Cynthia Bailey Pratt (3 page)

“I do see that. Strange how it makes me feel no better.” The big man turned aside to smother a yawn. “Well, Miss Wingrove, I think I shall not after all take one of your tarts. That bed is calling to me. Busy day tomorrow, after all.”

“How much will you wager?” she asked, then coloring, added, “I know it is none of my business.”

“Between such as you and I, Miss Wingrove, there are no secrets. I mean to wager five hundred pounds upon a horse called the Master of St. Austell. A Cornish beast and called the fastest ever to make the sod fly. I’ve scraped together every farthing I could borrow, or beg.”

“I shall hope then that the Master wins, sir.”

“Thank you. Indeed, I do thank you.” In the doorway, he paused and looked back. “You know, you are charming enough to have one other female profession open to you.”

Danita put her hand to a suddenly overheated cheek, but answered composedly, “I have had that offered me, sir. You would be surprised, I think, to learn how many people believe a milliner has nothing to do with hats.”

His nod acknowledged the truth of her statement and seemed as well to show his approval of her sense. He half-lifted a hand and went on to her room.

Danita did not go to sleep on the chaise by the fire. She climbed down from her high stool to sit a while at the kitchen table. Talking about her troubles had not halved them, as it was popularly supposed to do. However, she did find some ease of mind in considering Sir Carleton. What a strange turn of mood had he, one moment gravely listening to her as though she were an aggrieved child and the next discussing his own predicament as though she were his equal. It was odd too, that his debts did not bear more heavily on him when hers were all she had thought of for weeks. How he could smile while under such an obligation, Danita could not understand. Certainly he owed much more than five pounds and three shillings.

When morning slipped across the scrubbed surface of the table, the bar of watery sunlight touched Danita’s face, bedded on her arms. Starting up in a dim kind of panic, she looked at the eight-day clock, ticking slowly near the cupboard. Quarter to seven! Soon the ladies could clamor for their morning tea and the kettle long boiled dry, no doubt!

Danita frowned blearily. It was borne in upon her sleepy senses that the sunlight was too weak to shine like pure gold. But like gold it shone upon a little stack of brilliant coins.

In wonder, Danita extended a shrinking finger, fancying that they might, like fairy gold, vanish at a mortal’s touch. Five sovereigns stood stacked together, their milled edges gleaming.

Snatching them up, Danita raced down the corridor to her own small room. The man. Sir Carleton, was gone. The bed was neatly covered, the pillow centered as though never disturbed.

Chapter Two

Her life had accustomed Danita to partings. She was used to speedy farewells and to knowing she went unmissed in the lives of those she left behind. Expecting sensibility from Miss Lucy, who had whispered that never, never again should she find a maid so clever at circumventing Millicent’s strictures against novels and bonbons, Danita had not thought to find it in herself. Yet she had dropped several tears at bidding farewell to the stricter sister. “I owe you so much ...” she began more than once.

“Piffle. Twaddle. You only required the time to find your feet again. It is very proper your great-aunt should want you by her. Good of her to send the money.”

The gentleman who had come out of the rain was not mentioned. Certainly Danita did not tell anyone it was he who had given her the means to escape her debts. To do so would have ruined what little reputation remained to her in Damingford. Besides, Miss Massingham would have been disappointed to find a man doing the charitable thing without some ulterior motive. So the money was supposed to have come from her aunt, as an afterthought to her letter.

At first, Danita had qualms about accepting the money. Shortly after dinner the day of the race, as soon as she could get away, she went down into the low town, ostensibly to shop. Shopping, she listened to the gossips. But their mouths were filled with descriptions of the notables who had attended the race, and not of the race itself. Finally, she stopped a young man with a merry face and the stained leather apron of a potboy. “Excuse me,” she said, her hand shaking as she held it out to halt his rolling steps.

“Yes, miss?”

“Can you...can you tell me if the Master of St. Austell won in yesterday’s race?”

The round young man scratched his head. “I dunno.  Come to think on it, though, some of the swells did say...’course I was busy about me work.”

“Said what?”

“Said the Master didn’t win. Count of the rain. Some horses don’t like it. That all, miss?”

“Yes.
Thank you.”

“Pleasure.” He continued away.

