The Lady’s Companion

Chapter Eleven

Sleep tight, my Aunt Matilda’s blue garters! Susan thought irritably as the sky began to lighten. She sat up and glared at her pillow, turning it over to look for a cool spot. There wasn’t one; they had all been used up in a night of tossing about in indignation, embarrassment, and finally, the acutest sort of misery that the bailiff wasn’t there in bed with her, besaring and cogering .

It had taken most of the night to get to that much truth-telling, and she had to wonder at the pointlessness of lying to herself for all those idiotic hours. In the time between dark and dawn, she reviewed all of Aunt Louisa’s rigid, patient little conversations about men, and what they wanted from women, and how they went about getting it. She recalled the book (How could she forget Professor Fowler and that endless title? Creative and Sexual Science; Manhood, Womanhood, and Their Mutual Interrelations ), that was passed quickly from aunt to cousin to cousin and then to herself, and the accompanying blushes and titterings. She remembered Aunt Louisa’s stiff question, “Well, do you need to know anything else?”, and the tone that dared any of them to say yes.

In particular, after her night of chewing goose down, Susan remembered that little section called “The Sleep of Love.” She rested her chin on her knees, and couldn’t resist a bleary-eyed smile as she quoted from memory, “‘The disappointed lie awake hour after hour,’” But I’m sure Professor Fowler, the old prude, did not mean what I am thinking, she admitted honestly. His disappointed maiden feels chagrin because she flirted out of turn. My disappointment comes from the fact that I did not go far enough to suit myself.

“Both-er-a-tion!” Susan said. She leaned against the headboard, plumped her pillow behind her head, and drew her knees up to her chin. She wished with all her heart that Mama had been alive to administer the sexual lecture that Aunt Louisa delivered as her duty to her niece. As much as she disliked thinking about her father, Susan remembered the fun that he and Mama had together. She wished she had a shilling for every time she found Mama sitting on Papa’s lap, or just watched them with their arms around each other, doing something as prosaic as observing the geese cross the lawn at the estate.

Sitting there grumpy and displeased with herself, she knew she could have asked Mama anything. And what would I have asked, she considered as the sun came over the hills. If I could have one question answered now, what would it be? She transferred herself to the window seat and scolded herself for not moving there hours ago. The windowpanes were cold and felt good to lean against.

“I would like to know one thing, Mama,” she said softly. “Just one thing only, and I can carry on from there. Professor Fowler’s tedious book spoke of duty, and creating children, and Aunt Louisa assured us that men take what they want and women weep. But, Mama, is sexual congress fun?”

Her heart told her it was. When she worked past all the embarrassment and confusion she had felt last night after the bailiff’s thorough kiss and her equally fervent response, one overriding emotion remained. “Mama, I enjoyed that immensely. I didn’t want it to stop, and if I had even held out my hand to the bailiff, he would be lying in that bed right now, taking up space.”

It was power she had never imagined before, and it frightened her even more than the actual act of love for the first time. To exert that kind of authority over another human being awed her, humbled her, and took her breath away. She leaned against the window, wondering how many glittering diamonds each season flirted and danced and teased while fathers and lawyers drew up documents and transferred funds, all in the name of love. It was the way the ton —her ton —did things, but sitting there watching the immensity of the morning come, and examining her own raw feelings, she knew suddenly how wrong it was.

I worried so much about no dowry and no come out, she thought, shaking her head over her own stupidity. Even if I had possessed those things, those proud badges of my class, there was never any guarantee that I would be happy with my husband, in bed or anywhere else. Quite the contrary. It’s not called the Marriage Mart for nothing. Well, I am far away from my social sphere’s matrimonial marketplace here, and I must trust myself to do what will make me happy.

“How frightening,” she murmured and drew her name on the windowpane. “I wonder that anyone makes right decisions.”

