The Lady’s Companion

Chapter Five

To her continuing amazement, she woke to the thought of David Wiggins. She wiggled her chemise down around her knees where it belonged, wished for the comfort of her flannel nightgown in the trunk beside the inn, and wondered if the bailiff had slept beyond his usual waking, too.

She looked at the clock, and sat up quickly. “This will never do, Susan,” she said out loud as she looked around her. Old Lady Bushnell will think I am a dreadful slug-a-bed. She allowed herself to lean back against the headboard, considering whether Lady Bushnell would seriously have a spare thought for her newest lady’s companion.

Apparently I am only one of many, Susan thought, hugging her knees to her. She stared into the small but sturdy fire in the grate which some kind soul must have lit for her earlier. Lady Bushnell will likely ignore me and wait for me to go away. I shall not. I cannot. I have no place else to go.

It was an uncomfortable thought, soon followed by another one. I have to convince Lady Bushnell that she needs me, and I haven’t the slightest notion how to go about doing that, Susan reflected, as she got out of bed and rummaged around in the mound of clothes she had stepped out of last night, as soon as David Wiggins closed the door. She shook out her petticoat and wrapped it around her shoulders.

The room was warm enough, so she moved to the window seat, tucking herself into its compact recess and grateful for her own small size. She gazed out the window at a white world clenched tight in the fist of winter. This was no London brown snow, but a white so intense that she had to look away after a minute’s observation. The sky was the cold blue of the bottom of a pond, and the trees skeletal. Overshadowing all was the smooth undulation of low hills that protected the valley. No traffic moved on the road they had traveled last night. They might have been the only manor on the planet, so complete was the isolation.

But I am warm, she thought, fingering the hem of the petticoat about her shoulders. Whatever her reluctance about a lady’s companion, Lady Bushnell did not allow anyone to stint on coal in her household. It was a pleasant room, too, low-ceilinged, with two chairs drawn up companionably by the fireplace, and a footstool. A sampler hung by a door that must lead into the dressing room. Her eyes still dazzled by the snow, she squinted at the writing on the sampler.

“’For he shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways,’” she read, wondering what young daughter or granddaughter had labored over the work, and remembering her own purgatory with thread and needle. Susan rested her chin on her knees. “I could use an angel,” she said. Someone knocked on the door and she smiled. My angel, she thought as she called “Come” from her window seat perch.

If the young woman who came into the room carrying a brass can was an angel, then the Lord had a good eye for competence. She was round and solid like the buildings on the holding itself, firmly planted to remain. She set the can by the washstand and placed the dress draped over her arm on the bed.

“I’m Cora,” she said and took a deep breath. “Mr. Wiggins isn’t so sure that he can get through to Quilling to fetch your trunk, what with the new snow, so he told my mum to find you a dress for a day or two. My mum’s the housekeeper,” she finished, in a rush of words. She looked at the dress doubtfully. “But I don’t think it will fit. Mr. Wiggins said he thought you had a waist small enough to span with his hands, and begging your pardon, ma’am, there’s nobody but Lady Bushnell who has a waist that size and she isn’t loaning out clothes to any lady’s companion.”

“I shouldn’t imagine,” Susan murmured, coming out of the window seat and wondering what else Mr. Wiggins thought. She held up the dress. “I’m certain it will do, if you can find me a sash of some sort.” She smiled then, and held out her hand. “I’m Susan Hampton, the final lady’s companion.”

Cora giggled. “No one’s ever said that before!”

“Perhaps it’s time someone did.” Oh, brave words, she thought, and here I stand with my knees practically knocking. “How many have there been?”

“Lots,” Cora replied, ticking them off her fingers. “There was the one who cried all the time because she was homesick, the one who ran off with the tinkers, the one who put Bible verses about hell and brimstone all around the place, the one who stole the spoons, the one…”

“Goodness, I think that’s enough,” Susan said. She sat down on the bed. “Stole spoons?”

“Lady Bushnell’s very own apostle spoons,” Cora said, and giggled again. “Tucked them right up her sleeves and probably in other places Mum says I shouldn’t mention.”

