Chapter 2
CHAPTER TWO
“The immediate family includes Papa, of course.” Carstairs wandered the confines of the estate office after having done slow, steady justice to Cook’s efforts over supper.
“Lord Dunsford, Baron Dunsford. Papa is a decent old fellow, if set in his ways. My mother was a moderating influence. Made Papa laugh and could even poke fun at him from time to time. Algie has the same ability.”
I made a note to research Lord Dunsford’s larger situation, which meant a letter to my London solicitors, for starts.
“Algie?” I asked. “Your older brother, Algernon?”
“Algie the Heir. He will make a fine baron. Universally loved and for good reasons. We often said the wrong cousin went into the Church. Parson Petey can be a bit of a prig, even after five years of marriage, but Algie has… He’s sweet and shrewd, and when you expect him to be high in the instep—the barony is venerable—he comes out with some admission of humanity, and you’re glad he’ll be the titleholder.
If we had more fellows like him in Parliament, we wouldn’t be putting a tariff on the very bread we eat. ”
Debating the Corn Laws, which taxed the poor to give to the rich, would get us nowhere. “Peter is your paternal cousin?”
“Peter is the oldest of several cousins on the Carstairs side, all the rest female. He’s a good fit for the Church, too, in his way, but Algernon would be a good fit for almost any occupation, from king to costermonger. I miss him.”
Those three words sounded sincere, but they left open the possibility that Algernon might not miss his surviving younger brother. His prospective heir.
“Sisters?”
“Not so blessed. You have sisters. I envy you that.”
“All married.” And preparing to leave me to my solitary holidays, probably on the duchess’s orders. That Mama had also quit the Hall puzzled me, but she was independent by nature and had claimed an old friend needed companionship over Yuletide.
One did not interrogate Dorothea, Her Grace of Waltham, regarding motives or much of anything else.
“What of childhood friends?” I asked. “Older relatives who might carry a grudge?”
Carstairs stood by the hearth, hand braced on the mantel, a handsome fellow in his prime. A handsome, troubled fellow.
“I was sweet on a neighbor’s daughter, but we had nothing like an understanding. Her family warned me off, though they shouldn’t have needed to. I knew I was for the military—we already had a parson in the family—and one doesn’t engage a young lady’s affections when marching off to battle.”
I could not love thee (Dear) so much/Lov’d I not Honour more.
Hyperia had pronounced Lucasta’s swain a vainglorious nincompoop and Lovelace’s verse forced. But then, I had not allowed an understanding to form between Hyperia and me when I’d followed Harry into uniform.
Not a topic I’d found a way to raise with her. I doubtless had some apologizing to do.
“Of neighbors, there are many,” Carstairs said, taking a wing chair just before his wandering would have driven me barmy. “Hampshire is good country. Old families, old ways. Papa is conscientious about looking after his responsibilities. The tenants and neighbors will all have stories to tell you.”
“About stolen pennies?”
“Stolen pennies, stolen pies, pony races, that time the ice broke, and I fell through. The other time I jumped out of a tree holding my wooden sword between my teeth.”
“Please do not regale my nephew with that vignette, and speaking of Leander, let’s away to the nursery. His bedtime approaches.”
Carstairs sprang from the chair. “Going on seven, you say? Is he still in his toy soldier phase, or hasn’t that started yet?”
“He has no playmates worth the name, and toy soldiers are more enjoyable as a shared activity.” I could not bring myself to play soldiers with him very often.
I saw the whole undertaking as a means of deceiving boys into a view of the military far more dashing and exciting than military life deserved.
Truly, my winter megrims were in fine form.
We traversed the chilly house, ascending two flights of stairs, and I noted that Carstairs was genuinely fit.
His gamekeeping activities would require him to be on the move, out of doors, hour after hour.
Plenty of time to brood in solitude, but also lots of fresh air, which could be a tonic for the mind.
I rapped on the door of the playroom, a courtesy I had instituted for the sake of Leander’s governess. If I wanted the boy to show her respect, then I had best comport myself similarly.
“Come in.” Miss Hunter was a small, quiet woman possessed of enormous patience and more imagination than one might think upon seeing her nondescript attire and unremarkable features. I regarded her as an ally, though her tenure at the Hall had been brief.
“Miss Hunter.” I bowed. “Leander. I’ve brought a visitor to our sunset round.”
