Miss Milton Speaks Her Mind (32 page)

“
You are quick, Miss Milton,” he observed.

And you are surprisingly forward, she thought, but said nothing. And I need a good handyman too much to put you in your place. “There is a great deal to be done—just small things—and I need your help right now.”

“
I'm early for the reunion, though,” he said.

“
Well, yes,” she replied, puzzled. “That's the whole point: that you would be here soon enough to get those things done before the guests arrive.” Patience, Jane, she advised herself. Not everyone has prompt understanding.

She was rewarded with another dazzling smile. “I think I understand now,” he said.

She started up the front steps. “Stanton, this is Dale. He has come from Mr. Butterworth to help us.”

To her utter mystification, the handyman went through the handshaking ritual with Stanton, who seemed, despite his butler's demeanor, as puzzled as she was. Oh, Stanton, she thought, at least your manners are far better than mine. You don't look as totally dumbfounded as I felt.

“
Stanton, is it?” Dale said, setting down his traveling case in the front entrance. “Do you have a first name?”

“
Why, yes. It is Oliver.”

“
Oliver, then,” the man said cheerfully. “I never can quite see calling someone by his last name without saying ‘Mister.' Whoa there!” He looked over his shoulder at the footman, who had picked up the traveling case. “I can carry that. Just show me where.”

“
Follow me, uh, Dale,” said the butler, his voice rather faint. Jane looked away to hide her smile. “We have a room belowstairs.”

“
Fine,” he declared, looking around with pleasure. “Miss Milton, you could use a spot of paint on that wall to liven up things in here. Wouldn't a contrasting sort of Wedgwood blue be just right?”

She blinked and looked where he pointed. “I … I believe you're right,” she said, after a moment's struggle within herself. “I didn't have that on my list but ….”

To her further amazement, he set down the case and patted her shoulder. “Don't stew over that pot, Miss Milton. How about I just take your list and then look over the place, too?”

“
If … if you wish,” she replied.

“
Two weeks until the reunion?”

She nodded.

“
You'll be amazed what I can do in two weeks.”

By the next afternoon she should have corrected him: she was amazed what he could do in one twenty-four-hour period. By the time she came downstairs in the morning, the treads that had squeaked since Andrew was a baby had been subdued somehow into silence, and the spot on the wall where a footman from years past had accidentally shoved a table corner was puttied now and waiting for paint. The author of all this magnificence was seated at the top of a tall ladder, casually inserting glazier's points into the frame where he had replaced a pane of glass. He had removed the draperies and bestowed them over the stair railing, and the 'tween stairs maid, seated on the floor, was rubbing soap over the curtain pole.

“
Dale says it will make the draperies slide easier,” she said as Jane knelt beside her to admire her work.

“
I am certain he is right,” Jane replied. “That
has
been rather a problem with these poles.” She looked up at the handyman. “And here I thought I was the early riser.”

“
You have a long list of things for me to do before that reunion,” he reminded her. “Hand me that putty, will you?”

She did as he said, reaching up with the can, and then standing back to watch him work. Now admit it, Jane, she told herself; you are admiring the handyman. She admired him without compunction, holding her breath at the casual way he leaned away from the ladder to apply the glazier points, and then smooth the putty on top. He had a handsome profile, with as straight a nose as a person could wish, and auburn hair somewhat the color of Blair's, but with a little curl to it. He needs a haircut, she thought, but possibly that is the fashion where he is from. He worked swiftly and with the assurance of the born handyman, whistling tunelessly under his breath, the picture of contentment on a tall ladder.

“
I think that Mr. Butterworth has amply fulfilled his promise.”

She jumped a little and then blushed to see Stanton at her side, looking up even as she was. “And more,” she assured him. She lowered her voice. “Stanton, did you find out anything about him last night?”

“
A very little,” the butler replied in the same quiet voice. “Only that he is from Ohio, United States of America, not married, thirty-seven years old, and that he is in England visiting relatives.”

“
What is his connection with the factory at Rumsey?” she whispered back.

The butler shrugged. “We never got that far. Do you know, he has the most amazing stories about the wilderness and Indians, Miss Milton, and everything seems to remind him of something else. I believe we were all quite enthralled last night.” He looked at her with a frown. “Now that I think of it, whenever I tried to bring the conversation round to Mr. Butterworth, it seemed to remind him of another story.”

“
Odd,” she said, and returned her attention to the man on top of the ladder.

“
Perhaps you could write a letter of thanks to Mr. Butterworth,” the butler suggested.

I write a letter every night, she thought, and nearly said so, but stopped herself in time. No sense in advertising to the world what a ninny she was. “I could do that,” she said softly.

And she would have, she told herself before she climbed in bed that night, except that it was far too late. She and Andrew had allowed themselves to be lured belowstairs, where they both listened with wide-open eyes to stories of Indians, and forest fires, and traveling by flatboat down the Ohio River. She could not deny that the handyman had a flair for a well-told tale, delivered in his peculiar flat American accent while he whittled a peg to repair a chair in the dining room. She wondered if he was ever idle, and decided that he was not.

After a moment's concentration, he gestured to Andrew. “All right, lad, pull that chair closer, and let us see if the peg fits.”

It did. In another minute, Andrew had closed Caesar's
Commentaries
, and tongue out in concentration, was whittling a peg of his own while the handyman watched in that relaxed way of his. She could not help put compare him to Mr. Butterworth, who could look almost as casual, but who always seemed ready to move. Not Dale; she never saw a man relax so completely, and she envied him.

