Barbara Metzger (16 page)

He was almost pleading. He was actually crying. Juneclaire was so touched, she said she would reconsider.

Then the reverend clinched her decision. He begged for divine forgiveness and lied through his teeth: “She likes cats.”

So while the Earl of St. Cloud was racing past uninformative Springdale and heading for London, where he would knock on back doors himself if need be and haunt the coaching inns, Juneclaire was headed toward his own haunted house to knock on his own grandmother’s door.

N
o one answered the knock. Juneclaire thought they should leave.

“No, old Pennington must have the gout again. We’ll just give him a few minutes to get here. He’s Lady St. Cloud’s butler, and he’s older than dirt. So’s her abigail, Nutley, who’s too deaf to hear the door anyway. Mrs. Pennington is the cook-housekeeper and she, ah, tipples.”

Juneclaire was positive they should leave. She set her carpetbag down on the steps of the gray stone house. “Goodness, no wonder you didn’t tell me this before we got here. Why ever doesn’t Lady St. Cloud retire them if they are so far beyond their work?”

“I asked the dowager once and almost had my head bitten off. They’re like family, it seems, and have nowhere else they’d rather go. Help comes from the main house—you can’t see it from here, but the Priory is just beyond those trees. They do the cleaning and such, so Lady St. Cloud’s retainers’ positions are more nearly pensions.”

“Is there no one in the household younger than Methuselah? It cannot be very comfortable or even safe for the old lady.”

Mr. Langbridge knocked again, harder. “There’s a young maid, Sally Munch, and a footman. They are walking out, according to the dowager, and I am afraid they are walking out more often than they are working indoors. They’re most likely off on holiday this afternoon anyway. But you mustn’t think no one cares about the old lady’s welfare. The earl has tried to get her to move to the Priory countless times, I understand, but the dowager and the present countess, the earl’s mother, have never gotten on. Well, there is no point waiting out here any longer,” he said, which Juneclaire was relieved to hear until he concluded, “We may as well go on in. I know the dowager is expecting me.”

The solicitor guided Juneclaire to a bench along the wall of the long entry hall. The furnishings were old-fashioned but elegant, obviously expensive and scrupulously clean, from what she could see in the near dark. The dowager might be blind, but surely her staff needed more light than this? And there were no flowers or plants, not a holiday decoration of any kind. If
she
were here, Juneclaire speculated, there would be garlands of fresh-smelling greens, bowls of dried lavender or crushed rose petals, and clove-studded apples. Surely the dowager could smell what she could not see. She’d light all the sconces, too, Juneclaire mused, so the place felt warmer. Yes, she could be useful here.

When Mr. Langbridge came out of a room down the hall, he seemed even more worried than before. “She’s agreed to see you,” he said. “Alone. I beg you to try to please her, Miss Beaumont, for I’m afraid the dowager grows more addled in her wits every time I see her. She sent for me today because the Angel of Death visited her last night, she claims, so she knows her time is near. I fear for her, indeed I do.”

“I heard that, you jobbernoll you,” came an angry voice from down the hall, accented by the pounding of a cane. “Don’t you know a person’s hearing gets better when they lose their sight? And I ain’t dicked in the nob, you paper-skulled paper pusher. Now are you going to send the female in, or are you going to sit in my hallway gossiping about me all day?”

The old lady was still muttering when Juneclaire went into the room and curtsied, even knowing the small, white-haired woman didn’t see her. The dowager sat perfectly erect, not the least bit frail or withered. Juneclaire touched her on the hand and said, “How do you do, my lady? I am Miss Beaumont. Thank you for meeting me.”

“Humph” was all the response she got back. “Thinks I need a keeper, does he?”

“No, ma’am, just a companion.”

“What for? To jaw me dead? Not much else for a companion to do around here. I can’t play cards or go for a ride. Can’t even do my needlework.”

“But I could read to you, and I could drive you about if there’s a cart. And I could teach you to knit. Once you get the hang of it, you don’t need to watch the needles.”

