The Lady’s Companion

Chapter Twelve

I am babbling, she thought desperately. I hope no one notices. She managed a glance at the vicar, and saw, to her amazement, that he was regarding her seriously, as though she were speaking the greatest wisdom since Solomon. The bailiff would be laughing to my face, she thought as she smiled at Mr. Hepworth.

Her store of idle chatter seemed endless, and she could only thank generations of Hamptons who had probably small-talked their way from Hastings to the present. What’s bred in the bone will come out of the mouth, she decided grimly as she gave the vicar the advantage of her dimple, tried not to catch Lady Bushnell’s much-too-observant eyes, and spouted magnificent nonsensicals worthy even of Sir Rodney.

So help me, Mr. Hepworth, you could toss in the idle comment here and there, she thought later as the visit wore on and she found herself reaching an end to her store of trivia. To her dismay, the vicar appeared to bask in her prattle as he ate one macaroon after another and held out his cup for more tea. There was no help from Lady Bushnell, who sipped her tea, and seemed content to gaze out the window, particularly at such times when her shoulders began to shake.

Susan was considering prayer for divine intervention when she glanced at the clock. She set down her cup. “Mr. Hepworth, haven’t you Evensong in an hour?” she asked, grateful as never before for the practices of her church.

“Oh, my!” he exclaimed, setting down his cup with a click that made her wince. He scrambled to his feet and looked about in confusion for his hat, reminding Susan more than ever of a marsh bird. Lady Bushnell had by now devoted her entire attention to the view outside the window, and was making small sounds vaguely incompatible with her customary dignity.

It was a small matter to see him to the door, accept his profoundest farewells, and focus her attention on the chandelier when he nearly tripped over the design in the carpet. Only when the vicar was on his horse and galloping toward Quilling as though pursued by revenue men did Susan dare return to the sitting room and Lady Bushnell.

The widow sat with her hands folded quietly in her lap, but her eyes gave her away. In another moment her hand went to her mouth as she motioned to Susan to shut the door. She began to laugh first, a hearty, come-from-the-toes, infectious kind of laugh that Susan was powerless to resist, even had she wanted to. She joined in, laughing until she had to wipe her eyes and clutch her middle, complaining of too-vigorous lacing.

“Lady Bushnell, I had no idea that taking tea with you would be so perilous to my sorry store of clever chitchat,” she said finally, when she could speak.

“And I had no idea that one man could drink so much tea, eat so many macaroons, and gaze with such adoration,” Lady Bushnell retorted. “I daresay Evensong will be brief, considering all that tea he consumed,” she said and started to laugh again. “Oh, dear!” she exclaimed finally as she accepted a handkerchief from Susan. “Miss Hampton, our vicar is profoundly lovestruck. Does this mean more such visits? Can it be that my peace was less disturbed when my lady’s companions were stealing apostle spoons, pressing Bible tracts on me, and attempting to roger my bailiff?”

If it bothered Lady Bushnell, the agitation didn’t show, Susan considered. And why on earth wouldn’t any red-blooded woman want to roger him? she thought, and didn’t bother to blush this time. “I don’t mean to be trouble, my lady,” she said, her voice light. “Blame the bailiff for introducing Mr. Hepworth yesterday.”

“I could hardly blame the bailiff for dark eyes, and a pretty face,” Lady Bushnell insisted. “Miss Hampton, you are going to be a great deal of trouble for me, I suspect. Not only must I teach you to play the piano, and attempt to eradicate your more regrettable Hamptonisms, but now I suppose I must chaperon the vicar, and any other stray bachelor that David Wiggins drags home! My own daughter was less exertion, and I did not employ her!”

“I shall warn the bailiff not to introduce any more single gentlemen to me,” Susan promised, matching Lady Bushnell’s teasing tone. She watched Lady Bushnell, noting how bright the color was in her cheeks, and how young the voice. If any of this silliness keeps you from dismay at your own solitude, or worry about your independence, I think I shall create lots of trouble just for you, she thought.

