“I don’t know why Mr. Hartley has stopped by,” Margaret said, “but callers are always welcome. Adriana, you have sums to do, and Greta, your sketch is far from complete. Make a good effort today, and we’ll have a long ramble in the woods tomorrow.” Which seemed ages away when the sun was shining so benevolently.
Miss Fenner burst through the door, looking slightly flushed. “Mrs. Summerfield, you’re to have a caller. That handsome Mr. Hartley is on the steps as I speak, and he wasn’t at the assembly, though I did see him at church on Sunday.”
Handsome Mr. Hartley? “Perhaps once the children are settled to their tasks, you can join Mr. Hartley and me in the parlor. Ambers can sit with the girls in your absence.”
Fenny ruffled a hand over Adriana’s braids. “Truly, you want me to join you, ma’am?”
“Perhaps Mr. Hartley is here with exactly that hope in mind,” Margaret said. “We know he can have no personal interest in calling upon me.”
Fenny clapped her hands briskly. “Children, to the parapets! We have lessons to learn and battles to wage with the forces of ignorance.”
The girls trooped over to their desks, and Margaret, with a similar lack of enthusiasm, made her way to the guest parlor.
“Mr. Hartley, good day,” Margaret said, dipping a curtsey.
Jeremy Hartley was handsome, if a lady favored regular features, sandy-brown hair, and a pleasant smile—which Margaret did not. In half boots she’d be the same height as Mr. Hartley, though his riding boots gave him a slight advantage over her house slippers.
He bowed correctly. “Mrs. Summerfield, good day. I trust my call comes at a convenient time?”
Of course not. If Margaret was to be housebound for the day, she at least wanted to linger by windows undisturbed.
“A friendly call is always well timed. How fares the Summerfield family seat?” She could not ask him about much else, because that estate was his entire occupation and his family did not bide in the area.
“I am happy to report that planting is all but finished—always a field or two that requires a little more time, isn’t there?—and we’re getting ready for shearing right on schedule. The price of wool is holding steady, but the first to market always has an advantage, as Mr. Summerfield often states.”
More than three years after Charles’s death, Margaret still associated references to Mr. Summerfield with her late husband, not his younger brother. The mental adjustment—oh, Bancroft Summerfield—was particularly irksome when Mr. Hartley referred to his Mr. Summerfield so cheerfully.
“Shall we be seated, Mr. Hartley? I would not want to take up much of your time, but a cup of tea and a biscuit shouldn’t take long.”
He sat in the chair Charles had preferred, angled to face the sofa and get a good amount of light from the window.
“How do you go on here at Summerton?” Hartley asked, his smile oddly concerned. “I know it’s not a large property, but you’ve been handling the reins now for several years. Buildings can fall into disrepair before you know it, tenants are always complaining about maintenance, and hedges have a way of encroaching on even the best-maintained fields.”
“I like broad hedges, Mr. Hartley.”
He crossed an ankle over a knee, a posture a gentleman did not assume before a lady unless they were quite informal with each other. “I wasn’t aware you enjoyed shooting, ma’am.”
“I enjoy knowing the hares, pheasants, grouse, and songbirds have shelter. My acreage is sufficient that I need not begrudge the beasts their homes.”
“Ah, but that generous sentiment means the foxes, badgers, deer, and other pests also have more places to shelter.” He shook a finger at her. “We can’t have that, can we?”
His gesture was meant to be playful, though the effect on Margaret was curious. She had a lovely life on a peaceful, pretty patch of ground. Her nieces were a greater blessing than anybody knew, as was the relative solitude the Summerton household enjoyed. She had great good health, as did the girls, and her household enjoyed material comfort anybody would envy.
And yet, Mr. Hartley’s admonition, meant to be lighthearted despite its condescension—left her ready to shriek at him to leave. He was Bancroft’s emissary, and thus his motives were suspect.
