Someone Perfect (Westcott Book 10)

by Mary Balogh

  They all gazed wistfully at the long, steep slope down one side of the hill, which provided a superb sledding run when it snowed.

  Almost everyone went to church on Sunday morning, and during the following days Maria received several neighbors, who came to pay their respects to her and the guests. A few of the older ones remembered Aunt Augusta and Aunt Felicity and were happy to reminisce with them while their children listened and laughed. One of those visitors, Lady Jemima Hodgkins, had been a particular friend of Justin’s aunts when they were all girls— they both called her Jim, while they were Gussie and Fliss. Her call had to be returned, and the aunts went off to visit her one afternoon, taking Maria and Paulette Ormsbury with them.

  It pleased Justin to think that his sister would not be entirely alone after all the guests had returned home but would be a part of the community as mistress of Everleigh and could be a social leader in the neighborhood if she chose to be.

  They all occupied themselves in the evenings with conversation and cards. Once they engaged in a spirited game of charades. Often there was music, though none of them pretended to any extraordinary talent.

  And just occasionally it was possible for Justin to steal an hour or so to be alone out at the summerhouse without feeling that he was neglecting anyone. He varied his destination one afternoon, however, after he had spent the morning leading a group through the portrait gallery in the north wing and then taking those who had a head for heights up to the balcony that surrounded the base of the dome. After luncheon he collected Captain from the stables and took him for a walk to the lake.

  He had written a letter to Ricky a few days before and sent it by special messenger. Hilda would read it to him. Justin had explained that he had not come during July because he had needed to go in search of his sister to bring her home. “But it hurts my heart that I will be unable to see you in person for a while,” he had written. “I will come as soon as I possibly can, Ricky, but I cannot say exactly when. I think of you every day and miss you every hour.” He had sent his love and asked Ricky to tell Wes and Hilda that he sent love to them too.

  It was not a fully satisfactory explanation. Ricky had a very literal mind. When one told him one would come in July, he expected that one would make an appearance on one of those thirty-one days— and somehow he always knew what month it was and what day of that month. He could not think in abstractions. For a while and as soon as I possibly can would very likely mean to him that Justin was not coming for a long time, that therefore Justin did not really love him. Perhaps the mention of a sister would wound him more than it would console, suggesting as it might that Justin’s sister meant more to him than Ricky did.

  Justin did not know quite why Ricky had grown so attached to him during those years. Perhaps it was because he had always believed he was the protector and Justin the one in need of protection. It had been a novel role for him. He was the one who had first invited Justin inside Wes’s house. It was he who had offered— with a huge, anxious eagerness, lest Wes and Hilda forbid it— that Justin share the loft with him, with a curtain between the two halves to mark their territory. Ricky had loved the fact that they could talk after they went to bed at night and that Justin would actually listen to him— and respond. He had loved settling in his bed and telling Justin about the new ducklings on the village pond or how Hildy could not believe he had chopped so much wood all in one morning or how the village baker had given him a currant cake all for himself after he had swept off the step of the bakery without being asked but how he had brought half the cake home for Hildy because she was always giving him food and it was nice to give back. He had assured Justin very kindly that he did not look very ugly with his broken nose even though Wes had said he did that very evening. Ricky told Justin he would love him forever and ever even if he did have a bust nose.

  When he had left Wes’s house and his job at the quarry to return to Everleigh, he ought perhaps to have said a firm and final goodbye to them all, Justin thought as he picked up a broad stick Captain had brought and deposited at his feet and hurled it as far as he could. His dog tore after it. It would have been ultimately easier on Ricky, easier on him.

  But an idea had been forming in his head ever since he read Wes’s letter. He did not know how workable it would be, or how desirable to his elderly blacksmith, whom it would involve. It was not always wise to try playing God with other people’s lives, after all. Sometimes it was necessary, as with his forcing Maria to leave Prospect Hall to return here. At other times it was not. And it was never wise to act impulsively. Just consider his marriage proposal, as a case in point. He stood on the bank of the lake, gazing out across it, occasionally stooping to pick up the stick, wrestle with a playfully snarling Captain for possession of it, and then hurl it into the distance.