“Heavens!”

“I haven’t even told you about the others. There was...”

“Perhaps it can wait,” Susan broke in, eager to change the subject. “Cora, am I too late for breakfast? I really didn’t mean to sleep so long.”

“We keep early hours here, but Mr. Wiggins told Mum you needed to sleep and not to wake you.”

“And I suppose he’s been up for hours.”

“Mum doesn’t think he sleeps ever. When you’re dressed, follow your nose to the kitchen. Mum saved some breakfast for you.” Cora went to the door. “There’s lavender soap by the basin, and if you’re needing it, I can find you a hairbrush.”

“I have one, thank you.”

“I can brush it sometime, if you like,” she offered, her face shy with the suggestion, her eyes bright to please. “I disremember when I’ve seen hair so black before, and thick.”

It is nice hair, Susan told herself after Cora left. She hadn’t taken the time to braid it last night, and it was all tangled around her shoulders. Mama used to brush it until it crackled, she remembered. I would sit between her knees. Oh, that was nice.

She took her hairbrush from her reticule and began to brush her hair in front of the mirror. Truth, I would have liked a little daughter with long black hair to brush. Damn you, Papa, for spending away my husband, sons, and daughters.

But I am not to think of Papa, she told herself as she braided her hair and twisted it into a low knot on the back of her neck. It hung heavy that way, but did wonders for her posture. She thought briefly of Emily and her constant parading about the drawing room with a book on her head, and all for the purpose of snaring some vicar or second son who needed a bride’s portion, no matter how poor her carriage. And Aunt Louisa? “I have likely exchanged one tyranny for another, but it is my own choice,” she told the mirror. “And Lady Bushnell will pay me, for I intend to stay.”

Cora’s dress hung many times too large on her slender frame, so she stepped out of it, and tried to shake out the worst of the wrinkles from her traveling dress. The material had the virtue of being well cut, but there wasn’t much she could do about it, not after trudging through mud and snow at midnight. She resigned herself to Cora’s dress. The sash Cora brought helped, but couldn’t shrink it four sizes. She tucked and pleated the extra fabric under the sash, her hands lingering for a moment at her waist. So you think you could span my waist with your hands, Mr. Wiggins, she considered. I’d like to see you try.

She couldn’t find her boots, so she went downstairs in her stockinged feet, treading quietly on the stairs and looking around her with some pleasure. I wonder how old this house is, she thought, pleased to see it in daylight. The ceilings were low and the walls wainscoted, the oak mellowing and darkening through the years. Mullioned windows on the first floor sparkled with the snow’s reflection, each little pane rubbed and cleaned and soberly outlined in its lead frame: She looked up at the open beams and decided that Queen Elizabeth would have been quite at home here. Two hundred and more years of wind, storm, and winter, she marveled, and hopes and dreams. “What is it you hope for, Lady Bushnell?” she whispered as she glided down the hall, following her nose. “Or are all your dreams done?” She stood still a moment, hugging her arms about her. “Mine are,” she said. “Now I must please others.”

The kitchen was at the back of the house, instead of belowstairs, and unaccountably, her spirits began to rise. It was a small matter, but a fact that cheered her, all out of proportion to its relative importance. She opened the door and breathed deep of kitchen smells that must have been trapped in the overhead beams for at least two centuries. Bunches of dried spices hung in orderly clumps from ceiling hooks, conveniently at hand. Her eyes went to the huge fireplace at the end of the kitchen, then she smiled to see that it had been bricked over and replaced by a modern Rumford stove.

And there were her boots, polished to a shine that reflected the lamplight overhead. Everything gleamed of order, well-being, and stability, and it was balm to Susan’s soul. Cora, she thought, I believe your mother is a force to be reckoned with.

The force to be reckoned with was watching her from the depths of an overstuffed chair, a cat in her lap, and a cup of tea close to her hand. She was on her feet as soon as Susan looked her way, pouring the cat down her dress, and holding out her hand. There was no disguising the look of surprise on her face.