“If I were to cut my hedges back as you prefer,” she said, “or enclose my properties as so many have, then I’d eliminate many of the medicinal herbs that bring so much ease and comfort to so many. I have sheep enough, Mr. Hartley, but only one healthy patch of winterbloom that my late husband propagated for me from seeds he imported himself. Would you hack it to the roots to make room for another bullock?”
His brows knit, as if she’d come out with one of Greta’s apparent non sequiturs. “Certainly not, ma’am. If the flowers are of sentimental value, then of course they should stand.”
Winterbloom was not a flower, though from September to December it provided a lovely display of color.
A footman brought in the tea tray, thank heavens, or Margaret might have been forced to endure a panegyric to the enclosed common. Bancroft had gone significantly in debt enclosing fields at the family seat that Charles had allowed to remain in common use. The result was doubtless greater profit for Bancroft, though the lack of free grazing for cows, sheep, and pigs had cost the village six families, and others were considering emigrating as well.
“You will be pleased to know that I’ve taken an inspection tour of your properties,” Hartley said when Margaret had plied him with China black and tea cakes.
She set her tea cup down rather too quickly and got a slosh of hot liquid across her fingers. “I beg your pardon?”
“No need to thank me,” he said, smiling at his boot. “Mr. Summerfield feels badly that he’s left you to muddle on here with so little help from the family estate. Unfortunately, we have had much to do at Summerfield in recent years. I am charged with rectifying Mr. Summerfield’s oversight, though, so you must apply to me should you have any questions about the tenancies or the management of the land.”
Stay off my land. Margaret blotted her smarting hand with a table napkin. The burn wasn’t serious, though her fingers had turned pink.
“Mr. Hartley, while I appreciate your interest in Summerton, I assure you we are managing quite well. No further inspections of my property will be necessary. I daresay you will confuse—if not offend—my farmers and tenants by presuming to appear on their lands unannounced.”
“Not their lands, Mrs. Summerfield, your lands. The sooner the tenants grasp that distinction, the better off you’ll be. A few blunt discussions with me, and they’ll know that taking advantage of a widow—”
“Mr. Hartley, my husband left me and the girls this property precisely because it was the best-managed real estate he owned, and he tutored me thoroughly as to how it should be run. If you interfere with my tenants, or sabotage my authority, you will be seen to disrespect Charles’s memory.”
That she had to call upon her late husband infuriated her, but Hartley was not the problem.
Bancroft was. Charles had indulged Margaret’s distrust of her brother-in-law, but only in a limited fashion.
Hartley held out his cup for more tea.
Margaret poured carefully.
“Mr. Summerfield was quite clear with me, ma’am. I am to make myself available to you with an eye toward assuming the burden of managing your tenancies. He feels remiss for not having effected this transition sooner, and I must agree with him. For a woman to be tasked with the details of a large agricultural enterprise is less than ideal. You have a household to run and nieces to raise, and Mr. Summerfield is only trying to do his duty by you.”
Olivia Smithers was the village cobbler. Having no sons, the blacksmith, Mr. Merryweather, had apprenticed his oldest daughter. Hannah Weller was the village herbalist and midwife, her daughter the most competent seamstress in the shire. Women managed businesses all around Mr. Hartley, but they were invisible to him.
As Margaret longed to be.
The word trespassing had him sitting up straight. “Mr. Summerfield wants his nieces to inherit a property in good repair, ma’am. You cannot fault him for that.”
Bancroft was making this gambit as the opening foray in a war that would end with all of Summerton’s income in his hands, and thus all of the girls’ options—and Margaret’s future—controlled by him as well.
“Mr. Charles Summerfield desired the same end. Since his death, the family seat has become sunk in enormous debt, while Summerton continues to run profitably. Forgive me if I reject Bancroft’s attempts to meddle, Mr. Hartley. He might mean well, as you doubtless do, but good intentions do not a young woman dower.”
Or a widow protect. Not in this case.
“May I call on you again?” Hartley asked. “Mr. Summerfield will be gone for some weeks, possibly months, and he did most sincerely ask me to keep an eye on matters here in his absence.”
