Chapter 5
Mabel completed the introductions, wondering if ever in all of history an adult brother and sister had needed such formalities.
“May I call you Richard?” Wealtha posed the question as her sibling bowed over her hand. “Forward of me to ask, I know, but you are a legal-ish sort of brother to me, and we must support that appearance in public, must we not?”
“I would be honored if you’d address me informally,” Swidhelm replied. “And I shall call you Wealtha.”
Wealtha turned the considerable beaming, blue-eyed power of her approval on his lordship. “I would adore for you to call me Wealtha. The novelty of having a brother is exceeded only by the joy of adding you to our small family.” Said with a modest downward glance at the carpet.
Prettily done.
For this occasion, Wealtha had chosen to wear her hair in a simple bun—“The best style for emphasizing a lady’s graceful neck, dearest, if she has a graceful neck, that is”—softened by loose blond curls and artfully wispy tendrils.
The sprigged muslin dress—azure muslin, gold fleur-de-lis sprigs—was complemented by tiny earbobs of blue john and a slender gold bracelet. Her slippers were the same hue as her earbobs, and her shawl was plain cream lamb’s wool in an intricate knitted cable pattern.
Mabel had suggested the dress, but Wealtha had fashioned the rest of the ensemble into a presentation that balanced demure femininity with understated elegance. Not too rural, not too sophisticated for a young woman who’d just attained her majority.
Mabel, as usual, felt a touch dowdy beside her nominal step-cousin, though Swidhelm in evening attire matched Wealtha nicely.
“Having a sister, aunt, and cousin is beyond novel,” Swidhelm said. “I am thunderstruck with my good fortune.”
His lordship tossed flowers as deftly as Wealtha could. Perhaps they were related, in truth.
“Would my lord like an aperitif before the meal?” Mabel asked. “Wealtha, a glass of wine for you, perhaps?”
“Amontillado, please, Mabel. A few drops to whet the appetite.”
They had one bottle of amontillado left, and that one had been displayed on the sideboard for years. “My lord, will that suit you as well?”
“None for me. I am called upon from time to time to sample vintages out of commercial necessity, and amontillado has lost its appeal for me.”
“What an interesting thing to know about you.” Wealtha slipped her arm through her brother’s. “I find most red wines too brusque, myself. Shall we enjoy the view from the back terrace?”
Swidhelm aimed a smile at Mabel. “Miss Fielding, are you in the mood to take in the evening air before our meal?”
The smile was polite, even friendly, but the look in his eyes was… Could Swidhelm be asking for Mabel’s support? Demanding it? Requesting a few minutes to have his sister’s company to himself?
“Evenings are so pleasant this time of year,” Mabel said. “I’ll have the footman organize our drinks and join you shortly.”
“Come along, Richard.” Wealtha towed him toward the French doors. “Mabel is right that Yorkshire evenings are marvelous in spring. The birds are amazing too. Our lapwings and curlews love the heather moors, you know.”
“One hears much about the grouse here in the north,” Swidhelm said, bowing Wealtha through the door.
She launched into her homily on the black grouse, a diatribe that lasted for five entire minutes when she was in good form. Plenty of time for Mabel to pour two glasses of decent sherry, put the sherry bottle back out of sight, and dust off the bottle of amontillado.
“Beg pardon, Miss Mabel.” Kepler occupied the doorway to the corridor. “Mrs. Fielding sends her regrets for supper. She says you young people need a chance to become acquainted without her hovering.”
Orla Fielding was quite possibly leaving Wealtha an uncluttered stage upon which to deliver her opening monologue.
“Is Step-mama well, Kepler?”
“She seemed as well as may be, miss. The viscount’s arrival has raised her spirits considerably, in the opinion of the maids.”
The three Fates. Etta Louise, Eloise Ann, and Clementina. They knew everything that happened in every household in the shire, and Clementina—the eldest—was said to have the Sight, which was how she sometimes knew of events even before they happened.
Or she was simply a more skillful gossip than the other two.
“I will convey Step-mama’s regrets to his lordship and Miss Wealtha. We’ll dine in a quarter hour or so.”
“Very good, miss.”
Kepler remained in the doorway.
“His lordship and Miss Wealtha are managing quite well, Kepler. He is all that is polite, she is charming, and that is how it should be.”
