After a while, her disagreeable daughter sidled up and sat down next to him. He had no wish at all to talk to her, but he was mindful of Mr Wynne’s words that he should talk to ‘any lady who might be offended if not noticed.’ He suspected Miss Redpath to be a lady likely to be offended.
“Good day, Miss Redpath,” he said. “I trust you are well?”
“Perfectly well, I thank you, sir. How kind of you to ask,” she simpered. “Pray do tell us about your estate at Starlingford. Is it very charming?”
Charles had not been used to considering an estate as charming. Starlingford was a contradiction to him, a place filled with happy childhood memories but also the sorrow of his brothers’ deaths. It was a burden and a chain that anchored him in place when he would far rather be free, yet its woods and pastures brought him a tranquillity he had never known anywhere else. It was his family home, and also contained the unwanted presence of Mildred. He never thought of it without pleasure, but there was also grief and regret. He could not put any of this into words, even had he wished to, so he talked instead of those things which might interest a girl of Miss Redpath’s age — rooms and gardens and farms and the surrounding countryside. She listened with wide eyes, as her mother looked on smilingly.
Eventually the servants brought out refreshments and as the guests crowded around the pyramids of fruit and platters of meat, Charles was able to make his escape. Sitting unnoticed in a shady corner with her lacemaking equipment, he found Miss Milburn. Still in a gentlemanly frame of mind, he said, “May I fetch you some fruit, Miss Milburn? Or a drink, perhaps?”
She looked up at him with a mischievous smile which lit up her face. No one would ever say she was pretty, but when she smiled so, those dark eyes afire with merriment, she was handsome indeed, and there was nothing in her form to object to. In fact, she was rather a lovely young woman — when she smiled.
“How gallant you are today, Mr Leatham! A morning in the company of Mr Wynne has been most effective, I can tell. Whereas I have had less agreeable company, and I’m in high dudgeon as a result. If you are minded for an argument, I can certainly oblige you.”
He laughed. “Sorry as I am to disoblige a lady, I am in too good a humour to quarrel with you today. But you speak of Miss Redpath? Is she more friendly today than she was yesterday?”
She nodded, her face rueful. “I could wish she wouldn’t be, but her mother scolded her into it and so she’s been clinging to me like a limpet all day.”
“Barnacle,” he said automatically.
“What?”
“Never mind. How did you escape her?”
“I told her I had the headache and must sit in the shade with some restful occupation.”
“Oh, I am very sorry you have the headache. Might you not feel better if you were to lie down for a while?”
She gurgled with laughter. “I don’t really have the headache, Mr Leatham. I told a little lie.”
At once he said, “‘Remember as long as you live that nothing but strict truth can carry you through life with honour and credit.’ Oh… I beg your pardon, Miss Milburn, that was an offensive thing to say to you.”
Fortunately, she took it in good part. “Not at all, for in general you’re quite right, or rather, your book is quite right. I am impressed, by the way, with the amount of it you can quote at the very moment it’s required. That shows an admirable degree of study. But I suspect the book refers to serious lies, where one pretends to be rich or well-connected or some such, and not the everyday little lies that make life tolerable. If a friend says to me, ‘Does this gown flatter me?’, am I supposed to say, ‘No, not at all, it makes you look monstrous ugly and you should give it to your prettier sister at once’? I should not have many friends if I spoke so. One may always find some little compliment to make. ‘That is such an unusual colour’, perhaps. Or ‘What an elegant sleeve! Did you contrive it yourself?’ And sometimes, if one wishes to be left alone, one may pretend to have the headache.”
He sat down abruptly beside her, tugging at his earlobe. “This is so obvious when you explain it this way, just as Mr Wynne’s advice seems obvious, and yet all these years such things had never occurred to me. I must be very stupid. How will I ever be a proper gentleman and find a wife?”
“Not stupid,” she said, patting his hand absent-mindedly, “but wrapped up in your own affairs, perhaps. Once you begin to look about you at the company, you will find out all sorts of interesting details about people which you can turn to your advantage. You would find out, for instance, that Miss Redpath and her mother are very keen to assist you in your search for a wife. Miss Redpath would very much like to be mistress of Starlingford. She has been plying your step-mother with questions about it all day.”
“Miss Redpath?” he said. “No!” But when he looked across at the lady and her mother, he saw them watching him with narrowed eyes. As his gaze fell on them, they both smiled brightly, and Lady Henrietta waggled two fingers at him playfully. “Good God, that would be worse than Mildred,” he said with loathing.
“Then do not pay her too much attention, or you may raise expectations.”
“Miss Milburn,” he said with feeling, “I thank you from the bottom of my heart. You are so wise.”
“Me? Wise?” But he thought she looked pleased, all the same.
21: A Ball
Charles found that the days passed very pleasantly. He rode each morning with Mr Smythe, satisfying the need of both gentlemen for exercise and a degree of freedom from the constraint of being constantly civil to strangers. After breakfast, he made it his business to be available to the young ladies if an escort was required, and conscientiously laboured to become thoroughly acquainted with all of them.
