by Mira Stables
“Aye, sir,” said Sam with enthusiasm. “e’ll be right pleased to see’t lile master. An’ me mum’ll give us some parkin and buttermilk so’s us’ll not go ’ungry.”
Philip accepting this suggestion with the mien of one who has not eaten for several days, the party split up. “No more than an hour,” cautioned Patrick. “Meet us at the Lodge gate at half past three. Miss Beverley and I will ride on a little way.”
Nevertheless he hesitated noticeably before he said, “Are you interested in old houses, Miss Beverley? Would you like to see the outside of the Court? Since my father cut down the trees, one gets an excellent view from the road, though I regret that it is not in my power to show you over the house itself.”
What could she do but express polite compliance? Even though she was perfectly sure that her companion had no least desire to gaze at the exterior of his former home.
They rode on in silence. The lane curved in a wide sweep round the west wing of the old house, following a boundary wall of dressed stone that had mellowed over the years to a pleasing blend of honey-gold and grey. Their first glimpse of the house was through a narrow Gothic arch, where a wrought-iron gate revealed smooth green turf stretching unbroken to terraces set with stone urns that held a glowing burden of bloom.
“There’s actually a ha-ha wall between us and the house,” explained Patrick, his voice dispassionate as though he were some paid guide. “This was used to be part of the park in my grandfather’s day, and there was a small herd of deer that would raid the gardens—or so my grandmama told me. Hence the ha-ha.”
They rode on. Impossible to stop and stare as she would have liked to do had she been alone. For the Court was lovely. Just the kind of house that she liked, neither vast nor fashionably elegant. A solid family house that had grown with the passing of the years, as succeeding generations needed more rooms, or just wished to cut a dash. Because they had built in local stone and with due consideration for the northern climate, the result was a harmonious blend of architectural styles which fitted admirably into its background of green pasture and rolling fell. If houses could be said to have personalities, thought Ann, this one was friendly. Comical, too. It bore itself with dignity, as was only seemly in view of the impressive armorial bearings carved over the main door, but it was not above a gentle jest. The windows seemed to twinkle in greeting, and several of them were oddly shaped and placed. There was a small round one that especially intrigued her, but she did not like to question her taciturn escort. Loving High Garth as she did, taking pleasure in enhancing its appearance and defending it loyally against criticism, she realized in part what it must have meant to Patrick to give up the home of his boyhood, the home to which, no doubt, he had confidently expected to bring his bride.
“A pity I cannot show you the fountain,” said the polite automaton at her side. “It looks very pretty in the sunshine. But the water gardens and the lake that Philip spoke of—a very miniature affair—are behind the house, and the lane is private.”
And you, she thought sympathetically, would not trespass by so much as an inch, and said quietly, “It is very lovely. The whole valley is beautiful. Have we time to ride on as far as the river? The Rawthey, isn’t it?”
She had snatched at the first excuse that came to mind in order to draw him away from a sight that could only be painful, and he followed her lead very willingly, speaking in a much more natural way of boyhood fishing exploits in that same river. But she soon had cause to regret her impulsive suggestion. Down the road at a gentle trot came a shiningly new barouche drawn by two splendid match bays. The top was folded back so that an admiring public might gaze upon its solitary occupant, who had thus been obliged to put up a charming parasol to protect her complexion. The entire turnout would have looked very much more at home in Hyde Park.
It scarcely needed the slight check in Patrick’s voice, the sudden stiffening that caused the patient Maggy to twitch her ears nervously, to advise Ann of the newcomer’s identity. Even as realization dawned there was a tiny scream of joyous surprise. The parasol was cast aside, the horses halted.
