Keeping the Castle (12 page)

“Oh, but it would not be proper
at all
to leave Althea here alone with a gentleman not related to her,” protested Prudence. (I suspect she had not cared for being referred to as “the one who fell into the gorse bush” and adjudged to be “of no use” after having taken pains to walk with him.)

I, however, had had time to think over the plan. “But there
is
no one else, Prudence, and we cannot leave the gentleman who nearly sacrificed his life for little Alexander alone to his fate. Unless of course, you wish to stay—”

“No, indeed! I believe I have suffered quite enough on this expedition, without sacrificing my reputation.”

My mother was already being helped up onto her horse. Lord Bumbershook handed Alexander up to her. “Never mind, Prudence,” she called. “It will only be for a moment at most. The Marquis has spotted smoke from a chimney just over those trees. They will not be long unchaperoned.”

“Unchaperoned!” said Mr. Fredericks testily. “I’d like to know what outrages to this young lady’s modesty anyone thinks I am capable of administering, under the circumstances.”

It occurred to me that he was more than capable of outraging my modesty even under these circumstances, by insisting on disrobing even further than he already had. “I have changed my mind,” I said. “Mama, pray ask Charity to remain with me. She can ride home with us once Mr. Fredericks is freed.”

Prudence raised objections, but Charity agreed with hardly a murmur. I suppose she was imagining riding home side by side with the Baron while I was distracted by my care for Mr. Fredericks.

In a few moments everyone save we three had ridden off. Considering the number of events that had occurred since we had arrived at the Screaming Stones, it was an astonishing fact that the sun had only advanced a few degrees towards the horizon.

“I’m hungry,” Mr. Fredericks reminded me.

We investigated the uneaten food left for us by Jock.

“Althea, I pray you, do not touch anything. You are most dreadfully wet and dirty,” said Charity, making a little
moue
of distaste. “And you have dead plants in your hair.”

Mr. Fredericks could be heard laughing in the mine shaft. “You are indeed a spectacle, Miss Hrrm. I did not like to say so, but really, you ought to see the condition of your face.”

I lost my temper.

“My name is
Miss Crawley
, Mr. Fredericks. My mother’s name is
Mrs. Winthrop
, the young lady who fell into the gorse bush is
Miss Winthrop
and her younger sister, the lady beside me, is named
Miss Charity Winthrop
. I will thank you to remember and use our proper names when you address us. We, as well as males like yourself and your friends and my brother, Alexander, are thinking and feeling creatures deserving of courtesy and recognition.

“And I should like to point out that it was largely on your authority that Master Alexander was included on this outing, and that you swore that once Alexander had claimed your care and protection, you would
never let him down
.”

“Oh,” said the voice from the mine shaft, and then fell silent.

And remained silent for the remaining half an hour until the rescuers arrived, during which time I fed him half of the pie (he gave the contents of this pastry several sharp looks, but said nothing—I find that sugar reconciles the palate to most things) and administered several draughts of barley water. He barely uttered a sound while enduring what I am sure was a most uncomfortable extraction process, and did not speak at all on the long, long ride home over the eight miles of rough road.

10

WAS I EMBARRASSED BY my lack of control over my emotions and my tongue? No, certainly not. Mr. Fredericks’s bad behavior had earned my scorn and open condemnation.

Of course, on the other hand, he had saved my brother’s life. I loved my brother dearly, and this man had risked his own life to rescue Alexander. So yes, I was mortified by my own behavior. Dreadfully so, the more I thought of it.

But he had saved my brother’s life only after first endangering it. He had promoted Alexander’s presence on the trip without any consideration of our mother’s wishes. And . . . oh, in general, he was so rude and inconsiderate!

Still, he had undergone great discomfort for the sake of my brother. Not, of course, without a number of complaints, but yet . . .

In the weeks that followed our ill-fated journey to the Screaming Stones, I would have been glad to exchange my mind for almost anyone else’s. I grew so weary of trying to judge who was in the right that I could happily have changed lots with a turnip or a cabbage.

I was not called upon to speak to the unspeakable Mr. Fredericks again, as he abruptly went away to London—on business, Lord Boring explained. Perhaps His Lordship had sent him away, perhaps even because he knew how I disliked his cousin. However, perhaps not. If he was Lord Boring’s man of business, he must have had to go away to tend to that business from time to time instead of merely adding up sums in his offices at Gudgeon Park and otherwise lolling about eating and drinking at his cousin’s expense.

And London being so far away, I had hopes that I should not have to entertain Mr. Fredericks again any time soon. After much fruitless soul-searching I banished all thought of him from my mind and fixed it upon its proper object: the Baron. Oh, and also the Marquis, as that pleasant gentleman continued his stay at the Park and seemed to consider it a matter of course to accompany the Baron whenever he chanced to call on us.

I still believed that a marriage so grand as one to the Marquis was beyond my grasp, and in truth, I should have been sorry to be the means of causing a rift in the friendship enjoyed between the Marquis and the Baron. So obvious were the attentions the Baron had paid me that I could not imagine how the Marquis could court me without putting that relationship in danger. In any case, I enjoyed his company, and he amused my mother.

Although my high hopes for the outing to the Screaming Stones had ended in near disaster and no progress at all so far as coming to a better understanding with Lord Boring, I had assumed that that understanding would not be slow in coming. I was wrong. Lord Boring continued to be all that was delightful and charming but did not again speak of wishing that I might be in a position to provide advice and guidance on a more permanent basis than might be expected from a mere neighbor.