When he found himself with a spare hour or two, he sought out Mr Wynne, who was usually to be found in the library with the newspapers and a pile of books. He always politely set these aside, however, seemingly delighted to discuss gentlemanly behaviour or politics or the state of the roads or any of a hundred other subjects, as they arose. When Charles apologised for importuning him, Mr Wynne smiled and said it was a pleasure.
“Hmm. That sounds like precisely the sort of thing a true gentleman would say,” Charles said. “You wish to please me by answering all my foolish questions, to the detriment of your own leisure time.”
“You are quite correct,” Mr Wynne said. “Nevertheless, it also happens to be the case that it is a pleasure for me too. I have no son of my own, and if that situation should be remedied in the future, I may not survive to see him reach adulthood and ask me such questions in his turn. Even if I am so fortunate as to have another twenty or more years left to me, I may be unable to do more than drool and pull my shawl closer about my shoulders by that time. So you are giving me something I may never otherwise experience, Mr Leatham, and I thank you for it.”
The two were occasionally joined in the library by other bookish guests. Lord Narfield proved to be interested in more than apples alone, and could discourse at length on any number of scientific topics. Mr Julian Narfield, one of his unmarried brothers, was a lawyer with aspirations to enter Parliament, and he questioned Charles with great interest on his experiences of the war. Mr Thomas Redpath, uncle to the obnoxious Miss Redpath, was a man of some learning, whose spirited philosophical debates with the others Charles watched with amazement. His father, although well-read, was too private a man to display his own erudition, and his army friends had been men like himself, young, active and engaged in the serious pursuit of pleasure. He had never before been exposed to men of considered opinions, who were prepared to debate them at length and in good humour, acknowledging every sound point made against them. Charles had no ambition towards such learning for himself, but he could not but be affected by it.
He did not forget his principal task, however. When he found himself in company with Miss Milburn and the opportunity arose for private talk, he would ask her opinion of one young lady or another.
“What do you t
hink of the Miss Wynnes?” he would begin.
“They seem like very pleasant, well-mannered girls,” she said cautiously.
“But so young! The elder is barely seventeen. I should like a wife who can conduct a rational conversation. What about the Miss Narfields?”
“Very accomplished.”
“All young ladies are accomplished,” he said with a sigh.
“Except for me,” she said, with a smile.
“You are accomplished, too,” he replied seriously. “I have seen your skill at lacemaking, Miss Milburn, and in that area there is not a lady in the county to compare with you.”
Her eyes widened, and she opened her mouth to make a retort, then thought better of it. In the end, “I thank you for the compliment, sir,” was all she said.
That gave him pause for thought. He had paid her a compliment without the least effort, because it was something that was true. As with her examples of the friend with the unflattering gown, where she would find some little thing to praise, all he had to do was to speak the truth, which was perfectly consistent with the principles of gentlemanly behaviour. Once he had identified his future bride, therefore, he would be able to court her with perfect ease, now that he knew the way of it.
In the second week of their stay at Narfield Lodge there were some increases in the company, for with the approach of the planned ball, Lady Narfield felt the want of more young gentlemen to provide partners for the young ladies expected to attend. Amongst the newcomers was one Charles was especially glad to see, his cousin Will Leatham.
“So how are you getting along with the charming Miss Milburn?” Will said, as soon as they had an opportunity to be alone. “Am I to wish you joy?”
“Heaven forbid!” Charles said with feeling. “We should never suit. She is here only to advise me on which of the others to choose.”
Will raised an eyebrow. “Truly? You contrived an invitation for her just so that she could point out that Miss So-and-so is tolerably pretty and has seven thousand pounds?”
Charles laughed at this description. “The invitation was none of my doing, I assure you. Lady Narfield took a fancy to her and invited her, or perhaps she wanted to invite Mama and thought Miss Milburn was her companion or some such. I cannot think she is very comfortable here, for the other young ladies thoroughly despise her.”
“Because her father was in trade? Society can be very harsh. But if she marries well…”
“Who would marry her?” Charles said, with an indifferent lift of one shoulder. “She is a shrew, Will, destined to be a spinster aunt to the children of her sisters, who will all be terrified of her bad temper and avoid her as much as possible. Their parents will value her for the dreadful warning she embodies. ‘Be obedient and good, or else you will end up like Aunt Caroline, unloved and alone.’”
Will laughed but shook his head. “You are too hard on her, Charles. She seems amiable enough to me, and she has a very pleasing figure. Very pleasing indeed.”
“Then you may have her, with my blessing,” Charles said, with a careless laugh, but Will’s words left him shaken. Amiable? Caroline? He had regarded her as unmarriageable for so long that he found it difficult to adjust his ideas. Now that he thought about it, however, he could not remember when they had last argued. Was she mellowing, or was he growing accustomed to her? He had begun to think of her as a friend, but as for anything more than that… definitely not. Recovering himself, he went on quickly, “You must tell me what you think of the Miss Narfields. The elder has a charming way with a Scotch air, although the younger is the pretty one.”
