by Joan Smith
“Is everything all right?” he asked.
Peeved with her long vigil, she answered sharply, “No, it is not all right. I have never had such a boring day in my life.”
“There is no need to stay cooped up tomorrow. Lady Healy and I will be busy all afternoon with Daugherty and Bronfman. You can go for a walk, or take a spin on the nag I hired from the inn. But don’t go into Wickfield. Why are you wearing that outfit?” he asked at last. It had taken him that long even to notice and that further goaded Grace.
“I am tired with being a child.”
“It won’t be for much longer. Why don’t you go to bed now? It’s been a tiring day.”
“Aren’t you going to come in and talk to me? I’ve hardly seen a soul all day.”
“I’m in my dressing gown. I’m ready for bed,” he replied. “It is hardly an appropriate way to visit a lady.”
“You might have thought of that before you undressed.”
There was no misreading that long indrawn sigh. It revealed boredom, just verging on impatience. “Is there something in particular you wish to discuss? I can get dressed, if—”
Her pride prevented pushing the matter further. “No, nothing in particular. Nothing I cannot say to myself, or the doll, or the chair. Good night, Whewett. I hope you sleep well.”
His fingers began drumming the doorjamb. “What is it? What is bothering you, Grace?”
“Never mind. You will want to get your twelve hours of sleep for the heavy exertion of watching Lady Healy sign the papers tomorrow.”
A reluctant smile tugged at his harsh features. “When my daughter becomes cranky and ill-mannered, I turn her over my knee and give her a good whopping. I shall take my leave before I am tempted to do the same to you. Good night.”
The door was quietly closed in her face, depriving her of the satisfaction of slamming it. “Don’t forget to put on the bolt,” she called in a last burst of annoyance.
There was no verbal reply but only the sound of sliding metal, which so inflamed her that she picked up a book and threw it at the closed door. And still he did not say anything.
Chapter Sixteen
Saturday was only slightly less tedious than Friday. Grace visited with Lady Healy, read her Bible and did not see a sign of Whewett till luncheon, when he treated her like a daughter. His conversation with Lady Healy revealed that he had done nothing more important that morning than sort through papers in various desks and drawers, as the house was sold furnished. He could have been with her if he had wanted to. In fact, she could have helped him. He was avoiding her.
When Bronfman and Daugherty came to close the deal in the afternoon, Grace had a ride through the park on Whewett’s hired nag. For a full year now she had been wanting to feel a horse under her, and it was strange that it gave her so little pleasure. In the end she cut the ride short, to be at the house as soon as the deal was closed. As Whewett had nothing else to do, he would be forced to spend some time with her, for civility’s sake.
He was sitting with Grandma in the Purple Saloon, which seemed as gloomy as a dungeon after her ride in the sunlight. “Augusta shall have a glass of wine with us to celebrate the sale,” Lady Healy decreed. “I wish I had seen you ride, Gussie. Keep your back straight but not stiff. Neither a reed nor a ramrod is wanted in the saddle. I was a famous horsewoman in my day. Most wild youngsters want to run away and be an actress.” Grace glanced at Whewett, but he was looking out the window. “For me it was Astley’s Circus. It was a great letdown when I finally saw it. I could have done better than any of them.”
Grace sipped the wine, hiding her sulks to please the old lady. “We shall find a good mount for you when you come to Scotland,” Lady Healy continued. “And I shall enroll you in the Hunt, too. They shan’t see my five thousand if they don’t accept you.” She chattered on, monopolizing the conversation with no trouble, as the others found little to say.
Grace glanced at the mantel clock and looked hopefully at Whewett. There was time for a walk, if he would only drink up his wine. He reached out and filled his glass again. There was to be no privacy, then, no return to the subject of marriage. Grace was too disappointed to be very angry.
Lady Healy was hitting her stride in tales of the Hunt when the door knocker sounded. “Who can that be?” she scolded. “I did not advertise I was here. I want to remember my friends as they were, not see them sunk to old relicts like myself.”