“Humph. Knitting ain’t genteel. Ladies do fancy work, miss.”

“Yes, but there are many people who need scarves and mittens more than they need another altar cloth in the church. I should think a lady might consider that, too.”

“There’s some sense in what you say, but you ain’t going to be preaching to me about the poor, are you?”

Juneclaire laughed, a pleasing sound to the old lady’s ears. “Not if I don’t wish to join their ranks, it seems. But I am sure you think just as you ought, my lady.”

“You’re not one of those Methody Reformers, are you? I don’t want any holier-than-thou reverencer sneering behind my back. Frank language ain’t going to shock you, is it, Miss Beaumont?”

“My cousins cured me of that ages ago, my lady.”

“Ages? How old are you, anyway? Langbridge said you were just a girl. I don’t want any shriveled up prunes-and-prisms spinsters around me either. Let me touch your face, girl.”

Juneclaire knelt so the old woman could touch her soft cheek, her straight nose, and heavy brows, the thick braids of her hair and the smile on her mouth.

“I am nineteen, my lady, and I haven’t put on my caps yet.” She laughed again. “In fact, I had a very attractive offer from a gentleman just recently.”

Juneclaire jumped aside as Lady St. Cloud thumped her cane down. “What kind of offer, miss? I won’t have any hanky-panky around here. It’s bad enough with the lower orders sneaking off to the bushes and the pantry and the basement at all hours.”

The laughter was gone from Juneclaire’s voice. “You insult me, my lady, and also the gentleman. It was a very fine, very proper offer of marriage.”

“Pish tosh, miss. If it was such a fine offer, why didn’t you take it? You can’t tell me you’d rather look after an old crone than have a house and husband of your own. Coming it too brown, my girl.”

Juneclaire sighed. “I had to refuse, Lady St. Cloud. He offered out of honor, you see, not out of love. I couldn’t hold such a fine gentleman to an empty marriage. It wouldn’t be right.” She sighed again.

“But you wanted to, didn’t you, girl?” the old woman shrewdly interpreted.

“Oh yes, Merry was everything I ever thought a man should be.”

Merry? The cane dropped from Lady St. Cloud’s hand. “Miss Beaumont, what did you say your first name was?”

“Juneclaire,” she answered hesitantly. What new quiz was this?

“And how many gals named Juneclaire do you think are running around Berkshire right now?”

“Why, none others, I should think. I was named after my mother, Claire, and my father, Jules. Why do you ask?”

The old lady didn’t answer. She just laughed and laughed. “Turned him down, did you? Oh, how I am going to enjoy this!” She laughed some more, till Juneclaire began to worry about her sanity after all, especially when the dowager recovered and suddenly asked, “You ain’t afraid of ghosts, are you?”

So confused was Juneclaire that she blurted out, “They cannot be more frightening than you.”

The dowager laughed some more, then reached out to pat Juneclaire’s hand. “You’ll do, girl, you’ll do.”

“Does that mean I am hired, my lady?”

“Hired? I suppose it does, for now. Go send in that young solicitor of mine. I want to discuss your, ah, wages with him.”

“Thank you, my lady. I’ll try to please, I swear it. There’s just one other thing, though. Do you really like cats?”

“Cats? Pesky creatures. Can’t abide the beasts, always underfoot or carrying around dead things.”

“Oh. I’m sorry, truly I am, for I should have liked to stay. But I have this kitten, you see, that no one wanted, and I cannot just abandon it with no home. So I’ll have to—”

“I’ll learn to love it.”

 

When Mr. Langbridge came back out for her on her bench in the hall, he looked at Juneclaire as if she’d grown another head. Nevertheless, he silently beckoned her back to her ladyship’s parlor.

“I have invited Langbridge to take potluck, Miss Beaumont. Are you too tired from your travels, or do you join us?”

“I, um . . . Oh, dear, I know this is not the proper way to start in my new position, my lady, but did you know that Mr. Langbridge’s daughter was ill?”

“Of course I did. Asked first thing.”

