Carola Dunn (11 page)

“Thank you, Bodiham,” Mr Mayhew said again. “We shall do very well without.”

“Biscuits!” There was a gleam in Bodiham’s eye. “Won’t be no trouble at all, sir. Flour an’ sugar an’ butter,” he muttered as he headed for the kitchen. “Eggs, now, do we want eggs in biscuits? Have to do a bit of ‘sperimenting.” The door closed behind him.

Philo heard a distinct groan from her host. She thought of offering a receipt for a particularly delicious Viennese biscuit, but she did not want to offend. “Shall I pour?” she enquired. Cousin Sarah had always had a kind word for the elegant way she served tea, though the service before her was like nothing she had ever seen.

For a start, there was neither milk nor sugar. She picked up the pot. It was an earthenware monstrosity, an odd contrast with the fine china cups and much heavier than she expected. Despite her care, it dribbled as she poured, leaving a puddle on the tray.

“Good gracious!” Philo failed to restrain a startled exclamation at the pale muddy colour of the liquid in the cups. “Your servant seems to have put milk in the pot with the tea.”

Mr Mayhew flushed. “Sugar too, I fear. He says it saves unnecessary washing up.”

“I like lots of milk and sugar in my tea,” Toby assured him. “This is good.”

Philo sipped at the syrupy stuff, trying not to show her distaste. In this she was unsuccessful.

“Pray do not feel obliged to drink it, Miss Philomena. Bodiham will not take offence. I frequently leave the greater part of what he cooks.”

“It is rather horrid,” she admitted, looking at him worriedly. He was thin, to be sure, but not excessively so, and he did not look unhealthy. Still, he had been at Marsh Cottage only a short time, so perhaps he had not been subjected to the servant’s cookery for very long.

It would be an act of charity to keep an eye on the situation, to make sure Robin Mayhew did not fade away. Frequent visits to the cottage were obviously called for.

* * * *

Afraid of wearing out her welcome, Philomena resolved to stay away from Marsh Cottage for two days. Torrential rain helped her abide by this resolution. She occupied herself in transferring the information on her breeding charts to individual notes for each canary, taking pride in the small, neat handwriting Mr Mayhew had praised.

As the downpour continued, she became concerned that the hollow by the stream might flood. She wandered restlessly about the house, irritating Aquila to the point of snapping.

Though Aquila had cultivated a languid air even in the brilliant society of Vienna, the double confinement of their half-mourning and country living introduced her to true tedium. Even in the best weather she could not ride, as Cressida kept no horses. Practising half-heartedly on the spinet in the drawing room, she complained that she could not hear herself because of the canaries’ warbling, though she played only because it was expected of a young lady. Philo, deeply grateful for her sister’s insistence on removing from her aunt’s household, understood her crotchets and forgave them. Nonetheless, it was a relief when a watery sun broke through the clouds on Saturday morning and she could escape from the house.

Toby was occupied with his mother, and Philo had no intention of telling Aquila about her wizard, so she set off alone. The grassy field path was easy going, but the lane was deep in mud. Undaunted, she squelched down the hill, only to find that the stream had risen and was washing the underside of the footbridge. She eyed it uneasily.

If she had been superstitious, she might have thought it was a warning that to call alone upon a young gentleman was the height of impropriety.

“Miss Philomena!” Robin Mayhew’s voice hailed her.

She looked up to see his lanky, hatless figure approaching the ford from the other side. His smile made her heart turn over.

“Good day, sir. I was wondering whether the bridge is safe.”

“Pray do not attempt it until I have tested it. Dare I hope you were coming to see me?”

Flushing, she nodded. He seemed oblivious of her want of conduct. Perhaps a gentleman dedicated to the study of the natural sciences had no time for the conventions, or perhaps he simply considered her a vulgar, forward hussy.

“I feared you might have been flooded out,” she hurried to explain.

“No worse than half a dozen leaks in the roof and a lake around the back door,” he said cheerfully. He set foot on the bridge. It creaked but held, and he crossed to her side. “I was going to go for a walk. I promised my mother to exercise daily for my health. Will you go with me? Or we can go back to the cottage and have Bodiham make us a cup of tea.”

“Oh no, I had much rather walk!”