It can’t be easy, she thought, reminding herself of the way her brain dissolved into mush last night from nothing more than a kiss. How can rational judgment withstand a kiss from Davie Wiggins? I do suspect that in the annals of kissing, it was quite a kiss, she told herself. If there were contests for such things, the bailiff would at least be eligible to compete. Oh, my word, he would win, was her next fervent thought.

She had no experience to base that on, beyond the certitude that no woman had ever been so thoroughly entertained in such a brief space of time. She smiled at her own silliness and drew a circle around her name. “Susan, it’s not as if you’re the only female on the planet who ever felt this way.” She drew an exclamation point after her name. “It just seems like it.”

She took her time dressing, choosing a dark green wool with a white collar she had crocheted. For all this, she hoped the bailiff would not be in the kitchen when she came downstairs. I must compose myself, she told herself as she tucked in hairpins here and there to anchor her braids. I must remember that I am a lady.

She sighed and rested her hands in her lap. And that is part of the problem, she reflected. I suppose the bailiff had no business kissing someone of my class, and here I go again, putting that between us like a partition. Aunt Louisa would say that we all have our place in life and that the classes have no business mingling. Susan looked at her name on the window, with its hopeful exclamation mark melting as the sun hit the glass. Oh, I hope she is wrong. I hope I have enough wisdom to do the right thing, as soon as I figure out what that is.

Whatever glee, joy, and luck she had felt in David Wiggins’ embrace last night was gone at breakfast, replaced by the most exquisite sort of confusion. The bailiff was finishing his porridge when she came into the kitchen. If it was any consolation, he stared into his bowl in thoughtful fashion, and his eyes didn’t look any livelier than her own. She watched him quietly from the doorway, shy beyond words and wondering what to do with him.

I mean, do I just sit down and chat about the weather, or the sheep, or that your lips ought to be bronzed and preserved under glass? What am I thinking? she asked herself from the doorway. Calm, Susan. You still have to eat and perform the functions of life, even though you are intrigued with the possibility of all this, and feeling friskier than a spring colt.

She must have made some sound from the doorway (Am I whining and don’t know it? she wondered), because the bailiff looked around and smiled at her. “Good morning, Susan,” he said. She hunted for some sign of shyness on his part, but he looked the same as usual. His calmness deflated her. Either you are not as involved in this as I am, or you are a master at hiding your feelings. I will pretend it is the latter, she told herself.

“Ready to face the lion again?” he asked.

I wonder which lion you are referring to, she considered as she nodded, too bashful to speak, and sat in the chair he patted. She accepted the porridge from Mrs. Skerlong and began to eat. She stopped soon enough, looking down at the bowl in surprise, curious to know why the housekeeper would feed her wood pulp. But no, it was the same porridge; she was different. She applied herself to breakfast again, and Mrs. Skerlong went to her chair by the stove, where the cat was waiting to leap into her lap.

The bailiff shifted his chair a little so he could look at her. “Do I owe you a rather large apology?” he asked in a low voice.

It was a good question, and she was struck all over again how different this situation was from any she had ever encountered before. She considered him thoughtfully, mindful of his nearness, but less fearful of it than if he were a marquess, impeccably dressed and bearing down on her from across a ballroom. The bailiff was so comfortable-looking. She met his eyes briefly, then blushed and looked away. And yet you have the power to disturb me profoundly. I do not remember that quality about any of the viscounts, marquesses, or baronets I pined over, she marveled. Sir, you take my breath from me.

“No, you owe me no apology, large or small,” she said honestly, and set down her spoon. She turned to face him; a man used to plain-dealing deserved more than her profile. “Now, if you had held me down against my will and forced such a kiss on me, I would demand one.” She looked at her hands in her lap, uneasily aware of the warm glow that was spreading throughout her body again. “But as I offered no objection then, I could not expect to make one now. No, you owe me no apology.”

It was the bailiff’s turn for confusion, and it relieved her to know that his air of assurance did not go all the way to the bone. This is not a case-hardened rascal, she thought, and I am so glad. His sudden bewilderment pleased her as nothing else could have.

