Chapter Thirteen #3
Mr. Lelander nodded thoughtfully. “That is a shame, really. Where once she would have felt safe to do so. She had freely opened the door to provide shelter on the night of the storm, now she cannot risk it.”
“None of us could have predicted the course of events, not in this neighborhood anyway. Mr. Smuckers is going to write up an accounting for future generations.”
Poppy noted the smile playing at the edges of the gentleman’s expression.
“Excellent,” he said.
“The marquess has been encouraging it, so I am sure he will do it.”
“Quite rightly, I think. It is the sort of event that can be lost to time once the players have all gone.”
Poppy nodded. “Pansy and I have kept a dual diary since we were young. I write on one side of the page and she on the other. We plan to hide it in the house so that somebody might find it far into the future.”
Mr. Lelander looked intrigued to hear of it. “What sort of things do you write in it?”
“That has changed very much over the years. These days we write of more adult sorts of things. The first entry, though, is titled “Crimes of Bertie.” He was still a toddler and very much to manage. We did not have much sympathy for it.”
Poppy had hoped to steer the conversation away from what she had been doing all day and steer it toward what Mr. Lelander and Lord Burkhart had been doing all day.
However, the third gong rang and nobody, not even the viscount, lollygagged to the table. Mr. Moreau would not stand for it.
Mr. Lelander held out his arm and led her to her place in the dining room. After they were seated and the footmen brought round the wine for the first course, Bertie said, “Can I just say, Teddy and I are devastated that nobody woke us up to fight the criminals.”
Violet snorted into her napkin.
“We really are wrecked over it,” Teddy said. “We are very fast runners, surely there could have been something we could do.”
“Next time, I’m sure,” the viscount said. “What say you, Smuckers? If your suspicions are aroused in future, will you take them up on their offer?”
Mr. Smuckers, who understood the viscount very well, nodded gravely. To Bertie and Teddy he said, “Should you hear three sharp raps on your door in the night, that will be your signal that it is time to muster in the library. Bring your bravery and sharp wits.”
The two boys looked enormously pleased with this idea. Maribelle did not look as enthused to imagine her boy mustering in the library to fight off criminals. Violet appeared delighted with it, though.
“We’ll practice our bravery and sharp wits so we are ready,” Teddy said solemnly.
Mr. Smuckers gave him a nod as if both the hero and the hero-in-training understood one another.
“By the by, Papa,” Violet said, “Bertie harbors very bad feelings about his tutor in Oxford and wishes to stay here with Teddy, joining in on his studies with Miss Millthorpe.”
“She seems nicer,” Bertie said.
Poppy choked a little on her wine. Pansy covered her mouth with her napkin.
“Why not, as long as Miss Millthorpe is amenable,” the viscount said.
“I will broach it to her,” the viscountess said.
Little did Bertie know he was on the verge of jumping from the frying pan into the fire.
Miss Millthorpe was a very upright lady and could be trusted from here to Sunday.
However, when it came to lessons, she was an absolute dragon.
Poppy assumed Teddy had downplayed that particular point in order to keep his cousin close at hand.
“I take it from your expression that the lady is a bit of a taskmaster,” Mr. Lelander said in a low tone.
“A bit,” she said, laughing.
“Well, at least Bertie will be with his cousin. That must be a benefit.”
Poppy nodded. “Cousins must be together as often as possible.”
Mr. Lelander appeared thoughtful over that idea. “Are you often with your own cousins?”
“We do not have any. Both my mother and father were only children. Pansy and I have often despaired of it. We have imagined we’d have had great fun writing to cousins and sharing secrets.
But now we have two nephews, and my sister Lily is with child.
Certainly there will be more to come after that too.
With any luck, there will be a pile of cousins and they will write letters and support each other in everything all their lives. ”
Mr. Lelander looked even more thoughtful. “As I had imagined,” he said, rather enigmatically.
“Did you enjoy your day?” Poppy asked, determined to hear about the day in the library with Lord Burkhart.
Mr. Lelander’s brows knit, as if he could not decide if he’d enjoyed it. “Oh yes, fine, fine.”
Fine, fine? What did fine, fine mean?
“Fine. I am glad. I understand Lord Burkhart spent the day in the same manner.”
“Ah, yes. He was there too.”
Poppy was well aware that he had been there too. What had they been doing though? “You do not wish to say,” she said, determined to learn something.
“Actually, no,” he said. “It is perhaps not the right time.” His face flushed and he put his attention on the piece of fish on his plate.
So that was it. He did not wish to say. If it had been anything simple and straightforward, he’d probably like to say.
But he did not.
It felt in some way ominous. As if it could not be anything she would wish to hear.
But what was it? Why the mystery? How could it possibly be that Mr. Lelander and Lord Burkhart had some secret between them?
People who did not care for one another did not then decide to have a secret together. Surely, that never happened.
As she had outright asked and been told he did not wish to discuss it, she must give it up for now. All she could hope for was that Pansy was having better luck wrenching the secret from Lord Burkhart.
They spoke of other things. Mr. Lelander once more returned to the subject of his estate, putting it in a very good light.
They had a lovely family tradition of going round to the tenant cottages at Christmas and singing carols.
The viscount always brought a generous amount of money to hand out.
The viscountess brought baskets of goods, everything from sacks of flour to the estate’s soaps, for the ladies of the cottages.
Mr. Lelander was left to bring toys for the children.
He generally went to Manchester to find what he was looking for.
This past Christmas, he’d returned with dollhouses and Noah’s Arcs.
The arcs were particularly popular because the matching pairs of wood animals could be played with on a Sunday because it was considered religious instruction.
They had their own traditions at Chemsworth and all the viscount’s tenants did get baskets and money, the baskets included sweets for the children but they had not thought of toys. It was a very lovely idea.
Then Mr. Lelander mentioned that he always felt the choosing of the toys could benefit from a woman’s touch. Certainly, that was a hint. Whether it was or was not, she was determined to take it as such.
As the dessert course came round, the viscount said loudly, “So you two are off at first light.”