Miss Milton Speaks Her Mind (13 page)

And he will only beg for more next time, and more, until he has your estate and he ruins us all, she thought, looking around the room because she could not bear to gaze at Lord Denby so helpless again, when only yesterday he was arguing with Mr. Butterworth. All she achieved was a reminder of how shabby the place was becoming. There is no firm hand at Denby anymore, she realized.

“
Stanton said that you received a note from Mr. Butterworth,” she prompted, wanting to change the subject.

He turned his head toward a letter lying on the night table. “It is some sheer nonsense about inviting you and Andrew to spend Christmas at his sister's home near Huddersfield.” With an effort he turned upon his side and faced the wall. “Of course you will answer and give your regrets.”

“
Of course I will,” she echoed. “Good night, my lord.” She picked up the letter, the paper familiar to her fingers because it was the same stationery she had used for the reunion invitations. She hesitated at the door. “Perhaps things will seem better in the morning, my lord.”

“
Is she going away then?” he asked hopefully.

“
No, my lord. She and Cecil are here for Christmas.” His sigh went on so long that she wanted to cover her ears. So much for loving relatives, she told herself as she left the room quietly.

It doesn't have to be this way, she wanted to shout as she hurried down the hall. “But how do you know that, Jane Milton?” she asked out loud as she stopped before the door to Blair's room, then went inside. How do I know? she wondered as she moved, sure of herself, in the dark room as she had done so many times during that last winter and spring, when the light had finally begun to bother his eyes. She found the box of sulphurs where they always were, and lit the candle.

She sat on the chair next to the bed, as she had sat so often during the months when he loitered between life and death. The room was peaceful now, smelling of mint and balsam that Lady Carruthers had insisted on placing about. It was a good idea, she thought, breathing in the fragrance. I should tell her; everyone likes a compliment.

There was a sound in the doorway, and it did not surprise her to see Andrew. She motioned him in, and he leaned against her chair. In another moment his arm was around her shoulder. Without a word she took hold of his hand as it lay on her shoulder.

“
Do you miss him, Miss Mitten?” he asked, his voice as quiet as the room.

She nodded, unable to speak.

“
I think I would miss him more, if I knew him better,” Andrew said.

Jane looked at him in surprise, and then she thought about what he had said. “It was the war that took him away, my dear. If you want to blame someone, blame Napoleon.”

To her further surprise, he shook his head, and then after a moment's hesitation perched himself on the bed so he was facing her. “Other fathers came home once in a while, Miss Mitten,” he said, as though the words were being dragged from him. He leaned toward her. “Miss Mitten, do you think he believed those stories about my mother, too?”

She leaped from her chair and sat beside him, both arms around him. “I am sure he did not!” she exclaimed.

“
Then why did he never come home?” he asked, his eyes big with a question that she could not answer.

“
There is so much we do not know,” she replied. It was an unsatisfactory tack, but she was unable to think of another. She held her breath, hoping that he would not ask anything else. He sighed, and settled against her. “I wish that you had let me sit with him, too,” he said softly.

Oh, you do not, she thought. Besides, I promised.

“
I … I could have told him that I loved him.”

Touched, she looked at Andrew, thinking of the other boys his age in the district, and how childish they seemed by comparison. Andrew, have you always been old? she thought, even as she knew the answer.

“
He knows you loved him, my dear,” she replied.

The boy nodded and got off the bed. He looked at it a moment, then patted the pillow. “Maybe so, but there is something in the telling, isn't there, Miss Mitten?” He nodded to her and left the room.

Silent, she sat in the chair again, unwilling to leave the room, unwilling to fetch sal volatile and face Cecil again, or even to pick up a pen and turn down Mr. Butterworth's kind offer. She heard another sound behind her, and smiled. There
is
something in the telling, she thought. I suppose it won't hurt to tell you, my dear. Mr. Butterworth says I should speak my mind, and it matters, you know.

“
My dear boy, do you know, before he died your father told me that he loved me.” It seemed easy to say just then, and a weight lifted from her shoulders. You are so right, Mr. Butterworth, she told herself. I should speak my mind more often.

Her blood turned to chunks as she heard someone clapping behind her. Jane whirled around, hardly breathing, to see Lady Carruthers standing in the room. “Oh, I thought you were ….” she began, and then stopped, as the applause continued. “Please don't do that,” she begged.

Lady Carruthers laughed and stopped clapping. “Jane, trust you to believe a delirious man,” she said. “Lord, I do not know when I have been so diverted. I simply must share this with Cecil. He needs a good laugh!” She was still laughing when she turned on her heel and left the room.

Jane was awake all night, hands clenched at her sides, staring at the ceiling in her room, wishing for morning to come, and then dreading it, because that would mean another encounter with Lady Carruthers. “No, Mr. Butterworth, I cannot speak my mind around Lady Carruthers,” she said out loud, when it seemed that morning would never come. “I must leave this place.”

When she could not stand another moment of lying in her bed, she got up and dressed quickly, her fingers clumsy. She was tying her shoes when she stopped, her hand on the lace. And where will I go? she thought in despair. Where am I free from relatives? I could never leave Andrew. It was almost the last thing Blair had said to her, his last thought, after he told her he loved her. “Watch him, Janie, as you always have,” he had whispered, the words draining out of him like his own blood.

Jane shivered and finished tying her shoes. She snatched up her cloak and tiptoed from the house. In only a few minutes she was circling Mr. Butterworth's lake and then seating herself on a bench, shielded by trees from both houses. In exhaustion and perfect misery, she sat there through Lady Denby's departure for church. When the carriage was small in the distance, she trudged back to the house.