“Glad to hear it, miss.”
Mabel eschewed a tray and took the two sherries out onto the terrace. Wealtha was just concluding her ode to the black grouse.
“I don’t care for the sounds they make,” she said, “but those curving tail feathers are interesting.”
“I’ve heard those feathers referred to as rectrices,” Swidhelm replied. “Perhaps because they help control flight as a rector helps control a congregation. Etymology was not my strongest subject.”
“You attended university?” Wealtha asked, accepting her drink.
“Oxford, lest my ducal connections be shamed by my ignorance. Latin was very useful when I needed to learn Portuguese and Spanish.”
Wealtha peered at him over her glass. “You didn’t learn French?”
“French figured prior to university, mostly by virtue of French parlormaids and footmen, so I can manage in French if need be. What of you? I’m told you attended Miss Gundridge’s Select Academy, in something of a family tradition. Had you any favorite subjects?”
To that question, Wealtha usually supplied one of two answers.
Her first choice was deportment, because gentlemen did not interest themselves in the deportment of proper young ladies, and conversation was thus more easily steered back to the favorite topic of every male regardless of age—according to Wealtha—namely, himself.
If Wealtha charmed her escorts thoroughly enough, she soon knew what they were worth, what their prospects were, and whether they were on good terms with their elders.
Her second answer was reserved for company where she was less sure of her footing: I was mostly concerned with writing letters home, you know.
I made some wonderful friends and have fond memories of those younger years, as we all do, but academics were less interesting to me than how Mr. Fothergill was getting on with his rheumatism.
Wealtha positively avoided Fergus and any mention of his rheumatism.
She surprised Mabel, and possibly herself, with an original reply.
“I liked getting away from the Glen, liked meeting people who’d known more than one little Yorkshire village, but I was homesick, too, and frequently bored.
So many of the girls were bound to make a proper London come out, and I knew that wasn’t in store for me. ”
A deft change of topic, and a sidewise dig at Mabel, though one that now provoked only a slight wince.
“Believe me,” Swidhelm replied, “you were fortunate. Mayfair in spring is one sprawling madhouse, with everybody trying to out-entertain everybody else and vouchers for Almack’s taking on the significance of holy relics.”
“Mabel would know all about that,” Wealtha replied. “Now that I have a titled brother, perhaps I’ll have a chance to observe that sprawling madhouse firsthand?”
The viscount turned a pleasantly inquisitive expression on Mabel. “Miss Fielding, you’ve been to Town?”
The flicker of frustration on Wealtha’s features was brief but telling. She’d set her brother up to invite her to London, and he’d dodged the ambush, perhaps unwittingly.
Though more likely, he’d just exhibited the nimbleness of a Mayfair veteran.
“My Fielding relations hosted me for a few weeks one spring,” Mabel said. “I was certainly not presented at court, and I attended only lesser functions.”
“You danced at Almack’s,” Wealtha said, her tone balancing pride with a smidgen of envy. “You waltzed, Mabel Fielding, in grand Mayfair ballrooms.”
And came to dearly wish I had not. Which Wealtha knew even without having been apprised of the particulars.
“All a very long time ago,” Mabel said. “Before we go into dinner, I must convey Step-mama’s regrets. She has decreed that we young people must have an opportunity to become further acquainted without her on hand.”
“She is well?” Swidhelm asked.
“Apparently so.”
“Auntie does this,” Wealtha said, sipping her sherry. “She plays least in sight when it suits her, and we indulge her because one doesn’t want to pry. We must adhere to her wishes and become better acquainted.”
Over the best meal the kitchen had put forth in some time, Wealtha continued her polite interrogation, and for the most part, Swidhelm accommodated her.
His mother had worked as a chambermaid with little success, then taken a post as a housekeeper.
She’d posed as a new widow carrying her late spouse’s posthumous child, and thus Swidhelm had started life without the overt stigma of illegitimacy and with an informed appreciation for life belowstairs.
“And yet, you were sent to Oxford,” Wealtha mused, spreading fig jam over a slice of mild cheddar. “One doesn’t come in from milking the cows and flit off to university.”