  He needed to ponder his idea carefully before acting on it and perhaps regretting it for the rest of his life.

  It was a large natural lake, fed by the waterfall, which cascaded down the steep hillside to his right. Its waters emptied into the river that flowed through the valley below the house. His grandfather had had a wooden mock-Chinese bridge constructed over the narrow part of the lake just below the falls. It had steps leading up to it and down at the other side. It had a bend in the middle, taking it across the other half at a different angle. There was a roof over the central part, pointed like a cone but with four corners that were curled upward. It was fanciful and brightly painted and probably did not resemble any bridge that had ever been constructed in China. On the far side was a boathouse.

  Justin went to stand on the bridge. He gazed at the waterfall and let the sound of rushing water fill his ears and shut out the rest of the world. Captain, minus his stick, trotted across the bridge behind him and sniffed about the boathouse.

  Justin looked up at the grotto— the cave in the hillside to one side of the waterfall. Someone had once called it a grotto, because the word was more evocative than cave, he supposed, and the name had stuck. It was far larger inside than it looked to be from here and used to be a favorite boyhood haunt of his. He had been a bandit of the Robin Hood variety and a marooned sea captain and a spy hiding out from his enemies there and a thousand other heroic characters. A boy’s imagination was limitless, after all. He wondered if blankets and cushions were still stored in the boathouse and— if they were— when they had last been laundered.

  They were still there. They also looked and smelled clean and free of mildew. He took a few with him and climbed to the grotto. It was not far up the hill or difficult to reach, but one definitely felt cut off from the world when one was inside it. He spread a blanket on the stone floor, sat close to the entrance, a cushion at his back, and made room for Captain, who had scrambled up after him. The dog sniffed every inch of the cave, panted in Justin’s face as if to ask if they were really going to stop here for a while, turned in a few circles when he guessed the answer to be yes, and then plopped down on the blanket to gaze out at the lake.

  There was surely nothing quite as blissful as solitude, Justin thought. Of course, one did tend to bring one’s teeming thoughts along with one, but a few minutes of stillness, during which one concentrated upon one’s breath and nothing else, usually helped quell them. Maria— how was he going to secure a proper come-out Season and a happy future for her? His father— had he really been trapped into marrying Lilian Dickson? Ricky— how could he atone for letting him down? Lady Estelle Lamarr— how could he have been so gauche as to rush into proposing to her? The Season in London next year— how was he going to find a countess soon enough to help with Maria? Could the Duke of Netherby help— or the duchess? Lady Estelle Lamarr— why did she have to be so dashed beautiful and so dashed … vibrant and … Argh!

  Finally his thoughts stilled enough that he could close his eyes and be lulled by the sound of the waterfall.

  After luncheon Estelle went with several of the other guests to look inside the greenhouses. Maria was with them. She had explained ahead of time
that she was not at all knowledgeable about the plants within them, though she did intend to learn. Fortunately it did not matter. One of the gardeners was there, and he cheerfully agreed to walk about with them and identify all the plants and answer all their questions. They spent a very agreeable hour there.

  “You will not mind, Maria, if Leonard and I go and sit in the summerhouse for a while with Patricia and Irwin?” her aunt Margaret Dickson asked when they came outside at last into the relatively cool air of an English summer afternoon. “We feel too lazy to do anything else even remotely strenuous, but it would be a pity to return to the house so soon.”

  “Of course I do not mind,” Maria assured all four of them. She stood and watched them go while everyone else was dispersing, a few to the house, others to different outdoor activities.

  Mr. and Mrs. Sharpe were making their way toward the fountain at the center of the formal gardens, where the Ormsbury aunts and uncles were gathered. Bertrand was going to go riding with a group of the cousins. Another group was going to walk along the path on the other side of the river. Estelle decided she would walk to the lake, since she still had not been there. She turned to see if Maria wished to go with her, but Maria spoke first. She was still watching her aunts and uncles make their way toward the summerhouse.

