Patricia Veryan - [Sanguinet Saga 09] - Logic Of The Heart (10 page)

Susan helped her refold the apparently acceptable blanket and
set it aside to be sprinkled with powdered alum before it was put into
the storage chest. "The Bo'sun has been working very hard, Starry," she
pointed out placatingly. "Between helping Deemer with the horses and
doing most of the gardening, to say nothing of his work with the barge,
the poor man scarce has time to breathe."

"Senor Angelo helps also." Mrs. Starr sniffed disparagement.
"One might think the Bo'sun ninety-five and being starved into his
grave to judge by his glummery!"

"If he is sometimes downhearted, I suspect one does not have
to look very far to find the cause," said Susan with a teasing smile.

Her companion, who at eight and thirty was still a very pretty
little lady, blushed and changed the subject hastily. "From what the
woman in the grocer's shop had to say—her being a proper tattle-monger
you understand—the whole estate has been let go to rack and ruin since
the old lord died. Like the flood, for instance. It seems there was a
bore tide two years back that caused it all, and it was months before
the water was pumped out of the catacombs under the church, no matter
how the Village Council begged and pleaded with his lordship's steward."

"Is that how the swamp came to be?"

"So they say. Half the hill behind Longhills itself came down
on the old family chapel, only because a lot of trees on the hillside
had been damaged in the great storm the year before and no one at
Longhills lifted a finger to have them tended and replanted. Thirteenth
century the chapel was, and one whole wall smashed in and windows broke
that are irreplaceable works of art. The villagers call it justice, and
do not grieve about it, you may be sure!" She pulled the mirror from
between the sheets and scanned it with suspicion.

Susan said indignantly, "Well, I think it dreadful that works
of art such as that should be lost because of carelessness or
pennypinching. The Montclair chapel is famous, and really belongs to
England more than to the family. Martha cleaned out this cupboard on
Tuesday, Starry. It is quite dry, I'm sure."

"It is not the cupboard I question. Aha! Just as I thought!
Mist on the mirror! See there! The sheets are damp. Natural they would
be, coming down the river on that nasty boat of Master Andrew's." Mrs.
Starr tugged at the neatly disposed pile. "All have to come out again
and be aired, just as I thought. Every blessed one! No! Don't you touch
them, dear girl. You're all over cobwebs! And you must be fairly worn
out. Go downstairs and make yourself a cup of tea, do!"

Susan hesitated, but she really was rather tired, and the
thought of a cup of tea was heavenly. Having won a promise that her
devoted retainer would soon join her in the kitchen, she made her weary
way to the stairs.

Montclair's wrath built steadily as he limped up the
drivepath. Having grown up in a house where a small army of servants
eliminated dirt before it dared settle, where two full-time maids did
nothing more than arrange fresh flowers every day and it was the sole
task of three lackeys to clean the silver, he had no comprehension of
the amount of time it could take three women to set to rights a house
that had stood gathering dust for several years. It appeared to him as
if his beloved old cottage had been taken over by a band of gypsies.
The front terrace was littered with boxes, rolled-up rugs, sad-looking
articles of furniture, and a large and battered child's doll house. The
Henley woman and her unpleasant clan, he thought angrily, had lost no
time in desecrating the house with their rubbish. Lord only knows what
it would be like inside! They likely had pigs settled into the
withdrawing room!

Fuming, he hurried up the steps. The front door was open, and
he marched inside. The main hall was cluttered and deserted. He swore
softly, and stamped through the chaos, up the two steps and into the
upper hall.

A maid halted, halfway down the stairs, and stared at him. He
thought her inordinately tall; almost as tall as himself. Her apron was
a disaster, her grimy mob-cap hung askew, and many wisps of dark hair
had escaped it to straggle untidily about her dirty face. She clutched
a dustpan and brush in one hand, and a broom in the other, and she was
evidently as dim-witted as she was slovenly, because she made not the
slightest attempt to address him, but stood there perfectly still,
gawking at him.

Frozen with dismay, Susan saw a slim young man gazing up at
her. She received a swift impression of attractively tumbled black
hair, a pair of rather stormy-looking but remarkably fine dark eyes set
in a pale face with a firm nose and chin, a high intelligent forehead,
and a grim but shapely mouth. He was dressed with expensive good taste
but without ostentation, and aside from the fact that for some peculiar
reason he was carrying a sturdy branch, he was undeniably a gentleman.

