Amanda Scott (3 page)

“Sabrina, what are you saying? Surely you would not have taken Dolly to London at the height of the Season and then expected her to sit quietly at a concert or two. What do you suppose Mama or Papa would have had to say to that? Why, I was in black gloves myself till the end of June.”

“Oh, I know,” said Sabrina with a sigh, “but you do not know what Dolly can be like, and I promise you I feel for her because her best friend made her bow this Season and Dolly truly does not understand why her own pleasures must be curtailed. It does seem such a pity when she so seldom even saw Laurence.”

“That does not signify one whit,” Emily said severely. “Laurence was her father.”

“Yes, and so Jack said to her. What a dust-up we had, to be sure. But Jack’s will prevailed, as it always does. And, Emily, he is
not
always right. I am certain he is not.”

“Of course he is not. Very few persons are always right,” Miss Wingrave said fairly. “But when you know he is wrong, Sabrina, surely you have only to point out his error to him.”

Sabrina stared at her.

A
FTER A MOMENTARY SILENCE, MISS LAVINIA SAID TO EMILY
, “Must see she can’t do such a thing as that. Can’t say boo to a goose. You must know that if anyone does.”

Emily nodded. “How right you are to remind me of that fact, ma’am.” She leaned forward to pat Sabrina’s knee. “That is the reason you sent for me, after all, is it not? I will soon see just what is to be done, and then you need trouble your head no more, for once I see my way, I shall simply point out the error of his methods—tactfully, of course—to Meriden.” Drawing an invigorating breath, she reached for another sandwich.

Lady Staithes stared at her in awe, much as though she feared she had conjured up a genie out of a bottle and didn’t know if she would be able to get it back inside again.

Miss Lavinia, looking from one sister to the other, suddenly chuckled and picked up her book.

Emily smiled at her. “What is that you are reading, ma’am, if I may ask?”

“Oh, some bit of nonsense Dolly lent me,” Miss Lavinia replied. “The heroine is presently living in a castle in Italy, a place that appears to be infested with mysterious dukes and ferocious bandits. I am attempting to ascertain which category best suits the hero. At the moment he appears to be a bandit, but I suspect he will turn out to be the real duke in the end.”

“Miss Lavinia,” said Sabrina fondly, “dotes on those foolish novels quite as much as Dolly does, and neither Oliver nor Harry Enderby dares to tell her that she is stuffing her brain with rubbishing nonsense.”

“Harry Enderby?”

“Oh, he is a friend of Oliver’s. Enderby Hall lies further up the dale, north of Meriden Park. Very respectable antecedents, Mr. Enderby has, but he and Dolly no sooner lay eyes upon each other than they come to cuffs. He is up at Oxford just now, but he will be home in a week. He told her the last time he was here that she was nothing but a selfish ninnyhammer. Can you credit such a thing?”

“Perfectly right, too,” said Miss Lavinia, glancing up from her book. “Never looked for such good sense from that young man. Dolly won’t have him, though. She prefers the worst of the lot to the best. You’ll have her running off with some fortune hunter if you don’t keep her tied by the heels, Sabrina. Like so many young girls today, she thinks this nonsense”—she hefted her book—“is real. And say what you like about me, I have read a deal more and seen a deal more than what is written here. My head ain’t like to be turned by mysterious dukes.”

The doors opened before Sabrina could respond to this candid speech, and a handsome young man in a bottle-green coat, buff pantaloons, and gold-tasseled Hessians entered the room. His stiff shirt points, intricately tied neckcloth, and gaily embroidered waistcoat identified him to the experienced Miss Wingrave as a would-be member of the dandy set. Lifting his quizzing glass to his eye, he peered at her and drawled lazily, “Dolly said you had arrived, ma’am, but surely you cannot be my Aunt Emily. You are far too young and pretty.”

“Oliver,” begged his mama, “pray do not be absurd. Of course she is your aunt.”

Emily regarded him critically, saying calmly, “You have not got the precise knack of it, you know. Your quizzing glass ought properly to be used to depress pretension, not to underscore your own lack of civil manners.”

Oliver flushed, letting the glass fall so that it swung inelegantly from its black silk cord to bump against his well-muscled thigh. “I beg your pardon. I didn’t mean to be rude.”

