by Rose Lerner
“What is it, Penelope?”
“Mr. Garrett arrived today.”
“I know.”
“I invited him to eat with us, and he refused.”
“I know,” Nev said again, ignoring his hurt at the reminder.
“I wish you could at least be polite to him, Nev. It’s not going to be easy for him here.”
“What do you mean?”
“I talked to Molly just now and asked what the talk about him was below stairs. She says people weren’t very kind to him at supper.”
Nev stiffened. “It’s not very clever of them to insult a man who is, for all practical purposes, their employer.”
“You’re their employer, Nev. And somehow they all know the two of you have quarreled.”
“I certainly shall not impede him in the discharge of his duties,” he said sharply. “If he wants to sack the lot of them, he will have nothing but my approval.”
She smiled at him. “It would not be a very auspicious beginning. Apparently the elder Mr. Garrett was very much beloved, and the talk is that Mr. Garrett broke his parents’ heart, running wild and never coming home, making a living at cards, and corrupting you in the process.” She toyed with her brush. “Was he a bad influence, like they all say? Like your mother said? Is that why you don’t wish to speak to him? You said he wouldn’t cheat us, that he could do the job-”
He could have said yes, and Penelope might even have approved of his fortitude and firmness of purpose. But he couldn’t do it. “My mother was talking rot. He wasn’t a bad influence. And he can do the job, and he won’t cheat us.”
“But then why-”
“Because I have to be respectable now, Penelope! Because I have to be a responsible landlord and a responsible guardian to Louisa! And I don’t know how to do that, but I sure as fire can’t do it by idling away my time with my disreputable friends. You asked me to promise not to leave you here while I went gallivanting about, remember? You asked me to promise not to be a spendthrift. I’ve never spent five minutes in Percy and Thirkell’s company without being tempted to gallivant off somewhere and buy something. My friends and I did nothing but drink, gamble, and-” Attend the theater. Fence. Talk. They had done everything together.
“But Mr. Garrett is not a professional gambler anymore,” she protested. “He is your steward.”
He looked at Penelope’s worried face and his resolve hardened. “My father was always out with his friends-drinking, gaming, whoring. ‘At my club,’ he always said. ‘I’ll be at my club.’ We all knew what that meant.” Nev remembered his mother with tears in her eyes, saying, I didn’t want to marry him, but after twenty-five years-She had been a wreck, mourning a man she had never loved and who had never been there when she needed him.
“I don’t want to be like that,” he said. “Percy and Thirkell have good hearts, but they aren’t suitable friends for me now. I mean to take care of my family, not spend my time in idle pursuits.”
She smiled at him uncertainly and pressed his hand.
The next morning after breakfast, Penelope went to Captain Trelawney’s office, attended by Molly. How different it looked now! Trelawney, she realized, must have forbidden the maids the room, because the dust, clutter, and smell of spilled claret had disappeared along with his pipe, pictures, and other effects. The windows were clean. Molly went to one and sat down with her pile of mending.
Mr. Garrett had cleared the desk and was occupied in organizing the shelves. A neat pile of new books lay beside him, evidently those he had brought with him from London; but it was an older, much-used book that engaged his attention. He stood turning it over in his hands, regarding it with an expression in which wonder and resignation were curiously mingled. When he heard Penelope enter, however, his face went blank. “Good morning, Lady Bedlow. How do you do?”
“Very well, thank you. And yourself?”
“It is kind of you to inquire,” he said. She did not think he meant it. “I am in excellent health.”
“What-what book is that?”
He looked at it impatiently, as if he wished he had put it down before she could see it. “It is Mr. Young’s Farmer’s Tour through the East of England. It was my father’s.”
“Was he fond of it?”
“Very. He revered Arthur Young second only to Mr. Coke.”
“You must take the book, if you wish-do you wish?” Penelope hoped he wouldn’t take offense. But he had looked at it so intently.
“Not particularly. But I suppose that, like this office, it is mine now.” He looked around at the neat little room as though surveying a prison.
