‘Ah,’ he said, his gaze moving from Gussie’s face to the room behind her. He was searching for something. ‘That creature is yours, is it? I had concluded as much. I do not see how any great-uncle of yours could contrive to turn himself into stone, and yet remain animate — remarkable. But the Wyrde, I suppose, is equal to anything.’
‘In fact, sir, he is dead,’ said Gussie haughtily. ‘Has been these many years, I believe. At present he is haunting a cathedral grotesque. It is its very ugliness that amuses him, I am sure of it.’
‘I see,’ said Lord Maundevyle.
‘Before that, it was a rock.’
‘A rock?’
‘A mere ordinary rock, such as one might pick up on any country ramble. It was found in all sorts of odd places all over the Towers, and I believe it took my aunts some three years to understand its provenance.’
‘It did not speak much, then, this rock.’
‘I conclude not, sir. It is the lack of a mouth, perhaps. In which respect, Great-Uncle Silvester’s current choice must be considered superior.’
‘A mouth,’ said Lord Maundevyle, once again searching the room behind Gussie. His eyes narrowed. ‘And wings, and I am sure I perceive a set of horns?’
‘Yes, sir. Positively devilish, I know, but then I have never received the impression that Great-Uncle Silvester was especially a religious man.’
Lord Maundevyle searched Gussie’s face, as though he might suspect her of amusing herself at his expense.
Gussie mustered her most charming smile. ‘What a coincidence it is, that you should come up here at the very time I was exploring. I had thought you gone out into the park.’
‘You must have been exploring for some time,’ said Lord Maundevyle. ‘For I have had my walk, and come back. My mother sent me in search of you. I believe it is time to dress for dinner.’
A glance out of the nearest of the long windows confirmed this thought: so absorbed in her discoveries had Gussie been, she had failed to notice the lateness of the hour.
‘Surely a servant might have been better employed upon such an errand?’ said Gussie. ‘It demeans Lord Maundevyle, to chase about the house after an errant guest.’
She meant to poke his lordship into giving away some inkling as to his mother’s notions — and perhaps his own. Had Henry been sent up as part of a general scheme to throw them together?
But Lord Maundevyle was as unruffled by this as he seemed to be by everything, for he merely said: ‘I found myself at leisure, and had no objection.’
‘So fine a collection of paintings,’ said Gussie next. ‘I found myself quite absorbed. Your family has a history as colourful as my own, I observe.’
‘My mother is very proud of it,’ he said. He stepped back from the doorway as he spoke, and gestured for Gussie to precede him. ‘I do not doubt she will be enchanted to meet your great-uncle.’
‘Silvester is almost as sociable as he is religious,’ said Gussie, sweeping past him into the passage. ‘And I am afraid his speeches are infrequent, and generally incomprehensible.’
‘I do not imagine that will much disconcert Mama.’
Gussie could well believe that little disconcerted Lady Maundevyle.
Before she had gone more than halfway down the passage, Lord Maundevyle called her back. ‘Miss Werth?’
Gussie turned.
‘I have ordered that the carriage should be brought round at an early hour in the morning. If it pleases you, you shall be taken straight back to Werth.’
Gussie regarded him thoughtfully. She could not determine whether the gesture was made in earnest; had he truly known nothing of his family’s scheme, or was he set up in apparent opposition to it, in order to win her approval?
Common sense decided that the point was immaterial; she was not going to marry him either way, and it must be perfectly apparent by now that while she objected greatly to the method by which she had been brought to Starminster, she had evinced no particular distaste for the prospect of remaining there.
‘I am grateful for such attention,’ she said, which was true. ‘But I shan’t need the carriage just yet.’
Lord Maundevyle’s eyebrows rose. ‘I had thought you resentful of my regrettable brother and sister’s treatment.’
‘And I am. Their conduct was indefensible.’
‘Why, then, would you not seek an early removal?’
‘Because some mystery is apparent in all this, and I can hardly be expected to feel no curiosity about it, can I?’
‘You are quite as bad as Clarissa,’ he said.
Gussie’s mouth opened in shock. ‘How ungenerous! I am persuaded no one has ever been as bad as your sister.’