The groom-butler sauntered to the door and said, “There’s a woman here says she’s Lady Dewitt.”
Grace’s face turned white, and she turned a wild eye to Whewett, who looked much the way she felt. A pretty young matron dressed in the highest kick of fashion came prancing in, followed by a shy, pale young girl.
Lady Healy cast an offended frown on the interloper. “Who, pray tell, is Lady Dewitt?” she demanded. “Is she one of your women, Whewett?”
The matron threw her head back and laughed in sheer astonishment. “Oho, you have changed, Alfred!” she said, shaking a finger at him.
“This is my sister, Mary,” Whewett said in a strangled voice. He looked quite simply bewildered as his eyes darted in hopeless confusion from Lady Dewitt to the young girl, to Grace, and lastly to Lady Healy. Lady Dewitt performed a graceful curtsy.
“Eh? I thought she lived in Ireland,” Lady Healy said. “Well, I’m very happy to make your acquaintance, Lady Dewitt. Is this your gel? Sickly looking creature. She wants fresh air and exercise.”
Lady Dewitt raised her brows in her brother’s direction and replied, “Why no, this is Whewett’s daughter, ma’am. Say hello to your papa, my dear.”
The pale girl gave one frightened look at Lady Healy before running forward to throw herself into Whewett’s arms. She burrowed her head into his shoulder as though to escape the frightening old lady.
His arms went around her protectively, tightening when Lady Healy rose to her feet in wrath. She clutched her blackthorn stick menacingly. Her lined face had turned an alarming shade of purple. “What—is—the—meaning—of—this!” she demanded in an awful voice.
Lady Dewitt stared, more fascinated than frightened at the spectacle she was witnessing. Grace felt as if she were in a nightmare. Her worst fear had come true. She was about to be revealed in all her tawdry shame, not only to Lady Healy, but to Whewett’s elegant sister and his daughter. Her eyes turned beseechingly to Whewett.
He kept his composure better than she dared to hope. “You heard the lady,” he said, addressing himself to Lady Healy. “This is my daughter. Make a curtsy to your grandmother, my dear.” He detached Augusta’s arms from around his neck.
Augusta, wide-eyed and trembling, made a brief, awkward curtsy, before returning to hold on to her father for dear life.
Grace sat numb with apprehension, waiting for the blow to fall. On top of everything else she felt in her bones that Lady Dewitt was not at all the sort of employer she wanted or who would want her. She had imagined Mary as a pleasant, comfortable lady, rather like Whewett. What the outcome of it all would be she could not even imagine, but the blackthorn across her back certainly featured in it. She was every bit as apprehensive as poor Gussie, cowering against her father. Whewett had been correct not to bring the child here.
“You ought to be ashamed of yourself,” Lady Healy ranted. The brunt of her wrath was directed at Whewett. “Bringing your by-blow into a decent house, scandalizing your own daughter—and me! And you, I take leave to tell you, Lady Dewitt, have no more sense than a peagoose. Come with me, Augusta. When we return, we shall expect to find the saloon empty. Good day.”
“What is going on here?” Lady Dewitt asked in hopeless dismay. “Alfred—” She looked to him. He hunched his shoulders behind Lady Healy’s back and tossed up his hands.
Lady Healy strode to Grace, grabbed her hand, and sailed from the room without another glance at such disreputable connections as sullied her saloon. Grace, hobbling along beside her, had time for only one brief glimpse of the scene she
left behind. She saw the brother and sister trying to contain their explosions of nervous laughter till the old lady was beyond hearing.
“Alfred, I hope you have an explanation for this,” Lady Dewitt said. She sank onto a sofa.
“What the devil possessed you to come here?” he demanded.
“Why, when we heard at Downsfield where you had gone and why, I made sure you would want Gussie to meet her grandma. I was put to considerable trouble with the extra trip. Who was the young girl with Lady Healy?”
“She called her Augusta, the same name as me,” Gussie said, reviving now that the termagant with the black eyes was gone.
“Ahem, it will be best if I explain it to you later, Sis,” Whewett said, shooting a warning glance to Gussie. Then he turned his attention to his daughter. “How is my girl?”
