Chapter 16
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Commerce moved forward.
Bernard enjoyed that aspect of trade. Goods were put under contract, money changed hands, shipping commenced, followed by delivery.
In the alternative, goods were rejected, a rousing debate ensued, or custom was lost to a competitor.
Mercantile activity was unceasing and always with a sense of goals to be accomplished.
Very unlike the liturgical year, which trotted out the same texts, feasts, and themes season after season, with little apparent improvement in the human condition to show for it.
Courtship had a goal, certainly, but Bernard had lacked a sense that he was making progress toward it. The card party had been enjoyable, as had the musicale, but other than hacking out with Sorcha twice, he was no closer to using the special license than he’d been the day it had arrived.
Sorcha’s invitation to climb figurative drainpipes thus loomed as a rare opportunity of which the most must be made. Bernard rose from a tub of warm water, toweled off, and decided that before he could contemplate that happy challenge, he must consult with Jordy, whose day had gone poorly.
A sinking boat was a very serious sort of mishap, if it had been a mishap at all.
Bernard found Gilchrist in her favorite place at the window, while Jordy occupied a chair by an empty hearth.
“What are you reading?” Bernard asked Jordy after properly greeting Gilchrist.
“Stupid poems. Gilly says they will calm my nerves, but I can’t understand some of the words, and my nerves are not calm.”
“Yon little besom took two sips of his posset, sir, and wouldn’t have any more. He will not nap, and he doesn’t want to play soldiers.”
“What about a hand of cards?” Bernard asked.
Jordy shut the book. “We looked. No cards in the nursery.”
The boy’s hair was almost dry. He was in clean clothes, and keeping him immured in the nursery was likely asking for trouble.
“What do you say to finding Bridget and challenging her to a game of pall-mall? She’s had some practice this afternoon, and I can be the referee.”
Gilchrist muttered something that sounded vaguely prayerful.
Jordy shot to his feet. “Let’s find Bridge. She was with Auntie Lilly, and she looked mad when you carried me up to the house.”
“We might find your mama at the same time. Gilchrist, we’ll be at least an hour. My thanks for serving yeoman duty on a trying day.”
Gilchrist marched for the door. “You mind Mr. Huxley, young man. I know you had a bit of a difficult afternoon, but you’d best find your good manners soon and keep them handy.” She patted Jordy’s shoulder and disappeared into the corridor.
“What did you and Richard find to nibble on?” Food being a reliable conversational gambit with even young besoms.
“Biscuits. Cinnamon biscuits because the duchess favors them. Cousin Richard favors them too.”
“How many?”
A hint of a grin. “I’m to say two, because nobody will believe I had only one. Richard said I might have three because I must keep up my strength in the face of public tribu… tribu-something.”
“Tribulation. Means great affliction, oppressive troubles. You appear to have dried off quite nicely.”
They trundled along the corridor. When they reached the head of the staircase, Jordy paused, a look of longing crossing his features.
Bernard picked him up and put him on the banister. “Hold on all the way down, young man, or I will face a few tribulations courtesy of your dear mama.”
Jordy went flying all of fifteen feet to the next landing. He scrambled back to his feet. “Did you slide down banisters when you were a boy?”
“Of course. My cousin dwelled in a very large manor near the vicarage, and we couldn’t expect the maids to polish all the woodwork on their own, could we? No sliding to the first floor, though. Those are public rooms, and the dignity of the house must be preserved.”
“That’s what Richard said. Richard is my cousin, like you are.”
Bernard saw no need to dissemble. “He’s my half-brother, albeit the connection is mildly scandalous. We probably don’t speak of it outside of family, though the resemblance to Chanderton is strong in both of us.”
They reached the back terrace, and sounds of merriment drifted up from the lake.
“You won’t make me get into any boats, will you, sir? Richard said I needn’t go boating again.”
“I agree with Richard, though rowing is good exercise. I would like to show you exactly what went amiss with the boat you and Annette shared.”
Jordy stalked down the steps. “I hate her. I know I mustn’t hate anybody, and I mustn’t say that I hate her, but she’s not a lady yet, and she would not listen when I said to put me down.”
The boy needed to air his grievances to somebody. “And nobody made her listen. I am very disappointed in Annette as well.”
They reached the garden, a lovely formal expanse separated from the park by a bowling green at the bottom. A dozen adults and several adolescents lounged about the edges, calling encouragement or awaiting a chance to throw.
