Carola Dunn (11 page)

Slowly it began to swing back and forth, a handsbreadth this way, a handsbreadth the other, constructing an invisible web.

Sir Barnabas arrived back at the manor an hour later, dizzy, cross-eyed, and in a frightful temper.

Chapter 8

Washed, dressed in her blue-striped dimity, and with her hair properly pinned up, Nerissa went down to the breakfast room. Despite her unwonted exercise she was not particularly hungry after her bread-and-butter and blackberries, but she was ready for a cup of tea.

She was also ready to face the family. Yesterday’s fatigue forgotten, invigorated by the walk, she was ashamed of the way she had let their unfriendliness intimidate her.

Nonetheless, she rather hoped to find Miles in the breakfast room before her.

No one was there but Raymond Reece. He jumped to his feet, bidding her “Good morning,” and bustled around the table to seat her opposite himself. Nerissa almost laughed aloud. Had not Miles declared that the parson would be the first to see where his best interests lay?

“Tea, if you please, sir,” she said in answer to his query, “and those apples look delicious.”

“Permit me to peel it for you, ma’am. But come, you must call me Cousin Raymond, for that is our relation, is it not? ‘Behold how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity.’“ He smiled as he set a cup of tea before her and picked up a fruit knife, but his eyes were coolly assessing.

She politely accepted the apple he peeled and quartered. Desperately seeking a subject of conversation that could not possibly lead to either the theatre or her inheritance, she asked him about his parish.

Somewhat to her surprise, he seemed well acquainted with all his parishioners and their trials and tribulations. Indeed, he described them to her in what she considered quite unnecessary detail. Gammer Smithson had lost all her teeth and could only eat sops; Ted Carter’s feckless wife was expecting her ninth though she couldn’t clothe the first eight; Jos Bedford invariably drank up all his wages at the village tavern, which rejoiced in the name of the Addled Egg; Old Amos, who had lost his leg at Trafalgar, suffered from dreadful rheumaticks in wet weather....

“Of course,” said Cousin Raymond, regarding Nerissa with obvious pessimism and a hint of malice, “as the lady of the Manor, you will wish to do what you can to alleviate their troubles and to encourage them to remedy their ways. Aunt Jane, I fear, has not been as active in this regard as one might hope.”

“I-I will do my best,” Nerissa stammered.How many things there were to learn! In this matter, alas, Miles was unlikely to be knowledgeable. Nonetheless, she turned to him with relief when he came into the breakfast room as she sipped the last of her tea.

“Did you enjoy your ride?”

“Splendid!” His colour high from the fresh air and exercise, he looked less dissipated and debauched than ever. “Whatever her faults, your cousin Matilda is a good judge of horseflesh, and—”

“You’ve been riding Samson!” Matilda burst into the room on Miles’s heels and glared at him accusingly. Her skinny figure in a severely practical brown habit quivered with fury.

“Yes.” He continued calmly to the sideboard and peered under the silver covers of the chafing dishes. “You were out on Grandee and I don’t believe Hippolyta is quite up to my weight. Aha, sausages.”

Matilda scowled. “Hippolyta is a superb hack.”

“Without a doubt,” Miles soothed her as he piled high a plate. “But I ride at eleven stone and you can’t be more than nine.”

“Eight and a half,” she admitted grudgingly. “What do you think of Samson?”

“Magnificent.”

Thereafter, the dialogue deteriorated to a discussion of blood lines, well-sprung ribs, length of bone, sloping shoulders, and let-down hocks. The Reverend Raymond departed, with an expressive grimace at Nerissa, and she soon followed. Miles raised his hand in a negligent wave as she left.

Feeling lost and rather forlorn, she wondered what she ought to be doing. Mrs Hibbert had said something about menus, but Nerissa had been too anxious and bewildered to take it in properly. Someone had to decide what the household was to eat each day, she supposed. Was she expected to prepare a menu, or merely to approve it? Should she consult Cook or the housekeeper? She shuddered at the thought of offending either.

Perhaps Miles knew the answers, but she didn’t want to display her ignorance before Matilda. As she hesitated outside the breakfast-room door, Miss Sophie came trotting towards her, her dove-grey gown swinging about her ankles. She waved a piece of paper with an anxious air.

“Good morning, dear. I am so glad to have found you, for whatever Effie says I am sure you are the one to decide upon the menu now.”