The daily reading of Emma lasted only through one chapter, as one or the other or both of them would think of the vicar and begin to laugh all over again. “Tomorrow, Miss Hampton, tomorrow,” said the widow as she dabbed at her eyes. “Miss Austen deserves our undivided attention. That will do for now.”

She looked at Susan over the handkerchief and her expression turned thoughtful. “Miss Hampton, if I had not already discerned that you were as clear as glass, I would begin to suspect that you were planning all these diversions.”

“I would never!” Susan replied, smiling as she replaced the bookmark and rose to leave. “If you need me ...”

“I do not,” Lady Bushnell replied, but without that brusque tone of yesterday. “Remember, Miss Hampton, the G-major scale tomorrow. And I will sharpen my cane.”

She was laughing as Susan closed the door. No, I am not clever enough to plan diversions for you, Lady Bushnell, she considered, but I know someone who is, someone who knows you much better than I.

She deliberated the merits of accosting the bailiff, and decided honestly that there were none. I simply must not be shy to meet him, she decided. After all, we have agreed that this whole kissing business was just something that happened. At least, I think that is what we decided, although I cannot recall the precise conversation.

In the long run, it did not matter. The bailiff was away from the manor, and so Mrs. Skerlong told Susan, without any subterfuge to find out on her part. “He has gone to the sheepfold,” the housekeeper explained as she set places for three instead of four. “I can always depend upon Ben Rich to occupy him through the supper hour,” she said.

“The sheepfold?” Susan asked, striving for a certain vague disinterest that signaled nothing more than idle curiosity. “We were there only yesterday.”

“Aye, and he’ll be spending more and more time there, until the lambing is done. And soon they’ll be letting the rams and yearlings out to more distant meadows. A busy time of year is spring, Susan.”

“And then the bailiff will plant his Waterloo wheat?” she asked, taking the plates and cups from the housekeeper and arranging them on the table.

Mrs. Skerlong nodded, then directed her attention to the Rumford again. “He’s been planning that crop of wheat for five years now, I’m thinking.” She shrugged. “What the good of it is, I don’t know. Everyone else just saves wheat back from the harvest and plants that the next year. Why this is better, I couldn’t say.” She removed a pot from the stove and dipped soup into their bowls.

“He thinks this strain will produce better wheat,” Susan said, thinking of the wheat in the succession house, force-grown and lovely as it swayed in the artificial breeze of the furnaces.

The housekeeper cut off several slices of roast beef from the pan warming on the hob and put them on a platter. She called Cora from the laundry room and the three of them sat down to dinner. “I wondered why he did all that,” commented the housekeeper as she swabbed at the meat juice with a chunk of bread. “Then one day I was redding up his funny stand-up desk in the succession house, and there was a piece of paper with ‘Quilling Seed Farm, David Wiggins, Proprietor,’ written as fancy as you please on a scrap of paper!” The Skerlongs looked at each other and laughed, as though it was an old joke.

“You think he can’t do that?” Susan asked, ready to spring to the bailiff’s defense.

“It seems a broad dream for a poacher on the run from Wales who knew more about the end of a gun than a stalk of wheat when he came here,” she said, chewing placidly, her words a mild reproof of Susan’s quick statement.

Susan nodded for form’s sake, and addressed herself to the roast in front of her. People change, she thought. I have changed since the wind and snow blew me into Mr. Steinman’s agency. Others can change, too. She thought of Lady Bushnell and her fierce desire to maintain her independence, and sighed. Sometimes we have to change, even when we don’t want to.

Mrs. Skerlong looked at her with a smile in her eyes. “That sigh came from your toes, I’m thinking.” She leaned forward across the table. “Don’t worry; David Wiggins always finds his way home.”

