Cynthia Bailey Pratt (21 page)

“Oh, look. Someone is coming out. Perhaps it is the earl again.”

Indeed it was Lord Framstead, accompanied by Sir Carleton himself. Feeling suddenly quite conspicuous, Danita again tried to urge Lucy to enter the town house. But she seemed rooted to the stoop, following the masculine pair with her eyes. When Sir Carleton noticed her attention and lifted his hat. Miss Lucy sank into a profound curtsy. Rising, Danita saw her touch the beaky end of her profile in the ancient gesture that promised secrecy.

Even from across the street, Danita could tell Sir Carleton was pleased. How his amber eyes must be laughing! With a sudden girlish titter. Miss Lucy fairly danced over the threshold, drawing Danita after her. “I’m dreadfully hungry,” Miss Lucy confided. “Millicent would not stop to have tea at the inn; she was so anxious to see you again.”

“Why such haste?”

Lucy looked as she used to when smuggling novels into the ladies’ hotel, at once stealthy and excited. “Well, we liked you very much,” she said haltingly.

“Miss Lucy, how did you know I was living here?”

“I think we should join the others, dear. I’m sure Millicent is wondering what could be keeping me.”

It was during this meal that a thrill was added to Miss Lucy’s exciting afternoon, one that superseded even the salute of a youthful earl. The Duke of Lichoakes himself came to call. Bearing not one but three fragile nosegays, he entered hard on the heels of Figgs. Miss Lucy bit off the end of her cream bun and sat there, mouth half-opened and bun suspended in air until her sister gave her a hard nudge with a sharp elbow.

Danita did her best to ignore His Grace’s entrance, concentrating on her own guests. Mrs. Clively, however, could not have been more happy to see him. “I was speaking to your mother just the other day, Your Grace. What a charming woman! Such delicacy of mind!”

“Yes, Mother is as delicate as a porcelain cup,” he answered, but his lips pursed as though the cup were filled with lemon juice. He made no attempt to monopolize Danita, nor even to gain much of her attention. When he left after a single sip of tea and one biscuit, however, the Massingham sisters raised their eyebrows.

In their room, later that night, Lucy said, “Did you notice how his eyes seemed drawn to her of their own accord, no matter who else was speaking?”

“Very rude. I did not like that man.”

“But he’s a duke! Imagine Danita a duchess.”

“Imagine that you can be quiet, Lucy. I do not wish to whisper confidences all night after traveling all day.” Smoothing her counterpane over her body until she resembled an Egyptian mummy, Millicent composed her mind for sleep, happy that she had specified two beds in their shared chamber. She had no wish to wake up strangled.

Berenice was so taken with the Massingham sisters that nothing would content her but that Mr. Newland make the two ladies part of an expedition he was mounting for Stonehenge in the great Salisbury Plain, an expedition to track the demon picnic in its lair. Mr. Newland dutifully dispatched a note of invitation to the Misses Massingham at their inn.

On the other hand, his conscience would not permit him to dispense with personally visiting another lady. Coming down to fetch a skein of silk that Mrs. Clively, once more ensconced in her bed, had demanded, Danita was met by Figgs. “Excuse me, miss. Mr. Newland is here.”

“Tell Miss Clively.” An expurgated version of his proposal to Berenice, with neither imputations of dishonor nor Lord Framstead mentioned, had been offered in a midnight confabulation such as Miss Millicent despised.

“He’s asking for you, ma’am.” No muscles of his bland face communicated surprise, but inwardly he was calculating the change this request would make in the odds of the matrimonial stakes arranged downstairs.

“Mr. Newland?” Danita said, entering the morning room.

The tall blond gentleman rose to his feet and extended his hand in an impulsive gesture. “Miss Wingrove,” he said in impassioned tones, “can you ever forgive me?” The butler, closing the door behind Danita, revised his calculations anew.

“Forgive you what, Mr. Newland?” She shook his hand because she did not know what else to do with it.

“For my unjust suspicions of you. In extenuation I must plead my warm feelings for Miss Clively. Rather than let any harm befall her I would malign half the city.”

“Considering that half the city was maligning me, Mr. Newland, I hardly think you committed any great crime. Except, of course, leaving me alone in the middle of the Assembly Rooms unattended...I do forgive you for that. I assume you wanted to warn me to guard my behavior, as I had been labeled an abandoned woman.” Danita smiled as she thought of a joke. “Until then,” she said, daringly, “I had never been abandoned, except by you.”

