Lady John (3 page)

The days that followed were full of arrangements, fittings,
and packing. Despite all Olivia’s protests, Mrs. Martingale insisted that
neither she nor her daughter could travel a step without at least one new
traveling dress, a new pelisse, and several round gowns each, not to mention
gloves and boots. By her reckoning, since they were selling all their
furniture, the price they received would amply cover all their expenses. In the
event there were several trade-debts still outstanding, and the remaining funds
were not so ample as Mrs. Martingale predicted. Neither, on the other hand,
were they quite so deficient as Lady John expected.

Mrs. Martingale intended and wished to be of assistance to
her daughter, but between the excitement of the journey and a tenacious summer
cold which she caught when cutting flowers in their garden, she was unable to
efficiently direct the servants in their work or make the arrangements
necessary for a trip to London. Both of these tasks were left, therefore, to
Olivia, who shouldered them philosophically. Mrs. Martingale accepted the
responsibility, as she called it, of receiving the morning callers who appeared
despite every disorganization of staff and household, and of making formal
farewells for herself and her daughter among their acquaintance. For this
reason, it was she who sat in the drawing room, idly tracing a pattern for a
lace collar, when the manservant announced the arrival of Captain Lord
Christopher Temperer.

Mrs. Martingale rose from her chair with a delighted lack of
dignity.

“Kit! My dearest boy, how very good of you to call! Do sit,
and I will have Livvy fetched down to us.” Lord Kit Temperer sat easily in one
of the fragile Adam chairs which threatened to break under his cavalier
treatment, and entertained his hostess for several minutes with sketches of his
adventures since their last meetings. These tales perpetually verged on the
edge of scandal, but never quite crossed the line of what was permissible in a
lady’s drawing room, and Mrs. Martingale was in a state of high amusement when
Olivia arrived.

“Sister Olivia,” Lord Christopher began formally. “I am glad
to find you in such looks. Of course,” he continued, tumbling rapidly into
familiarity, “I don’t recollect that I’ve ever seen you look anything but
perfectly ravishing. Even in black,” he added, eyeing the rather shabby stuff
dress in which Olivia had been supervising the cleaning of the attic.

“Brother Christopher, I do believe you are offering me
Spanish Coin,” Olivia returned, her manner matching his own. “Now, honestly,
Kit, sit again and tell me what has brought you back to Brussels. We thought
you had sold out of the Army and returned to England. And may I offer you a
glass of wine?”

“I was hoping you would do so.” The maid was summoned for
the decanter and glasses. “I did go back to England, Livvy. London in the
Season; spent most of the summer in Brighton, and fearfully expensive it was,
too. You see, I have been playing the whole social game. And plan to go hunting
in the fall with a few of the fellows, which should keep me out of trouble, if
not out of debt.”

“Nothing will keep you out of trouble, Kit,” Olivia mourned
regretfully. “But if you were summering in Brighton, why come to Brussels in
September?”

“Mamma sent me, of course.”

Olivia looked at him in surprise. “Her Grace sent you to
Brussels?”

“Certainly. To bring you and Mrs. Martingale to Catenhaugh.”

Olivia and her mother exchanged looks of faint awe.

“’Tis very kind in her,” Olivia managed at last. “But why?”

“I collect Mamma thought that Julian’s letter to you was a
bit brusque, and meant me to make ail right, and to assure you that she and my
sisters await your visit with the greatest of pleasure.”

“Very prettily said, too,” Mrs. Martingale approved. “See,
Livvy, it is just as I said. We shall have the most comfortable visit
imaginable.”

“As for that, Sister Liv, I do not scruple to tell you that
Mamma and Bette and Sue have made any number of plans for you. You may not like
any one of them above half, and so I warned them. On the other hand, I cannot
recall seeing Mamma so amused in years. She and Bette and Sue are really fairly
comfortable people, for females, and I expect you’ll deal famously. Just
remember to stand up to Mamma.”

“Stand up to her!” Olivia repeated, more entertained than
not by this view of her mother-at-law. “I had supposed I must prepare to do so,
for John used to describe her in the most unvarnished terms, as a Tartar!”

“Olivia, he never did,” Mrs. Martingale scolded, shocked.

“I assure you, Mamma, he did. Several times. Only I collect
that you were never by when he did so.” A touch of color rose to Olivia’s cheek
and she smiled mischievously. Lord Kit, sensing a possible turn-up between
mother and daughter, made haste to impart messages from his mother and sisters.

