Mr. Neville looked uncomfortably at Mary with great, dark eyes, and she was thereby enlisted to her brother’s support. “Most certainly sir. I will not have it any other way. You must stay, indeed, I count on it.”
There followed a civil argument in which Mr. Neville showed proper feelings against such an imposition and brother and sister united to convince him that his presence at Greenly was necessary for their happiness. At last he gave way and spent an agreeable supper in congenial and interesting conversation with the family. When Mr. Fanley, during an account of all the doings of Greenly in the absence of its heir, mentioned the connection made with the Marquis of Denley, who would be soon Master of Treehill, Mr. Neville claimed a slight acquaintance.
“Indeed, you know him?” asked Mary, in wonder.
“Oh, yes, a little,” Neville said, but on seeing Mr. Fanley give him a very odd look, he sought to clarify that having moved in society in London he would naturally be in his Lordship’s company from time to time, but “I would not claim to be one of his intimates, sir, I can assure you.”
Mr. Fanley, who had suffered a vague sensation that might be called discomfort, felt himself to be instantly relieved. Mary, however, who also felt an unnamed discomfort, was determined to inquire as deeply as she dared into the character of the man to whom she had every expectation of being hostess again in less than one month’s time.
“What do you know of his Lordship’s father, the Duke?” Mr. Neville asked Mary on a leisurely walk of the grounds.
“Why nothing at all. Is he eccentric do you think?”
Neville laughed heartily. “My dear Miss Fanley, I believe eccentric would not do him justice, but I overstep. Let me say, the less said on the subject of Denley’s papa, the better.”
“Oh, come, don’t be missish,” Will chided. “Mary and I love to hear tales of the rich and famous. Does His Grace eat only gruel and call for his personal physician every Monday morning?”
“Indeed, Will, you cannot make me say more. It would be the worst sort of thing, to talk of the Duke when you are in a way to be intimate with his son. I cannot be convinced to do it.” Neville looked to be the model of propriety at that moment, with a small frown of reproof on his brow and his lace cuffs gleaming in the morning light.
“Well, it is likely to be uninteresting at any rate,” retorted Will, piqued to have been cast into the shade by a more polished and slightly older man. “I dare say any person would sit for one night in my father’s company and claim him to be a great eccentric. It is the way of fathers to cause all manner of embarrassments.”
“I’m afraid in casting the one against the other, the Marquis would find your father a model of desirable society,” Neville said vaguely, thus revealing a hint of what, a moment before, his conscience would not allow him to discuss.
Sensing their new companion knew a great deal more of Denley than he had confessed, Mary pressed him a little further. “And the Marquis? What do you know of him?”
“Oh, well, nothing more than you do, I would think. His visit here was of some weeks duration, was it not? I would have thought you would tell me about him.”
“Yes, Mary,” her brother insisted, “tell us about your excellent Lord Robert. Papa seems to be quite taken with him, with ‘Denley this, and Denley that.’”
Mary considered what to say. Were it only to Will she spoke, she might have been more unguarded, but Mr. Neville inspired in her an unusual degree of caution, for she did not want to appear to him to be cattish. In her hesitation, she was spared.
“I see by your hesitation that you do not want to tell us your opinion, Miss Fanley, and so I will not press you. You cannot like him very much, and I do not blame you. As to your Papa’s fancy for him, I do not comprehend it, but I cannot judge what I do not understand.”
“So you find him arrogant and disagreeable?” she asked, impulsively.
Neville smiled. “I see we are of the same mind on this subject, at least. But to your father he must exhibit a different sort of manners, so we must credit him with some semblance of respect and amiability.”
“Poo!” cried Will. “Papa’s notions about what constitutes amiability cannot be counted on. Praise a pig’s haunch or notice a cow’s ear drooping, and he thinks you are a great gun.”
“No, Will, I assure you, he is quite good to Papa. I have even, on occasion, felt a little sorry for him.”
“Sorry for him? That is a lark. Him and all his titles and privileges and all. I’m on the verge of tears me’self!”
