by Joan Smith
THE MERRY MONTH OF MAY
Joan Smith
Chapter One
“Here comes Idle down the lane,” Mrs. Wood said to her daughters. “Prepare your ears for a farrago of nonsense.”
It was mid-May, and the Wood ladies made a pretty picture as they sat at their needlework in the garden. The sun’s rays, filtered through a mulberry tree, dappled their shoulders with dancing light. From a little distance the mother looked of an age with her daughters. At closer range one could see threads of silver in her chestnut hair, and the incipient lines that ran across her forehead. Her eyes, though, were still bright and her figure trim.
The three ladies surveyed the apparition meandering toward them, stopping to smell a flower and pick an occasional bloom as it advanced. It was strange that the arrival of the second most eligible gentleman in the neighborhood caused no excitement in a household burdened with two nubile daughters. The daughters considered Idle too outré to provide a lady a husband, and the mother knew him to be too elusive.
Sir Swithin Idle was wealthy, intelligent, of good character, and not particularly ugly. In fact, he would be the first to point out that he was a pretty fellow. A cap of tawny curls was arranged artistically around his delicate face. Arrived hot from London, he was outfitted in the highest kick of fashion in a jacket of Bath cloth carefully selected to match his blue eyes. The Swithin cravat worn with it was famous in that small circle that believed the arrangement of a cravat to be of equal importance with affairs of state.
“Good day, Idle,” Mrs. Wood said civilly. Her daughters smiled a polite welcome.
Sir Swithin handed Mrs. Wood a bouquet culled from her own garden, and said, “My heart leaps up when I behold beauty in full array. With my apologies to Wordsworth for freedom with his lyrics.” He lifted the tails of his jacket and sat beside Mrs. Wood. As he crossed one small knee over the other, she felt a twinge of envy for the delicacy of his foot. Not many ladies could boast such a dainty one, with the instep so well arched, and an ankle as thin as a soup bone. Sir Swithin would not be caught dead in buckskins and top boots. Even in the country, he went about ready for a party.
Idle lifted his quizzing glass and examined the daughters in a leisurely manner. The younger, Mary, had blossomed into womanhood since last he had seen her. Her coppery hair was now pulled away from her cheeks, revealing a generous breadth of face. Such ruddy, buxom girls held no interest for him. He felt they would break some fragile bone in his body if it came to a tussle, and he did love a tussle. Always polite in intention at least, he said, “Well, Miss Mary, I observe that Mother Nature and her accomplice, Father Time, have been busy turning you into an incomparable while my back was turned. I daresay this lovely creature has found herself a beau by now, Mrs. Wood?”
“Not yet, but it is not for lack of looking,” the mother replied.
“And Miss Wood—Sara,” Sir Swithin continued, turning his glass to the more interesting lady, and noticing that she did not object to the familiarity of her first name. “You confute every axiom and become more lovely with the passing of time. There is nothing like heartbreak to bring out that sadly haunting light in a lady’s eyes.”
Sara’s less robust charms were very much in Idle’s preferred style. He admired her pale cheeks, with interesting hollows at the back. In her dove-gray eyes he imagined there lurked the residue of old grief. With the sun bonnet shadowing her upper face, she was a perfect model of mystery.
The light that flashed in Sara’s eyes was more frustrated than haunted. “All that is ancient history, Sir Swithin,” she said coolly.
“Time is relative, n’est-ce pas? The past years seem to me to have flown by on gilded wings. To you, I daresay they have seemed an endless desert waste. But this is sorry stuff for a lovely afternoon in May.”
“Yes, do tell us all the on-dits from London,” Miss Mary urged.
This subject held about as much interest for Mrs. Wood as the solving of an algebraic equation. She gathered up her embroidery and said, “I must speak to Cook. I’ll have some wine sent out. Can you stay for dinner, Sir Swithin?”
“Would that I could, but I have just returned, and Mama is having the fatted calf killed—metaphorically speaking. I fear it is actually a porker that will provide dinner.” He shuddered gently. “Another time, madam.”
