Chapter Four
There is none in the worlde more beautefuller than he.
The loan of Chauncey and the pony cart had been Mrs. Dere’s idea.
“You will need a means to go back and forth to Greenwood Hall,” she explained, “when it might be too slow or inconvenient to walk. Mrs. Lamb may stable him at the Tree Inn.”
Greenwood Hall was a mere twenty-minute stroll from Iffley Cottage, but Frances accepted the offer as she did all Mrs. Dere’s suggestions, assuming correctly that, even if she would oftener prefer to walk, her younger siblings would delight in having the cart for their use.
This time when they drew up at the inn, the postmistress hurried out to greet them. “Sealy’s cousin has just been here, Miss Barstow, Master Gordon, and she said that the Eveleighs expected the gentlemen today. Three of them. Did you meet with anyone on the roads?”
Mrs. Lamb made it her business to know everything that went on in Iffley, a situation the inhabitants both appreciated and deplored, as circumstances warranted. In this case, Frances very much appreciated the information.
“We saw a few other people, naturally,” she answered, her heart thumping erratically. Could those two strange gentlemen have been among the newcomers?
“Any of them young gentlemen and unknown to you?” pressed the postmistress.
Gordy’s mouth popped open, only to shut again when Frances frowned at him. “Perhaps,” she said vaguely. “But, of course, when one is driving one hasn’t time for introductions.”
They surrendered the cart and Chauncey to the ostler, but to Gordon’s surprise, Frances lingered. “Did…Sealy’s cousin say much about the guests who were expected?” she began idly. “It has been some time since new people have come to Iffley.”
This small encouragement was enough to set Mrs. Lamb’s tongue going.
“Indeed, I think the last newcomer was Dr. Lane’s sister, but because she was so very old and her health declining, we did not see much of her, did we?
And now to have the Eveleighs spend the summer in Iffley!
Not to mention the young men they have invited.
Because young men always do excite more interest, wouldn’t you say?
Sealy’s cousin—she said to call her Maggs because there’s already Sealy of course at Perryfield—Maggs said Mrs. Eveleigh said the visitors are three dons of Christ Church.
I thought that sounded right dull, but Maggs says no, they are not old ones, such as I always think of—dry-beards full of dry talk—but ones only recently made fellows of the college.
And Mrs. Eveleigh has already got her heart set on one of them for her daughter Miss Eveleigh, but Maggs heard Mrs. E say to her husband that she could be content with any of the three in the end. ”
“Oh!” Frances began to feel a little conscious at listening to Mrs. Lamb’s gossip (especially because her brother was shifting from foot to foot with impatience), but with the two strangers so vivid in her mind, she could not help herself.
“And what of Miss Eveleigh?” she asked. “Did—er—Maggs say whether she had met them or if she had a preference?”
“Time will tell, Miss Barstow,” said Mrs. Lamb wisely.
“Maggs said Miss E is the sweetest creature alive, except to her mama. To her mama she can be saucy, and Maggs says she heard her say, ‘I don’t know why you don’t nail a sign to my front that reads, “Somebody marry me, for goodness’ sake.
” Haha!” Mrs. Lamb slapped her knees at this anecdote.
“And Maggs said Mrs. E said back, ‘Ungrateful minx! Your papa and I only want what’s best for you.’ And the girl says, quick-like, ‘I’m sorry, Mama.
I know you do. And I’ll try to love one of them for your sake, but what will you do if I decide it’s Cousin George I prefer?
Only, he’s not so handsome as Mr. Hearne.
Mr. Hearne is beautiful.’ So I told Maggs it sounds like she isn’t any more saucy than any other girl her age, and, why, we all like George Denver very well around here, though he’s too young to marry and—”
Mrs. Lamb carried on for another minute in this vein, but Frances had ceased to attend.
This unknown Mr. Hearne was “beautiful”?
Miss Eveleigh used that very word to describe him?
Surely it was not mere coincidence. Frances had never thought of a man’s “beauty” before in her life, but there had been something not of this world in her rescuer’s looks.
In his waving dark hair and fathomless dark eyes.
In the cut of his features, as if each were chiseled with care by a master.
He had been silly, of course.
Empty-headed.
Mr. Butterfly.
But, still and all, he had been beautiful.
“Well, we shall soon know for ourselves,” said Frances, interrupting the postmistress’s unceasing flow, but with an absence of mind which made it inoffensive. “Thank you, Mrs. Lamb, and good day to you.”
