Love Bade Me Welcome (12 page)

Before I slipped off to sleep I thought of the estate jewelry and wondered what had become of it. I even wondered if Norman had ever had it at all, or if one of the others had got hold of it, sold it, or concealed it from Norman. Jarvis, or Homer or Bulow. Or even Thalassa. She must be the one who had it, as Roger’s wife till very recently. Homer said it had been in a bank vault in London. Did he
know
this? Assume it? Invent it?

Surely if Norman had had the jewelry he would have wanted me to wear it. He wanted me to be grand and glorious. Jewels would have suited his picture of me. But he had never once so much as mentioned them. He had also neglected to tell me Wyngate was a country mansion. I felt a twinge of anger with him, till I remembered he was gone beyond my anger. Beyond my love, too, and beyond helping me.

Cousin Bulow called Millie a witch, and I came to understand his thinking. She had some supernatural ability to read the future. Her laboratory, her potions and cures and restoratives were instrumental in the name as well. She did not quite stand stirring a bubbling cauldron, but she had her little pots simmering, emitting strange odors. She even had a black cat, who liked to sun himself on her laboratory windowsill, amongst the pots of growing herbs. She called him Don Miguel, and insisted his ancestors were from Spain.

She prophesied aright that Cousin Bulow would come to call on me, hardly surprising when he had promised to do so before learning about my child. She did not achieve her wish of seeing Eglantine Crofft’s face when she heard. By the time Miss Crofft came, along with Bulow, she had digested the information and its likely consequences, and regarded me with an air of mistrust. Other than her expression, she was a pretty girl, of the blond, blue-eyed, vaporish, flirtatious sort.

“Bulow has told me so much about you,” she said, when we were presented in the saloon of Wyngate.

“I am happy to meet you, Miss Crofft,” I answered, returning her curtsy and sitting across from her, where she took a seat beside Bulow on a settee. She promptly attached her hand to his arm in a proprietary way.

“We have heard your startling news and are come to offer congratulations,” Cousin Bulow added with a warm smile. “It must have thrown the household here into consternation,” he added with a mischievous smile. This leading comment was possible, as only Millie of the family were with us. Her sixth sense, or possibly her view from her laboratory window, told her he had arrived and sent her scrambling down the stairs to see her favorite.

“You should have seen the fireworks!” Millie said, shaking her head in pleasure.

“It came as a shock, of course,” I added less emotionally.

“I have no doubt the family elders will contrive some ingenious arrangement to take this new fact into account,” he said with a pointed, meaningful little smile at me, held for an intimate length of time. I knew what he meant. Homer would be urged to court me.

“We have seen the solicitor and worked out an interim arrangement,” I answered blandly. “Homer will continue overseeing matters, with Mr. Rupert as trustee.”

“And yourself? Who is to represent your potential interest?” he asked.

“I am representing that interest,” I told him. I disliked that he spoke of family affairs in front of Miss Crofft, who was listening closely, her eyes narrowed with interest.

“They’ve already had Nevans to see you?” he asked.

“Yes, he came yesterday.”

“You might be interested to know there is a better—that is, a younger doctor in the neighborhood. Forward-looking folks are patronizing Dr. Mather nowadays. He is more modem.”

“We have had Nevans for years,” Millie reminded him.

“Precisely. For too many years,” Cousin Bulow said. “He is unaware of the new techniques in medicine. I personally never go to anyone but Mather. Eglantine and her family also,” he added, with a look to her.

“Mather performed wonders for my aunt,” she confirmed, and went on with boring details of the aunt’s malady and treatment.

“He hasn’t the reputation for losing quite so many babies—and mothers—in childbirth,” Bulow said, sending me into a fright. Had I had some poor practitioner palmed off on me? I could not believe there was any malice in it. Nevans tended Thalassa. No, Bulow was only being mischievous, but all the same I would make further enquiries, as soon as I had made a few friends beyond the family.

Miss Crofft, a chattering sort of girl, undertook to give me some notion of the shops I ought to frequent for my purchases, the best modistes, coiffeurs, and such tradesmen as might be of interest to me. “You will be needing maternity gowns made up soon,” she added.

