Chapter Eighteen #3
While Poppy and Pansy were off on their wedding trip, Mr. Clyde determined to make his long-considered attempt to woo Miss Millthorpe.
He began by coming by Miss Millthorpe’s cottage every day, leaving his cart at the end of the lane.
Those early visits were mysterious, as he would leave flowers on the doorstep and run away.
After the third instance of flowers on the doorstep, Miss Millthorpe decided to watch out the window.
She was rather shocked to see that it was Mr. Clyde making so bold.
After thinking it over though, she became a deal less shocked.
On his next foray with flowers, she met him at the door.
She stepped out and they had a conversation.
This habit went on for weeks. Miss Millthorpe could not see her way clear to invite him inside without something definite settled between them.
As even a dullard of a gentleman will eventually figure out why he’s being kept on the doorstep, Mr. Clyde eventually ginned up the courage to ask for the lady’s hand. That hand was given and much to the amazement of the viscount, his governess was married.
Miss Millthorpe, now Mrs. Clyde though nobody in Chemsworth could ever remember to use her married name, had no wish to retire. She quite enjoyed pinning two pupils to their chairs for a few hours of education each day.
She kept the cottage and Mr. Clyde moved in.
This allowed the gentleman to rent his set of apartments over the haberdasher and they put away a tidy sum on account of it.
When they both finally did retire, they were quite rich by governess and haberdasher standards.
They stayed on at the cottage, as the viscount could not picture where else Miss Millthorpe would live, and they took to traveling in high style.
As for those wedding trips that were had by the new Mrs. Lelander and the new Lady Burkhart, all trips, even lovely wedding trips, must eventually come to an end.
The real test of future happiness for Poppy and Pansy was upon them, as they would return to Westport House and Pepperdon Hall respectively.
It must be said that the first time Mrs. Lelander called on Lady Burkhart, the staff of Westport House had been awkward in the extreme.
As far as it could be gathered, they’d been told the lady would come and go freely, but they’d not quite believed it.
Some of them had never seen twins before and wondered if there were some sort of witchcraft in it.
How else to explain that a lady from Pepperdon Hall was to make herself free at Westport House?
Though the servants might be leery of Mrs. Lelander, she found no such hanging back from Enigma, Lord Burkhart’s ridiculous Great Dane. Enigma adored everybody and never gave a thought to the Roses War. Why would he, when this new visitor was found to be so charming as to slip him a biscuit?
The first time Lady Burkhart arrived at Pepperdon Hall she’d been chased across the drive by Longshanks, the estate’s dominant gander.
Out of necessity, Pansy had let herself into the house to escape the aggressive bird.
The butler had just left Mrs. Lelander in the drawing room, and now here she was in the great hall.
Then he noted the carriage and staggered as he realized that this was Lady Burkhart, the twin.
He had never imagined seeing a carriage from Westport House on their drive.
He’d been told, of course, but he’d not quite believed it.
The rest of the staff were equally wary about the whole thing.
If the servants in both houses had anything at all in common, it was their wondering exactly how long this peace treaty was to last.
It did last though. Relations were at times uncomfortable and stiff, but it did last. Poppy and Pansy were the driving force of it, as they were in and out of each other’s houses several times a week and notes flew back and forth when they were not together.
Servants at both houses took to looking closely to note which side of the lady’s face sported the beauty mark, as there was no telling if they spoke to the mistress or her sister.
Of the little hiccoughs that surfaced in the beginning, the symbolic rose bushes at the end of each drive that had been mandated by the peace treaty were not, initially, very well cared for.
It seemed to be a quiet rebellion of both houses that they would be ignored.
Poppy and Pansy began watering them and they bloomed nicely, announcing the treaty to all and sundry in the neighborhood.