He laughed at her vehemence. “I’m sorry, I was teasing you. It is a bad habit one falls into when one has half a dozen sisters. I promise you need not drink tea.”

She regarded him dubiously, uncertain how to react. “I should like to walk, only it is shockingly muddy.”

“I know a way across the meadows that should not be too bad, if you will allow me to help you climb that stile over there.”

His hand at her elbow supported her, and to her relief he did not take advantage of her unsteadiness on the slippery wood to attempt any familiarity. Relief, yes—but she recognised with horror that there was disappointment too. She would have quite liked to stumble into his arms.

Was Aquila’s aunt right? Did Philo indeed take after the dead mother she had never known?

Aghast at the thought, she walked in silence across the sodden, straw-coloured grass, keeping a good yard between herself and her alarming companion. Of the dashing hussars and silver-tongued attachés who had pursued both sisters with equal enthusiasm in Vienna, not one had made Philo feel like this.

She glanced at him sideways, careful not to meet his eyes. He was not especially handsome; rather, his clear-cut features and high forehead gave him a look of intelligence. His voice was a pleasant light tenor. She forced herself to concentrate on what he was saying.

“I was thinking about what you said of the little green finch that was the ancestor of the canary. I wonder if they can be bred with our native British finches.”

It was the one subject guaranteed to put her at her ease. “Oh yes, they have been crossed with linnets and chaffinches and any number of others. Most of the offspring are infertile, but I have read that a hundred years ago there were already twenty-five varieties of canary in England. The English mostly breed for colour and size, and the Germans for song.”

“And you?”

“For song. That is why I have the Harz Rollers. They are not the most beautiful, but they are the best singers.”

“Perhaps you should try crossing them with nightingales.”

“Nightingales are not finches. Oh, are you teasing me again? About my name?”

“As a matter of fact, I was. I do apologise, Miss Philo. I shall try to break the habit.”

“No, it’s all right. I think I shall like it when I am used to it. The thing is,” she confided hesitantly, “I cannot sing a note.”

She expected him to laugh, but he said in a commiserating tone, “What a shocking irony! I suppose your parents could not tell when they christened you, but it just goes to show how careful one ought to be in naming a child. Never mind, it is a pretty name.”

Philo was tempted to confess the other half of the irony, that her mother had been an opera singer. She restrained herself. She dreaded the possibility that Robin Mayhew might turn from her in disgust.

When they reached the far side of the meadow, she hurried over the stile without his help, then stepped back, startled, as a large bird scurried away from almost under her feet.

“Oh, what was that? It’s beautiful!”

“A pheasant. A splendid fellow, is he not, with his red wattles and green neck? Look, he has left you a tail feather.” He handed her a narrow, eighteen-inch feather, glossy brown barred with black. “I suppose you have been too much abroad to know our English birds well. Though, as a matter of fact, pheasants were imported from China.”

“Cousin Cressida has taught me some of the garden birds. Blackbirds and thrushes, and the different kinds of tits, and we saw a nuthatch one day, running headfirst down a tree trunk.”

“And robins, no doubt.” He grinned, but didn’t comment on the coincidence of their both being named for birds. As they walked on, he pointed out a busy flock of fieldfares, a pair of wrens chattering in a hedge, a kestrel hovering high overhead. “I once wanted to be a naturalist,” he said, “before I was introduced to the joys of what my sisters refer to as the stinking science.”

Philo had never guessed that a ramble through the winter countryside could be so enjoyable.

Climbing the stile once again on their return towards the village, she heard the church clock chiming noon. “I didn’t mean to be gone so long,” she said in alarm. “They will wonder where I am. Thank you, sir, for a delightful walk.”

“I hope you will go with me again one day. There are many more birds to be found. And bring young Toby to visit again.”

“I shall,” she promised, then added, greatly daring, “if you will let me make the tea.”

His laughter followed her up the hill.

* * * *

What an odd little creature she was, Robin mused, watching her slight figure hurrying away. One moment shy as bedamned, the next full of earnest questions and artless confidences. She had obviously been bred a lady. What emboldened her to defy convention by visiting him?

Robin was not a vain young man. He concluded that Miss Philomena’s interest in science was sufficient explanation for her behaviour. She trusted him to be a gentleman, and he had no intention of betraying that trust, however much her soft lips tempted him. Her presence would render his temporary exile in this dreary spot more agreeable by far, until his home laboratory was completed. How fortunate that he had thought to display his knowledge of birds! That would keep her interest if chemistry palled.

