Miss Milton Speaks Her Mind (11 page)

“
Oh, dear! Lady Carruthers claims it is unrefined.” She sighed. “Which brings me to a far less sanguine matter: We received a post from her yesterday evening.”

“
And?” he prompted.

“
And she and Cecil will be here in two weeks—two weeks!—to celebrate Christmas with us.”

They walked along in silence for a few minutes. “This is not precisely good tidings of great joy, I gather,” he said when they reached the edge of the lake.

“
Not at all,” Jane said, removing her arm from his grip and pulling her cloak tighter. “She will ride me unmercifully if I allow Andrew to continue Latin School at your home, and twit me day and night if she knows it was my idea that you visit Lord Denby.”

“
Only if you allow her to trouble you, Miss Milton,” the mill owner said, as unperturbed as if she had told him that the leaves had left the trees. “Good day, now, my dear Miss Milton. I trust you can navigate the perimeter of
my
lake.”

She did, walking slowly and leaning into the wind. You are right, of course, Mr. Butterworth, she decided as she rounded the lake and stood too soon before the side entrance to Stover again. I do allow people to trouble me, and I say nothing.

The notion made her quiet through dinner. A couple of discreet coughs from Stanton reminded her to eat, and she smiled her thanks at him, secretly amused that he must dread as much as she did Cook's fits of depression when he carried uneaten food belowstairs. “I do not believe that Lord Denby pays you enough,” she told him after Andrew excused himself. “You are the soul of diplomacy.”

He bowed and then smiled at her, which delighted her because he so seldom unbent from his butler's demeanor. “No, Miss Milton. I am merely a coward where Cook is concerned,” he said as he directed the footman to carry out the tray.

I suppose we all suffer our tyrannies, she told herself as they walked upstairs to Lord Denby's chamber. Except for you, sir, she thought, standing beside the bed and looking down on Lord Denby, who slept. Who could possibly ride roughshod over you?

“
I am quite at leisure this evening,” she whispered to Stanton, “so you needn't sit here with him.” She made herself comfortable and picked up her mending. The letters are mailed, the arrangements made—as far as we are able—for the events this spring. She looked up at the window, black now with night coming earlier and earlier. The more I plan, the closer spring will seem, she told herself.

The butler did not leave, and Jane looked at him. “Is something wrong?” she whispered.

He shook his head slowly, as though he was undecided how to answer her, then leaned closer to whisper in her ear. “He got another letter from Lady Carruthers this afternoon, reminding him that she and Cecil would be here soon.” He hesitated when Lord Denby stirred in his sleep. “I think it sets him off, Miss Milton, just thinking about her arrival.”

It sets me off, too, she admitted to herself as Stanton let himself out of the room without a sound. She yanked one of Andrew's socks over the darning egg and sewed vigorously, her lips set in a tight line. She sewed until the hole in the heel had far too many darning stitches to fit comfortably into any shoe Andrew owned. “Drat!” she said out loud.

“
My dear cousin, we will have no wooden swearing.”

Guilty, she looked at Lord Denby, who was watching her. “I didn't mean to wake you, my lord,” she said.

He closed his eyes again. “You didn't really,” he murmured. “Don't know why I feel so tired today.”

It is because you cannot bear the thought of your sister back so soon, she told herself, or her son Cecil and the way he oozes around, taking inventory on everything he plans to inherit someday, if Andrew's claims can be brushed aside. She thought of Mr. Butterworth and his truth telling. “Do you know, my lord, if you made it perfectly plain to Cecil that Andrew truly is your grandson and will be the next Lord Denby, I know he would not plague you further.”

There, she had said it. Jane clipped the thread from the sock and kneaded the sock between suddenly icy fingers. Moments passed; the clock on the mantelpiece seemed to tick louder with each second it marked. Startled, she looked at the clock and wondered when it would explode with the noise and throw itself facedown on the carpet, gears and sprockets whirring everywhere.

