Valerie King (9 page)

Lucy had the children help supervise the trimming of the maze yews. Of course, their involvement added greatly to the amount of time the task required, but she believed all four of them benefited from the parts they played. Where the yews were too thin and the walls not established clearly, Miss Gunville had the children collect long reeds and taught them how to weave them into loose lattices, which Mr. Quarley in turn used to shore up the maze walls.

The final addition to the maze was a surprise that Lucy had prepared for the children. Miss Gunville had kept them in the schoolroom until Lucy sent for them. Once at the center of the maze, they were astonished to discover a fort made of fallen logs from the home wood, supplemented with lumber prepared by the laborers.

Eugenia and Hyacinth gasped in wonder. “We have a proper place for our tea parties,” the latter cried.

“Tea parties!” William called out in disgust, racing toward the door of the fort. “We will have nothing so absurd in this outpost. Who would serve tea to soldiers doing battle with Indians?”

Violet, carrying the doll Lucy had given her on the first day, entered after William then slowly emerged, her expression beatific. “There is a table and chairs inside just my size. I am going to bring Tom in here as well.”

“He won’t stay,” William cried. “No cat will.”

“Tom will,” Violet said, scowling up at her older brother.

“A table and chairs?” Eugenia cried. “Then we can indeed have tea parties.”

“No tea!” William cried.

“What about lemon cake, Will?” Hyacinth asked, coaxingly. “ ’Tis your favorite.”

“Well, lemon cake might be all right, and if we did have cake I suppose you could have your tea, but you shan’t make me put on a bonnet like you did last year!”

Lucy bit her lip to keep from laughing. Her heart swelled at the sight of their happiness. The fort even had a short staircase leading to a tower, a place William claimed as his own a moment later.

 

 

“Lucy has certainly made great strides in the past month,” Lady Sandifort said.

Robert was standing by the open window of his library and looking down into the garden below. Mr. Quarley was directing three of his laborers in the planting of a great many shrubs and flowers that he had apparently been nursing to maturity for the past two years. In the center of the lawn, Lucy had a kerchief tied about her eyes and was leaping and lunging in the direction of four squealing, laughing children playing at blindman’s buff. He vowed he had not heard so much laughter in years at Aldershaw and she had done this. His heart swelled in gratitude and something more he was reluctant to put a name to. A month past he had told her he wished she had never come, but how foolish such a statement seemed now.

To Lady Sandifort he said, “Indeed, you are quite right. I am beginning to think Lucy could heal a blind man if she set her mind to it.” He turned away from the window.

Lady Sandifort was gowned exquisitely as always. She wore dark blue silk that accented her brown hair and warm complexion quite perfectly. Her hair was gathered in a knot of curls atop her head. She was almost beautiful save for the hawk-like expression of her eyes, something all her beauty could not dispel.

“I wonder,” Lady Sandifort said softly, in just that tone of voice all too familiar to his ears, “if she could work a small miracle for me.”

He shot a reproving glance, then asked briskly, “So, have all the invitations been sent for the come-out ball?”

She smiled, also in a manner too familiar. “You do not mean to ask me what miracle I would wish for Lucy to perform for me?” She was advancing on him slowly, drifting the tip of her finger over the table that separated them.

He tried again. “Hetty said there were no less than one hundred invitations and that we should expect twice that number in guests, even if many cannot come.”

She began to pout but continued to move toward him. “Do you mean to be tiresome this afternoon?”

“I mean to be sensible. My feelings have not changed and I would not wish to encourage you.”

“Encourage me? What a ridiculous thing to say.” Still she moved in her languid manner toward him. She looked as hungry as a cat eyeing a bowl of cream. “You speak as though I desire something
proper
between us.”

He drew in a deep breath, wishing she would not press him in this manner. She held all the cards and he could hardly give her a set-down lest she take a pet and once more refuse to allow the ball. “You are my father’s widow and because of my love for my father I would never disgrace you in any manner, nor his memory.”

“I do not think a kiss would disgrace your father’s memory. One little kiss?”

