A Cousinly Connection

by Sheila Simonson

  Jane rose, smiling. "Then you must come often to Bath to catechise your sisters on their social accomplishments. A few days in my aunt's company and you'll soon be ready to resume the happy bachelor life."

  Chapter XII

  One May afternoon Jane escaped from the grand packing and sorting marathon and went for a walk in the home woods. In spite of surface chaos, the plans for Lady Meriden's removal to Bath were well in hand, and it had been a pleasant few weeks. Jane was satisfied with the world, with the Stretton family, with herself.

  The rhododendrons along the avenue that led to the house, the same plantation which had seemed to her so melancholic the previous autumn, now flared with bloom, scarlet and white and pink. On the steep wooded hillside bluebells hazed the ground. She picked a prodigal bouquet. She knew they would wilt before she reached the house again but wanted to bring some token of her pleasure indoors.

  She was rambling along, humming one of Drusilla's airs and wishing that Meriden would accompany his sister more often on the guitarra, and thinking that Vincent was being uncommon civil about his rustication, and that Aunt Louisa would kick up a fuss when she found Maria down to dinner in that jonquil-hued gown, when a distant crunching and clopping along the drive obtruded on her consciousness. A carriage. She fancied Mrs. Calvert had decided to pay her aunt a call, so she turned as the equipage came bowling into view with the intent of begging a ride.

  Papa. Dismay clutched at her. There could be no mistake, however. Mr. Ash's chaise, rather dusty, pulled up beside her, and her father's florid face beamed down at her.

  "Well, Jane, I've come after all."

  "So I see, sir. And Jack. What...that is, I'm glad to see you, Papa. Will you be staying long?"

  Mr. Ash looked mysterious. "We'll see. All well here?"

  "Oh, yes," Jane said. She was tempted to afflict Felix with the chickenpox or claim an outbreak of typhus in Whitchurch. Why must her father come now when everything was going so well? He must see at once that her presence at Meriden was no longer necessary.

  "Climb up, Jane, and leave off your chattering," Jack interposed unjustly. "The team's resty."

  She obeyed.

  "Ah, this is comfortable. We did not look to see you so quick." Mr. Ash patted her hand. "You're in good looks, my dear."

  "Thank you, Papa." She stared blankly at the bluebells withering in her hand.

  "I daresay you're surprized to see us."

  Jane rallied. "No. Your room has been prepared these four months, for I was sure you'd come with each letter you wrote me."

  Mr. Ash laughed heartily.

  They pulled up before the front steps, and Turvey, alert for once, directed a grinning footman to help Miss Jane down and see to the gentlemen's traps.

  Jane led her father up the steps and into the small salon. Jack had fallen into earnest conversation with a groom. She turned to the hovering butler. "Inform Lady Meriden that her brother has arrived, Turvey. Is his lordship at home?"

  "No, miss. He's off to the home farm with Mr. Vincent."

  Jane found she was relieved. For reasons obscure to her, she did not look forward to the meeting between her father and Meriden. She directed the butler to see to refreshment for the travellers and to inform Mrs. Pruitt and Cook of the unexpected guests, and sat down, rather uneasy, on an upright chair opposite her father.

  "So young Vincent's here, is he?" Her father gave her a shrewd look. "A bad business."

  "His debts? How did you hear? I wrote merely that he had got into a scrape."

  "Oh, Louisa wrote me, too. Dithering that Vincent would be shipped off to the colonies. I didn't regard it, of course, but I thought I should lend Louisa my support. The corn's doing well," he added to justify his absence from Walden Ash at so crucial a season. "I'd a scheme to lay before you in any case, my dear, so I packed my gear and brought young Jack along for company. Fine weather all the way, though it promised to be wet." He looked so pleased with himself that Jane's sense of foreboding grew.

  "What scheme?" she asked, baldly.

  "Oh, time enough to talk of that later. Here's Turvey. Rheumatism better, eh, Turvey?"

  The butler favoured Jane's father with a discreet smile. "Yes, thank you kindly, sir. I hope the season finds you well."

  "Tolerable, Turvey, tolerable. Not getting any younger, though. Yes, yes, excellent." This to a glass of wine and a generous plate of thin-sliced bread and butter. Turvey withdrew discreetly.

