Marjorie Farrell (15 page)

When she had caught her breath, he turned her around and pointed down the dale. The view was spectacular. Emerald green fields sloped down into and then up the other side of the valley, crisscrossed by stone walls which ran up and down and across, like stitching on a quilt. Every third or fourth wall was marked by a barn, and here and there a tree grew as though to mark the corners of the fields.

“Look over there to the left and you will see Bainbridge,” the flavor, she kept drinking, though her eyes streamed with tears from her coughing fit.

Gareth must know the old man well, she decided, for he seemed to glean information from Gabriel’s grunts and “Oh, ayes” and the few phrases and sentences which were in such heavy Yorkshire that Arden could not understand a word.

As they talked, she watched Gabriel put down his empty mug and pick up what appeared to be a baby’s bottle and pull the small sheep out of its basket by the fire. It was only a lamb, she realized, and the shepherd’s big hands were gentle as he pulled it over next to him and fed it from the bottle.

“An orphan, eh, Gabriel?” said Gareth.

The old man shook his head. “T’little one’s mother would not let him coom to her. She had twins, you know, missus,” he added, inclining his head in Arden’s direction. She was surprised to have him even acknowledge her presence. She nodded as though she did know what he meant and found herself almost in tears at the thought of the mother abandoning her lamb. Who would ever imagine that the old man would even care?

After she had finished her tea and the men finished their conversation, they all went outside.

“Do you think this weather will hold for a day or two, Mr. Crabtree?” asked Arden, feeling it her duty as “lady of the manor” to address him, although she was standing as far away from him as she could.

“It’ll be all reel for a day or two, missus. It’s when tha can’t see t’moor tha’ll have rain—when t’mists start rolling about.”

Arden gave a polite smile, which was wiped off her face instantly when Gabriel turned to Gareth and without even lowering his voice, said, “I see tha’s got thaself a reet proud and useless lady for tha wife, Captain Richmond. She beant at all like tha mother. But mebbe it will work out all reet. She do look healthy enough.”

Gareth choked back a yelp of laughter and agreed that Arden was quite different from Lady Elizabeth, but that he was pleased with his choice nevertheless.

“Oh, aye, tha never knows what draws one to t’other,” admitted Gabriel, nodding sagely.

He stood outside as Arden and Gareth moved off and lifted his hand in farewell before he picked up his staff from where it leaned against the side of the house and headed up the fell.

* * * *

Arden was furious. “How dare that disgustingly filthy old man insult me like that? How dare you let him?” she demanded.

“Dalesmen are just outspoken and not very intimidated by the Quality,” replied Gareth. “I doubt that he saw it as an insult, only as a comparison.”

“And how could he know at first meeting what I was like?”

“I suspect that the way you wrinkled your nose at him, and the way you held up your skirt when you walked into his home, Aiden. He may be rough and outspoken, but he is sensitive to the atmosphere around him. We were guests in his home and you looked like it was the last place you wanted to enter.”

“Well, it was. It was dark and rank and not fit for a human being. I’m surprised that your great lady mother would allow her head shepherd to be housed like that.”

“Gabriel lives just as he wants to, Arden,” responded Gareth coolly, refusing to be drawn by her criticism of his mother.

They continued down the hill in silence, Gareth once again wondering about the wisdom of his hasty marriage and Arden again furious with her father for condemning her to such a wasteland. The view which had moved her earlier was forgotten. All she could see was the bleakness, not the beauty of the dales.

Over the next six weeks, Arden began to wonder if wearing another woman’s shoes for a few days had made her absorb some of that woman’s energy. She was beginning to understand just why Peggy Metcalfe might have wanted to escape, even with a soldier. Although I want to escape from a soldier.

Gareth was busy every morning with the accounts, and then every afternoon he would be tramping the fells, visiting the shepherds. He never again invited her to go along, telling her at supper the evening of the day they had visited Gabriel that he recognized her preference for riding over walking, and encouraged her to take Guinevere out whenever she wanted to. All he asked was that she have the stable lad accompany her until she knew the countryside better.