“No, Lady Sandifort. It is improper and I do not want you to think, that is to hope for more from me, as I have said a score of times before.”

“I do not hope for anything save one little kiss,” she said. Her eyes were very wide and, for all their innocent shape, held so cunning and devouring a look that he wished himself a thousand miles away. “A single, quite harmless kiss, nothing more.”

The day Lady Sandifort wanted
nothing more
would be the day she drew her last breath.

“Enough,” he said sharply.

She pouted in her flirtatious manner and continued to advance on him.

A scratching sounded on the door. “Come,” he called out, greatly relieved.

Henry strode in. “Rosamunde has already left on her weekly pilgrimage to Chaleford, and Hetty cannot be found at all. It would seem a very large parcel has arrived from the dressmaker’s and one of the needlewomen begs a word.

“I will go,” Lady Sandifort said.

She swished by Robert, her current purpose forgotten in the exhilarating prospect of seeing the new gowns that had been ordered not just for the come-out ball but for daily use as well. Lucy had been beyond generous in every way and in this moment he was particularly grateful to her since Lady Sandifort’s attentions had been diverted away from him. He wondered just how he would ever be able to repay her and that for so many things!

“What is all the laughter I am hearing?” Henry asked, moving toward the window. Robert followed him. “Ah, it is Lucy, of course. What a darling she is. Are you not glad she has come?”

“Yes, for I have never seen Hyacinth smile so much, nor Violet.”

“I do not believe they have been happier,” Henry observed.

“I quite agree. Hetty told me only last week that Lucy has finally persuaded Lady Sandifort that she ought only to be a mother to her children in those ways that pleased her else the children would be, how did she put it, ‘distressed by her own evident unhappiness.’ ”

“Do I take that to mean our beloved stepmother has ceased torturing her children by insisting they be brought to her each morning?”

“Precisely.”

“So that is why we have not heard Lady Sandifort shrieking so much of late.”

Robert shook his head. “There are some women who should not have children. She is one of them.”

“By all accounts, then, Lucy ought to have a dozen.” Henry sighed deeply. “I am come to believe she is a very great lady and she is certainly the first person I have known who could manage Lady Sandifort.”

“I think you may be right.” He paused for a moment, then asked, “So tell me, are you prepared to take holy orders yet?”

Henry immediately grew uneasy. “Not yet. I beg you will forgive me but I have decided to wait to make my decision until the autumn.”

Robert glanced down into the yard, clapping him on the shoulder. “You could not do better,” he said, watching Lucy reach for William and miss him entirely.

“Then you know?”

“Of course. A sapscull could see you are in love with her and I begin to think you well suited. She is never so calm as when you are about.”

“As opposed to you, Robert? It has not escaped my notice that you set up her back with the speed of lightning. Sometimes I have even wondered—”

“What?”

“Well, you do not seem to appreciate her as I think you ought. You rarely compliment her on the progress of the grounds and the house! Good God, all the rooms have been made so pleasant, there are fresh flowers everywhere, and the smell of lavender and beeswax in every chamber. Would it hurt you terribly to thank her?”

Robert rolled his eyes. “I fear thanking her,” he stated firmly. “I fear what such a statement will cause her to think. I fear she will dig a canal!”

Henry threw his head back and laughed so loudly that the children called to him from below.

“What is so amusing?” William shouted.

“Your eldest brother said something absurd!”

“What?”

“He said he is afraid Lucy means to dig a canal on his property!”

William thought this a great joke as well, as did the other children. So it was that Lucy removed her kerchief and called back. “What an excellent notion! If we dug a canal—just a small one, mind—the children could have fun helping, and we could bring water more easily to the gardens!”

“Is she joking?” Robert asked, horrified.

Henry turned back to him. “I do not think so.”

“I shall have your head for this!” he cried.

Henry backed away but lifted his fists in a boxing stance. “What, ho!” Robert cried. “You know I am the better man!”

“We shall see. I spent last spring at Jackson’s.”

The brothers sparred for a quarter of an hour, removing their coats and quitting only when both were sadly out of breath.