“Sometimes I think that is how Nev feels about Loweston.” At once she wished she had not mentioned Nev. It was bound to make things awkward-more awkward.
He regarded her sharply. “And how do you feel about Loweston, Lady Bedlow?”
She was startled. “I-I don’t know. I suppose the same, but-I did not inherit it. It is not my home. I think I would feel differently about my father’s business.” Never say ‘brewery.’ She had drilled that into herself for years.
“Of course, the brewery makes more money.”
She was silent, trying not to let him see the sting. It was no more than she deserved.
“I beg your pardon,” he said. “You said you had some questions about the estate?”
He only raised his eyebrows a little when he saw her list, and answered all her questions patiently. At times, explaining something that interested them both, he even seemed to forget that he disliked her. Emboldened, she brought forth her list of possible economies. He agreed with the first few items-cheaper and fewer candles, less beef and pork and more game, hot bricks and water bottles instead of fires.
“I don’t wish to let anyone go who might have trouble finding another position,” she said, “but our French chef is talented enough to find another position with ease. If we hired an ordinary cook to replace him, that would save us at least a hundred pounds a year.”
He glanced at her uneasily. “You are certainly correct. But Lord Bedlow is very fond of Gaston. We used to practice our French with him. And Gaston told me last night at supper that Lady Louisa had been by to beg some brioche from him and hear how he did.”
“Oh!” Penelope was abashed. “Then of course we shall keep him. Thank you for informing me.”
He laid down the paper then. “I thought you did not intend to see Loweston ruined for Lord Bedlow’s sensibilities.”
She felt herself flushing. “I am deeply ashamed of my behavior on the occasion of your interview,” she began firmly-and then started to babble. “The truth is that I had quarreled with a-friend of my own on the occasion of my marriage, and it was a source of much pain to me. I thought-it little matters what I thought. I do not make excuses. I have landed us all in an exceedingly awkward situation. I can only apologize for the insults you have suffered-I did not expect-”
He was looking at her in astonishment, as well he might after such a confused speech. “Do you mean to tell me that you carried on like that because you wanted to make it up between me and Nev?”
She nodded, conscious of how foolish she must look.
“Does Nev know that?”
She shook her head. “He would only say I had no right to act as I did. It would seem like asking to be thanked for a piece of impertinence.”
Mr. Garrett seemed bereft of speech.
“I really am sorry for your part in this. I did not think he would be so”-she searched for a word that would not be disloyal-“constant in his determination.”
Mr. Garrett sighed. “When Nev does a thing, he does it with his whole heart. He does not know a middle road between Spartan restraint and hedonism.”
“But moderation in all things is the most rational mode of existence.”
He said something in a language she did not recognize, and laughed rather unhappily. “I studied Greek, and I agree with you. But Nev prefers Latin, and besides, one cannot always be rational.” Aft
er that they were more in charity.
In the weeks that followed, Penelope found herself spending more and more time in the little office going through the books and drawing up budgets and plans. Things seemed manageable there. They were making progress, and there were no tenants or hungry children or husbands around to confuse her. One day she and Mr. Garrett were in the middle of reading about Coke’s introduction of Southdown sheep when it was time for dinner. Penelope could not quite bear to exchange the comfortable amity of business for sitting awkwardly with Nev, wondering what he was thinking and if his hand would brush hers when he reached for the salt. Mr. Garrett raised his eyebrows when she rang for a tray, but he didn’t send her away.
Nev did not say anything that night about missing her at dinner; she was drearily conscious that she had partly stayed away in hopes that he would, and that she had got what she deserved. She worked through dinner a second time, and a third; once Lady Louisa joined her and Mr. Garrett. Penelope was glad of it; she did not think Nev’s sister was happy to be always in Lady Bedlow’s company. And Penelope liked hearing Mr. Garrett and her sister-in-law talk of their childhoods. Nev, it was plain, had been a charming child and a devoted brother.
