Elizabeth Mansfield (14 page)

Do not put on your missish airs in this matter, my dear. It is not often that such an opportunity comes along. Mr. Josiah Harbage, the gentleman in question, is not yet fifty, in excellent health and has a character both firm and godly. For Philippa’s sake if not your own, you should consider this suggestion with all seriousness. At the very least, you must come for a visit at the time I suggest and permit me to introduce you. The possibilities of such a meeting are most promising. You may find yourself taking up residence in a parish just half an hour’s ride from Wyckfield Park and embarked on a new, purposeful, spiritual rejuvenation. How delighted I should be never again to to have to think of you
residing in that place of sin and iniquity where you have, for the moment, so inexplicably chosen to bury yourself
.

The hand holding the letter was trembling. Camilla could only be glad that she was alone at the table. She wouldn’t have wanted Pippa to witness her agitation. Unable to eat a bite, she jumped up and strode across the hall to the sitting room. There she paced about, biting her lip, re-reading the letter, crushing it into a ball, smoothing it out and reading it again. With each re-reading, her agitation grew. It was in this state that Lady Sturtevant found her two hours later, when she brought Pippa home. The two girls had run up to Pippa’s room, Miss Townley had gone to her room to lie down, and Lady Sturtevant, completely at home in Camilla’s house, had told Hicks not to bother to announce her. In her usual breezy fashion, the feathers of her gaudy blue bonnet waving over her crimped red curls, she strode into the sitting room for a quick visit. The sight of Camilla’s pale face and troubled eyes brought her to a standstill. “Good heavens, my dear, what’s occurred to drain the color from your face?” she asked in instant sympathy.

“Oh, Georgie, I’m so glad to see you!” Camilla exclaimed with a tremulous smile. “I seem to have been working myself into a stew over nothing. Let’s not even talk about it. Here, let me take your bonnet and pelisse.”

“Never mind my bonnet and pelisse,” Lady Sturtevant said firmly, seating herself on the sofa and pulling her friend down beside her. “Now, take a deep breath and tell me everything. What’s happened to upset you so?”

Georgina Sturtevant was nothing if not motherly. Tall and large-bosomed, she looked capable of taking the world’s troubles to her breast. At first meeting the well-known wife of the taciturn Whig, Lord Sturtevant, one might receive an impression of vulgarity, for she not only wore the brightest colors and the most outrageous hats, but she had a deep, full-throated laugh, a voice that carried across the most crowded of rooms and a way of gesturing with her hands that called immediate attention to the gesturer. On further acquaintance, however, it became clear that Georgina Sturtevant was a woman of remarkable common sense, a complete absence of pretension and an open-hearted generosity of spirit. Camilla, quiet and self-effacing herself, was entirely won over by Georgie’s spirited good nature. There was no one in the world in whom she would more readily confide. Wordlessly, she held out the crumpled letter to her friend.

Georgina’s eyes flew over the sheet. “Is
this
what troubles you … this overbearing, presumptious
rodomontade
?” She waved her hands in the air as if she were tossing all Camilla’s worries to the wind. “Just tear this up, throw it out and forget it. It’s nothing but bluster.”

Camilla blinked. “But … you don’t understand. It’s from my
sister-in-law
.”

“I know who it’s from. And I know that you’re still in the habit of jumping when she snaps her fingers. You’re independent of her now, Camilla, and you must try to remember it.”

“But, you see, in some respects Ethelyn is quite right in what she says.”

“Right? Right? In wishing you to wed a tub-thumping, hell-threatening, middle-aged country preacher?”

“No, not that. Of course not that. She’s only right in the part about my keeping Pippa from her father’s family. It is wrong of me, I suppose …”

Georgina cocked her head to one side to study her friend’s face, causing her heavily feathered bonnet to fall slightly askew. “Well, if you truly believe it’s wrong of you, go ahead and spend a week in Dorset.”

Camilla bit her lip and dropped her eyes. “Yes, I thought you might say that. It would be the most
direct … the most sensible action.” She clenched her hands together but couldn’t prevent a little shiver from spreading through her body. “Oh, Georgie, I …” She looked up at her friend fearfully. “I just can’t!”

“But why ever not? It would be just for a week,” the sensible Georgina asked, her brow knit in an effort to grasp the unspoken undercurrents.

Camilla got to her feet and resumed her pacing. “You’ll think me a dreadful fool, I’m afraid …”

“That isn’t very likely.” Georgina’s smile was reassuring. “Try me.”