“Why is it always the younger sister who is pretty?” Will said, pulling a wry face. “No doubt she has a lesser dowry on account of it. One may have the dowry or the handsome face, but not both seemingly. Not that I could aspire to either one, not in a gathering like this. Unless you should be so obliging as to break your neck on the hunting field, my prospects are very poor. Three hundred a year now and the hope of another five hundred later, if the present incumbent does not outlast me, which I believe he is determined to do. Seven years I have been waiting for that living, and still the old gentleman is hale. Did you hear about old Morton? Waited six and twenty years for his living, and when it finally came to him, he had barely got the pictures hung to his satisfaction when he was carried off with an apoplexy. Life is very unfair sometimes.”
“It is a pity you had not settled on the church in time for us to give you Bursham St Matthew,” Charles said. “If we had known, we would have kept it for you and not let the Christophers have it.”
“You are very good!” Will said. “Not that it is a very great income — no more than a hundred and fifty a year. Is it Christopher’s only living? I cannot imagine how he contrives, unless they all live on bread and dripping. The extra income would have been useful, even after the cost of a curate, but it is of no consequence. I shall do well enough when I have my two livings and a wife with some money of her own. A few thousand would set me up very comfortably.”
That evening, Will made directly for Miss Milburn as soon as he had made his greetings to the matrons, and there he stayed, making her laugh with some amusing anecdotes and eventually leading her in to dinner. Charles was stuck between the two Miss Wynnes, who were scarcely able to string a sentence together, being barely out of the schoolroom. He laboured manfully to make conversation, but it was hard work, and all the more frustrating when he could see Will and Miss Milburn getting along splendidly.
When the ladies withdrew, Will pulled up a chair next to Charles. “Did you mean what you said earlier?” Will said eagerly.
“About what?” Charles said absently, as he poured port into his glass.
“About Miss Milburn. You have no ambitions there yourself?”
Charles’ froze for an instant, decanter in hand. Will and Miss Milburn? Surely he could not be interested in a woman like that! Unbidden, the image of treacle-coloured eyes arose in his mind, eyes that brimmed with merriment as she teased him. And that delightful figure, softly curving so that the skirts of her gown swayed as she walked…
“Charles?”
Recollecting himself, he passed the decanter down the table and turned to Will, schooling his features into blankness. “I have no plans to marry Miss Milburn,” he said firmly. And it was true, damn it! So why did he feel as if he had been punched in the chest?
“Then you will not stand in my way, if… I mean… too early to say, of course, but… she has such a good figure. I have always hoped… if ever I should be so fortunate… someone just like that. Do you understand me? I must say, she looks remarkably well with her hair done that way, and such a pretty gown. Even in such company as this, she looks remarkably well. And she is very practical. She has suggested some small improvements to my household arrangements…”
“Will, can you afford to marry on three hundred a year?”
“Of course not, but according to Aunt Daphne, Miss Milburn has two thousand pounds, as well as a third share in the house. That is another eighty or a hundred a year, and she can earn perhaps as much again with her lace. She would be able to find some economies in my management as well, I am certain of it. We should be comfortably situated, very comfortably, even without my second living. Of course, it may come to nothing. I should have to get to know her better and so forth. I shall not rush into anything, you may be sure. But if you do not value her, you will not object, will you? It can be nothing to you if I try to attach her.”
Charles reminded himself that he did not value Miss Milburn in the slightest, and had no wish at all to marry her, but he had thought of her as his Miss Milburn for so long that the prospect of someone else marrying her was not one he could view with equanimity.
“Do consider whether she is likely to be a conformable wife, Will. She is an argumentative woman, and in your position… a clergyman cannot have a wife who is always running counter to his wishes.”
“She has never argued with me, Charles,” Will said smugly. “I
get along rather well with her, in point of fact.”
And Charles had nothing else to say, although his spirits were oddly low.
The evening before the ball, his step-mother drew him aside. “Have you engaged Miss Milburn for the first two yet?” she said in an urgent whisper.
“Does she plan to dance?” he said, surprised. “I should not have thought—”
“Really, Charles! Of course she plans to dance, and if she does not, then you must persuade her to do so. A ball is the perfect opportunity to secure her once and for all.”
“Mama, I am not sure—”
“You must not begin to doubt your own mind, Charles. Now is the moment to make your move. She has had time to consider your offer and to think better of her refusal, and besides, you seem to be getting along perfectly well now, is it not so? Not a cross word between you. Although I do not think it was well done of you to draw her to the card tables.”
“She is a capital whist player, Mama, quite wasted in her quiet corner with the governess. So long as she plays for fish, she is perfectly happy to—”
“Better in her quiet corner than mingling with the gentlemen. She was playing with Mr Julian Narfield last night, and I could see that he was rather taken with her. You will not advance your cause by exposing her to men of greater rank or wealth than is your lot. Ask her for the first two, Charles. Do it now, and then you can engage her for the supper dances later.”
But when he obediently approached Miss Milburn, he found he was too late.
“You are very kind, sir, but I am already engaged for the first two to Mr Will Leatham.”
“Oh. The second two?”
The Lacemaker (Silver Linings Mysteries Book 2) Page 22