In summer, the hour would still be light. Summer was but a distant memory.
“Uncle Julian.” Leander looked uncertainly at the fellow beside me, then bowed. “Leander Caldicott, at your service, sir.”
“Well done.” If a bit lacking in confidence, but then, confident boys were told to develop humility. “Captain Bryson Carstairs, late of the 95th Rifles, may I make known to you my nephew Leander Caldicott. Leander, Captain Carstairs.”
“Mr. Carstairs will do.” He extended a hand to Leander, and to the credit of the boy and Miss Hunter, a manly shake ensued while Leander looked Carstairs straight in the eye.
“Have you a favorite fable for bedtime, Master Leander?”
That was the right question, and one I would not have known to ask.
Leander went off into flights about wolves and lions and enormous raptors.
As I listened to the boy debate with my guest the merits of gryphons, chimeras, and gargoyles, I felt a familiar sense of being the observer, the one having no place inside the central action, but able to accurately analyze and record its details as the actors could not.
“What of elves?” Leander asked. “The good kind? Miss Hunter says bad elves aren’t real, but governesses use them to scare impresh… impresh… fearful children.”
“Impressionable,” I said. “Impressionable people are easily led down imaginative paths. I agree with Miss Hunter. Elves are no more real than Father Thames.” I had almost said than Father Christmas, but Miss Hunter’s admonitory glower saved me from that faux pas.
“The river is real,” Leander said, speaking with the confidence of a boy raised in Town.
“But,” said Carstairs, “no benevolent old fellow with a trident lurks beneath the Pool of London like an English Poseidon. If he did, we’d not have such a stench to deal with each summer, would we?”
Sound logic for small boys, and again, characteristic of nimbleness beyond my powers.
Miss Hunter intervened before Leander could ask Carstairs to read him a story, and we were soon again in the shadowed corridors, which grew chillier with each staircase we descended.
“He’s a lucky little boy,” Carstairs said. “Others in his situation would be in some third-rate public school by now, or in the hands of dyspeptic tutors overly fond of the birch rod.”
“Have you children, Carstairs?”
“Not that I know of. Algie has a pair of indiscretions resulting from his university years. A boy and a girl, separate mothers. He looks after them, from what I’m told.”
But how was Carstairs to know of those nieces or nephews, kept, as he was, at a distance from the family seat?
I paused outside the closed library door. “Have you any half-siblings?” The wrong-side-of-the-blanket contingent could be a fertile source of family unrest, as I knew only too well.
“Not that I’m aware of, but apples and trees, as the saying goes. You can ask Papa that question when you meet him next month.”
“Which brings us to poor relations.” I opened the library door and was greeted with a gust of relative warmth.
By tradition, no holiday greenery decorated the inside of the house until Christmas Day itself. Tradition had not stood in the way of red ribbons wrapped around the library balcony and spiral staircase, cloved oranges hung in the window, and a swath of small golden bells gracing the library door.
I wanted to toss the damned bells onto the snowy terrace, there to rust until spring. Perhaps a change of air would do me good.
“What family lacks poor relations?” Carstairs murmured, following me into the library. “Some might classify me as a poor relation.”
“You raise a good point.” I closed the door and went straight to the nearest hearth, where I added two squares of peat.
“Nobody has asked you for what is vulgarly called hush money. Is that because a) you could not pay much, or because b) keeping you in exile is furthering some scheme, or because c) causing you misery is the main objective—the best revenge—and banishment accomplishes that goal?”
“There you go, thinking like a criminal again. No brandy for me.”
“Nor for me. Tea?”
“I will turn in, if you don’t mind. I keep farmer’s hours, and the day has been long.”
My guest was weary in spirit as well as body.
“You will stay for a decent breakfast, and I will send you home with a list of questions. You will provide me the answers before the end of the month. I will confer with Her Grace regarding her own travel plans before we make ours. She’s biding in Hampshire with an old friend, Lady Clotilda Quiggan, and intends to remain with her through the holidays. ”
Carstairs stood before the hearth, the backs of his hands turned toward the warmth. “Lady Clo knows your mama?”
“Everybody claims to know Her Grace. In this case, the rumors are apparently true. Mama summered with Lady Clo on the Isle of Man once long, long ago, and a bond formed.”