Elizabeth Mansfield (20 page)

“Perhaps that is not precisely the right word. Restless might be a better one. He prefers running about outdoors, throwing a ball about, or trotting off to the river to fish, or riding his horse posthaste over the hills. I told His Lordship that the boy was too young to have his own mount, but my advice was ignored. The result is that Gilbert sits over his books as if he were imprisoned, inattentive and bored, waiting only for the three schoolroom hours to end.”

“Oh, dear,” Caro murmured worriedly.

The vicar, having said the worst, now felt it time to give comfort. “I don’t question the boy’s ability to learn, Caro. He’s quite bright enough. I’ve no doubt he could master it all if he’d only concentrate.”

She nodded. “I’ll speak to him. Perhaps—”

The library door opened at that moment. Lord Crittenden entered with an armload of books. At the sight of the vicar seated in the window and holding fast to Caro’s hand, he stopped short. “Oh!” he said, reddening. “I’m sorry. I was not told ...”

“Good afternoon, Your Lordship,” the vicar said, rising. “I came to say hello to Miss Caroline. I’ve not seen her for several months, you know.”

Caro rose as well, slipping her hand from his grasp as she did so.

“Please don’t let me disturb you,” Kit said awkwardly, backing to the door. “I’ll come back later. ...”

“No, please, my lord,” Caro urged, “we’ve quite finished. I am needed downstairs, at any rate.”

“And since I am about to be deserted by the lady, my lord,” Mr. Lutton said, crossing the room to him, “let me help you with those books.”

“Well, I ...” Kit glanced from one to the other and then shrugged. “I’d be glad for your assistance, Mr. Lutton. I was going to find place for them on the shelves. They’ve been packed away in boxes, you see, but they’ll be much more accessible if they’re here in the open.”

“Then, if you gentlemen will excuse me ...” Caro said, starting toward the door.

“Just a moment, ma’am,” Kit said. “Mr. Lutton, since it’s already past six, and the sorting of these volumes will probably take a while, I’d be pleased to have you remain to dine with us.”

“Why, thank you, my lord,” the vicar said. “I’d be delighted.”

Kit turned to Caro. “Will you please tell Cook we’ll have a guest for dinner?”

“Yes, of course, Your Lordship,” she said, and whisked herself out.

She had only gone a short distance down the hall when she heard the library door open and close. Then she heard Kit call her name. “Miss Whitlow?”

She turned. “Yes, my lord?”

He strode down the hallway toward her. “I don’t suppose you’d agree to have dinner with us,” he said, his eyes pleading. “Lutton came to see
you,
after all.”

“You know the rules,” she said. “Besides, I may have to help serve.”

He made a face. ‘That’s what I thought you’d say.” He wheeled about and started back to the library, muttering angrily to himself.

“Did you say something, my lord?” she asked dryly.

“I’m only complaining to myself about my unsalvageable reputation,” he threw at her over his shoulder. “When Mr. Lutton lets it be known in town that I made you serve dinner and that I then banished you belowstairs to eat, that will finish me. I’ll become a monster by tomorrow. Sooner than I expected.”

She eyed his retreating back speculatively. He was right about his reputation, she thought. If even Mr. Lutton, the vicar of Kit’s own parish, already thought of him as arrogant, what would the rest of the townsfolk think of him if they heard that she was not welcome at the family table? This was not what she’d intended when she’d refused to eat with him. She didn’t mean to make people think him a monster. “My lord?” she called after him.

He’d just put his hand on the library doorknob. “Yes?”

“I’ve decided that I’ll come to dinner after all.”

His brows rose. “Will you, indeed?”

“Yes,” she said, lifting her chin and striding off away from him. “This once.”