“Lord love us, and I thought Davey Wiggins was joking, except that he seldom jokes,” she said as she came closer to Susan. “You are scarcely more than a babe! But welcome and let us clap hands. I am Kate Skerlong, the housekeeper. Susan Hampton?”

Susan stepped forward gladly and shook hands. “Yes, ma’am, and thank you for letting me sleep.”

Mrs. Skerlong nodded. “Davey insisted. He said he hauled you up and down hills and through snow half the night, and it wouldn’t do to send you back to London in a box.” She went to the stove and lifted a saucepan from the warming shelf. “That’s the one thing that hasn’t happened to our lady’s companions yet.”

Susan smiled at her, fascinated. “I’m sure it’s not because some have not wished it!” she said.

Mrs. Skerlong only smiled. “Come now, sit and have some porridge.” She chuckled behind her hand. “You’ll have to eat a prodigious amount to fill out that dress!”

They laughed together, and Susan tucked into the porridge, marveling as she ate and tried not to exclaim like an idiot over the tastiness of it, just how it was that something familiar should taste better in these surroundings.

“That was so good I must have some more,” she said when she finished, and held out her bowl.

“You’ll still never fill out that dress, no matter how much you eat.”

Susan glanced around. David Wiggins stood in the doorway, blinking his eyes after the amazing brightness of the snow outside. He nodded to Mrs. Skerlong, who reached for another bowl. He shook the snow off his coat, and tossed it expertly over the coat tree. He sat down at the table across from her and watched her face in silence until Susan wanted to look away.

“What, sir?” she asked finally, hoping the exasperation didn’t show in her voice, but half hoping that it would. For all that he was across the table from her, he seemed uncomfortably close.

“Thank you, Mrs. Skerlong,” he said as she set a bowl of porridge already thick with cream in front of him. “You look a little fragile in the morning light, Miss Hampton. I was just wondering what I would have done if you had pegged out last night during our walk.”

Silly man, she thought as she smiled at Mrs. Skerlong, and picked up her spoon again. “Well, if I had broken my leg, you could have shot me,” she said, her tone conversational.

He grinned down into his bowl, but didn’t say anything.

“Looks are sometimes deceiving, sir,” she continual after a few mouthfuls more of porridge. “I could probably eat you under the table and outlast you on any march.”

“We’ll try it sometime,” he said when he finished, and he reached for the coffee cup that Mrs. Skerlong handed him. “Coffee, Miss Hampton?” he offered.

She indicated her cup. “I prefer tea.”

“Aye, certainly you do. Coffee’s for old campaigners.” He regarded her another moment, then turned his attention to the housekeeper. “Mrs. Skerlong, there’s yet another new calf in the byre and another threatening. Tell me what possesses cows to drop their calves when it’s colder than a well digger’s arse outside?”

Susan choked over her tea and resisted the urge to laugh. I must have left the land of well-bred, boring conversationalists, she thought. The bailiff is a genuine article.

She regarded Wiggins with more interest, admiring his face in profile as he looked at the housekeeper. Nose a trifle long, she thought, but straight. Chins like that usually mean stubbornness. Aunt Louisa’s modiste would say that cheekbones so prominent show character, but that can’t be, because he’s a dark Welshman. I wonder how he came by a name like Wiggins? Isn’t it English?

Mrs. Skerlong was obviously no stranger to the bailiff’s kitchen chat. “It’s the same logic that compels women to reach their confinement in the middle of the night,” she said. “All my babies came at night.”

“I call it damned inconsiderate,” he said frankly. He leaned back in the chair and exhaustion seemed to ooze off him. He pushed the coffee cup toward the housekeeper. “Another of those, if you please, and I might stay awake for a few hours longer.” He directed his attention to Susan again. “Well, now that you’ve scrutinized me, are there any questions about myself that need answers?”

“My, but you’re blunt,” Susan said before she thought. “How on earth does your wife manage?”