No fear of impropriety troubled Mrs. Wood at leaving her daughters unchaperoned with this acknowledged man milliner. They would be safe from everything except boredom. The wine duly arrived and the ladies set aside their embroidery.
“London is dead,” Idle announced solemnly. “No new drama, no art worth the name, and the balls have all degenerated into squeezes. I left two weeks before the Season’s demise, to teach London a lesson.”
“But a ball should be a squeeze!” Mary pointed out.
“No, my pretty pet, a rout may be a squeeze. A ball ought to be carried out with decorum. I believe I shall throw a proper ball at Heron Hall while I am home and invite all the hostesses whose balls I disliked, to show them how it ought to be done.”
“Oh, would you?” Mary asked, eyes glowing.
“Probably not, but I should. No, I have come home for some serious work.”
“What are you working on at the moment, Sir Swithin?” Miss Wood asked. It was not estate matters that would have brought him home. The only fields of interest to him were artistic fields.
“It is all painting with me this season,” he informed her, warming to the topic. “Prose and drama are well enough for winter, but when nature swells the darling buds of May, my spirit craves three things: poetry, painting, and love. Euterpe, the muse of lyrical poetry, has abandoned me, fickle wretch. I shall paint in the garden, where no doubt a poem will simultaneously bubble up to accompany it. It is the vexation of we few overly talented spirits, that inspiration—like sorrow—comes not single spies, but in battalions.”
“You will paint flowers then?” Miss Wood asked politely.
This wanton encouragement fanned Idle’s interest. “Dare I hope I will be allowed to paint the brightest flower of them all, yourself, Sara?”
“Oh no!” she exclaimed. “I—I would not make a good subject at all. Paint Mary. She is the brighter bloom now.”
“In my excitement I used the wrong adjective. I did not mean brightest, but most beautiful. I do not see you as a gaudy rose or daffodil, but as a lily, drooping over a—grave, perhaps,” he suggested warily.
The whole picture popped into his head in one swoop. Sara, that lovely swanlike neck gently drooping as she gazed sadly at the gravestone of Peter. Except that there actually was no known gravestone. Peter was believed to have drowned at sea. There must be a swelling ocean in the back ground. Would it be too blatant to give some impression of Peter’s face in the waves? He abhorred the obvious.
When Idle awoke from his reverie, he saw that Sara’s eyes were flashing dangerously and demmed attractively. “And pray why would I be drooping over a grave, Sir Swithin?” she demanded in a thin voice.
“I have wounded you with my clumsiness. Do forgive me, Sara. It was the farthest thing from my mind.”
“That was six years ago,” she said sternly. “I have forgotten it. I wish the rest of the world would.”
“Tragedy lingers,” he said simply. “There is some mythical quality in blighted young love. The greatest love stories are all tragedies. Romeo and Juliet, Pyramus and Thisbe, Troilus and Cressida—the list goes on ad infinitum. Last but by no means least, Prinny’s love affair with himself. Was there ever such a comical tragedy in all of literature? It would be more in keeping with the truly great love stories if you had thrown yourself into the foam when you learned of Peter’s death, but pray do not take that as a criticism. It is only
a comment.”
“Don’t be such a noodle, Idle,” Mary tsk’d.
Sara’s face was stained pink. She picked up her embroidery and excused herself. “I shall send out Perkins to sit with you,” she said before leaving.
Sir Swithin was foaming with apologies. “Do forgive me, Miss Wood. It was thoughtless, nay, it was barbaric of me.”
“It’s quite all right. Good day, Sir Swithin. It was nice to see you again.”
She ran into the house, and Idle turned his apologies to Miss Mary. “I had no idea she was still affected after all this time. Six years! Theirs must have been one of the great passions. How I envy her.”
“You don’t understand at all,” Mary scowled. “If she knew for certain that Peter had drowned, she would have got over it eventually. It’s the uncertainty. His body never was found, you know.”
“But my dear child, it was eons ago. If he had been shanghaied onto a ship, as I collect you are hinting, he would have been back here now. And really, you know, the press gangs would hardly have gotten away with Lord Peter Deverel. His brother would have had heads rolling from here to Whitehall if that had happened. Surely Lord Haldiman looked into it?”
