Elizabeth Mansfield (20 page)

For the first time that morning, Camilla laughed. “But I
am
past my last prayers, you goose. What sort of man besides the Josiah Harbages of this world would want to wed a thirty-year-old matron with a saucy daughter?”

“I’ll wager there are scores of eligibles who’d jump at the chance. After all, you
are
beautiful, and Sybil says that
that
is what counts most with gentlemen.”

“Be that as it may,” Miss Townley interjected crisply, “I’ve yet to learn the identity of the mysterious Mr. Petersham.”

“It’s no mystery, Ada. I just made him up.”

“
What
?”

“Well, what else was I to do? I didn’t want Mr. Harbage foisted upon me—for I didn’t need Pippa’s description of him to guess what he was like—and I couldn’t seem to convince Ethelyn that I wished to avoid wedlock at all costs. So I created a suitor for myself as a sort of protection. And, since I had to refer to him in my letters, I gave him a name. Mr. Petersham.”

“Oh, Mama,
Petersham
?” The child giggled disparagingly. “You could have given yourself away right there. Didn’t you see the
sham
in it?”

“Of course I did. It was there on purpose.”

“Well,” Pippa conceded, “it was an inventive plan, I’ll grant you that.”

“Thank you,” her mother said drily.

“Very artful. I had no idea, Mama, that you were so ingenious.”

“Does that mean,” Camilla asked, eyeing her daughter hopefully, “that you don’t despise me?”

“Despise you? How silly! I only wish I could have
helped
you. I might have thought of a better name than Petersham.”

“No doubt you would, you little egotist,” her governess said, “but we still haven’t heard the whole. Miss Camilla, what gave Lady Ethelyn the impression that you’ve wed this nonexistent Mr. Petersham?”

Camilla’s eyes clouded over, and she got wearily to her feet. “
I
gave her that impression. I announced my wedding in my last letter. It was a foolish and impulsive lie, and I don’t know what to do about it.” She walked to the window and looked out at the small, winter-browned garden below. “In a fit of pique, I wrote her that I’d wed him, hoping to silence her on the subject of Mr. Harbage once and for all. The moment I posted the letter I realized how stupid I’d been. Now I shall have to admit to her that I’ve been lying to her for months.” Her head, lowered in dejection, rested on the glass, and her voice became choked with tears. “Heaven only knows
what
she’ll demand of me in atonement. Nothing short of wedlock with the gluttonous Mr. Harbage, I suppose.”

“Oh, Mama, no! You
wouldn’t
!”

“Of course she wouldn’t,” Miss Townley snapped with asperity. “After all, Lady Ethelyn doesn’t
own
her. I don’t know why your mother can’t seem to be able to stand up to that woman.”

“You think me cowardly, don’t you?” Camilla turned around to face her accuser. “But it’s not as simple as that. Pippa is a Wyckfield, you know, and will be head of the family when she comes of age. If I permit a rift in the family now, it will be Pippa who’ll have to mend it later.”

“Rubbish. You’re only looking for excuses. Pippa already handles Lady Ethelyn better than you do.”

“Nevertheless, it will not serve my daughter well to antagonize her only family. She’d not thank me for it in years to come.”

“But, Mama, you can’t make a sacrifice of yourself just to keep peace in the family, you know.”

Camilla sighed. “I know. That’s why I made up that ridiculous lie. But I’ve only succeeded in making matters worse. Now it seems that my only alternatives are either a complete rift or complete self-sacrifice.”

Pippa leaned her chin on her hand thoughtfully. “There is another way …”

“What other way?”

“We can find a Mr. Petersham for Aunt Ethelyn to meet.”

Miss Townley and Camilla both turned to Pippa openmouthed. “What’s that you say?” the governess asked in bewilderment.

“But Pippa, Mr. Petersham doesn’t exist,” her mother reminded her.

“I know he doesn’t exist. But couldn’t we find someone to play his part while Aunt Ethelyn is visiting?”

“Play his part?” Camilla came back to the table, peering at her daughter in fascination. “But that’s … impossible …”

“I don’t know, Miss Camilla. Per’aps the child has somethin’ there. We
could
convince some gentleman to play the part, couldn’t we?”

“I don’t see how. And besides, what good would it do?”

“He could stay here for the length of Lady Ethelyn’s stay. We’d coach him to behave in as proper and decorous a manner as possible, so that Lady Ethelyn would approve of him. Then, as soon as he’s won her over, she will go home in perfect contentment, and we shall go on as before.”