“Let’s cut through the rose garden,” Bernard said. “Nothing blooming yet, but the path to the lake is shorter.” Not as full of people bent on nosy small talk.
Perhaps Jordy’s irritability was catching.
“Not the roses,” Jordy said, stopping short. “I hate roses.”
What on earth? “Not even if you can ride past them on your loyal steed?”
Jordy sat on the bottom step. “You can’t jolly me along, Cousin Bernard. I want to find Bridget, but I don’t want to see Annette, and she loves roses. She thinks roses are romantic.”
Bernard was torn between impatience with a small boy’s stubbornness, amusement, and the certain knowledge that, today at least, Jordy was entitled to his sour mood.
Bernard perched beside the boy on the hard stone steps. “Do you even know what ‘romantic’ means?”
“Kissing and being silly and tricking a man into marrying you. That’s all Annette thinks about.”
“Some people like to be married.”
Jordy picked up a rock and pitched it at an urn of red salvia. “Nobody should have to marry Annette. Cousin Richard says I must not be so wroth with her—she got a soaking too—but she stinks, and she wants us all to treat her like a princess when she can’t row a boat or stop chattering.”
Even for an aggrieved little boy, this was bitter sentiment. “I can show you exactly what went amiss with the boat, and it wasn’t Annette’s fault. You are angry with her for more than the boating incident, I take it.”
Another rock hurled at the hapless urn. “She isn’t nice, but she wants everyone to think she’s nice. Cousin Coraline isn’t nice and doesn’t care if we don’t like her. Cousin Tally is nice, but he doesn’t care either. He’s nice because that’s easy for him.”
An insightful summary as far as it went. Somebody had been brooding. “Before you damage your aunt’s urn, let’s get down to the lake, shall we?”
“We’ll find Bridget and Mama.” Jordy rose, rubbed his backside, and headed down the crushed-shell walkway.
“The other way is shorter.” The other way was also free of potential new acquaintances.
“I don’t care. Roses are the dumbest flower. Annette smells like roses and lemons, and roses are stupid.”
Jordy had nearly shrieked his opposition to even passing through the rose garden. Down at the bowling green, a few heads turned toward them, and Bernard realized he wasn’t dealing with a boy who was merely angry or tired or too full of cinnamon biscuits.
Jordy was on his last nerve and seeking the only ally he truly trusted.
“We’ll avoid the roses,” Bernard said. “And then I have a few questions for you while we look for Bridget.”
They braved the gauntlet at the bowling green, which turned out to be a few greetings and smiles. Bernard waited until they were in the middle of the park—seen but not overheard again—and put his question as casually as he could manage.
“Jordy, if you think back to the day you hid in the oat bin, you said you heard light footsteps, like a bird trapped in a church.”
“They sounded run-run-run-stop. Like when a bird flies around, then perches on a rafter, then takes off again.”
“You offer an excellent description. What else do you recall? About the aromas you detected in the oat bin, for example?”
Bernard did not want to lead the witness, but Jordy had said that Annette ‘stank’ and had described the peculiar combination of lemons and roses that she apparently favored.
Jordy picked up his pace. “I hate her, and she’s mean.”
“Jordy, your opinions are your own concern, but you are speaking ill of a lady in your family. Why would you, a gentleman to your little bones, be so rude?”
He stopped and stared mutely at his boots, and Bernard understood the impossible conundrum Jordy faced.
If he truly, truly spoke ill of Annette—accused her of specific crimes rather than casting general contumely in her direction—then he would not be a gentleman in his own estimation, much less that of his elders.
Bernard sat in the grass, legs crossed. “Let’s look for lucky clovers.”
Jordy adopted the same posture. “Annette shut me in that oat bin.”
“One surmised as much but had no evidence. You recognized her scent?”
Jordy brushed a hand over the lush grass.
“In the herbal. Bridge was sniffing each bottle, and she held out some for me to sniff. The lemongrass bottle made me realize that stinky old Annette had been in the stable when I got knocked on the head, though I didn’t figure that out until later.
She also runs like that—flit, flit, flit—then stops and holds up her hands as if she’s just remembered something important. ”
What an eye for detail he had, but then, he was monitoring his enemy’s maneuvers. The whole war might depend on…
Military allusions outside the schoolroom. Steady on, Huxley. “I’m sorry,” Bernard said. “Annette has much to answer for, and her behavior put you in an impossible situation. You could not peach on her, and you could not keep your distance from her. What’s a fellow to do?”
“Will Mama be mad?”