Friends and Lovers (23 page)

“There won’t be a soul there, immediately after dinner,” he pointed out.

“Precisely.”

I walked quickly toward it, with Everett stiff-kneeing it beside me. Menrod was at the ballroom door. He raised his brows and gave me an arch smile. “The moment of truth,” he said softly as I strode past, ignoring him.

“A dandy party,” Everett complimented.

The parlor was as private as I could wish. “Dare I hope you have brought me here to give your consent to wear my ring at last, Wendy?” Everett asked.

“Mr. Everett, why do you want to marry me?” I asked baldly.

He nodded his approval, or at least consent, to the question. He thought a moment, then spoke. “I can see what may have set you wondering about it, as you are not so young or so pretty as you once were,” he began, not maliciously, but as a reasonable man answering a reasonable question. I stood mute with astonishment, while an incipient fury gathered in my bosom.

“Please continue,” I invited.

“I was about to. The reasons are pretty clear, I think. A man of my age and in my position ought to have a wife. I have a large fortune to leave someone, and would prefer to leave it to my own flesh and blood. My brother Thomas has a daughter, but she would only run through my hard-earned cash. I would prefer to leave it to an Everett, a chip off this very old block, you might say. So first off, you are genteel—you speak well, have good connections due to your sister’s marriage, have a good reputation, seem to manage the cottage well enough, and all that. Second off, and really the most important thing in my eyes, you will make a good mother. I plan a large nursery—eight or nine lads, throw in a few daughters to please yourself, and you are looking at a dozen kiddies.”

“Why not a baker’s dozen?” I asked stiffly.

“The more the merrier. I know you are fond of kiddies; you even find a tender spot for your little backward nevvie. To top it all off, I
like
you. You are a good, sensible gel, ladylike, without putting on fine airs. I don’t have to point out the advantages of the match to yourself. You know what I have to offer. I’m willing to take your mama along into the bargain, and even your sister’s kiddies if the case goes in your favor, which Menrod assures me it won’t. As well hang for a sheep as a lamb. There’s room for them all. An even fifty bedchambers await you at Oakdene. Wait, I tell a lie. I knocked a wall down between a pair of them, leaving us forty-nine, but one of them is a whopper.”

“Forty-nine should be sufficient.”

“So is it a bargain, my girl?” he asked heartily.

“I am very sensible of the honor you do me, Mr. Everett, but I really must decline.”

“I have left out the best part, the settlement. I am willing to settle a substantial sum on you. What do you have to say to twenty-five thousand in your own right, eh?”

“Very generous, but I still must decline.”

“It is true what they’re whispering, then. You are dangling after the title. You’ll catch cold at that. Lady Althea tells me there is no possibility of your nabbing Menrod. He cavorts with duchesses and princesses in the city, and has no opinion at all of country-bred girls. He would never settle for a minister’s dowerless daughter. You’ll not do better than George Everett,” he told me, prodding his chest with his index finger a couple of times, to make clear he spoke of himself.

“I could do much worse, but my mind is made up.”

"Then we’d best put the notice into the papers that it is over—or a mistake. Word it up any way you choose, but do it right away, if you will be so kind.”

“You may depend on it, it will be in tomorrow’s paper.”

“Not unless you take the notice to Reading tonight. Let us look for it the day after tomorrow.”

“It will be done tonight,” I answered firmly.

“It is up to you. So I am free, then?”

“Perfectly free.”

“It is an odd world, surely,” he said, pulling out his white box to admire the ring. “I had a notion the ball might put you into a marrying mood, and brought this along with me. She’s a dandy ring. It set me back...”

“You will find someone to appreciate it,” I told him. My anger dissolved. I felt sorry for him, with all his worldly goods, and no one on whom to bestow them.

‘‘We’ll remain good friends. I don’t want to be at odds with my neighbors. It is not as if we had ever been lovers, but only friends, and we won’t let this stand in the way of our relations. I’ll finish up the roof, just as though we were to be married. Though I suppose there will be no harm in letting Menrod bear the expense now, as he wants to do.”

“By all means, let him.”