“
Andrew, you can take it to the dining room,” he said. Andrew picked up the chair, and Stanton opened the door for him. The handyman held up the peg. “He did a good job on this one, Miss Milton. You may have it as a spare.”

She put the peg in her apron pocket, wishing there were some way she could bring the conversation around to Mr. Butterworth. For no more reason than I long to hear him spoken of, she thought. Nothing occurred to her, so she closed Andrew's Latin book and rose. She was ready to say good night, when the handyman patted the space beside him that Andrew had vacated. “Sit a spell, Miss Milton. I have a confession.”

This is different, she thought. Most of us here are so reluctant to say anything. She sat.

“
I … I looked in on Lord Denby this afternoon. I hope you don't mind.”

He looked so earnest that she decided she didn't mind at all. “We do talk about him in somewhat hushed tones, don't we?” she asked, wanting to put him at ease.

“
Maybe that was it,” he decided. “I guess I was curious.”

“
Did he invite you in?” she asked. “He spends so much time sleeping that I worry about him.”

“
He was awake. I sat down and told him I was the handyman.” He chuckled, and started whittling again. “I think he was surprised, but too polite to admit that he was.” He leaned toward her. “I gather that here in England, handymen don't generally sit down and jaw with the lord.”

“
It is not precisely typical,” she said, unable to resist a smile.

He whittled in silence, concentrating on the little circle he was carving, as though it demanded all his attention. She knew it did not, considering how free he had been with information about the United States when Andrew was sitting with him. If Mr. Butterworth were here, he would merely wait for the man to speak, she thought. I shall do the same.

“
Lord Denby was not what I expected,” the handyman said after he finished carving out the center of the wooden disk. He held up the disk, evening the sides, and then set it on the table and picked up a slender strip of wood. “I thought he would be imperious and rude; at least that is what I have imagined”—he hesitated—“a lord to be.”

“
He is kindness itself,” she assured him. Except where he doubts, she added to herself, thinking of Andrew.

“
I didn't expect that,” he repeated, and then was silent. In a moment he finished shaping the skewer, then handed it to her with the disk. “For your hair,” he said, then took it back. “I'll put some stain on it, and then give it to you again.”

“
Thank you,” she said, suddenly shy. “Good night. Dale.”

He winked at her and turned his attention to Stanton, who was coming toward him with a teapot and cups. “Oliver! Did I tell you last night how I watched the Battle of Lake Erie from the deck of Captain Perry's flagship? His name was Oliver, too.”

So it is “Oliver” and “Dale,” Jane thought as she went upstairs. Lord Denby would call that far more democracy than the law permits. She went to Andrew's room, thinking to see him asleep with a book on his chest. Instead, she found him sitting cross-legged on his bed with shavings all around him, carving a small block of wood. “Did Dale loan you a knife?” she asked.

Andrew nodded, his eyes on the wood. “It will be a bird,” he announced.

“
Eventually,” she agreed.

“
And I will send it to Mr. Butterworth, along with a letter, telling him that I miss him,” he continued.

You, too? she thought in dismay. Oh, we are a sad lot, if we cannot manage without the mill owner. “I do, as well,” she said after a moment's consideration.

“
Stanton thought I should write him a letter,” Andrew said, putting down the knife and getting into bed when she pulled back the covers. “We could both do it.”

“
Stanton seems determined that we write to Mr. Butterworth,” she told him as she pulled up the covers, and shook off some of the wood shavings onto the floor.

“
Then let us do it, Miss Mitten,” Andrew said. He raised up on his elbow to look at her. “I do not think we have enough friends to waste one, do you?”

“
I do not think so, either,” she said. “I will do it tonight.”

It is a simple thing, she told herself as she went back downstairs to the bookroom. The main floor was dark, and she knew that Stanton must consider his charges safely abed now, so he could sleep. She moved quietly, sure of herself in the house she knew so well, letting herself into the bookroom and closing the door without a sound. “Thanks to Dale,” she said. “Nothing in this house creaks now.” She sat a moment at the desk, mentally going down her list of reasons why it was perfectly unobjectionable to mail a letter to the mill owner. The list was short; nothing in her upbringing advised her to write even the briefest note, thanking him for the handyman.

“
I will do it anyway,” she said out loud, as she reached for the sulphurs and stood up to light the other branch of candles on the desk. “I told Andrew that I would and Stanton seems to expect it.” She thought about Lady Carruthers, who had already announced her arrival in a day. “I will invite him to the reunion, as well.”

It was a short note, unlike the long letters she wrote and never mailed, businesslike even, thanking him for sending Dale to make the place right and tight before the reunion. Writing faster, before she lost all her nerve, she invited him to the reunion dinner. I can hope that Lady Carruthers will not be rude if he appears, although there is no guarantee, she thought. She sealed the letter and backed it, carrying it carefully to the table in the front hallway, as though it were eggs balanced on top of each other.

You are being foolish, Jane, she told herself. It is merely a note of thanks for the handyman, and you are enlarging upon it in the same way that you imagined that he cared for you. I suppose this is the fantasy of old maids.

Deep in reflection, she walked down the hall again, touching the familiar tables, running her hand along the leather-tooled wallcovering which had seemed so grand when she came from the workhouse years ago, but which was stained now, and old. She knew that Stover Hall had gone to seed as surely as the formal garden was now a mass of weeds and choked plants, and it pained her heart. She knew also that Lady Carruthers was right. Stanton and I should never have planned a reunion, she thought. I wonder if it is not too late to call it off.

She sat on the stairs, chin in hand, to think about the matter, and realized with a chill that she was not alone. She couldn't help herself; she thought first of Blair. When that panic passed, she forced herself to stand up and listen. Someone was humming.