The hill from the low town to the upper streets had never seemed so steep or so tiring before. The Master had lost, and remembering the look in Sir Carleton’s eyes, she wondered if he were lost as well. She did not even know at which inn he’d stabled his horse. She could not ask at every inn in Damingford how he had seemed when he rode away.

Giving the Massingham sisters a week’s notice to find another girl, Danita cleaned the hotel thoroughly. But no matter how she occupied herself or how tired she was when at last she lay down, she remembered Sir Carleton’s eyes as he’d talked nonsense about going to Russia.

She saw them too as she rode in the post chaise to Hertfordshire. Let down at an inn not far from her aunt’s home, she left her small trunk with the landlord and walked the two miles to Roselands. Looking at the large, red brick house through the iron gates, she shook herself, and tried to talk herself into a more cheerful frame of mind.

“The future looks brightest when you meet it with a smile,” she murmured and added, “People only like you when you like yourself.” She was forced to smile. The homilies so carefully stored up for use on nervous schoolgirls had a hollow and unconvincing ring when the speaker knew her own frailties.

She had sent word that she was coming, though with no hope the news would travel faster than herself. How was it, she wondered, that she so hated feeling an obligation to anyone and yet continually found herself laboring under a load of gratitude? Whatever the reason for Sir Carleton’s disappearance, at least she had been saved from having to thank him. Perhaps that was why he had gone without a word.

There did not seem to be a gatekeeper so Danita let herself in through the small pull-door set in the wall. The walk was gravel, carefully swept. To either side, she could see smooth lawns, reviving after the recent spring rains. The white dog roses and purple tufted vetch that had lined the road seemed to have no place here and would have smothered beneath the privet hedges, trimmed in great square blocks.

A bent old man, rather pudgy in his greasy black suit, opened the door. At one time, he must have been as tall as Danita herself, but now he peered up at her from near her shoulder. She gave her name and said, “Mrs. Clively is expecting me.”

“Are you Sylvia’s little girl?”

“Yes, Sylvia Wingrove was my mother.”

“Come in, my dear, come in.” For a servant, he was certainly glad to see her. Shuffling aside to let her enter, he gazed at her with happy eyes smothered in pouches.

“Did you know my mother?”

“I danced with her at her wedding. What a beautiful bride Sylvia made. Took after her mother. Dear Alice, such a good girl. Too good for my brother Giles, or so I always thought. But then, he was a merry ramstam and all the girls were mad for him.” He cackled as though at some old memory. “I’m your great-uncle, Lemuel Clively.”

Danita felt rather stupid. “Oh, of course. I’m pleased to see you, Mr. Clively.”

“I don’t expect you remember me, my dear. I haven’t seen you since your parents’ funeral, and you had too much to occupy you to mind one old man.”

That was true. A girl of fourteen robbed of both parents in a week had only a bleak future to think of in the midst of an aching loneliness. “You did write to me, though. At school.”

“Yes, I wrote.” He looked embarrassed and smoothed down the thin grey hair clinging to the back of his head. “I meant to write more often, but time has a way of slipping past me.” His little mouth pursed, and for a moment, Danita thought he was about to cry.

“Well,” he said, sniffing. “I’d best take you up. I know Judith has been on tenterhooks all day, waiting to see you.”

As the hour was not at all advanced, Danita took this statement at face value, but appreciated very much Mr. Clively’s attempts to make her feel welcome. The rest of the house did nothing to reinforce this feeling. It was very dark. The curtains were pulled together so no beam of daylight could enter. The stairs were dark wood and quite slick, so that Danita had to cling to the banister to walk in any safety. There was the faint smell of must. Danita began to wonder if the Clivelys’ fortunes were in decline. She almost wished they were, so that she need not take charity from them but could rather work to help.

And yet when they entered the apartment at the top of the stairs, Danita stood and blinked, both in amazement and because her eyes were dazzled by the difference in light. The room was a great double cube, lavished with gold on the exotic plaster swirls that adorned the walls and ceiling. Smirking
putti
flew about a painted oval set amidst golden filigree.

“Judith,” Lemuel Clively called, his hoarse voice dulcet as though summoning a nymph. “My dear, someone’s come to see you.”

