The Lord Who Sneered and Other Tales (10 page)

“I thank you for your opinion, Ginerva,” the Dowager replied frostily, “as ill-formed as it may be. Meanwhile, I do believe you are late for your appointment with the dressmaker who should have arrived some moments past.”

“Yes, Grandaunt, you are right. I shall be sure to beg her pardon for my tardiness.”

“See that you do!” the Dowager called after Ginny’s departing figure in a last, woeful attempt at asserting her authority. The possibility that Ginny could very well be correct was one the Dowager refused to entertain for even a moment. However, time would tell.

As the day of the flower show drew near, the Dowager felt increasingly bilious and out of sorts. She found it difficult to look Ginny in the eye and avoided the gardener altogether. She had instructed
him to come only when he was sure there should be blooms for the competition and not before. As such, he stayed away. There was a rumor bandied about amongst the servants that he spent a good amount of time in prayer at the chapel. The Dowager thought it very unlikely but she was grateful that he remained unseen, whatever the reason. She could not bear the thought of looking to him with such hope only to be disappointed.

At long last, the day prior to the competition arrived and Baldwin appeared, cap in hand, at the door of the library. She was so startled to see him that she could not speak and was forced merely to nod in acknowledgement of his desire to enter. As he did so, elation filled her heart; his very presence was indicative of success. “Yes, Baldwin, what is it?” she asked, her heart pounding so speedily she barely could find breath to give voice to her words.

“Your Grace, I am very happy to report the rose has bloomed. There is even now one perfect rose and at least two buds that promise to be perfection itself sometime tomorrow.”

The Dowager felt an unfamiliar creasing of the skin around her mouth and realized she was smiling in so broad a manner as to be wholly undignified. Yet, she could not bring herself to do otherwise. “At last, all is well! I shall cut the blooms myself at first light. You shall be on hand to take them into your expert care so they will be flush with beauty for the show.”

“Yes’m, just as you wish. Perhaps you might tell me where you want me to place the rose once I have dug it up. I have decided it is best to do it directly after you have cut your stems, just before we leave for the town hall.”

“I applaud your wisdom, Baldwin. It shall be as you choose,” the Dowager said. The blooming of the rose made her feel as if God himself were smiling down on her and she felt at ease for the first time since she had decided to enter the rose of the gardener’s daughter in the competition. For the hours that remained prior to the show, she was able to view the face of the gardener with pleasure and even felt able to bear with equanimity what she imagined to be disapproval on the face of her great-niece.

The day of the flower show dawned warm and clear and the buds had opened, just as Baldwin had supposed. He had a vase of water waiting to receive them so the Dowager might bear them in comfort whilst he attended to his next task. So filled with joy was the Dowager that she failed to consider the tears that tracked Holly’s cheeks as she watched her father remove the rosebush from its home and take it away.

The hours between the cutting and departing for the show seemed the longest of the Dowager’s life but, at last, they were in the carriage and on their way, Ginny at her side and Baldwin up on the box with the driver. Next to the moment when she was pronounced the winner, the Dowager was most looking forward to seeing her grandson, Sir Anthony, as he had promised to come down from town for the show.

“Ginerva, I pray you to be on your best behavior,” the Dowager cautioned with her grandson’s presence in mind.

“But, of course, Grandaunt, when am I not?” Ginny asked with a confidence the Dowager felt wholly unwarranted.

“A full accounting in answer to your question would be far too disagreeable an endeavor on such a momentous day,” she said wryly. “But should I not be satisfied with your manners today, I shall put tending to your reformation at the top of my list for the morrow!”

“Yes, Grandaunt Regina,” Ginny said and meekly bowed her head, though she doubtless fumed in silence.

The journey to the county seat where the competition was to be held took far less time than the Dowager had supposed, and she was all aflutter when it came time to disembark and enter the hall at the center of town. She grasped the vase—not the one the gardener had provided but one of antique cranberry glass from her curio cabinet—tightly against her chest as she ascended the outer stairs and went, with Baldwin’s aid, through the door. She glanced round the room and spotted the Squire standing behind the section of the table that bore his rose; she was relieved to see it was a paltry yellow
of no consequence, and certainly not her Christmas rose.

Whether it was pique or pride that led her to set up her own entry on the table right next him, she could not say. However, the image of the Squire with his eyes bulging in surprise as he beheld her Christmas rose was reason enough. He seemed to recover his aplomb quickly, however, and approached her with a paper in his hands.

“Good afternoon, Your Grace! It is, as always a pleasure, yes, a pleasure to see you! This is the entry form, one that I trust you shall have no trouble filling out, however, in the case you do I am, as ever, at your service.”

“Thank you,” Her Grace said in a voice cold enough to freeze the Sahara as she daintily took the paper between the tips of her gloved thumb and forefinger. “I am afraid I should have been quite lost without you.”

“It is my pleasure, my pleasure, to be sure!” If he were suffering from anxiety over the Dowager’s rose, he showed no sign of it.