“We’ll be back tomorrow to do it, now that the ball is over. I think I shall have brandied ices at my ball,” he said. That quickly he put aside the memory of our recent talk.

“That will be lovely.”

“Lady Althea has a receipt for it. If we are finished our talk, I’ll go along and pester her for it now. Unless you want to join in the tail end of the dance?” he asked punctiliously.

“I will just stay here and rest for a moment.”

“I’ll get you a glass of wine. Afraid I cannot offer champagne...” He insisted when I refused.

I sat with an unwanted glass of wine between my ringers, reviewing my disgrace, and my anger with Everett. A female servant came to refresh the ice tray in which the punch sat. She smiled; I smiled back, neither of us speaking. Another form appeared at the door. From the corner of my eye, I noticed the black jacket, and realized it was a guest, to whom I would be required to make some polite speech.

“Is it safe to come in?” Menrod called from the doorway.

“Enter at your own peril.”

He advanced at a tentative pace. “That heaving bosom tells me you have asked Everett the question, and worse, that he has answered, with his usual disarming candor.”

“That man is an outrage!”

“He hasn’t much breeding, I fear, but he plans to do a deal of it. I admire his choice of mate.”

“I am not a brood mare.”

“Think of yourself as a plant, sending out tender shoots. You will make an excellent mama. It would be good for you too, Wendy, to have children to water and nurse, instead of plants.”

“I prefer plants.”

“They’re friendly,” he agreed, taking a chair beside me. “A trifle lacking in conversation...”

“They are not lacking in manners and consideration, at least.”

“I have a well-behaved fern in my study you might like to meet. He tells me he is thinking of getting married. His spores are all in an uproar—it is the season that accounts for it.”

“I have had enough for one night. And the wretch even called Ralph ‘backward’ again. I should have hit him.”

“I was sure you would. I loitered outside the door in case I should have to bolt to his aid.”

“I am going home now. Thank you for the interesting evening, Menrod.”

“ 'Mi casa, su casa,’
as they say in Spain. They have such charming manners there, between brawls. Did you—ah—get the situation straightened out with Everett?”

“Perfectly straight.”

“The next step is to inform the
beau monde,
or the few
beaux ardents
that will be interested, at least.”

“This conversation would be more intelligible to
me
if we both spoke English.”

“I speak in foreign tongues when I am upset—excited.”

“I don’t see what
you
have to be upset about!”

“I too am interested in the outcome. Coyness and vacillation are all well and good in a maiden, but there comes a time, you know, when we fellows like to know where we stand, and like others to know it too.”

“You can read the retraction in tomorrow’s paper, if you are interested.”

“I
am
interested, but I shan’t be reading it. I owe myself a holiday, after this sojourn in the country. There is nothing so debilitating as a long rest.”

“Are you going to London?”

“No, the Season is not on yet. I am going to Brighton.”

“Oh.” I digested this for a moment, then discovered a troublesome point. “You’re running away from Gwendolyn’s wrath!” I charged. “You are trying to
stick
me with the task of calming her down, placating her, while you jaunt about the seaside with Prinny and his rackety friends.”

“You wrong me; every way you wrong me, Gwendolyn,” he answered, shaking his head sadly. “I am not such a paltry fellow as to flee the wrath of a child. I am taking it with me—both the wrath and the child. It is the full-grown woman’s wrath I am fleeing.”

“I would not reward her for her tantrum.”

“Was there ever such a
dissatisfied
woman as you! You complain that I leave her, then that I take her with me. What would you have me do? Stay? Say the word, and it will be done.”

“I don’t want you to change your plans on my behalf.”

“I already have, to an alarming degree, but I shan’t this time. The Manor will be vacant, except for servants, if you and your mother would like to come while your own cottage is being put to rights.”

“I hope that is not why you are going?”

“Not at all. That has nothing to do with it. It is only that you will not like to go to Oakdene now, after turning Everett off. He is a pattern card of civility and generosity, but even his good nature must be strained at that.”

“We’ll stay home.”

“As you wish. If you change your mind after your first bout of anger with Everett passes, pray feel free to come. I shall leave word with my people you may be coming.”

“Are you taking Ralph with you too?”

“Yes.”