“
I know nothing of the kind, Jane,” he said finally, his eyes still closed.

Well that is final, she thought, shocked. “My lord, you know that Blair was never in doubt,” she said gently, wanting to touch him, but repulsed somehow, which only shocked her more.

“
Blair was in love, Jane,” he replied, then made a dismissive gesture, as though to ward off further questions. “If you had ever been in love, you would understand that it throws reason right out the door with the slops.”

I beg to differ, she thought, rising and then thrusting her mending back in the basket. “My lord, I know that you were very much in love with Lady Denby, for Blair … Blair told me. And you have never been one to throw reason away.”

He closed his eyes again and put his arm across his eyes in a gesture of rejection she could not ignore. “Perhaps we never really know each other as well as we think we do, my dear. Good night now. I do not require tending.”

She remained where she was until his breathing was regular—whether he was fooling her or not, she could not tell—then rose to go. From the lifelong habit of doing for others, she pulled up the coverlet from the foot of the bed, moving aside the book that was there. It was the copy of his essays. Out of curiosity, she opened the book at the place marked with a scrap of paper, then closed it, wondering why he never seemed to get beyond that first humorous essay about Lieutenant Jeremy Dill and his brush with the amorous New York Royalist. Perhaps we do not know each other, she thought, as she left the room.

It pained her to watch Lord Denby withdraw to his bed again and keep to it with a vengeance, the closer Lady Carruthers' arrival loomed. Jane received her own peremptory letter, telling her to make sure that the second-best chamber was aired and the sheets dry. “ ‘I would be chagrined if Cecil should contract a putrid sore throat or bilious fever at this most joyful time of year, and I know you share my sentiments (or at least you should),' ” she read out loud a week later when she allowed Mr. Butterworth to escort her and Andrew home from his lessons. Andrew had run on ahead, and was waving at her even now from the side door at Denby. She pocketed the letter and returned his wave. “If I had any brains at all, I would take to my bed, too, Mr. Butterworth!”

He shook his head. “Not you, my dear.”

He stopped at the place where he usually relinquished his grip on her arm, but instead of releasing her, stood looking into the water of his lake. She did not mind, beyond the fact that the wind was picking up and Lady Carruthers' third-best cloak had never been warm. She made a slight gesture, but Mr. Butterworth might have been in another country, for all that he noticed. “Sir, I must be going now,” she said at last.

He looked at her in surprise, as though she had recalled him from a distant field, but he did not loosen his grip. “Miss Milton, what you suffer from is an acute sense of duty.”

“
Sir?” she asked, more amused than surprised at the seriousness of his tone.

He started in motion again, but not toward Denby. He led her to a bench and sat down with her. “You would never take to your bed, because that would leave Andrew defenseless,” he said, as calmly as though they discussed the rising wind. “I think, my dear, that under your somewhat bland demeanor, you are quite a tiger, at least as far as that little scamp is concerned.”

She didn't know whether to be offended or delighted. “Bland, sir?” she asked.

He nodded toward Denby. “In the name of rescuing you from a workhouse, those relatives of yours have turned you into a servant, Miss Milton. They suck hours and hours of work from you, tending Andrew, soothing Lord Denby, and—God rest his soul—caring for Lord Canfield when no one else would …”

“…
or could ….” she said quickly, before she thought.

He looked at her for a long moment and she prayed that he would not ask. “They give you nothing in return,” he concluded.

Spoken like that, even in Mr. Butterworth's quiet way, it sounded so harsh. There must be something my Stover cousins have given me, she thought, frowning at the mill owner. “I have a place to live, sir, and ….” She stopped, unable to think of anything else. “Oh, dear, Mr. Butterworth,” she said softly. She sat next to him in silence.

“
Miss Milton, even a hedgehog has a place to live,” he said at last. “A place to hang his … his hedges, if you will.” He gave her arm, still tucked through his, a little thump. “What would you like, Miss Milton? Do speak your mind.”