“I’ll wager those two we met were Eveleigh guests,” her brother surprised her by saying as they walked back to Iffley Cottage. “Who else would be on the Henley Road?”
“People going to Henley,” she answered. “Or Wallingford or Littlemore or any number of places.”
“In a wagon with trunks? If they were going so far, they would have taken a coach. But that was the Angel Inn’s wagon—the outside painted green, except for where somebody sheared a chunk off the rear corner.”
Maria was waiting for them at the gate. “There you are at last! Frances, we have been invited to Greenwood Hall for dinner tomorrow to meet their guests! And Lord Dere said he will send the coach because of course the Deres were invited as well. Will you wear your blue again? At least we need only wait one more day, if the Greenwood party does not go to church. But they ought to be at church, don’t you think?
Sarah thinks it likely, but Mama reminded us that Greenwood Hall is as near Cowley as Iffley, and then Sarah said surely Mrs. Dere told her friend which church she should attend. ”
The Barstows were not left long to wonder, for when they entered the Church of St. Mary the Virgin the following morning to file into their pew behind the Deres, there were the newcomers, seated directly across the aisle.
And there, Frances saw to her dismay, sat the beautiful man, somehow recognizable to her though she saw only the back of his dark head and his coat of light-brown linen tailored perfectly to his shoulders.
There, then. Mr. Butterfly was one of Miss Eveleigh’s possible suitors.
(“And one of your own,” added a matter-of-fact voice in her head.) Once the Barstows entered their pew Frances could not look over at the strangers, of course, though every atom of her wished to, and she envied the younger children who stole glances and whispered to each other.
Attendance was predictably high that Sunday and attention to the sermon correspondingly low, and when Mr. Terry swept down the aisle after the benediction, the congregation vibrated with eagerness to follow him.
But first they must wait for the baron and his niece and great-nephew to lead the way out.
Lord Dere would have hurried a little to oblige everyone, but Mrs. Dere on his arm held him to a stately pace, looking neither to the right nor the left.
“I think I see the beautiful man,” whispered Maria, her mouth so close to Frances’ ear that the brims of their bonnets knocked together. (It had been Gordon who relayed Mrs. Lamb’s secondhand account, Mrs. Barstow not being on hand to reprove them for repeating gossip.)
Frances hushed her and shot out a hand to hold Gordon back when he braced to leap up and follow Peter Dere. “Better let them precede us,” she said under her breath. “You are children, and we have Bash as well.”
With annoyance Gordon sank back, but he got his revenge on Frances by waiting longer than he needed to, so that the Barstows were nearly the last to leave the church. “I suppose there’s no call for hurry,” he said airily, “since Frances and I met two of the party yesterday.”
Indeed, Gordon’s delay meant that all the other introductions had taken place by the time they rose, re-tied the strings of Bash’s shoes, and organized themselves to follow, and when the family spilled out the south door, Frances could not help but feel that, even with her two older sisters married and gone, there still seemed to be too many of them.
Too many of the baron’s poor relations. Her mother, she hoped, no one could object to.
Mrs. Barstow might be an impoverished widow, but she was serene and sensible and never tried to milk her cousin Lord Dere for all he would have been willing to give her.
No, Mama was not the problem. The “too many”-ness must begin with Frances’ sister-in-law Mrs. Langworthy, widow of the late Sebastian Barstow and now wife to Horace Langworthy—even newly married, she and her son Bash remained with the Barstows while her new husband was away at sea.
Then there followed Frances herself and Maria and Gordon—oh, heaven!
All dependent and all poor. Everyone who saw them must wonder what would be done with them all!
At least, this is what Frances imagined the Eveleighs and their guests were thinking, as they turned en masse to regard them.
Absolutely refusing to let her eyes stray to the beautiful man, she peeped at Miss Eveleigh while Mrs. Dere made introductions, and found Miss Eveleigh stealing looks at her.
The small and elegant girl Frances remembered from four years earlier was still so.
Whether her former superior manner remained Frances could not tell, seeing no hint of it now.
Had she grown out of it, or was the uppishness still in there somewhere?
It must be, she thought, or why would Maggs the servant call Miss Eveleigh “saucy”?
“—Mr. Midgecomb, Mr. Hearne, and Mr. Tilson,” Mr. Eveleigh the provost concluded, and Frances dropped into her curtsey.