“I assure you...” the future barrister said, beginning once more to apologize.

“Never mind.” It was perhaps too much to expect that a man of splendid face and form, with a glittering future before him, should have a sense of humor as well. She could not help but think how Sir Carleton would have topped her joke with one of his own. “What may I do for you, Mr. Newland? Besides forgive you.”

“Two or three friends and I plan to travel to Stonehenge two days from now for a combined picnic and archaeological search. Do you know of Stonehenge? It is a concentric circle of great stones, moved by early Englishmen to this vast plain, with no modern equipment, possibly they had not even horses. Some say it is of druidical origin.”

There was no stopping Mr. Newland to tell him that the reverend who had married Miss Ramsey, her former partner, had whiled away many an evening telling them all about the early dolmens and tolmens that were his passion. Their honeymoon had been mostly occupied by viewing these structures. “How interesting,” Danita said politely.

“Yes, it’s fascinating to men. Women find it impossible, it seems, to take any serious interest in such things. Why, one foolish girl I met tried to tell me the stone ring was an enormous observatory! As though early man ever thought of the stars except as lights in the sky. That is why we are making a picnic part of our day.”

“Because early man had no knowledge of astronomy?”

“No, Miss Wingrove.” Now he did smile. “To please the ladies. Do say you’ll come. Berenice will be so disappointed if you hold onto your ire toward me.”

“I have said I forgive you, Mr. Newland. And I will gladly come with you.”

Danita had not realized what a relief it would be to leave Bath behind for a day. Though the city itself appealed to her, with its wide streets and buildings of golden stone, for the past week or so she had felt hemmed in and stifled there. She had actually begun to envy those companions who had no other outlet than service. They at least were not pointed at, and if thought of, it was only as objects of pity. That was just slightly preferable, Danita found, to being eyed as the pinnacle of sin.

The gentlemen of the party rode alongside the two carriages, one an open landau carrying the ladies, the other a closed vehicle for the servants. Berenice wore white and dazzled all eyes in the sunshine. Lucy and she struck up one of those friendships that occurs when an older lady has kept the heart of a girl. They giggled and whispered as though they were of an age, until Lucy’s eyes began to close.

“Oh, dear,” she said, yawning and blinking. “The motion is very lulling.”

“Do try to stay awake, Lucy,” her sister said. Then, turning to Danita, Millicent added, “The moment the coach starts, Lucy nods off. Then she is up half the night and I have no help on our journeys. Why, this last time, during the first leg from Damingford, a gentleman sat and talked to me for three hours. Of course, Lucy slept through the entire incident, when I could have ignored him by talking to her.”

“Very vexing,” Danita said.

“What was he like?” Berenice wanted to know.

“Passable. But a man who talks to strange women in coaches is not to be trusted, my dear child.”

The trip to Salisbury Plain was of two hours’ duration, and Lucy did not manage to stay awake for the entire trip. They stopped to let her enter the servant’s coach, where she might nod in privacy. While Miss Massingham brought Danita up to date on the doings in Damingford, Berenice leaned over the side to chatter to Mr. Newland, keeping pace beside her. He was not a great horseman when compared with Lord Framstead, but he managed to accredit himself. It was Lord Framstead, not distracted so much by the ladies, who first saw their destination, rising up from the downlands of Salisbury Plain.

“That can’t be it,” Berenice cried. “It’s too small! You said it was enormous, Mr. Newland.”

The famous blocks of stone did look insignificant on the vastness of the plain, but as the party drew closer, they began to grow in a way that had something of the magical about it. From resembling a company of men, standing more or less on their own though some at drunken angles, they became a monument to a vanished world and time. Danita could almost hear the whispers of the thousands who had come before her, those who had worshipped at these stones, endowing them with a peculiar significance now lost, and those who had done no more than marvel. She herself felt almost ready to worship.

This feeling had no opportunity to develop, however. As soon as they were near the megaliths, Mr. Newland rode forward and began giving orders. “The ladies, over here! And the other carriage, yes, back there,” he said loudly, pointing every which way. “I say, Durham and Phelps, where did you put...? Oh, good man, you’ve got it.”

