A Country Wooing (5 page)

“I told him he was a ninny to go. Do you remember what he said?”

“No, what?”

“He said, ‘I might as well.’ I thought he’d give some rant about beating Boney or becoming a general or finding life dull here. But he said, ‘I might as well,’ so half-heartedly. I can’t imagine what made him do it.”

“We’ve never known Alex at all. That’s what it comes down to.”

From the pensive expression in her daughter’s eyes, Mrs. Wickfield was encouraged to believe mystery was no impediment to love. “We know he’s Lord Penholme—no question of that,” she pointed out helpfully. “A pity he hadn’t slid that ring on a different finger, eh?”

“I don’t feel the ring was a suitable gift. I wish he had given me the brooch.”

“Maybe it’s a hint of things to come. I take it as a good omen.”

“Or a bad one. Opals are bad luck.”

“Good gracious, you mustn’t listen to that doomsayer. It would be the greatest luck in the world if you could marry Alex.”

Anne stared into the opal, watching the flash of red and orange and yellow, which turned to green and blue as she twisted the ring on her finger. Yes, it would be suitable in every way for her to marry Alex, an excellent parti, except that she didn’t love him. She loved Charles.

Chapter Four

Mrs. Wickfield was in high spirits after the dinner. She had detected a burgeoning interest in her daughter by Lord Penholme and fully expected to see him at their door soon and often. His absence on the first day, she excused on the grounds of his bad shoulder acting up. The second day it rained rather hard. “With that wound, he is wise to remain home,” she said, but in a voice indicating that in affairs of the heart, discretion was not the better part of wisdom.

“He never paid us much attention, Mama. Why would he come here again so soon?” Anne asked blandly.

Yet she felt a rankling at his continued absence. Every time she looked at her ring she thought of him, and of his consciously trying to put it on her left hand. That question about her having a suitor in mind was quite pointed as well. If a man was interested enough to drop a few hints, one expected him to follow it up. But really, she was half relieved.

Lord Robin was on much closer terms with the family, and on the third day, late in the afternoon, he dropped in for a cup of tea. “Good gracious, you look like a scarecrow!” Anne exclaimed when she beheld the muddy spectacle in the saloon. “What on earth have you been doing?”

“I’ve been at the tenant farms with Alex.”

“His wound is progressing satisfactorily after moving Charles’s bed, is it?” Anne asked.

“He hasn’t mentioned it, nor did he bother calling Palmsey. From the way he’s been digging ditches and hauling rocks and whatnot, I assume it’s better.”

“What is the purpose of all this labor?” Mrs. Wickfield inquired.

Robin shook his head in bewilderment. “I think he’s
loco na cabeza, “
he said. “That’s Spanish. I’m learning a few words from him. He turned Buckram off, you see. That’s the fellow Charles hired after Alex left. He’s turned out to be a regular
bandido.
I daresay it’s my fault for not having kept a closer eye on things, but truth to tell, I hadn’t a notion about farming. Buckram said he’d had the fields marled, and the bonehead tenants never told me otherwise. Alex says he’d be surprised if there’s a teaspoon of lime in an acre. He sent Buckram to the rightabout—dismissed him, and without giving him a character.”

“That seems rather hard!” Anne exclaimed.

“That’s the way Alex means to run things in future. Including me.”

“You are not a thing, Robin.”

“Ain’t I? I’m beginning to feel like one. A dashed tired thing.
People
don’t get up at six in the morning, do they? Of course, he sends me to bed as soon as ever the sun sets, so I’m awake early.”

“Why is he doing this?”

“Oh, he plans to make a man of me.”

“Obviously not a
gentleman,”
Anne said, running her eyes over his mud-splattered jacket and buckskins. His boots were so muddied they had been removed at the door.

The tea arrived, and Robin leaned against the sofa with a weary sigh. “Do you know what we did this afternoon?” he asked in a voice that defied them to let their imagination soar.

“Took mud baths?” Mrs. Wickfield inquired, for she feared his elbows might be dirtying the sofa.

“You’re not far out. We dug ditches like a couple of common peons. Looking for tiles, which Buckram said he put in, but the bogs after that rain must have told a mawworm there were no tiles there. And, of course, there weren’t, so Alex lined up the tenants with shovels to dig a ditch. The worst of the flood must be channeled away or the crops will drown. At least I think that’s why we did it,” he added uncertainly.

