Miss Milton Speaks Her Mind (5 page)

Lord Denby reached for his porridge again. “Very well, you two. I am convinced. Let us have a reunion.” He took another bite. “Oh, do not puff up so, Agnes! It could be fun!”

Two steps forward, one step backward, Jane thought as she tightened her cloak around her. We will blast Lord Denby out of that bed yet, but Andrew must suffer the purgatory of Latin School among little boys full of their parents' rumors.

She had hoped for Andrew's company on the walk into Denby, but she was not surprised that he declined. “You are a better teacher, Miss Mitten,” he said in protest when she gave him the bad news.

“
I cannot teach you Latin or Greek,” she had reminded him, “and you are nearly twelve.” And this is not the issue, but I will not trample your dignity into the ground by reminding you of it, she had promised herself.

“
Do you think ….” he began, then stopped to pick his words carefully. “Are Lord Kettering's sons in that class?”

“
I believe so, my dear.”

“
And the Castlereagh twins?”

“
Probably. You are all of much the same age. Sir Harry's sons, as well.”

“
I had thought them already at Eton or Harrow,” Andrew had said, after a long pause that she did not rush to fill.

We are so polite! Jane told herself as she hurried toward the vicar's house. Lady Carruthers is gloating over our discomfort, and we are trying so hard not to show it. And I am wondering, how many of those neighborhood rumors are ones that she sent spinning on their way around the district to damage the reputation of a poor woman long dead, and her child.

The thought was so distasteful that she stopped walking. What is the fascination people have with gossiping about others? she asked herself, and not for the first time. Why are some so busily engaged in bringing others low? “And those who cannot defend themselves,” she said out loud, and quite unable to hide her disgust.

She could never put her finger on the rumor—where it had started, and how it had grown into something so horrible that Andrew would all of his young life shy away from the neighbor boys who should have been his friends. Through the years, she wondered if she could have scotched it, but her own powerlessness made such an undertaking seem impossible. Had I said anything, no one would have believed me. There were enough rumors circulating about my own days in the workhouse, she thought.

As it was, when Andrew was placed in her arms, and then remained there because of the events of that awful day in Leeds, she had been far too occupied with Andrew to listen to idle rumor. When she finally settled into a routine with her new charge, Jane could only wonder at the baseness of some people, and the things they gossiped about when boredom overtook them.

She heard the rumor first from Stanton, who took her aside one afternoon while Andrew slept. His eyes averted, blushing with embarrassment, Stanton had stopped her on the landing and whispered what he had heard from the village of Denby, how word was out that dear Lady Canfield had run mad and stepped in front of the mailcoach to end her life. “That is absurd,” she had whispered back, appalled by the suggestion.

“
Miss Milton, it is worse,” the footman had continued, taking her arm with no apology, so intent was he to convey the whole distress of the situation. “You will own that Lord and Lady Canfield did marry in some haste and that ….” He paused and blushed some more. “Well, she quickly found herself … you know.”

“
I do know,” she had told him, blushing herself, but relieving him of the necessity of spelling out how quickly—and with what shy delight—Blair had announced that his bride was increasing.

“
And you know, of course, that Lady Canfield's family was much under the hatches until Lord Canfield married her and relieved their anxieties with a spot of ready cash.”

“
These things happen, Stanton,” she had reminded him.

“
I know, but, Miss Milton, she had had an earlier suitor whom she much favored. You remember?”

Of course she did, even though all anyone at Stover Hall knew was that he was the scoundrel who had caused Blair endless frets. “Why must my dear Lucinda allow that vagabond to pursue her?” he had protested to her one evening, when his own wooing appeared to be going nowhere.

She had been at Dame Chaffee's School as a teacher during Blair's courtship and only heard the anguished details in bits and pieces during holidays home, but she remembered well the day that Blair had written her to announce that Lucinda had consented to be wed. “Constancy appears to have won out over profligacy,” he had announced in one of his infrequent letters to her. “Lucinda will not allow even a month to pass now before we are married.”

She stopped again, remembering her conversation with the footman, how he had informed her, with more blushes and stammerings, that the rumor circulating about Blair's late wife included an unlooked-for pregnancy with the scoundrel, who had immediately disappeared, and how the family had rushed her into marriage with Blair to avoid scandal.

“
That is preposterous,” she had assured the footman, who could only nod his head in sad agreement. “I agree of course, Miss Milton, but that is the rumor. The upshot is that Lady Canfield was so overcome with shame at having duped her husband that she stepped in front of the mailcoach to put a period to her existence.” He had finally turned mournful eyes upon her. “According to gossip then, the child is certainly not a son of Lord Canfield.”

It was too astounding to believe, and in her own naïveté—she blushed even now to remember it—she had been quick to assure the worried footman that the whole evil-minded tale was so ridiculous that it would sink under its own weight. “You're good to tell me, Stanton, but do believe me when I say that in a fortnight, it will have been forgotten.”

The bell in the church rang and Jane started walking again, intent on a moment in private with the vicar before duties at Evensong called him away. “I was so certain that no one could possibly be so small-souled as to believe such a taradiddle,” she said out loud as she hurried toward the vicarage.

To her dismay, the rumor had only thickened like some evil pudding, wrapped in cheesecloth and allowed to steam until it was fully ripe. Blair was often away with the army, but when she took Andrew to church, Jane could not overlook how intently everyone gazed at the child. To her further dismay, Andrew did not appear to resemble Blair.

“
And that is how a story starts,” she told the vicar a half hour later over tea. “Since you are fairly new to this district, I wanted you to know why I have avoided placing Andrew in your charge for Latin School. They are only rumors, and not to be believed.”

