by Edith Layton
“Only because they agree with Squire Hadley,” Victoria laughed. “They’re shocking climbers, you know. They feel their earl ought to have ‘everything a gentleman ought to have,’ as Sally says.”
“I agree,” he said with a nod of satisfaction, “but I draw the line at peacocks. But there, you see, my ancestors doted on the idiot creatures and I chucked them all out. Doubtless that raised up a surly Earl of Clune or two from the grave vowing to disturb my slumber more than his precious peacocks had done.”
“I see,” Victoria said, and then blurted, so amused at her sudden thought she was unable to stop herself, “then like ‘The Princess and the Pea,’ you feel they were some sort of test of your noble blood? But I never heard tell of ‘The Prince and the Peacock,’” she added on a gurgle of laughter before she stopped short, aghast at her presumption. For he said nothing in that moment, did not even venture a grin at her jest, only stared at her, arrested. Then she remembered belatedly that a commoner ought not gibe with a nobleman, and neither should a servant rally an employer.
“Oh,” he said at last, with a long slow smile, “but what a lovely idea—how I wish they’d put a few under my mattress instead of outside my window.”
Then he roared with the laughter he’d suppressed, and all the way back to the Hall he laughed with her and joked with her, and quite made her forget her place entirely, and made her forget that she’d ever wished to leave this place entirely.
And all the way back he thought of how animated she was, how witty and how bright and lovely a creature she was, and realized that he had been right about that originally after all, and heartily regretted that he’d discovered it to be true again now, just when he’d convinced himself all his problems had been resolved.
11
“No,” Miss Comfort said, “it is not done.”
Victoria’s shoulders slumped. It was, of course, the right answer—trust Miss Comfort to give the right answer—but it was the wrong one as well. The old woman, sitting up in her bed, decently clad in a ruffled bed gown with a bed jacket over that and a shawl added for warmth and for the propriety of receiving visitors, seemed to sit even straighter as she added relentlessly.
“I can understand that it would be pleasant for you. But I cannot think it would be wise. The Haverfords are an unusual family, you are a lucky girl to have fallen in with them. They are very liberal. I, for example, as Mrs. Haverford’s companion, was always welcomed at her side at table, and at every soiree. If you were only her companion, I might say it would be permissible. But you are also and perhaps primarily a governess here, since though I am bedridden, I am still alive.”
No smile lit the aged pale and serious face as she made this observation, and then, nodding at the silence it produced in her listener, Miss Comfort went on, “And a governess, my dear, never dines with the family in company, no more than their infants do, no, she has few more privileges than her charges in that respect in any household, however modern, or careless, it might be. I know you have occasionally dined with them over the past weeks,” and here Victoria lowered her lashes over her eyes, remembering those delightful times when everyone ate and laughed together, the food never being half so delicious as the conversation, “since the Haverfords still live easily, not yet being accustomed to the title. Of course,” Miss Comfort added, “it hardly mattered, since there was no one else about but other house servants to observe it. But tonight would be quite different.”
Victoria didn’t wish to seem as though she were pushing, she never wanted to appear to be anxious, so she said as lightly as she was able, in tones she hoped did not sound so much argumentative as thoughtful.
“But both the earl and Mrs. Haverford said that as they’d put it about that I was also a friend of the family, it would be quite correct for me to dine with them this evening. None of the company, the earl said, would think it wrong. Rather, he said,” she added, more defiantly than she knew, raising her chin as she rallied her pride, “he said that they might even think it odd that a friend of the family did not dine with them on a social evening.”
Miss Comfort sat very still and gazed at her young substitute. Miss Dawkins wore a light blue dress this morning, a simple thing, muslin, banded at the waist with a peach riband, with a trim of peach about the hem and at the closings of the wide sleeves. It was a perfect airy, cool drift of a frock for a summer’s morning, and because the day bid fair to become a sultry one, she wore her light brown hair pulled back and away from her high forehead, caught up quite simply in the back with a narrow peach riband. All simplicity, dressed all for convenience, and she looked like a blooming rose withal, Miss Comfort thought, as only the young and lovely can appear to be without either artifice or ornamentation. The older woman remained silent, but it might have been that she sighed then, for the ecru lace at her thin bosom stirred.
“It is all very well for the earl to say that,” Miss Comfort replied in the new trembling, faint voice she’d acquired since her illness. “He is a man, and a nobleman. But though he will learn that eccentricity is permissible in his new rank, he will also discover that he has his family to protect. Therefore it is up to us to protect him until that time. You are not a fool, Miss Dawkins,” Miss Comfort said in a harder voice, “or else you wouldn’t have come to me for advice before you agreed to it. I suspect you already knew the answer before you asked my opinion. Roberta Haverford is kindness herself, and sometimes that overshadows her good sense. The earl is a man. You must use your wits. You are a young, attractive female, and one, moreover, with a certain history of scandal, deserved or not,” Miss Comfort added, putting up one thin white hand to forestall Miss Dawkins’ defense of herself.
The old woman drew her shawl more closely about her narrow shoulders despite the growing warmth in the room and said with finality.