Andrew was gone, and Cecil, too. Jane marveled at her own insensitivity in exposing Blair's son to the full force of their dislike. I should have gone, she thought, lying down on her bed and drawing up her knees to her chest. No matter how bad it is, I should have gone. She slept then, too tired to do anything else.

She was vaguely aware when they returned from church, but she slept again, to be roused soon enough by the smallest knock on her door. “Come in,” she said, pushing hair and sleep from her eyes.

Andrew, his face so pale that his lips were white, came into the room. She stared at him as he sat down in the chair in front of the fireplace. Horrified, she could tell that he was beyond tears. “Oh, Andrew, what did they say to you?” she said as she hurried to kneel beside the chair.

He shook his head. “Nothing to me,” he said finally. “After church, my aunt asked the vicar how I was doing in Latin School.”

Jane gasped. “Oh, God, I never thought of that! And … and did the vicar tell her about ….” She couldn't finish.

Andrew nodded. “Mr. Butterworth was standing near.” He hung his head down and she watched the tears drop onto the arm of the chair. Wordlessly she pressed her hand against his head. “She said such terrible things to him, Miss Mitten!” He looked at her, his eyes red. “Called him common, and someone who pokes his nose where it doesn't belong, and … and words I never heard before.” He sobbed into the arm of the chair. “All he was doing was teaching me Latin, Miss Mitten!”

Jane rested her cheek against his hair. “I know, Andrew. It's all my fault.”

He shook his head. “No, it isn't. We didn't do anything wrong.” He looked at her. “Do you think Mr. Butterworth will ever want to see us again?”

Not if he is as smart as I think he is, she thought, and then went all hollow inside. We will have no friends anymore, and I am to blame for speaking my mind. I should have known no good would come of it. “We can wish that he would, my dear,” she replied, “although I would not hold out too much hope.”

Andrew sighed. “Why does she care how I learn Latin? She never cares about anything else I do.”

Andrew, if you only knew how many years I have been wondering why she dislikes me so much, Jane thought, as she got to her feet and found a handkerchief for the boy.

“
I am sure it is she who has been telling everyone that my mama …. Oh, Miss Mitten, suppose it is all true?” he burst out. “I do not understand!”

Her own heart full to bursting, Jane took him onto her lap and let him cry. “I don't understand, either,” she murmured. And I do not understand why no one—Blair included—made any effort to scotch the rumors. She could not stop her own tears then. Am I the
only
one who ignored the rumors?

She forced herself to stop crying, and held Andrew close against her until his tears turned into hiccups, and then stopped. Calmly she wiped his face, kissed his forehead, then let him rest against her again. “My dear, I believe that your aunt wants our cousin Cecil to inherit Lord Denby's titles and estates,” she told him.

“
He can have them,” Andrew replied promptly, his voice muffled against her breast. “I just want to learn my Latin, then go to school someplace where no one teases me.” He pulled away from her. “That's not too much to ask, is it?” he questioned her, his voice anxious.

“
No, it is not, my dear,” she answered. There was nothing more to say. She held Andrew as the afternoon dragged on. His stomach began to growl, with the coming of dusk, but he made no move to leave her lap, or ask about dinner. I cannot bear one more meal in that dining room, Jane thought, as she tightened her grip. I think I would rather starve.

She could feel Andrew jump a little when the footman rang the first bell for dinner. “Don't you wish that Mr. Butterworth would invite us to eat with him?” he asked finally.

“
That would solve our problem,” she told him, keeping her voice light. “Actually, Andrew, he sent a letter to your grandfather last night, inviting us to spend Christmas at his sister's house in Huddersfield.”

He sat up on her lap, his eyes wide. “Please tell me that you accepted!” he demanded, reminding her forcefully of his grandfather.

She shook her head. “It probably isn't proper, my dear, so I am afraid I will have to turn him down.”

“
Miss Mitten!” he exclaimed, and if she had not been so miserable, Jane would have been amused by the exasperation in his voice. “This would solve our entire problem!”

I wish it were so easily solved, she thought. I wish a visit to Mr. Butterworth's would brush away years and years of suspicion and dislike and terrible storytelling. “I don't think it would help us much, Andrew.” She sighed and lifted him from her lap, going to stand by the window. “I doubt that we are very high on Mr. Butterworth's list of Christmas charities right now, considering the way Lady Carruthers treated him after church today. Andrew?”

While she was talking, he had seated himself at her desk, and then arranged the paper and pen in front of him. “Oh, Andrew, we dare not write Mr. Butterworth,” she said.

He wasn't listening to her, but staring in front of him. In another moment, he nodded and began to write. “Miss Mitten, you always tell me that I should persist, when faced with a dilemma,” he told her as he wrote. “It's true, isn't it?”

“
Well, yes, but …. Oh, Andrew ….”

He finished the line, then put down the pen. “Miss Mitten, you've been teaching me the truth all these years, haven't you?” he asked.

“
Of course I have,” she replied, stung by the implication. She smiled again, when she realized what he was doing. “I suppose this is called being hoist on my own petard, isn't it?”

He looked at her doubtfully. “I … I hope not, Miss Mitten!”

She laughed and hugged him. “Very well, then, write away. We'll face the dragon over dinner, and then smuggle this note to Stanton in a bottle.”

His expression of doubt remained. “I … I had rather planned just to hand it to him, Miss Mitten,” he said.

“
Andrew, you have no more imagination than your father!”

He observed her with a smile that relieved her heart as nothing else could have. “Miss Mitten, this is the first time you have mentioned Father without tears in your eyes or a glum look.”

“
I suppose it is,” she said slowly. “But own it, Andrew. There were times when he was such a … a ….”

“
Slowtop?” Andrew offered, his eyes lively.

“
Exactly. Now do hurry or we shall be late for dinner, which will only disgrace us further.”