Sweet and Twenty (2 page)

“The lovely leaves look languid,”
Miss Watters said after a long pause.

“Yes, they do,”
Sara agreed, though she was not quite sure what languid meant.

“And the grass is growing greatly,”
Lillian added a long minute later.

“Yes, it is,”
Sara answered. Then she frowned. There was something odd in this conversation, but she couldn’t quite put her finger on it. “It’s the rain that makes it grow,”
she told Lillian, for she didn’t wish
to
appear stupid. They both looked at the grass a while longer, then Miss Watters began to move about from boredom.

“Lounging ladies lack liveliness,”
she said firmly, and rose. “Will you show me your garden, Cousin?”

Another frown creased Sara’s brow. Since her papa was no longer there to chide her for the habit, she was frowning two or three times a week. “That rhymes,”
she said, having solved the mystery of her cousin’s talk at last.

“Not quite, but you’re on the track,”
Lillian replied, and gave Sara a hand to get up from the bench.

“Just like Peter Pepper! Cousin, have you read a book too?”
she demanded.

“I have read three or four,”
Lillian told her, “but I have never read one six times, so you needn’t fear I’ll outpace you.”

“I wish you will tell me their names, for they sound just the sort I will love. ‘Lazy ladies lack lounging’—how clever.”

Lillian opened her mouth to make a correction, but thought better of it. “How vexing! I didn’t bring them with me for you to read, when you have been kind enough to loan me Peter Pepper.”

“Oh, that’s all right. I daresay we shan’t have time to read anyway, now that you are here. Aunt Martha plans to marry me, you know.”

Lillian’s dark eyes filled with laughter, but alas, there was no one to share the joke with. “Do you mean to have her?”
she quizzed.

“Oh yes, as long as she finds me a legible
partie, I
shall be satisfied, for I don’t want to be a spinster like her and you.”

“A heavy reader like yourself will certainly want a
legible
gentleman,”
Lillian returned, and found occasion to blow her nose immediately and to go to her room very shortly afterward, to dissolve in mirth on her bed.

The sole interest at dinner was the food, for there was nothing that could be called conversation at the table. Martha outlined her plans for calling at St. Christopher’s Abbey, and neither Melanie nor Sara made any objection. If
Mr. Fellows should find it odd that his next-door neighbors suddenly came to call after not doing so for twenty years, it was not thought worth a mention. Lillian did say that a country gentleman was not particularly likely to be home to greet callers on a busy weekday morning, but her aunt was a step ahead of her. She had sent over a note, in Lady Monteith’s name, expressing their intention.

After dinner, Martha retired early and took Lillian upstairs with her to outline to her what she had discovered of Mr. Fellows, ending up with, “And I see you have discovered your cousins are fools, Lillian, but that is no reason you must make it obvious to Mr. Fellows. Pray keep your sharp tongue between your teeth, and don’t be clever or satirical.”

“Why Auntie, I am hurt! You never accused me of it before, only of trying to be. I wouldn’t do a thing to turn such a legible
partie
off from Cousin Sara.”

Her aunt regarded her through narrowed eyes. “You are not enunciating properly. Young ladies nowadays think it smart to mumble.”

“You know well enough we haven’t a word to say for ourselves, and try to hide the dearth of our conversation with a mumble.”

“Yes . . . well, pray don’t mumble before Mr. Fellows. It will be up to us to do the talking, to try to conceal their total ignorance, and it must be done discreetly. No flirting with him.”

“How should it be possible for us two spinsters to set up a flirtation, at our age?”
Lillian laughed and gave her fusty old aunt a hug.

“No manners!”
Martha grouched, not deceiving her niece in the least that she disliked such treatment.

“Manners enough that I shan’t flirt with Mr. Fellows. Unless he should prove to be handsome, of course.”

Martha gave up and decided that if worse came to worst, Lillian should marry Fellows and be put in charge of finding Sara a different husband.

The four ladies called on Mr. Fellows early the next morning. Martha was busy pointing out the advantages of his estate as they went along: stonework in good repair, at least twenty bedrooms in that house if she knew anything, and the shrubberies neatly trimmed. She was similarly pleased with the interior of her niece’s future home. Good taste was displayed in the fine old furnishings and, of far more importance in her view, there was no dust or dirt in evidence, but a pleasing smell of beeswax and turpentine hanging on the air, indicating the work of a well-ordered staff.