“Well, I... I don’t go around kissing like that on a... well, a regular basis,” he managed finally, backing up his chair slightly as though some of her own warmth were reaching him, too.

Or perhaps Mrs. Skerlong was adding a ton or two of coal to the Rumford. She glanced toward the stove, but there were no stokers around it, shoveling in coal. This is an odd kind of warmth, she thought. I like it, but it could make me peevish.

She reached out to touch his arm, to reassure him that she did not mind, but she stopped at such a prosaic gesture. How odd this is, she considered, as shyness took over again. After last night, I am amazingly familiar with this man’s lips, his teeth, his tongue, and yet I won’t be so forward as to touch his arm. This is strange, indeed.

She sighed and looked him in the eye. “David, I don’t want to talk about what happened last night.”

“I can’t wonder at that,” he murmured and started to get up.

“No!” She did put her hand on his arm to detain him then, and he sat down quickly. “No,” she repeated, her voice softer. “But I do want to think about it. There’s a difference.” His shoulders lowered, as though in vast relief, and she was touched to the heart.

“Maybe tonight in the succession house we should talk about it? I won’t have you thinking me a scoundrel.” He shook his head at his own words. “A bastard, a liar, a poacher, and a thief maybe, but not a scoundrel,” he said with some humor evident.

“Perhaps we’ll talk tonight,” she said, smiling, too, at the absurdity of what he was really saying. “And I do not think you are a scoundrel,” she assured him. “The circumstance of birth was out of your control, and maybe you poached and thieved, and you’re one of the most accomplished liars in the realm, but you’re not a scoundrel.”

“Thank you!” he exclaimed with a laugh. He pulled his watch out and looked at her over the edge of it. “All joking aside, are you avoiding your incarceration in the library with Lady Bushnell and the dread piano?”

He turned the watch around and she gasped and rose hurriedly to her feet. It’s interesting, she thought as she carried her dishes to the sink, but somehow I am not so frightened by Lady Bushnell now. I have other matters to concern myself with.

Or so she thought, until she stood outside the library door and steeled herself to open it. She reminded herself that this was what she wanted. Lady Bushnell needed something to take an interest in, and if it turned out to be an interest in the shortcomings of Susan Hampton, so be it.

“Need a little push, Susan?” said the bailiff.

She jumped. Why did he persist in sneaking up on her? Before she could scold him, he had opened the door, applied enough pressure to the small of her back to propel her in, and closed the door gently behind her.

“Miss Hampton, so kind of you to come!”

Lady Bushnell sat next to the piano. She motioned Susan closer and indicated the piano stool. “Make sure it is at the right height for you,” she said. “You will be spending much of your time perched upon it, and while I will have you learn discipline, I will not have you uncomfortable. Ready, Miss Hampton? Of course you are. Let us begin with a C-major scale. What could be simpler?”

Susan adjusted the stool, then squared her shoulders and positioned her hands over the keys. She played the scale once, twice, three times and then realized the futility of keeping count as Lady Bushnell tapped her ankles with the cane each time she faltered or abandoned the rhythm. Papa, you would perish if you ever worked so hard for thirty pounds, she thought in desperation each time she neared the end of the scale and the widow took a tighter grip on her cane.

I will still be playing this C-major scale when I am old and arthritic and unable to eat without drooling, Susan thought an hour later. She paused and tried to shift her legs out of the range of Lady Bushnell’s relentless cane. I have played this silly scale in triplets, quarter notes, sixteenths, dotted eighths and sixteenths, and still she hammers at my ankles.

“I don’t seem to be much improved,” she said dubiously to Lady Bushnell, leaning down to rub the ankle closest to the cane.

The widow sat with her eyes closed. “How excellent that we have plenty of mornings to correct your deficiencies,” she murmured.

“I doubt I will ever be much good,” Susan temporized.

Lady Bushnell opened her eyes and glared at Susan. “And that is the trouble with Hamptons! You flit from undertaking to undertaking, and as a result, never accomplish anything.” She raised her cane to point it at Susan. “I intend for you to improve.”