“Mamma directed me to assure you that if you wanted peace
you was to have it, but Bette said, without the varnish too, that
she
intended to see that you were as much amused
as possible, that she supposed you must be as bored with a seven-month of
mourning as she was, and that she hoped you didn’t mind terribly. Not that it
would make much difference to Bette.”

“My.” Olivia bit her lip, but her eyes sparkled.

“And my sister Susannah said to tell you that she would
return to Catenhaugh specifically for your arrival. I don’t know what good that
does anyone but Sue, for she’s an incorrigible busybody. In fact, I cannot
think why you should want to come to Catenhaugh at all, knowing the treats in
store for you.”

“I feel certain I shall love both Lady Bette and Lady
Susannah,” Olivia answered unevenly. “Are there any other messages for me, Kit?”

“Only that Mamma begs you will not be put off by Julian’s
letter, nor believe half of what I say about the family. She fears you’ll turn
tail and never come to Catenhaugh at all.” Kit gave a wicked grin. “I told her
you weren’t so poor spirited as that; now it’s for you to prove me correct.”

“Your flattery overwhelms me,” Olivia assured him.

“Christopher, I believe you are funning us,” Mrs. Martingale
opined severely. Lord Kit denied this charge, and Olivia, to change the topic,
began to explain the arrangements she had begun for their journey.

“Ridiculous fuss, Sister. We’ll have to take the job-chaise
and fourgon as far as Ostend, I agree. You mean only to bring your abigails?
Well, that’s a mercy, anyway. But I’ve the
Judith
there—my
father’s yacht— so we will cross the Channel in comfort, I assure you. And when
we reach Dover I’ve one of Tylmath’s chaises there. You’ve only to tell me what
day you wish to set off.”

Rapidly calculating the savings Lord Kit’s intervention
would afford them, Olivia mentioned a day two weeks off.

“Welladay, that will give me some time to check the hells in
the city,” Kit said comfortably. “I never had the time to get properly
rum-fuddled when I was living here: always too much work in the Army, and the
Beau looking over your colonel’s shoulder, so he felt obliged to keep the
officers to the straight and narrow.”

Mrs. Martingale expressed the opinion that she would be
doing the dowager Duchess of Tylmath a disservice to permit her son to do any
such thing, and invited Lord Kit to take his mutton with them that evening.

“Delighted, ma’am. After all, I’ve two weeks to frivol in,”
he teased. “Now, Sister Livvy, will you content yourself to let me manage your
travel arrangements?”

“Happily,” she thanked him. They sat together awhile longer,
and Lord Kit entertained them with an account of which inns on their route he
was inclined to favor with his patronage, and why; from this topic he came to the
subject of a pair of yachts he had seen—and coveted—in port in Ostend, and was
sawing merrily at pictures in the air when the manservant appeared again, this
time to announce the arrival of Mr. Quincy Haikestill.

“That bag-witted spindleshanks?” Lord Kit expostulated
disgustedly. “How on earth does he come to be a visitor here, Livvy? Of all the
long-winded, boring, parsonical—Ah! Haikestill, delighted to see you again!”

The gentlemen addressed paused at this cordial greeting,
fixed his quizzing glass to his eye, and murmured, “Quite so. Temperer. How d’ye
do?” He crossed the room to bow over the hands of his hostesses, and settled
himself comfortably in a wing chair near the fire. Mr. Haikestill was of
respectable, but hardly advanced, years, dressed with a quiet propriety of
taste which verged on the boring but certainly did not make him an unacceptable
acquaintance. He had met Lady John Temperer and her mother shortly after Lord
John’s untimely death, and had taken to calling once or twice a week with the
London papers and any mild gossip he had chanced to hear. He was, as he had
more than once mentioned, comfortably situated, of good health and good
appearance, and possessed a tolerably well-informed mind, if no great
intelligence. He was also hypochondriacal, didactic, and inclined to condemn
levity when it reared its ugly head. And, most importantly, he was exceedingly
infatuated with Olivia.

She was quite aware of his
tendre
for her, but since he had far too great a sense of propriety to fix his
interest with a widowed lady until her year was passed, he had made none of
those comments, and subjected her to none of those gallantries to which she
might have made a depressive answer. The sad fact was that Quincy Haikestill,
the kindest and most estimable of men, was self-important and, worse, a bore.

