by Carla Kelly
Onyx did as she was bidden, removing her bonnet and setting it carefully on the table. The mention of Wellington's army reminded her of Gerald. She wished with her whole heart that he were here. She sat in silence, looking into the fireplace.
“Well,” she said at last, “this place will not clean itself. Perhaps you can find me another apron, dear Alice. If we clean up one bedroom first, at least we'll have a place to put our belongings.” She stood up, careful not to disturb the ashes from many fires that lay about the tiled floor. “Oh, do you think Lady Bagshott will send someone to help us?”
“Not in our lifetime,” was Alice's reply.
By the time the underfootman arrived, puffing and bug-eyed, with their luggage, Onyx and Alice had swept the floor of the main bedchamber. Onyx had to admit that her shabby trunk, somewhat dented from its disaster on the highway, looked right at home against the tattered and water-stained wallpaper. She found her oldest dress and put it on, mindful that the wrinkles didn't really matter. There was no one to impress. The thought reminded her of Jack Beresford, and she winced in spite of herself.
Onyx was descending the stairs, treading carefully, listening to the creak and groan of each step and wondering at what instant the stairs would part company with the peeling walls, when someone tapped op the doorframe.
“Yes?” she called.
A youngish woman poked her head in the front door, which still stood open. “Miss Hamilton?”
Onyx hurried down the stairs. “Yes?”
The servant curtsied. “I've been sent to help you clean.”
Onyx sighed with relief. “There will be plenty for you to do, as soon as we can find where things are.”
“Oh, miss, that's easy. My mother was cook here, and I was born on the property. My name is Daisy.”
“Daisy, you are welcome indeed.”
With only a moment to reflect, Daisy located the cleaning equipment in the closet under the servants’ stairs and started on the kitchen. Alice Banner watched her, nodded, and then took pencil and paper from an open drawer and handed it to her charge. “Here, Onyx, you had better be the one to take inventory. Write down what is in good repair and what needs to be fixed.”
“I'm not sure there is enough paper, Alice,” she replied.
She started for the stairs and then turned back to Daisy. “I will certainly have to thank Lady Bagshott for sending you to us.”
Daisy laughed and then put her hand over her mouth, looking around her. “Oh, miss, it wasn't her ladyship! It was that man, that man upstairs, the one with the wounded arm.”
“Oh, no,” said Onyx under her breath.
“Oh, yes, ma'am! I was cleaning out the ashes in his grate when he told me to come to the vicarage. Said he would make it right with Lady Bagshott. And then he gave me such a wink.” She giggled.
I know that wink, Onyx thought. The man thinks he can get anything he wants by winking. Her innate honesty won out over her momentary pique. Well, he can, drat his hide.
“Then I must … you must … tell him how grateful I … we are,” Onyx finished in a rush. She could not understand why she should be standing there blushing in front of the maid.
The inventory, a document boding to be even more complex than William the Conqueror's Doomsday Book, was only partly finished when the sun disappeared from the sky. Onyx straightened up from counting lacerated sheets and mothy towels and went down the stairs.
The little parlor with the pianoforte was swept clean and well dusted. The ashes were gone from the fireplace, and Alice was just removing the last of the sun-faded draperies from the window.
“Daisy says these can be washed and mended,” Alice commented from her perch on the ladder.
“I am sure she is right.”
The piano was a magnet that drew Onyx across the room, even when she thought she was too tired to take another step. She approached it and ran her fingers gently across the keys, barely touching them. She did not want to press down hard enough to make a sound. The piano was so badly out of tune that she could not bear it. But at least the wood of the instrument glowed now, following the application of a dust rag and several coats of polish.
“The kitchen is in order,” Alice continued briskly as she climbed down the ladder and handed the curtain to Onyx. “Daisy seems to think that we will be able to stock it tomorrow and then we can take our meals here.”
“If we can find a cook equal to that monstrous fireplace,” said Onyx. “Whatever will we pay her?”
Alice had no answer. She merely shook her head and pulled the ladder away from the window.
