Rivals of Fortune / The Impetuous Heiress (6 page)

Joanna met his eyes, and he held her gaze for a long minute. She felt almost as if he had physically grasped her wrist. She could not look away until he turned to gaze over the fields. “Ah,” he said, “here comes our energetic friend back to us.”

Jonathan pulled up before them and began to urge them to join him. This time, Joanna agreed before Sir Rollin could speak, and she spurred her horse at once. Soon, all three were flying over the meadow. Sir Rollin rode as well as Erland, and Joanna's seat was also good, so they kept even for some time. Then, Denby pulled ahead, his black clearly the strongest mount. But as he approached the hedge at the end of the field, Erland spurred his chestnut, seeming to want to catch Sir Rollin. The two men rode furiously side-by-side for a short period. Joanna could see that both were grinning as they leaned over their horses' necks. Fascinated, and slightly frightened by their intensity, she slowed her mare.

They came up to the hedge very fast, and at the same moment precisely, both horses lifted and flew over it. Their form was flawless, and Joanna drew an admiring breath before she too cleared the bushes. On the other side, the men waited for her. Erland looked exhilarated, but somehow a bit disappointed as well, and Sir Rollin showed his habitual sardonic amusement.

The rest of the ride passed without much conversation. Joanna pointed out various paths and shortcuts to the two gentlemen, and they were properly appreciative. But she spent most of the time deep in thought. Did Sir Rollin know of her engagement to Peter, she wondered? He had certainly sounded as if he did for a moment. As Joanna's thoughts went to Peter, a man who puzzled and intrigued her. Erland completely slipped from her mind as she thought of him.

Both men escorted Joanna home, but they did not come in. When she had dismounted and walked up the steps to the front door, she turned and watched them ride off together. Only when they had disappeared around the bend in the drive did she go in, and then she was so abstracted that she did not even notice her mother's sharp look as she ran up the stairs to change.

On Sunday, Joanna apologized to Selina, and all was well between the two girls again. Selina came home with the Rowntrees to spend the afternoon and to hear the story of Joanna's ride. She found it very exciting. “And so they both went over the hedge together?” she asked more than once. “How thrilling it must have been. Oh, Joanna, you are so lucky.”

“Why?”

“Well, simply to have
been
there.” Selina leaned back in the arbor where they were again sitting, and sighed. Her freckled face creased. “Oh, if such a thing would only happen to me!”

A silence fell while Selina contemplated this glorious prospect and Joanna looked out over the garden. Gradually, Selina came back to earth. She blinked, then said suddenly, “Oh, Joanna, I meant to tell you first thing. Have you heard what
she
has done now?”

“Who?”

“She. Peter's wife.”

“No, what?” asked Joanna with more interest.

Selina's eyes widened and she leaned forward. “She went to Reverend Williston and positively insisted on becoming head of the relief committee. She told him that she wanted to take her place as the ‘chief lady of the neighborhood' and do her part in helping others. Can you credit it? Chief indeed. I wonder what Mrs. Townsend and your mother will have to say to that?”

Though shocked, Joanna tried to be fair. “Well, it is true that Peter's house is the largest in the neighborhood, except the Abbey, of course, though that hardly counts now. And was not Peter's mother the head of the committee?”

“Oh, I daresay. She may well have the right, Joanna. But to go to the rector and say so! I think she is quite vulgar. What can one expect, after all, from the daughter of a merchant?”

Joanna began to giggle. “Highty-tighty,” she said.

Selina looked indignant, then she too laughed. “Well, I still think it was horrid. And of course, Reverend Williston is so persuadable that he agreed at once. Mrs. Williston is to give way.”

Joanna shook her head. “Where do you hear these things, Selina? I declare, you always know everything that happens.”

Selina flushed a little. “Our housekeeper…” she began.

“Is a friend of the Williston's housekeeper,” finished Joanna laughingly. “How lucky that Mrs. Jenkins is such a friendly soul.”

A little resentful, the other girl said, “You are very merry today, Joanna. What has become of your broken heart?”

Joanna sat up straight and frowned. “There is no need to fly into a pelter. I was only bamming you.” She considered for a moment, then added, “You know, I begin to wonder if my heart
is
broken.”

“Joanna!” gasped her friend.

“Well, I do. I cannot believe that it is, for I no longer feel that my life is over, or that I shall never be happy again, or any of those things. Sometimes I feel quite happy. And I often forget about Peter for hours at a time.”

Selina clasped her hands. “Can it be that you mistook your heart?”

“Perhaps. When I saw his wife, do you know, I felt only a kind of pity for Peter. I didn't like her, of course, but I didn't hate her either. Do you suppose my mother was right and I shall recover now that he is married?”