  “Estelle,” she said, “I am going to go and speak with them. Will you come with me?”

  She did not mean just social chitchat. Estelle could tell that from the pinched, determined look on her face and the tone of her voice.

  “Of course,” Estelle said. That embarrassing scene in the drawing room a few days ago had not ruined the house party, as it might very well have done. Maria’s apology had gone a great way toward clearing the air, and they had all been enjoying themselves since. The three distinct family groups were mingling well despite the social differences between them, and Maria appeared to be increasingly comfortable in her role as hostess. The Earl of Brandon did his part as host.

  That scene had had a lingering effect, however, and Estelle guessed that it haunted Maria. If the earl’s aim in inviting them all here had been to restore his sister to her family and make her feel comfortable even with his own, then Estelle was not sure he had succeeded. What would happen after they all returned home? Would that be the end of that? Would there be any future such visits here? Would Maria make any future visits to any of them?

  And now it seemed that Maria herself was ready to confront the issue. Estelle could not help but admire her— if that, indeed, was her intention.

  “Ah, there you are, Maria,” Mr. Leonard Dickson said in his usual hearty manner when they all arrived at the summerhouse at the same time. “You decided to come too, did you? And you as well, Lady Estelle? This is grand.”

  Estelle was not sure Maria’s aunts and uncles were truly happy to see them. Perhaps they had been looking forward to relaxing for a while, just the four of them. But they all smiled and made a fuss. They were pleasant people. Estelle liked them.

  They left the long windows wide open and sat gazing out at the view for a while, exclaiming a little self-consciously about the beauty of it all. But Estelle had been right about Maria’s intention.

  “Tell me about Mama,” she said at last— and caused a sudden, uncomfortable silence.

  “Well,” Mrs. Chandler said. “She was the third of the four of us— younger than both Leonard and me, older than Sarah. She was by far the loveliest. Aunt Bertha— Lady Maple— took her to London when she was seventeen, and she met and fell in love with your father and married him, all within a month. It was a happy love story, Maria.”

  “It was grand,” Mr. Dickson agreed, rubbing his hands together and beaming at his niece.

  “Why just Mama and no one else?” Maria asked. “Why did you not go to London, Aunt Patricia? And why not Aunt Sarah?”

  “I already had my eye on Irwin,” Mrs. Chandler said, laughing. “And Sarah was only fifteen at the time.”

  “You have it the wrong way around, lass,” Mr. Chandler said to his wife. “I had my eye on you.”

  “I believe,” Mrs. Dickson said, “it was mutual. We were all wondering why it was taking the two of you so long to recognize the truth and announce your betrothal.”

  Maria was looking at the palms of her hands. “I want to know,” she said. “I need to know. All I know of Mama I learned from her. She never spoke of any of you except to say that you had all quarreled with her after she married Papa because you were jealous of her. She never spoke of her childhood or girlhood. And she did not say any more about Lady Maple than that she introduced Mama to the ton and Papa saw her and fell in love with her at her first ball. And that Lady Maple quarreled with her afterward because she was jealous that Mama had done so much better than she had herself. Lady Maple married a baronet while Mama married an earl. I loved Mama. I adored her. But …”

  Her voice trailed away, and Mr. Chandler shifted in his chair, causing it to creak alarmingly, and cleared his throat.

  “Why was Mama the only one to go to London?” Maria asked. “And please … Please do not spare my feelings. It is only recently that it has seemed a bit odd to me that everyone was so jealous and everyone quarreled with her. I expected mean, nasty, evil people. But I cannot see any of those things in you. Or in any of my cousins. Or even in Lady Maple despite what she said a few days ago. Tell me about my mother.”

