Lovers' Vows (3 page)

“Well, I’ll go then, if you’re sure we won’t have to
do
anything. Mean to say, not a bad time of the year to be in the country. Hunting good. Excellent cellar at St. Alton’s. Your chef—Bernier—will be going with you?” he asked eagerly.

“Certainly he will. I never move without him.”

“Settles it. Be there for dinner this evening. What does he mean to serve us, do you happen to know?”

“He mentioned
soupe
à la bonne femme, dindon à la Perigueuse, poule à la Condé
....”

“Pity. Was hoping for bubble and squeak,” Rex said, and pulled himself from the chair with a sigh, his back hunched forward at an awkward angle. “Devilish crick in my back from that costume. Sure you won’t be needing it at the Abbey?”

“Quite sure.”

Homberly wandered out the door, and Dewar rang for a fresh pot of coffee and a clean cup. He sat long over it, thinking in a sad, nostalgic way of times gone by. The good old days when he had associated with the people who
did
things. His mind wandered to the Hunt brothers, Leigh and John, who had been incarcerated for libeling their Prince Regent in the
Examiner,
their influential though small paper. ‘A libertine over head and ears in debt and disgrace’ they had called him, among other things. It had been fun to decorate Leigh’s prison cell, which was in fact a very fine room, complete with piano and his books.

They had contrived to make him quite comfortable, painting the ceiling like a sky with clouds, covering the walls with a rose-trellis design, and always keeping him supplied with good wine and fresh flowers. Some snug little dinners they had held there.

Then there had been the season he had been involved in art, and the exhibitions of the Royal Academy. What a fuss they had raised about showing Turner’s superb
Snowstorm: Hannibal and His Army Crossing the Alps.
The latter part of the title was added to get it through the hanging committee, who could not see their way clear to exhibit ‘a huge and violent sky’ as art. The best, and certainly the most influential, painting of that year—or decade. Some folks called Dewar a dilettante; he did not consider it an appropriate term, indicating as it did a lack of seriousness, a trifling sort of interest.

He was keenly interested in all manifestations of beauty. His greatest regret was that he did not excel in any of the arts. He was relegated to the post of patron, seeking out the new and talented people, and encouraging them. If he occasionally stepped on a few toes by deriding the old and fusty in the process, it was regrettable but necessary.

His valet entered and began picking up his discarded dressing gown and ruined cravats. This bustling about displeased His Lordship, which aggravation was conveyed to his valet by one scathing glance from his eye. He would retire to his study, to peruse the long rows of books for something light and simple to amuse the local folks at Harknell.

“If I may remind you, my lord, there was the letter from Her Ladyship, your mother, you meant to do something about before leaving,” the servant said in a timorous tone.

“Letter? Ah yes, it slipped my mind. Some neighbour has bought himself a knighthood. Have my secretary send him a congratulatory note, Wickens, and sign my name. I do not wish to be disturbed.” He strode from the room, muttering under his breath, “Molière, perhaps, would be amusing....”

Dewar and his party had been at the Abbey for three days, without venturing farther afield than into the woods and parklands for some shooting. Homberly had been well entertained plundering his lordship’s well-stocked coverts, in company with George Foxworth, and accidentally shooting a foxhound as well when he discharged a gun into the bush by mistake.

The surreptitious burial of this animal took up a full hour, and another thirty minutes were used in concocting a story to account for its vanishing if Dewar happened to count his hounds and find one missing. Dewar had met for very brief and casual reports from his steward, nodding his head in a lazy sort of half-listening way to hear that all was in order, generally speaking, with a few details awaiting his own settlement.

“The local townspeople are after one of your tenants, old Arthur Evans, to give them a footpath through his land, to save them a few steps,” the steward mentioned.

"Is there any reason, outside of sheer ill nature, why he doesn’t do it? I never met such a bad-humoured man as Evans.”

“He says the path would go through his rose garden.”

“I would not encourage him to destroy a lovely rose garden, only to save the lazy pedestrians a few yards. Anything else?”

“There’s the schoolmaster in the village who is getting on in years. He is about due to retire, and a replacement will be needed. You will want a hand in that, I fancy.”