Mr. Neville looked on in amusement while Will cajoled Mary to enlighten them as to what would inspire such compassion for the last person in England who stood in need of it.
“Oh, well, it was only on occasion, when — being new to the country — I took a slight advantage of him.”
Will shot her a measuring look. “Meaning you teased him, knowing you.”
“Yes,” she admitted with a laugh. “The worst occasion was on his first visit to the pig yard on the home farm, when he complained of the smell. I made a little joke of it; that is all.”
Will did not appreciate the delicacy of Mary’s reluctance to gossip in front of a houseguest. “Come, out with it Mary!” he demanded.
Mary blushed. “Oh, it was silly, really. I had the pigs washed is all.”
“You did not!” Will exclaimed.
“Oh, I did,” Mary hung her head. “In the clover patch with Mrs. Buntley’s everyday soap.”
The young men expressed delight and after extracting a few more details from his sister, Will complimented her in his youthful manner. “I always knew you were positively evil!”
“What said Denley to the doings?” asked Neville, with a gleam in his eye.
“Oh, he is too stiff and formal to have said anything to me in front of common folk. We drew a little crowd, as you would expect. But by his looks, I would say the Marquis felt himself included and a little ill-used by the joke.” By this time the colour had risen in Mary’s cheeks. In the confession of an incident that had entertained her and all the tenants at the time, she saw clearly that her conduct toward her guest had been grossly, unkind.
By the end of the walk, Mary could only feel remorse, but Mr. Neville looked more amused than ever. “I hope, Miss Fanley, that if I ever express a distaste for something in the country, you will show me a little more mercy than you did poor Denley.”
Mary’s eyes clouded. “Indeed, it was badly done of me, Mr. Neville.”
“I found it delightful.” He leaned over her hand, grazing her fingertips with his lips.
Miss Fanley stood in a daze where Oscar Neville left her at the garden gate. She had no experience with dalliance, and could not resist his accomplished attentions. She found herself beguiled by the way he managed to brush her fingers with his own when she served his tea. When he greeted her in the morning with a salutation that mentioned the roses in her cheeks, her cheeks responded in kind, by blooming. He was tender in his ministration of her shawl, and engaging in his determination to distract her from her needlework and entertain her with games. His attentions, though slightly particular, did not embarrass her and she was easily enticed to walk with him in the lanes in the morning before he and Will took to their horses.
Mary began to pay attention to her closet, wearing slippers and silk to dinner instead of her habitual morning dress and walking boots. Upon being complemented by a well-mannered man, she felt a vulnerability that Denley had not elicited in even his politest moments. She was altogether kinder to Oscar Neville than she had been to a man of ten times his consequence. Mary thought she would not be displeased if Oscar Neville were to look on her seriously. This new sensation took her attention far away from the disquieting Marquis of Denley.
Chapter Thirteen
From the seat of Bromley’s curricle, Lord Robert noticed a pen of black swine next to a small cottage bordering Margill. He could never pass by a pig in the country without recollecting one certain day at the Greenly home farm
. He and Mary had argued over whether the smell of pigs was worse than the smell of the back alleys of London. When he flung at her the accusation that, having never been to London, she could hardly be the judge, she had grabbed the nearest youth and furiously set him to washing pigs in the clover patch. In truth, the image of poor Jim Barry running after squealing pigs with a bucket and a brush gave rise to a smile, but that same smile quickly turned to a grimace at the recollection of Miss Mary Fanley’s treachery.
It wasn’t only Jim Barry who was laughed at by most of Fanley’s tenants. His argument with the mistress of Greenly had not been discreet. By the time the last pig was polished, the tale was spread that the heir of Devonshire’s nose was dainty and that he was squeamish as a girl.
He had been livid, but determined not to betray his feelings by storming away from the scene. “I believe I am in need of help above stairs,” he yawned. “Send that young man to wait on me. His grooming skills seem promising for what I might need in the country.”