Susan regarded the housekeeper with amusement. A month ago, I would have taken such affront at your presumption, she thought, but no longer. “Actually, Mrs. Skerlong, I was thinking of Lady Bushnell,” she replied, leaning forward, grateful that it was the truth. “What happens if Lady B becomes ill and her daughter-in-law really does step in?”

There was a long pause. “None of us like to think of it.”

“But she’s sixty-five.”

“And she’s spent years and years marching with regiments, following the drum from India to Spain,” Cora chimed in softly. “I think it would kill her to be forced to leave her independence behind and go to her daughter-in-law.”

Susan nodded again. “And all in the name of kindness. How sad.”

The three of them sat quietly for long minutes, with only the sound of soup bubbling on the stove to compete with the silence. Finally the housekeeper heaved herself up from the table. “Well, we are glum gussies,” she said, “and why borrow trouble from tomorrow?” She looked at Cora, then Susan. “Cora, did we forget to mention to Susan about tonight?”

“It’s the third Wednesday,” Cora said, as if that explained it all. She must have observed Susan’s blank look. “Mum and I go to Quilling to listen to the bell ringers.” She blushed and looked at her mother. ‘Timothy Rudge plays the bells,” she said, as if that explained everything.

It did. “And he also sings tenor?” Susan asked.

Cora nodded, quite rosy now. “We stays overnight with Mum’s sister and comes back by early morning.”

“But how do you get there?”

Mrs. Skerlong rose and gathered the dishes toward her. “We take the gig. David rode the saddle horse to the sheepfold. And now if you won’t mind helping with the dishes, I can get Lady B’s dinner ready and in front of her and still be on time.”

She saw them off from the back steps, two women well bundled against the night air clamping down cold and hard, with warming boxes at their feet and bell ringers on Cora’s mind, at least. Susan stayed where she was for a long moment, hugging her arms close to her body, admiring the brittle sunset. How beautiful this will be in summer, she thought as the cold defeated her and she stepped inside. I wonder where he will plant the wheat? She remembered the perfection of summer nights on Papa’s estate when they still owned it, and the pleasure of rustling her way through the rye and the barley before it was too tall.

She stood by the window in the kitchen, trying to imagine the sight of wheat in June fields on a long, sloping hillside in Belgium, just before it all turned into mud and blood. “I think it would be a sight not soon forgotten,” she said, writing “David Wiggins, Sergeant” on the frosty pane this time. “It must have been the last good memory for many.”

With the cat in her lap, she dozed in front of the stove until she heard Lady Bushnell’s bell. She hurried to the breakfast room to retrieve the remains of dinner, arranging cup and plate on the tray in the empty room. Lady Bushnell had already left; Susan heard the sitting room door close quietly as she picked up the tray and started for the kitchen.

She stopped in the hall. Setting the tray on a side table, she went quietly to the sitting room door and knocked. “Lady Bushnell?” she asked. “May I come in?”

“Yes.”

She entered the room, cheery now with the light of several lamps and a fire which Mrs. Skerlong must have nurtured before she left Susan drew the curtains closed and hesitated at the window. Lady Bushnell sat in her usual chair, the yellowing letters on her lap and beside her on a small table. Several had fallen to the floor.

“Let me help you.” Susan knelt and gathered up the pages, the ink pale with age now. She placed them on the table, wishing she had an excuse to stay. “Is there anything I can do for you?” she asked, knowing those were hated words to her employer, but unsure of what else to say.

“I have already told you that I can manage,” Lady Bushnell said, her voice firm, as though she spoke to a slow child. She indicated the letters in her lap. “I like to read these in the evenings.”

How can you manage? Susan wanted to ask. I can hardly read them, with the ink so faded. “Very well,” she replied, when the widow said nothing more. “But if you need me… ”

“I won’t.”

“If you do,” Susan continued, “I am close by. Good night Lady Bushnell.”

She washed the dishes in the kitchen, feeling heavy as the solitude of the manor descended on her shoulders. At home I would be playing whist with Aunt Louisa and my cousins, she thought. And perhaps Papa would return from a successful turn at the tables and favor me with idle chat about his plans. She set her lips firmly together. But I am not homesick, and Papa’s plans are my ruination.