“Patrick! Oh! How delightful! And to think that I should be from home the very first time that you chose to visit me! So fortunate that I decided not to go as far as Kendal after all. I meant to, you know, to try out my new pair. Are they not splendid creatures? Stephen gave them to me so that I can lionize in the Park.” There was a dimple and a tiny gurgle of laughter for this. “So I thought I would visit my dear Mary—Mary Rushton, you know. And then if we did not run slap into her in Sedbergh, and she was going to visit some elderly cousins—or were they aunts? Anyway, equally fusty I daresay. So what with Joe, there”—the delightful smile flickered over the coachman but left him visibly unmoved—“grumbling about taking the horses out in this heat, and knowing that provincial shops are vastly inferior to London ones, I thought I might just as well come home again. What could have been better judged. Were you meaning to ride as far as Kendal seeking me?”
The flood of easy babble swept on. Ann felt a quite unaccountable depression. Janet had not over-praised the young chatelaine of the Court. She was indeed beautiful. And if her blue muslin gown was rather elaborate for carriage wear, it looked cool and dainty and exactly matched the big appealing eyes. Even her voice was delightful, so that it really didn’t matter that she spoke nothing more than the merest commonplaces. And no doubt her hands were white and well-tended beneath her blue kid gloves. Ann bit her lip, thankful that she, too, was wearing gloves, though why she must start worrying her head over hands and gloves at this juncture, she really couldn’t imagine.
Patrick succeeded at last in stemming the flow of chitchat, explaining about Philip’s birthday. “We had not the intention of calling at the Court,” he said quietly, “were not even aware that you were in residence. But pray permit me to present Miss Beverley.”
At once Lady Conroy was all charming apology. Miss Beverley must forgive her. Such an old friend as Patrick—she feared she had forgotten her manners. How delightful to find a new friend in this barbarous countryside. Miss Beverley must come up to the Court where she might repose herself and enjoy a cool drink while they became acquainted. She did not actually add, “And brush the dust off your habit and set your hair to rights,” but she looked it, sweeping Ann with an appraising glance and promptly dismissing her as negligible.
Ann glanced questioningly at Patrick. She had no least desire to improve her acquaintance with Lady Conroy. That cool elegance made her feel grubby and homespun, and the faint air of patronage set up all her prickles. But she did not know whether Patrick wished to go or to stay.
He said smoothly, “You are very kind, Lavinia, but I fear that I must deny Miss Beverley that pleasure. Philip will be waiting for us and we have still a long ride ahead.”
Neither big blue eyes nor pretty coaxing served to persuade him. Ann, tactfully silent, was permitted to glimpse another aspect of the spoiled beauty. Even this small rebuff brought a petulant droop to the beautiful mouth, a waspish note to the soft voice. Finally, admitting defeat, she tossed her head—a trick that should have been spanked out of her in childhood, decided Ann with professional interest—and said spitefully, “Very well. Go then. Doubtless you will find better entertainment than I can offer.”
The pair rode on towards the river, the happiness of the day dashed and spoiled by a few peevish words. With Maggy standing fetlock deep in kingcups, Patrick said quietly, “I am sorry for that. I’m afraid Lavinia was always inclined to be pettish if she did not have her way.”
“It was natural that she should wish you to stay,” returned Ann gently. “And natural, too, that she should be a little spoiled, so lovely as she is. It must always have been difficult to deny her anything.”
“But much better for her ultimate happiness if someone had found the determination to do it occasionally. She has everything that a woman could wish for. Her husband adores her and panders to her lightest whim. And for all he’s a south-coun
try-man, Stephen Conroy’s a very decent sort of fellow.” He broke off—looked at Ann and smiled. “She even has the house—the neighbour’s house that she always coveted. But it seems that she is still discontented.”
There was nothing one could say to that. She could only be thankful when he turned his horse and started back up the lane, and that Philip, waited for them impatiently by the Lodge gate, was full of eager talk about his adventures with Sam. That amiable guardian, grinning all over his freckled face, accepted with dexterity the coin that Patrick slid into his grubby fist and waved them off with an injunction to Philip to ‘come again soon.’
By the time that Philip had displayed the pheasant’s tail feathers presented by Sam and now thrust rakishly through his cap, described the squirrel’s drey that his ally had shown him, and proudly announced that he had counted seven baby oak trees, the constraint left by the encounter with Lady Conroy had been successfully banished.