Susan paused, her hands in her lap. I suppose I could take great offense at what this woman is saying about the Hamptons, she considered. I could be like Papa, and pout and frown, or Aunt Louisa, and gobble and snarl. She smiled at Lady Bushnell instead. Or I could grit my teeth and practice and learn from what she is trying to teach me, whatever her motives (indeed, I do not trust my own!). I am trying to run away from the Hamptons, but rather, perhaps I should make the name an honorable one in these parts.

“And so I shall, Lady Bushnell,” she replied. “From the top again?”

Without even looking at the widow, she could tell that her response had startled her. There was a sharp intake of breath, and then a chuckle so low as to be almost unheard. It might have been imagined; it probably was, in fact, as her own stomach was beginning to growl. Take that and that, Lady B, she thought grimly as she slowly crawled up the scale, and then down again. She felt so good about it that she played a C-major chord with all the aplomb of a pianist finishing a concerto. She looked at Lady Bushnell and could not resist the laughter inside her. To her amazement, the widow began to laugh, too. It did not last long, but at least she did not attempt to hide her amusement this time.

“You are a scamp. Miss Hampton! I would say that you have done everything that could possibly be done to a C-major scale except turn the page sideways and dump the notes on the floor. Tomorrow it will be G-major. Now, wipe that smirk off your face and go away for a while!”

Only a day ago, Susan would have cringed at her words. Instead, she smiled at her employer, and realized, with a twinge close to pleasure, that she was beginning to understand Lady Bushnell. “Very well, Lady Bushnell. I will hobble off and soak my ankles,” she said. She paused and leaned against the open door. “You won’t object if I practice in here again right after lunch?”

“I recommend it!” she replied. “However, you should practice on the harpsichord instead. Our good vicar Mr. Hepworth wrote me that he is making an afternoon call. I will, of course, receive him in the best sitting room, but the piano, I fear, would be too noisy, even this far away. We cannot have him thinking that I am doing injury to caged wildlife or recalcitrant servants! He is less likely to hear the pain you might inflict upon a harpsichord.”

It was all said with a faint twinkle in Lady Bushnell’s green eyes, one that invited comment. “He will never know I am there, punishing piano or harpsichord, my lady,” Susan agreed.

“Then we understand each other,” Lady Bushnell replied. “I must admit I wonder why he is coming. He already knows what I think about God, and I rather thought that would discourage him.” She seemed to be almost speaking to herself as she rose and went to the window. She turned back to glare at Susan. “I informed Mr. Hepworth several years ago that God is an untidy ditherer who leaves too many loose ends, and he has not bothered me since. Neither Mr. Hepworth nor the Lord.”

“My lady, you didn’t!” Susan burst out, her eyes wide.

“I did!” she said, coming toward Susan now. “I also told him that if Regent and Parliament oversaw the realm the way God looks after the universe, Napoleon would be scratching his ass in the House of Lords right now.”

She spoke with conviction and a firmness of spirit that belied her years, a fearless woman completely sure of herself. I could see you leaping off your horse and throwing yourself in front of a whip and a dying man, Susan thought as she watched her employer’s slow but graceful passage to the door. You were meant for a much wider stage than this.

Lady Bushnell stood close to Susan now, and from her height advantage looked down on her. “Correct me if I am wrong, but do I have you to blame for this sudden clerical interest in Quilling Manor, Miss Hampton?”

“Oh, surely no ..... Well, perhaps,” Susan amended, deeply aware of the silliness of attempting to argue with Lady Bushnell. “The bailiff did introduce us yesterday. But I am sure it is you he is interested in, my lady.”

They regarded each other, eye to eye, and neither looked away. “That may be the largest pile of verbal horse manure you have ever uttered, Miss Hampton,” Lady Bushnell said finally. “Who will be next? Our bachelor landowners? The physician? The constable? Every widower between here and the Bristol Channel?”

“I haven’t met them yet!” Susan protested, unable to keep the laughter from her voice. “It is only the vicar.”