Part of the trouble no doubt lay with his mother. She rarely called with him at the castle, and when we called upon her, her manner to me and to my mother was distant. She quickly abandoned us to the company of Mrs. Fredericks, preferring to lay out rows of cards in an endless game of patience and ignore our presence. Clearly she was not anxious to see me as her daughter-in-law. My family and lineage were quite good enough—Crawleys had married into the lower ranks of the aristocracy often enough in the past that I should not be thought unsuitable on that account. And I could not see any reason for her to dislike or disapprove of me, based upon my manners or reputation. Indeed, she had hardly been in company with me often enough to have formed a prejudice against me. It could therefore only be my fortune, or lack of it, that persuaded her to regard me with disapprobation.

But why should that be a factor? The refurbishment of Gudgeon Park was on such a lavish scale (indeed, Mrs. Fredericks was so much engaged in this work that my mother complained she rarely saw her) that I could not help but assume money was in plentiful supply. However, a large fortune is so commonly married off to a similarly large fortune that I suppose the feeling is that one cannot have too much of a good thing.

One morning both gentlemen appeared at the castle with the news that guests were soon expected at the Park.

“Mother’s friends, the Vincys,” explained Lord Boring.

“Mr., Mrs., and
Miss
Vincy,” added the Marquis, lifting his eyebrows at the
Miss
.

“Oh?” I said, on the alert, “And what sort of a young lady is Miss Vincy?”

Lord Boring’s handsome face flushed. “A devilish plain one,” he said.

The Marquis shook his head at his friend. “You are less than gallant, Boring. She is a very pleasant young lady.”

“You are right. My apologies,” said Lord Boring, and changed the subject.

Prudence, Charity, and I happened to be in Lesser Hoo purchasing a bolt of figured muslin when they arrived in the village. Fido barked as a strange coach came to a halt in the inn yard.

At first sight we concluded that it was made of solid gold. Two footmen, attired in emerald velvet with scarlet piping and powdered white wigs, dismounted from the glittering equipage and enquired the way to Gudgeon Park. Old Owens, the ostler at the inn, gawked at this splendor for a few moments, then gathered up his scattered wits and pointed out their proper route without a word. Before the coach disappeared I spotted a veiled face peering out of the window and the gleam of two curious eyes.

“Well!” said Charity. “It couldn’t have been made of gold, of course. Do you suppose it could have been
gilded?”

“You couldn’t!” objected Prudence. “It would wear off. People—stable boys and so on—would scrape it off and sell it.”

“It
looked
like gold.” They argued about it for some time, eventually coming to an agreement that whatever the material was, it was a most vulgar and ostentatious display.

“Did you notice the
shoes
the footman was wearing?” asked Charity.

Prudence nodded her head slowly up and down. “I did.”

“I would do almost anything for a pair of slippers like that,” said her sister.

“I know,” agreed Prudence, and the two of them stared resentfully down the road after the coach, irritated beyond words at the fact that their own shoes were not half so finely made as a footman’s. A vulgar and ostentatious display, indeed.

We abandoned our shopping expedition and instead filled the market basket with wild blackberries we gathered by the side of the road. These provided a pretext to call at Gudgeon Park, and as we happened to espy Mama and Alexander crossing a field on our way, they joined us. When Mama, upon being seated in the drawing room, realized that the purpose of our call was to inspect newcomers who had not yet had the chance to shake the dust of the road from their garments, she shook her head at me. However, she was quite pleased to have the chance herself. The comings and goings of a great house like Gudgeon Park could not help but be a prime source of entertainment in a small, rural neighborhood like Lesser Hoo.

Mr. Vincy proved to be a short, stout, bald person with sharp little button eyes and a common way of speaking that made it obvious that his money came from trade rather than inheritance. Indeed, it almost made me giddy to think how
much
money he must have made through commerce, to be received as an honored guest in these sacred precincts. He spoke little, except for expressing regret that Mr. Fredericks should have left so abruptly, and so soon before their arrival. Evidently the two men had shared business interests.

“That Fredericks, he’s a rare ’un,” said Mr. Vincy, shaking his head in apparent admiration. “Never have known anyone to beat him. He’s a wonder, all right.”

No one present had any reason to contradict this statement, and so the conversation was turned to other subjects.

Mrs. Vincy was also short and stout but possessed an accent so refined and a voice so high and nasal that she sounded as if she were calling an infantry division to order on a bugle, rather than merely wishing us a good morning. Mr. Vincy had managed to marry
up
on the social scale. She was, Mrs. Westing hastened to explain, the former
Miss Babbage of Hurling Hall in Essex. Her dress was rather reminiscent of her carriage: it appeared to have been dipped in liquid silver and then studded all over with pearls, like raisins on a plum pudding. It was far more appropriate for a ballroom than for traveling, or even for such a fine drawing room as the one at Gudgeon Park at two o’clock in the afternoon.

Miss Vincy was . . . Miss Vincy was plain. Very plain. In the middle twenties, past her first youth, she had skin badly pitted with smallpox scars, and she could not have been a beauty even before the disease disfigured her. She wore a fine lace scarf wrapped around her head, obscuring her face. From time to time her mother leaned forward and adjusted this so that it cast her still more into the shade.

“My daughter,” she said in her high, piping voice, “is most
dreadfully
prone to colds.”

I nodded and agreed that she was wise to wrap her up warmly, even though her daughter was sitting by a fire on a hot day in July.

My good mama, who was sitting next to Miss Vincy, began quietly conversing with her, enquiring about their journey, her family’s friendship with Mrs. Westing, and her interests and daily pursuits. Miss Vincy admitted that she was fond of drawing, which naturally led to a request to see her sketchbook, and they were soon leafing through pages of her impressions of the road from London to Yorkshire. Prudence, who considered herself an expert by virtue of her representations of mourning urns and weeping willows, leaned over their shoulders and offered criticisms.