Indeed, Rowena was exhausted. For the first time since her arrival at Broak months before, it was Miss Cherwood who was taken to her room by her mistress and ordered to sleep.
o0o
With Rowena gone from the drawing room, a slight edge of Mrs. Cherwood’s triumph was gone, and she became a little less strident. Only a little less. Lyn, Lord Bradwell, and Ulysses Ambercot had withdrawn from the room, and Jane and Margaret deliberately set themselves up in a conversation on neighborhood charity that was so unexceptionable that Mrs. Cherwood could not object, and so uninteresting that Eliza had no inclination to join in. The two outcasts of the party, completely unaware of their ostracism, continued together, talking of bonnets, town scandal, and finally, deliciously, of the romances at Broak.
“Of course I shall be delighted to have Dearest Margaret for my sister,” Eliza gushed. “Lully is simply ears over heels in love with her.”
“Such an affecting sight,” Mrs. Cherwood agreed sentimentally. “And your sister and Lord Bradwell make a — a striking couple, do not they?”
“O yes, although I have never much cared for Janie’s sort of looks. But Lord Bradwell does well enough, particularly in evening dress. What a shame he can talk of nothing but shooting and horses!”
“But what of you, my dear?” Mrs. Cherwood asked archly. “Haven’t you a young suitor hidden about?” She made a show of looking around the room, to be rewarded only by the sight of Margaret and Jane deep in conversation, and Mrs. Ambercot nodding slightly over her writing case. She rapped Eliza’s knuckles coyly, painfully, with her fan. “Ah, you young things! I’ll wager there are a half-dozen beaux quite mad for you!”
Eliza blushed, looked gratified. “Well, one or two, ma’am,” she managed to say modestly. “But they’re all such boys. And since I’ve returned from Tunbridge I find I simply have no patience with boys.” She assumed a tone becoming a forty-year-old matron in its weary sophistication. Mrs. Cherwood seemed to find nothing amiss in being so addressed by a chit of eighteen, however.
“How true. Ah, my dear Miss Eliza, is there no one?” On an inspiration she turned to regard the door through which the gentlemen had vanished some fifteen minutes before. “Perhaps a neighbor? Soon to be related by marriage, perhaps?” Mrs. Cherwood was rewarded for this piece of guessing by a conscious blush from Eliza. “Well, then, my dear, surely that man is lost! Such a pretty thing as you are —” With Margaret settled, there was no reason not to be generous, Dorothea Cherwood reasoned. “So I see that this house party really is complete! Three couples, three marriages. Why, I declare it is like something on the stage.”
“But Miss Cherwood, that is, Miss Rowena Cherwood, doesn’t have — I mean...” Eliza faltered, afraid to say too much to someone who was, after all, Rowena’s aunt.
“O, Rowena,” Mrs. Cherwood scoffed. “She’s past her prayers, that one. Completely her fault, too, since I had lined up the most advantageous match for her! What must she do but go and hire herself out as a servant. Not that the Bradwells are not everything that is genteel and agreeable, of course.” Her tone made Rowena’s degradation entirely her own fault.
“Of course.” Eliza smiled, sensing a comrade.
“Sorry as I feel for Rowena, I have very little patience with her. She wanted to go into service, and that is the life she has made for herself. After all, what sort of man will want her now? And she is no longer young, although I will admit that she has kept her looks for a remarkably long time.”
Eliza had an inspiration so breathtaking she was almost afraid to voice it. Could she enlist Mrs. Cherwood — Margaret’s mother, Rowena’s aunt, what could be more appropriate! — in her plans for Lyndon Bradwell’s attachment? It required, first of all, that Rowena Cherwood be settled elsewhere, and short of taking the veil, marriage was the most permanent disposition for a young woman of which Miss Ambercot knew. “There is one man...” she murmured at last.
Mrs. Cherwood looked into her companion’s face. “A man, for Rowena?” Her tone was mingled displeasure and curiosity. After all, it would not necessarily be a bad thing to marry the girl off suitably. On the other hand, it rankled her to think of the girl marrying well after turning off Sir Jason Slyppe — Lord Slyppe, as he was now.