“Fine. I had a wonderful visit, Papa. But who was that girl with grandma? What did she mean about you scandalizing me?”
Lady Dewitt said, “Alfred, you cannot mean to tell me that young girl is really your—” She stopped, with a quick look at her niece.
“I’ll take you to the inn,” Whewett decided, arising to call his carriage. “We can talk there.”
“Our carriage is just outside, and we are already booked at the inn. Invers is there now, unpacking. When we heard in the village that Willowcrest had been sold, we feared the place would be in an upheaval. I must say, we did not anticipate such a hot reception!”
Any discussion was impossible on the trip to the inn, as Whewett took his own carriage, to facilitate his return. Until Augusta had been handed over to Invers at the inn, she and her father discussed the visit to Ireland.
The instant Invers took Augusta away, Lady Dewitt said, “I have never been so curious in my life, Alfred. Do tell me all about it. Is that girl your daughter? I know she is, for she looks very much like Doll. Why did you never tell me? Where have you kept her all this time, and what in the world possessed you to take her to Lady Healy, of all people?”
“She’s not my daughter! I never saw her in my life till the day I came here,” he began. “I hired her to act as my daughter. Grandma would be in the boughs that Gussie had gone off to Ireland, when I always claimed she was delicate.”
“What have the girl’s parents to say about it?”
“She has none living. She’s a governess.”
“At thirteen or so years of age? Now do cut line, Alfred.”
“She’s, er, a little older than that. She is small you see, short.”
“How much older?’’ Mary asked, her eyes brightly quizzical.
“She’s twenty-two. I know it was a hare-brained scheme, but we had no idea how the thing would drag out,” he began, and explained how the visit had grown and some of the difficulties met along the way.
“Now that Gussie is here, I hardly know what to do. We are not to leave till Monday. Gussie is petrified of Lady Healy, and the old lady has no opinion of her, either. Gussie does look pale. Has she been ill?”
“Just fatigued from traveling. I am worn to a thread myself.”
“Grandma would come to love her if there were time, but there isn’t. Meanwhile she has become so fond of the stand-in that it would upset her dreadfully to learn the trick we played. Her heart is not sound. Really, I don’t think I can risk telling her the truth.”
Lady Dewitt was still confused. “I cannot think how you came to do such a thing, Alfred. It is so shabby—and daring. It is not like you.”
“I meant no harm. I believe I must just let Grandma think me a lecher, with a by-blow hidden away all these years. She won’t really mind that, you know, once she gets used to the idea.”
“She minded very much! If she hadn’t needed that stick to prop herself up, she would have laid it over someone’s back.”
“She minded having what she believed to be an illegitimate child in her saloon without her permission. That is why you were castigated as a peagoose, for having brought her. Manners concern her somewhat more than morality, though she would stare to hear me say so. She likes to think herself holy, now that she approaches the end. I don’t mean to sound hard on her. She’s a great old lady. I hardly know what to do. I won’t draw Gussie into posing as my illegitimate daughter—not any further, I mean. Gussie must be left out of it.”
“Once her shock has subsided, Lady Healy may want to see your by-blow.”
“She has seen her, or thinks she has. Any illegitimate child of mine would be of little interest to her, having no Brougham blood in her. Grandma does not relish much excitement in her poor condition. I shall say my rag-mannered sister left the neighborhood and took the child with her somewhere or other.”
“Would it help if we let on the child lived with me?”
“It might do—give her the idea that her granddaughter is not exposed to such depravity. Can you and Invers and Gussie stay here till Monday, and we’ll all leave in a caravan for Downsfield?”
“Surely. We are in sore need of a rest. What will become of the governess? Miss Farnsworth, did you say the name is?”
“Grace Farnsworth. She is a very nice girl, Mary, from a good family. Don’t judge her by this first impression. She only did it as a favor to me and because she was in desperate need of money.”
Mary regarded him with a wary eye. “But what is to become of her, Alfred?”
