Chapter Delaford, Dorsetshire #4
He leaned over and whispered in my ear, “When I have children, I shall leave them alone to grow, the way you do a lemon tree.”
“A lemon tree?” I asked.
“You can’t expect fruit for a few years. I met an old farmer who said that only in Sicily do lemons bear fruit immediately.”
Once we had sorted out where Sicily was—and agreed that we’d both like to see untended lemon groves—I knew precisely what he was talking about, because Marianne’s maternal accolades are necessarily limited and repetitive. Even now, her first still can’t read or say more than a few sentences.
“My sister drags her children to London and back for the Season, when the House of Lords is in session,” Squibby elaborated. “It’s absurd. She should leave them in the country breathing fresh air and growing at their own pace, rather than insisting that they be constantly under the parental eye.”
I completely agree. I’ve noticed that people with children fall into two camps: either they treat the children as an extension of themselves (“Freddy is such an intelligent little chap”) or as some sort of benign growth that took over the nursery (“Margery is growing like a weed, though I admit I haven’t caught sight of her in months; I really must ask Nanny to bring her down before tea”).
My sisters are resolutely in the first camp, and I am certain I shall be the second. I find children frightfully boring and shall leave mine in the country until—at the very least—they can read and speak in full sentences.
At any rate, Squibby and I aren’t friends merely because of the massacred earthworm (yes, it was alive—but honestly, did it suffer more than if I’d stepped on it?).
We shared any number of adventures as children.
For example, once when he was home from Eton, we found a dead weasel and cut it open to see what it was made of (blobby bits that are hard to separate with a twig).
All this ancient history has made me feel maudlin, so I think I’ll go down and interview a suitor. Sally reported that one of the knights didn’t join the shoot. Apparently, his valet failed to polish his boots, which curtailed his participation.
October 1, 1814, sent by Baron Hugh Skelmers Vaughan to Miss Margaret Dashwood:
Dear Snaps, According to custom—but not reason—the Grand Tour completes an English education.
Most fellows spend their time buying snuffboxes and statues of naked goddesses to ship home.
Bobby and I are trying to broaden our minds by observing local customs. Here’s our summary, carved out last night over copious wine: French courteous.
Spanish lordly. Italian amorous. German clownish.
I actually don’t know about the last, but Bobby has already been in Germany and swears the natives are poisoned by something called apple beer.
Late Afternoon
I had a feeling that Roderick Muckrose had stayed back from the shoot, and I was right.
Roderick told me that he remained home in hopes of talking to me, which was a much better excuse than the “scuffed top boots” reported by our butler.
Though it turned out that his valet had suffered an attack and expired on the spot, which is rather grim.
“You should ask Lord Vaughan to share his valet,” I suggested, rather liking the idea of Squibby having to appear in the drawing room without being polished from head to foot.
Roderick proceeded to tell me a story meant to prove that Squibby would never give up his valet.
When they were both at Oxford, Squibby installed a Venetian chandelier draped in crystals in his university sitting room, where it hangs to this day.
Roderick considers the chandelier outrageously affected (“I say! Practically French of him”).
I know that Squibby can’t read if a room isn’t very bright, but I merely agreed that it was questionable taste to insist on such grandiosity in university chambers.
Even more so, Roderick claimed, because Squibby had been given the exact set of chambers in Christ Church that his father and grandfather previously occupied.
“If his father didn’t need a chandelier, why should he?” Roderick demanded. “We were on the same staircase, and I made do with oil lamps.”
Since I was wearing a lovely walking gown—rose with lace trim—I dragged him into the gardens, ignoring his complaints about venturing out of doors without boots.
“I say,” Roderick said rather bashfully, “I do like your curls, Miss Dashwood. They’re so round.”
Of course they’re round; Sally creates them with a poking iron. Without her help, my hair curls with wild and unfashionable abandon. I didn’t enlighten him, because I take comfort in being kind to balance out my (private) unkind thoughts.
“Thank you,” I said. “I find your sideburns quite agreeable.”
He stroked them as if he were trying to remember what the word meant. “I say! My valet spent many careful hours shaping these to perfection. Now what am I to do?”