“Not for a while yet. I lost weight when my husband died.”

We discussed local matters while wine and biscuits were served, then Bulow said, “We must all get together for an outing one of these days, Davinia. Driving is not prohibited, I trust?”

‘“Not at all. I should like to see something of the neighborhood.”

“We’ll make it next Friday, shall we?” he suggested.

“That’s fine with me.”

“You forget, Bulow, I am promised to my Aunt Flora’s house party next weekend. I must leave Friday noon to be there for dinner Friday evening,” Miss Crofft reminded him. “Let us make it Thursday instead.”

“I am busy on Thursday,” he said. “An appointment with my man of business.”

“Wednesday, then. Why wait so long? Friday is a long way off.”

“From Monday to Wednesday evening I will be at the Winchester races, Eglantine. I couldn’t miss them.”

“Oh fie, you have been to a dozen already,” she chided.

In the end, it was Friday and no other day Bulow could come, and I had to wonder whether it was not because it was the one day Eglantine could
not
come.

“Why, you aren’t afraid to drive out with me alone, I hope, Davinia?” he exclaimed, laughing when I regretted Eglantine would not be along.

“Of course not, but I had hoped for another chance to meet Miss Crofft.”

“There is nothing to prevent the two of you meeting anytime you wish,” he pointed out.

“We’ll get together again very soon,” Miss Crofft promised, with a sullen glare at her bothersome suitor.

Life ran along smoothly enough at Wyngate in the interval between the visit and the Friday of the drive with Cousin Bulow. I continued my visits with Thalassa. She was pleasant, still my favorite new relation, but I could not fail to notice the forced heartiness when she discussed my pregnancy. Strangely, she and all the family continued to speak of the child as “he.” I even began doing it myself, though more and more I was coming to want a “she.” I put it down to the drained feeling my condition induced. A “he” would cause so much disruption in the flow of life, whereas a girl would be a little companion who would one day grow into a good friend. I would become the mother that I had been denied myself.

Homer was punctilious to consult me on matters about the estate, even after he learned my inexperience. It became our custom to hold meetings in his study after dinner, and before he went above to talk to his mother. It was a cosy, pleasant room in which to take tea. Business was the excuse, indeed the original reason for the meetings, but over the days we discussed other things besides.

“It is my intention to tile the west pasture,” he mentioned one evening. “It will cost upwards of sixty pounds, not over eighty. The land is so marshy it cannot be used for anything but pasture, and that only in a dry season. It would give a better yield if tiled and planted.

“How much better?” I asked in a businesslike voice. “How long would it take to recover the investment?” That last phrase I had picked up from himself. I detected a secret smile when he heard me use it.

“At least two years, but a farm ought to be run with a view to the long term, you know, Davinia. Eventually it will repay the cost many times over.”

“Do you have the cash in hand to do it?” Borrowing was a thing to be avoided unless necessary—that was another thing I had heard him say.

“I gave you the books last week. Have you not had time to look them over?”

I had looked for hours together, but found bookkeeping an involved, nearly incomprehensible business. I was not entirely sure, when I began, what he meant by debit and credit, but had to figure out by the nature of the entries. Sales obviously meant monies coming in, and that is the low base from which I began figuring the books.

“I don’t remember the cash balance just offhand,” I answered vaguely.

“It wouldn’t do much good if you did. Several small transactions have occurred since. I would appreciate your returning the books when you are satisfied with them.”

“I’ll send for them this minute.”

“Later. We can afford the work. I would like to do it.”

“Then by all means let us do it.”

“I also have my eye on a prime milcher from Duggan’s herd. She’ll improve our milk yield enormously. He wants a pretty pound for her.”

“How much?”

The sum quoted struck me as astronomical. “You must be joking!”

“A young cow is a double-yield investment. She produces milk, and she produces more cows—if you’re lucky.”

“Are you not certain of her fertility?”

“Not certain she will produce cows, rather than bulls. It is not only the human race that is beset by the problem, you see.” He gave me quite a natural smile. I was surprised he would jest about our situation.