“
Oh, I would never ….” In a nervous rush, the vicar poured his tea. “And yet, Miss Milton, it is common knowledge in the village that Lord Denby himself treats his grandson with indifference, and that his sister's son goes about preening himself to become Lord Denby, when Andrew's claims are brushed aside.”

“
I know,” Jane said, unable to finish her tea. “How sad it is that people who should know better have doubts.”

“
And you have none?” he asked, with all the tone of the confessional.

“
None, sir,” she said firmly. “Lord and Lady Canfield were quite happy with each other. Her death was just a horrible accident.”

He waited a long moment to comment, and her heart sank. “It must be as you say then,” he replied finally. “Still, the other boys only repeat what they hear.” He looked at the clock then, and to Jane's critical eye, seemed relieved that Evensong was upon them and he had an excuse to hurry her along. “I can promise you that he will be treated equally and fairly in my classroom, but I cannot vouch for what boys will do, when the lessons are done.”

“
I suppose you cannot,” she said, resisting an urge to grab him by his neckcloth and shake him until his prominent Adam's apple rattled.

“
Miss Milton, I have a duty to everyone in my parish.”

And that is the best I can get from that thin-livered vicar, she thought, cross with herself as she hurried home. “And even if every dreadful part of that odious rumor were true, why would anyone want to gloat over it and injure the heart of a little boy? I do not understand Christians!”

“
Nor I, Miss Milton, but then neither did Nero!”

She stopped, turned around in embarrassment, and then smiled with relief. “Oh, thank the Lord it is you, Mr. Butterworth!” she exclaimed. “At least you will not tell the world that the old maid at Stover Hall talks to herself.”

Whatever am I saying? she thought, surprised at herself. And here was Mr. Butterworth, slightly out of breath, carrying an umbrella that was now extended over her, as well. She looked at him in surprise, wondering why he stood there in the rain in his shirtsleeves and waistcoat.

She knew him well. His Christian name was general knowledge in the regions about because it was such an amusing one: Scipio Africanus. When she thought about it, she wondered what someone with a name like that would actually be
called
. Andrew had suggested “Sippy” once, and that had sent them both into such a fit of the giggles that Lady Carruthers had scolded her for an entire day on why women in charge of children should not be so silly.

Unlike some of the district's gentler folk, she never regretted his arrival in the neighborhood. When someone had purchased the Mott estate after old Lord Mott had been gone from it for a decade, Lady Carruthers had taken it upon herself to find out the origins of the new owner. The unwelcome tidings that he was a mill owner from Huddersfield—that most inelegant of towns—launched her into a month of spasms. Jane doubted even now, ten years after the event, that Lady Carruthers had entirely recovered. As it was, she certainly never extended an invitation to Mr. Butterworth to take his mutton with them.

“
Miss Milton, won't you come inside until the rain lets up?” She had a ready excuse on her lips—it was late, she was expected at Stover Hall—and she would have delivered it, if she had not looked down at Mr. Butterworth's feet.

He was wearing house slippers of such a virulent shade of lime green yarn that the colors almost spoke to her. “Sir, what on
earth
are you doing out here worrying about me, when your feet are … my goodness, Mr. Butterworth, but that is an … an exceptional color.”

He merely smiled and offered her his arm, and for some unaccountable reason, she took it. He will catch his death if I make him stand outside in the rain and argue about whether I should come inside, she rationalized as she let him hurry her along the lane toward the house. Heaven knows he is not a young man, even if he is not precisely old, either.

He did pause for a moment to raise up one slipper from the wet gravel of the lane. “My dear niece made these for me last Christmas. My sister teases me that they were only just Amanda's practice piece, but I think them quite acceptable.”

“
They are, indeed,” she replied, as she allowed herself to be led where she had never gone before. “Am I to assume that you saw me from your window and thought I needed rescuing so badly that you would risk a present from a niece?”

She had never thought herself a witty person, but Mr. Butterworth threw back his head and laughed, which meant that the umbrella went, too, and the rain pelted on her forehead again.

“
Oh, I am a poor Sir Galahad, indeed, Miss Milton,” he said, when he straightened the umbrella. “But yes, that is it entirely.” She smiled at him, thinking that no one in England looked less like Sir Galahad than Scipio Africanus Butterworth. She thought he might have over forty years to his credit, but she could not be sure. She was not tall, but standing this close to Mr. Butterworth, she felt even shorter than usual. He was taller even than Lord Denby, and massive without being fat. He could have been intimidating, had his general demeanor been less kind. Years ago over dinner at Stover Hall, Blair had declared that the Almighty had obviously broken the mold with the mill owner. She thought that unfair, and so informed her cousin with a vehemence that surprised her.

She thought of that now, as she found herself being led up the Butterworth lane to the front door. He was directing some pleasantry to her, but all she could see was what she always saw about him: the brownest of eyes with their glance of utter enthusiasm belonging to a far younger man. He also looked so benign, a trait she had never much associated with the district's general opinion of mill owners.

This perpetual air of good feeling had always amazed her about him and nothing had intervened in the ten years of their acquaintance to change that. Although Lady Carruthers had sniffed that their new neighbor “smelled of the shop” and that he would never be permitted to pollute the Stover environs, their equals in the village of Denby had not been so scrupulous.

Lady Carruthers had always blamed Blair for seeing that Mr. Butterworth was named to the board of directors of the town's charity hospital. “But, Aunt, he donates far more than anyone else, and twice as much as we do,” Blair had pointed out, on one of his infrequent furloughs home from the army. “I'm too far away most of the time to do my duty, and do you know, I think that someone with management skills would be a welcome addition. Besides, he had added. “He isn't the sort of man I would like to argue with, for all that he is so pleasant.”