  Some time elapsed in which Jane's father consumed bread and butter and Jack rejoined them. "Had to see to my cattle, you know." More wine was poured from the crystal decanter, and the remaining viands disappeared.

  "Ah, that's better. That's the thing." Mr. Ash sighed and loosened his neckcloth. "Meriden should see to that lower drive of his, Jane. Potholes. Now, my dear, tell me the whole. It was very bad in Vincent, a damned scandal, but there's no vice in the lad for all that. A high-couraged young'un. I hope his brother has not dealt too harsh with him."

  Jane compressed her lips. Really. In front of Jack, too. "Lord Meriden and Vincent are on good terms, I believe. His lordship has settled Vincent's debts."

  "Has he? Handsome of him, though I daresay he felt obliged to. Should've prevented Vincent getting into such a scrape in the first place." He eyed his silent daughter warily. "Not my affair, perhaps, but Louisa--"

  "My aunt is a little inclined to exaggerate," Jane said in colourless tones. "How does Joanna go on? The baby is strong, I believe."

  "Dashed powerful lungs," Jack uttered feelingly.

  Mr. Ash gave his son a reproving look and waxed eloquent about his new grandchild, as Jane had hoped he would. This led to other home news, and Lady Meriden's languid arrival--this. time she required only Miss Goodnight in attendance, a favourable sign--prevented further cross-examination.

  As soon as she might, Jane pulled her brother from the salon and took him off to the stables on the theory that Thorpe could entertain Jack better than Aunt Louisa would have. He was awed by the size of the outbuildings, but she left him happy enough, deep in horse talk, and slipped up to her room to think. She was fairly sure her father meant to take her home with him, and she had no intention of leaving.

  * * * *

  Julian and Vincent found Jack just going up to the house from the stables when they returned. Vincent let out a whoop.

  "Its Jack Ash, Jane's brother, y'know. I daresay they've come to fetch her home."

  He slid from his mount. Tossing the reins to one of the grooms, he ran after the young man, a fresh-faced boy with his sister's unruly brown curls. Vincent caught young Ash at the first terrace steps, shook his hand vigorously, and plunged deep into conversation.

  Julian dismounted. He had been preparing in his mind to lose Miss Ash to his stepmother and sisters. But Bath lay in Somerset, a mere day's ride from Meriden Place. It had not occurred to him that they would lose her entirely and so soon. He found he disliked the idea very much, so much that he was shaken by the strength of his feelings. After all, why should not Jane's father require her at home?

  When he had seen to his horse, he walked slowly across the stable yard and found the two younger men in profound discussion of a mill they had both attended. Presently Vincent caught sight of him and looked flustered.

  "I say, I'm sorry. Jack, make you known to m'brother, Meriden. Julian, it's Jack Ash, you know."

  Julian shook hands. The boy, who bore an even stronger resemblance to his sister close to, stared at him in an unnerving manner. Shy? Julian tried to imagine Jane shy and failed, He made an innocuous remark about the handsome pair of bays he had observed in the far stalls.

  The boy's eyes gleamed. "Complete to a shade, ain't they? Short-legged, powerful shoulders. M'father said they'd never pull together but I managed them." He flushed and added shyly, "Your man, Thorpe, says you had just such a resty pair in Yorkshire."

  Julian smiled. "Yes, and he was sure I couldn't hold them. Your father is here, I collect?"

  Jack nodd
ed.

  "Then I'd best go make my bow. I'll talk with you later. Shew Vincent your bays."

  "Yes, I will. I say, I'm devilish glad to meet you, sir. I was a Volunteer in Belgium, but I didn't see action at Waterloo."

  "Then I daresay you joined in the chase afterwards," Julian said..

  "Oh, yes. It was famous sport."

  "Don't go prosing on about that again, Jack," Vincent interposed.

  Jack smiled in a superior manner as if to say, 'who is this mere civilian?' and went on to deliver the coup de gráce. "You, I collect, was with the 95th at the centre. I say, I hope you wasn't badly wounded, sir."

  Not so deep as a well, not so wide as a church door...

  "I've made a fair recover, as you see. Vincent," Julian said rather desperately, "will you ask Thorpe to check Dancer's left fore? I believe the shoe is working loose."

