Chapter 4 #2
“I don’t understand,” Cam said as the morning breeze riffled the high grass carpeting five acres of good pastureland. “If you aren’t using that patch for grazing, why not cut it down and make hay?”
Singleton had caught Cam riding out of the stable yard with St. Didier and attached himself to them.
St. Didier had produced regular I-told-you-so looks for the next half mile.
He’d then excused himself from the rest of the outing, and Singleton had commenced rhapsodizing about the water mill that had been giving excellent service since dear Queen Anne’s day.
“Cut hay this late in the season?” Singleton rejoined. “Who would cut that hay, my lord? Every hand must be turned to scything the ripe grain, just as every hand is turned to scything hay in spring. The land has a rhythm that makes sense to those who understand it. Trust me on this.”
Cam watched the old wooden wheel turning slowly and prayed for patience.
Business had a rhythm too. “We hire crews to scythe the hay, and in late winter, when nobody has any hay left to sell, we make a profit that exceeds what it cost to hire the crews now.”
Singleton fussed with his horse’s mane. The creature was a venerable bay gelding, white around the muzzle, and a bit slab-sided.
“But, my lord, what if we cut down that field and the heavens open up before the hay can cure? The days are shorter now than in spring, and the dew falls more heavily. The hay will take longer to dry even if we are spared rain. Wet hay is a waste at best and a fire hazard more usually. We’d spend your coin for nothing.
” His tone implied that wasted coin figured between mortal sins and public outrages on the scale of human wrongdoing.
“The risk of rain is true of haying in any season, and the days aren’t that much shorter. I say we cut this pasture now.”
Singleton sighed. He glanced heavenward as if praying for divine intervention. He even sought visual fortification from the mill wheel, turning as mill wheels were wont to do regardless of who was on the throne.
“My lord, I tell you, we lack the laborers. Having hay to sell is wonderful, but having corn to feed the livestock and grind into flour is a necessity. Besides, that grass won’t make the same quality hay we’d have earlier in the season.”
Cam did not intend to lose this negotiation. The grass was tall, luxurious, and in want of scything. “The hay will be good enough to sell at the end of a long winter.”
Singleton’s smile was pitying. “You have yet to tell me who shall cut it.”
Lorne Hall was swarming with able bodies.
“The gardeners are mostly idle this time of year. Their flower and vegetable beds are thoroughly weeded and will bloom and bear for at least another month, possibly two. The footmen have half days when they might enjoy earning some spare coin, as do the maids.”
Women had typically joined scything crews in Cam’s youth. Surely that hadn’t changed?
“I’ll grant you the gardeners have some feeling for the land, but maids and footmen? Does my lord expect sheep to fly as well?”
St. Didier had been right in at least one regard. The time had come to retire the old guard, not for lack of skill or knowledge, not even for lack of respect.
Singleton had lost his passion for the work, his eagerness to do not just a good job, but a better, smarter, more efficient job than he’d done the previous year.
“I’ll join the crew myself,” Cam said, “and we’ll divide the proceeds resulting from the sale of the hay. If you’re right, I’ll be cutting that field all on my own. If you’re wrong, we’ll have some tired indoor staff and gardeners, but their labor will be rewarded.”
Singleton’s smile had faded to puzzlement. “Unless it rains, my lord. Unless it rains, and what is more inevitable than rain in Merry Olde?” He nudged his beast down the track that ran along the millstream, and Cam let him have the last word.
Rain was inevitable, but so was a shortage of hay at the end of winter.
Cam sent his horse after the steward’s. “I’d like to see where the crews are scything today, if you don’t mind.”
Another huffy sigh. “Very well, my lord, but it’s simply a lot of folk swinging blades, whetting and peening blades, and singing the occasional song. This late in the morning, the singing will have stopped. We mustn’t interrupt the crew at its labors, though.”
“Because there’s a rhythm to their work?”
The sigh became a scowl. “In point of fact, there is. A literal rhythm, like a dance, with each foot moving at a precise tempo in a defined direction. I will not tolerate mockery, even from you, my lord.”
“Alice said an excess of punch would leave you irritable.”
“Alice should show more respect for her elders. I am merely explaining to you that the wheat does not harvest itself.”
“You should have more respect for that summer punch. I wielded a scythe myself, if you’ll recall.
I’d thought at one point to take over your job.
The old baron let me work myself to flinders for two summers before informing me that younger sons joined the military or the clergy.
The post at St. Wilfrid’s being occupied at the time by my uncle, I was advised to take up arms against the French. ”
“And that’s how you came to fight Old Boney?”
“I mostly marched, drank, and fought my own temper. I also learned Spanish and improved my German, French, and Italian. After a couple years, I found things to do in civilian life that didn’t involve killing or being killed.