“The correct thing would be to dine with the children in the nursery, saying that you feel more comfortable there. Then bring them down to visit the company after dinner. You may, however,” she added at the last, almost as if against her will, after seeing Miss Dawkins’ solemn expression, “remain with the company after the children are sent to bed. That you may do, if you feel you wish to be seen as a friend of the family.
“I tell you only what is proper, although I understand what is proper is not always pleasant. Indeed, I spent most of my life teaching a generation of children just that, as you likely shall do as well. I am a friend of the family too, and more, for I am related to them. Yet I know my place, and always did. And poverty, my dear,” Miss Comfort said, her voice becoming stronger and clearer, her face growing colder even as she seemed to be becoming more personal, “poverty will always show you your proper place. Friend of the family or not, Miss Dawkins,” she concluded with the twisted travesty of a smile, “can you imagine how the Ludlows will feel if you sit down to dine with them?”
Victoria could, she had, and she’d told that to the earl immediately after he’d given her the invitation as they’d been walking this morning, watching the children tumbling down the hillside with their wicker baskets, searching for the wild strawberries they’d promised Cook. He’d been astonished that she’d known the family was planning a social evening with local gentry and yet had not planned on coming to table with them. “But, my lord, can you imagine what the Ludlows would say?” she’d asked at once, horrified at the thought of her former employers’ reactions. And at once, he’d flung back his head and laughed at the very idea of their amaze. And as was so frequently the case between them these days, she knew exactly what he was thinking, and in his laughter she saw the awestruck faces of the Ludlows as clearly as if they stood before her in fact.
“Miss Sophrina,” he’d managed to say at last, “eyes popping out as much as the front of her frock, and Miss Charlotte looking about wildly for a mirror to see if the fault lay in herself. Oh, Miss Dawkins, how can you think of refusing and ruining my evening? Bad enough I must do the pretty with the vicar, the squire, and the doctor, and even old Squ
ire Hadley come all the way from the next county to break bread with his benefactor. Can you find it in your heart to leave me alone to endure his endless gratitude for those wretched birds? Doubtless he’ll document egg production and feather loss to assure me as to their happiness all through my soup and on into fish…”
“And heaven help you if you serve an unusually large pheasant”—she giggled—“you’ll have to produce the feathers to reassure him.”
Then they both went off into laughter again, as they so often did on these morning jaunts with the children. For here in the countryside she could forget that the dark gentleman was a nobleman and her employer. Indeed, it was difficult to remember their relative stations when he was freeing her dress from brambles or carrying Sally on his back or sitting on the banks of a stream or lying back against a tree to tell his vastly entertaining stories of the islands to his attentive audience of children and their governess.
But there was nothing so odd in it, not out there in the sun and on the lawns and in the meadows. She was of an age and education to be conversant with him, after all. Who else should he seek out for conversation, she wondered, the grooms? the housemaids? his valet? He did spend time with his mama, and at times with the librarian, and the couple who restored his art gallery, and from time to time he rode out to visit with neighbors. But summer days were long and he was a long way from London, and he chose to remain in the countryside restoring High Wyvern Hall, and he adored the children, that was crystal clear, and their governess was always with them. Luckily, she often thought to herself; oh, luckily for her.
He was a perfect gentleman with her, had been for all these summer weeks, although she might choose to entertain herself by interpreting some of his looks and words differently in the velvety summer nights as she counted over her soft lovely lucky days before she drifted off to sleep. But she knew that was only a game she played, she knew that she must never blur the line between her present reality and true reality, or her reality and his. Although the idea of having dinner with him had seemed delightful and right early this morning in the meadow, this noon, she looked at the woman in the bed before her, shrunken and diminished by pillows and comforters, and knew this was actuality. She had to deny her fantasy and admit that in the end she had more in common with this frail old female than she ever did with the earl. For he was only a dear passing dream, and here before her lay a living example of her real future.
“You are quite right,” Victoria said bleakly.
“Yes,” Miss Comfort said vigorously, primming her lips in pleasure. Yet as Victoria left at last, promising to bring the children for an evening visit to show how well they’d dress for company, Miss Comfort stirred restlessly in her vast bed. As the door closed behind Miss Dawkins, Miss Comfort stared for a very long while at the back of it, and then at length breathed very softly, “Yes. And I am sorry.”
*
The Yellow Salon was not the largest or most opulent downstairs room in High Wyvern Hall, but Victoria liked it best and was pleased to see that her hosts obviously did as well. For that was the room to which all the company had repaired after their long and lavish dinner. The two great fireplaces were aroar because it was such a large room and such an unexpectedly cool evening. But by no means was it cavernous, that was the charm of the Yellow Salon. The fire and lamplight lent more light to the saffron-silk-hung walls and cast bright glances at the nymphs and shepherds busily engaged in the painted medallions on the high reaches of the ceilings. The intricately patterned Eastern carpets lay like verdant flowerbeds beneath the rosewood feet of the many tapestry-covered chairs and lounges; these blossoms and bright colors made it the most glowingly alive room in all the Hall. Yet even so, Victoria thought, as she led the children in to the company, there was a dimness, a shadow here that no color or light could dispel. But perhaps, she thought on an interior shrug as she dipped a curtsy to the assembled guests, that was only a reflection of the shadow that lay over her own bowed spirit tonight.
