Miss Hartwell's Dilemma (18 page)

“When shall we be married, Amaryllis?” he demanded in a low voice.

With a shock, she recognised passion burning in his blue eyes. He had never looked at her so before. Or was it that she had not noticed, not known what she was seeing, until the thrill of Lord Daniel’s touch had opened her eyes to a new sensation?

She was searching for an answer when a commotion in the passage outside saved her. Daisy’s contralto scolded. A youthful soprano that sounded suspiciously like Louise Carfax kept repeating “I’m trying, honestly!” and an inarticulate  rumble that could only be Ned performed the basso continuo.

“My niece,” groaned Bertram as a knock sounded on the door. He strode towards it but before he could open it, it burst open to admit Louise, followed by Daisy and then Ned.

“I’m trying, honestly!” announced Louise once again. Clamped under her arm was a fishing rod, at the sight of which her uncle blenched. From it dangled a tangle of line. Attached to the end of that line was a peculiar brown object with which she appeared to be wrestling. It did not look like a fish of any known species. Amaryllis recalled all too clearly the last time Louise had invented a new species.

Her gaze moved on beyond Daisy, who was apologising for allowing the disturbance to reach the drawing room, to Ned. His head was bare—absolutely bare. Circled by the fringe of white locks, his naked pate rose pale and shining, in startling contrast to his weatherbeaten face. He looked like a singularly disreputable monk.

“I mun have me cap,” he muttered in repetitive litany.

“Hush!” said Bertram. His eyes were lit with unholy glee though otherwise his good-natured face was stern.

Everyone fell silent.

“Thank you, Daisy, you may go,” said Amaryllis with a curious gasp, caused by her effort not to burst with laughter. “Well, Miss Carfax?”

“I cannot get the hook out of the fabric,” explained Louise. “It is barbed so that it does not slip out of the fish’s mouth.”

“I hardly think that is what Miss Hartwell wishes to hear,” said Uncle Bertram, removing the limp brownish object from her grasp and deftly extricating the barbed hook. He handed the object to Ned.

“Her wor up in th’oak, worn’t her, a-fishin’ fer me cap,” said the gardener indignantly, hiding the gleaming dome beneath its wonted covering.

Amaryllis set herself to soothe the old man, and Bertram slipped him a crown. He went off, still muttering, and they both turned to Louise.

By the time she left, penitent for having embarrassed a member of the lower orders but still clearly of the opinion that her jape had been worth the tongue-lashing, it was nearly five o’clock.

“What on earth possessed you to give the chit a fishing rod?” Amaryllis demanded of Bertram. “You must have guessed that angling is not on our curriculum.”

“Cry pax!” he grinned. “At least acquit me of any suspicion of her intentions. I have not so much imagination. I fear I must go now, my dear. Mr. Majendie has invited guests for dinner and I promised to attend. I must be off to London first thing tomorrow. May I write to you?”

“I neither forbid it, nor expect it. Come now, Bertram, you had rather ride a hundred miles than write a single sheet, I vow.”

“How well you know me,” said his lordship ruefully.

Chapter 13

Amaryllis resented not being invited to Mr. Majendie’s dinner party. Her standing was high enough to ensure an invitation to the Christmas assembly, attended by the more genteel farmers and lawyers and such, but too low for a private dinner, it seemed. She chided herself for being goosish. She had never before dreamed of such an honour and to be miffed, only because Bertram was going and she was not, was idiotic. When she was Bertram’s wife, the table of every nobleman in the country would be accessible, even the King’s table. Not that she had the least desire to dine with that gross old man.

She soon forgot her pique in the daily round of school affairs, and as the next Sunday approached another source of discomfort arose. When Lord Daniel came to visit Isabel, Amaryllis felt obliged to see him, to apologise for her inexcusable and ill-mannered churlishness. It was with mixed feelings that she greeted the news, delivered by a groom on Saturday morning, that his lordship would not be coming the next day. He was abed with the grippe.

Naturally, she was delighted to postpone humbling herself before that surly gentleman. On the other hand, it gave her one more thing to apologise for. Also, she remembered all too clearly that, though her illness had been brief, the life of one of her pupils had been in danger.