With a sigh of exasperation, she took Mrs. Skerlong’s shawl from the peg by the door and swung it around her shoulders. I will weed strawberries in the succession house, she told herself with an impatient twitch of her shoulders. It ought to remind me that there is no going back to London and Aunt Louisa’s house.

Tim the cowman must have lit the lamps and stoked the furnaces, because the room was bright and warm enough for moisture to condense on the glass. She sniffed the air, appreciating the fragrance of leaves and loam when all outside was still patchy with snow and suspicious of more. “This is more like it,” she announced, sitting at the drafting table to admire the wheat.

She soaked in the sight before her and was acutely mindful of its calming effect. I wonder if it is the wheat, or the man who tends it so faithfully, she thought, feeling at peace with herself again. I should leave him a little note and tell him that Lady B asked me to take tea today, she thought as she looked about on the ledge under the table for paper.

She pulled out a letter instead, which she would have returned without reading, except that the title in bold lettering caught her attention. “Waterloo Seed Farm,” she read. I like that better than Quilling Seed Farm, David.” She read the letter to herself, noting the misspellings and shaky grammar, but impressed with the message. “So you would volunteer some of your wheat to others for trial, sir?” she murmured. “That is a good idea.” She folded her hands on the drafting table, looking at the list of names running down one side of the letter. “And I suppose these are all local landowners within easy riding distance, so you can check on your experimental wheat.”

She put away the letter and got down off the stool, curious to know if the bailiff would allow her to help him with the spelling and grammar. I hope he will not be too proud, she reflected. I would be, she thought honestly. Let us hope that the bailiff is a better person than I am.

The strawberries claimed her notice then. She weeded them and ate a few that interested her, thinking of berries sugared and fed to attentive gentlemen sharing alfresco luncheons. At least, her cousin Fanny had embellished that tale after one event of her London Season and passed it on to a cousin chafing at home. Susan tried to imagine feeding a sugared strawberry to David Wiggins, and could only laugh, shake her head, and weed a little faster.

Even the succession house felt lonely, and she looked about for the cat, who should have been shamelessly toadying about her ankles and nudging her for pets and ear rubs. Kittens, is it? she thought. She wiped her hands on some burlap sacking and walked around the succession house, peering into dark comers where David had pointed out beds he had made of toweling in the hope that the cat would pick a comfortable spot for “the blessed event,” as he put it. No luck. Of course, reasoned Susan as she made another circuit, what cat ever did the convenient thing?

She found the cat and kitten on the third circuit, lying on the bailiff’s uniform jacket, which had been rolled up and stuffed inside a box next to the bags of seed wheat. The cat was vigorously licking the slimy, unfinished-looking kitten curled up beside her, mouth open in a soundless meow. Then as Susan watched, the cat stopped, and with inward preoccupation, purred louder and expelled a second kitten in a gush of fluid onto Wiggins’ jacket.

“I hope your master had no plans for that coat,” Susan murmured as she watched in fascination. She was still sitting there an hour later, watching the last of four kittens arrive, when the bailiff returned. At least she assumed it was the bailiff. Seated on the floor between the aisles, she could not see him. She stayed where she was, comfortably seated with her legs crossed Indian style and the scrap of a blanket tucked around her. She knew better than to touch the kittens, but she continued to admire them, tiny, hairless, utterly dependent. It’s not that I am shy about getting up, she rationalized. It’s just that I do not wish to startle Mama Cat.

“All right, Susan, someone else is breathing in here besides me, and I don’t think Tim the cowman dabs ... lily of the valley is it... behind his ears. Although he should.”

Susan smiled but did not get up. “Your cat had kittens, and I have been observing.”