“There was a ship leaving for America that night,” Mary said pensively. “Haldiman said they didn’t use the press gang, but they might have taken Peter, hidden when they learned he was so important. I mean that his brother was so important, for, of course, Lord Peter was only a younger son.”
Even the younger son of the Haldiman family was considered a great catch for Sara Wood. Lord Peter had been extremely handsome, too. “Oh, she will never get over it, Sir Swithin. I pray you do not mention it again when Sara is about.”
Perkins arrived and added her unnecessary presence to the scene.
“Then we shall talk about you,” Sir Swithin decided. “I notice you have your hair up and your skirts down, hiding what I personally consider the finest set of ankles in the parish.” He cast a glance at them. Beef to the heels, like a Meunster heifer. “I expect that means you are now permitted to decorate the local assemblies? How many suitors do you have? Mama is gone now. You can tell me.”
Mary daringly lifted her skirt and examined her ankles. “No serious ones,” she said, “but Aunt Cloe is nearly eighty, and she has told Mama she is leaving her money to me, so no doubt I shall soon be the belle of the balls.”
Sir Swithin shook his head sadly. “The young ought not be so cynical. That is a privilege that should be earned by experience. How much will you inherit?” he asked.
“Fifteen thousand. I shall be a better catch than Sara. She has only ten.”
Both dots were large enough to generate interest in the provinces. Sir Swithin, with a large fortune of his own and access to the mightier dowries of London, was not impressed. Of greater interest to him was Sara’s romantic history. Then, too, the summer would be long, since he had left London early. A man required a flirt, and a flirt who had no real interest in marriage was always Sir Swithin’s preferred sort.
“You shall have a handle to your name, if you wish it, my pet. I shall see what I can do in the way of putting you forward.”
“Will you have your ball?”
“Perhaps. But first you must do a little something for me. I wish to paint Sara. I have been devoured by an exquisite idea for a painting. I envisage the misty glow of Botticelli at his apogee. I refer to the Birth of Venus, of course. My fingers itch to ply my brush. Will you help me convince her?”
Mary pursed her lips and frowned. “I will if you’ll have a ball and invite all the London smarts and swells.”
“A haggler! You sound like a London merchant, Miss Mary.”
She flounced her shoulders. “I don’t care if I do.”
“Fair enough. Clap hands and a bargain.” She gripped his delicate fingers in her strong ones and squeezed. He winced. “Mind you don’t tell your sister I’m bribing you.”
“She may not do it,” Mary warned. “We’ll need some incentive.”
“A mild flirtation, of the à suivie sort, perhaps?” Idle mused, touching his finger to his chin.
“Sara doesn’t flirt. I could tell her I’m interested in you, but she’d never believe it.”
Sir Swithin’s blue eyes narrowed perceptibly. “One does not look for discrimination in the young. You are much too raw to appreciate my style. Use what persuasions you like, but convince her, if you want that ball. Now ‘Drink, pretty creature, drink.’ That too is Wordsworth—to a lamb, if memory serves.”
He finished his own wine and took his leave. The bouquet of flowers remained on the table, wilting in the sun. Perkins tossed it under the table. Mary darted into the house. “Where’s Sara, Mama?” she asked excitedly.
“She went to the orchard to gather some blossoms. Leave her alone, Mary. That wretched Idle has got her thinking of Peter again. It is always the worst in May, just the season when Peter— The wedding was to be on the nineteenth. It will be six years tomorrow.”
Mary bit her lip. “I’ll speak to her later,” she said, and went out to romp with the dogs. Her mother, watching from the window, realized that Mary was only grown up on the outside. Beneath her curls she was still ten years old.
* * * *
In the orchard Sara wandered beneath the trees. The blossoms were mostly on the ground now, perfuming the air with the cloying sweetness of flowers in decay. The fallen petals gave the illusion of walking through snow. She and Peter had walked here the day before their wedding. How tumultuously excited she had been, wondering if she dare tell him. And in the end, she hadn’t, of course.
