The Irish Bride (12 page)

Nick stiffened. He did not like to hear criticism of his parent from a stranger. Then he recalled that if Amelia had her way, Daltrey would wind up his brother-in-law.

“My father had his faults, Daltrey. But he was my father.”

“Indeed, I’d be feeling the same way were it me. Well, I’ll be goin’ my way, Sir Nicholas. G’day to you.”

“And to you.”

They rode apart, but Arthur Daltrey turned in his saddle and called, “It’s good to be havin’ you back. There’s much to be done.”

“Come to the house one day. I’d be interested in your opinions.” Nick waved his riding crop and watched his sister’s rumored lover ride away. Daltrey might not be high in rank, but Nick had been impressed despite himself by the man’s air of self-sufficiency. Was it owning his own place that gave him the courage to talk freely with a landlord?

He wondered what Amelia saw in him, laughing at himself, for all brothers must wonder the same about their sisters’ choices. No doubt when he brought his bride home, neither Emma nor Amelia would be able to see anything at all unusual or intriguing about Rietta.

When he arrived at Greenwood, he found his mother in the garden, in deep conference with the oldest Randolph boy. Nick kissed her cheek beneath the flopping brim of her old hat and acknowledged the boy’s instinctive duck of the head.

“Oh, you’re back,” Lady Kirwan said. “How were your friends, dear?”

“Same as ever, Mother. Roger Hogan is his father’s agent now and Ridley Pierce has been taken on as a partner at Mr. Hammond’s solicitor’s office.”

“I always liked Ridley. I hope he outgrew that stammer?” She turned her smile on the boy. “Would you pardon us a moment, George?”

Once he’d drawn off to a respectful distance, Lady Kirwan crooked her finger for her son to bend low. “Did Ridley clear up all your questions about the estate?”

“Yes, Mother.” He’d wanted to break it to her gently but there really wasn’t a way to do that. “We’re in as bad a condition as I feared.”

To his surprise, she took the bad news like a trooper. She merely nodded as though his words confirmed what she’d surmised. ‘Then I shan’t feel so bad about digging up the South Lawn.”

“Digging up what?”

“The South Lawn,” she said, waving her gloved hand.

“Why would you want to do that?”

“For vegetables, of course. Potatoes, parsnips, carrots ... I’m not sure about beans. Dr. Markaby says they’re most nutritious but I really can’t make myself care for them.”

“Who is Dr. Markaby?” Nick had never heard the name. Their family physician had always been Ridley Pierce’s father.

For answer, Lady Kirwan went to the white-painted bench that commanded a delightful view of the South Lawn, stone walls, and the brook beyond. She brought back and put into Nick’s hand a limp-boarded book in a particularly bilious shade of green,

DR
.
MARKABY
’
S
IDEAL
SYSTEM
FOR
TONIC
HEALTH

crawled down the spine in florid letters of gold. Nick turned to the title page. Under the sprawling title was another:

A SCHEME TO PROMOTE PERFECT PHYSICAL SUCCESS ON SIXPENCE

The frontispiece showed an engraving of a rather full-chinned fellow in an antique-style wig. Beneath it flew cupids bearing chastely draped banners declaring Dr. H. Markaby to be the hero of the age and the savior of mankind’s collective stomach.

“Mother, what is this?”

“Our London bookseller is a convert to Dr. Markaby’s system. He sent this book along with our last order. We haven’t—er—paid for them yet.”

“We will soon pay all our debts. But what has this book to do with the South Lawn?”

“Well, dearest, if you turn to the first page, you’ll see that Dr. Markaby declares that if we all ate vegetables we should improve our health and our finances. So I thought perhaps if we began to grow our own vegetables we could save even more than buying them. While we’re waiting, I suppose we could buy what we need. Dr. Markaby thinks a gross each of carrots, parsnips, and cabbage should do for a grown man for at least a month. There are receipts at the back.”

“Mother...”

“Dr. Markaby says that the gross machine requires no more than a single spoonful of fat per day to maintain the vital grease. It doesn’t really matter what kind, though perhaps bacon is best.”

“Vital grease,” Nick echoed, torn between laughter and disgust.

“You know. What keeps your joints bending?”

“Yes. But what is the ‘gross machine’?”