“I am aware of that,” said Emily. “That is why I ventured to give you a hint of your error. One should be rude only when one intends to be rude. When you peer at someone through your glass like that, you are either doing so to criticize him or to praise him. For example, you might examine the elegance with which a bow is tied or the preposterous pattern of a gentleman’s waistcoat. Indeed, if you wish to do the thing properly, you could do no better than to observe how Meriden does the trick. He is nearly as skilled with a quizzing glass as he is with a sword or a pistol.”

Oliver stiffened. “I do not choose to take my tone from Meriden, ma’am.”

“No, of course not,” said Emily apologetically. “To have suggested such a thing was a thoughtless error on my part. I know that you are out of charity with him at present, for your mama told me so, but I was thinking only of the quizzing glass, you see, and spoke without thinking. It is a fault of mine, I fear, that I often focus my attention on one small point and forget the larger issue.” She smiled. “I trust you will contrive to forgive me.”

Oliver blinked at her, clearly unaccustomed to such apologies from the adults in his life. But then he smiled, looking singularly boyish despite his fashionable attire, and said as he drew up a giltwood chair and sat down beside her, “My pleasure, ma’am. No offense taken.”

“I declare,” Emily said then, turning back to Sabrina, “I am anxious to meet Meriden again. He must have changed a great deal indeed since last I saw him, though I have not done so, to be sure, since Christmas. My own activities this Season have, like your own, been sadly curtailed.”

“Meriden hasn’t gone out of Yorkshire since February,” Sabrina said. “He went down to London for the opening of Parliament and stayed through the first sessions because of some trifling matters of probate that he said would be more easily attended to there than in York, but otherwise he has been here.”

“He practically lives here,” said Oliver acidly.

“You exaggerate,” his mother told him.

“No, he don’t,” said Miss Lavinia. “Dines here, often as not. Can’t be wondered at. Must prefer company to dining in solitary splendor at Meriden Park. Ain’t here today, though.”

“No, thank God,” said Oliver. “We are spared his carping for one night at least. He rode into York this morning and won’t return to Staithes until tomorrow. You will have to postpone your reacquaintance with him till then, Aunt Emily.”

“Then I trust,” said Emily to Sabrina, “that you will allow Melanie to join us for dinner this evening. I should like to meet her at long last.”

“To be sure, my dear. She and Miss Brittan often dine with us when we are
en famille
. I believe it is good for children to grow accustomed to dining in company, do not you? I recall that we Wingraves were used to do so often.”

Emily was as certain as she could be that the forthcoming evening meal would bear little if any resemblance to the merry family dinners at Wingrave Hall, and it proved to be much as she had anticipated. Oliver and Dolly expressed, rather too often for her taste, their delight in the “peaceful” tenor of the gathering, while Melanie sat silent as a wraith.

At nine years of age, with her silky blond hair tied back with a blue ribbon to hang in waves down her back, the slender child did indeed have a fairylike appearance. Prodded by her mama and the prim, dark-haired Miss Brittan, she murmured a polite greeting, but with that small exception, she sat silently, pushing her food about on her plate, looking at no one.

Since Emily was not sitting next to the child, she made no attempt to draw her out, believing it would be better done at a more propitious time and place.

The governess appeared to keep a watchful eye upon Melanie without losing track of the conversation, and when Dolly expressed herself rather too impetuously at one point, Miss Brittan assayed a mild reproof. Dolly’s eyes flashed defiantly before she looked away from the woman and went on with her conversation as though there had been no interruption. Encountering Miss Wingrave’s frown, Miss Brittan flushed and returned her attention to her plate.

The response did not please Emily any more than her niece’s impertinence had pleased her, but she resolutely held her tongue and did not dwell on the incident, knowing that to do so at that moment would serve no good purpose. Instead she found herself wondering if Miss Brittan would not be prettier and younger-looking if she were not forced to wear spectacles or if she were to arrange her tightly coiffed hair in a softer, more becoming style. Perhaps, Emily mused, she ought out of kindness to suggest the latter course to the woman.