“Well, I do know one man who is very — very interested in Miss Rowena Cherwood. However, he has very meager funds at his command, and is not really what the world would term a great match, so that he has hesitated to speak to her.” Eliza lied happily, certain that she had said something of interest. She was reasonably certain from Dorothea Cherwood’s tone that helping Rowena to a marriage with a man like Greavesey would find approval from Mrs. Cherwood, and she watched the older woman’s face for signs that her intuition was correct.
“Ah, well my dear,” Mrs. Cherwood said at last, a sharkish smile hovering about her lips. “When a woman is no longer young or beautiful and has cast her better chances to the wind, she cannot hope for much choice. I do not believe that, after having been in service for nearly a year, Rowena would not prefer marriage — any marriage — to life as a companion, even to Lady Bradwell. Who is this man? I must certainly meet him.”
“His name is Greavesey, ma’am. John Greavesey, I believe. He is the assistant to our doctor, Mr. Cribbatt.”
A quick, delicious vision of Rowena huddled in a crowded cottage, brats hanging from her skirts, tired, worn with poverty and probably black-and-blue from a deserved beating by her husband, flashed through Mrs. Cherwood’s mind. Then it was dispelled by her common sense. After all, Rowena had quite a good fortune. It was the reason why Sir Jason had been so eager to marry her, despite the fact that she towered over him by a good five inches. Perhaps this man, this Greavesey, was poor enough that he would press Rowena into marriage and then do something dreadful and lowbred. Abandon her? Well, perhaps not. Again, Mrs. Cherwood relinquished an agreeable vision in which Rowena (and at least one very grubby infant) appealed to her aunt’s charity, to be admitted as a dependent confined to the backstairs and nursery.
“I should very much like to meet this Mr. Greavesey.” Mrs. Cherwood smiled again. Then, realizing that Meg and Jane, although still in conversation, had been casting looks in their direction: “As for you, my dear, persevere with your young man. You know these silly creatures. They never know what they want until a woman shows it to them. Margaret my love, you look altogether fagged. I think you had best retire. After all, we don’t wish Dear Ulysses to think his bride-to-be is losing her looks, do we?”
Under her basilisk stare Margaret reluctantly rose and made her good nights to Mrs. Ambercot and her daughters. The party, or its remnants, abandoned the drawing room for the evening and retired to their respective rooms, with the exception of Mrs. Cherwood, who happily followed after her daughter to offer her a little advice, and to scold her again, most lovingly, for having run away to Broak and her cousin in the first place.
Despite her early retirement from the drawing room, it was observable the next morning that Miss Margaret was not in her best looks; her mother, on the other hand, looked as if she had slept like a top, and when Lyn Bradwell descended to breakfast well past his customary hour of nine, he found her following after Drummey, helpfully offering corrections to his technique with the polishing rag and suggesting a compound of lampblack and beeswax for silver tarnish. Sympathizing bleakly with the butler, Lyn withdrew to the breakfast room before Mrs. Cherwood could spot, and thus begin to make improvements on him, too.
Chapter Eleven
The excitements of the day before had proved a little beyond Lady Bradwell’s strength. In the teeth of strong opposition she protested that she was fit enough to descend to the saloon to sit up there. Only the combined arguments of Rowena, Margaret, and Mrs. Ambercot, together with a solemn vow that the latter would stand in Lady Bradwell’s stead in the face of Mrs. Cherwood’s invasion, persuaded the older woman to rest. Rowena, although she feared that it might be Greavesey who responded rather than Dr. Cribbatt, sent a footman
to the village to summon the doctor just in case.
Had Mrs. Cherwood planned it, things could not have fallen out more agreeably.
Although neither Eliza Ambercot nor Dorothea Cherwood partook of breakfast, they found each other late that morning and settled comfortably in the garden room to chat and poke idly at their embroideries. Mrs. Cherwood lost very little time in reintroducing the subject of John Greavesey, and Eliza was happy to practice a little judicious misdirection by assuring Margaret’s mother that Greavesey had long and silently pined for Rowena, and that Rowena might be persuaded to return his affection. Mrs. Cherwood was not much concerned with whether the feelings of either party were truly engaged; she was far too busy savoring the thought of her high and mighty niece, married to a doctor’s assistant. The two ladies, under the sentimental guise of matchmaking, plotted happily over lemonade and biscuits on how to bring Greavesey to Broak for Mrs. Cherwood’s inspection.