Mrs. Wickfield came to indignant attention. “You never mean Lord Penholme spent his afternoon digging a ditch!”

“We supervised,” Robin explained. “The way Alex supervises things is by digging in and working harder than anyone. He was just waiting for me to knuckle under, so, of course, I had to keep the pace. He says an officer’s job is to lead his men, not to bring up the rear.”

“Why does he not buy tiles and have the job done properly?” Anne asked.

“Quién sabe?
More Spanish. I expect he’s either too poor or too clutch-fisted. He’s been ripping up at Aunt Tannie, too, till she’s threatening to walk out on us. She does wear a body’s nerves to a razor edge after a while, but all the poor woman did is ask for money to buy linen. With dozens of girls sitting on their hands all day long, he didn’t see why they couldn’t get busy and mend the sheets and things, instead of buying new ones. Lord, they’re so thin you could spit through the best linen in the house. Oh, I’ll tell you, ladies, he’s come home a changed man. He was always a bit sour, but he’s turned
mean.
”

“Well, Mama,” Anne said, “you were regretting he had not come to call. We must count ourselves fortunate to have been spared.”

The tea had a softening effect on Robin. “I didn’t mean to make him out a monster,” he said. “I daresay once he gets things set to rights, we’ll have smoother sailing. The estate is certainly a shambles, and he didn’t cut up so stiff with me for not having done a better job of overseeing Buckram. He apologized to Aunt Tannie, too, once he had settled down. She has no cleverness, poor woman. She hit him up for the money the minute he got home from the bank, when anyone could see by his scowl his pockets are to let. It’s been a bit of a tough homecoming for him.”

“He’s making it tougher on himself,” Mrs. Wickfield said. “He can’t expect to undo all Buckram’s harm in a week. He should go at it more slowly, relax a little. Spend some time getting reacquainted with the neighbors,” she added meaningfully.

“He does seem to get some pleasure from being with the children,” Robin said. “He never rips up at them, and during our
siesta,
he tells me a lot of interesting things about Spain. We’re in shallow waters, and it is for the men of the family—he means me and him—to paddle us out. It gives a fellow a good feeling, but I must let off steam somewhere, you know, and if I do it with Willie and Bung, they’ll go running back to Alex, for they think he’s all the crack.
Número uno.’’

Robin’s frown had eased to a rather fond smile as he changed his tune, and Mrs. Wickfield’s expression changed along with it. “I expect Alex has some long-term plans for your future, Robin—something more than digging ditches.”

“Oh, certainly he has. We talk about it all the time. As he is so keen on teaching me how to run an estate, I have some hopes of getting our smaller farm, Sawburne, pretty soon.”

The conversation turned to local gossip, and in half an hour, Robin rose to take his leave. “I don’t know when I can sneak away to visit you again. Tonight Alex is having the tenants to the Hall for a planning rally, to see if they can share teams and plows and whatnot and work more efficiently. Oh, and to arrange a cottage for Nudgely’s son, who is marrying another tenant’s daughter—the bracket-faced Stinson girl. They can’t afford to build, so he has to sweet-talk Mrs. Nudgely into leaving the family cottage and move in with a sister in the village, for the Stinson chit won’t live with her mother-in-law. If he can’t nudge the old lady to town, he’s afraid we’ll have Mrs. Nudgely cluttering up the Hall.”

Mrs. Wickfield nodded in approval. “He was always a good manager.’’

“Yes, he says the cottages have to produce, and a widow, especially Mrs. Nudgely, ain’t producing anything but trouble. She was always a spiteful harpy. She don’t even keep a cow—her neighbors say she turned the milk sour at a glance.”

Robin put on his boots and left.
“Adiós,
ladies.” He was whistling as he strode to the door. His shoulders were held at a straighter angle, his head a little higher, his pace brisker, as of a man with things to do. Yes, he looked more like a man than a boy. Already the change was noticeable.

It rained again on Sunday, and with only a gig at their disposal, the Wickfield ladies said their prayers at home.

The weather prevented callers, and by Monday Anne felt she had to get out of the house or she would scream. She harnessed up Mrs. Dobbin for a ramble through the meadows. No faster pace or longer trip was possible on the jaded nag. The meadow was spangled with wild flowers. Pied daisies and silver-white lady’s-smocks, blue violets, and buttercups tempted her from the saddle to garner a bouquet. She trod carefully, lifting her skin to protect it from the damp grass.