“It” came from the servants’ carriage. Mr. Newland’s friends were apparently interested in surveying the ancient stones and had brought the tripod-mounted telescope and rods that were necessary. Durham, a small man of not quite thirty, had a fine head of hair until he removed his hat to wipe away perspiration. Then one saw that the hair was nonexistent on top though bushily full on the sides. Mr. Phelps was not a lively companion, but what words he had dried up completely on arrival. He scribbled frequently in a small notebook with a pencil which he kept safely between his teeth when not in use.

“Ladies,” Mr. Newland said. “Permit me to show you about the stones. Now, I must have your promise to stay close. The footing is treacherous.” Danita did not find it so, but Mr. Newland kept his hand on Berenice’s elbow during his tour. “Here you can see the shaping of the stones quite clearly. No, these marks, Miss Massingham.”

“I am looking at that mallet, Mr. Newland. What is its use?”

“That,” said Lord Framstead, “is there in case you want a souvenir of your trip.”

“I beg your pardon?” Millicent said.

Mr. Newland took the heavy stone mallet from a peg driven into one of the larger stones. “Wouldn’t you like a chip to take home, Miss Clively?”

Berenice clapped her hands and looked rapturous. “Oh, I’d treasure it all my life!”

But Miss Millicent said, “If everyone bashes away at these stones, I wonder that they’re here at all.”

“Everyone does it,” Mr. Newland said. Standing back, and taking a heroic stance, he swung with all his might against the side of the stone. He grunted loudly on impact, though the only result was to call up a faint ringing that echoed strangely in their ears. Nothing else happened. Berenice’s eager smile persuaded him to try again. The stone still resisted his efforts. A mountain would have given up a flake of rock but not Stonehenge.

“Some friends of mine tried to take a relict three years ago,” Lord Framstead said in an undertone to Danita. “They said it took them all day to chip off even the minuscule bit they showed me. I think we should leave Mr. Newland to it.” He turned, and offered his arm to Miss Clively. “Let me show you the altar stone, ladies.”

Mr. Newland must have been stronger or more determined than Lord Framstead’s friends, for just when the servants were laying out lunch, he came up with a glowing red face and triumphantly laid a tiny chip of rock in Berenice’s hand. “How good of you,” she said, admiring it as though it were a diamond. “Where shall I keep it, so I don’t lose it?”

“I’ll put it in my watch-case. Miss Clively,” offered Lord Framstead, reaching for it.

“Yes, that’s a good idea. But I think Mr. Newland should keep it for me. After all, he managed to obtain it.”

Lucy whispered to her sister, “I should have liked a piece, too.”

Before the picnic was served, another party of visitors drew up on the far side of the monument. Mr. Newland groaned. “I’d rather hoped we should have the place to ourselves. These people come here without the slightest interest in the scientific side of things, merely to say they have been.” Soon a dull ringing told them that the newcomers were also trying to flake a souvenir from the stone.

Everyone ate a little too much of the potted lobster, Cornish hens, and apple tarts. The champagne helped to alleviate their resultant loginess, but the warmth of the sun drained them of their energy. Mr. Phelps and Mr. Durham moved very slowly as they continued their survey.

Watching them and listening to the soft snores of both the Miss Massinghams, for even Millicent had succumbed to the warmth of the day and the meal, Danita found her own head nodding. She shook awake only to feel herself sliding again into a half-observed, half-experienced dream.

Berenice went in awe of Miss Millicent. Yet, she could not restrain giggles as the redoubtable lady fought with sleep. Fearful of disgracing herself, Berenice asked Mr. Newland, “I didn’t hear all that you said before. Won’t you show me more of the ruins? It’s very interesting.”

Though Mr. Newland looked longingly at the ground, he could not refuse this opportunity to be alone with his enchanting lady. Perhaps she would choose this moment to accept him. “Of course, I will be more than pleased.”

Danita woke up at this. She need not have worried, however. Lord Framstead stood up and stretched. “That’s a good idea, Miss Clively. By all means, Newland, tell us more.”

The three of them walked off together. Miss Clively and Mr. Newland in the lead and Lord Framstead ambling mildly along behind. Danita smiled. Though she no longer felt like sleeping, she did not wish to disrupt the triangle. If she went with the others, Lord Framstead would have to attend her, leaving Berenice alone with Mr. Newland. Danita did not dislike the future barrister, but she did not think him the right husband for Berenice.