Love Bade Me Welcome (8 page)

“I’ll bear that in mind.”

“Yes, but you won’t do it. You’ll see all the other women with tiny waists, and you’ll lace yourself into an hourglass to compete with them. They all do it. It ought to be abolished, outlawed. When I was young, the empress gown was the vogue. It was excellent for pregnant women. They should bring it back into fashion. Actually, I wasn’t all that young, but I wore them,” she clarified, after a frowning pause.

“They are comfortable. I have a nightdress in that style.”

“Did you know Jarvis has a woman?” was her next speech.

“No, I didn’t know it.”

“He’s sixty-seven years old, and he has a mistress thirty-nine. He’ll never marry her. She wouldn’t suit us here at Wyngate. She is nothing more than a convenience. I expect Homer has got one too, if the truth were known.”

“Possibly,” I said, looking away, but listening for all that.

“He trots over to his old place twice a week, to Farnley Mote. That seems excessive to
me.
And he comes home very late, if he doesn’t stay the whole night. I mean to ask him, next time I see him alone.”

“I don’t suppose he’ll tell you.”

“I always know when Homer is lying. He is a perfectly wretched liar. He daren’t look me in the eye when he lies. Bulow, now,
he
is a trained liar.
He
can fool me. Ah, here he is now, the rascal. Bulow, Bulow I say! Come here and sit beside me. We were just talking about you.”

“I felt my ears burning, and wondered why,” he said, coming forward with long, smooth strides. He spoke to Millie, but he looked at me, wearing an expression of tolerant amusement. I knew without quite knowing how I knew that he thought I had been quizzing her about him, and I also knew that this pleased him. He sat beside Millie on a loveseat, and threw her into maidenish giggles by putting an arm around her shoulders.

“How is my girl?” he teased.

“I’m old enough to be treated with respect, Master Jackdaw,” she scolded, but had difficulty restraining her pleasure.

“And pretty enough to be teased. You don’t fool me with tales of having been Noah’s flirt. The men still have an eye for you, you hoyden.”

“You’re wicked! Didn’t I tell you he was a wicked flirt, Davinia?” she asked, turning to me.

“So that is what you were saying about me, and I not here to defend myself but forced to sit listening while Jarvis refought the Crimean War. It was only the excellent wine that made it tolerable. And of course the anticipation of this pleasant chat we are having now,” he added, passing a smile along to each of us.

Homer and Jarvis remained on the other side of the room. I felt it more polite that we all sit together, and suggested it.

“We can listen to those two grouch about money anytime,” Millie objected.

“Lady Blythe doesn’t care for our frivolity, Millie,” Cousin Bulow told her. “Shall we retire to your lair and discuss horticulture instead? I brought you the seeds you requested from London. Also a slim volume, which I have in my inside pocket. There aren’t many ladies in the country who could cause me to destroy the set of my jackets, you know.”

“Maybe Davinia would like to come with us,” she suggested, but soon thought better of the idea. “No, she is coming to me tomorrow. I have to spread out my treats. Nobody ever visits me. I might as well be dead. I soon will be.”

“You’ll live forever, you witch,” Bulow said, laughing, and going along with her.

As I watched them leave, his arm still around her, I felt more kindly disposed towards him. His interests were not in stride with my own, but at heart he was a well-intentioned man. I softened to him, and soon found even his interests acceptable. There was nothing wrong in liking culture, nor with a handsome young bachelor being keen on fashion. He would settle down to more serious matters when he married.

“How did you hit it off with Cousin Bulow?” Jarvis asked, regarding me from beneath his white brows. He looked like a gnome, with the lamp reflecting from his bald dome.

“He is lively, an entertaining guest,” I answered carefully.

“He is a great favorite with the ladies. I like him too. I used to be one of his mama’s beaux, so I keep a fatherly eye on him to see he doesn’t run astray.”

Homer sat listening, but contributing nothing. He looked not so much disapproving as disinterested in the cousin. As I was with them, they did not discuss farming, but London. I was a little familiar with it after my visit there with Norman. Jarvis knew it intimately, and its famous inhabitants, too. Knowing my fondness for the Queen, he regaled me with some intimate glimpses into her life.