Being left to herself should have suited her, given her feelings about the marriage, but she found herself missing their arguments. Somehow, when they were being most critical of each other, she felt most alive.

At night, after supper and a short time in the parlor, Gareth would take himself off to bed. He was polite, kind, attentive to her needs, never pushed himself on her, which was the best she could expect from this marriage, wasn’t it? So why did she have dreams of running away with a soldier who had Gareth’s face?

Aunt Ellen had run Stalbridge so well that it was nothing new to have no responsibilities. But Stalbridge was home, with Celia and familiar faces, a village where she was deferred to as befit the earl’s daughter. Arden had not realized how much she would miss her cousin and only friend.

Celia’s letters were the high points of the summer. She and Heronwood had set a wedding date for the fall. Ellen and she had been invited to the family estate in Suffolk, and Celia’s letters were full of anticipation. She was looking forward to meeting Richard’s family, as well as making day trips into Norwich. Celia had already met Heronwood’s younger sister in town, and it seemed that she had become a particular friend. For the first time in her life, Arden felt left out. It had always been her choice to stand off from others. She had preferred her stance of the outside observer and commentator. And she had always had Celia for an intimate. But now she had been thrust far away from the center of things and the loving relationships she had known had changed.

She wrote nothing of her growing loneliness to Celia, of course. She filled her letters with witty comments on Yorkshire scenes, and once wrote a letter in the local dialect, which she had finally conquered. Celia replied that she was keeping the letter on file until someone arrived who could translate it!

Arden and Gareth would receive an invitation to the wedding, so she would see her aunt and cousin in the fall. But October felt a long way away. And in the meantime, to ward off boredom, she found herself, to her own horrified amusement, taking up embroidery again, an activity she had always loathed.

* * * *

At times, Gareth felt guilty for his neglect. But how could it be considered neglect, after all, not to impose oneself on a wife who clearly did not need or desire his companionship? He was genuinely busy, for he was doing the work of two. His mother had run the farm and Kate had kept the books. He had to do both, and as August approached, when all the lambs would be driven down to market, he had no time to devote to Arden, even if she had wanted him.

He went to bed early not just because of exhaustion, but because he couldn’t stand the false intimacy. Sitting by the fire with his book, he would look up and see Arden working on her needlework. She always made polite inquiries about his day and he about hers. And then they sat there, while he found himself wanting to unbraid her hair, and let it down around her shoulders and pull her down on the rug and… That was when he excused himself and went upstairs, when his fantasies led him to create scenes that would obviously never become realities: her head against his shoulder as they watched the fire, his lips on hers, his hands on her breasts. He had sworn she would have to come begging to him before he would touch her and he meant it. But as time went on, and the polite distance between them remained, he despaired of Arden ever taking any initiative. He decided he must have imagined the sparks between them. And even the loneliness of her situation did not seem painful enough for her to seek him out. She clearly preferred to be alone than with him.

One morning early in August, Arden came down to breakfast and found the table not set. When she went into the kitchen to find Janie, she saw there was no fire in the stove. Lucy, the young girl who served them as a maid, was sitting at the table with a piece of bread and a cup of ale.

“Good morning, my lady,” she said, jumping out of her chair.

“Sit down, Lucy,” said Arden. “Where is Janie this morning?”

“I don’t know, ma’am. She usually has the fire going and t’breakfast ready by now.”

“Perhaps you could light the stove this morning?” requested Arden, looking around the kitchen helplessly. If Janie wasn’t coming, then whatever would they have for breakfast? She usually brought fresh eggs from her own hens with her, although the milk, thank God, came from their own cows and was sitting just inside the door where the stable lad had left it. Gareth was used to a big breakfast to start his day’s work.

“Can you cook, Lucy?”

“A little, ma’am, but wouldn’t ye rather have me start t’fires throughout the house?”

“Yes, yes, I suppose that’s just as important. Where
is
Janie,” she muttered, as she heard Gareth’s boots on the stairs.