He had not been sincere of course, but she had taken glee in rubbing salt in the wound by taking him at his word. When Jim had presented himself, nervous but shiningly clean and sweet smelling, he was in a condescending mood and allowed the lad to serve him.
“Pray, Jim,” he had said while he was helped on with his tight red coat, “is your Mistress always so capricious?”
“Begging your pardon, sir?” Jim stammered.
“Is it her habit to have the pigs washed?”
“Oh, no, sir, that was just a lark of hers, that was. I’m sure she only made me do it on account of me eating one of cook’s pies that was meant for your honour’s dinner.”
“Fascinating,” Lord Robert said glumly.
“I beg your pardon?” Susan Bromley asked.
He was driving Miss Bromley on a pleasure outing along a country road in Somersetshire, and had been caught speaking aloud what he had been thinking.
“Oh, fascinating!” he said, making a recovery and taking a tighter grip on the traces. Miss Bromley had been talking at length on the subjects which primarily made up her conversation. She specialized in facts about town life she had heard but never experienced, the unfortunate looks and circumstances of all the poor, eligible girls for miles around, and her family’s rank and consequence in the neighbourhood. Lord Robert had been very willing at first to hear all these anecdotes, as she spoke charmingly, but the repetitiveness led him to a firm belief that she had been coached as to how to go on when speaking with a gentleman. At last he felt only desperation. That he would find contemplating Mary Fanley’s pig washing incident a refuge from the tenth telling of what the parson said about poor Miss Somebody’s terrible limp, severely aggravated him.
“Tell me, Miss Bromley, what think you of pig sties?”
Her amber coloured eyes showed terror, for it was apparent she could not think anything that she had not been told to think. “Oh,” she managed, “they are so…common?”
“Indeed, that they are, here in Somersetshire,” he replied in a spiritless voice, “but the pigs in Greenly Village are uncommonly well-kept, or so I have noticed.”
Chapter Fourteen
At his family home in London, Lord Eversham spared no thought for his nephew. He had many responsibilities — most self-inflicted, but heavy nonetheless. Having assumed control of such a vast wreck of noble heritage, Lord Eversham thought of Denley mostly in terms of a cost to be relegated or remediated.
By the second week after leaving Somersetshire, Eversham received news of Denley via a rare note from him, franked from Margill Estate.
Uncle,
Miss Bromley, though initially promising, has proven to possess such a want of intelligence that I can claim acquaintance with cattle of more understanding! However, the younger sister Catherine is a most agreeable young lady, and I mean to get acquainted with her before your planned return.
This short missive was closed with a firm assertion he would see through his stay at Margill as planned.
The note, although burned immediately upon being read, caused Eversham to suffer a rare qualm. He had seen enough of Margill to feel his decision to place Denley in the midst of such a family had been well-calculated. Yet, at seventeen, Miss Catherine could hardly prove suitable — particularly with regard to stabilizing the profligacy of a young Marquis hell-bent on self-destruction. However, at the end of his ruminations on this turn of events, he reminded himself that whether Denley were married to a model of bourgeoisie pretension or rotting in Marshalsea, at least the expense of his dissipation would be at an end. So he took a small glass of fine claret and thought no more about it.
That is to say, he thought no more about it until six days later, when, at a late morning breakfast, while reading the business notices of the newspaper, the butler announced a visitor. Looking over his quizzing glass with a distinct frown, Eversham said, “Pray admit him, Quinley.” That grave person returned in a moment’s time with a large, rough man, clad in a burlap coat with his grey hat in hand.
“Explain what you are doing in London when you are being paid to mind my nephew?” Lord Eversham barked.
Brinkley, one of two stalwarts whose mission was to assure that the young Marquis did not bolt off to a gaming hell or out of the Sovereignty, stammered and coughed. “Beggin’ your Lordship’s pardon, sir, but I’m ’ere only on account of mindin’ the young lord.”
Eversham’s ever-dark face grew a shade darker as his eyebrows lifted. “Explain yourself then, if you please, Mr. Brinkley. What has Denley done?”
