Smugglers' Summer (14 page)

“An engaging young lady, is she not?” Sir Tristram’s voice.

“Can’t imagine why I’ve not seen her about town.”

“I understand she has never made a formal debut in society,” said the baronet. Octavia knew he was thinking back to their first meeting, or the second, when she had presented a still more deplorable appearance. “I am glad you like her, but all the same it is good of you to forgo Julia’s company in my favour.”

“Your intentions are serious, Deanbridge; mine are not,” said Mr Findlay simply. “I’ve neither the funds nor the temperament to step into parson’s mousetrap. Matter of fact, I’ve a notion I’ve heard you say you’d no thought of getting leg-shackled.”

“Nor had I. Know my brother-in-law? No? Glad to hear it: he’s a curst rum touch. Well, the thing is, my sister’s produced a son. My heir. I’ve nothing against the child, you understand, it’s not a year old yet. But I’ll be damned if I’ll have my nodcock of a brother-in-law taking over Dean Park if I slip my wind before the boy reaches his majority, and I’ll tell you, Valletort’s death last year made me think.”

“Nothing for it, you need a son of your own. And having made up your mind to it, you head for town, fall for the Incomparable, and Bob’s your uncle. I’ll be first with my congratulations. When do you pop the question?”

A note of caution entered Sir Tristram’s voice. “I’ve been refused once and I don’t care to trust my luck again till I’m sure of the outcome.”

“Dash it, man, the chit’s casting out every lure in the book! It’s plain as the nose on your face she means to have you.

“There’s no hurry,” said Sir Tristram obstinately. “Are you ready? Let’s go down. Oh, and Freddy, don’t you go trifling with Miss Gray’s affections, raising any hopes in her breast that you don’t mean to satisfy, or it’ll be pistols at dawn!”

Chapter 12

Octavia found it impossible to meet either Sir Tristram’s or Mr Findlay’s eyes when she saw them in the Great Hall. With a skill she did not know she possessed, she manoeuvred to sit between Mr. Rupert and Sir Magnus, both of whom were happy to oblige.

When Lady Emma led the ladies up to the drawing room, leaving the gentlemen to their port and brandy, she at last had leisure for consideration of what she had overheard. Claiming a letter to be written, she retired to a corner to think.

On reexamination, it was not so bad after all. To be sure, Mr Findlay’s attentions had started as a favour to a friend, but he had expressed gratitude for the push and described her as “taking.” Sir Tristram had been his wonted kind self in wishing to see to her comfort, and he had said she was “engaging.” To a young lady unaccustomed to compliments, these moderate words of praise meant a good deal.

Besides, she was glad to find elucidation of Mr Findlay’s puzzling behaviour, and Sir Tristram’s reason for wishing to marry brought a smile to her lips. Having taken that decision, it was scarce surprising that he should have formed a serious passion for Julia. It did surprise her that he meant to delay offering for her hand when she so obviously had decided to accept him.

If Mr Wynn should suddenly turn up, Sir Tristram might find he had missed his chance. On the other hand, what if he turned up when they were already betrothed, and Julia found she still loved him?

She was puzzling over this question when the gentlemen came in. Mr Findlay headed directly for her side. When she explained that she was writing to her parents, he insisted on dictating to her a paragraph describing a certain “exquisite and charming fribble,” namely himself. She laughed but did not write it down.

“Mama would be excessively shocked,” she said, “to learn that I am consorting with a gentleman who is both ‘complete to a shade’ and ‘bang up to the knocker.’ If she knew that it takes you two hours to tie your cravat, and that you discard five or six in the process, she would request the spoiled ones to convert into clothing for the natives of the South Sea Islands.”

He raised both hands to protect his superbly arranged neckcloth. “Never!” he declaimed. “I am ready to defend my cravat against any number of South Sea Islanders, with my life if necessary. This, Miss Gray, is the style known as the
Trône d’Amour.
Does it please you?”

“To tell the truth,” she said, regarding it critically, “I believe only another Dandy could tell the difference between that and any other style.”

He sighed and shook his head mournfully.