  “Eh, lass,” Mr. Dickson said, sitting back in his chair. “You loved her, and that is as it ought to be. And you loved your papa, I daresay. The last thing we want to do …”

  “Leonard,” his sister said. “She needs to know some things from our point of view. It is only a point of view, Maria. People can have vastly different views of the same set of facts. So I will tell you this. Lilian was indeed very beautiful. She was also restless, and she was obsessed by the story of Aunt Bertha, who met Sir Cuthbert Maple at an assembly in Harrogate when she was a girl, and so took his fancy that he offered her carte blanche then and there. He intended to make her his mistress, in other words. She was not a lady, after all, and no one could have expected him to marry her. But Aunt Bertha held out for marriage anyway and got it. This is the story as the family knows it, at least. It may not be true in all its details. She turned herself into a lady and distanced herself from her family in Yorkshire. She did not cut herself off entirely, however. She used to descend upon us once in a while. Her visits were legendary. She always brought us gifts. Do you remember, Leonard? During one of those visits, when Lilian was barely seventeen, she begged to be taken to London and made into a lady. Our father tried to forbid it, but he was a bit intimidated by his sister and gave in without much of a fight.”

  “My grandfather?” Maria said.

  “He was not a well man,” Mr. Dickson told her. “He did not come here for your mother’s wedding. He died just before you were born. Your grandmother died six years before him.”

  “I did not know that.” Maria was still examining her hands. “Whose version of the meeting of my mama and papa is the correct one? The version Mama always told me and everyone else? Or the one Lady Maple told a few days ago?”

  “Oh, Maria,” Mrs. Dickson said, and she leaned forward in her chair as though to cover one of Maria’s hands with her own. It was out of reach unless she got to her feet, however. “None of us were there. Except Aunt Bertha and Lilian herself, that is. But it was a long time ago— more than twenty years. Does it really matter who was right? Your mama and papa were very fond of each other, weren’t they?”

  Maria said nothing for a while but continued to frown at her hands. Her aunts and uncles were looking quite distressed, Estelle could see. It was obvious to her that they did not want to speak freely. Maria was their niece, after all, and they were clearly fond of her.

  “Tell me about the quarrel,” Maria said.

  Mr. Dickson sighed audibly before drawing breath again. “Lilian’s task when she married your father was … colossal, Maria,” he said. “Our aunt had taught her to
speak like a lady and to behave like one. But suddenly she was a countess. She had so much else to learn. After the wedding she took us all aside— Patricia, Sarah, Margaret, and me— and explained that it would be best if we kept out of the way for a while. She—”

  “She was ashamed of us, Leonard,” his sister said bluntly. “She did not want her new associates to see what she had come from. Or to hear what she had come from. I beg your pardon, Maria, but—”

  “I did ask for the truth,” Maria said. “So, according to your perception, it was Mama who quarreled with you?”

  “Let us not call it a quarrel,” Mrs. Dickson said. “It was more of an agreement.”

  “Margaret the peacemaker,” her sister-in-law said, shaking her head. “There was nothing agreeable about it. We were given our marching orders, and we marched.”

  “There was no further communication?” Maria asked.

  “Your father wrote a very kind letter to each of us when your grandpapa died,” Mr. Dickson said, “and then again when you were born. His solicitor informed us of his demise. We all wrote to commiserate with the new Earl of Brandon, his son, and with Lilian, your mother. We did not hear back from either one. I learned just this week that Brandon— your brother— was gone from home for years before his father died and for a while after. That would explain why he did not answer our letters.”

  “Because he stole all of Mama’s most precious jewelry,” Maria said sharply.

  “Perhaps,” Mrs. Chandler said with a sigh. “We know nothing about that, Maria. And we did not know of your move with your mother to that other home. She did not inform us. We did not know of her illness or of her passing until Brandon wrote to us. We would not have let you bear the burden of all that alone, my dear. Our letters of commiseration came to you very late, I am afraid. We just did not know that our own sister had had a lingering illness and died.” Her voice shook a little and she blinked away tears as her husband took out a large handkerchief and handed it to her.