He went in writing over the increase in milk production, then extrapolated from one cow the increase as she was bred, till she began to look a terrific bargain. “What are you waiting for?” I asked.

“Your approval, ma’am,” he answered, with an arch smile.

“I can only marvel you didn’t buy Daisy months ago.”

“Wyngate was not in my hands many months ago. Your husband left it in Jarvis’s keeping. I recommended Daisy when she came up for sale, but Norman always wanted as much money as possible forwarded to Norfolk, and vetoed the purchase.”

“It is strange he took such a short view of things. I found Jarvis’s talk of generations as though they were only a minute in time so odd when I first came, but now I begin to get the rhythm of farming. The slow-paced, ongoing cycle, each season adding some increase to the whole.”

“Not Norman’s season as keeper,” he pointed out.

“He didn’t spend any vast sums, if that is what you think.”

“He certainly siphoned them from the estate. There must be a fat safety box sitting around somewhere. Possibly even with the jewelry in it,” he added, frowning. “It has got to be somewhere.”

I noticed he no longer spoke as though I had hidden it, and was happy. “There has been no word from Mr. Rupert yet?”

“Not yet.”

“If monies
do
turn up, we should buy that meadow bordering Wyngate, the one owned by the London banker, and get a few more of Daisy’s daughters to graze on it, and make ourselves a fortune,” I suggested, still looking at his figures.

“You have the makings of a fine manager, Davinia. Only one little point has eluded you. Any monies Norman managed to set aside while he owned Wyngate belong to you, not the estate. There is still a possibility
I
will inherit, and you wouldn’t want to hand your monies over to
me,
now would you?”

“No,” I admitted. It was strange, but when we sat together those evenings, with the teapot between us, I pouring his tea, it almost seemed as though Wyngate did belong to us both, that we shared the common task and pleasure of running it to the family’s best advantage. More and more did I wonder why Norman had chosen Jarvis as his manager when Homer was so keen and so knowledgeable. I didn’t mention it, because Homer always stiffened up when his name arose.

He looked at me closely. There was something he wished to say, I was convinced, but he bit it back, shook himself to attention, and suggested a hand of cards instead.

“Should we not join the others?” I asked. “It is unsociable to desert them every evening.”

“Jarvis is in his study. He has begun sorting through Norman’s papers. You would not want to disturb him at that chore. As for Millie, she is either with Mama or in her laboratory concocting some potions for you. I hope you don’t actually drink all that stuff she trots to your room.”

“I wouldn’t touch it with a pair of tongs. I take it and tell her I’ll have it before retiring, but instead I use it to water the plants. I do believe I killed that aspidistra that sat in the corner. Or maybe it is the lack of light that did it in.”

“As we were saying, Millie is busy and Jarvis is busy, so there is no incivility in our sitting together here. It is pleasant for me to have a conversable companion. I enjoy our meetings.”

“I enjoy the lessons in accounting and farming,” I replied, feeling conscious that he meant a little more than he said. I found it odd he did not have other feminine companions. Homer was attractive, and even without Wyngate as a lure he had his own smaller estate. “More than a competence,” Jarvis called Farnley Mote.

“What did you used to do before I came?” I asked.

“I was at my own place for most of that time. I am on friendly terms with my neighbors. I always had some improvement or renovation going forth to occupy my spare moments. And of course I made frequent trips here to visit my mother. She had stayed on here. She can be moved, but was used to the household servants, and they are used to her. I have fewer of them at home. Yes, she spent close to three decades here, and feels it is her home.”

“I would be happy if she would stay on with me, if it chances I am the new mistress,” I said, not from charity, but because I liked her.

“We shall see about that. It is early days yet for either of us to be arranging our households.” Yet his eyes told me he was forming some plans. There was a proprietary glow in them as he gazed at me, and a gentle upturning of the lips that had not been there earlier. Just so had Norman regarded me when we were courting. It was upsetting, but in a pleasant way.

Exciting, perhaps, is the word I mean. I suppressed any sign of it when I spoke, however.