A healthy young man was hardly likely to succumb to the grippe, but perhaps his trouble with his arm was a sign of some constitutional weakness that might make him vulnerable. She would have liked to consult Isabel on the reason for his disability; recalling his violent reaction to her question, she did not.

On Thursday when Amaryllis looked though the post in her office after breakfast, there was a letter from him. The ostensible purpose of the letter was to request that she inform his daughter of his complete recovery. He would see Isabel on Sunday as usual. He was less certain of seeing Miss Hartwell, and as he had some small matter to impart to her he took the liberty of writing.

It was no liberty, she thought crossly. It might be improper for an unmarried lady to correspond with a gentleman, unless they were practically betrothed as she was with Bertram. For the parent of a pupil to write to her teacher was perfectly unexceptionable. She read on.

Lord Daniel blamed himself for disregarding her warning to keep his distance. She was in no wise to consider herself responsible for laying him flat on his back for a week. He understood from Isabel, to whom he had written before falling ill, that she herself had suffered for no more than two days, which he considered sadly unjust.

A smile on her lips, Amaryllis turned to the next page. His handwriting was beautiful, large and clear, but it must have cost Daisy several sixpences to retrieve the letter from the post. She ought to restrict her pupils to the daughters of peers, so that their fathers might always frank their communications.

Lord Daniel’s next words brought a frown to her face. Having now experienced the grippe himself, he wrote, he forgave her for having been so cross-grained.

It was one thing to beg pardon, quite another to be condescendingly forgiven for a fault one had not yet acknowledged. Cross-grained, was she? Bertram was by far too gentlemanly ever to have accused her of bad temper. He was more apt to think himself, not her, in need of forgiveness.

She read the sentence again. The previous paragraph had been teasing in tone. Perhaps Lord Daniel meant to roast her?   Turning back to the previous page she reread it, puzzling over his meaning, then gave up with a sigh and went on with the second page.

Now he begged her pardon. He was stupidly sensitive about his right arm and ought not to have ripped up at her when she asked about it. The explanation was simple: it was an old injury. The nerves had been damaged and had not grown back properly. Most of the time he had full use of the arm but sometimes, without warning, it failed him as she had seen. Usually, he added—she imagined the wry look on his face—at an awkward moment.

Once more he begged her pardon, this time for burdening her with an explanation of what must have been at most a matter of passing interest to her. He remained her most obedient servant, Daniel Winterborne.

For several minutes Amaryllis gazed blindly at the paper. She felt his explanation to be less a burden than an honour, a mark of confidence. He trusted her enough to expose his weakness before her, the weakness of which he was so unnecessarily ashamed.

What cruelty had made him ashamed of his injury? Had she discovered the reason for his melancholy, for his shunning of the world?

The letter was precious now. She folded it carefully and put it in her pocket to take up to her chamber. Expecting to see him on Sunday, she did not write to him. However, when his carriage arrived to pick up Isabel, it was Grayson who came to the door.

“The master’s up at the castle,” the coachman explained. “Seems Mr. Majendie’s right clever at drainage, the which is an odd sort o’ thing fer a gentleman, to my way o’ thinking.”

“Yes,” said Amaryllis, who had come down with Isabel. “I believe he drained the marshes all along the Colne.”

“The master’s a-goin’ to drain some bottomland round us, I reckon. He sent me for to fetch Miss Isabel up.”

The child put her small white hand confidingly into his large brown one and they went off together. Isabel came back in the same way, saying that her Papa had been invited for dinner and to spend the night at the castle, or rather the mansion on the hill. Drainage was a very complicated thing, she revealed to Louise, and though Papa and Mr. Majendie had talked about it all afternoon they had not exhausted the subject when it was time for her to leave.

“What did you do while they were talking?” enquired Louise. “Never say they let you explore the castle on your own!”

“I sat with Papa in Mr. Majendie’s study and looked at books. I often used to sit in his lap when he had business when I lived at home.”

Louise looked awed at the thought. She could not remember ever sitting in her father’s lap, and when he had visitors or his steward in on business everyone had strict orders to stay far away and creep about silently.