In the days that followed, the weather improved. The gentlemen and several of the ladies went riding, leaving Octavia, who had never had the opportunity of learning, with Lady Langston and Miss Crosby. She was perfectly happy to stay behind. Though she had nearly overcome her fear of committing an inexcusable
faux pas
, she regretted the quiet days she had passed before the arrival of the house-party, and looked forward to their departure.

She wandered alone about the gardens, now bereft of the glory of rhododendron and azalea but blooming with flowers she could not name. There was time for books, and she read
Northanger Abbey
with great enjoyment, the more particularly because Sir Tristram had reported in disgust that the second mysterious cabinet held a varied but not in the least mysterious collection of buttons.

“How clever of Miss Austen to sympathise with Catherine even as she laughs at her!” she exclaimed to Julia and Sir Tristram. “It is quite the most amusing book I have read.”

“Amusing!” cried Julia. “I thought it monstrous disappointing. Every time Catherine thought she had discovered a mystery, it turned out to be nothing!”

“Therein lies the humour,” said Sir Tristram.

“It was not a proper Gothic novel at all.” Julia sounded cross. “Nor yet a romance, for I do not remember that Catherine fainted even once and Henry Tilney was far too dull to be a proper hero.” She turned away to talk to Mr Findlay, who had vocally expressed his dissatisfaction at not having read the book.

“I have read one or two Gothic novels,” said Octavia.
“The Castle of Otranto
of course, and
The Monk.
I confess I thought them excessively silly, but I beg you will not tell Julia so!”

They discussed the essential ingredients of a good novel, until Octavia guiltily realised she was keeping him from Julia and claimed the necessity of attending on her aunt.

Lady Langston greeted her with an exclamation of relief.

“Octavia, dear child, you will know what I ought to do. Such a comfort to me as you are! Here is Lady Emma, just this moment, inviting us to go with them to Mount Edgcumbe, for you know they go tomorrow, and what I am to say I’m sure I don’t know. I daresay Langston will dislike it vastly. ‘Take her to Cotehele,’ he said to me, meaning Julia, of course, ‘and there she shall stay until she comes to her senses.’”

“I believe my cousin has come to her senses, ma’am. Have you not noticed how obligingly she behaves to Sir Tristram?”

“Do you think she will have him? I wish he will ask her again quickly! But until they are betrothed, I cannot like to go against Langston’s wishes.”

“Does Sir Tristram go or stay?”

“He will hardly care to stay here if we go. Should you like to go, Octavia? Mount Edgcumbe is a prodigious pretty place. I daresay they can make up quite thirty beds! And Edgcumbe is such a hospitable gentleman, he does not like to see them empty.”

Octavia shuddered mentally at the idea of being one of thirty guests, but she had longed to visit Mount Edgcumbe since seeing it from the Sound. Among so many, perhaps she would be able to escape and explore on her own.

“We might go for a few days, Aunt,” she said. “If you see anything in Julia’s manner to alarm you, it will be easy enough to return here.”

“You are right! I should not know at all how to go on without you, I declare. Now if only you will beg Lady Emma to step over, I shall tell her we are happy to accept. You are a dear, good girl, Octavia, and so I shall inform my sister.” In an excess of energetic enthusiasm, Lady Langston leaned close and kissed her niece.

* * * *

Lord Edgcumbe’s sailing barge was provided with every comfort, and the voyage down the river was more like a pleasure outing than a necessary journey. Octavia told Mr Findlay about her dawn arrival on the limestone boat, though she omitted the story of the smugglers’ rendezvous. When they passed Halton Quay she saw the notorious scarlet petticoat hanging out to dry. Wondering where the Riding Officer was meddling today, she exchanged a glance of complicity with Sir Tristram.

There were open carriages waiting at the Cremyll ferry landing. They drove up the long, straight avenue towards the mansion. The square Tudor facade of pinkish stone had been embellished by succeeding generations, as Lady Emma explained to Octavia, with a classical entrance and octagonal towers at each end. Octavia thought it magnificent.

They reached the house just in time to change for dinner. For that first evening there were no additions to their company, but the atmosphere in the elegant dining room was very different from that of the Great Hall at Cotehele. To Octavia it seemed to have swung to the opposite extreme, making her father’s political dinners seem positively casual. Conversation was carried on in politely lowered voices, and entirely with one’s immediate neighbours, while servants passed the dishes so efficiently that one need never ask for anything.