Camilla paused in her perambulations. “I’m quite ashamed to admit this to you, but I have this … this feeling about it. Ridiculous as it is, I can’t shake it off.”

“Feeling?”

“Yes. That if I once go back to Wyckfield, I shall never be able to leave.”

“Good God, Camilla, do you think your sister-in-law would keep you prisoner or some such thing?”

Camilla shook her head, smiling a little at her friend’s common-sensical literalness. “No, of course not. How could she? I told you it was foolish. But my feeling is very real, and I can’t rid myself of it.”

Georgina reached out her hand and drew Camilla back to the sofa. “My poor girl,” she murmured in sudden understanding, “did you hate the place as much as that?”

Camilla lowered her head. “I was not … very happy there.”

“Then I see no reason for you to go back,” her friend said decisively.

“But what about Pippa?”

“Does Pippa feel the same way about Wyckfield as you do?”

“Oh, no, not Pippa. You know Pippa—she’s happy anywhere. And it is her home … or it will be, when she’s of age.”

“Then it’s all quite simple,” Georgina declared, swinging her arms wide in proud acknowledgement of her brilliance in having solved everything. “Send Pippa to Wyckfield without you.”

“Without me? Why, I couldn’t—”

“But, Camilla, it’s only for a week.”

“But she’d be so alone.”

“I’ll let Sybil go with her, if you’d like. Miss Townley, who, I assume, will go with them, can be relied upon to see that your sister-in-law doesn’t keep them beyond the allotted time.”

Camilla gaped at her friend in awe. “Georgie! What a perfectly wonderful idea! The girls would have a marvelous time in the country together, and Ethelyn won’t be able to say that I’m keeping Pippa from her.” She threw her arms about her friend’s neck. “You’re a positive genius! And generous to a fault to let Sybil go off for a week. I don’t know how to thank you.”

Georgina returned the embrace, laughing. “Save your effusions for some other time, silly. It was a perfectly obvious solution which you would have thought of yourself if you’d been less agitated. And as for letting Sybil go, I’m delighted to be rid of her. You’ve no idea how that tomboy can upset a household. Let your sister-in-law cope with her for a few days, and you’ll see how quickly the children are sent home.”

The vision of the rigid Ethelyn dealing with the mercurial Sybil kept them both laughing for a moment. Then, rising to leave, Georgina adjusted her bonnet and added with sudden seriousness, “I could solve your other problem, too, if you’d let me.”

“My other problem?”

“About your sister-in-law’s pressure on you to remarry.”

“Oh, yes. I’d forgotten that for a moment.” She got up to call for Hicks. “Ethelyn will be furious
when she learns I won’t be there to meet her Mr. Harbage.” She smiled as she helped Georgina to straighten her pelisse. “And how, my wise and practical friend, do you think you might solve that problem?”

“Again the solution is simple. Just become betrothed to someone else—someone of your own choosing. Preferably a Londoner, so that I will always have you close by. As soon as you’re betrothed, you know, your sister-in-law will have no reason for matchmaking.”

“Oh, that’s your ‘simple’ solution, is it?” Camilla grinned. “I suppose you have a candidate in mind?”

But Hicks came in at that moment. “Will you call Sybil for me, Hicks?” Georgina requested. “It’s time we were getting home.”

Hicks bowed out, and the two ladies followed him down the hall. Daniel, stationed at the bottom of the stairs, was sent up to fetch the girls, while Hicks sent for Thomas to alert the Sturtevant coachman.

The ladies waited in the entryway. “I don’t have a candidate, my dear,” Georgina said, picking up the threads of their interrupted conversation, “but I wish I did.”

“Candidate?”

“For your hand, of course. I don’t fancy myself as a matchmaker, but I wouldn’t take it amiss if you showed an interest in my brother.”

Camilla lowered her eyes in embarrassment. “I hope, Georgie, that you aren’t entertaining serious hopes in that regard.”

Georgina sighed. “No, I’m not so foolish. My brother is a dear, but I’m well aware that he’s too old, too lazy and too complacent in his bachelorhood to make a satisfactory suitor for you.”

Camilla put a hand on her friend’s arm. “Your brother is a dear. And he does seem happy in his bachelorhood. That’s why we get on so well. He understands that I have no wish to remarry, so he feels perfectly safe in my company.”