“I had planned to take her to London to find a position—if you do not require the services of a very capable young lady, that is to say. I admit, the first thing that popped into my head was to send her to you. You would like her. So lively and vivacious. I cannot begin to tell you all the adventures we have had. She’s very pretty, too, when she is not dressed as a child.”
“Prettiness is not one of my requisites in a governess, Alfred,” she said. Her suspicions rose higher at every speech. “Nor anyone else’s, either. Quite the contrary. Unless the employer happens to be a widower, of course.”
“There is nothing like that between us,” he said swiftly. No one but a sister would have detected the trace of pink around his ears, the quickly averted eye, the nonchalant toss of the head.
Lady Dewitt, as sharp-eyed as a lynx, certainly noticed it, and wondered whether Alfred was not being conned by a sly wench. “Would she be willing to leave you, to accompany me to Ireland?” she asked.
“She would be very happy to. We have spoken of it.”
“Good. I am vastly relieved to hear you have not spoken of marrying her instead. It would be just like you, to be taken in by a cunning mushroom.”
“Grace is not cunning!” he said angrily. “She has not been throwing her bonnet at me, if that is what your sniff implies.”
“I don’t suppose she would say no if you offered.”
“You are mistaken. She did say no,” Whewett answered before realizing he was being led down the garden path.
“I see! I like her better already. She has given you a chance to cry off if you are only offering from a sense of duty. As it happens, dear Alfred, I do require a governess,” she told him, depending on his perseverance with Miss Farnsworth that she would not end up with two, for she had an unexceptionable one already, older and ugly, just as she liked.
“But you said you did not,” he objected.
“My present one is poor at French, and it is time to start the girls on it. Does Miss Farnsworth speak French?”
“Yes, but—” Invention failed him, and he was forced to simulate pleasure at Grace’s good fortune. His sister was too shrewd to be taken in by such lukewarm assertions as “That is excellent news.”
“Of course I shall want to become acquainted with Miss Farnsworth before I engage her,” Mary said. “Can she come to Downsfield with us?”
“She will be happy to,” he said eagerly.
“If we two rub along satisfactorily during my visit, she shall return with me. And if she does not appeal to me, I daresay you will think of a different role for her. But I warn you, Alfred, I cannot stay longer than a week.”
; Whewett missed the laughing gleam in her eye. “Stay longer, Mary,” he urged. “A month—”
“It took you less than a week to discover her excellent qualities. I am not slower than you.”
With the important matter of an immediate destination in mind, they talked of other matters. Later Whewett went to see his daughter before turning his carriage back to Willowcrest.
Grace awaited him in the Purple Saloon. A smile was the last expression she expected to see on him. Her own face was white and drawn with anxiety. She looked like a little wraith in the surrounding gloom of that ghastly chamber.
“She’s ready to kill you, Whewett,” she warned him. “I have been put through such a catechism! She thinks Augusta is illegitimate and has asked me a million questions about her. I claimed to know nothing about it.”
“Good. How should you? We have decided she has been making her home in Ireland with Mary. You have never been there.”
“Are we not going to tell her the truth, then? I must caution you, she has taken the real Augusta in the greatest dislike. It was a wretched thing we did. We might lose Augusta’s fortune for her, and it is only the circumstances that have set Grandma’s jaw against her.”
“Everything is fine,” Whewett said airily.
“I don’t know how you can say so. It could hardly be worse. I am strongly inclined to sneak out the door while I have my hide in one piece.”
“We’ll let her believe me a libertine and a scoundrel. It will not affect Gussie’s inheritance. We shall carry on as we’ve been doing till Monday, if you are willing; then we all go to Downsfield. Mary wants you for a governess.”
Grace looked at him, unable to believe it. “How can she possibly, after meeting me for the first time under such abominable circumstances? She must think me the greatest wretch who ever drew breath.”
“I explained everything. She is eager to engage you.”
“What did you tell her?”
“Only the good things. I withheld all references to the stage, marrying aged widowers, that avidity for food and wine. It is all settled but for you to agree. You will come, won’t you?” he asked eagerly.