Before they could arrive at a suitable solution Eliza heard the voice of the man himself outside the door, and started up.
“Ma’am, I quite believe it is he!” Opening the door slightly, Eliza peered into the hallway, to be rewarded by the sight of Mr. Greavesey scuttling up the stairs like a cadaverous beetle.
“By all means then, child, desire one of the footmen to inform this Mr. Greavesey that I should like a word with him before he leaves,” Mrs. Cherwood replied evenly. “And find me out where my niece is.” Eliza, forgetting the dignity of eighteen in the delight of making mischief, set off as quickly as possible to reconnoiter.
Rowena was located in the herb garden, taking advantage of the fair weather to cut thyme and savory to dry in the kitchen. She wondered for a moment what Eliza Ambercot could be doing to make her trot about in such a fashion; her behavior was refreshingly unlike her normally affected prance. Rowena permitted herself the hope that perhaps Eliza was losing her affectations at last, and continued with her work.
There was something beneficial, after all, in cutting herbs; while it left a great deal of time for reflection, for replaying the last, horrible scene with Lyn over and over and over, still it allowed her some physical release. At some times the neat rows of parsley became Lyn, and she beheaded each one with relish. She was even able, for a time, to distract herself from the pressing urge to cry; she would come to it sooner or later, she assumed, but preferred to be in command of herself so long as Mrs. Cherwood remained in the house.
Ulysses Ambercot came upon her as she was finishing her chore, dusting off her hands and taking up the shears and basket.
“I say, Renna, that Greavesey is here again. Shall I send him about his business?”
Something like a martial light gleamed briefly in Rowena’s eye: There, she thought, was a proper target for her wrath, not hapless parsley!
“No, Lully, I had ought to speak with him in any case. But I thank you for letting me know.”
“Are you certain you don’t want reinforcements? Meg would never forgive me if I turned tail and ran, to leave you to face the enemy.”
“Lully, I beg your pardon, but I am spoiling for this,” Rowena said with a cool glint in her eye. “If I vow that I shall not hit that odious man with one of the Chinese vases, nor throw the inkpot at him, nor do anything that is truly reprehensible, will you trust me?”
“Do I have another choice?” he asked wryly, and took the basket of greens from her. “At least let me bring these in to Cook, eh?”
“With pleasure. And Lully?” She touched his arm briefly. “You are a good man and a good friend. Margaret is a lucky woman.” She smiled a smile of old friendship and disappeared into the house to wash her hands.
o0o
After examining Lady Bradwell, who made the matter rather difficult by taking him to task for his persecution of the females of her household, John Greavesey would have been very happy to have disappeared entirely from the face of the earth or, more particularly, from Broak, and was packing away his powders and jars when Drummey informed him that Mrs. Cherwood desired his company in the garden room.
At the name Cherwood, Greavesey winced.
He would have to face the music sometime or other, but Rowena Cherwood did not appear to be the sort of woman to readily forgive him for importuning Jane Ambercot only because he had been thwarted elsewhere. It was with the severest misgivings that Mr. Greavesey allowed himself to be shown into the garden room. But the woman who waited there for him was not Rowena Cherwood. When she rose, he noted that she was many years older, a head shorter than Miss Cherwood, and had a face not unlike a pug dog.
“Ma’am?” he asked blankly.
“Mr. Greavesey?” The vision in purple sarcenet swept across the room to offer her hand to him. “I am delighted, utterly delighted! Permit me to introduce myself. I am Mrs. Cherwood. Dearest Margaret’s mamma, you know.”
Greavesey swallowed rapidly. He was unable to tell if Mrs. Cherwood had called him there to congratulate him on Margaret’s recovery, or chastise him for his presumption in addressing her niece. While she continued effusively about the nobility of the medical profession he braced himself for a possible shock and tried to puzzle out this Mrs. Dorothea Cherwood.
“Now, sir,” the lady was saying archly. “What’s this a little bird has told me about you and that niece of mine?”
The devil, Greavesey thought. Here’s for it.