Nev was bored. Penelope never had time for him anymore now that Percy was here. The woman he had married to save Loweston and the friend he had given up for the same reason were closeted in that office at all hours, going over figures and making lists and doing all the things that came so naturally to them and only gave him a headache. He could not help feeling that his noble sacrifices in the name of duty were not appreciated and was well aware of how petty that was.
He missed her, but it did not occur to him to be jealous until his mother dropped in one morning. After she had eaten a large quantity of brioche, complained about the inferior quality of her current cook, and boasted that Sir Jasper had called no less than twice last week and paid Louisa a flattering amount of attention, she finally thought to ask after Penelope.
“She is doing very well,” Nev said. “I’ll ask her to join us if you like. She is probably with Percy in his office; they are always working. I never see her anymore.”
Lady Bedlow smiled at him. “No, it is nice to have you all to myself.”
He smiled back, warmed that there was someone who was glad of his company, and that was when she said it:
“I suppose it is only natural that Penelope should feel more comfortable with Percy-he is a gentleman, of course, but still he is so much nearer her own class.”
Nev had told himself that Penelope stayed away from dinner because she was busy. He had not thought-had not allowed himself to think-that perhaps she had stayed away because she preferred Percy’s company to his. Was his mother right? He remembered all the awkwardness and difficulties and compromises that had plagued his and Percy’s friendship; did Penelope feel free of all that with Percy? Did she share an instinctive understanding with him that she could never have with Nev?
He did not think for a moment that Penelope would betray him. She was too honest-and, he admitted, too puritanical-for that. He did not even think she would be consciously disloyal in her thoughts. But she’d never been in love, he was sure; if she had loved Edward she would never have married Nev. And she had been so ignorant of passion and surprised by her own desire. It was plain enough that Nev himself was not the sort of man she could wholeheartedly admire. She might not recognize the symptoms.
“Is something wrong, Nate?” Lady Bedlow asked. “You look as if you just swallowed a toad.”
“No, no, I’m fine.” He took a hasty gulp of tea and choked.
She smiled mischievously. “Of course, I know exactly what you look like when you’ve swallowed a toad. Do you remember? You were six, and it was a very small toad…”
When his mother had taken her leave, Nev rode to the home farm and spent the rest of the day working in the fields alongside the men. After eight hours of hard labor in the hot sun, he felt sore but sated, drained of anger and jealousy by exhaustion. He was almost content-although his satisfaction was marred by the sight of the men’s dinner. A little oat bread and water was all most of them had. Nev, eating bread and bacon and beer with the foreman, had felt positively decadent.
Still, they had seemed friendlier than before. He knew their names now, and the harvest, while not abundant, was respectable.
Nev was so tired that he hardly even missed Penelope. So tired that when he came home, he was able to take off his clothes and fall into bed without looking at the door between their rooms more than, oh, two or three hundred times.
So tired that he thought for certain she would be in Percy’s office for hours already by the time he made it to the breakfast room in the morning, wincing all the way down the stairs and so hungry he hadn’t even bothered to bathe first. Evidently fencing and boxing took a different, lesser, set of muscles than laboring with heavy tools all day.
But there she was, looking fresh and anxious and maybe as if she’d lingered in the breakfast room in the hopes of seeing him. His heart clenched. “Good morning.”
“Good morning. Did-did you sleep well?” She didn’t look at him when she asked, and he felt suddenly guilty about not going to her room last night.
“Like the dead. And you?”
Her face fell; perhaps that hadn’t been the most tactful response. “Oh, tolerably well. You look sunburned. Does it hurt?”
He shrugged, realizing why his face felt hot as fire. Wonderful. She looked fresh as a daisy and he was lobster red and smelled like manure.
She smiled weakly. “I’ve some good news. My mother’s offered to buy us new furniture.”
So that was why she’d been waiting for him. She needed to talk business, and her parents wanted to give them something.