He surprised her with a swift smile, soon gone again. ‘She would be delighted to hear you say so.’
‘Then I shall make a point of keeping the thought to myself.’
He bowed.
‘Lord Maundevyle,’ she said.
‘Yes?’
‘Do you know why your mother wanted me here?’
He studied her. ‘It pains me to admit it, for my sister at least is clearly in my mother’s confidence. But she has not seen fit to confide in me about it.’
If it was a lie, it was smoothly said. If it was not… did her ladyship fear that her son would disapprove of her scheme, whatever it was? As the current Lord Maundevyle, he was master here.
‘I will find out what it is,’ she vowed.
‘I can see that my mother can be no match for you, Miss Werth.’
Chapter Eight
Silvester defied all of Gussie’s expectations. When she entered the dining-hall an hour later, escorted by an obliging Lord Maundevyle, she beheld her disgraceful ancestor seated atop a vast silver epergne occupying the centre of the table. He sat tall (or as tall as his diminutive frame permitted), and alert, as though he expected to enjoy an entertainment of no common order.
The epergne being not wholly dissimilar in hue to Silvester’s own grey, and possessed of a variety of flourishes and extrusions besides, nobody save Gussie immediately registered the presence of the grotesque.
Except, perhaps, for Lord Maundevyle, whose lips formed a small, half-suppressed smile as he bowed Gussie into her seat, for which she could not otherwise account.
‘I trust you have passed a pleasant morning at Starminster, Miss Werth,’ said Lady Maundevyle, upon the commencement of the meal. She sat at the head of the long mahogany table, surrounded by festoons of napery, fine porcelain and silverware. Gussie she had caused to be seated on her right hand, next to Lord Maundevyle. The other two Selwyns occupied the two seats opposite to their brother and their guest, Clarissa a restless vision in ivory silk, Charles a monument to boredom in an exquisite green coat. Gussie felt thankful for the presence of Silvester, if only for his disruption of a family party she might otherwise find a degree too cosy.
‘Quite pleasant, thank you,’ said Gussie. ‘Finding myself not, after all, confined to the dungeons, I undertook to go all over the house, and poke my nose into a great many things not at all intended for my amusement.’
‘Why, I wonder that you can still walk!’ said Clarissa. ‘You cannot have gone over all the house in an hour or two, surely?’
‘Oh, no,’ said Gussie, dipping her spoon into her bowl of creamy soup. ‘There is plenty left for tomorrow.’
‘I found her in the long gallery,’ said Lord Maundevyle.
Lady Maundevyle looked sharply at Gussie. ‘Then you have become acquainted with our sorrow.’
The words were spoken with a heavy emphasis; were the words written down, Gussie would certainly expect to see sorrow spelled with a capital S. ‘I do not believe I am, quite,’ said Gussie. ‘Do you — do you refer to the prevalence of the Wyrde among your ancestors?’
‘Oh, no!’ said Lady Maundevyle, shocked.
Lord Maundevyle had spoken of his mother’s pride in her lineage, but Gussie was still surprised. A family of such consequence might more naturally regret such a he
ritage; many an aristocratic family in England would. In fact, many did. Only the Werths insisted on celebrating their many, many, many peculiarities, a tendency the more generous of their critics sometimes termed “making the best of a bad lot.”
They had company among the Selwyns, it seemed.
‘You observed, perhaps, an alteration in the character of the paintings, among those more recently taken?’ said Lady Maundevyle.
‘I did,’ said Gussie. ‘Not a grotesque in sight, nor a gorgon either.’
Lady Maundevyle sighed. ‘The Wyrde has forsaken us,’ she lamented. ‘Not a single Selwyn has enjoyed its eldritch touch in quite two generations complete, and in Old Lord Maundevyle’s day — my father-in-law, you know — it was only his sister Gertrude who could boast of it. She had a Voice, Miss Werth. Sang like the very angels themselves, and I assure you it is no mere figure of speech.’
‘A siren, of sorts?’ said Gussie. ‘One of the more favourable Wyrde-curses, that. I believe we had one ourselves, somewhere around the time of old King Charles.’
‘A curse!’ said Lady Maundevyle. ‘Do you call it such?’