He quite forgot that scarce a fortnight since, he had pulled a wry face when his mother insisted on his interrupting his studies with exercise.

* * * *

In the week that followed, Philomena walked with Mr Mayhew once more, adding four more birds to her list, and took Toby to Marsh Cottage twice. Her absences seemed to go unnoticed.

The first visit to the cottage was brief, a detour on the way home from the village shop where she had bought Toby a pennyworth of peppermint bull’s-eyes and butterscotch drops.

“I helped Aunt Philo clean the floor,” Toby explained to Mr Mayhew. “The canaries like flying around free, but they make a
terrible
mess. Do wizards like sweeties?”

“They do indeed,” Mr Mayhew replied gravely.

“Aunt Philo doesn’t, but I did think you do. Which do you like best? No,” he changed his mind in a burst of generosity, “you can have one of each.”

They left Mr Mayhew with one cheek bulging and a sticky confection held gingerly between thumb and forefinger.

“Come for a cup of tea on Monday morning,” he called after them in a glutinous voice. “Bodiham has been experimenting.”

After that warning, Philo set out for Marsh Cottage on Monday with a degree of caution, Toby with enthusiasm.

Bodiham’s experiment turned out to be some oddly lumpy biscuits that he aptly described as rock buns.

“These are pebbles,” said Robin, pointing out a raisin. “I believe a geologist would call them aggregate rocks.”

Philo ventured a nibble. “Interesting,” she pronounced, then caught Robin’s eye and giggled.

Toby thought they were delicious.

Philo busied herself with the tea tray. This time it bore an empty teapot, a steaming kettle, a canister of tea, a milk jug, and a sugar bowl. The cups even had saucers.

“I’d forgotten tea could taste so good,” said Robin with a sigh, draining his cup.

“I like Bodiman’s better,” Toby disagreed. “You didn’t put enough sugar in mine, Aunt Philo.”

Philo regarded Toby’s continuing interest in the ‘speriments as a mixed blessing. On the one hand, having the child with her added a touch of respectability to her visits. On the other, it was only a matter of time before he gave their secret away. Cousin Cressida, always busy, was grateful to Philo for taking care of her son so often. Looking after the canaries was teaching him a sense of responsibility, but sneaking off to call on Mr Mayhew was the reverse. It made Philo feel guilty, yet she could not bear to give up seeing him.

Fortunately, Aquila hadn’t the least desire to join her in tramping, as she thought, across endless muddy fields.

* * * *

A few days after the morning visit, Philo went alone to Marsh Cottage. When Mr Mayhew, wearing his smock and protective spectacles, opened the front door in answer to her knock, a wave of malodorous gases assailed her nostrils.

Involuntarily she stepped back, raising her hand to her nose. “Good day, sir,” she choked out, her eyes beginning to water.

“Oh dear, is it that bad? One grows accustomed to it and does not notice.” He came out to join her on the doorstep.

“What is it?”

He sniffed cautiously. “You are right, it’s horrible. The stench of rotten eggs is sulphuretted hydrogen. The hint of sweetness is laughing gas. Then there is spirits of ammonia, the chief ingredient in smelling salts.”

“The combination is enough to wake the dead. It cannot be good for you. You ought to have a canary to warn you when it becomes dangerous.”

“That is a famous notion,” he exclaimed, much struck. “I cannot imagine why I never thought of it myself. I shall write and suggest it to Sir Humphry. In the meantime, I hesitate to invite you into my humble abode, unless you wouldn’t mind taking tea in the kitchen? The inglenook is passably comfortable.”

“I daresay the kitchen is as elegantly appointed as your drawing room,” she pointed out.

He grinned. “I have an apt pupil. I shall cease to refrain from teasing you now that you are ready to respond in kind. I shan’t ask you to go through my ‘drawing room.’ Let us go round to the back door. I’ll leave this open to air the place out a bit.”

He led the way, courteously holding back one or two overgrown branches that barred the path. As they reached the kitchen door, a Dutch door, the upper half swung open and Bodiham’s head appeared in a cloud of smoke, coughing and wheezing.