When they had changed clothes and shaken all the dust from their hair and shoes, Onyx and Alice started back across the lawn. The air smelled of late-spring flowers and newly cropped grass. Onyx breathed deeply. “How nice not to smell mildew and bat soil,” she declared.
Alice snorted. “I can't imagine what the Reverend Littletree had in mind to have you do this.”
“I am sure he had no notion how great was the state of disrepair,” was Onyx's quiet reply. “Hush, Alice. We can listen to the birds singing.”
Her head throbbed, and she longed for a soaking bath and the comfort of clean sheets. The birds reminded her that it was summer, and she stood still long enough to enjoy the little pleasure, wondering, as she did so, why she was poised so precariously on the edge of tears. It was more than the emotion felt in the beauty of an early summer night; it was something else she had never felt before, but she was too tired to question it.
Lady Bagshott's butler informed them that her ladyship was enjoying dinner at a neighboring residence and that dinner trays had been prepared for them in their respective rooms. Onyx thanked him, said good night to Alice, and climbed the stairs.
She paused at the top, turned, and sat down on the top step, her chin cupped in her hands. With tired eyes she noted how clean and straight was the wallpaper, how well polished the sconces with their neat little beeswax candles. She closed her eyes.
“Onyx, do you make a habit of sitting on stairs?”
She wasn't even startled. “Why, yes, I do, Major,” she replied, not looking around. “In Sir Matthew's house I spent many evenings watching guests coming and going. They didn't see me because I was at the top of the stairs.”
She stood up and continued up the stairs, wondering where he was. She grew more accustomed to the darkness and saw the major sitting in a chair outside his room. He looked so exhausted that her own discomfort vanished.
“What are you doing there, sir?” she asked.
“Waiting for you,” was his brief reply.
She could tell by his clipped words that his arm was paining him. “Well, I wish you would go to bed.”
“I wanted to see you first,” he replied, and then paused a moment. “I want to apologize.”
“There's no need, Major,” she answered, and there wasn't. A day spent cleaning her future home had cleared her mind of any cobwebs. If even for a moment she had harbored any pretensions about her position in this household or any other, they were gone now, swept away. She was Onyx Hamilton again, shadowy nondaughter of Lady Marjorie Daggett. The heroine of the highway, the ministering angel, was gone now. I'm sure that in a month or two, I won't even remember this adventure at all, she thought as she looked at Jack Beresford and then reached out for him.
“Come on, sir. You're tired and have no business sitting here,” she scolded gently. “Just lean on me. I'll help you.”
She got the major to his feet, and he draped his arm across her shoulders. Her arm went around his waist, and she could feel his ribs.
“You're too thin, you know, for your size,” she said.
“It's a thin war, Onyx. They'll feed me when I get home.”
He said the word home with so much longing that she felt tears starting in her eyes again. She helped him to his bed, made sure the covers were up around his shoulders, and took a look at the fire glowing in the grate.
She was mindful of his eyes o
n her the whole time she moved about the room, closing the window against the breeze that had come up, making sure the curtains were drawn, and that there was water in the crystal carafe by the bedside.
Onyx hesitated and then put her hand on the major's forehead. “You have the fever again,” she said. “Oh, I wish you did not.”
“That is the wish of us both, then. No fever powders, though. I'll manage.”
“I never doubted that you would, sir,” she said formally.
“I wrote, or rather, Lady Bagshott wrote to Sherbourn today. She dispatched Private Petrie with the letter. I expect I will have clothes that fit me soon. I do grow weary of Mr. Millstead's nightgown.”
His eyes were closing. “I am sorry, Onyx,” he said. “I didn't mean to lead you on, truly I did not, but when you told me how it was for you in your house when anyone of any particular distinction came to visit, I was … afraid you would not …” His voice grew quieter. “ … like me anymore.”
She didn't know what to say. She blew out the candle by the bed. “Go to sleep, Major,” she said.
“I wish you would call me Jack again,” he said.
“I think not, sir,” she replied, feeling again those absurd tears and grateful for the darkness.