He did laugh then, with a sidelong glance at Mrs. Skerlong. “That’s easy, Miss Hampton. I’m not married. Wives take time and money; I have neither.”

She blushed and returned her attention to her teacup.

“Reading the leaves?” he inquired, amusement showing in his dark eyes.

“No!” She finished her tea thoughtfully, then decided it would do no harm to speak. “Tell me this, Mr. Wiggins: what do you reckon are my chances of remaining here as a lady’s companion?”

He considered her question. “Small, I would think.” Elbows on the table, he rested his chin in his hands, regarded her with that unwavering gaze. “Nobody really needs you here, Miss Hampton, and that’s the hard and cold of it. If you could make yourself indispensable, now, that might be a different wedge of cheese.”

“And how do I do that?” she asked, returning him gaze for gaze, amazed at her own boldness. “I like it here, and I want to stay.”

“That’s for you to discover.” He got up from the table and stretched, before starting toward the coat tree. “Mrs. Skerlong, do you think I should keep stalling, or try to fetch this little one’s trunk?”

Susan laughed. “So that’s how it is! Seriously, Mr. Wiggins, it can wait, if the snow is too deep.”

“I’ll get it today,” he said as he buttoned his coat “Promised I would last night, as I recall.”

Promises don’t mean much, she thought. “Suit yourself, sir,” she said.

Again that look. “I always do, Miss Hampton,” he replied, as he nodded to the housekeeper and left the kitchen.

Mrs. Skerlong gazed a long moment at the space he had occupied, then turned back to the stove. “I disremember a time when he has said so much at once,” she commented, careful not to look at Susan. “He likes you.”

Susan shook her head. “If that’s liking, I wonder why he didn’t give me any good advice on how to deal with Lady Bushnell.”

“Why should he? That’s your domain. You’re the lady’s companion.”

I am, indeed, Susan thought. Now what? She pursed her lips and watched Mrs. Skerlong’s efficiency over the stove. The cat twined itself around her ankles, purring and offering her advice on where to scratch next by gently butting her fingers with his head. “Oh, you are a spoiled gentleman,” she said as she obliged him. Would that people were so easily managed, she considered.

“Mrs. Skerlong,” she asked suddenly, “does Lady Bushnell take midmorning tea?”

“She does. Cora usually carries it in.”

“Let me do it this morning. I have to meet her sooner or later, and it may as well be sooner. She must know I am here.”

Mrs. Skerlong looked doubtful. “Lady B does like order and tidiness, and you could fit three lady’s companions in that dress. You might wait until Davey returns with your trunk.”

“That could be days!” she protested. “And each day I will grow more afraid.”

“He said he would have your trunk today,” Mrs. Skerlong reminded her. “Don’t you trust people’s word?”

“No, I suppose I don’t,” Susan said quietly. “But if you please, I would like to meet Lady Bushnell.”

“Very well, then,” the housekeeper replied. “If you’re sure. Lady Bushnell usually spends the mornings in her room.”

She felt less sure as she stood outside Lady Bushnell’s door and knocked. This dress is a fright, but I know my hair is neat, she thought, as she waited and knocked again.

“For heaven’s sake, just come in!”

Oh, dear. Susan took a deep breath and opened the door. Lady Bushnell sat at a small desk by the window, with a ledger open before her. She was hard to see, because the strong light from the window was behind her, but Susan had no trouble recognizing posture as uncompromising and well-bred as her own, and the profile of a chin that looked even more stubborn than the bailiff’s. I have stumbled into a nest of strong characters, she thought as she hesitated at the door.

“Come closer,” said the woman, setting down her writing pen. “Over there, please, then tell me who you are.” She spoke crisply, the voice of command.

Susan did as she was bid, then approached Lady Bushnell, who had clasped her hands in front of her on the desk. What she saw was a woman no bigger than herself, with a wealth of white hair pulled back and arranged much as her own. There any resemblance ended with all the finality of a slammed door. The woman before her was immaculate, with snapping green eyes that almost glittered under hooded eyelids and a gentle rose complexion that young women would perish for. The set of her lips was formidable, and Susan felt her stomach quiver. This was not a woman who would take easily to the reality of old age, and its attendant frailties.

