strolled out to the first row of shops and he glanced around, orienting himself.

  “Ah, there is Mr. Dartelle’s office.”

  “But you are not going there yet,” she said. “Let us just stroll about the village. After all, if you do buy Meadowlark Mansion, you should know the village and its people.”

  “Why do you care if I buy Meadowlark or not?” he asked, taking her arm and strolling with her up one walk near a row of neat shops. He wasn’t sure why he asked, nor what he hoped she would say, but what she did say was a disappointment.

  “I just would like to see that house better cared for. An absentee landlord is never a good thing. Once the owner died and it passed into the hands of distant relatives, there was no one to care for the house. That’s a shame.”

  What had he expected her to say? he chastised himself. That she liked him and wanted him to stay? Absurd.

  They went to several shops and stopped at a tiny, quaint tea shop, where the proprietor, a Mrs. Smythe-Blessing, gave them personal service and watched them avidly from her chair in the corner.

  “Why is she staring at us?” he whispered to Lady Theresa.

  “Perhaps it is just that you are a very good-looking man!”

  He let out a great shout of laughter and realized that it was not the first time in her company that he had laughed so heartily. Before meeting her he couldn’t remember the last time he had laughed. “My lady, that is the most absurd thing I have ever heard.”

  She grinned. “Is it absurd that you are good-looking, or only that a woman of Mrs. Smythe-Blessing’s discrimination should find you so? I assure you, she has excellent taste.”

  He watched her eyes, the silvery light in them glittering with laughter. For one heart-stopping moment he realized with a sickening lurch that he would quite like to see that light and those eyes often, every day, even. His fault was a tendency to take life too seriously. The blows he had been dealt had left him cautious and serious. But in her presence he felt buoyed, like a weight was lifted from him.

  She shared his concerns and gladdened his heart.

  He pushed away such thoughts. He knew the differences in their station, and he knew that though eligible, his fortune and his name were tainted with the stain of trade. He was a cloth manufacturer and a merchant. It was a sobering thought.

  “Do you think we shall have rain soon?” he asked, sitting back in his chair and taking a sip of his tea. He damned himself for a cold-natured idiot as he saw the silvery light die in her eyes, but things were how they were. Better he did not start thinking of her in that way, as an important part of his daily life. Even aside from their differences in situation, he would likely kill that joyousness in her nature, as he had just killed her smile.

  “I think we shall. The clouds are building today,” she replied.

  They left the tea shop and continued their slow perambulation of the village, finally stopping at the butcher shop so he could thank Mrs. Butcher, Lady Theresa said, for the excellent preparation of the beef tongue he enjoyed so much.

  They climbed the three deeply grooved stone steps up to the shop; conversation stopped as they entered. Seven pairs of eyes were fixed upon them. He felt Lady Theresa tense and she took in a deep breath, as if she were preparing for battle. She fixed her attention on one woman, an older, stout lady dressed in black and gray.

  “Mrs. Greavely,” she said sweetly. “I would like to make known to you Mr. James Martindale.”

  “Mrs. Greavely,” he said, nodding to her. “Good day to you, ma’am.”

  Her stern manner thawed just a fraction and she said, “Good day, sir.”

  Tension broke in the butcher shop and Mr. Butcher himself came forward, wiping his hands on his apron and bowing obsequiously to James. They had an odd conversation about beef tongue and his preferences in meat cuts, something of which he rarely thought. He felt as though he had passed some test of which he was not even aware. Conversation resumed, though there was a great deal of whispering and pointing. He supposed he was a novelty in so small a village. He and his family had only been in residence a month or so. But he occasionally heard Jacob’s name and a sharply indrawn breath.

  The bell over the shop door rang loudly and an old man stumped in.

  “Mr. Gudge,” Mrs. Greavely said with a gasp. “I thought you were still laid up with a broken leg?”

  “I was until just a day ago.”