After lighting another lamp, he came toward the sound of her voice. “You really shouldn’t sit there on the cold floor,” he scolded mildly as he draped his coat around her shoulders and sat down beside her, leaning his back against the counter. He tickled the cat under her chin, smiling as she stretched her neck up. “And good job to you, my dear. You managed to miss all my clever birthing locations and wedge yourself onto my jacket. Why am I not surprised?”

“I hope the coat wasn’t a valuable memento,” Susan said when the silence threatened to extend beyond her comfort.

“No. I’m not one to gather memories that way.” He took up a corner of the coat that he had put around her shoulders and pulled it behind his back, drawing them closer together. “Thanks for weeding the strawberries,” he said. “Now, where are the ones you should have picked?”

They weren’t exactly touching shoulders, but Aunt Louisa would not have approved. “I ate them,” she said, feeling not even slightly repentant. “They were excellent.”

“I’m so glad,” he replied dryly. “Now suppose Lady B asks for strawberries tomorrow morning, and I have to tell her that her lady’s companion ate them?”

Susan couldn’t help herself. She nudged his shoulder with her own. “Oh, you know she will not!”

The bailiff chuckled and settled himself a little closer. “I know,” he agreed, and was silent then.

She could think of nothing to say. I have babbled enough today in front of the vicar, she thought. I feel just as uncomfortable as I did then in Lady Bushnell’s sitting room, but I refuse to blather on this time. Someone else can fill the gap.

But the bailiff did not. He sat close beside her, their hips touching now, with his legs drawn up. He watched the kittens through the space in his legs, every now and then reaching out to touch the cat. In a few more moments, Mama had organized the little morsels of life beside her and they were nursing. The cat heaved a sigh of her own and rested her head on the coat’s hatch marks.

“That’s a good use for an old relic,” Wiggins commented finally. “Five years ago I wrapped Lord Bushnell in it after he was hit. Ah, well.”

There wasn’t anything in his tone of voice to indicate that he needed comfort, but Susan had to resist the urge to move even closer and rest her head on his shoulder. She had heard stories about men and battle, and how some dreamed and suffered for years, but the bailiff did not appear to be one of them.

“It was just one more incident in your life, wasn’t it?” she asked. He nodded, understanding her perfectly. “It was,” he agreed. “Of course, Waterloo was Waterloo, and nothing will ever compare to it, but I suppose you’re right. It was just one more thing. I suppose nothing really had the capacity to surprise me, after Lady B retrieved me from death.”

She turned a little to look at him then, impressed with his solidity and the calmness of his nature. Someday, if I am very lucky, I will be so wise, she thought.

He looked at her, a question in his eyes. “What is it you want to say, Susan?” he asked.

“I don’t think I could put it into words,” she said frankly.

‘Try.”

She looked at the cat then, and the kittens kneading to suck at her belly. “You impress me with your courage. I... I suppose I wish I were that brave.”

“You are,” he said simply. “You’re braver than all the Hamptons who ever lived.”

She laughed. “That would not be difficult!” He was so close that she could smell soap, so she knew it was time to change the subject. “Actually, I came to tell you that Lady Bushnell let me drink tea with her.”

Immediately, she wished she had not said anything. The bailiff moved away slightly. She did not pretend that he was merely resettling himself. Their shoulders still touched, but he had shifted his hip out of her range. What did I say? she asked herself. Whatever it was, it was the wrong thing.

“Good for you,” the bailiff said finally. His voice was the same as ever, but it was different, too, in a way that baffled her. “But why should we be surprised? After all, Susan, you are one of them.”

“One of them,” she repeated. “I don’t understand.”

Wiggins got up then in one swift motion, holding out his hand to her. She let him pull her to her feet and take the coat from around her shoulders. He walked down the aisle, tossed his coat toward the peg, and sat on the stool at the drafting table.

“You’re too much of a lady to remark on how well I speak English,” he commented, resting his elbows on the slanting table.

If I can change the subject, I suppose you can, too, she thought, puzzled. “I guess I never considered it,” wishing her words did not sound so lame, but curious where he was going.