“
A family of my own, sir,” she said without thinking further. “Babies just far enough apart so the neighbors don't laugh, a place for Andrew to stay during school holidays, a husband who cannot begin to do enough for me, and … and a red cloak three times as thick as this one!”

It sounded so funny, hanging in the afternoon air between them, that she gasped at her own effrontery. Gently, she took her arm from his and stood up. “Please overlook that, Mr. Butterworth. I blame my outburst on your absurd questions! You have just furnished me with sufficient amusement to see me back to Stover …”

“…
and enough to get you through an evening with Lady Carruthers?” he asked, interrupting her. “I couldn't bring myself to tell you earlier, but I noticed a post chaise traveling the lane while you were reading my newspaper and waiting for Andrew and Joe to finish with Caesar.”

“
Oh drat, they are early! Cecil must be hiding from his creditors!” Jane exclaimed. She plopped down on the bench again, startled by the sudden weakness in her legs. “I don't know if it's enough,” she said, suddenly hollow inside. ‘Tell me something else absurd to make me laugh, Mr. Butterworth.”

He was silent for a long while, and Jane had not the heart to look at him. I must hurry, she thought, rising again suddenly. Andrew must be facing her awfulness without me. “Mr. Butterworth, I must ….” She stopped and looked at him. “Is something the matter, sir?” she asked.

He was dabbing at his eye with a paisley handkerchief that perfectly matched his overpowering waistcoat. “I am certain it is some fluff blown into my eye from Lord Denby's odious yews,” he said in a moment after returning the handkerchief to his breast pocket with a certain flourish that she defied any Bond Street beau to imitate. “My dear Miss Milton, I haven't said anything absurd yet! Why do you insist that a husband and babies are so out of reach?”

In all their years of acquaintance, she had never heard such a personal question from the mill owner. I brought it on myself, she thought, excusing his own lapse of manners. Oh, and did I actually say “babies” instead of “children”? I certainly did not mean to be so suggestive. He is blind indeed, if he thinks I need to clarify my situation. “Mr. Butterworth, you know me quite well enough to know that I have no fortune and no prospects!” she exclaimed, her stomach made even more hollow by the bleak expression in the mill owner's eyes. What kind eyes he has, she thought, happy to forget her own awkwardness for a moment. Surely they are his best feature. Here he stands in this cold wind, and he has forgotten his hat. “I wish you would not worry about me,” she said finally, then surprised herself by standing on tiptoe to kiss his cold cheek. “I could use that red cloak, however! Now go indoors and do not worry about me and Lady Carruthers. I am used to her.”

“
And that is entirely the problem!” he called after her. “God grant you a little less complacency for the holidays!”

How odd, she thought, as she kept her head down against the wind and ran toward the side entrance. He must be feeling a little bilious from all those pastries he ate while Andrew wrestled with Caesar's legions. What a shame that someone with such a kind heart and so much to offer never married. “Jane, it is your duty to remind him to look about for matrimonial prospects when he is in Huddersfield for Christmas,” she murmured as she looked back toward the lake. “My duty!” She laughed softly to herself. “You have my measure like no one else, Mr. Butterworth. Duty
is
my dilemma.” She squinted to see him through the little distance and the gathering dusk. The mill owner stood there still at the edge of the lake. How is it that you know me so well? she thought. Do go inside, sir, and spare yourself death by pneumonia. Who else can say absurdities, even when you claim you are serious, and make me laugh?

No more than five minutes into Lady Carruthers' visit, Jane realized with a pang that she should have stayed at the lake with Mr. Butterworth. The hall was empty when she let herself in through the side door and she knew she had closed it quietly behind her, but there was Lady Carruthers coming toward her. Jane removed her cloak and folded it carefully over her arm, reminding herself not to let Lady Carruthers frighten her into agitation. Now, should I call her cousin, or is Lady Carruthers more appropriate tonight? she asked herself as her relative came nearer. Perhaps Your Worship? That absurdity made her smile, which proved, she soon discovered, to be another mistake.