Danita had absorbed enough fashion plates in her course of work as a milliner to know that the woman who came toward them dressed to follow the most exacting style. The lines other gown were so perfect as to make trim superfluous, although a hint of lace peeked from the bosom and sleeves, echoed in the trim of her demi-cornette. So astonishingly elegant was the woman’s morning dress that it was some moments before Danita noticed her great-aunt’s face.

This she came to only when distracted by the flash of a diamond brooch fastening the cap’s ribbons beneath Mrs. Clively’s chin. The woman was plump, but not overly so, with a small mouth and large eyes. Once upon a time, she must have possessed a remarkably fine if dainty prettiness. Danita caught a fleeting expression of self-satisfaction on that aging face and knew she had been manipulated into admiration.

“Child!” Mrs. Clively exclaimed, reaching out her hands. Danita took them instinctively, yet felt more than a little awkward once she had them. Gently, Mrs. Clively slipped them loose and turned to face her husband. “Run along, Lemuel. We don’t want you. Women’s chatter, you know. Have them send up tea and whatnot. You’re hungry, child, yes?”

“Thank you, I am.”

“Oh, yes, those nasty coaches. Even if you have food and drink, what happens? It spills down your front and you look shag-rag when you arrive. Why not take off that pelisse, dear, and your hat. Be comfortable.” Danita did this, and Mrs. Clively carried them away, holding them at arm’s length. She returned and sat down on an ivory-striped damask settee. Patting the cushion next to her, she said, “You’re not at all what I’d expected, you know. Sylvia was such a little slip of thing.”

Coming from a woman who could not herself be more than five foot, four inches tall, this seemed a trifle extreme. Puzzled, Danita sat down beside her great-aunt, a line between her level black brows. The light in the older woman’s eyes, whether of mischief or of cruelty, faded. She said nothing else that could be taken in any offense, chattering lightly about the weather and the latest styles, referring to the
Monthly Museum
lying to hand. Conversing with her, Danita was almost ready to believe Mrs. Clively had meant no harm by her tactlessness. Even if she had, Danita reflected, what good would it do her to take offense? Two shillings and pride are insufficient for independence.

When a grim-faced maid contemporary in age with her mistress carried in a great tray, the teapot steaming aromatically, Mrs. Clively made a little moue of annoyance. Waiting until the maid departed, she said confidingly, “These servants! Try as I might to train them properly, they will have these silly prejudices. I specifically told Simmins not to use this china. You must be careful with that cup, Danita dear. That mend might catch you; it isn’t very even.”

Putting down the cup without drinking, Danita said, “Why should your maid be prejudiced against me?”

“You are going to be my companion and they will make these nonsensical distinctions. Never you mind, child. You shall not be forced to take meals with them. Besides, we shall not be here very long.” She coughed delicately behind a mittened hand. “My health, alas, is indifferent and I have given way to the importunities of my physician to betake myself to Bath. It will give my granddaughter, Berenice, the opportunity to accustom herself to polite society before making her come-out next Season. The dear sweet is just giddy with anticipation. You shall meet her tomorrow. She’s gone riding just now. It frightens me rather, she rides so intently, but I can refuse her nothing, the lamb.”

Somehow, Mrs. Clively did not seem to Danita to fit the popular conception of a doting grandmother. She took her tea in silence, listening to encomiums upon Berenice’s beauty, talents and charms. Taking the words as well as the cucumber sandwiches with a grain of salt, Danita would be less than human if she hadn’t expected Berenice to be a skinny querulous brat with the awkward manners of a gazetted adolescent.

While unpacking in her room, however, Danita became aware that she was under a shy scrutiny. Looking around the jamb of the door was the loveliest face she had ever beheld, a girl more enchantingly pretty even than Frances Hobkirk who, at school, had been considered the definitive Diamond. Danita could not help smiling at the blond girl.

After a moment, the young woman’s charms were increased a thousandfold as she smiled back, revealing small white teeth behind a pair of pale pink lips. They were quite unusual, those lips, looking as though they’d been pressed into their full shape by an angel’s finger. Taken together with heart-shaped face, great blue eyes with lashes darker than any blonde should own and masses of shimmering hair the color of old gold, Danita could not wonder at Mrs. Clively’s eagerness to show her off.