“But Jane,” Livia said, “with the print-shop gone, how did you and your family get on? Were you happy growing up in Nantwich? What happened to your parents? Were you frightened, traveling all by yourself? Also—”
“While these are all questions whose answers I am equally interested to hear,” interposed Gabriel Penhallow, in his dark eyes a subtle gleam of affectionate humor as he turned them upon his wife, “may I suggest that further inquiries be postponed until we’ve all had some tea?”
Jane looked with admiration and gratitude at him.
What an excellent idea.
In fact, it was the best idea anyone, in the whole history of the world, had ever had.
Her cousin Gabriel was obviously a genius.
Jane hitched herself around on the sofa so that she was facing the tea-tray again, as it now seemed safe to do so, and folded her hands in her lap, just as might a person do who could wait forever for tea. But she did permit herself to look, rather gloatingly, at the big silver teapot, the empty cups and little plates just waiting to be filled, at the elegant linen napkins, and, of course, at the cake, the muffins, the devilled eggs, the sandwiches.
What would she have first?
Into her mind popped an image of herself with grotesque bulging cheeks, just like a chipmunk, having inserted into her mouth four eggs, two on each side.
“Oh yes, of course, Gabriel, you’re absolutely correct,” said Livia, smiling at him and then at Jane. “I’ll pour out right away. Jane, won’t you please help yourself to anything you like?”
“Thank you, ma’am,” Jane answered, and, making herself move very slowly, she took a plate, and onto the plate she put a muffin and a sandwich.
She had taken three bites of her sandwich before she realized, glancing at Livia beside her, that she should have taken a napkin.
Flushing hotly, she reached out to get one from the silver tray.
As they had their tea, nobody said a word about Jane’s deliberate but methodical consumption of food and drink which was probably greater in total volume than that which Mrs. Penhallow, Gabriel, and Livia had collectively among the three of them. In between bites, she told them that Great-grandmother Kent had taken in sewing to make money, and had tried without much success to train Jane up to do the same, and also that her father Josiah had at eighteen married the daughter of a blacksmith, but they had both been taken by the cholera epidemic back in ’02 when Jane was five, and finally she described how poor Great-grandmother’s bitter spirit from first to last had rather alienated the Kent family from their neighbors, and so Jane had really left nothing—and no one—behind when she had embarked on her momentous trip to Surmont Hall.
As she talked and ate and drank, Jane couldn’t help but notice that old Mrs. Penhallow was gazing at her the whole time, as if more hungry for the sheer sight of her than for the food—barely touched—on her plate. And when tea was over, and Livia suggested that Jane might like to go upstairs to the bedchamber which had been prepared for her and rest for a while, and Jane, realizing that she was exhausted to the bone, had willingly agreed, and gotten up, valise in hand, and thanked them all from the bottom of her heart, Henrietta had stood up too, and went to Jane, and hugged her for a long, long time. And then she softly said:
“Welcome home, my dear.”
Anthony leaned his elbow on the stone balustrade of the Duchess’ pen, cupping his chin in one hand, and with the other hand he used a stick to scratch the broad, hairy pink back below him. The Duchess grunted with pleasure, but there was no answering smile on Anthony’s face.
For his mood was melancholy.
It had taken three full days for the Preston-Carnabys to finally realize that no offer of marriage was forthcoming, had been forthcoming, or would ever be forthcoming, no matter how tangled up he got in subjunctive verb forms.
Or did he mean the present perfect progressive?
Good Lord, who knew and who cared?
The point was, those were three days of his life he would never get back.
The teas, the strolls, the rides, the dinners that seemed to go on forever. The labored conversations. Margaret’s hard relentless eyes boring into him. The Preston-Carnabys leaning on his every word as if jewels fell from his mouth every time he opened it, which only made him feel less and less like saying anything at all. And to add insult to injury, after luncheon today Margaret had ruthlessly inveigled him into showing Miss Preston-Carnaby around the conservatory, a ploy so blatant that he wanted with all his heart to immediately decamp somewhere else—anywhere else—in a very rude and undukish way.
Luckily, Miss Preston-Carnaby (who had been positively foaming at the mouth with spurious compliments about Wakefield) had an adverse reaction to the Siberian irises which were Margaret’s pride and joy, not to say obsession, and so Anthony was able inside of ten minutes to lead her, with streaming eyes and dripping nostrils, out of the dangerous privacy of the conservatory and return her forthwith to her parents who lay in wait just outside the door, practically with tails twitching, like stalking lions eyeing their innocent prey (him), after which he bowed himself away and escaped for a much-needed interval of respite in his library, where he found balm for his wounds within the ever-fascinating pages of Dinkle’s Advanced Concepts in Piggery.
Margaret had found him there an hour or so later, with his feet up on his desk and his chair tipped back, deep in a gripping section on exudative dermatitis. In an unpleasantly icy way she had informed him that the Preston-Carnabys had left in high dudgeon for their home in Yorkshire, and he had made the mistake of saying “About time,” and she had angrily shoved his feet off the desk and nearly sent him sprawling, and then with what struck him as a triumphant sort of malice (or a malicious sort of triumph) she issued her coup de grâce, saying she had already written to her acquaintance the Countess of Silsbury, extending a cordial invitation to her and her charming, delightful, beautiful, accomplished, and highly eligible daughter, Lady Felicia Merifield, to come stay at Hastings for as long as they liked.
Good God, Meg, we’re not a blasted inn, he had protested, but to no avail.
Margaret had sent her letter by express.
Anthony now reached out with the stick to expertly scratch just behind the Duchess’ ears, a highly sensitive area of her anatomy, and she responded with further happy grunts.
Oh, to be a pig, he thought gloomily.
Eat, wallow, sleep, and be scratched where it felt good.
Why couldn’t his life be that simple?
But no—he had apple blights to worry about, and Margaret’s incessant machinations to evade as best he could, and Mrs. Roger’s sinister comment to dwell upon.
You’re next, Yer Grace.
Just what the devil did she mean by that?
In a perfect world, via this mysterious utterance she would have been giving him a prescient sort of wink to let him know that the premier Hastings pumpkin (at present a mere twinkle in his head gardener McTavish’s eye), which would be offered up at this year’s competition at the annual harvest fête, would finally best Miss Humphrey’s pumpkin, after several painful years of second-place ribbons rather than the treasured gilt cup.
But alas, this was not a perfect world.
Far from it.
To this he could attest.
Also, Mrs. Roger had never, to his limited knowledge, manifested the slightest interest in pumpkins, so it seemed unlikely that she had been referring to his aspirations in that regard.