The LadyShip (10 page)

“Oh, miss!” Petra exclaimed, intercepting Elinor, “poor
Sally’s that sick! She took queer this morning when she was
helping me to make up the beds, and no more than half an
hour ago she swooned dead away in the lobby! I’ve put her
to bed, miss, hoping you wouldn’t object, but how I’m to
get my work done if I got to nurse her, I’m sure I don’t
know.”

“Oh, dear!” Elinor exclaimed. “Why do these things al
ways happen on our busiest days?” She took the hot brick from Petra and told her, “I’ll go up to her. You do the best you can without her for now. Get Teddy to help you fetch
and carry.”

“Yes, miss,” said Petra. She bobbed a grateful curtsey
and, seizing the reluctant Teddy by the ear, dragged him off
with her there and then.

Elinor made her way to Sally’s tiny room on the upper
storey, only to find that Lucy had preceded her there and
had somehow convinced Sally to confide in her. She was
seated at the pretty little maid’s bedside holding her hand as
Sally, between huge racking sobs, poured her tale of woe
into Lucy’s sympathetic ears. Elinor listened just long
enough to catch the gist of it before backing unobserved
out of the room.

“Well,” she said to the rapidly cooling brick she still held
in her hand, “she won’t be needing you after all—it not
being precisely cold feet that ails her!”

Daylight was fading and a fresh breeze was threatening
more wet weather when Elinor found her sister again, re
turning from the succession houses with a basket of fruit
over her arm. Lucy shrugged off her damp cloak and hung
it up on a peg near the door between the kitchen and the
small enclosed terrace used for such transient purposes; a
slight frown marred her pretty forehead.

“Are you worried about Sally?” Elinor asked from the
door. “You needn’t be, you know.”

Lucy looked up and smiled, erasing the frown, but she
came to the door looking thoughtful. “Do you think we
might send her home for a few days? I believe her people
live in Boxford, which is no great distance.”

“It will have to be for more than a few days, I’m afraid.
Did she tell you who the father was?”

Lucy’s eyes widened. “Oh, dear I had no idea you ...
Poor Sally didn’t want to tell you, Nell. She was afraid you
would give her a dreadful scold.”

Elinor laughed. “I don’t see that my lecturing her would
accomplish anything to the purpose. If her mother had spoken to her when she ought to have done years ago, it seems
to me that everyone would not now be going on about
‘poor Sally’!”

“She hasn’t a mother—that is, her mother died some
years ago. She lived with an aunt before she came here, and
as I understand it, the aunt is no great example to set before
such a persuadable girl as Sally. On the other hand, she is not unkind, Sally tells me, so I suppose it would be safe to
send her home, particularly if we promised to take her back
when she has had—afterwards, I mean.”

Elinor was amused by Lucy’s inability to articulate a situ
ation she had no difficulty comprehending, but forbore to
tease her about it, saying only, “Did you tell her we
would?”

Lucy put an arm around Elinor’s waist and looked up at
her taller sibling with her remarkably sweet smile. “Well
…
I promised I would talk to you about it.”

“And now you have. The question is, what are we to tell
Petra, who is in quite a taking already about the extra work
she has to do and will very likely demand
two
new girls to
take Sally’s place!”

Lucy, to no astonishment of Elinor’s, had already made
a mental list of possible candidates for a temporary post
at The LadyShip, and the sisters discussed them for a
time—which was to say, Lucy scrupulously described
their various qualifications to Elinor, who was not nearly so well acquainted with those neighbouring families with eligible daughters as her sister was.

Elinor was no longer
amazed either to be reminded that Lucy was in some
ways more familiar with The LadyShip’s staff than its
nominal mistress was, when it came to their personalities
and idiosyncrasies, their aches and pains, and their el
derly grandparents in Thatcham or Bucklebury. She re
gretted that she was unable to take on this duty too, but
she was thankful that Lucy, in her quiet way, had set
about remedying the lack in the same way that she filled in at busy times by washing glasses in the taproom and
carrying clean linen up to the bedrooms.

As if aware that Elinor had already tacitly consigned the
task of finding a replacement for Sally to her sister, Lucy let
the matter drop from the conversation and said instead,
“I’m sorry about this morning, Nell, about the...gentleman in the small parlour. But you are always saying we
should be equally courteous to every person who avails
himself of our hospitality.”

“Good heavens, darling,” Elinor said, laughing. “You
need not take me quite so literally! I never meant you to
hide yourself away from our guests, but that does not mean
you must personally wait upon each and every one of
them. You know I do not like the world thinking of you as
merely another servant here—for you must own that you
do as much work as any of them—and I
cannot
like your
going about in that shabby gown.”

They had come into the kitchen, which was temporarily
deserted, and Elinor had sat Lucy down beside her on the
wooden settle to talk.

“Dearest, I know you have no further ambition than to
spend your life in tending the garden here and looking after wayward housemaids, but you can see from the not always respectable persons we must deal with that it is no life for a
lady.”

“But I am
not
a lady, Nell,” Lucy said quietly.