“I was fortunate that the local vicar was something of a scholar, and from him, I gained enough of a foundation to survive at university. He was a gifted teacher, and I was lucky to be his student.”
Wealtha put the slice of cheddar on his lordship’s plate.
“You are also smart. One notices this about you. Smart, but not obnoxious with it. The steward will be relieved. He says the solicitors are stupid and obnoxious. I ought not to say that.” She smiled impishly.
“I blame the superb wines served with supper.”
The viscount helped himself to a handful of hazelnuts. “An excellent meal. My compliments to the kitchen, but after such a fine repast, I feel an urge for a short constitutional. The late sunsets afford us that luxury, and I propose to take advantage of it.”
“Off you go,” Wealtha said, fixing another slice of cheddar and jam.
“Enjoy a stroll about the park. I would have to change into a walking dress, and then you’d lose the light.
Take Mabel with you. She’s a great one for striding the metes and bounds.
She can show you where the good mushrooms are too. ”
On that ringing endorsement, Wealtha allowed her brother to assist her to rise. She crowned her sororal debut by kissing his lordship’s cheek and swanning into the corridor, cheese in hand. She professed to be on her way to the library to find some restful poetry with which to end her day.
“Will you eat that?” Mabel asked, gaze on the cheddar topped with fig jam on his lordship’s plate.
Swidhelm resumed his seat and held out his plate to her. “All yours. I truly do intend to enjoy the evening air. Might I coax you into joining me?”
Mabel took a bite of smooth, tangy cheese and sweet, grainy preserves. “The sun will not set for at least two hours. I usually ramble around after supper at this time of year. The garden makes for pleasant evening work, and I do know where all the safe mushrooms tend to spring up.”
Swidhelm crunched another hazelnut into oblivion. “Let’s pay a call on the stable. I’d like to make introductions there.”
Mabel finished the last bite of cheese and jam. “The staff might well be at supper, but they will like knowing that you came by.” She rose, surprised to find Swidhelm standing at the same time as if he would have held her chair.
“The courtesy is appreciated, but in my case unnecessary,” she said. “If the ladies of the Glen had to wait for passing gentlemen to hold our chairs, we’d be chairbound for all eternity.”
Swidhelm gestured to the door. “I will take leave to observe such courtesies nonetheless. You are ladies, and I am a gentleman by title and aspiration, if not by birth.”
Mabel preceded him through the door. “You were patient with Wealtha. Her conversational skills were a bit interrogatory this evening. To be expected, I suppose.”
“And by indulging her curiosity,” Swidhelm said, “I justify turnabout at a later date. We need suitable horseflesh.”
Mabel led the way out onto the back terrace. The change of subject had been abrupt, but Mabel honestly did not want to spend the lovely hours of the gloaming on a discussion of Wealtha’s table talk.
The meal had gone as well as it could have. Leave it at that. “We at the Glen need suitable horseflesh?”
“We, meaning thee and me, Miss Fielding. If we’re to hack out tomorrow morning, we must be properly mounted.
I tended to that errand while I was in the village.
I’d like you to meet our new mare, whom the hostler deemed a mannerly creature.
I had trouble understanding him, but he seemed an honest sort.
We have two weeks to decide whether to buy her or send her back. ”
“You dealt with MacNulty, then.” Mabel descended the steps into the garden. “He came down from Aberdeen as a lad, and he’s hard for even local folk to understand, especially the youth. The elders make out his speech more easily.”
“We managed, albeit with some awkwardness. If you don’t care for the mare, we can send her back.
I’ll nip into York and find a horse market in the near future.
I spent some time helping out in the stable, once I acquired some height.
Hard work was intended to settle my humors, but it, in fact, made a better student of me. ”
“Because?”
“Because I was less likely to lose half my toes in a stable accident if I knew how to write, cipher, and wrangle some Latin. Horses are wonderful, and I enjoyed the work, but I was all my mother had in terms of security in old age, and I needed to be able to support her.”
And he’d come to that realization while still a boy. “I expected to look after my papa in his dotage. Plans change.”
He offered his arm. “That, they do.”
Mabel had been marching about the Glen for years. She knew every footpath, shortcut, and game trail, as well as where to cross the streams without getting her boots wet.
From the viscount, she accepted the proffered courtesy nonetheless, unnecessary though it was.