“How long do you plan to stay?” I asked.

“Till my six-weeks’ interim custody period has lapsed. Then I must make a visit to London.”

“There should be no difficulty now. I am withdrawing my suit. They are yours. I shall miss them,” I said, already feeling the first pang of loss. How dull and quiet it would be with them gone. Menrod going too. His visits were not always welcome, but they were a lively diversion. Even Mr. Everett would decrease the frequency of his visits, though he would not stop them altogether.

“You may miss them so much you want them after all. Odd you did not think to accuse me of that trick, instead of inventing a different one. That sets you thinking, I see.”

“Don’t aggravate me. Be firm with Gwen, Menrod. Don’t let her get the bit in her teeth, or you’ll never control her. And about Ralph—don’t be
too
hard on him. He is only a baby still. Oh, I miss him already!”

“If you find the parting unbearable, come to visit us. My house on Marine Parade is large enough to house us all. Then you can see for yourself I am neither a tyrant nor a fool.”

“It is an odd time to be going to Brighton. You more usually go after the London Season, do you not? It will be chilly there in early April, too early to enjoy swimming.”

“We are not going to swim, but to relax, unwind, do some thinking. There is this great emotional sea roiling all around us that must be calmed.”

“I hope you have a pleasant holiday,” I said, arising to find my mother and go home.

“I expect it will be grueling and unpleasant. My best hope is that it will be effective. You are not rid of us just yet, however. I shall take the children to the cottage tomorrow to take their leave of you.”

He ordered our carriage, got Mama away from the card room, and stayed with us till we left, chatting at the door. I went straight home and wrote my notice for the newspaper, and gave it to Pudge to take into town that very night. My mother was nonplussed.

“What is the hurry, Wendy? Surely it can wait till morning.”

“They work all night, setting up the paper. I want it in tomorrow’s news. We have left the horses standing ready outside.”

“Sleep on it, dear.”

“I won’t sleep till it is finished, once for all.”

“Commune with your heart upon your bed before taking such a giant step,” Mrs. Pudge cautioned. She and Pudge would not dream of going to bed before seeing us up the stairs, if we stayed up till dawn, and it was not far from it by then.

“I have communed with my heart till I am tired of it.”

“You’ll never get another such offer,” Mama warned.

“I should hope not.”

“Like the daughters of Israel,” Mrs. Pudge told her. “Their daughters were not given to marriage either. A harvest of old maids is what we’ll have on our hands, with a plague and a pestilence thrown in, after this night’s work.”

“You never had a good word to say for Everett,” I reminded her.

“At least he didn’t steal away my Lady, like
some
heathens we could name. Run along, then, Pudge, and post her notice, if she insists on making a parable of herself. We’ll not get our ears on our pillows till dawn as it is. I hope I’m not expected to have breakfast on the table at eight in the morning.”

“Sleep till noon if you like,” I offered wildly. “I plan to.”

The notice was written and taken to Reading that same night. A good thing it was, too. Everett’s engagement to Lady Althea was printed directly below it in the morning paper. He had taken me at my word that I would free him immediately. What a fool I would have looked had Althea beat me to the paper with her notice. We learned of the two announcements long before noon. The men began their hammering on the roof at eight.

“Like a bottle in the smoke,” was Mrs. Pudge’s obscure comment when she read the two notices. “This will be a wonder unto many. The town will be alive with it. We’ll never live it down. It would take a prince on a white charger, at least, to redeem you from this shameful misery.”

An earl in a smart black traveling carriage did not do the trick, but he diverted her flow of venom, at least. Gwendolyn and Ralph were with him, the former looking sulky but dutiful.

“Your niece has something to say to you, Wendy,” Menrod said, with a commanding look at the girl.

“I’m sorry, Auntie,” she said, her lip quivering. “I behaved badly, but Mama
did
let me see her and Papa dance in India, didn’t she, Ralph?”

“I don’t remember,” Ralph answered, looking every bit as downcast as his sister. “Uncle Menrod is taking us out in his sailboat,” he added, brightening at the prospect. “I am not afraid. I won’t have to swim, because the water is too cold,” he added artlessly.