Selina frowned. “It seems so, so…”

Joanna nodded, and both girls contemplated the garden. They had not yet solved the problem when they were joined by Joanna's mother, who came out of the French doors from the morning room with a sheet of paper in her hand and walked toward them. She was also frowning.

“Joanna,” she said when she reached the arbor, “what is the Townsend boy's first name? It is ridiculous, but I cannot recall.”

“Jack,” answered Joanna.

“Of course. It is unaccountable how one can forget the most familiar things. I
could
not remember.” She turned as if to go back into the house.

“Is that your guest list for the party?” blurted Selina.

Mrs. Rowntree looked up. “Oh, hello, Selina,” she said. “I thought you had gone. Yes, I am just preparing the invitations. It is to be Tuesday this week.” She turned to Joanna. “Your father is starting to organize his digging at the Abbey, so we must have the thing soon if we are to have it at all. He will be too engrossed within a very short time, I imagine, to tolerate any interruption.”

“Oh, it is so exciting,” exclaimed Selina. “I hope my mother will let me come.”

Mrs. Rowntree smiled. “I do not see why she should not. It will not be a formal evening. A little dancing, perhaps, among childhood acquaintances.”

“Oh, Mrs. Rowntree, you will tell her so, won't you?” said the girl. “If you ask her, she is bound to approve.”

“I shall tell her what I plan,” laughed the woman, “and she will decide for herself.”

“If only I may come,” repeated Selina. “Dancing!”

At that moment, Mr. Rowntree's voice was heard calling to his wife, and she went back toward the house. Selina also rose. “I must go,” she said regretfully. “I promised to be home in time for tea.”

“I shall walk with you part of the way,” said Joanna.

The two girls set out accordingly, after bonnets and shawls had been found and donned. They strolled across the fields, chatting lazily. When they were about halfway to the Grants', Joanna stopped and said good-bye. She had turned to start home again, when someone called her name and she saw Constance Williston approaching from the other side. “Hello,” called Constance. “Are you walking home? I am on my way to Mrs. Rouse's again.”

The two girls waited until she came up with them. Selina seemed both surprised and a little annoyed.

“How lucky,” continued Constance when she reached them. “I was just thinking what a dull walk I had ahead. Or are you going the other way?”

“No, I am going home,” said Joanna. “I was just walking part way with Selina.”

“Splendid.”

There was a pause. “Well, good-bye again, Selina,” added Joanna. “I shall see you soon.”

“You might come home to tea with me,” said Selina suddenly. “I am sure Mother would be glad to see you.”

“I cannot,” replied Joanna, surprised. “I am expected at home.”

“We could send a note round.”

Puzzled by her friend's insistence, Joanna shook her head. “I cannot today.”

“Oh, very well,” snapped Selina, and she turned and flounced away.

The other two stared after her. Constance was silent, but Joanna said, “What can be the matter with her?”

They walked for a time in silence, then Constance ventured that it was a lovely day, and they agreed that the spell of perfect weather could not last. These commonplace remarks eased the atmosphere, and soon they were chatting easily. Joanna asked Constance about her school and was told what it was like, and in her turn, Constance inquired about some of the young people in the neighborhood. She had known them as a child, of course, but Joanna had seen them grow up through the past four years, so she had much to tell. To Joanna's surprise, she found that Constance had a lively sense of the ridiculous.

“Do you remember,” asked Constance, “when your brother Gerald and Gregory Townsend took one of the Townsends' farm horses and tried to make it jump the Abbey wall? I never laughed so much in my life. The horse was so large and stolid and wholly uninterested in anything but the grass by the roadside, yet Gregory and Gerald kept mounting up and urging it to try the wall.” Her laughter began to overcome her.

Joanna smiled. “I had forgotten. How silly they were. Anyone might have known that that horse would never jump.”

“Yes,” gasped Constance, “but they were forbidden to take out the hunters because they had lamed Falcon on another wall. I shall never forget their solemn discussion about whether their ‘word' included the farm horses also. They had promised not to go riding for two weeks, remember?”

Joanna shook her head. “What a memory you have. I had forgotten it all. But now I recall that the old horse finally just walked back to her stable, after she had eaten all the grass she wanted.”

Constance nodded with brimming eyes, and the two girls dissolved in laughter.

When they had recovered their breath, Constance said, “Gerald is still at Oxford, I believe?”

“Yes, he is trying for a fellowship, and Gregory has gone into the army. How long ago it all seems.”

“He is, ah, studying classics?”

“What? Oh, Gerald? Yes, classics. Can you imagine how dull it must be?”