Her heart gave an odd little jump. She thought despairingly,
'Oh, I am filthy! Whatever must he think?' and started to snatch off
her mob-cap.

In her confusion she quite forgot that she held a full dustpan
in that hand…

Stalking towards her, Montclair received the full benefit of a
cascading pile of dust, cobwebs, and debris. He uttered a shocked cry
and reeled back, his eyes painfully full.

"Oh, my heavens!" Aghast, Susan ran to help him. "Here, let me
brush your coat!" Briskly, she began to wield the brush, which was
unhappily full of cobwebs.

"Woman—
desist
!" roared Montclair. "By
Gad! You're a full"—he gasped—"a full-fledged…" Uttering an explosive
sneeze, he tripped over a croquet mallet. "Disaster!" he finished,
prone.

Susan threw one hand to her cheek and moaned faintly.

Snatching out his handkerchief, Montclair sat amid the rubble
and sneezed. Between sneezes he strove not very successfully to
chastise the lunatic. She watched him, seemingly completely undismayed
by the fact that her thick hair now hung in a straight dark curtain
past her shoulders with only one comb on each side holding it back from
her face. Her eyes were very wide and her lower lip hung down. He
brandished his handkerchief at her and tried to speak, only to sneeze
again.

"I do apologize," said Susan, recovering herself. "I didn't
hear you knock."

She spoke in a cultured voice that surprised him. 'Probably
the family idiot,' he decided, clambering to his feet and trying to
dislodge a timber that seemed to have invaded his eye. "The front door
was open," he snarled.

"So I see." Susan continued to the foot of the stairs. "I am
sorry that there was no one here to receive you. Everyone is gone out.
You see, a little girl is lost."

Irritated by her impertinently familiar manner, he stared at
her, and, sneezing again, wondered if she referred to Priscilla.

'How cross he is,' thought Susan. He really was very
good-looking and he had every right to be vexed by such a welcome.
Contrite, she went on, "I suppose you must think it very dreadful. But
Priscilla is astoundingly clever for her age and has a great deal of
common sense in—"

So Priscilla did live here. What a pity. "A small child should
not be allowed to go out alone," he interpolated sharply, "clever or
no."

Priscilla had slipped away again whilst they were all so
caught up in the flurry of making this funny old house fit for human
occupancy. Heaven knows, she had told the child repeatedly that she was
not to go out alone, but Priscilla was lonely, poor dear mite, and such
a dreamer. She'd probably imagined Wolfgang into the gigantic hound
she'd thought he would become, and thus decided she was not 'out
alone.' The young man looked haughty and condemning, and Susan began to
bristle. Who did he think he was, to force his way into her home and
then lecture her about her own child?

"I am perfectly aware of that fact, sir," she said
defensively. "But I scarce think this peaceful English countryside
swarms with monsters and werewolves and the like!" Still, he was right,
and it was good of him to be concerned, wherefore she relented, smiled,
and prepared to explain.

Mrs. Henley, thought Montclair, would do well to hire
better-trained servants. He had not so much as been asked for his card
or his identity, and this Madam Dementia was apparently in the habit of
standing about chatting with her mistress's callers. He should not be
surprised, of course, but her cavalier attitude toward Priscilla's
absence infuriated him. "You appear to find the loss of a child
amusing," he said sternly.

"Amusing!" echoed Susan, her smile fading.

"One reads in the newspapers every day," he went on, "that
some poor helpless innocent has been stolen to be sold into a lifetime
of slavery and degradation. It is not to be wondered at when half the
time their scatter-wit parents—"

"Oooh!"

"—are too busy frippering about where they've no business
being, and paying more heed to their coiffures and their cards than to
their offspring! And furthermore, my good girl—"

"I am
not
your good girl," she flashed,
sparks of wrath appearing in her big grey eyes.

"One might think you'd be ashamed to admit it," he said
sardonically, advancing to shake a finger under her elevated nose.

Her breath momentarily snatched away, Susan prepared to give
this insufferable intruder the blistering set-down he deserved, but she
was too late.