When Miss Lavinia addressed a comment to her some moments later, Emily turned her attention without regret to that lady, and the rest of the evening passed amiably, although Oliver took himself off on some errand of his own, declining to respond to his mama’s feeble attempt to discover whither he was bound. Neither did he deign to reply to her suggestion that he would do better to remain at home and help to entertain his aunt on her first evening at Staithes.

When Emily retired to her bed in the spacious blue-and-white bedchamber allotted to her use, she had much food for thought. Her sister’s household was, without question, at sixes and sevens. A good deal of the blame, she was certain, could be laid at the door of Sabrina herself and at that of her late husband. Neither seemed to have attended very skillfully to parental duties. But that could not be helped now. Once she had ascertained how much blame might be fairly allotted to Meriden, she would know what to do to sort matters out. She had no doubt that before she returned to Wiltshire the household at Staithes would be running smoothly.

Emily did not see the Earl of Meriden until the following afternoon. She knew, for William had told her when she asked him, that Meriden had arrived at Staithes before ten o’clock. But when the young footman also told her, most earnestly, that his lordship would be like a lion with a thorn in its paw if she interrupted his business with Staithes’s bailiff before he had finished, she remembered her own papa’s testiness on like occasions and bided her time.

Donning a Wedgewood-blue walking dress, she decided to take a turn about the splendid gardens to pass the time. She had learned the previous evening that the gardens at Staithes were Miss Lavinia’s pride and joy, that she bullied the gardeners over each delicate detail, even supervising the annual coppicing of a portion of the home wood. Emily was particularly fascinated by the large square knot garden she discovered near the southern end of the lake. As she bent to examine an intricate thread of red geraniums woven through the twisting border of dwarf yews, she noticed her elder niece sitting alone on the steps of a small marble temple overlooking the lake just beyond a rustic wooden footbridge, beneath which the lake spilled into the brook that raced from north to south at the bottom of the dale.

“Good morning,” she called.

Dolly looked up, hesitated for a moment, then got politely to her feet. She wore a dark blue cloak over her white muslin dress, and she clutched it tighter when the breeze dancing down off the moor caught at its folds. “Good morning, Aunt Emily.”

“Is this your private place?” Emily inquired, drawing nearer along the white-pebbled pathway and adding in a more gentle tone when she stood beside Dolly and chanced to note the girl’s reddened eyes, “I have my own place at Wingrave, you know—a delicious hollow near the river Avon. It is nestled amongst the rocks, one of which is large enough to form a natural armchair even now that I am grown. The river creatures swim in to talk to me when I sit there—dabchicks and swans and … oh, all manner of things. I found the place when I was very small, and at first my father punished me whenever he discovered I had been there, for he was afraid that I would fall into the river, you know. But I liked my private hollow, and it drew me despite Papa’s profoundest displeasure, so he gave in at last and made my brothers teach me to swim instead.”

She had been talking to give Dolly time to compose herself, for it had become immediately apparent to her that the girl had been weeping. Now Dolly looked at her with some interest, even amusement in her damp china-blue eyes. “Did you really defy your papa until he let you have your way, Aunt Emily? Mama has always said Grandpapa frightened her witless whenever he was angry.”

Emily sat down on the top step of the little temple, patting the place beside her. “What a splendid view of the house and the lake you have from here.” She looked at Dolly and smiled as the girl sat down beside her. “I daresay it was different for your mama than for me, you know, for she was the eldest and thus particularly precious to them, so they were no doubt stricter with her. She was two years old before Thomas was born. But before I came along, there were Eliza, John, Bella, Ned, and Nellie. With so many others to look after me, and our dear Mattie as well—I know your mama must have told you of our governess, Miss Matthews—well, no one paid me much heed, you see, everyone always thinking someone else must be watching me.”

“But how lonely you must have been!” Dolly exclaimed.

Revising her first impression of her beautiful niece, Emily said gently, “But I wasn’t lonely at all. There was always someone if I wanted someone. In that houseful of people, the hard thing to find was solitude, and I am strangely addicted to occasional periods of quiet.”

“I see,” Dolly said, withdrawing a little. “Like Melanie. She avoids everyone of late.”

“And like you, I daresay,” Emily said with a chuckle. “Since you are too kind to tell me to my face that I am intruding, I will take tactful leave of you now and let you enjoy yours.” She moved to stand up.