Constance looked down. “It is fortunate, though, that he is so close. You can visit him.”

“I?” said Joanna, amused, “He would not be overglad to see me at his chambers, I daresay. He thinks me quite silly.”

Constance flushed a little. “I meant that he could visit his family now and then, and, and get away from his studies.”

“As if he would wish to. But yes, he does come to see Papa and join in his Philosophical Society. They go on for hours about the most ridiculous things.”

Constance made no reply, and soon after, they reached the place where she was to turn off the path. The two girls said good-bye, Joanna thinking to herself that she liked Constance much more than she would have expected. She was invited to the rectory for tea the following week and accepted happily, glad to further her acquaintance with this pleasant girl.

When Joanna reached her own house and went into the hall, she nearly collided with Jonathan Erland, who was just coming out of the study. “Oh, hello,” she said, startled.

He bowed slightly. “Good day. I have been with your father, discussing his plans for my grounds. They are extensive. I fear you will find me under foot here often in the next few weeks.”

“Ah, well,” was the only reply Joanna could think of. “Will you come upstairs?” she added. “My mother is probably in the drawing room.”

“Thank you,” replied Erland. “For a moment, perhaps.”

They walked up the stairs, but Mrs. Rowntree was not in the empty drawing room. Joanna felt extremely awkward. She took off her bonnet, but could not decide where to put it. She looked about nervously and at last set it on a table by the door. Hesitating again, she finally went to the sofa and sat down. Why had she asked the man to come up, she wondered?

Erland joined her. “Your father is very eager to begin his scheme,” he told her. “He wants to go over the entire ruin, clear it out, and catalogue the contents of each section.”

“Why?” asked Joanna before she thought. She flushed a little.

But he smiled. “Perhaps the untidiness offends his scientific sensibilities,” he suggested.

Joanna looked at him dubiously, then giggled, shaking her head.

“No, you are right. He wishes to see what has been left there, and perhaps find out something about the lives of the monks. It was monks, by the by; one of the Oxford gentlemen has ascertained that. Indeed, this whole scheme owes much to his enthusiasm. Do you know him? Templeton, the name was.”

Joanna shook her head again.

“Ah, just as well perhaps.” His eyes twinkled as he smiled at her.

“Why?” asked Joanna again, returning his smile with real amusement.

“You are always eager to know why, are you not? I think you are more your father's daughter than you know. Well, young Templeton is awfully wrapped up in his studies. He is writing a book on English life in the time of Elizabeth I, and as far as I can tell, thinks of nothing else. He would not pay proper attention to a lovely young girl if he were forced upon one. I'm certain he would prose on for hours about Spanish diplomacy and the economic purposes of royal progresses.”

Joanna had blushed a little at the compliment, but now she laughed aloud. “And what were they?”

“What were what?”

“The—the economic purposes.”

Erland shrugged comically. “I haven't the faintest notion. I must confess I deserted him when he began on that. You must ask your brother Gerald; he listens to Templeton, I believe.”

Joanna thought this very likely. “I can't bear students,” she said.

He laughed. “Indeed? Why not?”

“They are so young and silly. None of them has the least polish or address. And though that is only what one may expect from gentlemen who have never been to London, I suppose, still it is so uninteresting.” Feeling very grown-up, Joanna tossed her head.

Erland's smile had faded a little. “You think a sojourn in London is vital then?”

“Oh, yes. No one can be truly elegant and assured without.”

“And that is important?”

His tone was so odd that Joanna stared at him. “Of course.” She suddenly remembered that Mr. Erland had never been to London. “Now that you are back in England,” she added kindly, “you will have the opportunity to see what I mean.”

“Undoubtedly.” He smiled ruefully. “Though a trip to town is very expensive, I believe.”

Joanna leaned forward. “But indispensable.”

“Indeed.”

There was a pause. Joanna, a little abashed by her own vehemence, sat back, wondering what to say next. Erland appeared deep in thought. Some new idea seemed have occurred to him. But at last, he looked up. “Talking of fashion, I wanted to ask your advice on something, Miss Joanna.”

Joanna raised her eyebrows, but before he could go on, the drawing-room door opened and Mr. Rowntree hurried in.

“Erland, thank heaven!” he exclaimed. “I thought you had gone, but one of the maids said you had come upstairs. Something has just struck me.”

The younger man had risen and now replied politely, “Yes, sir?”

Rowntree distractedly ran a hand through his thin brown hair and blurted, “Shovels.”

Joanna and Erland blinked.

Seeing that they didn't understand, Rowntree repeated, “Shovels. And I daresay trowels and rakes and all manner of other things. Where are we to get them?”

Erland's face cleared. “Ah, for the digging, you mean.”