Lady Kirwan’s hand fluttered to her mouth. From behind it, she said very softly, ‘The body, dearest. He means the human body.”

“I see. So you propose that we live on vegetables and a spoonful of bacon fat every day?”

“I thought perhaps we could beat up the fat in cakes, dear. I can’t think that Dr. Markaby thinks we should
eat
a spoonful in cold blood. I’m sure I couldn’t manage that.”

Now Nick did laugh and chuck his mother under the chin. Then he called to the boy. “George, is it?”

“Yessir.”

“Here, George,” he said, tossing the book over. “Drown it.”

“Sir?”

“Toss it in the cistern—no, wait. It’d be indigestible. Throw it on the first fire you pass. And leave the South Lawn as ‘tis.”

“Yessir!”

“But, Nick ...” His mother’s forehead had relapsed into its usual fretful lines. “I’m sure it’s a most beneficial scheme.”

“Undoubtedly, Mother. But I’ll stick to my beefsteaks and my ham. My health will remain in your capable hands, not those of some quack from London.” He raised her hands to his lips, then pressed them against his cheek. “You’re cold as the moon. I’m a dreadful son to let you stand so long out in the open. Come inside. I’ll ring for some tea.”

He insisted she put her feet up on the sofa and covered her with the soft yet heavy Norwich shawl she’d carried in the garden. “I’m sure we can do more,” she said, “to save money. I don’t believe we waste a very great deal but it does seem to run away rather.”

“It has that habit. I’ve only met two men in my life who felt they had enough money for their needs. One was rich as Dives; the other never had two brass farthings to rub together.”

“And you.”

“I? You’re too partial, Mother.”

“No, I mean it. If it weren’t for me and the girls, you’d go along quite happily within the straitened means your father left to you. It is we three who cause you to worry over money.”

“Nonsense,” he said, though in his heart he knew she was right. The income and securities his father hadn’t gambled away would have been enough to keep a bachelor in comfort even in a great barracks of a house. It would not stretch to keep four, two of whom required dowries.

“Mother,” he began, then had to wait, impatiently, while the maid brought in the tea and set it out. As soon as the door closed again, he said, “Mother, I’ve met someone.”

“A young lady?” She looked at him brightly and said, “I thought you might have. It’s the one you spoke of. Her carriage had broken down. Is it the younger daughter?”

“No, the elder.”

“I don’t think you mentioned her.”

“I probably didn’t.”

“The younger one was very pretty, or so you said.”

“Yes, Blanche is the most beautiful girl I think that I’ve ever seen. But Rietta ...” He was aware of how closely his mother watched him and so let a hint of a smile show.

“Rietta? How unusual. I don’t think I’ve heard that name in quite twenty years. I wanted to name Emma that, but your father would call her after an aunt. Awful woman. Used to smoke fat black cigars to keep the moths away from her draperies. Had a monkey, too.”

“You’d think that would have been harder on the drapes than the moths. Anyway, Mother, Rietta is taller than Blanche and has red hair, not blond. Maybe she isn’t quite as striking ...”

“Isn’t she, Nick? Then why are you interested in her? It isn’t her money, is it?”

Chapter Seven

She answered her
own question before he had time to do more than look astonished. “No, of course it isn’t,” Lady Kirwan said. “Forgive me for even saying such a thing. It’s just that I’ve been so worried about money that I seem to see its shadow everywhere.”

Nick poured her a little more tea. “It’s troublesome, Mother, but we’ll manage to support life without drastic measures. You’re to give me a list of all the things you’ve sold, and to whom, so I may retrieve them.”

“They weren’t entailed things, Nick. They were either what I brought with me when I married your father, or things he’d given me.”

“Nevertheless...”

Lady Kirwan stirred her cup. “I shouldn’t want any of my children to marry for money. That’s why I was married.”

“You married Father for his money? Grandfather Darcy must have been mad. Or blind.”

“No, dear. Your father married me for
my
money. Oh, don’t look so shocked. Thirty years ago, a man was expected to make a prudent match. I’m not saying he wouldn’t have done it if I hadn’t been pretty ... I was pretty, you know. Something in Amelia’s style, if not quite so vivacious.”

“I’ve seen your portrait.”