“Lord Christopher,” he began when he had settled comfortably
in his chair and assured his hostesses that he was unassailed by drafts. “I had
thought you to have returned to England. Hey?” He looked from Olivia to her
mother for their agreement; while both ladies murmured obligingly, Lord Kit
made a face at Olivia, and as quickly turned a vacuous smile upon Haikestill.

“Certainly, I was in England, sir. But I have come to assist
in my sister’s return to our country as well.”

“Which sister is this, Lord Christopher?” Mr. Haikestill
asked ponderously. “As I recall—”

“He means myself, Mr. Haikestill,” Olivia broke in
hurriedly. She had some acquaintance with Mr. Haikestill’s
memoires
, which were usually long and of very
little substance. “Mamma and I are going to make a visit to the Duchess, in
Cambridgeshire.”

“Very proper that you should, my dear Lady John. But you had
not spoken to me of your departure.” His voice conveyed the sense of a wound felt
too deep to be exhibited. “When do you deprive us of your fair company?”

Kit made another face at Olivia.

“In two weeks time, sir. And indeed, a notice was published
in the paper.” She indicated that same periodical which Mr. Haikestill clutched
in his hand, the ostensible reason for his call.

“O yes,” he blustered, confusion overtaking affront.

“We would have told you before, sir, but you had not called
upon us in some time, and thus we had no opportunity.” The moment the words
were out Olivia regretted them, fearing Haikestill would find in them an
encouragement of future visits. She gave thanks that they would soon be removed
from Brussels and gave her attention to a long explanation of why Mr.
Haikestill had been kept, reluctantly, from calling at their house. He finished
with an earnest request that, in penance for his unfortunate lapse, he might be
appointed to do any little services for Lady John or her mother which might
occur to them.

“’Fraid I shall be taking care of things for my sister and
her mother, sir,” Kit drawled amiably. “Kind in you to offer, of course, but
these things are best attended to by a family member, don’t you think? Anything
else might be said to look a trifle peculiar, hey?”

Olivia repressed a strong urge to kick her brother-at-law.

“O yes, O yes,” Mr. Haikestill agreed, taken aback. “No wish
to be encroaching, of course. Well, I must take my leave of you ladies now, I
regret to say.” He paused long enough so that, had they wished to do, Olivia or
Mrs. Martingale might have invited him to stay to dine. “Yes. Well. I shall
take my leave of you now, but I trust you will permit me to return again before
you depart, to make my farewells.”

Olivia assured him that she would be delighted to say
farewell to him, thanked him for his kind concern, and with a tact and
perseverance which belied her twenty years, steered him into the hands of a
maid in the hallway, and thence out the door.

When she returned to the sitting room her eyes were lit with
wrath. “You wretch, to ill-treat that poor, well-meaning man so! When you do
things like that I can tell, if there were ever a doubt, that you are John’s
brother, Kit.”

“Tact don’t run strong in the Temperers, Livvy,” Lord
Christopher warned her easily. “But a sense of humor does. Always excepting in
Julian and Sophy, who are true Melverings—take after my father’s mother’s
family. But you shan’t mind Tylmath and Sophia, shall you? After all, you will
have the rest of us.”

Olivia, less than entirely reassured by this thought,
regarded her brother-at-law with a disapproving eye but said nothing, and Mrs.
Martingale began to speak of traveling clothes again.

Under Lord Christopher’s aegis the travelers’ affairs,
arrangements and farewells were conducted with a certain haphazard efficiency,
and even the journey itself from Brussels to Cambridgeshire was relatively
easy. Both Lady John and her mother were indifferent sailors at best, which
circumstance combined with a rough sea to keep them in their cabin, attended
upon by the more phlegmatic Miss Melber. Lord Kit stayed above deck, admiring
the storm clouds which boiled furiously in the distance, and keeping as clear
of the cabin as possible, while Miss Bliss, herself somewhat indisposed, stayed
out from under foot below deck. Lord Christopher later admitted that once the
party had attained dry land at Dover the ladies made excellent companions. They
made no demur at the rather precipitate pace of their journey, and he in turn
made every possible effort to provide frequent stops for refreshment and rest.
Thus, Lady John, Lord Kit, and Mrs. Martingale arrived at Catenhaugh several
days earlier than expected.