“When the elder Lord Bushnell made me one of his regimental sergeants, I started to study the officers,” he explained, not taking his eyes from her face. “I decided it would be well to imitate their diction, and labor over my faulty grammar.” He smiled to himself, but it was a deprecating expression. “I don’t regret that particularly, but one of those little lords with a purchased captaincy took me aside before the battle of Salamanca. I’ll never forget his words. ‘You may sound like a gentleman, Sergeant Wiggins, but you’ll never be one gf us.’” He grinned at her in what looked like genuine amusement. “He was right, of course, bless his blue blood, which, by the way, looked quite as red as everyone else’s when spread all over the Spanish plain. ‘One of us,’” he repeated, then took out his ledger, effectively dismissing her.

She watched him a moment more, but he was reaching for a pencil, and then looking for his ruler. One of us, she thought, amusement mingled with equal parts of exasperation. You propose to me, then tell me it was just a silly impulse. You almost tip the vicar into my lap. You set me up for Lady Bushnell to order about. You kiss me and trouble my mind and body. And myth and rumor have it that women are difficult to comprehend? I am so far removed from my sphere right now that I will do the only intelligent thing.

“Good night, sir,” she said. It was so easy to smile at him, and considerably smarter than tears or remonstrations.

“Good night, Susan,” he said, returning her smile with one of his own.

She could have passed him without the necessity of another word, and she did, but not before she reached out and touched his arm lightly as it lay on the desk. Figure that one out, Mr. Wiggins, she thought as she left the succession house and saved her laughter for the kitchen.

Before she prepared for bed in the silent house, she sat down to write to Joel Steinman. It was a cautious letter. She had never written to a man before, even if it was to the employment agent who had gotten her this job, and she hesitated a long time, redipping her quill into the ink any number of times. She told about the glove and Ben Rich, and his Welsh shepherd boy, and the kindness of the Skerlongs, and her own determination to be a lady’s companion to a lady with twice her own backbone, and miles more character and courage. She described that first disastrous piano encounter, and the bliss of finally drinking tea with the widow. She was careful not to mention the bailiff. After all, she reasoned as the ink dried on the quill again, Joel Steinman knows something about propriety. I must not let him think I am interested in the bailiff. I will add casually that I am interested in the governess position, but not that I am overly anxious, she thought, and put pen to paper again. In the main, this is true. I think I am well enough off here, if only I will concentrate on my duties and not try to figure out what the bailiff is up to, if anything beyond a mild flirtation. Aunt Louisa would have it that all men are rogues and flirts.

Perhaps she is right, Susan decided as she pulled on her nightgown, tied her sleeping cap under her chin, danced about because the floor was cold, and hopped into bed. Papa cannot resist a gaming table; perhaps the bailiff cannot resist lily of the valley and trim ankles. I wonder what else he cannot resist, she considered as she closed her eyes.

She was asleep then and dreaming of marsh birds looking for their hats, and tea pouring endlessly from a pot as high as the roof into a tiny cup far below while Lady Bushnell hanged on her ankles and tried to scoot her off the piano stool.

“Susan! Wake up!”

It wasn’t Lady Bushnell but the bailiff, and he was sitting on her bed, nudging her sideways with his hip to gain a little space for himself as he shook her shoulders. She snapped her eyes open, somewhere still between dreaming and waking, and put her hands on his face. Suddenly, in that curious semi-sleep, it was the loveliest moment of her life. He was warm, and he was close. Her fingers went to his lips. “Hush!” she said as he kissed her fingers. It seemed to be the most automatic of gestures to the bailiff, because he kept shaking her, and the lovely moment ended. She took her hand away, her mind still fuddled with sleep and the sharpest desire she had ever felt.

“Susan, you’ve got to wake up! I saw a light on late in Lady Bushnell’s room, but her door is locked and she doesn’t answer. You have to help me!”