  He made his escape, not at all surprized to find that his palms were damp and his stomach tied in a knot. The prospect of edifying Master Ash with a minute-by-minute account of the battle left him feeling more than a little ill. However, to be snubbing Jane's brother was not in order. He made a resolve to introduce the subject of Portugal, which he did not object to recalling, as quick as might be and hoped the boy would succumb to diversion.

  It occurred to him that Vincent had listened to the exchange with a set look about the mouth. A moment's thought reminded him that Vincent knew nothing whatever of his participation in last summer's action and that his brother might justifiably feel that he had been snubbed. Julian wondered whether he ought to go back and make his peace with Vincent or flee the country.

  In the first storey corridor he bumped into a tear-slubbered Maria.

  "Oh, Julian, they've come to take Jane away!" she wailed. "Whatever shall we do?" She clutched at his sleeve.

  As he did not have the least idea of what to do, he stood like a stock for a long moment, patting Maria's hand in an idiot fashion. Suddenly the concatenation of disasters struck at his sense of the ludicrous.

  "You might contrive to break your arm." He began to laugh.

  Maria stiffened.

  "I know, I know. I'm the greatest beast in nature. Go wash your face, Polly."

  "But Jane--"

  "Her father does have a superior claim," he said gently. "But try and see if you can persuade him to let Jane stay. Are you sure he means to take her with him?"

  Maria sniffed. "He hasn't said so..."

  Julian felt inordinate relief. "Then perhaps it would be best to let sleeping uncles lie."

  She gave a watery chuckle. "Best of my brothers."

  "Polly!"

  "I only said it to madden you. "

  "I'm maddened sufficiently without your aid. Go. You're all bleary and blotched."

  "You're covered in dust," she retorted.

  "And horsehair and muck and other worthy things. Your mother would go into strong convulsions at the sight of me, and that would sink me further in Mr. Ash's opinion than a little delay. Do you go down again directly. After you've scrubbed your face."

  "Is it so very bad?"

  "Revolting. "

  At that she took herself off with a saucy flirt of her skirts. He reflected in an absentminded way that Maria shewed marked improvement over the watering pot he had met in March. That recalled his first encounter with Jane, over cold buttered eggs. His gloom returned.

  * * * *

  That evening, sipping at a very tolerable after-dinner claret, Mr. Ash had leisure to reflect. His daughter, he thought, was looking a little hagged. That must be laid to Louisa's door. Indeed a deal of pother might be laid to Louisa. She was a damned tiresome female, her loving brother decided. When he considered the crossed and recrossed pages of fustian he had troubled to decipher in the past year, not to mention losing Jane for long months, he found himself wholly out of patience with her ladyship. Let her go off to Bath with Miss Goodnight and her daughters. His daughter deserved a kinder fate.

  As for Meriden, Mr. Ash could find nothing in him to dislike, except a deal of reserve and too little idea of his proper consequence. Lord Meriden's tenants should wait on Lord Meriden, not vice versa. Mr. Ash could not approve this business of his lordship acting as his own agent. Shabby-genteel. Encouraged familiarity. He wondered where the lad had imbibed such radical habits. Not surely in Lord Carteret's household. Old Carteret had been as high in the instep as anyone. The fault couldn't be laid at his door that his grandson was to be found in the stables jawing with a common groom and puffing a great vile-smelling seegar.

  Filthy practice, smoking tobacco. Snuff, now, that was a gentleman's habit. Mr. Ash took a pinch of the finest and sneezed in a satisfying way. Cleared the tubes.

  The gentlemen were sitting around the cleared table, the ladies having withdrawn, and Jack was prosing on about France. Although Meriden listened with the appearance, at least, of interest, Vincent looked devilishly bored. Mr. Ash considered diverting the conversation into new channels, decided it not worth the effort, and retired once more into his own thoughts.

  He didn't wish to judge Meriden severely. Louisa was too willing to do that. It beggared wonder that, her rackety husband safely dead, she had elevated him to the rank of a minor deity and now wasted energy objecting to trivial changes--such as Meriden's refusal to wear knee breeches to dinner and his practice of riding out before breakfast--merely because her late spouse would not have done so. Nor did Mr. Ash see any harm in sending the twins to school. Dashed sensible idea. Took the brats out from underfoot.

