Chapter 16 #2
Fothergill balanced his walking stick over one shoulder, like a cudgel.
“For this, he has been judged contemptible, at least in Orla Fielding’s eyes, and the village has largely followed her lead.
I do not like her, my lord, and not even to a man of your consequence will I put the lie on my tongue that says otherwise. ”
Richard rose as well and extended a hand.
“I am a bastard, you know. A cuckoo in Blackstock’s nest. The title ought to have been allowed to revert to the crown, but that would have meant hardship for the ladies at the Glen.
Orla has all but told me to quit the shire and leave Blackstock’s estate in her capable hands with a suitable allowance for its maintenance and hers. ”
Fothergill shook manfully. “Be careful, my lord. And if you do leave, please see to Miss Fielding’s situation before you go. She’s the pick of that litter, make no mistake, and even my brother would tell you the same.”
“I doubt I’ll be leaving soon, and Miss Fielding’s situation will be secure if I do.
” Lady Swidhelm had a nice ring to it. “I like books, Fothergill, and so do you. You must sort through your hoard and find one you can bear to lend me. I will enjoy showing you the Glen’s library and inviting you to make free with its volumes.
Bring your brother or not, as it suits you.
We are neighbors, and neighbors should be neighborly. ”
Richard had learned that much in his Hampshire upbringing, and Mama would certainly agree.
Fothergill lowered his walking stick. “I have a volume on Yorkshire fairy tales, my lord, that you would never find in the largest library in Wales. I’ll bring it around Tuesday next. Miss Fielding might enjoy it as well.”
“I will look forward to sharing it with her.”
When Fothergill had jaunted on his way, whistling the melody to “Loch Lomond,” Richard turned his steps in the direction of the Glen.
What had he learned? That Abernathy Blackstock had not been universally admired after all.
At least one intelligent observer had found him insincere.
More significantly, Mama had not been the first to depart from Blackstock’s household.
A steady stream of domestics had preceded her—women and men—suggesting the problem wasn’t simply an inability to leave the pretty parlormaids in peace.
The man who’d shared these observations with Richard was all but ostracized from village social life, and Orla Fielding had had a hand in his half banishment.
Richard returned to the manor preoccupied with Fothergill’s disclosures and more than a little relieved when Mabel informed him that Orla had sent her regrets for dinner.
“The ledgers follow a pattern.” St. Didier took off his spectacles and rubbed his tired eyes.
“I can feel it, but I can’t see it. Like knowing the heir to a title is that fellow across the barnyard slopping the hogs—he’s the image of the last title holder in younger years—but having no clue how to establish his provenance. ”
Or like knowing that Swidhelm and Miss Fielding belonged together and having not an inkling regarding what was keeping them apart. Something did. Something all the picnics and tender glances in the world could not overcome.
A candle on the sideboard guttered, adding literal gloom to the figurative variety clouding St. Didier’s mood.
“I have the same sense,” Miss Fielding said. “We’re staring at a riddle, and the answer is staring back at us, but from the margins and footnotes, not from the middle of the page.”
“The answer,” Swidhelm said, “is in the blank spaces, in the lines where an explanation of the expenditure should be, and instead, Blackstock wrote nothing. If he had a fancy mistress in York or a gambling problem, he hid it well.”
This postprandial session with the old Blackstock accounts had been inspired by Wealtha’s decision to spend the end of her evening with fashion magazines.
St. Didier had been given to understand that Miss Fielding must be guided in detail when designing Wealtha’s new dresses, and only the latest styles would do.
Supper conversation had revolved around flounces, piping, feathers, and St. Didier knew not what else.
Swidhelm had acquitted himself admirably on the topics of ladies’ gloves—To embroider or not to embroider?
To choose a contrasting hue or something complementary?
—and Miss Fielding had added the occasional comment on spencers, shawls, and reticules.
St. Didier might have been at any particularly silly Mayfair at home. Why did everybody indulge Wealtha Blackstock as if she were the Princess Royal of the West Riding?
“Perhaps we are too tired to think clearly,” Miss Fielding said. “The long days and short nights take a toll.”
Swidhelm went to the sideboard and poured a round of brandies.
“They don’t usually take a toll so early in the year.
I’m convinced half of Mayfair retires to the country by the end of June simply to sleep for a month before grouse season begins.
” He handed a drink to Miss Fielding and another to St. Didier. “To an abundant hay crop.”
