“Miss Kent,” said the vicar, “may I introduce to you Master Wakefield Farr, the Marquis of Rutherford?”
“How do you do?” said Jane.
“Very well, thank you,” answered the little boy. “I say, you’re rather old for lessons, aren’t you?”
“Master Wakefield,” said Mr. Pressley, gentle reproof in his voice, but Jane smiled at him and answered:
“Yes, I am. You see, I had no chance to go to school before.”
“Why not?”
“There was no money.”
“And there’s money now?”
“It seems that way.”
“That’s jolly.”
“Yes, it is. I’m very lucky.”
“Are you glad to be having lessons?”
“Oh yes. There’s so much to know, isn’t there? For example, I want to learn more about Henry Tudor and all his wives.”
“I know a lot already,” said the little boy matter-of-factly. “Miss Trevelyan’s writing a book about the fourth one, Anne of Cloves. The other day she read some of it out loud to Miss Humphrey and me.”
“I just met them yesterday,” said Jane, of course tactfully bypassing Wakefield’s misnomer as she was hardly in a position to feel superior. “They seemed very nice.”
“Oh, they’re splendid. My aunt Margaret doesn’t like Miss Humphrey, though. Because of her flowers.”
Here the vicar intervened. “I would have called earlier at the Hall, Miss Kent, but Mrs. Penhallow indicated that you were fatigued after your long journey.”
“Yes, I was. I spent most of the first three days in bed.”
“That’s nothing,” Wakefield put in. “Father was once in bed for three years.”
“Was he?” Jane said. “Why?”
“He fell out of a tree and hurt his back.”
“Oh, that’s dreadful.”
“He said it was rather restful, actually.”
Mr. Pressley intervened again, saying that perhaps they ought to begin, and in his gentle, pleasant way asked about Jane’s educational background and interests while Wakefield labored over some sums, sitting at a large rectangular table and swinging his legs back and forth. Without in the least making Jane feel inadequate or ashamed of her ignorance, Mr. Pressley gave her some books to take home and read, and Wakefield submitted his ink-blotched paper for Mr. Pressley to review, and after that the three of them had an interesting conversation about Tudor history, the origins of the British Royal Navy, and the ethical implications of Queen Elizabeth’s tacit approval of piracy.
“I told Father I might be a pirate when I grow up,” remarked Wakefield.
“You’re to be a duke, Master Wakefield,” the vicar reminded him.
“When Father gets married again and has more children, I’ll let them be dukes.”
Mr. Pressley looked startled. “I wasn’t aware that His Grace had entered into matrimonial arrangements.”
“He will. Aunt Margaret will make him. And then I won’t be the only sixcessor.”
“I believe, Master Wakefield, you mean successor.”
“Yes, that’s what I said.”
Mrs. McKenzie poked her head into the room to dourly announce the arrival of Mr. Attfield, the churchwarden, who had come on urgent parish business, and Mr. Pressley apologetically said he was afraid lessons would have to end sooner than usual.
“That’s all right,” said Wakefield. “Miss Kent and I don’t mind, do we, Miss Kent?”
In point of fact Jane’s brain did feel rather full, but it hardly seemed appropriate to join in with Wakefield’s youthful glee. Fortunately Mr. Pressley then got up and said, “I’ll see you both tomorrow,” and so she and Wakefield got up too and made their way out of the vicarage and onto the front portico, where the light carriage which had conveyed her from the Hall stood waiting, as well as a dashing little pony-cart. Jane eyed it wistfully.
“I say, Miss Kent, would you like to come home with me and meet the Duchess?”
“There’s a duchess?” Jane said, surprised. How could the Duke be planning on marrying when he already had a wife?
“Oh yes. Fat as anything, too. You should see the way she eats blancmange. It’s the funniest thing in the world.”
Jane found herself thinking about what she had told Livia yesterday. How, as a girl, she had hated being good. Apparently there was still plenty left of that girl within her, because with all her heart she now wanted to see an actual duchess eating blancmange. Great-grandmother Kent had talked a lot about duchesses, including the beautiful (and scandalous) Georgiana Cavendish, the Duchess of Devonshire, and also Catherine Wellesley, the Duchess of Wellington (who had married shockingly above her station). “Can we go in your pony-cart? I’ve always wanted to ride in one.”
“If you don’t mind squeezing in with Higson and me. You’re awfully skinny, which is good—you won’t take up much room.”
“Well, if you and Higson don’t mind, I don’t mind either.”
“Capital! I’m an excellent driver. Do you want to sit next to me? Normally I don’t like being near girls, but you’re not bad.”
“That’s one of the nicest compliments I’ve ever had,” said Jane, sincerely. “Thank you. By the way, am I supposed to call you ‘Your Grace’? Or ‘My Lord’?”
“‘Your Grace’ is for Father, and ‘My Lord’ is for me, but since we’re already friends I think you should call me ‘Wakefield.’”
“Then I will. And won’t you call me ‘Jane,’ rather than ‘Miss Kent’?”
“All right. Come on, Jane, I’ll introduce you to Higson.”
Jane met Higson, who politely tipped his black beaver hat and assured her she’d get driven back from Hastings at her convenience, and so she told the Surmont Hall groom to go directly on home, with a message letting the family know where she was, and gave him the books the vicar had loaned her as well.
Wakefield managed to keep the pony-cart pretty much within the lane as they made their way from the vicarage toward the Radcliffe estate, though there was one close call when he got so caught up in telling her the exciting plot of a play called Hamlet that they nearly veered into an oak tree. Jane heard Higson muttering under his breath but, to his credit, he let Wakefield bring the cart back onto the lane without snatching at the reins as Jane was sure he longed to do.
They traveled past some large stubbled fields, in their quiet winter fallow, and shortly arrived at a handsome old brick lodge-house (near which Wakefield, with ghoulish enthusiasm, pointed out to Jane a spectacularly flat dead toad); they passed through the tall open gates and into a beautiful grove of mature trees on both sides of the winding road. By and by they came around a long gentle curve and in the distance Jane could see a great palatial house, not unlike Surmont Hall, but as they drew closer Wakefield turned off onto a smaller lane which soon brought into view a wide, long lake, very blue and serene, and then they came to a curious lump of a building, quite tumbledown and all covered over with dank-looking moss and vines.
“Wakefield, what is that?” she asked.