  But closing off the better half of the house, now, was not to be lightly dismissed. And disposing of Harry's racing cattle. And selling up the London house. Cheeseparing. Mr. Ash was glad his sister's portion had been secured to her for her daughters. Otherwise there was no telling what might happen. He was seriously concerned for his nephews.

  Young Vincent, as Meriden's full brother, must remain Meriden's affair. At least those shocking debts were settled, but Mr. Ash meant to confront Meriden over Felix and the twins and young Thomas. Their futures must be secured. Accordingly, when a suitable pause in Jack's military narrative ensued, Jane's father asked Meriden the favour of a private interview next evening.

  Meriden looked puzzled but acquiesced politely. "I had meant to ride with Vincent to Fern Hall tomorrow on a matter of business. If you and your son care to join us..."

  The prospect of escaping Louisa's natter appealed. "Why yes. Thank you. Civil of you, Meriden."

  Vincent brightened at once and began describing to Jack the first-rate fishing to be had in the neighborhood of Fern Hall. If Julian should not object, perhaps they might spend an hour or two angling. He knew a pool...

  Meriden did not object, but excused himself from joining them. Mr. Ash let out his breath gustily. He was not partial to fishing, a dull sport, and damp besides.

  Meriden cast him an amused glance and suggested that they rejoin the ladies. As Mr. Ash wished further talk with Jane, he offered no objection. Unfortunately he could not get her to himself.

  Lady Meriden's presence in the withdrawing room dampened any disposition to unseemly high spirits the party might be feeling. Felix, scowling terribly, was made to accompany Drusilla in several songs. Miss Goodnight was persuaded to play, which she did briefly and sedately. Maria recited a dull poem. Lady Meriden then rose majestically and announced that, as it was past ten, she must retire. That she expected everyone to follow suit was apparent. Felix, the girls, and Miss Goodnight complied, nor did Jane object. Mr. Ash wondered if his daughter was avoiding him.

  However, after the men had talked a bit longer, after Jack and Vincent had disappeared (gone off to the village, Mr. Ash presumed), and after Meriden had also excused himself and vanished (into the agent's office, so far as Mr. Ash could tell, though it seemed unlikely at that hour), Jane came to him.

  "Did you wish to see me privately, sir?" She led him to the library where a pleasant fire glowed and settled him into a chair that was almost as comfortable as his fav
ourite chair at home. What a good girl she was. "I'm sorry Aunt Louisa required me before dinner..."

  'Well, well, it's no matter. I felt the fatigues of my journey, you know, and took a good snooze. Now, Jane, what is this about Bath?"

  "Aunt Louisa has determined to take a house there next month. She wishes to drink the waters and enjoy a little of Bath society."

  "How long does she propose to stay?"

  "Until Maria's come-out. After New Year."

  "Good God!"

  "Pray do not say you object, Papa. We were hard put to persuade her."

  "Was the plan yours?"

  "Miss Goodnight's. I concurred, however. My aunt does not deal comfortably with Meriden."

  "Very true," said Mr. Ash with feeling.

  "And I believe her health must improve if she goes out more. She is sometimes very low."

  "If Meriden--"

  "No, Papa," Jane said firmly. "It is entirely my aunt's doing. She takes a pet whenever he makes the least alteration in what is, after all, his household, or she imagines herself to be ill and takes to her rooms for a week. At no time has he suggested that she remove--even to the Dower House--but she will never act as his hostess. It doesn't matter now, but he must sooner or later desire to receive company. For my aunt to be languishing about like a ghost will create difficulties."

  Mr. Ash said cautiously, "You take his lordship's part, then."

  Jane sighed. "No, Papa, but I am obliged to say that my aunt is a trifle unreasonable, I think the Bath scheme an excellent one. I shall remove to Bath with Aunt Louisa and my cousins."

  "No, you will not," Mr. Ash said firmly.

  Jane stared.

  "Your Aunt Hervey has taken a house in Brighton for the summer . She desires you to join her."

  "But I don't wish to go to Brighton."

  "Jane, you are four-and-twenty. To mew yourself up with Louisa is what I will not countenance. You may say that you'll go about at Bath, but I know Louisa and I know Bath. Shew some sense, girl. You must meet young men."