This matter of Lucy’s future hopes was a recurring dif
ference between the otherwise affectionate sisters. The
younger girl’s golden hair, pale complexion, and clear,
dark-lashed hazel eyes, which were so different from Eli
nor’s and her twin brother’s, were at times a matter of
amusement between them, Lucy joking that she must have
been a foundling and Elinor countering that if it were true,
she must have been of noble birth, a hint of which would
be useful to speed her acceptance into genteel society—a
course Elinor was as determined on as Lucy was indifferent
to.

Elinor was well aware that Lucy was perfectly happy at
The LadyShip, where everything she loved also resided—
from Boney to the stout and soft-hearted Mrs Nash—but
she thought this could only be because Lucy did not know
any other life than the inn and her school. When she had a
taste of assembly balls and fashionable clothes, she would
leave The LadyShip willingly enough. But Elinor could not
help her make the break—it would have to be Ned who did
that. If only Ned would come home soon.

That Ned missed the inn was clear from his infrequent
letters demanding to know everything that went on at
home. In spite of his long absence, he took a continued
interest in the details of the inn’s management and ex
changed with Elinor any number of ideas for improve
ments in food and service, and sources for the best
horses to be obtained at a reasonable cost and the advan
tages of stabling those of clients such as Marcus Allingham in order to take money in on them rather than laying
it out for their own stock.

Ned talked as if he intended to
take up where he had left off, and although everyone
recognised Elinor’s temporary authority, Ned was still re
garded as “the master.” But Ned, too, would see the ad
vantages to Lucy if she were to be brought into society— Elinor knew he would, as soon as she had explained it all
to him. If only he would come home soon!

So she put off her plans for Lucy until Ned returned and
she could consult him—something she could not bring her
self to do by letter—and in the meanwhile, Lucy was edu
cated for her future role without being told precisely what
it was.

“You behave as a lady should,” Elinor reassured her,
pressing home the importance of so conducting herself be
fore The LadyShip’s more distinguished clients. “That is
more important any day than your name and birth. Besides,
we must find you a beau at least a
little
more eligible than
poor Mr Griffith—who you must own takes no encourage
ment at all!”

Lucy laughed at that. The languishing looks that the vic
ar’s young Welsh cleric had bestowed on her ever since he first came to the parish and looked up from the collect one
evening to find Lucy gazing attentively at him, had become
another joke between the sisters. Lucy did not wish to encourage Mr Griffith, she insisted, but how could she not, when mere civility was enough to set him sighing?

“I tell you what it is,” Elinor said. “You are too consider
ate of everyone but yourself!” She then hugged her sister,
realising that she may have been too insistent again. She did
not wish Lucy to begin avoiding her for fear of being pre
cipitated into some scheme she did not care for. “But I
would not have you any other way, darling, believe me.”

Lucy took vague comfort from these words, and because
the kitchen was resuming its activities, she parted from her
sister then, Elinor going off to see if any guests had yet been
booked for the night. Mrs Nash returned to inspect the
huge sirloin of beef she was preparing. George and Willy,
the two ostlers, came in seeking relief from their chilly duties and a quick dinner.

When Elinor next looked in to
assess the progress of dinner for an overnight party of five on their way to Bristol, she also found Rose and Petra in a
bustle, carrying bowls of steaming soup from the deal table
where Flora was ladling it out. The roaring kitchen fire re
flecting brightly off the polished copper pans hanging from
the walls, and the Christmas greens Lucy had already begun
to hang up among them gave off a homey aroma. All was
cheerful efficiency again as The LadyShip settled back into
its customary routine.

But the day was not finished yet. Boney was found ex
hausted in the garden, having sustained a leg wound in a battle with one of the stable cats; a German traveller was
dissuaded from purchasing the black varnished hall clock,
to which he had taken a stubborn fancy, only when Evans
told him with a straight, even wooden, face that it was contrary to English law to display such clocks anywhere but in
a public inn; and Elinor won a spirited dispute with her
wine merchant, who had, until he was brought to a realisation of his error, demanded an extortionate eighty shillings
for a dozen of white champagne.

“And we’re not even at war with France anymore!” Eli
nor complained afterwards to Lucy. “I told him that if we
wanted to pay London prices, we could move to Lon
don.”

“But then you would not be purchasing expensive wines
for The LadyShip,” Lucy pointed out reasonably.

Elinor laughed. “No, nor for any other inn! Do you think
we
should
remove to London, darling? We could open a
coffee-house, or take in mending—it must be
quieter
there.”

“Yes, but not nearly so interesting!”

Elinor was thus cajoled back into her usual optimistic
frame of mind—blissfully unaware that a final storm was
brewing even then belowstairs.

Teddy, the young boots, had been sent for to look after
two gentlemen in the overnight party. But Teddy had had a
long day and, having fallen asleep behind the pantry door,
was not to be found. George was despatched to search him
out, being thus torn from his comfortable dinner and in no
good humour when—after searching the entire inn and
coming around to the kitchen again—he finally uncovered
Teddy and pulled him out of his corner, sleepy-eyed and
apologetic and begging George not to squeal to Mistress on
him.

“Get up, you little beggar!” George enjoined him. “I’ll
tell Mistress, all right—you’re here to work, you know, not
to lollygag about.”