TWENTY-SIX

“Admiral Swain smiled coldly as he watched the first mate leading the blindfolded pirate to the yardarm. ‘You’ll hang there dangling and kicking your legs for a good while before you die!’ the mate mocked, laughing cruelly. Black Bart, head erect, walked toward the tip of the yardarm, while the first mate and the admiral exchanged looks of satisfaction. Then the admiral spoke. ‘The high seas will never again be troubled with the likes of Black Bart!’“

Kit was telling Gil a sea story. Outside in the corridor, Caro stood listening. It was just the sort of story Gil had led her to expect, full of swashbuckling action and buckets of gore. Gil was obviously enraptured, for when Kit’s voice ceased, the boy let out a cry of objection. “Oh, I
say,
” he groaned, “you’re not going to stop now!”

‘To be continued tomorrow.” Kit laughed. “Good night, boy.”

“But, Kit, will that really be the end of Black Bart?” Gil persisted anxiously.

“You don’t think I’ll answer that now, do you? I want you in suspense. Never mind, old fellow. You’ll get the next part soon enough.”

Outside Gil’s bedroom door, Kit came face-to-face with Caro. “Were you waiting for me to finish?” he asked, greeting her with a warm smile. The dinner with Mr. Lutton, earlier that evening, had been a pleasant affair, and Kit was still feeling grateful for her relaxation of her rule about eating in the servants’ hall. “I’d have cut the tale short if I’d known you were waiting out here.”

“Gil would not have forgiven me,” she said, smiling back at him. “He certainly prefers the adventures of Black Bart to a scolding about his schoolwork.”

“Is that your intention? To scold him about his studies?”

Her smile faded. “I’m told he doesn’t concentrate on them. He’s more eager to go running about outdoors than to pay attention to his books.”

“Do you blame him? Mr. Lutton, not the most fascinating of lecturers even for his parishioners, is a dull tutor, I’m afraid, for an energetic twelve-year-old.”

“Are you criticizing Mr. Lutton’s teaching?” Caro demanded in immediate offense, having been the one who’d recommended Mr. Lutton as Gil’s tutor.

Kit held up his hands as if in self-defense. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know that Mr. Lutton’s tutoring was above reproach.”

“It is
not
above reproach. But a tutor is neither a jester nor a storyteller. Lectures in history and mathematics are not supposed to be diversions.”

Kit shrugged. “Agreed. But a little less formality and a little more humor would not be amiss.”

She glared up at him. “I suppose Mr. Lutton would meet with greater approval from you if instead of instructing the boy in long division, he told tales of Black Bart!”

The good feeling generated by the dinner was now completely dissipated. Kit was surprised that her defense of the vicar was so ardent, but he was
not
surprised that it was turning into an attack on
him.
Nothing he did
ever
pleased this woman. “Even long division could be made more interesting if Black Bart were involved in it,” he pointed out in mild self-defense. “For instance, the arithmetic principle could be illustrated by having Gil work out how the pirate would divide his booty among his henchmen.”

“Too bad you’re not Gil’s tutor, then,” she said, her voice dripping sarcasm. “With your imagination you could make stories out of all the subjects ... pirate stories for mathematics, knighthood stories for history, stories of the myths for Latin. The boy would never want to miss his hours of tutoring. The schoolroom would become a place of delightful frivolity.”

“You’re right, of course, as you always are,” Kit retorted with equal sarcasm, irked beyond words that the exchanges between them, no matter how innocuously begun, always ended in war. “I’m much too frivolous to tutor a child. You are better off with a teacher of real depth, like Mr. Lutton. Forgive me, ma’am, for even
suggesting
otherwise.” And he stalked off down the hall.

She, in her turn, stormed into Gil’s room and delivered her scolding in a much angrier manner than she’d ever intended. But if she’d asked herself why she was suddenly so irate, she wouldn’t have been able to answer.

TWENTY-SEVEN

After Gil’s dreadful accident, Caro wondered if her unfair, too angry scolding had been, somehow, the cause of it. But it would never have occurred to Gil to blame his sister. She’d been quite right in her scold, he thought, and he’d tearfully promised her, that night, that he would try harder.

The chastened boy went to the schoolroom the next day determined to pay attention to his lessons. He sat through a long hour of arithmetic problems, and then a longer one of the history of the English kings of the thirteenth century, all without fidgeting. But the last hour—spent entirely on the conjugation of Latin verbs—became too much for him. He could scarcely sit still. The air was stifling, the subject utterly beyond him, and the tutor irritated and impatient. “I warn you, Gilbert, that unless you get a firm grip on these conjugations, you’ll not make it to Eton next year,” Mr. Lutton declared in disgust.