“I was just wondering, Cousin Sophie. Mrs Chidwell is accustomed to write it out?”

“Oh no, dear. Each evening she tells me what to put down for the next day and I write it in the morning, only I fear I frequently forget precisely what she has said. And then, Cousin Jane sometimes insists on having her say, and so often Effie wants something the gardens cannot supply. She says Tredgarth, the head gardener, is monstrous disobliging, but of course the poor man cannot grow what is not in season, can he?”

“I imagine not,” Nerissa agreed, smiling.

“I must say he sometimes becomes quite alarmingly grumpy, but it is all right in the end. He and Cook pay Effie’s scolding no mind, and I am quite used to it.”

“Well, I shall take the blame in future, if you will be so kind as to help me at first.”

Miss Sophie beamed. “Certainly, dear, for Effie is still abed. We shall be quite peaceful in the morning room.” She led the way into a small, sunny sitting room, decorated in peach and white with flowered chintz upholstery.

Nerissa very soon decided that whatever she did could only be an improvement on Miss Sophie’s muddle-headed efforts. Cook must have been struggling for years to make head or tail of menus full of crossings-out and changes and question-marks. With renewed confidence, she thanked her elderly cousin and went off to find Mr Tredgarth.

It seemed reasonable to her to discover which fruits and vegetables were available before deciding what dishes to order.

As she wandered through one of the walled kitchen gardens, between neat beds of onions, carrots, Brussels sprouts, and cauliflowers, Miles joined her. “You should have sent for Tredgarth,” he reproved her.

“I knew you would say that. I wanted to see the gardens for myself. Miles, there are no flowers anywhere!”

“I daresay it’s too late in the year.”

“Nonsense. When I left York the gardens were full of Michaelmas daisies and chrysanthemums, oh, and autumn crocus and asters, too. Even a few roses. We are much farther south here. I haven’t even seen any rose bushes.”

“I don’t know anything about flowers,” he said dismissively.

“You seem to know a great deal about horses,” she snapped. “You and Matilda were getting on like a house on fire.”

“Her opinions on horses are well worth listening to. I trust your tête-à-tête with the parson was equally satisfactory?”

“Cousin Raymond was so obliging as to provide me with any amount of useful information.”

“Did I not say he’d be the first to attempt to weasel his way into your favour? Having succeeded without the least difficulty, he’ll aim at your affections next.”

“How dare you, sir! You may be so desperate for... for female companionship as to take a fancy to Cousin Matilda but I, I assure you, am not so easily won.” Her nose in the air, her heart in her halfboots, she turned away. “If you will excuse me, Mr Courtenay, I must speak to Mr Tredgarth. Cook is expecting a menu.”

“I came to ask if you’d like to go into Porchester today, to order some clothes, but no doubt you mean to rely upon your cousin Raymond for advice. I trust you will find him an expert on the proper modes. Good day, Miss Wingate.”

Nerissa swung round, but already he was stalking away, his boot-heels crunching angrily on the gravel path. Pride forbade her calling after him.

She was not jealous of his admiration for Matilda. After all, she had only met him yesterday, though it seemed like weeks. She simply didn’t want to see him taken in and cheated out of his inheritance. And if her spirits were sorely lowered, it was because she had lost her best ally at Addlescombe.

With a sad sniff, she went in search of the gardener.

Seated atop the nearest wall, Sir Barnabas chuckled. At first, hearing the sound of quarrelling voices as he wearily approached the manor, he had been disgusted. Miles and Nerissa at loggerheads was the last thing he wanted. Then he had recognized the squabble for what it was--a lovers’ tiff. Already they were sufficiently attracted to each other to resent attentions paid to anyone else.

Moreover, from his perch Sir Barnabas had an excellent view of Sophie skulking behind a bed of yellowing, red-berried asparagus. He caught a glimpse of Raymond peering through the misted glass of a greenhouse. His granddaughter and his godson were under close observation.

His evil temper banished, the baronet bounded down from the wall with such alacrity that he left the spider’s fading ghost behind. In high good humour, he followed Miles into the house.

Miles’s humour was the reverse of cheerful. However, by the time he reached the front hall, he was able to laugh--ironically --at Nerissa’s claim that he was attracted to Matilda Philpott. He, who had kept as mistresses some of the most seductive actresses on the London stage!