Camilla studied the two upturned faces that gazed at her expectantly. They seemed to her to have gone mad, both at the same time. “This is utterly ridiculous. That both of you, who are always so sensible and wise, should have agreed on so wild a plan quite amazes me.”

“It’s not so wild, Mama. We have to concoct
something
, you know. You’ve seemed so happy these last months. I don’t want to see you sad again.”

“Nor do I,” Miss Townley agreed. “If it will take a Mr. Petersham to keep Ethelyn from making you miserable, a Mr. Petersham you shall have.”

“But how? Where?
Who
?”

“How about your young caller, Lord Earlywine?” Miss Townley suggested.

“
Earlywine
? He’s only a boy of twenty-two! Ethelyn would never believe—! I told her
all about
Mr. Petersham. I described him in every detail—how he looks, what he’s like, even what he
eats
!”

“Well, what is he like? Describe him to us.”

“He’s thirty-five years old, for one thing. He’s tall and sandy-haired, for another. And he’s generous, kind, humorous, open-hearted—”

“Quite a paragon,” Miss Townley muttered drily. “You don’t suppose Sir James might pass?”

“Sir
James
? Out of the question.”

“Why? He’s old enough, and his hair might pass for sandy—”

“He’s
too
old. And much too stocky. And he’s too hearty and boisterous to pass for my Mr. Petersham. Besides, I’d be much too embarrassed to ask such a thing of him.”

Miss Townley drummed her fingers thoughtfully on the table. “Then I suppose the only thing to do would be to advertise for an actor—”

“An actor?” Camilla echoed in revulsion. “How can you suggest that we bring a stranger into the house? Really, Ada, you
must
see how impossible—”

A gasp from her daughter interrupted her. Pippa had been listening to the discussion with silent but rapt attention, her eyes growing wider and wider as an idea occurred to her. Now her whole face lit with excitement. “I know who’d be
perfect
,” she announced importantly.

“Who?” Miss Townley leaned forward in fascination.

“We need someone tall, right?”

“Yes,” the governess prodded.

“Lean?”

“Yes …”

“With sandy hair … and just a few years older than Mama?”

“
Yes
! You can’t mean that you know someone who
fits
, do you?”

“Don’t be so silly, Ada.” Camilla was finding the discussion ludicrous. The entire scheme was too far-fetched to consider seriously. “Who can the child know who has those attributes, as well as being generous—”

“Generous, kind, humorous and open-hearted?” Pippa laughed triumphantly and jumped from her
chair. She wheeled around to her mother and threw her arms about her waist in an effusive embrace. “He’d be
perfect
, Mama! Absolutely perfect!”

“Who, child,
who
?” her governess queried avidly.

“Thomas, of course!” The child whirled her mother about in dizzy delight. “Our
very own Thomas
!”

“Thomas?” Miss Townley knit her brows. “Thomas
who
?”

But Camilla knew, from the first mention of his name, whom Pippa meant. “She is referring, I believe, to our footman.”

“Miss Pippa, you can’t be serious. You can’t expect your mother to embark on this plot with an ordinary
servant
.”

Pippa drew up in offense. She couldn’t see any validity in the objection. “I certainly do! Why shouldn’t she? He has all the necessary qualities. Besides, Thomas
isn’t
ordinary. He reads Shakespeare.”

Miss Townley, on second thought, had to agree that he wasn’t ordinary. “But … but it just isn’t
done
,” she muttered, trying to rationalize her objection.

Camilla had to laugh. “Making up a husband out of whole cloth isn’t done either, for that matter.”

“That’s true enough,” the governess conceded, trying to imagine Thomas as master of the house. “And the fellow certainly looks the part.”

“And he speaks as well as Lord Earlywine,” Pippa pointed out. “Better, if you ask me.”

“And I wouldn’t be surprised if he could charm Lady Ethelyn right out of her shoes with that crooked smile of his,” Miss Townley mused. “Betsy says that half the maids are openly in love with him, and the other half pretend they’re not.”

“You don’t say,” Camilla muttered in disgust. “I’m surprised we get any work done in this house at all, with that sort of thing going on.”

“But you do agree, don’t you,” Pippa insisted, “that he’s the perfect choice?”

“Seems a good possibility to me,” Miss Townley concurred.

“You are both being utterly nonsensical. Even if Thomas
were
suitable, which I don’t agree at all that he is, the plan is still unworkable.”

Miss Townley glowered at her. “I don’t see why you say that.”