"Furthermore," he swept on, noticing despite his frown that
this odd creature had quite pretty eyes, "there may not be monsters or
werewolves as you so facetiously point out, but there are places in my
woods that are—"

"In
your
woods?" she interrupted,
stiffening. "Pray, who are you, sir?"

"I would think it about time you enquired. My name is
Montclair. I have come to see your mistress."

Montclair
? Susan stood rigid. So this was
the hardhearted lord of the manor! And he had dared, he'd
dared

to march in here and add insult to injury! She'd scatterwit
him!

"
Horrid
!" she squealed, flailing her
mob-cap into his face. "Wretch! Loathsome—
viper
!"

Retreating with stunned incredulity, Montclair seized the
mob-cab and wrested it away.

Having suffered one assault at the hands of his men, the widow
was not about to be abused again, and rapped her brush smartly over his
head.

"Ow!" he cried, and involuntarily recoiling from madness,
promptly tripped over the steps to the lower hall and went staggering
back.

Susan followed, flailing at him vigorously. "How
dare
you send your beastly creatures here to try and frighten me?" Whack!
"How
dare
you—"

Off balance, Montclair made an abortive snatch for the brush,
which eluded him and landed a telling blow on his ear.

"Ow!" he repeated, backing away in horror from this frenzied
apology for a housemaid.

"Breaking into our house—" she shrilled, her arm flying.

"
Your
house?" he gasped, ducking. "It
is—yike!—
my
house! And— Ouch!"

He could imagine few things more disgraceful than for a
gentleman to engage in hand-to-hand (or -brush) combat with a female,
and striving rather unsuccessfully to protect himself, retreated across
the entrance hall, and beat a hasty and inelegant exit.

The side of his forehead hurt, his ear felt on fire, and he
had given his elbow a fine crack when he fell. Glaring ragefully at the
virago in the open doorway, he shouted, "You may tell your mistress she
will be hearing from me!"

"One can but hope it will be from a great distance," she
riposted. A thought struck her. "And furthermore, if you cared a scrap
for your country you would take more care of your windows!" The door
closed with a bang.

It was a clear confirmation of his suspicions. "Good God,"
whispered Montclair, rubbing his elbow and backing away. "She's short
of a sheet all right! Poor creature…"

Susan whipped the door open once more. "And
I
am the mistress of this house!" she announced, then threw his branch
after him, and slammed the door again.

She
was the notorious trespassing Mrs.
Henley? That tall, dirty woman with her mass of straight hair and her
horrid dustpan was the creature Imre Monteil had come near to mooning
about and had spoken of as 'the bewitching widow'? Montclair gave a
contemptuous snort. It followed! Monteil was just the type to admire
what any reasonable man must only find appalling!

He had come here with an open mind, he thought aggrievedly,
and not only had he been disgracefully abused, but the creature had for
some reason become annoyed. There was small point in trying to talk to
her now. Well, he'd been willing to give her the benefit of the doubt,
but from this point on Ferry could deal with her. Serve her right!

Making his disgruntled way to collect his branch, he reflected
that it was small wonder poor little Priscilla wanted for friends. Very
likely the parents of any possible playmates were well aware that her
mother was a raving lunatic. A strong raving lunatic, he thought,
tenderly feeling a lump above his right eye. He was mildly surprised to
find that the mob-cap was still in his left hand. He stared down at it.
Egad, but he'd been shocked when the wretched woman had flung it into
his face. Recalling the rage in those wide grey eyes, he grinned. She'd
admitted she was not a "good girl." He'd scored there. Of course, she
in turn had called him a horrid wretch and a loathsome viper. Hmmn… He
stuffed the cap into his pocket and took up his branch.

The wind was getting colder and grey clouds were mingling with
the fluffy white ones. He walked faster.

He'd be lucky to get home before it rained. Jupiter, but this
had been a crazy day! First, the repellent Monteil; then, Soldier and
his stupid bone; that Spanish idiot in the woods; little Priscilla—poor
babe. And to cap things off nicely, the virago-ish Widow Henley. It
would be miraculous did he reach Longhills without being captured by
cannibals and boiled in oil!