When Bulow returned, he had to leave very soon. It was not late, but he mentioned visiting the Croffts. “You must all come over to the Barrows for dinner soon,” he added. “Mama looks forward to meeting Davinia. She goes about very little,” he explained, just when I was wondering why she had not come with him this evening. “The rheumatism plagues her. She sends her kindest regards.”

“I look forward to meeting her,” I answered.

“We’ll drop in one of these days,” Homer told him, “when time and weather permit.”

“I shan’t wait that long, Homer. Time never permits
you
to pay a purely social call. If I don’t see you before Sunday, I shall be back myself,” he warned, with a warm smile to me.

“Why don’t you bring Miss Crofft along?” Homer asked. There was some undercurrent of malice in his voice, or perhaps mischief is all I mean.

“I’ll tell her you are eager for her company, Homer,” Bulow replied, with a playful lift of his brow. “She won’t be sorry to hear it, if I know anything. And it will give
me
an opportunity to get Davinia to myself too. You have the advantage of me, keeping her under your roof. Good night, all.”

With an exaggerated sweep of a bow, he was gone. Jarvis shook his head and smiled. “You’re no match for him, Homer. His wits are greased lightning. And you, of course, are only thunder.”

“Sound and fury, signifying nothing,” Homer added.

“That was not said of thunder, but of life,” Jarvis objected.

“Pardon me, I haven’t much time to read the Bible these days,” Homer said, becoming irritable.

“Shakespeare, not the Bible,” Jarvis persisted, enjoying his discomfort. His smile invited me to join in the roasting.

“Shall we have a glass of wine?” Homer inserted rather quickly.

We finished it without further literary references. As soon as it was done, I left the men and went to bed. Thal had sent her latest novel along to my room. I read for half an hour, which was long enough to make my eyelids heavy.

I refused to ponder on the night’s party. It would only vex me to dwell on the hints dropped on all sides that I was interested in Cousin Bulow, that he was throwing his hanky at me, that Eglantine Crofft was interested in Homer, that intriguing hint that she would welcome his advances. I was not ready for such a surfeit of romantical tangles. Let them sort it out amongst themselves. I was a widow, and meant to stick to my weeds for many a long month yet.

When I awoke
the next morning, I felt decidedly unwell, as though something I had eaten the night before had disagreed with me. The shellfish cropped immediately to mind. It was unfortunate that the food I most liked should have this ill effect upon me, but it was not the first time lobster had bothered me. I hardly had the energy to get out of bed. I was in the limbo of being too sick to get up and not sick enough to remain abed without being bored. So after twenty minutes lingering I pulled myself up and got dressed.

The spectacle that greeted my eyes in the mirror was not likely to incite any of the local gentlemen to anything but disgust. I was pale, my eyes ringed with dark circles, my hair a black tangle, hanging unkempt. My black gown did little enough to enliven my looks either, but when I had made my toilette, I went down to breakfast. I was hungry, despite that lingering bit of nausea. Having stayed in bed longer than usual, I missed Homer at the table. Jarvis was still there, and though he had finished eating, he stayed behind to keep me company.

“Some boxes arrived for you,” he said. “The carter left them off half an hour ago. Perhaps it would be Norman’s books and writings? The boxes were very heavy.”

“Very likely. I’ll have a look right after breakfast, and turn the papers over to you for perusal at your convenience.”

“There is no great rush. I am polishing up an extract for publication in the
Antiquary’s Digest
at the moment, a bit of work I carried on two years ago during my summer vacation. The Mendip Hills are so convenient to us here in Somerset and so interesting that I often take a trip over on a fine morning and stay for a day. You might be interested to come with me one time, if Norman’s work has fired your interest in that direction.”

“I would enjoy it very much. Norman often spoke, and indeed wrote, of the Roman ruins in the Mendip Hills. It is where they mined lead and silver, is it not?”

“Mostly lead. Occasionally a pig will turn up, dated and all, to tell us precisely when the work was being executed.”

I knew a pig was not an animal in this case, but a cast block of metal, ready for shipping. “The lead was used to produce silver, I believe?”

“Precisely. They required plenty of that for their coins. Upon rare occasions of good fortune one might even come across a skeleton with its tools beside it, as I did ten years ago.”

“Norman also spoke of exploring the caves in the Mendip Hills. The Devil’s Punch Bowl, I recall, was the name of one of them.”