What Hartley lacked in discernment about his employer, he made up for in loyalty—blast the man.
“You may call upon us, of course, but come up the drive as any other visitor would, rather than conducting pointless inspections of that which does not concern you. If I have immediate needs, I can rely on my neighbors for assistance, as I always have.”
Hartley finished his tea and set the empty cup on the tray, then rose. “Those neighbors are not family, ma’am, with all due respect. The Dornings got you to agree to use the stream to fill their water meadow, but that means you can’t attempt the same improvement.”
“My land doesn’t lie properly for a water meadow, Mr. Hartley.”
He considered her, not with the genial, condescending smile of a helpful gentleman, but rather, with the shrewd gaze of a man familiar with complicated enterprises and hard decisions.
“Your woods are full of deadfall, and that lumber could be sold for a pretty penny.”
While the delicate and precious medicinal plants sheltering in those woods would be trampled by heedless sawyers.
“I use the wood for my hearths here at Summerton, Mr. Hartley, and I donate to our elderly households as well. As you doubtless know, the deadfall piles up in years when we’re afflicted with high winds and excessive rains, then we’ll go for more years without losing a single tree. Charles explained that and much else to me. I’ll see you out.”
Hartley clearly hadn’t expected to meet with resistance. He’d probably anticipated gratitude or at least compliance with his orders. He was not visibly angry—Bancroft had likely sent him out on many a misinformed mission—but neither was he defeated.
“Would you like me to include anything specific in my report to Mr. Summerfield, ma’am?”
How sporting of him to admit that tattling to Bancroft was the next item on his busy schedule.
“Tell your employer the truth, of course. Tell him that you’ve observed Summerton to be a superbly managed piece of land, and you see no further need to insert yourself into the goings-on here.”
Margaret led her guest to the front door, certain he’d tell Bancroft anything but that.
“I can convey that assurance to Mr. Summerfield, ma’am, though I do see a few areas for improvement. He will still insist that I come by regularly and monitor progress.”
On what blooming authority does Bancroft monitor my flocks and fields? “I will do as I see fit with my property, Mr. Hartley, and you must do as you see fit with your responsibilities as well.”
Miss Fenner chose that moment to bounce down the stairs, smiling as if Father Christmas were making an early spring call upon the household.
“Mr. Hartley! We missed you at the assembly. You aren’t leaving so soon, are you?”
“I am indeed on my way, Miss Fenner. A pleasure to see you, of course.”
“If you have time to admire our Holland bulbs,” Margaret said, “Miss Fenner could use a breath of fresh air before returning to the nursery, I’m sure.”
That provoked a smile from Mr. Hartley that Margaret had not seen before. Truly friendly instead of practiced and polite. When he smiled like that, Mr. Hartley did have a certain handsomeness.
“Please say you will stroll with me,” Fenny added. “I enjoy nothing so much as fresh air and sunshine, but the children must earn their outings, and progress today in that direction has been limited.”
She was dissembling. The children had had a very peaceful morning, while Margaret felt as if an enormous spring storm was boiling up in her heart.
“I will leave you to enjoy the garden,” she said. “Mr. Hartley, please respect my request to leave my tenants in peace should you call again.”
Bancroft’s plotting aside, the way Mr. Hartley regarded Fenny confirmed that more calls were in Margaret’s future. That made her so angry that she no sooner had made her farewell to Mr. Hartley than she snatched her cloak from its peg and marched down the corridor to flee out the side door into the woods.
A bluebell wood was a magical place, not only for its visual beauty, but also for the fragrance the flowers imparted. Thorne had often stolen into the Summerton bluebell wood as a boy, but had forgotten what a lovely place it was, even when the flowers had yet to bloom. A few brave blossoms had opened at the center of the clearing, their deep periwinkle hue a pretty contrast to the new green of the grass.
A figure stormed up the path from the direction of the manor house, cloak whipping, steps thumping against the hard-packed earth.