Lady Bushnell nodded, her eyes still bright. “Lord Bushnell always said I was prone to vast exaggeration, but wouldn’t you agree, Miss Hampton, that the vicar looks rather like a marsh bird?”

My thoughts precisely, Susan reflected as she nodded. “He does appear to be all elbows and angles, my lady.”

“We are agreed upon that, then,” Lady Bushnell said as she stood aside for Susan to open the door wider. “I should think a young woman would prefer a man with more substance to him. Miss Hampton, do you have an opinion on the subject?”

“No, my lady,” she said and blushed.

“Then why do you blush?” Lady Bushnell demanded. “I should hope a woman your age would have some opinion on what pleases her in a man!”

“It’s not really a subject that ladies today speak about, Lady Bushnell,” she said, mentally kicking herself for her condescension. But I am thinking about it, and it is making me decidedly warm again. I am wondering quite a lot what the bailiff would be likely to attempt after such a kiss. I am wondering how it would feel, and whether I would like it. And I stand here, the world’s biggest hypocrite, and assure you that I have no interest in such things.

“And that is one of the reasons I was happy to incarcerate myself here, Miss Hampton,” Lady Bushnell continued. “After-dinner conversation among women is not nearly so entertaining as it used to be.” She banged her cane on the parquet floor for emphasis. “Now we speak of dresses, colic, and mustard plasters. Would it embarrass you to know that fifty-five years ago my sisters and I used to listen at our parent’s bedchamber door when they thought we were asleep? Miss Hampton, ladies live in a dull world today!”

As she watched Lady Bushnell make her stately way down the hall toward the stairs, it suddenly occurred to her that here was someone who could talk to her about the bailiff. If only I dared, she thought. And I do not.

After a thoughtful luncheon in which she only uttered monosyllables to Mrs. Skerlong, and at least had the good sense not to look about in expectation of the absent bailiff, Susan returned to the library and the harpsichord. She found the instrument much more to her size and taste, the tinkling of the plucked strings soothing and orderly. She heard the vicar’s voice in the hallway, and smiled to herself. I wonder if he will make some excuse to visit the library, she thought, and played even more softly.

Looking at the mantel clock, she timed the vicar, allowing him half an hour for the socially correct visit. She found one of Haydn’s music box pieces and set it before her. “A long-suffering man is the vicar, Mr. Haydn,” she said, her eyes on the notes. “A half hour closeted with a woman who thinks God is a flibbertigibbet must seem an eternity.” Still, she was pleased that he would come, and flattered herself that it was because of her that he came to soften up Lady Bushnell. And there was the bailiff, playing matchmaker in the church. Oh, what is your game, David Wiggins?

She played a few notes, but the bailiff remained on her mind like a tune heard before breakfast and then hummed all day. If he was ever all elbows or angles, it was a long time ago. She wondered why he had not been present for lunch, then decided that he was feeling shy, too, or at least reconsidering his late-night attentions. She played a few more notes. I believe I will write to Mr. Steinman tonight, she told herself. He will eventually find me another position, and that will be that.

She waited until a respectable time had passed for the vicar to have taken his leave, then picked up Emma and went to the best sitting room. She knocked and entered, then stepped back in dismay. The vicar was still there, and looking at her with something close to devotion in his eyes.

“I didn’t mean ... I thought.,.” she stammered. “I can come back later.”

Lady Bushnell shook her head. “You are just in time, Miss Hampton. Won’t you join us for tea?”

“Tea? You want me to join you for tea?” she gasped.

“I believe it is a common practice in the afternoon, Miss Hampton,” the widow said, her voice serene but her eyes wicked. “We would like you to pour.”

This must be a dream, she thought as she sat down at the tea table. I am having tea with Lady Bushnell. She deftly poured a cup for the widow, then turned her attention to the vicar. “Mr. Hepworth, will you have sugar and cream? Isn’t this lovely weather we are having? Do tell me when the birds come back to this valley. Spring is my favorite time of year.”