‘Why, do not you?’
‘Never! Who that enjoys such powers could ever call it anything but a blessing?’
Gussie shook her head. ‘I think you would not say that if you knew my cousin Theo.’
‘Tell us, then, Miss Werth,’ said Clarissa, eyes alight with interest. ‘What of this mysterious Theo? Is he handsome? And is he very tormented?’
‘Neither,’ said Gussie brutally.
‘You crush me.’
‘And that is not to mention poor Lizzie, who stands in danger of turning her every future beau to solid stone. No, the Wyrde has many drawbacks. I find myself quite content to have been passed over by it.’
Clarissa exchanged a look with her mother, and Gussie felt again the insidious pressure of undisclosed secrets. ‘You are not the slightest bit Wyrded yourself, Miss Werth?’ said she.
‘The Wyrde has never so much as glanced in my direction. You have selected quite the least interesting Werth in existence, I am afraid.’
There, let them fully understand her prosaic nature; see if then they were still minded to keep her.
This gambit failed. Charles said, in his drawling way: ‘But you have other qualities, Miss Werth, have you not? A wit, I believe, was prominently mentioned.’
Remembering the rambling way in which she had so recently addressed Lord Maundevyle, Gussie could not presently flatter herself she possessed any such talent.
Thankfully, Great-Uncle Silvester chose that moment to expose himself. The grotesque fell off the epergne in a spray of lily-petals, landing with a spectacular crack; and, unperturbed, knocked the head off a nearby porcelain figure. Gussie thought the insipid thing rather improved by decapitation, but when Silvester opened his maw impossibly wide, and inserted the porcelain girl’s head intact, she could not but feel a moment’s mortification.
The grotesque’s jaws snapped shut with a crunch, and a spray of shattered porcelain erupted in a puff of white dust.
‘Oh, dear,’ said Gussie. ‘I am so sorry. I had no notion he was so fond of statuary.’
An appalled silence followed.
Then, surprisingly, Charles began to laugh. ‘An adept illustration of Miss Werth’s point,’ he said. ‘You were not too attached to the thing, Mother, I hope?’
‘Gracious, no,’ said Lady Maundevyle calmly. ‘It was Grandmother Totton’s, and of no value at all beyond the mere sentimental.’
Gussie’s heart sank. Charles’s snort proclaimed his mother’s words either a polite lie, or a sarcasm to rival any of her son’s.
Still, as Great-Uncle Silvester’s chosen means of expressing his sense of obligation to the Lords Maundevyle, it was not unfitting.
Lady Maundevyle had nothing further to say upon the subject of the porcelain nymph. Instead she said: ‘You say you found Miss Werth in the long gallery, Henry. I trust you enjoyed a pleasant conversation?’
‘Perfectly,’ said Henry, without looking up from his soup.
‘And did anything of any… import, chance to happen?’
Gussie looked up, sharply, at her ladyship. Heavens, she was not suggesting her son might have felt disposed to make an advance upon their guest? She was but barely acquainted with him! She opened her mouth, minded to express her precise feelings upon such disgraceful notions at once.
But Lord Maundevyle said: ‘No, Mother,’ in such a tone as to quell all further comment.
Lady Maundevyle subsided.
‘Well,’ said Clarissa brightly. ‘It has been scarce half a day, yet. We must not expect any very great attention from providence, Mama. It has been ignoring us these fifty years, at least.’
Gussie could make no sense of this speech, and her look of enquiry was answered only with an airy smile.
‘Besides,’ Clarissa went on, ‘there is always the ball.’
‘Magical occasions, balls,’ said Charles. ‘There is no saying what might happen.’
Coming from Charles, the words were probably meant to provoke, and they certainly provoked Clarissa, who — judging from the way Charles jumped, and scowled — proceeded to kick him under the table.
Did they possess a kernel of some imagined truth, in the minds of these peculiar Selwyns? Was Gussie meant to be so overcome at the sight of Lord Maundevyle in his formalwear as to fall in love with him directly?
Was he meant to feel any such sudden passion for her?