“Can we be friends at least?” he asked. His voice was slow and thick, and she knew he was close to sleep.
“Yes. Surely we can be friends.”
She could not trust herself to say more. She quietly closed the door behind her.
In the middle of the night, Onyx heard Jack Beresford talking out loud, commanding his soldiers. She woke up, tears on her face, but she did not go to him. In another moment he had wakened himself, and the talking ceased. She lay back down, drew herself into a little ball, and let sleep overtake her again.
NYX FELT MORE CHARITABLE TOWARD MAJOR Beresford in the morning. Dressing quickly, she pulled her long hair back in a simple chignon at the nape of her neck. She stepped into the dress she had laid carefully across the end of the bed and buttoned it. All her other clothes were at the vicarage. Indeed, she had planned to return there the night before, but when she finished eating in her room, she lay down on the bed just to rest a moment. Other than her brief awakening in the middle of the night when the major started to talk in the room next door, she had slept soundly.
Onyx grabbed up her shawl and left the room. Without giving Jack Beresford the chance to call to her, she knocked on his door.
“Come in, Onyx,” he said.
She opened the door. The major was sitting up in bed with the remains of a breakfast tray still across his lap. She removed it without a word and then opened the curtains. Sunlight streamed in. The warmth made her sigh with pleasure.
“A beautiful day, Major,” she said.
“Now it is,” he replied. “You came in.”
She ignored his flattery, chiding herself for the way her heart thumped at his words. How singular, she thought. Hearts don't thump. I must be experiencing a moment's indigestion. She made a mental note to mix herself some soda and water that evening.
“Is it so awful at the vicarage?” he asked.
She laughed. “It is dreadful! But imagine, Jack, there is a piano-forte! It is something I never expected. It is fearsomely out of tune, but I am assembling a list of things that need to be done about the place, and a piano tuner is high on the list.”
“Bravo, Onyx,” he murmured.
She curtsied to him playfully and enjoyed the sound of his laughter.
“Oh, and I should thank you … for Daisy,” she said, her hand on the doorknob.
“Will that work out?”
“Oh, yes. How did you ever convince that … Lady Bagshott that we needed help?”
Beresford hitched himself up higher and leaned back against his pillows. “Nothing simpler. After all, I have been watching you manage the redoubtable vicar, so I merely employed your tactics.”
“Wretch!”
“Call me what you will. I am a fast learner,” he responded virtuously, but not without a twinkle in his brown eyes. “I waited until Lady Bagshott and the doctor were in my room, and then remarked to her how kind, how truly Christian, she was to approve of Daisy's going to the vicarage.” He smiled broadly. “What could she do? Deny it? Embarrass herself in front of the good doctor—who, by the way, tells me that you are an excellent nurse. Oh, no. She bowed and smiled. The only thing I did not do was fling myself upon her chest, which I recall worked quite well with the vicar.”
She blushed and he laughed again, throwing his head back and letting the laughter ring in the room. “Onyx, you're good for me,” he said.
“You, sir, are incorrigible.”
“So, Miss Hamilton, are you. We are a pair of rogues. Now, get along and finish that inventory. Daisy stopped in earlier this morning to inform me that she might have found you a cook.”
Daisy had certainly found a cook.
“Miss Hamilton, this is my mother,” she said when Onyx reached the house and let herself in by the kitchen entrance. “My mother, Mrs. Sable. She's a bit troubled by the joint ache, and Lady Bagshott pensioned her off.”
“But I am bored, miss,” stated Mrs. Sable. “When Daisy tells me what's what here in the vicarage, nothing will do but I come down here myself. After all, this was used to be my kitchen.” She looked around defiantly. “I'd like to see another work that fireplace! Plain food, Miss Hamilton, plain food is what I cook.” She looked over her shoulder in the general direction of Chalcott. “Plain food what was good enough until Lady Bagshott went off to London and got some airs and polish and a French cook. French!” She spit out the word as though it tasted bad on her tongue. “Plain food, that's all.”
Onyx took both of Mrs. Sable's hands in her own.