“Well?”

Susan never knew a one-word sentence to have such a nuance. Aristotle could have written a treatise on it. “I’m Susan Hampton, your companion,” she said simply. “I would like to know what I can do for you.”

Susan could see a hundred cutting remarks cross Lady Bushnell’s expressive face. I wonder where you will begin, she thought.

“I suggest that you pour me some tea,” she said.

Susan did as she asked. Mrs. Skerlong had put two cups and saucers in the tray, obviously in the forlorn hope that Lady Bushnell would like to share a cup with her newest employee. She did not. Susan poured the tea, handed it to Lady Bushnell, and stood before her with her hands behind her back, her fingers clenched tight together.

Lady Bushnell sipped her tea, never taking her eyes from Susan’s face. She set down the cup and cleared her throat. Susan could feel the hair rising on the back of her neck.

“Joel Steinman has taken complete leave of his senses. When my pea-brained daughter-in-law searches for your replacement, I will suggest to her that she try another agency.”

Susan blinked. Do I say “Yes, mum” and hang my head, burst into tears, or do I look her in the eye and tell her what I think? “You won’t need another agency,” she heard herself say. “I have come here to stay, Lady Bushnell.”

There was a long pause. It gave her cold comfort to see that Lady Bushnell had not expected that answer, or the well-bred cadence of diction that matched her own.

“Even if I do not want or need you?”

“You’ll need me, ma’am, particularly if you do not wish to be visited by other lady’s companions who won’t be as good for you as I will be,” Susan said, wondering where the words were coming from. Only please, please don’t ask me what a companion does, because I am sure I could not tell you.

“And what will you do for me?”

Oh, no. Susan felt her mind go blank, except for one thought.

“I will never, ever steal your spoons,” she said, her voice firm.

There. Susan let out the breath she had been saving, and dug her stockinged feet into the thick carpet. She probably mistook it but for the smallest moment, there was a different glimmer in Lady Bushnell’s eyes. It was quickly gone, but Susan hoped.

“Have you ever stolen anything, Miss Hampton?” The question was as frosty as the air outside.

Susan considered the question. “Why, yes, I have,” she replied, smiling at the memory. “When I was ten I stole my perfectly odious cousin’s marzipan Father Christmas and ate it. I considered it my duty, because my cousin was quite fat.”

Lady Bushnell looked down at her desk and pushed the ledger away before she turned her gaze on Susan again. “Did someone steal your clothes, Miss Hampton?”

Susan thought there was the slightest quaver in her voice. She felt some of the strain go out of her shoulders. “No, Lady Bushnell. This is a loan from Cora Skerlong. Unless Mr. Wiggins can engineer a road through the snow, my trunk is destined to remain at the inn in Quilling for the present, I fear.”

“David will fetch it,” Lady Bushnell said. “Unlike you, he has the virtue of being useful about this place.”

“I can be useful, too, Lady Bushnell,” Susan said.

“I cannot imagine how.” Lady Bushnell turned in her chair to face Susan and folded her hands in her lap. “Estimable woman that she is, my daughter-in-law has so much time on her hands that she feels obliged to meddle in my affairs. I had a trifling accident on the stairs eight months ago, and must use a cane now.” She indicated the delicately carved stick beside the desk. “What will Emmeline do but send me lady’s companions.”

Lady Bushnell made a face as though the words were distasteful. “If I cough, the companions tattle on me and bring all manner of solicitations and unwanted advice from Emmeline! What do you think of that, Miss Hampton?”

“I think you are fortunate that someone loves you as much as that,” Susan replied. “It has been my experience that people who are ignored are not held in much affection.”

“Your experience!” Lady Bushnell snapped. “Oh, please! You can’t be a day over eighteen.”

“I am twenty-five,” Susan said, her voice even. “My father is Sir Rodney Hampton, England’s worst gambler. He has frittered away the family estate, our house in London, and my entire dowry, until I am obliged to earn my own way. I have no place to go if you turn me off here, so I am determined that you will find me entirely satisfactory.”