“Yes, but she needs to go to a warmer climate, and Mrs. Langbridge is traveling to Italy with her tomorrow.”

“That’s well and good. I wish them Godspeed, but what is that to—Oh, I see. We won’t keep you then, Langbridge. I expect you to stay next week when you bring those papers back for my signature. I daresay you’ll be glad for the company then. And as for you, miss, I suppose you think just as you ought. Just remember, I find it deuced uncomfortable being wrong.” The dowager spoke with a smile, though, so Juneclaire went cheerfully off to get ready for her first dinner in her new home.

The three old retainers were in various somnolent stages in the kitchen. Juneclaire introduced herself and explained her new position to Pennington, the only one whose eyes opened at Juneclaire’s entry. The butler instantly recognized her for a lady and slowly lowered his bandaged foot to the floor so he could rise and make her a proper bow. Juneclaire had to help him back to his seat. He shouted the news loudly enough to wake his wife from her post-tea, predinner stupor and for Nutley, the abigail, to hear. If Juneclaire worried her ladyship’s longtime servants were going to be jealous of an upstart, she was soon dissuaded from that notion. The three were relieved someone else was going to help look after their mistress and thrilled someone else was going to be the butt of her temper. Mrs. Pennington vowed to fix a special dinner, and Nutley asked if miss needed help with her unpacking. What Juneclaire needed was a hot bath, but none of the servants looked fit enough to walk up the stairs, much less carry a tub and tins of water.

“Never you fear, miss,” Mrs. Pennington said, wobbling to the door, “by the time we get a room aired and your things put away, young Sally Munch’ll be back with her beau. They never stay away through supper.”

Her room adjoining the dowager’s was twice as big as the one Juneclaire had slept in most of her life. Did she just leave Stanton Hall a few days ago? It seemed a lifetime. There was a fire in the grate and lavender sachets in the drawers for her few belongings and a thick carpet for her feet. The kitten was being fussed over in the kitchen, and she was being fussed over here. Nutley insisted on brushing out her hair and taking her second-best gown to be pressed. The abigail had not even commented on the meager contents of her carpetbag.

As Nutley remarked to Lady St. Cloud as she helped her mistress change for dinner, “Young miss is Quality, anyone can see that, and if she had deep pockets, she wouldn’t be going for a companion, now, would she?” Nutley did not hear the dowager’s comments any more than the dowager could see Juneclaire’s appearance. Mistress and maid were as one, though, in agreeing that Miss Beaumont was, on first meeting, a jewel.

The jewel was going to look far more brilliant without all the dust. Juneclaire looked at her bath when it came as a starving man looks at a slab of beef. Aunt Marta would call such sybaritic pleasure sinful, so Juneclaire would not think about Aunt Marta now. The morning was time enough to send her aunt a note that she was well. Juneclaire leaned back in the suds. She was very well indeed.

 

After dinner Juneclaire read the previous week’s mail to the dowager and laughed at her stories about the people mentioned in her friends’
on-dits.
For a woman who did not do the Season, Lady St. Cloud used to keep abreast of the latest gossip with a vast network of correspondence. She was hoping her grandson did not return to steal the girl away before Miss Beaumont got halfway through the letters. Well, he could take the girl, but he wasn’t getting the cat.

At first she was worried. “It’s not going to trip me up, is it? Wouldn’t do to fall at my age, you know.”

“Cats are very good about things like that, my lady. And you do have your cane to sweep in front of you. You’ll have to be more gentle with it, of course, not knowing the kitten’s location. Here, hold it.”

Silk and a sandpaper tongue and the rumble of tiny thunder that went on and on. It was love at first touch.

“What does he look like?”

Juneclaire wasn’t quite sure what to say. This was the fourth kitten, the one no one wanted. “Well, his eyes were blue, but I think they are going to be yellow. He has a little gold on his chest and a black spot over one eye, and white feet, except for the back right one. That’s kind of brownish. And there’s a faint gray stripe down his back. He’s a bit of this and a patch of that. But he has the sweetest personality!”