Chapter 19 #2
“I’ll see you out,” St. Didier said, which prompted one of the younger women to lead the charge for the door. Mrs. Tait brought up the rear, her tea cup still in hand. St. Didier set the shepherdess on the sideboard and followed the ladies from the room.
Amabel closed the door after him. “Have done with this, Wealtha. You have proved nothing except that you still indulge your temper as you did when you were three years old.”
“I am overset! You heard Swidhelm. Let go of me, you brute!”
“You struck St. Didier,” Richard countered. “That is the behavior of a lunatic, Wealtha Blackstock. You have destroyed property that was not yours to destroy, which makes you a criminal. You have put on a spectacle for the neighbors, which makes you ridiculous. Cease your foolishness now.”
He used the tone of voice he’d applied to the rare case of a sullen clerk who habitually overindulged in beer for his nooning. Wealtha stopped squirming, and he let her go.
She raised her arm to swing at him, and Richard stopped her with another hand manacled around her wrist.
“Are you truly unhinged?” he asked quietly. “Or have these tantrums simply figured in your arsenal of schemes for ensuring you get everything you want, including the attention of the entire village from time to time?”
“She is not unhinged.” Amabel took down the sagging curtain.
“A display like this never happens when Orla is about. Wealtha times her explosions for when she has a captive audience, then she goes crying to Orla about how circumstances were beyond provoking and nobody understands what a great burden delicate nerves are.”
“This is a regular occurrence?” Richard asked, positioning himself before the door. If Wealtha wanted to elude judgment, she’d have to climb out the window onto the terrace.
“Regular enough that Wealtha has dissuaded three eligible bachelors from courting her.”
“What does an occasional bout of nerves matter?” Wealtha snapped. “Without the Glen among my settlements, nobody will court me ever again. I am a laughingstock, and Auntie has already told me he won’t be doing much more than adding a few pounds to my settlements.”
“He,” Richard said quietly, “will get himself appointed as your guardian and have you consigned to a particularly devout French nunnery if you don’t show some sense.”
“You can’t do that.”
Richard turned a mild gaze on a carpet strewn with wrecked tea cups, shattered saucers, and broken picture frames.
“Try me, sister mine. I am illegitimate, in trade, and a mushroom. My audacity is equaled only by the humbleness of my upbringing. Go crying to Orla if you must, but first you will put this parlor to rights.”
“Keppie can assist the—”
Richard shook his head. “You. Gather up the wreckage on your hands and knees, sweep the mess into the dustbin, clean up the spilled tea, honey, cakes, and cream. You do it and make a thorough job of it, or you will never again attend a local assembly.”
“That’s not fair!”
How could such a pretty woman exude such ugliness? “You are right, it’s not fair. For the way you’ve behaved, you should be confined to a garret on bread and water until at least Michaelmas. You are excused from supper, but we’ll expect you at breakfast with your best manners on display.”
Give her some time to sulk and pout—and marshal her temper.
“I won’t be hungry.”
Said every spoiled brat ever sent to her room.
“Your passing moods and petty dramas are a thing of the past, Wealtha. I had intended to double your settlements, but I cannot in good faith consign hard-earned coin to the furtherance of any matrimonial scheme involving you until you prove that you’ve given up the tactics of a harridan. ”
She actually looked a little harridan-ish, with her bun coming down on one side, a splash of tea on her sleeve, and that outraged light glittering in her blue eyes.
“Mabel, tell him I cannot possibly be expected… Tell him I must go to the assembly. My nerves are delicate, I am an orphan, and this parlor will take hours to put to rights. Hours!”
“His lordship is the head of this family, Wealtha, such as it is. Reconcile yourself to that reality. In future, please address me as Amabel. That is my name, and I will answer to no other from you.”
Amabel’s announcement had done what Richard’s threats and decrees could not. Wealtha shut her mouth and turned toward the hearth.
Amabel collected her shepherdess, touched Richard’s sleeve, and gestured toward the door.
He acceded to her judgment. Unless Wealtha ripped the stuffing from the cushions, she had wrought all the havoc possible on one small parlor. He bowed Amabel through the door and left Wealtha to clean up her messes for once.
“Is this a frequent occurrence?” he asked as they paused outside the door.
Amabel held up a hand.
Richard waited for another picture frame to shatter, but instead he heard snuffling that escalated into hoo-hoo-hoo weeping.
“She’ll be all right now,” Amabel said tiredly. “The rest of the household will walk on eggshells for a few weeks, sly glances will be exchanged in the churchyard, and Orla will be particularly solicitous toward Wealtha. Forbidding Wealtha the assembly was inspired.”
Perhaps not a frequent occurrence, then, but not out of character either. “She deserves no solicitude after a display like that.”
“I agree. I’ll send Clementina with a broom and dustpan and give her strict orders not to offer assistance. Clemmie is old enough to withstand Wealtha’s nonsense.”
Clementina was old enough to have firsthand memories of the Flood.
Amabel conveyed orders to Kepler, who’d apparently been lurking at the foot of the kitchen stairs in anticipation of a summons.
“Miss Wealtha sounded very upset, Miss Mabel, but Mr. St. Didier was present, and nobody rang, and one doesn’t… That is… One should never…”
“That was Wealtha’s last tantrum,” Richard said. “She’ll be lucky to earn a position teaching deportment to schoolgirls at Miss Gundridge’s Academy for Ill-Mannered Gossips if she doesn’t put aside her dramatics.”
“If you say so, my lord. I vow… Well, I hope you have the right of it.” Kepler shuffled off, muttering about modern times and hysterical tendencies.
“I’ll see you up to your room,” Richard said, though he also wanted to question St. Didier about the origins of Wealtha’s pique.
“You needn’t.”
“Yes, I do need. I want to hold you for a moment because I am overset—delicate nerves run in the family, as it were—and having you in my arms will settle my humors. For that, a closed door and privacy are still in order. Your habit of plain speaking is contagious.”
Amabel smiled at him. A weak effort and fleeting, but still a smile at him and for him.
“Come along, my lord. I trust Orla will take a tray for supper, and you and I can get an explanation out of St. Didier over the soup course. I will take a hand in fashioning Wealtha’s new dress tomorrow, and the domestic tranquility will restore itself.”
He offered his arm as they approached the main staircase. “I would rather Wealtha sewed her own dresses. She should be capable of that much, and she certainly has the time.”
“She is truly not very skilled with a needle.”
“From lack of practice, no doubt, but if the result is wearable, she’ll have something to be proud of for a change.”
Amabel stopped on the landing. “I hadn’t thought of that. I can assist her with—”
“Not tomorrow.” Richard was reinforcing a point to Wealtha, and retrenching on that point wasn’t in his plans.
“Tomorrow, you will escort me on an attics-to-pantries tour of this house. You’ve seen to it that I know my acres and my tenants and my shepherds, but I have yet to make the full acquaintance of the dwelling itself. ”
He hadn’t really planned on another house tour, but Amabel needed a means of resisting Wealtha’s inevitable importuning and Orla’s subtle barbs in aid of Wealtha’s cause.
“Very well,” Amabel said, resuming her progress up the steps. “Attics to pantries, including the priest holes and smugglers’ cellar.”
“I shall look forward to it.”
Richard did not particularly care about the house’s nooks and crannies. He would take an interest in them because the denizens of Shepherd’s Glen needed to accommodate the notion that Amabel was its mistress. She might appreciate some time to adjust to that idea herself.
When they reached her sitting room, Richard closed the door, held her for as long as he dared, then excused himself to change for supper.