We were strolling in the garden arm in arm, discussing the shortage of valets who could meet Sir Roderick’s exacting standards, when the men returned from the shoot, entering the garden through a side gate.
They were splashed all over with mud, cheeks ruddied (“ruddied?” Is that a word?) by the wind.
Squibby was hatless, and his black hair stood up on top of his head.
“You should have come with us, Snaps,” he said, striding over. “It was much more fun than yesterday.”
“Snaps!” Roderick exclaimed. “Are you referring to Miss Dashwood?”
“We’re childhood friends,” Squibby said. “I named her Snapdragon when we were both young.”
“What an extraordinary nickname,” Roderick said disapprovingly.
At that point I intervened because while Roderick was not proving to be a fanciable suitor, I had no interest in informing him about the origins of “Snaps” (only slightly better than the tomato).
I cleared my throat and gave Squibby a stern look.
“I’ve just been telling Sir Roderick that you would be happy to share your valet, given that his has suffered an unfortunate incident and expired. ”
“Happy to, old chap,” Squibby said, surprising me. “You can have him for the week. I didn’t take Barton with me when I traveled abroad, so I’m used to doing without him.”
I would have thought all that calculated elegance took hours of anxious preparation. Apparently not.
An accurate description of Roderick’s face would include a gape.
He gaped. He had a gape. He was shocked to the toenails.
“Oh, I say! How could you go on without a valet?” he stammered.
“That takes me back to the horrors of Eton. I had to recruit two footmen this morning, and I still feel disheveled.”
Squibby stood before us with mud splashed to his knees and laughed. “He’s yours.” Then he took himself off with a careless farewell.
“I can’t say that I like his negligence,” Roderick said, “even though we all know you and Vaughan are old friends.”
We do? I was dying to ask more, but that would be too revealing. Roderick might conclude that I had set my cap for Squibby—a humiliating thought. I could hardly announce that I’d already rejected his proposal.
“A lady of your charms ought to be treated like the finest…” Roderick seemed to run out of inspiration.
“Finest what?” I inquired, after the silence grew uncomfortable. “China or porcelain,” he said. His eye lighted on the garden before us. “A lady of your beauty ought to be treated like the fairest rose that by any name would smell as sweet.”
That didn’t make sense, but Roderick was gazing at me triumphantly. “Romeo and Juliet,” I said obediently.
“Oh, I say! I knew you’d get it,” he said. “Vaughan told all of us how intelligent you are, back at Oxford. Said you’d have got a First if girls were allowed to attend university.”
I gracefully demurred, but my heart thumped. I had never imagined that Squibby said a word about me when he was away at university. We did send letters back and forth, though he told me it was just because he didn’t have a little sister.
For the sake of honesty: I would have died before I got a Second, since Squibby got a First.
I should add here that I examined the garden very carefully while perambulating with Roderick.
I don’t have much to say about the flowers, unfortunately.
What really caught my attention was the way the swallows dove into their little mud houses under the eaves.
They could have been bullets, unerringly striking home.
Once again, I have failed to sound romantic.
Like Cupid’s arrows, unerringly striking the breast of a young woman named Feodora.
January 20, 1815, sent by Baron Hugh Skelmers Vaughan to Miss Margaret Dashwood:
Dear Snaps, I’m going on to Vienna without Bobby.
Remember how we termed the Italians amorous?
Suffice to say, he is more enamored than I am (in truth, his father may have to travel over to separate him from a lady of dubious morals).
An old fellow in the Vatican yesterday predicted that the Holy Roman Empire will be dissolved in the next year—which he compared to the Fall of Troy.
I can tell you more about the empire when I’m home, but essentially the Emperor of Austria will no longer rule the whole thing, but just his tiny country.
I want to see Vienna while it’s still the center of the empire.
That Night
It’s two in the morning, and I’ve had an extraordinary evening: two proposals of marriage! I turned both of them down, but there’s something very heartening about a proposal. It’s like turning up late for breakfast and discovering that all the bacon hasn’t been eaten.
Around midnight I found myself on the terrace with Squibby and shared that simile. He understood it instantly. “Did you accept either of them?” he inquired. He needn’t have made it quite so clear that he didn’t give a damn what I did, and I almost fibbed, but then I confessed the truth.