For poor Gil the hour was worse than imprisonment; he felt like a butterfly—a particularly stupid one—impaled on a pin. As soon as the time was up, he leaped from his chair and ran down the stairs and out across the field to the stables like a creature being chased by demons.

At the stables, Dolph, the head groom, tried to talk Master Gilbert out of taking the ride. There had been a brief shower that morning, and the grass was still wet. “It’s slippery on those ‘ills, me lad,” he warned, “an’ if ye push yer Bellerophon too fast, ye’ll find yersel’ in trouble.”

But Gil had had his fill of warnings ... from Caro, from his tutor, and now from Dolph. Besides, children are warned about one thing or another every day of their lives:
don’t eat those sweets or you’ll get sick; don’t run so fast or you’ll fall.
Most days, despite those warnings being completely disregarded, the dire predictions don’t come to pass. Thus the children become convinced that either their elders are speaking nonsense or that their lives are charmed. Warnings become mere words that may safely be ignored. Gil therefore took little notice of the groom’s warning. He merely nodded and galloped off at top speed. In a moment he was out of sight of the house.

Freed from the restrictions and tensions of the schoolroom, Gil let his imagination loose. He could feel the ripple of the powerful muscles of his horse under him and the whip of the wind blowing deliciously against his face, and his spirits began to rise. He began to experience an exhilarating sense of lightness. It seemed to him that
his
Bellerophon, like his namesake of myth, was truly flying. Horse and rider flew over the sodden ground, spraying small clods of wet earth behind them. Over the west field they flew, across a narrow road, round a row of outbuildings, through a shallow brook, and over a small hillock. It was thrilling ... stirring ... the pure joy of physical exertion taken at breakneck speed.

When they approached a low wall, one that they’d flown over dozens of times before, Gil felt not a twinge of concern. Today, however, because of the rain, the ground was not as firm under the animal’s feet as was usual. During the headlong approach, as the horse tensed his hind legs for the jump, one leg slithered back, dislodging a piece of wet turf, and skidded off balance. The little skid upset the forward momentum and decreased the height of the lift. Bellerophon, not winged like his namesake, couldn’t make it. His front leg struck the top of the wall as he tried to reach the far side. It all happened so quickly that Gil didn’t realize it would have been better to let himself be thrown. Instead, he clung tightly to the horse’s neck. The horse toppled forward with a horrifying whinny and tumbled to the ground. Gil felt his head hit the wet earth as the horse rolled over on his side, pinning one of Gil’s legs under him. There they lay, Gil unconscious, and the horse shuddering in dreadful, heaving spasms, his eyes wild and one foreleg waving helplessly in the air.

Meanwhile, back at the stables, Dolph was feeling uneasy. He hadn’t liked the hasty way in which the boy had ridden off, but it was beyond his authority to refuse to permit Master Gilbert to ride. After debating with himself on what course of action to take, he sent one of the stable boys to fetch Mr. Mickley.

The boy found Mickley in Kit’s bedroom, trailing behind the new housemaid, Betty Rhys, as she did the dusting. The batman was annoyed at being interrupted, for he’d been engaged in what was, for him, a most unusual pastime—flirting. He’d been trying to convince the girl (who, he’d once told Miss Caroline, was too plump and too saucy by far) that he was a more desirable catch than the fellow in town with whom she was “walking out.” “What do ye want with a slowtop like that?” he was asking. “The fellow owns an inn. ‘E’ll ‘ave ye slavin’ away every night in the taproom, fendin’ off brutes ‘oo itch to pinch yer bottom.”

“It ain’t a much worser prospect than fendin’ off a brute what follows me round when I’m dustin’,” the maid threw back at him with a toss of her pretty head.

It was just then that the stable boy burst breathlessly into the room. “Dolph wants ye in the stable, Mr. Mickley,” the boy said. “Right away.”