There were almost two dozen people who swam up out of the ruddy moving shadows to return her greeting. These few she didn’t know she assumed to be the peacock-fancying Hadleys, and two other family groups whose names she recalled to be those of near-neighboring landowners. The rest she recognized in turn as her gaze swept over the room: the vicar and his wife, the young doctor, the estate manager and his wife, the couple who supposedly fostered the children, the elderly librarian, the couple given a respite from their work in the gallery, and the Ludlows gaping at her so nakedly that Victoria suppressed a shudder and was very grateful for Miss Comfort’s advice—until she noted Miss Comfort herself, expressionless, wrapped in as many blankets as a small mummy, snug in a wing chair by the fire.
Mrs. Haverford, at her old companion’s side, smiled and immediately commented on how pleased Victoria must be to see how successful they’d been at getting dear Comfort down for dinner among company again for the night. So when the earl gave Victoria a dark reproachful glance as he came to take Sally by the hand to draw her into their midst, Victoria was too numbed to feel as betrayed as she knew she ought to be. There still was little doubt Miss Comfort had been right, she thought as she settled into a chair, even though, as it turned out, she herself had been misled.
Sally answered all the friendly questions with shy grace, she enunciated each word with such great care that those who did not know her might have thought her a creature of high birth and only as hesitant with adults as a properly raised little girl ought to be. Alfie and Bobby said very little, but stood with their hands behind their backs like a pair of half-scale footmen. But Victoria saw the subtle glances Alfie often cast toward Miss Comfort, who’d exclaimed over their attire only hours before, with never a word offered about how she’d soon see them in their glory in company for herself.
“Heavens!” Miss Charlotte cried, fanning herself as rapidly as she blinked. “What a charming little creature. One would never imagine that she’s a charity child. How she’s come on since I first saw her. But isn’t there a baby as well that we’ve never seen, my lord?” she asked, with a sly inflection that could have meant she yearned to see the babe, although it just as easily might have implied that she wondered why the bachelor nobleman withheld the infant from view.
“Baby’s sleeping,” Alfie began truculently, until a look from the earl silenced him.
“Indeed he is,” the earl said pleasantly, “but there’s no mystery about him, I’ll introduce you two any day you please. It’s only that we scarcely thought him ready for such elevated company. He’s not even got a year to his credit as yet, so his conversation, I fear, is not very enlightening.”
There was a murmur of laughter among the company, and Miss Charlotte, flushed beyond the firelight’s reflection, pressed on in a determinedly merry little voice in an effort to cover her lapse and show she was either ingenuous enough to be oblivious, or charming enough to be forgiving of the set-down.
“Ah, but I hear the Hall has several mysteries, my lord. The old earl shunned company toward the end, you know, and we were thrilled at being asked here again. Now, pray do not tell us we are to spend an evening here at long last and still hear nothing of the famous Haverford ghost? How shall I hold my head up in company after this?”
“But, my dear,” the earl replied in amusement as Sally looked up at him with her eyes widened, “there’s no need to hide that lovely face for any reason, for there’s nothing at all to tell.”
Miss Charlotte pouted prettily and Mrs. Haverford deftly changed the subject by asking after Squire Hadley’s pride of peacocks. At about the time the company was growing heartily bored with descriptions of all the fascinating nuances of peacock mating behaviour, the earl, noting Sally’s yawns, took time to ask the guests to hear her and her brothers’ good-nights. Victoria rose to escort the children to their rooms, but was forestalled when the earl summoned a footman and an upstairs maid to the task.
After the children had left, conversation limped on in such desult
ory fashion that Victoria wondered why she’s ever yearned to come down at all, and began to think herself fortunate for having missed dinner. She gazed down into her lap, thinking of all the time she’d spent deciding on what to wear this night before choosing her very best, a thin yellow velvet frock with rose trimmings, which, because of its lightness, was even more flattering than it was unseasonable. It was all a waste, she decided, as she smiled witlessly at a tale of an interesting misdiagnosis the doctor was regaling her with, for though she matched with the room she felt about as entertaining and entertained as any other furnishing within it.
Then, as the hour grew late, but not so late that anyone could yet beg exhaustion as the children had and so escape the tedium, Miss Charlotte was heard to say again, in a high, desperate voice.
“Oh fie, my lord. The children are gone, and still you treat us all like infants. Everyone knows there are ghosts at the Hall, it’s been gossiped about forever hearabouts. And yet you’ll say nothing to us of them. Shame, sir!”
She might have been angling for more of his attention—he’d been chatting with the vicar’s spinster daughter—she might have simply been bored to tears, but Victoria doubted she expected her host’s reaction. For, “Very well,” he said, turning about, some imp of mischief flickering in his dark eyes (or was it the firelight?), “if you wish to hear about her, you may. But I can’t promise you’ll ever want to return to visit us here again, if you do.”