Martha was, of course, interested to see the groom above all, and to determine that he didn’t wear high shirt-points or use a scent. His plain blue jacket proved acceptable, and his faun trousers and Hessians received an approving nod, on account of their not being buckskins and topboots in which to receive a visit from ladies. Her hypercritical eyes scarcely saw that he was a well-set-up gentleman with a passing handsome face. He was either too polite or lacking in interest to inquire the reason for the visit, but accepted it as though it were a commonplace.

For ten minutes the five sat conversing about the weather and straightening out the relationship in which the four visitors stood to each other. Lillian found it odd that the gentleman’s eyes should not more often stray to Sara, she was so exquisitely beautiful; and as she had not yet said more than good day, he could not know she was a fool. But he paid neither young girl any special heed.

It became clear that his mind was greatly occupied with some other matter than his callers, and Mr. Fellows, at last allowed his preoccupation to come out. “I have been asked to stand for Parliament,”
he said.

“Fancy that!”
Lady Monteith rhapsodized.

“What party?”
Martha rapped out suspiciously.

“Oh, for the Whigs,”
he said, on the defense. Sir Gerald had been a Tory, a cause of enmity between them when he himself had switched a few years ago. Martha too had once been a Tory, but she never liked to agree with her family on anything, and for that and other reasons had become a Whig within the recent past. She smiled in satisfaction at his answer, not that it was a matter of great importance one way or the other.

Mr. Fellows then launched into a political monologue, secure that he was among friends. “After looking into the matter, I concluded the country’s only hope of salvation lies with the Whigs. As Lord Allingham was saying the other night, till we drive those reactionary Tories from the seats of power, there is no hope for England. It was Lord Allingham who convinced me it was my duty to run. A man has a duty beyond his own back yard. He and Basingstoke between them talked me into it, that is to say, for certainly Mr. Basingstoke is a very well-educated gentleman, even though he hasn’t a title.”

“Being educated surely is part and parcel of being a gentleman,”
Martha pointed out. Even a prospective groom was subject to her little moralizings.

“Yes,”
Mr. Fellows agreed, very briefly for him, and he looked uncomfortable.

“It is not time for a general election, is it?”
Lillian asked. She did not happen to be keenly interested in politics, but could not believe a general election had been called without her having heard of it.

“No, it is only a by-election. Our incumbent, a Tory, died; the Rt. Honorable James Farrington passed away a fortnight ago. You would have heard of it, Lady Monteith.”
He turned to his neighbor.

“I don’t believe I did,”
she answered, and wondered that he didn’t offer them a glass of wine or a cup of tea. However, this lapse on the host’s part was soon remedied, and with a plateful of biscuits and a glass of wine before her, Lady Monteith retired from the conversation.

“So you will be busy politicking the next month or so?”
Martha questioned, wondering if this would interfere with his wooing of Sara, at whom he had scarcely bothered to glance the past while.

“Lord Allingham is giving me a hand with my campaign. A Mr. Hudson is being sent down from London to manage it. He is very influential in the party, though not actually an elected member. He is a sort of party manager—a whip, Allingham called. him. Basingstoke was saying he got our man in in some little borough or other—I forget the name—that was always Tory before. They always send a Tory here from Crockett too, but Hudson will whip me in. There is a wind of change in the country, I think, after the war, with the veterans coming back and being treated like dogs. The next general election may see a changeover from the repressive party that has been riding roughshod over this country the last years.”

“Back to the days of Fox, eh, Mr. Fellows?”
Martha said with a rare polite interest. “That’s the spirit.”

“Aye, Lord Allingham was mentioning something about Fox the other evening. What an orator the man was! He could talk for hours and sway the entire Parliament. I daresay he was a well-educated gentleman.”

“What are the issues on which you will fight the campaign?”
Martha asked. She
would have preferred to speak of balls and drives and pleasure outings, but Mr. Fellows seemed to be bent on business.