Amaryllis, overhearing this conversation, tried to imagine what it would be like to try to conduct business with the lively Louise in one’s lap. The notion almost raised a smile, but she was feeling inexplicably blue-devilled that evening.  When she went up to her chamber to change for dinner, she tore up Lord Daniel’s letter and burned the bits.

The letter had been in a drawer, under a pile of handkerchiefs. In taking it out she had disarranged the pile, so she lifted it out to straighten it. A square of linen fell open, exposing an embroidered rose. She had heard nothing of the sinister Spaniard for weeks, and had almost forgotten him. Whatever his mysterious mission, presumably he had accomplished it and departed, and it had had nothing to do with her after all. She was glad she had not alarmed Tizzy and Aunt Eugenia by telling them of her frightening encounter in the dark garden.

No sense in throwing out a perfectly good handkerchief. She folded it neatly and put it back in her drawer.

Lord Daniel did not appear the following Sunday. Isabel said he had gone to London on business and would come back just in time to fetch her home for the Christmas holiday.

Damp November gave way to a frosty December. Queen Caroline, the case against her abandoned, drove in state to St. Paul’s to give thanks, surrounded by cheering multitudes. The King, still uncrowned, returned to London from Brighton where he had retired with Lady Conyngham to sulk throughout the trial. He began to make plans for a magnificent coronation from which his infuriatingly popular wife would be excluded.

Isabel received several letters from her father in London. Amaryllis received one from Bertram, a brief scrawl to say that he would be in Castle Hedingham on the Friday before the party, but would have to leave on Sunday to take Louise home. He had to spend Christmas at Tatenhill with his parents. His sister Caroline, he added in a postscript, was delighted that her daughter was proving useful as an excuse for reuniting her brother with his beloved. She sent her best regards and looked forward to welcoming Amaryllis into the family.

Amaryllis wished she had written to Lord Daniel as soon as she had read his letter. Her lack of response must have offended, even hurt him. It was too late now, she decided sadly. After the long silence it might look as if she was setting her cap at him, and that was the last thing she wanted him to think.

The last week of the school term finally arrived. The young ladies fidgeted through their lessons, whispering about their plans for the holiday. There were usually one or two who stayed at school, but this year the cold, dry weather had left the roads in excellent condition for travel. Those who lived at a distance had all been invited to visit friends. Miss Hartwell, Mrs. Vaux, and Miss Tisdale looked forward to three weeks of peace even more than to the ball at the castle.

Most of the girls were to leave on Saturday, though a few, including Louise Carfax, would not go till Sunday. Fortunately one of these was a senior pupil well respected by the younger girls, so she could be left in charge on Saturday evening. The three schoolmistresses took their new gowns from the presses and hung them out to air.

Friday afternoon was devoted to packing trunks and boxes. Cook had prepared a festive dinner, with roast goose and plum pudding taking pride of place. After dinner they all retired to the common-room, decorated with branches of fir and scarlet-berried holly, to play round games and sing carols.

The servants were enjoying their own celebration down in the kitchen. Their merriment was interrupted by the arrival of Lord Pomeroy’s groom, with a message for Miss Hartwell. As the only male in the household was old Ned, the young man was made most welcome and sat down with a glass of rum punch while Daisy went up to the common-room.

Lord Pomeroy’s compliments, and he would do himself the honour of calling on Miss Hartwell at eleven o’clock tomorrow if convenient. Miss Hartwell, laughingly losing a game of speculation, would be happy to receive his lordship at the stated hour. Daisy went straight back to the kitchen with the response, but it was a good two hours before the groom, now slightly wobbly on his feet, wended his way back through the village and up the hill to the castle mansion.

Saturday morning, as Amaryllis had foreseen, was a chaos of arriving and departing carriages, emotional farewells and joyful greetings, servants running upstairs and staggering down again under the weight of their young mistresses’ possessions. When Bertram arrived she simply left Tizzy to keep order and took him to her study.

He took off his multicaped greatcoat. As always his dress was plain but fastidious, not a speck of dust on his Hessians, his cravat a perfect Waterfall. He took both her hands and looked her up and down.