A small boy has to make the most of a birthday. Grown-ups are not often so indulgent. So it was past nine o’clock before Ann finally persuaded Philip to bed. But at least he was too sleepy to demand a story. Ann herself was physically weary. It had been a long day. But her perturbed mind would not yield to the demands of her tired body. She wrapped a shawl round her shoulders, and on the pretext of ensuring that the hens were safely fastened up, slipped out into the yard.
Having conscientiously checked the safety of the poultry run, she went through the gate into the kitchen garden. No one—unspecified—would think of looking for her there at that time of night. A little quirk of dry humour curled her mouth as she softly latched the gate behind her. In books, the heroine invariably betook herself to the rose arbour or to some classical marble grotto, when she felt the onset of romantic yearnings. How very appropriate, then, that workaday Ann Beverley must make do with cabbages and potatoes! Best to remember, she thought soberly, that she was not the kind of girl to attract romance. And set herself to exact and careful recollection of that strange experience on the bank of the Dee.
She could recall every word. And after a brief period of reflection she was convinced that she had not dreamed them. Convinced, too, that they had been addressed to her, even if she had not been intended to hear them. He had not been invoking Lady Conroy, or he would not have spoken of scarred hands.
That point settled to her satisfaction, what was she to make of it? Since coming to High Garth she had been much too busy to fall in love. She had, she admitted, been strongly attracted to Patrick Delvercourt at their first meeting. But in their busy lives there had been little opportunity for intimacy to grow. She was startled to discover, now that she came to think about it, how much he had come to dominate her life. He was her employer—yes. But it was a shock to realize that she never thought of him in that light. Working with a man—for a man, whichever it was, seemed to be an excellent way of getting to know him without overmuch talk. She had thought herself in love with High Garth and an existence untrammelled by rigid convention. How if, all unaware, it was the man that she had come to love?
She pushed the thought aside, only to make way for one far more discomfiting. There had been something sadly renunciatory about Patrick’s remarks. They had seemed to indicate that he found her desirable, but they carried no suggestion that he meant to make her an offer. And for herself? Would she accept? Well—there was small use in considering that at this stage. To be sure, she would ask nothing better than to spend the rest of her life at High Garth. But one didn’t marry a house. Why! That would make her as bad as Lady Conroy! Poor Mr. Delvercourt. Patrick. She tried the name in a half whisper. Was he never to be loved for himself alone? And just for a moment she allowed herself to picture his face as she had seen it in that moment of wakening. Even at the memory her heart seemed to beat faster, her lips curved to an answering tenderness.
Miss Beverley, who had decided several years ago that romance was not for her, shook herself impatiently. This was no time to be falling into lovelorn megrims. If she could do no better than this, she might as well go to bed.
She paused, as always, beside a sweet-briar that clothed the end of the laithe, absently rubbing its leaves between her fingers and appreciatively sniffing the delicious new-apple scent. A little wandering breeze caught the fringe of her shawl and mischievously tangled it among the briar branches.
She sought to release the delicate strands. Patrick, coming swiftly round the corner of the laithe, ran full tilt into her and flung his arms around her as much to steady her on the impact as to preserve his own balance.
For one breathless, timeless moment they rested so, Patrick drawing her close as instinctively as she clung to him and raised her face for his kiss. But the very simplicity of her surrender jerked him back to awareness. Instead of responding as inclination urged, he only rubbed his cheek gently against hers and swiftly released her.
“Janet sent me to hunt for you,” he explained lightly. “She quite thought you had been gobbled up by a marauding fox, or, at the very least, shut in the poultry shed. That latch does jam occasionally.”
Ann was thankful to stoop over the disentangling of the fringe. Even in the fading light he could scarcely fail to notice the shamed colour that burned in her cheeks. Her fingers shook and fumbled their task but he made no attempt to help her, waiting quietly till she had done and then strolling back to the house at her side. He did not, however, go in with her, for which she could only be grateful, and Janet, after one glance at her face, started scolding about people who never knew when they had done too much, and crossly adjured her to get herself to bed or she’d be fit for nothing in the morning.