“What leads you to fancy anything of the sort?” Dewar asked, with a startled look on his face. There was no answer. “Has he asked to be retired?”

“No, but a few of the parents have suggested it. He is more learned than most of the gentlemen in these parts, but he is a bit hard of hearing.”

“That will be a marked advantage in a room full of rowdy youngsters. We’ll let him suggest it when he feels ready to hang up his rod. I do not approve of turning the old boys out to pasture prematurely. They so often cock up their toes and die within a twelvemonth. Is there anything else, Roots?”

“I’ll leave the books with you, to look over at your leisure.”

“What an abuse of leisure,” Dewar sighed.

“Your clergyman, Johnson, will want to speak to you. He is always after me for more money for the orphanage, but it seems to me the young lads have what they need. The local ladies are all active in helping tend to their needs. They have a committee to make up the clothing and hold little parties at Christmas, and so on.”

“We do not want to deprive the ladies of their good deeds. Don’t stint the boys on food and clothing and lessons, however. The last is the most important of the lot. It might be a nice gesture to have the charity ladies to tea at the Abbey one afternoon. I shall suggest it to Mama.”

“That’s it then,” Roots said, shuffling up his papers. “I’ll do as we agreed. Try the west acres in clean, fallow tares next season to see if we can improve the soil. Seems to me it ought to be yielding more than it is. And I’ll get you a price on Dutch-glazed tiles for the dairy.”

“I want to see the pattern and price before you proceed with the ordering, Roots. There is no reason my dairy cannot be pretty while we are about renovating it. The dairy girls spend a good deal of time there. I saw an interesting set-up at Beaton Hall—a fountain of fresh-running water set in the middle of the big stone table used for creaming and ripening the milk for churning. It seemed to keep the whole place clean and fresh-smelling. Most dairies have an odour that does not encourage one to linger. My own is no exception, I fear. I shall have a barn built out back too, for cheese.”

“How was this fresh water kept running?” Roots asked skeptically.

“By means of a pump, I expect. Unless there was one of those wells of the sort they have at Artois, where the water swells without pumping.”

“There’s no such quantity of water hereabouts.”

“I would like you to look into it all the same. I shall be in touch with my friends at Beaton Hall, and discover from them how it was done. A dairy should be quaintly pastoral in character—pretty milk maids all in a row, in clean aprons. Yes, the babble of freshly running water will add to the rustic character I strive for. And it will keep the place fresh-smelling. I know your theory that every penny spent must bring in two, Roots, but I wish you will humour me in this matter,” Dewar said in a mild enough way, but the imperative glance he levelled on his steward did not encourage the man to argue further. “Thank you so much,” Dewar said, showing him to the door. “We shall take a day off very soon for a tour of the estate, and to say good day to all my tenants.”

"I’ll introduce you to them,” Roots could not desist from saying.

“Oh I am not quite a stranger to most of them.”

“No, sir, only the five families that have come the past two years. It is two years since you have made a tour.”

“Is it really so long?
Tempus fugit,
does it not? It seems only yesterday we ploughed through those muddy fields, you and I, ruining our topboots. I must remember not to wear my white-trimmed ones.”

"I’d been telling you for six months that field wanted tilling.”

“I had been telling you for longer than six
years
to tend to such matters for me. What horrors have you in store for me this time, I wonder, that you are so eager to lure me off into the wilderness?”

“No horrors, I hope, but it is a good idea to be acquainted with your own estate and tenants. They like to feel you take an interest.”

“My dear Roots, would I have hired such an excellent and expensive steward if I did not care for their welfare? And, of course, my own. Pray consider yourself
in loco Dewaris
in my absence. Do as you see fit for anything under a thousand pounds, and don’t hesitate to write me in London for anything above that sum. I always answer your
billets-doux,
do I not?”

“Eventually. It would be handy if you could get an answer back to me inside of a week or two. When cattle is up for sale, or a planting of trees is to be chopped, six months is a long time to wait.”

“Those are the very sort of details I pay you so handsomely to tend to, Roots. Don’t be shy in the matter of earning your money. Should an important matter arise, I shall bear in mind your love of promptness. Good day, Roots.”