Gussie’s indignation swelled to such a height, she did not immediately recollect the simpler peculiarity of there being any ball to raise such expectations. A minute or two passed before she was able to enquire: ‘Is there to be a ball, ma’am?’
‘Naturally there is to be a ball,’ said Lady Maundevyle with asperity.
‘Tomorrow night,’ put in Clarissa helpfully.
‘But— but—’ Disparate thoughts whirled around Gussie’s head, most of which she could not, in any politeness, express. Was not her ladyship a famous hermit? How, then, could she consider anything natural about hosting a ball at her own home?
And was this on Gussie’s account? If so, it must have been planned some way in advance. Just how long had Lady Maundevyle been harbouring designs upon Gussie?
‘I hope you are not ill disposed for a dance, Miss Werth?’ said Clarissa, with a smile of glittering mischief. ‘Mama, you see, has quite set her heart upon it.’
‘Oh, no!’ said Gussie. ‘When I have come into Somerset with no other view!’
‘Miss Werth’s motives become clear,’ said Charles. ‘You have anticipated her wants exactly, Mama.’
Under different circumstances, Gussie might indeed be positively inclined towards a ball, for she had never in her life attended anything but a small, impromptu dance among her own family. Some part of her might, by the morrow, feel delighted at the prospect — were it not for the utter strangeness of such an event’s being held under such conditions at all.
‘I have never been more than passingly fond of asparagus,’ said Great-Uncle Silvester, apropos of nothing.
‘Then we certainly shan’t serve any,’ said Clarissa without turning a hair. ‘Besides, Charles hates it above all things.’
When Gussie retired at last to her bedchamber, she was in a state of muddled confusion she hardly knew how to resolve. She had been treated all evening as an honoured a guest, as though the circumstances of her arrival at Starminster counted for nothing. When Lord Maundevyle and Charles had joined the ladies in the drawing-room, the former had made not the smallest effort to distinguish her; in fact, he had not spoken more than three words to her from the moment of his entry until the moment of her departure. Even Charles had been more civil than that.
One might have imagined Lady Maundevyle to object to her son’s cool treatment of Miss Werth, but she had not seemed to notice. The only intervention she had made was on the occasion of Henry’s sitting down, quite on the opposite side of the room fro
m Gussie.
‘Why, Henry, you will give Miss Werth a conviction of your disliking her,’ she had said, and waved her son to a chair at Gussie’s elbow. ‘Do, pray, try to be an amiable host.’
The tightness around Lord Maundevyle’s mouth had declared him less than pleased, but he had made no objection to the alteration, and had spent the rest of the evening seated next to Gussie. In silence.
Gussie had at last excused herself, claiming weariness after her journey. It was true that she was inordinately tired, though not because of the morning’s travel. Rather because of everything that had happened since, and the impossibility of making any sense of it afterwards.
She missed Miss Frostell’s observations. In all likelihood, her governess would have something to say of it that would make everything clear, or at least tolerable. Gussie could only console herself with satire. She lay in her bed, listening to the faint sounds of Great-Uncle Silvester consuming some other trinket of priceless worth and questionable taste, her mind turning upon the peculiarities of the Selwyn family until she fell asleep.
Chapter Nine
Gussie woke in the morning to the extraordinary sight of the very Miss Frostell of her plaintive imaginings. Her friend, unquestionably many miles distant the night before, was seated in a deep chair on the far side of her bedchamber, rapt in the enjoyment of a steaming cup of tea.
‘Frosty?’ she said, sitting up.
‘Good morning,’ smiled Miss Frostell.
‘But— but surely you are a dream! I had no notion I had the power to conjure up visions. How curious that I should never have happened to do it before.’
‘It would please you to no end if you could, no doubt,’ said Miss Frostell. ‘But I am not a vision. I have this moment arrived, and probably woke you as I came in, for which I am sorry. It is past eleven o’clock! You must have been excessively tired, to sleep so long.’
‘Don’t reproach me!’ Gussie begged. ‘I had quite the day of it yesterday, I assure you.’ She got out of bed, drawing her shawl around her shoulders, and advanced upon Miss Frostell with the purpose of satisfying herself as to her friend’s solidity.
Wyrde and Wayward Page 6