She pursed her lips as though biting a gooseberry. “I never liked that one. I may have been plump, but I was never moon-faced!” She smiled when he did and then sighed. “We were all a little in love with Benjamin. He had such an air, such address, and he dressed exceedingly well. I remember one suit of spangled green velvet... I daresay you’d think it hideous, but we admired him very much.”

“I’m glad I didn’t live then,” Nick said, smoothing the sleeve of his well-cut but otherwise unremarkable blue coat.

“You’d look handsome no matter what you wore. You’ve better shoulders than your father; his coats were always padded. Of course, I didn’t know that then. It was quite a shock, I can tell you, the first time I saw him in shirtsleeves. By then, however, it was too late.” She sipped her tea with a resigned air and asked him to cut some cake for her.

“You’ve never spoken of your marriage before.”

“I suppose while your father was alive, it seemed disloyal. Naturally, I should not speak in this vein to your sisters. Girls have such a romantic dream of life. I know I did. By the time I woke up to the reality, I was already married and you were on the way.”

“Surely Father never told you that he married you for money. He couldn’t have admitted it.”

“Not at first. He seemed so proud of me. I remember the tone of his voice when he introduced me as ‘m’wife.’ ” Lady Kirwan laughed as she tried to imitate her late husband’s gruff tones. “He paid me pretty compliments, never came home without some trinket or a bunch of flowers ... I was the envy of all my friends for the first six months, but the focus of their pity later.”

“What changed?” Nick laid his hand over his mother’s.

“I’m not certain anything did change. It was simply that Benjamin couldn’t keep up a pretense for very long. Sooner or later, the real man had to show his face. In that instance, bills began to pile up and dunning letters began arriving by every post. I’d never lived in debt and didn’t really know how to manage under those circumstances. There’d been some delay in my bride portion due to a loss my father had suffered shortly before our marriage. Benjamin began throwing that up to me and eventually told me to my face why he’d married me. By then I had guessed, but hearing it from his own lips ...”

She paused and seemed to be listening, her eyes half closed, to voices echoing out of the past. “He slammed out of the house and I didn’t hear from him for three days. We were never the same after that.”

Pulling free, she patted his hand, smiling. “You mustn’t think I’ve been miserable all these years. I had you and then your sisters. He was always kind to me when I was increasing, though he didn’t stay home very much after you. Sometimes Benjamin could be marvelously kind, but I was never central to his life after those first heady months.”

Nick found it impossible to sit beside her another moment. His agitation required that he go to the window and stand, looking out, his back to his mother. “What of my sisters? What life do you see for them?”

“My one consolation,” she said with great good humor, “in our reduced circumstances is that they need not fear being married for any reason beyond that of love. So long as they marry within their own sphere, my heart will never be troubled for them. My only worry is that you will act imprudently.”

“Never fear, Mother. I shan’t do that.”

‘This young woman—this Rietta—she is of good character?”

“She possesses great strength of character.”

“Oh, dear.”

“You mistake me. She isn’t overbearing, though I believe she has yet to learn to compromise.”

“She doesn’t sound like the woman for you, my dear son. If you have learned to compromise, it is news to me.”

“Yet if I were in love ...” He returned to the table.

“Well, the Bible teaches us that with love, all things are possible. I don’t know how far one can push that promise, however. You’re not in love with Rietta Ferris, I take it?”

“Give me time, Mother. I only met the lady three days ago. I’ll tell you plainly, though. I’ve never seen another woman who I would so readily make mine.”

Lady Kirwan’s face lit up as she passed Nick the macaroons. “I pray every night that you’ll bring your bride to Greenwood while I am still here to see her.”

“Come to Galway, Mother. You’ll see her. I promised her that you’d soon call upon her.”

“I suppose I must, then. It would never do to make a liar out of you.”

* * * *

If Lady Kirwan was surprised to find herself being driven into Galway before two days had passed, she concealed it admirably. It was otherwise with Amelia. “I really don’t see why we must rush into an acquaintance with this young woman and her family.”

“Because Nicholas wishes it, dear. I daresay we shall find her quite charming.”

“I don’t trust Nick’s taste, Mother. She’s probably dreadfully vulgar. After all, he’s been in the army so long he’s probably forgotten what a nice girl is like.”