How did you tell a man, on the very eve of your nuptials, that you didn’t want to marry him? Had Peter sensed it? Is that why he had left? No, he hadn’t suspected anything. He wasn’t a sensitive man. “Oh, Polly! She is only a servant. That doesn’t mean anything,” he had told her in a huffy way, and she had been too shy and uncertain to cancel the wedding. Why had she ever accepted an offer from him? Of course, he was damnably handsome, with the Haldiman dark good looks. Much more handsome than his older brother. And he was a nobleman. Everyone had been so amazed at her fortune, Mama and especially Papa.
Heady with the success of having captured a handsome nobleman, she had really accepted him because her father had been so thrilled at the offer. And within two years, Papa was dead. If she had accepted to please him, his pleasure would have been short-lived, but she would have been stuck with Peter for the rest of her life.
A shiver of relief trembled up her spine. She felt horrid, having everyone think she was grieving when Peter disappeared. Eventually they assumed he had drowned. Her primary emotion had been relief, then sorrow for Peter’s death, then guilt. When had the guilt crept in? Wishing she had the courage to break off with him hadn’t killed him. That was irrational. And really, what was the point in telling anyone the truth after Peter was gone? It was easier on everyone, including herself, to just let the world go on thinking she was heartbroken.
Peter would have made a wretched husband. He used his good looks and good birth to attract women. Even after they were betrothed, he had been unfaithful—and with Polly, a servant in his own house. He never would have offered for her if she had fallen under his spell as quickly and easily as the others. Why had he offered? Sheer stubbornness, insisting on having what he thought he couldn’t. There had been a physical attraction, of course, but not real love. Even at eighteen, she had sensed that something was missing.
Thinking of that wretched spring always brought a melancholy expression to Sara’s face. The experience had left her with a deep-seated lack of confidence in her judgment. Her near brush with marriage didn’t encourage her to try it again. She felt she was well off as she was. At twenty-four she wasn’t likely to receive any proposals, and it was a relief. Next year she would put on her caps and people would stop telling her it was time to forget Peter and look about for a different match.
Chapter Two
Lord Haldiman sat in his oak-lined
study, a glass of port at his elbow, as he gazed with unseeing eyes at a painting of his ancestral home, formally known as the Vynery, but called Haldiman Hall by the locals. The painting, executed upon the house’s completion in the late sixteen hundreds, differed dramatically from the present structure. He rather regretted that the row of statues along the roofline and the central dome had been lost in a fire shortly after construction. The roofline now was flat, stretching for hundreds of yards, punctuated only by chimneys. Austere gray stone lent more formality than charm to the place.
But Lord Haldiman noticed none of this. His mind was far away, six years away. Mama had forgotten it was the anniversary of Peter’s disappearance. Lord Haldiman didn’t use the word “death” in his private thoughts, though it was the word used in public. He wouldn’t remind her. Why drag up all that wretched business again?
He drained his glass and refilled it, then set it aside. Six years, and not a word. What the devil had Peter done? Where had he gone? No one was forcing him to marry Miss Wood. It had been his own idea.
If he were alive, they would have heard from him before now. He would have been pestering the lawyers for his money. It had been almost a relief when Peter disappeared. A wastrel, a rake, and a born troublemaker. He would have made a sorry groom for Miss Wood, but Peter seemed genuinely in love with her. The family hoped a good woman might settle him down, and, of course, old Mr. Wood had pushed the marriage forward.
The longcase clock in the hall chimed ten bells, rousing Lord Haldiman from his reverie. He must see if Mama had fallen asleep on the sofa again and have her woman put her to bed. There was a knock on the front door as he passed into the hall, and the butler walked carefully over the polished marble from his cubbyhole to answer it.
“Who the devil can be calling at this hour?” Haldiman scowled. His face, rather a handsome one, took on a harsh appearance when he was displeased. His black brows drew together and his lips thinned as the severe, aristocratic geometry of his face stiffened in impatience. “Tell them to come back tomorrow, unless it’s my game warden. I told Bushkin to notify me immediately if he caught the poachers.”