He resumed his seat, his expression preoccupied.
The toast was suitable. St. Didier would also have drunk to the course of true love. Miss Fielding didn’t seem the type to toy with a man’s affections, and yet, some serpent was slithering around in the garden of her matrimonial prospects.
“I ran into Dingle Fothergill at the mill pond this afternoon,” Swidhelm said. “Pleasant fellow.”
“Very well-read,” Miss Fielding added, sipping delicately. That she took spirits for other than medicinal purposes and didn’t make a great fuss about the occasion spoke in her favor. Yorkshire winters were brutal and toddies all but imperative.
Ladies did take spirits, in moderation. Men drove them to it. St. Didier was privy to that wisdom thanks to Her Grace of Chanderton, among others.
“Dingle is the closest thing we have to a local scholar,” Miss Fielding went on, “meaning no disrespect to the present or former vicar. Dingle knows the philosophers and the poets and can read French, German, Italian, Spanish, and Danish.”
Swidhelm shoved the ledger before him to the center of the reading table. “He also can read people and opined that Abernathy Blackstock was a fraud. The legendary charm was insincere, according to Dingle, and covering for some deeper lack in the true man.”
“Peculiar observation. What else did Fothergill have to say?” St. Didier asked. The brandy was excellent, imparting a pleasant warmth to the innards.
“He had no explanation for why Abernathy, the catch of the shire, would marry Marie after years of contented bachelorhood, unless Abernathy simply coveted Marie’s genuinely outgoing nature.”
“Covetousness and marriage strike me as a strange pairing,” Miss Fielding said. “I understand that at the highest strata of Society, dynastic considerations can affect who marries whom and on what terms, but the Glen is about as rural as England gets, short of absolute moorland.”
“Mama was sweet.” Swidhelm held his drink up to the firelight. “She was kind to a fault, sometimes too kind to me in particular. She had no dynastic anything. I have wondered if all her prevarication about the past wasn’t an attempt to spare me some sorrow or shame.”
“You were blameless,” Miss Fielding replied a bit sternly. “If there was sorrow or shame, Society attaches it to her.”
“Do you attach shame to her?” Swidhelm asked.
The question was so personal as to approach intimacy. St. Didier made a visual study of his brandy.
“Of course not. Your mother was in service, managing as best she could.”
“I meant, do you regard her leaving Blackstock as shameful?”
Miss Fielding closed the ledger before her.
“Marie did not leave only her husband, my lord.
She left her sole sibling, her aging papa, her settlements, her home, as well as the friends and neighbors who had known her for her whole life.
She left her pin money and most of her worldly goods.
She did so knowing Abernathy could call upon the law to drag her back here from London—from anywhere in the realm.
“I conclude that she had to leave,” Miss Fielding said quietly.
“Maybe she was carrying another man’s child, but then, why didn’t her paramour aid her?
Or was he unable to aid her? Maybe she had committed a serious crime—taken a life, stolen a fortune—but in a village like ours, those actions would be noted and gossiped about for years. ”
“Unless Orla decreed that no gossip would be permitted,” Swidhelm observed.
Miss Fielding shook her head. “Such a decree would ensure gossip flourished.”
The lady had the right of it. “Nothing boosts sales of a pamphlet,” St. Didier said, “as effectively as the government declaring the contents seditious.” Which the government was lately doing at a great rate.
Swidhelm finished his drink and took the glass to the sideboard.
“You imply that people are keeping quiet about Marie’s past not only out of consideration for Orla, but also because they truly do not want to discuss the matter.
What am I to make of that? Dingle said he was uneasy when the banns were cried between Blackstock and Marie, and he allowed as how that might have been a general sentiment. ”
“What else did he say?” St. Didier asked.
“That most of the village thought Orla had set her cap for Blackstock.”
Not good. If Marie had stolen a march on her younger sister…
“Orla is bitter,” Miss Fielding said slowly.
“More bitter than I’d imagined. I overheard her today—I was not eavesdropping, I assure you—and she was pouring such bile into Wealtha’s ears that even were Wealtha the most mature and amiable person in Yorkshire, she would have resented me for breathing. ”
Swidhelm returned to the table, taking the seat next to Miss Fielding. “What did Orla say?”
Not Auntie or my aunt. Orla. Swidhelm’s patience with his newfound relation was apparently wearing thin.