“There are hundreds of them. The place is a honeycomb. Norman, of course, was not really interested in Roman remains at that time. It was more in the nature of a day’s outing in the fresh air for him. He carried a gun for rabbit shooting, and not a notebook or knapsack. It is good to hear he eventually developed a serious interest.”

“Some of his notes indicate he was very much interested in what he saw. You will have a better opinion of him when you get time to read his notes.”

Jarvis looked skeptical, but I didn’t push the matter further. He would be well impressed when he read the work.

“I have an appointment in Millie’s laboratory this morning. I must go,” I said.

“It is kind of you to humor her. Don’t take her stories too seriously. I hope you may talk her out of this new notion of making herself up a pair of bloomers. She’ll make us the laughingstock of the neighborhood.”

“She doesn’t go out much. Who will see her but ourselves?”

“She does not go out, but that is not to say we don’t have company coming in. We are a sociable family. Entertaining is restricted at the moment, but when we are out of mourning, we are fairly sociable. I think you will settle in and be happy with us. At least I hope so. It does these tired old eyes any amount of good to have such a charming breakfast companion.”

He left, and I went to seek out Millie. Before I finally found her, I required the help of not less than three servants. The downstairs maid directed me abovestairs, where the upstairs maid led me to a staircase up to the third floor. I wandered for ten minutes before I came across a footman who was tightening up a loose door, and it was he who steered me down a dusky corridor to a room in the northwest tower. Millie, part child in her dotage, had a crude sign drawn by hand tacked to the closed door: “
GENIUS
AT
WORK
. DO
NOT
DISTURB
.”

I ignored its warning and tapped at the door. She came to greet me wearing a scientist’s white smock over her merino gown. “Come in, come in. I am just preparing some aloe vera for cook,” she said cheerfully. “She is bothered with an inflamed colon, poor thing. Nothing cures her but my decoction. Would you care to try some?”

“No, thank you!” I exclaimed, stepping into a scene from Mary Shelly’s
Frankenstein.
It was a laboratory fit for a mad scientist. The room was vast, with rough, discarded kitchen and dining tables set up around its edges. A variety of strange plants decorated the numerous window ledges. They were not ornamental, not bearing flowers or even attractive leaves.

“My indoor garden. It is doing poorly,” she said, shaking her head sadly. “I forget to water it, you see. There is no water up here, and the servants are too lazy to oblige me with buckets. Never mind that. You want to see my work. Here it is,” she said, throwing out her age-speckled little hand towards the tables.

Clear bottles were ranged along some tables. They held liquids of varying colors and states of clarity. They were green, blue, red, yellow. Some looked like ordinary water, some more like mud. Upon closer examination, some of them had leaves or berries floating in them. Another table had a series of gas burners set up, on which assorted small pans bubbled merrily.

“We’ll have tea,” she decided. “I have mint or ginger, or if you are feeling venturesome, I’ll give you a draught of my own special blend.”

“I’ve just had breakfast, Millie,” I told her quickly. She cast a sly smile on me, knowing she had frightened me by the offer.

“I have alcohol, if that’s what you’d prefer,” she tempted. “I put a few drops in the servants’ medications. I take a gulp myself, too, when I feel low.”

“What are all these...things you are preparing?” I asked, not knowing what word to use to describe her experiments.

“Cures, remedies, antidotes, restoratives, poisons,” she slid in quietly at the end of her list. “For the mice, dear, and the rats in the barns,” she explained, but there was no ignoring she enjoyed frightening me. “Bulow calls me a witch doctor, only funning of course. He wants me to decoct him an aphrodisiac. Do you know what an aphrodisiac is, Davinia?”

“A love potion,” I replied, not satisfying her to display any astonishment.

“How clever you are! I might have known Norman would not marry a peagoose. Do you want some of my aphrodisiac?”

“Not today, thanks.”

She laughed. “You won’t need it. You’ll never need it. Your sort is a walking aphrodisiac all by herself. There is nothing so fascinating to men as a pretty young widow. The more she makes long faces and says she ain’t interested, the harder they chase after her. She decks herself out in black to enhance her pallor. Her wide skirts pretend to be a barrier, but their swaying, swinging rhythm, lifting to show her pretty ankles, is a seduction in itself. Then they lace, to show off their little waists.
My
waist is eighteen inches, and I don’t lace,” she boasted. So it was, but her hips and bust were hardly more than twenty inches.