Nev had felt low enough, borrowing money from his father-in-law two weeks after the wedding. Worse, Penelope had done the asking; Nev had only been able to thank Mr. Brown inarticulately later and had felt the full force of his father-in-law’s disapproval. And now this-Penelope might be kind and not reproach him, but the Browns must know damn well what a poor bargain she had made. He wanted so badly to make a go of this, to make a home for Penelope out of his own money, rents he had collected and corn he had sold. He wanted to be what she needed, and he wasn’t.
She saw his face. “We needn’t accept it if you’d rather not! I assure you, I never asked them-I only told Mama how Lady Bedlow had taken a deal of the furniture with her-”
Nev closed his eyes.
“Oh, Nev,” Penelope sighed. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t trying to make your family look bad-I knew Mama would think it was funny, that’s all. And when I got her reply, I thought you might like to have a new dressing table. Here, if you don’t want to, I’ll write back this instant and tell her no.” She stood up as if to suit actions to words.
Nev looked around the breakfast room; he remembered it from when Lady Bedlow had first redecorated it, when he’d been a little boy. It had been elegant and feminine and lovely, his mother’s touch evident in every inch of it. Now the furniture was a jumble of light and dark wood, baroque and rococo and heavy Elizabethan-whatever Penelope could take from the guest rooms. There were darker patches on the walls where she hadn’t found a picture the right size to replace the ones that were missing. He looked at Penelope, who wanted to be a lady. Who knew when they would be able to spare the few hundred pounds for new furniture? “Of course I don’t mind. Thank your parents for me.”
She smiled gratefully at him. “I will. What kind of furniture would you like to have?”
“I don’t know.” On impulse he put an arm around her waist and pulled her to lean against him. “The Chinese style is all the rage now, isn’t it? We could have everything with gilt and dragons and bamboo.”
Penelope laughed, and he felt it where she curved against his side. “No one would believe that you picked it. They’d all say it must have been your vulgar Cit wife.”
“You’d look splendid in a dark blue
kimono embroidered all over with golden dragons, and chrysanthemums in your hair.”
“Kimonos are Japanese.” But there was a smile in her voice, and she turned her head and let him kiss her.
He was already wondering whether she would let him make up for last night when she pulled away. “Nev, is that-have you been in the stables?”
Oh, Lord, he must be disgusting. “I-I’d better go and bathe,” he said hastily.
“All right. Oh, and Nev, one more thing-Mama asks a favor, and we really can say no-there’s a woman who works at the brewery, whom Mama knew when she was younger, and the woman’s daughter has-” Penelope looked away uncomfortably; Nev was bemused at how charming he had begun to find prudery. “Well, she was with child, and she didn’t want it, so she took something. And now she’s very ill, and her mother is desperate. The doctors are saying that clean air might save her. And Mama doesn’t know anyone else with a place in the country-she wants to know if we have an empty cottage, or if we can board her with someone. She says she’ll pay for it. I know it’s a lot to ask, Nev, but I can’t help feeling it’s our Christian duty.”
Nev nodded. “Poor girl. By all means have them send her up, if she can travel. I’m sure we can find someone who’d jump at the chance to make a little extra money by looking after her.”
“Thank you, Nev,” she said, as if he were doing her a favor, when it was her parents who were showering him with largesse.
The next three days passed by in a blur. The Baileys were eager to help Mrs. Brown’s charity case; Mr. Bailey’s broken leg was taking its time in mending, and the family desperately needed the money. They could spare a bed, and their children were old enough not to trouble an invalid. Penelope gave them a small advance to clean the cottage and wash the sheets and buy enough fuel so that they could heat water and make tea for the sick girl whenever they liked, instead of paying a ha’penny to a neighbor for the use of their fire, as Penelope had noticed the Cushers did.
On the fourth day the girl arrived from town, accompanied by a nurse who had made the journey with her and would be going back to London as soon as she had entrusted her patient to Mrs. Bailey’s care. Penelope and Nev went to see her settled in and to make sure that the Baileys had everything they needed. Penelope didn’t expect it to take long.