“That may be, Camilla, but there are dozens of other men you might consider. I hate to hear you say you’ve no interest in remarriage. Just because your previous experience was unhappy is no reason to believe—”

Their conversation was again interrupted, this time by Thomas’s return after fetching the Sturtevant carriage. At the same moment, Daniel’s step was heard on the stairs. The two women looked up to see him descending rapidly, his face red with chagrin. “I beg yer pardon, yer ladyship, but Miss Sybil refuses to come down,” he informed them.

“What?” Lady Sturtevant exclaimed angrily. “Refuses? Honestly, that child will drive me to madness! I suppose I’ll have to go up and carry her down bodily.”

Hicks came toward her from the door. “Is there anything I can do, your ladyship?”

Georgina put a hand to her forehead in an exaggerated gesture of helplessness. “I don’t see what—”

“Permit me, your ladyship,” Thomas offered. “I think I can persuade her to come down.” And without waiting for an answer, he bounded up the stairs, taking them two at a time.

Lady Sturtevant stared after him in considerable astonishment. “Your footman seems very … er … energetic,” she murmured to Camilla in some amusement.

“Yes,” Camilla responded wryly as she watched Daniel and Hicks move away in perfect, mannerly dignity, “I’ve noticed, myself, that the fellow’s behavior is a trifle … unorthodox. I don’t know quite what to do about him. I’ve been thinking of giving him his notice.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t do that if I were you. I like the servants to be enterprising.”

“I shall remember that, my dear,” Camilla said with a laugh, “if I’m forced to let him go. In that event, I shall send him straight to you.”

Georgina pulled on her gloves. “Why not? In my household of eccentrics, one more or less won’t even be noticed. But if I may return to a more important matter, my love, I wish you will think about my suggestion to find yourself a betrothed. I would dearly love to see you happily wed.”

“Don’t press me on that subject, Georgie, please. I’ve made up my mind to remain as I am. But there’s no need to look so glum about it. Your suggestion has given me a very good idea about what to do about Ethelyn’s matchmaking. It’s quite a splendid solution that I’ve thought of all by myself … and it will work without my having to become betrothed to accomplish it.”

“Really? Then tell me—”

But there was no time for Camilla to explain, even if she’d wanted to. A murmur at the top of the stairs made them all look up. Sybil Sturtevant, her bonnet neatly tied on her head and her spencer buttoned, was marching down the stairs in slow, deliberate, completely unaccustomed dignity. Thomas and Pippa followed, both of them watching with interest as Sybil made her majestic descent. “I’m ready, Mama,” the girl announced when she’d reached bottom, and, without breaking her even pace, she smiled at Camilla and went out the door to the carriage.

Georgina, her mouth open and her eyebrows raised, watched her daughter’s exit with disbelief. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen that child move in such a ladylike style!” she whispered to Camilla. “Your footman must have some sort of gift! Whenever you want to be rid of him, I’ll take him in a snap.”

When the visitors had gone and the servants had taken themselves back to their quarters, Camilla accosted her daughter. “What did Thomas do to make Sybil behave so well?”

Pippa giggled. “He made a wager with her. He wagered that she couldn’t make it all the way down to the carriage without once breaking into a hop, skip or jump.”

“Oh, so that was his ruse! What did he wager?”

“Nothing much,” Pippa said, starting back up the stairs. “Only the four hundred and twenty pounds she owed him.”

“Four hundred and twenty pounds?” Camilla stared after her daughter, aghast. “What are you talking about? Pippa Wyckfield, I see nothing in this matter to laugh about! Come back here at once!
Pippa!
”

Even after she’d learned from her daughter (who parted with the information only after a prolonged indulgence in irritating and rowdyish hilarity) that the four-hundred-and-twenty-pound wager was only pretend-money, Camilla had the feeling that Thomas ought to be scolded. There was something vaguely disquieting in what he’d done and in the fact that the girls and the footman were on so friendly a footing. It didn’t seem right, somehow—but she couldn’t put her finger on anything really wrong with it. According to Pippa, the footman was clever, humorous, friendly and kind. He was the only adult who was willing to spend time with them, telling them fascinating stories and playing cards with them when all the others—Miss Townley, Sybil’s governess, Sybil’s brothers,
everyone
—turned away in boredom. There was nothing in Pippa’s account of the behavior of the footman toward the two girls to provoke a reprimand, but Camilla was uncomfortable nonetheless. The fellow didn’t behave like a footman—that was the long and the short of it.