He looked a little startled. “Why, against the repressive and reactionary measures of the Tories,”
he said.

“Yes, but what measures?”

“Oh, you ladies are not interested in politics, I daresay,”
he told her with condescension. “Basingstoke said something about getting some road or other surfaced, and a bridge over the Severn River. It is very awkward not having a bridge to Chepstow, the town just north of us across the river. There is only that blasted barge now, or driving ten miles to take the Lydney Bridge. It is certainly a disgrace that we have no bridge at Crockett.”

“Would it not be the Tory member, the member of the party in power, who could deliver that?”
Lillian inquired.

She was not surprised at his answer, for she had been beginning to suspect it was the repressive Tories who had been depriving them of it all these years. "The Tories, you know, always repress any liberal policy that will help the common people,”
she was told. “Much they care in London that we have to trust our nags to Jed Harper’s old barge to get to Chepstow, or ride the ten miles to Lydney. If elected, I will certainly do all within my power to get a bridge for the town of Crockett.”

“If the Tory member who just died couldn’t
:
get it, Mr. Fellows, how would you go about it?”
Martha asked.

“I would do all in my power to get it. Basingstoke says he will speak to Hudson and see if something can’t be done about it. Well, it seems to me you ladies are more interested in politics than most females, and as you are all Whigs, I hope you will put in a good word for me, if the opportunity should arise.”

Lillian found herself waiting to hear Lord Allingham’s views on women and politics, but they were not offered. Martha, no slouch in summing up the host, decided he was not yet in love with Sara, and to hasten the affair along, she said, “We will be happy to do what we can to help you, Mr. Fellows. Be sure to give us a call if you need us. Writing letters or doing any little jobs of a routine sort that might eat up your valuable time will be a pleasure for us. We are all interested in seeing the Whigs win.”

Lady Monteith, whose husband hated the Whigs nearly as much as he hated the French, nodded her head in approval. She found the whole conversation incomprehensible, as did her beautiful daughter.

“What is a Whig?”
Sara asked.

“He is a man who is liberal-minded,”
Mr. Fellows told her, which did nothing to enlighten her. She wanted to inquire what was liberal-minded, and what was an election, but her aunt was frowning at her, so she desisted. It sounded interesting if it meant a bridge to Chepstow, for the shops there were much larger and better than at Crockett.

“I’m glad you didn’t ask me what is a Tory!”
Mr. Fellows proclaimed—meaning, of course, why don’t you?

“What is your definition of a Tory?”
Lillian asked, curious to hear Lord Allingham’s view.

“A Tory is a Conservative. He would conserve power and money to himself, principles to the Whigs, and hard work and poverty to the people,”
he said with a satisfied smile.

“Very good, Mr. Fellows,”
Martha congratulated him.

“Mr. Basingstoke goes on to suggest that a Tory is a man who has not yet seen the light and become a Whig, but Allingham tells me not to say so, for though Fox came to us from the Tory camp, Castlereagh went the other way, from Whig
to
Tory. Indeed, they all switch about a good deal. My father was a Tory and so was I myself before I saw the light, but I never ran
as a Tory. Basingstoke says that is in my favor—not to have shown my colors before. He is long-headed as may be, Basingstoke. He went to Oxford and took a degree.”

There seemed little hope of romance from a gentleman whose head was so obviously full of politics and his patrons, so the ladies took their leave, urging him half a dozen times to call on them at New Moon.

“I will certainly avail myself of your kind offer, ladies,”
he said, and escorted them to the door. Already a politician, he had a smile for them all, and at the end a special glance in recognition of Sara’s beauty. He blinked at her and then looked in admiration for a full thirty seconds. It was odd it had taken him so long to recognize her as an Incomparable, but certain among the ladies already doubted he was a needle-witted man, and thought that with a nudge he might find himself in love with Sara.

They drove home to consider further plans to entrap him. It was the elder Miss Monteith who hit on the idea of taking an active part in the campaign. They would hold a tea party to help him along, and invite all the local ladies whose husbands, sons or brothers had a vote and any of the gentlemen who were free to attend. Mr. Fellows would be present to tell them about the repression of the Tories, and to give them a definition of just what a Whig was anyway.