“Mrs. Summerfield.” Thorne rose from the log he’d perched on. “Good day.”
“Mr. Dorning.” Her curtsey conveyed annoyance. “Good morning. You have refrained from using the lane, for which I should thank you, but I do not usually receive callers in my woods.”
“You already have a caller,” Thorne said, making no move to approach her. “Jeremy Hartley’s gelding is tied to your hitching post.”
Some of the ire drained from her posture. “That’s why you’re lurking in my woods? Because you sought to avoid Mr. Hartley?”
“You asked for privacy about our undertakings, but I had not realized what a busy place Summerton is.”
She looked about the wood, as if to ensure no fairies or elves lurked within earshot. “Busy in what sense?”
“Monday, the vicar graced you with a call and stayed for more than an hour. Yesterday, Mrs. Weller came by. I saw her walking up your lane, and knowing what a friendly woman she is, I did not tarry. I hoped Hartley’s schedule allowed only a polite call.”
A section of the lane was visible through the trees, down a gentle slope and across a pasture. Thorne had sat upon the downed tree and read his father’s notes and the French herbal, but they’d made little sense to him.
“Hartley came by to spy for Bancroft. I ought not to have said that. I’d invite you back to the house, but he will dispatch a report of your call to London by express, and Bancroft will install footmen in my servants’ hall before I’ve sat down to supper tomorrow.”
This presumption clearly vexed her. Exceedingly. “How can Bancroft direct your staff?”
Mrs. Summerfield knelt beside the few blooming flowers and sniffed. “My nieces are the daughters of my late sister-in-law. Charles was their guardian.” She did not pluck the bluebells, but instead left them to blossom with their companions. “He gave guardianship of the girls to me, directed that they should be raised at Summerton, and then appointed Bancroft co-guardian, to be consulted on major decisions affecting their well-being, though I am to have custodial authority of them in their minority.”
The arrangement was unusual, but not unheard of when a man’s will was carefully drafted. The widowed Duchess of Kent had legal custody of her daughter Victoria, and that dear child was in line for the throne.
“So Charles left Bancroft room to
meddle,” Thorne said. “Might we sit?”
She paced over to the log and took a seat. “Bancroft lives to meddle. As often as he can, he reminds me that I am not a blood relation to the girls. He never asks to see them, but he muses about blood being thicker than the peculiar fancies of a dying man, and twins are always difficult. How a self-absorbed bachelor would know anything about raising children, much less twin girls, escapes me.”
Dorset sheep were famous for the frequency with which they gave birth to twins, and to Thorne, the girls neither looked nor felt like twins—not that little girls were sheep.
And not that talk of family squabbles was advancing the purpose of Thorne’s excursion. “What exactly did Hartley want?”
“To undermine my authority as owner of Summerton, while claiming to be gallant and helpful. At Bancroft’s direction, Mr. Hartley has done me the very great favor of riding over my lands, inspecting my farms, and likely interrogating my tenants. He told me I need not thank him.” She scuffed a boot through the grass. “Mr. Dorning, I wanted to dump the teapot over his head.”
Call me Hawthorne. “Why now?” Thorne asked the obvious question. “Charles has been gone almost four years. Why encroach on your authority now?”
She looked out over the clearing, toward the house. “Charles left Bancroft a solvent estate in good repair. Bancroft took a notion to enclose the commons adjacent to the estate village. Building miles of stout fencing is enormously expensive. Charles’s father had enclosed some of the common land, and the estate had barely recovered when old Mr. Summerfield died. Charles said we had enough enclosed land, and the villagers needed the open land that remained. He was right.”
Thorne’s father had refused to enclose any land adjacent to the village, and Casriel concurred with that decision, as did Thorne.
“So Bancroft is cash poor?”
“Destitute would be my guess. Summerton, by contrast, operates at a tidy profit.”
She turned her face up to the sun, which beamed down with subtle warmth. A moderate breeze would turn the day brisk, but here in the bluebell wood, the elements were kind.
A Lady of True Distinction Page 8