Around dawn she woke, refreshed and calmed by her deep sleep. Somewhere in the mazes of that sleep, confidence had returned. Quietly, now, she reviewed the events of yesterday. And came to the conclusion that Patrick Delvercourt was as much attracted to her as she—she now admitted—was to him; but that, for some absurd masculine reason—probably because he was poor—had determined that marriage was out of the question. And since he was an honourable man, only marriage would serve. She profoundly pitied his predicament. But she had no sympathy at all with his attitude, which she unhesitatingly stigmatized as “so horribly noble”. Her happiness was at stake as well as his, and she, at least, had no scruples about putting up a fight for it. She yawned and stretched luxuriously, watched the light growing towards a new day, tucked one fist under her cheek and tried to plan a strategy which might overcome Patrick’s resistance, until she drifted once more into peaceful slumber.
Chapter Twelve
Three days later, Bridie came. Word of her coming had run ahead of her. Patrick, going into Dent market, brought back long awaited letters and snippets of local news, and among these was a report that Bridie and the little brown donkey that was part of her legend had been seen in Cowgill the previous week.
At once the girls began to turn out all the stockings and caps that they had knitted during the winter months. Ann was amazed at the quantity. Even old Jim produced several pairs of beautifully knitted stockings. Most people, it seemed, knitted whenever their fingers were not otherwise employed.
Bridie arrived in the afternoon just after milking was done and settled herself beside the hearth with Janet, wholly unassuming and perfectly at ease. She was a thin little wisp of a woman who looked as though a gentle breeze would blow her away. Jewelbright dark eyes peered out from the shelter of her black straw hat. No one ever saw Bridie without her hat. It was a wide-brimmed affair of the kind worn by sailors. Out of doors it was secured to her head by a shawl tied over it. Indoors, a silver pin fastened it to the white muslin cap that she wore under it. Jenny and Meg, who regarded the old woman with a mixture of amusement at the comical figure she cut and of awe for her supernatural powers, giggled together as they scalded out the milk pans and speculated as to whether she took the hat off when she went to bed or slept sitting bolt upright. Ann hushed them, fearful lest their mockery should reach Bridie’s ears, but Bridie was too
absorbed in her conversation with Janet. She was the chief news-gatherer in the district and the two had a year’s marriages and births and deaths to tell and exclaim over. Nor would she have cared a pin for the girls’ laughter if she had heard it. Easy enough to reduce those two to a proper respect if she so chose.
This was soon seen. After supper the men-folk discreetly vanished. It was understood that tonight the kitchen was sacrosanct to women’s business. Bridie inspected the knitted goods critically and bought the lot, with an approving comment on the even quality of the yarn. But since this was achieved in the spinning, which was Janet’s province, it did nothing to set the twins up in their own esteem. When it came to opening her packs she was equally firm, refusing to allow the girls to buy anything that she considered unsuitable to their age and station in life. For the first time she spoke directly to Ann, drawing her attention to some delicate lace, “Which isn’t the kind o’ thing I usually carry, but I bought it reasonable off a poor old body that needed the money. All she knew was the lace making and few enough to buy. So if you fancied it, ma’am”—
Ann bought the lace and several other small oddments, and watched with amusement Bridie’s firm management of the ebullient twins. She herself was accorded a friendly respect which she found surprising. There had been no opportunity for Bridie to be told her history, since she had been in and out of the kitchen ever since the old woman’s arrival, and there was surely nothing in her workaday appearance to impress a stranger. But Bridie, treating the twins as mischievous flibbertigibbets and Janet as an equal, accorded her from the first the deference due to gentle birth.
Practical matters completed, the party gathered around the hearth with an air of eager expectancy. The great moment of the evening had arrived. Janet herself put on the kettle and brewed the tea—in itself an exceptional proceeding at an hour when they were usually thinking of bed. Handle-less cups were brought down from a high shelf, and for once the tea was drunk with more haste than appreciation. Ann felt a little uneasy. The tense faces of the girls indicated a belief in Bridie’s powers that could be dangerous to their peace of mind.