But what came was not what he had expected. “I have heard hints, Mr. Greavesey, that you are not — ahh — impervious to my niece’s charms, and she too...” She allowed herself to trail off suggestively. Recalling his last interview with Miss Cherwood, Greavesey found it a little difficult to follow Mrs. Cherwood’s suggestion. “I wished you to know, Mr. Greavesey, that Rowena’s uncle and I would not be averse to seeing her established with a good and honest man.” That much Mrs. Cherwood could certainly say, for whatever her husband might say to the matter, she was sure he would not dislike to see his niece married. Whether he would like to see her married to this Greavesey was a different matter. For the rest, she thought, it would be as well that he was good, honest, virtuous, even conversable, for heaven knew that he was not likely to inspire passion in a maidenly breast on the basis of his looks. On consideration, Mrs. Cherwood began to like the match better and better.
“Indeed, ma’am,” Mr. Greavesey began rustily. “Indeed, ma’am, I have had — that is, I cherished certain — but Miss Cherwood seemed averse — that is, she seemed to dislike — although I thought — well, perhaps, ma’am —”
“Rowena,” Mrs. Cherwood interrupted definitely, “does not know what she wants. Why, my dear sir, it takes a man of decision to win a high-spirited girl such as my niece. And after all, there is her money as well as herself.”
Greavesey looked up. “Her money, ma’am?”
“Why surely you know, Mr. Greavesey? Rowena has quite a nice little competence,” Mrs. Cherwood understated happily. After all, she wanted to attract the man to Rowena, not scare him away completely, and Dorothea Cherwood doubted that this man would have the gumption to go after a woman with four thousand a year of her own. “Even if she is not as young or handsome as my Margaret, she does have her dot, and you must have seen how handily she manages here for Dear Lady Bradwell.” Mrs. Cherwood’s tone made Lady Bradwell one of her very closest friends.
“O, yes indeed Mrs. Cherwood.” Greavesey gulped. “But do you think Miss Rowena would — I am, after all, a poor man, and when I last spoke to her —”
“My dear sir,” she said airily. “No well-brought-up girl will tell her true feelings on the first application! It goes against everything that young girls are taught.” She thought that that had got him.
“Why, ma’am, that was what I thought at the time. But Miss Cherwood seemed so particularly definite...” He trailed off doubtfully.
“Nonsense, sir. Rowena is a girl of spirit, that’s all. Of course,” Mrs. Cherwood continued, lest he disliked too much spirit in a woman, “it is only for some good man to take her in
hand to have her meek as a lamb in jig time.”
A golden vision of Rowena Cherwood — and her money — swam before John Greavesey’s eyes. “If I spoke again, perhaps?”
“Certainly, Mr. Greavesey,” Mrs. Cherwood encouraged. Now, all she had to do was speak with Rowena, make the girl understand that this was obviously to be her last chance at an establishment of her own, however meager. Rowena had appeared more compliant here at Broak than she had at the Cherwoods’ home in London, and Mrs. Cherwood began to see the chance of her scheme’s realization.
“I’ll go this minute!” Without giving Mrs. Cherwood a chance to stop him or make him wait until she could talk with Rowena, Mr. Greavesey made his bow to her and left.
“Well?” Eliza Ambercot reentered the room when she saw Greavesey leave, and looked inquiringly at Margaret’s mother.
“Well!” Mrs. Cherwood said noncommittally. But her smile spoke volumes. “Do you think it would be nice to have a double wedding? Or ought Rowena and that Greavesey to marry first?”
“He asked for her?” Eliza choked.
“Well, not exactly. My niece is her own mistress, you know.” Mrs. Cherwood complacently began to fold her silks into her workbasket. “But I imagine he will be doing so in a very short while. It was all very easily managed, my dear.”
“But do you think that Miss Cherwood will accept him if he offers for her?” Eliza asked dubiously. “He’s so fusty and old, and —”
“But particularly worthy, child. I warned my niece what would happen if she didn’t take Slyppe when he offered. If this Greavesey wants her, I am more than willing to support his suit. And if Rowena has a particle of sense — and whatever else I may say, I believe she is a sensible thing — she will take him. Even if, as you say, he is fusty and old.” From her tone Eliza could pardonably have inferred that Mrs. Cherwood was enjoying herself immensely. She was. “Now, my dear, to that young man of yours.” Mrs. Cherwood took up the subject of Lyndon Bradwell as if she had totally settled her niece, and Eliza, liking this topic better than any other, wriggled happily into a chair to listen to her many thoughts on How to Catch a Husband.
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