“It’s that he petitioned us to bring him here safe like, on account of some scrape he was got in, and he won’t be coming up to see your Lordship lest you give him leave like, sir,” came the halting reply.
“A scrape,” came the very frigid voice.
“Yes, sir, so he said.”
“And where is he at this moment?” came the next question, in even icier tones.
“He’s in the kitchen with Mr. Drake, your Lordship,” coughed Brinkley, “awaiting your leave to come up.”
Lord Eversham took in this information with an unnatural calm which caused Mr. Brinkley to fear for his employment. But rather than vent fury on the hired man he rang crisply for the butler. “Mr. Quinley,” he said evenly, “pray escort Mr. Brinkley to the kitchen and fetch my nephew.”
“My Lord Denley is here?” Mr. Quinley asked, in no small surprise.
“So it would seem. You will know him — although I am sure he has affected some disguise?”
This last he addressed to Mr. Brinkley, who said, “Sure enough, sir. We would not be bringing him right past Bow Street without making him look like he ain’t like no Marquis who’s a person of interest.”
To Quinley, Eversham said with asperity, “No doubt he will look like the hurley-burleys with whom he’s been keeping company.”
So the Marquis was ushered into the breakfast parlour, where his uncle sat waiting for bad news.
“I thank you, uncle,” Denley said, brushing past Quinley in a rush and discarding his rough coat in that worthy’s extended arm, “for seeing me. I believe you will not like me being here, but allow me at least to explain myself.”
“Indeed, I am agog,” professed the uncle while poring himself a cup of tea. “But, pray tell me first: how much this will cost? So that while you are ranting on about your side of the story I can be deciding whether or not I shall rescue you this time.”
“Cost?” Denley exclaimed in surprise. “I should dare say very little, although there is the money I owe Brinkley for the expenses of travel — you have left me without a feather to fly with!”
“I find I do not care for you as a high flyer. Now, are you quite out of your mind to be coming to London where you are known to be adrift from the law for duelling, indebted to a criminal degree and hunted by a dozen enraged fathers that we know of? Not to mention the trifling matter of the moneylenders who do not care to operate within the boundaries of common law?”
“
Sir, I felt it worth the risk to escape Margill,” Robert replied with conviction.
Lord Eversham stood up and glared at his nephew. “Good God, you have not…”
“No!” cried Denley. “Are you suggesting I would seduce a daughter of such a scheming mercenary as Mrs. Bromley? She set many a trap, I assure you, but my conduct was quite Christian and above reproach. You yourself witnessed me going there with every honourable intention! Then Miss Bromley revealed herself to be the most intolerably witless creature. And Miss Catherine- A shrew! A temper like that of a sea witch over some little trifle or other, and all of them trying to contain her so I wouldn’t hear her screeches and her mama telling me that she is prone, but very rarely, to the megrims, but nothing that a few hours in seclusion with the hartshorn and smelling salts won’t cure.” He caught his breath after his tumbling oration, and glared at his uncle. “I am insulted you would accuse me of intrigue in such a wretched quagmire of characters. Indeed! And I am quite enraged that you thought to introduce me there, and to leave me quite friendless in such a coil.”
“Ah,” Lord Eversham said, retaking his seat and picking up his newspaper again. He placed the paper between his flushed and panting nephew and himself, and after a moment, bent the corner enough to peer over it. “I infer that the Miss Catherine is no longer an object of pursuit?”
Lord Robert let out a deflated, exasperated snort in reply.
“Then may I also infer that, upon reflection, the evils of Miss Mary Fanley are not so very insurmountable?”
Lord Robert stared at the newspaper, behind which his uncle sat quite at his ease. After a moment he took a chair, and began to laugh; a low, mirthless chuckle.
“Pray, what has amused you sir?” Eversham asked from behind the commodities page.
“Oh, I see how you have played this hand — and touché, I am pinked.” Denley made a mock bow from his chair.
Grace Gibson Page 5