Julia told her later that compared to the strict etiquette of a London dinner party, it had been quite informal. Once again she was seized with a dread of falling into some mortifying error which would expose her lack of acquaintance with the ways of society.

The next day’s arrivals added considerably to Julia’s court. She flirted determinedly with every male who seemed disposed to pay her the least attention, and Octavia found it hard to blame her, since Sir Tristram had not yet renewed his offer for her hand. The baronet soon abandoned his first efforts to compete for her favour, and disappeared frequently on long solitary walks or rides.

Octavia found the house less interesting than Cotehele, but the grounds superb. She too often wandered alone, escaping from her own minor court. There were miles of carriage drives with views over the busy Sound to Plymouth, or out into the English Channel, as far as the Eddystone Lighthouse; follies and monuments galore, including the fake Gothic ruin and the temple to Milton which she had seen from aboard ship; formal gardens in the Italian, French, and English styles; and fortifications which bore witness to the many threats of invasion from Spanish or French fleets over the centuries.

In a gloomy dell hung with ferns and creeping ivy, set about with Roman urns, she found, surrounding a dripping fountain, a number of gravestones erected in memory of family pets. Most of these, unsurprisingly, were dogs, but one was a pyramidal monument to a favourite pig by the name of Cupid. The Edgcumbes were undoubtedly animal lovers: in the Garden House in the English garden stood the skeleton of a dog, the bones whitened with age.

Octavia asked Lord Ernest about it.

“That was the first baron’s animal,” he told her. “Somewhat macabre, ain’t it? They say he was a favourite of George II because he was the only courtier shorter than the king, but he was made a baron to save him from some enquiry about the management of Cornish boroughs. If you think he was a dirty dish, though, let me tell you about the second baron.”

“Do you think you ought, my lord?” Octavia objected anxiously. She remembered that Sir Tristram had mentioned the “bad baron,” who had been a gambler.

“No harm,” insisted the young man. “It’s ancient history, and everybody knows, and besides, everyone has the odd skeleton in the closet, if not in the summer house. The second baron was the black sheep of the family. He was sent abroad to try and stop his gambling. He brought back the orange trees in the Italian garden, though he continued to gamble as badly as ever. He never married, but he had four b . . . children by his mistress . . ."

“I am quite certain you should not be telling me this, my lord!” Octavia turned away, blushing. “Thank you for telling me about the dog skeleton, but I believe I have heard enough of the family history for the present."

“Just come to me if you have any more questions,” he said genially, grinning at her. “M’sister’s the expert though.”

“I shall ask Lady Emma in future,” she said hastily.

So that was the bad baron’s secret! The son mentioned in the scrap of paper they had found with the gold coins was a love child. And Sir Tristram had claimed to know to whom the money belonged, so there must be descendants still acknowledged by the family.

She would have liked to ask him about it, but it was too delicate a subject to be approached in company. Though she often saw him in the distance while out walking, he never came close, seeming to avoid her deliberately.

She wished he would ask her advice again about Julia. She would tell him to propose at once, for she saw in her cousin’s flirting the gaiety of desperation.

One morning she walked down to the tiny hamlet of Cremyll to make enquiries about the ferry. She still had a few guineas left, and thought to make a shopping expedition as an excuse to see Lieutenant Cardin. Smothered by the rarified atmosphere of Polite Society, she longed to talk to an ordinary person for once.

Doubtless she had only to hint of her desire to Lady Emma and a private vessel would be put at her disposal. She preferred to take the common ferry.

Under a grey sky, grey swells rolled shoreward, tacking a lacy fringe of white froth around the grey rocks. Herring gulls swooped about the shipping in the Sound.

Looking out across the Tamar to Devil’s Point, she saw a dark shape arc out of the water, reentering with scarcely a splash. Another followed, then two in unison.

“Dolphins,” said a voice close by.

She turned to find Sir Tristram at her side, holding the reins of his horse.

“They are beautiful! How carefree they look!”

“Should you like to go closer? There is a rowboat moored by the quay that we might borrow.”

“I should like it of all things, but would it not be dangerous?”

“You do not care to trust yourself to my rowing?” he asked with a smile. “I assure you I was used to row right across when I was a boy.”