“That is precisely what we will be wanting here. The Reverend Littletree has a dyspeptic nature. I am not sure that a French cook would be at all to his liking. I'd be pleased if you would join us.” She paused and her face reddened. “I … don't know what I'll be able to pay you … at least, not until I am married later this summer and I am provided with a household allowance.”
Mrs. Sable freed her hand and waved it. “Don't be fretting! I have no needs that won't keep. Look, at it this way, miss. You've saved me from boredom.”
Jack must have been working further miracles. All morning, a stream of footmen and underhousemaids carted staples and dishes to the kitchen. Mrs. Sable, holding court at the head of the kitchen table, examined each dish. “Cast-offs and Gypsy-mended pans,” she sniffed. “But what can you expect when a Frenchman governs the kitchen?” She glared about her as if expecting to see French chefs in every cubbyhole. “The enemy!”
The vicarage inventory was complete after dinner—a simple roast chicken removed with sole—was a dim and satisfying memory to Onyx and Alice. When they had finally forced themselves away from Mrs. Sable's “plain food, just plain food,” they had continued the inventory. Onyx covered several pages with her neat script. She handed the list to Alice finally, who perused it, frowning all the while, and then handed it back.
“I wish you good fortune in convincing Lady Bagshott to agree to anything beyond the roof repair and new wallpaper, and I wouldn't hold my breath on the wallpaper,” she said.
They slept together in the big bed in the main upstairs chamber. The mattress sagged in the middle.
“Daisy tells me that the last vicar was a bucket of guts,” Alice said as they struggled to keep from rolling together in the middle.
“Alice!”
“Why else would this old bed sag so alarmingly?” Alice retorted. “Put a new mattress on your list tomorrow.”
Onyx was awakened toward morning to the sound of thunder and then cold rain on her face. She burrowed under the covers; but the sound of dripping water came at her from all sides. She poked Alice awake, and they draped themselves in blankets and went trailing downstairs to the parlor, where they listened to rainwater running down the walls and waited for morning.
&
nbsp; The storm stopped by midmorning. Before the rainbow had faded from the sky, Onyx presented herself in Chalcott. Jenner, the butler, bowed her into the house, raising his eyebrows at the wet hem of her dress.
“Lady Bagshott?” he asked in quelling tones.
Onyx nodded; Jenner looked so clean, pressed, and starched. She was painfully aware that her dress was wet, and her stockings splashed with mud, but she pulled her shawl tighter around her and clutched the inventory.
“Bookroom, miss,” he said, striding toward the back of the house as she hurried to keep up with him.
Lady Bagshott sat behind a heavily carved desk, her accounts spread before her. She looked up when Onyx entered, and then sighed and held out her hand. “The inventory, I suppose?”
Onyx nodded and handed it over. Even as it left her hands, she knew that it was too long. She wanted to snatch it back, run away, and take another look at it, but Lady Bagshott had snapped open the document. She said nothing as she perused the document, only pausing every now and then to fix Onyx with her eagle's stare, rumble deep in her throat, and continue her journey down the document.
The door opened. Lady Bagshott looked up and nodded to Major Beresford, who came in and sat down.
He was dressed at last in clothes that fit him, the elegant but definitely casual buckskins, high-top boots, and unruffled shirt of a country gentleman. His hair had been cut and he was clean-shaven again, smelling faintly of bay rum.
“These garments came from Sherbourn by morning post,” he said. “I couldn't get my coat on over the bandage,” he whispered to Onyx. “I'm a trifle old-fashioned, it is true, but my tailor refused to come to Spain with me for four years; so here you are.”
“Hush, Jack,” bellowed Lady Bagshott. “How can I think when you are carrying on in that rackety way?”
“Beg pardon,” he replied and winked at Onyx.
She scarcely noticed. Her eyes were drawn again to Lady Bagshott, who continued her stately way down the inventory. The rumblings in her throat grew louder. Onyx felt the blood drain from her face as Lady Bagshott picked up her pencil and began to mark heavily through several items, muttering something under her breath.