“Look here. Suppose we do fool Ethelyn, and suppose she goes off convinced that I’ve made a satisfactory match, don’t you see that it’s only a temporary reprieve? Sooner or later she’s bound to learn the truth, and then I’ll be in worse case.”

“Why would she be bound to learn it?” Pippa asked.

“Why indeed?” Miss Townley seconded. “All you need do is keep concocting stories about him.”

“But what if Ethelyn asks to see him again?”

“You can make excuses,” Miss Townley suggested. “Say he’s gone abroad. Or he’s engaged in important governmental activities.”

“Or,” Pippa added mischievously, “you can say he’s ‘passed to his reward,’ just as Papa did.”

“Pippa, what a shocking thing to say! Do you
see
what I’ve done, Ada? I’ve made a lying little devil out of my daughter!”

Pippa grinned. “Yes, isn’t it appalling?”

“Pippa, this is no laughing matter! If Aunt Ethelyn had heard that last remark, she would have been quite justified in saying that I’m poisoning your immortal soul.”

“Oh, stuff and nonsense!” Miss Townley declared. “No one can tell me that heaven wouldn’t forgive a little girl for devisin’ an innocent fabrication to protect her mother from the revenge of a domineerin’ dragon.”

“But I don’t
wish
to be protected by my daughter. What sort of milksop do you take me for? I shall tell Ethelyn the truth and face whatever comes of it.”

Pippa looked up at her mother with her calm, older-than-her-years directness. “And let Aunt Ethelyn bully you on the subject forever more?”

Camilla winced. “Do you think it will be as bad as that?”

“
I
think,” Miss Townley declared, “that she’ll be at you until you give in and wed someone she picks out for you.”

“So do I,” Pippa said.

Her mother glanced at the child and then at the governess, the frown-lines deepening on her brow. “If you both have combined forces to unsettle me, you are succeeding very well,” she muttered, sinking upon a chair.

“Let’s try the ruse, Mama,” her daughter urged.

“If it works, you may win yourself a long period of peace,” Miss Townley pointed out. “And if it fails, you won’t be in worse case than you are now.”

Pippa came up behind Camilla’s chair and put an arm about her mother’s sagging shoulders. “Don’t be afraid, Mama. Thomas will make the scheme work, I know he will. But even if he doesn’t, think how much fun we’ll have had in the meantime.”

“
Fun
!” Camilla gave a tearful little laugh and pulled her daughter into her lap. “You naughty puss! You’ve become so much like your friend Sybil that I almost can’t tell you apart. When all this is over, you and I shall have to have a talk about your new attitudes. A
very long
talk!”

Pippa snuggled into her mother’s embrace. “Does this mean you’re going to
do
it?”

Camilla hesitated. “I don’t know, Pippa. My Mr. Petersham is a very gentle sort …”

“So is Thomas.”

“Thomas,
gentle
? Really, Pippa, I know he saved your life and all that, but you mustn’t make a paragon of him.”

“That’s what Thomas tells me, too. But he’s always very gentle with
me
, you know.”

“And Lady Ethelyn won’t know what a sharp tongue he can have when aroused. She’s never seen him, after all,” Miss Townley added.

“But what if he lets his spirit loosen his tongue in front of Ethelyn?” Camilla wondered.

“We’ll train him not to. How much time do we have to prepare?”

“Not long. I believe Ethelyn said in the letter that they plan to arrive as soon as the weather eases. Mid-March, I expect.”

“Mid-March? That gives us almost a month.” Miss Townley rose briskly. “I should think that will be plenty of time in which to prepare ourselves. Meanwhile, Miss Pippa, I think it’s time you and I made for the schoolroom. We are already late for your history lesson.”

Pippa slipped from her mother’s lap and followed her governess to the door, while Camilla reached for the teapot to try to soothe her upset nerves with a fresh cup of tea. “Good heavens!” she gasped suddenly. “I forgot!”

“Forgot what?” Miss Townley asked, turning in alarm.

“That my Mr. Petersham has a moustache. I wonder how long it takes for a man to grow one. Do
you think, Ada, that Thomas will be able to grow one in a month?”

***

As far as Miss Townley was concerned, the moustache was the least of the problems. A more immediate concern was getting her mistress to generate enough courage to ask Thomas to participate in the masquerade. Somehow, Camilla kept postponing the task. The whole subject was so embarrassing to her that she felt too uncomfortable to tell the footman the details. Every day she promised Miss Townley that she would do it “tomorrow.”