He was sorry Reece had managed to worm his way into her confidence. No doubt the poor innocent trusted him because he was a clergyman. Next thing, he’d be sneaking into her bed, and she’d not know how to defend herself. From what she had said, Miles guessed that her parents had always guarded her against the advances of scurvy knaves like... like himself?

All right, so he was a rake, but he had never seduced innocence. He preferred ripe women, women of experience, which only went to prove that he couldn’t possibly be jealous of Nerissa’s fraternisation with Reece. If he was disturbed it was just because, with so much money at stake, he didn’t trust the fellow an inch further than he could see him.

It was up to him to protect her from the deceitful cur.

For a start, he couldn’t let her rely upon her cousin’s advice on her new wardrobe. When she came in, he’d persuade her to go into Porchester with him. In the meantime, he would follow her good example and begin to familiarise himself with the duties of his new position.

Feeling virtuous, he went off to the estate office at the back of the house, near the stables. He was studying a large-scale map of Addlescombe and its tenant farms when Nerissa tapped on the door half an hour later.

“Snodgrass said you were here.”

“The man knows everything.”

“Am I interrupting you?” she asked warily.

“No, no, come in. The bailiff ain’t here and I don’t care to tackle the account books without him.” He gave a careless wave at the shelf of heavy black tomes beneath the high, narrow window.

Nerissa’s eyes widened. “You have to know what is in all those?”

“Lord, no. I’ll need to wade through the past few years to see how things have been going on, so that I’ll know what to look for in the current accounts. To tell the truth, I’m not looking forward to it above half, but it’s all too easy for a lax landowner to be cheated.”

“Will I have to understand them, too?” she asked in dismay. “Mrs Hibbert said something about accounts.”

“The household accounts are your province. I’ll take care of these--unless you suspect I shall cheat you?”

“Oh, Miles, of course I don’t! I just came to tell you Tredgarth says there are no flowers because my grandfather considered growing them a waste of garden space and the gardeners’ time.”

“Old killjoy.”

“And to say I hope you will relent and take me shopping in Porchester? I cannot ask Cousin Raymond to help me buy clothes. I don’t want the sort of dowdy fashions a country parson would approve.” She looked down with disfavour at her shabby blue-striped dress. “Or else he might try to persuade me to wear the sort of gaudy, improper gowns actresses favour, hoping to give the neighbours a disgust of me.”

Miles grinned as he rolled up the map and tied it with a tape. “As I warned you yesterday, though you were half asleep at the time, I believe. I’m glad you are not taken in by his sudden friendliness.”

“‘One may smile, and smile, and be a villain,’“ Nerissa quoted sagely. “I have been helping Mama and Papa con their lines since I was first able to read, and one cannot learn half of Shakespeare’s plays by heart without learning something of human nature.”

As she spoke, she led the way from the office into the corridor. Miles heard a squawk of alarm, and sprang forward.

Before he reached her side, she said, “I’m sorry if I startled you, Cousin Sophie. Were you looking for me?”

“Gracious, no, whyever should you think so?” gabbled Miss Sophie. Then she changed her mind. “That is, yes, dear, I... I want to ask you... to ask you if... er, um... if you have arranged today’s menu with Cook,” she finished in a burst of inspiration.

Nerissa answered her soothingly, but Miles frowned in puzzlement as he followed them along the corridor. Though Miss Sophie was notoriously scatterbrained, surely she could not have forgotten whether she was looking for Nerissa or not. He smelled a rat, and he was certain Euphemia Chidwell was responsible for its existence.

Raymond Reece was not the only one from whom Nerissa needed protection.

He was still frowning, trying to guess what dire plot Mrs Chidwell had in mind, when the butler came towards them.

“Mr Courtenay, sir, Mr Harwood requests a word with you in the library when convenient,” he said.

“Oh no!” Nerissa exclaimed. “Not now. We shall never get away.”

“I’ll just go and tell him we are on our way out, while you put on your bonnet,” said Miles, shepherding the ladies onward into the front hall. “Snodgrass, order the landau brought round immediately.”

The butler looked unwontedly flustered. “Beg pardon, sir, but Sir Neville and my lady set off in the landau not five minutes since, with Mrs Chidwell and Mr Aubrey.”