The sun beat warmly on her shoulders from the azure-blue arc overhead, with soft cottonwool puffs of clouds floating high. Despite the beautiful serenity, Anne felt some vague dissatisfaction with life—some sense of urgency, of time slipping by and nothing changing.

Things should change in spring; something new and wonderful and exciting should happen. She had looked forward to Penholme’s arrival as possibly bringing an increase in social activity, but no parties had been thrown. There had been no more talk of the ball or garden party. Alex was too busy digging ditches. If it were Charles who was home, how different things would have been. She had felt on the day of Alex’s arrival that he had changed, but he had only become more pronounced in his usual working routine. He even kept Robin from calling as much as he used to.

She was bent low, gathering her flowers. Penholme didn’t see her, but he saw Mrs. Dobbin tethered to a post and stopped to look around. When he spotted Anne, he dismounted and advanced on foot. He was within a few yards before she heard him. Her instinctive response upon seeing him was annoyance: whether because he had come or because he had not come for so long, she didn’t know. Perhaps it was only that he was not his elder brother.

“Buenas tardes, señorita,”
he said, and removed his hat, making a playful bow.

She again had that sensation of being with a stranger. Robin occasionally spoke Spanish, too, but coming from him, it was only amusing. On Alex’s lips, the words sounded softer, more intimate—romantic. It was the tone of voice that accounted for it. Yet as she looked at him, she found nothing romantic in his appearance. He wore an old and ill-fitting jacket. Mud had hardened to gray blobs on his top boots and buckskins.

“Hello, Alex,” she said, and continued picking her flowers, for she had come across a full patch of daisies.

“I have been meaning to call at Rosedale.”

She gave a casual shrug. “I’m sure you’re very busy.”

Alex reached down his hand to pull her up. “You have enough flowers. This is my meadow.” He smiled. “I don’t mind a little looting, but leave some for the bees.”

“I made sure a horn-and-hoof farmer like you would approve of garnering all of nature’s bounty.”

“So I do. Honey is the bounty these blossoms provide.”

“But you don’t have any hives.”

“I shall soon. I have already suggested it to a few of my tenant wives who are past the cares of child-rearing.”

He took her arm and began walking back to the horses. “Poor old Mrs. Dobbin,” he said, shaking his head at the sway-backed jade, who chomped the grass desultorily.

“Poor Annie,” she added. “I used to be a fair-to-middling horsewoman. The only skill Mrs. Dobbin requires is patience.’’

“There are plenty of mounts at the Hall. Why don’t you borrow one?”

“You don’t know your Shakespeare, Alex. ‘Neither a borrower nor a lender be.’ If you don’t mean to
give
me one, then I shall just hobble along on Mrs. Dobbin till she cocks up her toes and dies.” She spoke in jest, and as Alex smiled, she felt no fear he had misread it into a hint.

“I shan’t detain you. I know you keep yourself very busy,” she said, and began to untie the rein.

“No, really! I’m not such a slave to duty that I can’t spend a social moment with my favorite neighbor.”

“If you have time to spare, might I suggest a change of clothes—or at least that you have your valet take a good stiff brush to your jacket and boots? We are not accustomed to seeing the lord of Penholme in soiled boots.”

“A little dirt never hurt anyone,” he said, but with a conscious look as he examined his soiled outfit. “The fields are wet as bedamned.”

“Oh, really, Alex,” she scolded him. “Couldn’t you have your workmen do that rough labor? Robin has been compl—telling us how you go on.”

“Complaining?” he asked swiftly.

“Telling us.”

“I’ve been firm with him. It’s not good for a young man to have nothing to do. He ends up falling into mischief.”

Anne read an indirect slur against Charles into his comment and felt a hot rush of anger. “You need not worry that he’ll follow in his other brother’s footsteps, if that is your meaning.”

Alex didn’t deny it. “There’s good stuff in him—a fine lad, but lying in bed till ten in the morning and spending his evenings in the taverns isn’t the way to develop him. He must learn to pull his weight. There’s no free ride.”

She shook her head. “All work and duty. You haven’t changed a bit, Alex. Why don’t you relax and enjoy yourself? Only look how beautiful the day is.”

He scarcely glanced at the meadow before his eyes settled on her face. “I’ll let you do the relaxing. I can’t relax with my estate crumbling into decay around me. And I can’t afford a good steward at the moment. Soon I hope to be less busy. I’ve been looking forward to this spring for a long time.”