Between gasps, Henry said, “You see, brother, we are all happier now that Lucy is come.”

 

 

Lucy sat with the family that evening in the armory. Anne and Alice scrutinized a copy of
La Belle Assemblée,
Henry and Robert were engaged in a game of chess, George reclined in a chair and snored contentedly by a cold hearth, Rosamunde wove her kerchief in and about her fingers but otherwise refrained from useful employ, Hetty worked on her embroidery, and Lady Sandifort oversaw the chess game.

“Why do you play with such small pieces?” she asked. “Were I to play chess, each piece would be quite large and made entirely of gold.”

“They would be very heavy,” Robert responded pragmatically.

“But beautiful,” Henry said, smiling at Lady Sandifort.

“I never could abide this game. Far too complicated. Checkers can be fun, but really I would much rather play at billiards. George, play at billiards with me?”

George, hearing his name in his dreams, woke up drowsily. “What? What?” He shifted slightly, folded his hands over his stomach, and resumed his snoring.

“What a useless creature!” Lady Sandifort cried. She turned to Lucy. “What are you reading, pray tell?”

“A novel. A very good novel.”

“What is the name of it?”

She consulted the cover. “
Pride and Prejudice
. A curious title, do you not think so?”

“Is it a book of sermons?”

Lucy laughed. “No, it is a romance, I think. Quite good. You might like it. You may read it when I am done.”

“I am not a great reader.”

Lucy was not surprised. She resumed reading and had not finished that very page when a servant appeared in the doorway and called to her. She closed her novel, an interesting story about five sisters, and set it on the chair. Speaking with the servant, she soon discovered that the children had a surprise for her.

She made her way to Hyacinth’s bedchamber and found them all gathered there.

“We each made something for you!” Violet cried.

“Violet!” Hyacinth reproved. “I was to tell her. We each made you something, Lucy. Come see.”

She approached the bed and sat down on the edge. Violet offered her present first. It was a small sampler that had the word “friend” spelled out in a simple cross-stitch. “How lovely, Violet, and do look how your work has improved. Thank you.” She kissed the youngest Sandifort on the cheek.

William presented his, a dagger carved out of wood. “Mr. Frome helped me.”

“How very kind of him and what an excellent job you did!”

“Now you may protect yourself.”

“How very thoughtful. Sometimes at night, particularly after I have watched all of you playing at pirates in your fort, I blow out my candle and wish for this very thing. From now on, I shall keep it beneath my pillow.”

“In case of pirates?” Violet asked, excitedly.

“Precisely.”

Hyacinth shuddered. “But there are no pirates in Hampshire, are there, Lucy?”

“Even if there were,” she said, “how could they possibly vanquish Robert, Henry, and George? Why, there would have to be an army of pirates to defeat three such strong men and I have never heard of such a thing, especially not at a place so far from the sea as Aldershaw.”

Hyacinth seemed relieved. Shyly she presented her small gift, which was wrapped in silver paper. “This feels very soft. I wonder what it might be.” She unfolded the paper and found a lovely kerchief within, bordered in crochet lace. “It is perfection. Did Miss Gunville teach you to crochet so beautifully?”

“No, Rosamunde did.”

Lucy glanced at Eugenia. “Your mother did this for Hyacinth? How very sweet of her.”

Eugenia nodded. She was as shy as Hyacinth and presented her gift as well. A pair of gloves with the letter L embroidered on each in a soft yellow. “The color of your hair,” she said.

“Oh, Ginny, this is just lovely and so thoughtful. Thank you. Oh, look, you have made me cry.”

“You may use Hyacinth’s kerchief,” Violet offered helpfully.

Lucy dabbed at her eyes and began giving hugs and kisses all round. She then suggested that unless they wished for Miss Gunville to ring a peal over their heads they would immediately withdraw to their beds.

The children squealed then clapped their hands over their mouths. William slipped into an adjoining bedchamber and Hyacinth and Violet climbed eagerly into bed. Eugenia reached the doorway but the hall was dark beyond.