Rex Homberly was straggling past the doorway as Roots strode out. “Oh, there you are, Dew,” he said, drawing up to chat. Then he happened to notice the earth on his hands from burying the hound, and pulled them hastily behind his back.

“Come in, Rex, and we shall have a glass of wine. A new case I have got hold of from France. Burgundy—my wine steward tells me it is unexceptionable. He likes it so well it is half gone already, and I have not tried it yet.”

“Burgundy, eh? Don’t mind if I do,” Rex answered, giving his hands a surreptitious wipe on the seat of his trousers, while Dewar busied himself pouring the wine and admired its deep red glow by holding his glass in front of the window.

Homberly took a mouthful and proceeded to chew it. “Did I get a piece of cork in it?” Dewar asked.

“Nope. Testing the taste,” Rex gurgled, then swallowed the mouthful and took another, somewhat larger one, emptying the glass. “Good stuff,” he congratulated. “Not a forward, encroaching type. Musigny, I think?” He preferred his glass for a refill, while Dewar regarded him with amusement. “Alvanley taught me the trick. You chew it, to get the taste.”

“I see. What is it you look for?”

“Well—for the taste,” Homberly repeated. “Tastes very good, but you’ve got to say more than that, you see. It’s got to taste
like
something.”

“Something other than grapes?”

“Yes—like cloth or people. It can be smooth as velvet or satin, if you like, or it can be impertinent or shy—or even argumentative if you don’t like it. Well, there’s no fight in this bottle, is there? Have another, Dew. Have several. Something I want to tell you.”

“Preparing me for good news, are you?”

“Good news? Hardly call it
good
news. Not that a man needs thirty-six hounds. In a kind of a way, it is good news to have one less mouth to feed....”

“You’ve shot a hound!” Dewar said. “Now how the devil did you come to do that, Rex? Those are a specially trained pack!”

“Accident. And it ain’t the leader of the pack or anything like it. In fact, it’s a dashed troublemaker. Sneaked out of the enclosure and came pelting after me and Foxey, scaring the hares so we didn’t catch a thing. Didn’t shoot it on purpose, whatever Foxey may tell you. Well—white and brown—took it for a hare.”

“And the hunting season about to begin!” Dewar rolled up his eyes in vexation, then was struck with inspiration. “Rex,” he went on in a pleasant voice, “I have an excellent idea. Why don’t you and Foxey run into the village for me and … and go to the lending library.”

“Foxey don’t care for reading.”

“I want you to see if you can find a play for us to put on. Take your time! No hurry.”

“A play? You promised you wouldn’t. Besides, I’ve left the horse suit in London.”

“You can send for it. Or, for that matter, you need not feel compelled to participate.”

“I ain’t lending that suit to nobody. Well, I’ll see if I can find a play about a horse then, but it won’t be easy, Dew. I know there is one.
My Horse, My Horse, My Kingdom for a Horse.
Think that’s the name of it.”

The knocker of the front door sounded, and within a minute a servant was at the study, informing his lordship that Mr. Johnson, the incumbent minister of St. Alton’s, was come to call.

“That prosy old bore! Tell him I just stepped out. I’ll go with you, Rex.” Dewar snatched up his hat and cane and slipped out the French doors, to disappear around the corner to the stables.

The two were soon strolling along the main street of Harknell. Dewar’s eyes focused on the old Gothic church that was visible on a slight promontory at the street’s end. He admired its clean, soaring lines, its lancet windows, and found the stark black branches of nude trees added just the right touch of gloom to the view. It might do as an illustration for a gothic novel. Even the heavy grey sky was in keeping with the atmosphere. At such moments of contemplating the harmony of Man’s and Nature’s work, Dewar preferred silence. Wrapped up in the joys of artistic appreciation as he was, he failed to notice the cause of Homberly’s unusual reticence, and was only grateful for it.

After he had gazed his fill, however, he looked to his companion, and observed that his blue eyes were popping, and his lower lip hanging loose. He followed the line of vision, smiling to himself at the fellow’s lack of facial control. His own lips did not open, nor did his eyes pop, but they narrowed slightly, as they settled on the vision of loveliness that was passing them by across the street.