The kitchen door opened a minute later and her husband stood there and asked the same question.

“We don’t know. Perhaps she’s sick,” answered Arden. “At any rate, it seems that we’ll only have bread and milk this morning.”

“I need more than bread and milk,” grumbled Gareth. “You can fill in for Janie, my lady wife.”

“Me? I do not cook,” protested Arden.

“Do not or cannot?”

“Both.”

Lucy looked from one face to the other and decided it was time to go about her duties.

Gareth was never at his best in the morning until he had had his breakfast and at least two cups of tea. All the frustrations of the summer came to a head and he barked out orders as if he was dressing down one of his sergeants.

“It is time you learned to be useful,” he said. “You’ve had nothing to do around here, for Janie runs the house and I ran the farm, and between us we’ve kept you right well coddled.”

“Coddled! Living in the middle of nowhere with no servant to speak of, no friends…”

“Friends? Tell me, Arden, what friends have you ever had?”

“Celia is my close friend,” she began.

“And your only one.” Gareth had not meant to get into a discussion of Arden’s shortcomings, and he stamped over to the shelves and pulled down a copper canister. “Here are the porridge oats. At least there is fresh milk. Now get to work.”

Arden was so furious she was speechless. No one, no one, had ever spoken to her like that before. How dare he accuse her of being useless and friendless? Why the Lieutenants Davies and Whittier were her friends, she thought wildly, and I have…I have…done nothing useful at all, lass, she admitted with a sudden deflation of her anger. He is right, the bastard. Well, by God, I’ll show him I can cook a breakfast as well as anyone.

She filled the big black iron saucepan halfway with water and set it to boil. She opened the canister and looked at the oats.

She had no idea how much she should add. But Janie’s porridge was always thick, so she decided she needed at least as much as the water and perhaps a little more for safety’s sake. As the water boiled, she started pouring and stirring with an old wooden spoon.

She was delighted to see it begin to thicken almost immediately. But though it was thickening quickly, it wasn’t softening at the same rate. She stirred faster and the porridge got thicker, but the oats were still raw. The cereal began to stick to the bottom of the pan, and as she stirred, she began to bring up blackened grains. Forgetting that she had no mitt on, she grabbed the saucepan to get it off the fire and dropped it almost immediately as it burned her hand. It just missed her foot as it fell.

Gareth heard her yell and the thump of something heavy falling and rushed out to the kitchen to find his normally cool and controlled wife nursing her burned fingers and kicking the pot of porridge. He would have howled with laughter had he not been concerned about her hand.

“Here, let me see,” he said, in a voice that was brusque in order to avoid losing control.

Arden held out her hand like a child and then immediately pulled it back. “It is fine,” she said. “And none of the porridge spilled. Go back to the table and I’ll bring you your breakfast.”

The porridge was so damned thick that it couldn’t have spilled if it wanted to, thought Gareth a few minutes later as they sat down to two steaming bowls. And it is not even fully cooked, he realized as he chewed on the hard grains scattered through the cereal.

“Did you salt the water?” he asked mildly.

“No. I would never have even thought of using salt,” replied his wife.

“You only need a pinch, but it does add flavor. Pass me the sugar, please.”

Arden passed the sugar and Gareth announced that he had sent the stable lad down to the village to find out what had happened to Janie. A few minutes later, Jake appeared at the window and Gareth motioned him in.

“She’s gone and wrenched her foot, sir, and t’doctor says she must keep off it for a few days.”

Gareth groaned. “She is all right, though?”

“Oh, aye,” smiled Jake. “And she told me she’ll send someone up tomorrow to take her place.”

“Thank you, Jake. And Jake…”

“Yes, sir?”

“You will find some, ah, porridge out in the kitchen. Why don’t you take it out to the stables with you and see if any of the horses will eat it?”

“Aye, sir.”

“So you think my porridge is only fit for animals?” said Arden indignantly.

“No, no,” soothed Gareth. “It is just that I have had enough and I don’t want it to go to waste.”

“Who will cook dinner and supper today?” asked Arden.