  The tiny shop was getting crowded, and James was just about to turn to leave when the old man caught his arm.

  “Say, you. You Mr. James Martindale?”

  “Mr. Gudge,” Lady Theresa said. “I was just about to introduce you. Mr. Martindale, this is Albert Gudge; he used to be my father’s game master, but Papa pensioned him when his . . . uh, heart began to give him trouble.”

  “You mean I began to drink too much and became a danger carrying a gun,” the old man said.

  The lady’s eyes widened and she fell silent.

  Gudge turned to James. “Sir, milady visited me with that boy o’ yourn. I broke m’leg and had no will to get up outta my chair afore that, but that boy o’ yourn . . . he’s a special lad. We sat an’ we carved, an’ he . . .” He broke off and swiped a hint of moisture out of his eye. “I like ’im,” he said loudly, looking around the shop as if daring anyone to contradict him. “He be a special lad.”

  Stunned and touched, James took the old man’s outstretched hand. “Are you responsible for that interesting carving he gave me last night, then, the tree with the woodland creatures?”

  “Not responsible. Just handed him a knife an’ a block o’ wood, and he done it.”

  “He did that himself?”

  “He did. Natural genius with a block o’ wood is that boy. If I might, I would like Lady Theresa to bring him again. Or . . . if you had a mind to visit an old man . . .” He trailed off and looked embarrassed. He ducked his head and touched his cap, then scuttled out, throwing one last glance and word over his shoulder. “Lady T., you bring that there boy any time you’re of a mind.”

  Babbling conversation broke out in the clean, white-painted shop.

  “He was sober. I don’t think I’ve seen Albert Gudge sober in . . .”

  “His leg was just fine. He limped, but it has healed, and I thought he was an invalid for life . . .”

  “It’s that boy, it’s that Jacob Martindale. I heard this morning that Harriet Parsifal has just inherited over two hundred pounds—can you imagine?—and she didn’t even know it was coming! And that after a visit from the boy!”

  Lady Theresa took James’s arm and bustled him out of the shop while his brain whirled with the things he had heard, the babbling gossip, some of it involving h
is son, it seemed.

  “Lady Theresa, what is going on? What was that all about?”

  “Just village gossip,” she said feverishly, guiding him toward Mr. Dartelle’s office.

  He grasped her arm, stopping her. “What is going on?”

  She stopped then and drew herself up. She was tall, eye to eye with him. “Why, nothing at all, Mr. Martindale. Folks are just surprised to see Mr. Gudge looking so good. He broke his leg in a fall some time ago and has not been able to walk since.” She shrugged and repeated, “People are just surprised.”

  He had to be satisfied with that and allowed her to guide him to Dartelle’s office, where he had business to conduct.

  “I will meet you at the livery stable, sir. I think we have done enough . . . uh . . . well, I think you have met enough of the villagers for now.”

  Her color was high and he was suspicious, but he could not imagine what she would be hiding.

  Dartelle was a portly, prosperous-looking man in his late forties. His hair was thinning on top and his chins were multiplying, but for all that he was pleasant-looking. He greeted James with a vigorous handshake and they got down to business. When it was accomplished, James frowned and sat back in his chair.

  “Mr. Dartelle, I have just come from meeting some of the villagers.”

  “May I hope that you will be thinking of offering for Meadowlark Mansion? Did they make you feel welcome in our village?”

  “Yees,” James said, drawing it out, doubt lingering as to what his recent experience really meant. “Do you know a Mrs. Harriet Parsifal?”

  “The widow Parsifal; indeed I do.” He sat back in his chair, resting his hands on his paunch and steepling his fingers. A stray beam of sunlight in the dim office glanced off his balding pate.

  “Did she recently come into an unexpected inheritance?”

  “She came into an inheritance,” he said cautiously. “But it was hardly unexpected. She has known about it for some time, but she is not one to talk, you know. How, if I may ask, did you come to know about it?”