“Do you wish me to feel sorry for you because your improvident family has sent you into the ranks of the lower class?”

I did not think a slap would hurt that much, Susan thought, taking a step back as though the widow had struck her. This is a poisonous old woman. She tried to regard Lady Bushnell calmly, even as the last bit of her own pride dribbled away. Or it is a proud woman who has lost children and husband, and sees her independence slipping through her fingers.

Lady Bushnell was silent then, sipping her tea. When she finished, she turned her attention back to the ledger on her desk. Susan stood there in the middle of the room until it became obvious to her that she had been dismissed. Her face burning, she gathered up the tea tray and went to the door, her heart so low in her toes that she felt as though she were kicking it with every step.

“I intend to write Joel Steinman and tell him that I am turning you off. There will be no more lady’s companions, and so I will tell Emmeline, face-to-face, if I have to. What do you think of that, Miss Hampton?”

For the first time since her father stole her pearls, Susan felt tears prickle the back of her eyelids. It is all I should have expected, she told herself as she stood there with her hand on the doorknob. No one wants me here. I was defeated before I came.

“Well?”

“That is your right, Lady Bushnell,” she replied, struggling to keep her voice even. “It frightens me a little, but I expect I’ll manage.” She opened the door. “The innkeep in Quilling told me last night that there are good people around here. I suppose he was only referring to the village. Good day, Lady Bushnell. I’m sorry you’ll never know how well I would have suited.”

To her immense relief, the kitchen was empty when she brought back the tray. She sat down because her legs wouldn’t hold her anymore. She put her arms on the table and rested her head on them, her mind turning like a whirligig. There’s nothing I can sell to get me some cash for a ride back to London. And even if I get to London, I can’t knock on Aunt Louisa’s door. I just can’t.

She sighed and waited for the tears to come, but they did not. I suppose I have finally gone beyond tears, she thought, and what a relief that is. She rested her chin on her hands. At least I was right when I told Cora that I was going to be the final lady’s companion.

The cat nudged her ankles and she sat up, looking about her to make sure that no one had seen her sprawled all over the table like a barmaid. She got to her feet and stood there a moment until she felt entirely steady. Her boots were still by the stove, so she retrieved them and put them on, enjoying their warmth. I can at least spare Mr. Wiggins a trip for nothing, if I’m not too late, she thought as she snatched a shawl from the coat tree.

It was going to be a chilly walk back to Quilling, she thought as she left the house and went to the cattle byre. The barnyard was muddy, and she hated to think what was happening to her beautifully polished boots. She pushed open the door, smiling in spite of her misery at the pleasant odor of hay and cows. Who can be too unhappy around cows? she asked herself as she hurried down the central passageway, looking for the bailiff.

He was sitting in one of the loose boxes, regarding a cow in labor. He looked up at her and then returned his attention to the cow. Susan leaned on the railing.

“I’m so glad you haven’t gone to Quilling for my trunk yet!” she said. “I can spare you the trip.”

“Change your mind, Miss Hampton?”

She shook her head. “No, but it’s been changed for me. Lady Bushnell... Lady Bushnell says I won’t suit. She turned me off. I’ll leave in the morning.” She didn’t trust herself to say anything else just then, and truly, he didn’t seem too interested. She looked at him a moment more, remembering a time in her life when everyone was interested in her. “Thank you for whatever you did, Mr. Wiggins. I’ll not trouble you any further.”

She turned to leave, but paused when the bailiff stood up, brushing the hay off his leather breeches.

“Where will you go?”

“I don’t know.”

He came to the railing and rested his elbows on it, looking directly at her again with that unwavering gaze of his that she was familiar with, in spite of their brief acquaintance. ,

“Miss Hampton, I could loan you the fare back to London.” He smiled. “I have that much, at least.”

She shook her head. “That’s kind, but I have no way of repaying you, Mr. Wiggins.”

“Marry me, then.”