” Not one letter from Papa for the entire two years, but then, Cam had limited his own correspondence to Alexander and a few friends from university.
“We should replace the mill wheel with an overshot model.”
“One suspected you would embark on that campaign. Undershot wheels are quieter.”
“They are significantly less powerful too.”
“You’d have to remodel the whole mill, my lord, and that is an expensive undertaking.”
“We’d have to raise the water level in the millpond, and that’s fairly simple, given the inevitability of rain you keep going on about.”
They bickered and spatted and did not disturb the scything crew. Singleton declared the need for a midday meal and more or less herded Cam back toward the manor. Across the field, a gig tooled along the lane, two bonneted figures on the bench.
“Who’s with Alice?” Cam asked.
“How do you know that’s Alice?”
“Good eyesight, but also, Alice’s posture with the ribbons is exceptionally good.”
“Got that from her grandmama. She and Lady Josephine have been out making charitable calls. They have a weekly routine, and the plagues of antiquity will descend upon the fellow who disturbs their appointed rounds.”
An unlikely pairing, in Cam’s estimation. Both imposing ladies, but not cut from the same cloth.
“Lady Josephine favors Alice’s company?” Because the reverse simply could not be true.
“When Alice arrived here as a bereaved adolescent abruptly cast into her old grandpapa’s rural household, Lady Josephine exerted herself to make Alice’s adjustment smoother. Alice has not forgotten that kindness.”
“Lady Josephine would not allow her to forget it.”
For once, the old man did not argue.
As the horses ambled back into the stable yard, Cam mentally reviewed a list, starting with the impromptu harvest of an additional five acres of hay, continuing on to replacement of the mill wheel, and including myriad smaller projects that would doubtless give Singleton apoplexies.
“How long was Alexander ill?” Cam asked before they were within earshot of the grooms.
“Too long. He’d rally and hare off to Town, then come home a wreck. Such a young man and so desperately ill. If I am a bit presumptuous about the execution of my duties, sir, it’s because your brother entrusted management of the estate to me, and I take my responsibilities seriously.”
“Would you say Alexander was ill even ten years ago?”
“Not so long ago as all that, but certainly five years ago he was failing, and here I am, living out my threescore and ten in roaring good form.”
“And for all those years of service,” Cam said, “I do thank you. Alexander would thank you, too, I’m sure, and I do recall that his will left you with a pension, which you are free to start claiming at any time.”
Singleton sat very straight in the saddle. “My lord is kind and generous, but I could not think of abandoning my post in the midst of harvest.”
“I am not asking you to, but I want you to know that I will honor my obligations to you and to the rest of the senior staff. You’ve looked after the Hall and after my brother when I could not.”
Singleton halted his horse and climbed down onto a mounting block and then descended to terra firma.
“Your thanks are noted, my lord.” He waved a hand, and a groom trotted out of the stable to take the reins of the old bay.
“You’re Burnside?” Cam asked, swinging to the ground.
“Peter Burnside, my lord.”
“You put me on a safe, sane horse, and I appreciate that, but if we have a saddle horse up to my weight who is also occasionally awake on the job, I’d appreciate that too.”
Burnside grinned. “Aye, milord. I’ll see what can be arranged.”
Singleton was off down the path that led to the steward’s cottage, a snug little dwelling just inside the embrace of the home wood. His gait was uneven and none too swift.
“Burnside, if I offered the footmen, gardeners, maids, and grooms an extra day’s pay to scythe some late hay, would they hold me in contempt or take the coin?”
Burnside was in the comfortable years between having to prove his competence and having to prove his continued capability. He busied himself running up stirrups and loosening girths for a moment, then considered Cam’s somnolent mount.
“Might do both, milord. Take your coin and call you daft. It’s mighty late to be making hay.”
“It’s never the right time to waste an opportunity.” If commerce had taught Cam one lesson, it was that.
“Shall I saddle you an afternoon mount now, my lord, or will you be having some luncheon first?”
Luncheon. Singleton had been maundering on about his nooning and empty stomachs making empty heads.
The sun was past the zenith and then some. “I suppose I’ll have a bite to eat. Would not want the kitchen to feel insulted.”
Cam had reached the edge of the stable yard when he added another task to the appallingly long list already forming in his mind.
Alice was off making charitable calls with Aunt Josephine. Upon whom and why was Alice taking on that responsibility? Aunt Josephine could have recruited any one of her baronesses-in-waiting, but she and Alice went calling together.
Commerce had also taught Cam to heed his instincts, and that her ladyship could dragoon Alice into a regular weekly round of calls made Cam mildly uneasy.