With a dismissive air, she turned from the Squire and placed her vase on the table. She spent some minutes arranging the blooms to her satisfaction before she addressed Ginny and her demeanor. “Stand up straight, girl, and do wipe that sour expression from your face. We are not burying anyone today!”

“Yes, Ma’am,” Ginny said but her air of grief failed to dissipate.

“Do you not recall that my Anthony shall wait on me here, my dear?” she asked more gently and reached up to pinch the girl’s cheeks. “There, that is better. You have such a lovely color when you are not white as a ghost.”

Her words had the effect she desired as Ginny blushed at her words and her cheeks flooded with pink. “There, that is much better. I am sure you wish to look your best for such a fine gentleman as my Anthony.”

At her words, Ginny blushed even more deeply and turned away. Yes, indeed, it was too soon
to hope for a match between the two of them but one day all should be arranged as the Dowager wished.

It was Baldwin who returned her attention to the entry form. “I believe you must fill this out, beggin’ your pardon,” he said and handed her a pencil.

“Oh, my yes, how could I have forgotten?” she asked, her heart as light as a feather and filled with naught but goodwill for all mankind. She need only write her name, (Regina, Dowager Duchess of Marcross) her direction, (Dunsmere) and the name of her entry, (The Christmas Rose) and she had nothing further to do but sign her name; she would leave the details of how the rose was propagated and grown to Baldwin to compose.

However, just as she commenced to write, her eyes filled, inexplicably, with tears. Aghast, she noted that the squire, whom she had all but forgotten until that very moment, seemed to loom unnaturally large at her right. She turned to see how he hovered over her shoulder and beads of perspiration were brought on by his obsequious smile. Suddenly she knew with every fiber of her being that he had the truth. How, she couldn’t say, but the realization caused her to see her actions in a new light, and she was ashamed.

She had had no cause to feel shame in many a year. Or, perhaps, she had only been unwilling to allow herself to fall victim to such a lowering emotion. It was far from pleasant, and she looked to her left for assurance from her gardener. Whatever his thoughts, his grave expression, replete with something that might even have been hope, failed to produce the desired support. Ginny, who stood just behind him with her handkerchief to her nose, was looking pointedly away, her disapproval apparent in the rigid lines of her girlish figure.

The Dowager bent to look down once again at the paper she was meant to complete and felt as if she would faint. Quickly, she stood and looked up to see the handsome face of the approaching Anthony, beloved son of her very own John, so good and benevolent, so different from his detestable brother James who dared to live when John had not. She doubted Anthony would have anything to say
to the subject of the flower show entry and was reminded that she had established Ginny as a remedy to Anthony’s current lack of an acute moral fiber. Yet, she had not cared to weigh Ginny’s opinion on the matter of the Christmas rose.

Thoroughly ashamed and determined to do right, she cast about for a means of saving face. If she were to sacrifice first prize at the flower show, she would do so without affording the squire a thimble’s-worth of satisfaction. “Baldwin,” she crooned as if about to sign her marriage certificate, “how is it your dear daughter spells her name? Am I right to assume it is with a ‘y’?”

Though she felt satisfied she witnessed a flash of astonishment in his eyes he responded with a remarkable composure that gave nothing away. “Yes, Your Grace, that is right, H-O-L-L-Y.” His self-possession had a most unexpected effect on her poise so that she spelled Baldwin with a ‘y’, as well, and was so uncharitable as to blame it on the way Ginny had jerked round to stare at her when the Dowager revealed her intentions.

“There we are,” she said brightly just as her grandson strode up to the table. “The Holly Rose entered by Holly Baldwin. Yes, that is all as it should be.”

“The Holly Rose!” the squire blurted out. “You can’t, no indeed, you can’t name a rose ‘Holly’. It would be, somehow, quite wrong!”

“Holly shall name her rose whatever she pleases,” the Dowager said with a haughty air exactly as if she had never been anything but in the right.

“But, Grandmama, I had thought you were vying for the win this year,” Sir Anthony said as he leaned over to peck her cheek.

“Yes, I had thought so, too, but someone or some
thing
,” she said with a sidelong look at the squire who crouched in the background, “broke into my greenhouse and stole my entry.”

“Never say so!” Sir Anthony said with a shake of his head adorned by a strikingly exquisite hat. Taking up his quizzing glass that hung from a gold chain about his neck, he bent to examine the roses. “These are lovely, just the same. Well done, Baldwin!” he said with a smile for the gardener.

“Yes, indeed, they are,” the Dowager intoned. “And when all is said and done this day, they shall honor Dunsmere as the winner of the flower show!”

At her words, the squire spun about and stalked off while Baldwin appeared to have something in his eye as he turned hastily away. Ginny laid her hand on the Dowager’s arm and gave it a squeeze. “You have done so much good this day, Grandaunt,” she said with a tremulous smile.

“Not as much good as you do me, my dear,” the Dowager said in spite of herself.

They rode home in excellent spirits as the trophy, a silver rose bowl, reposed in a place of honor on the backwards-facing seat so as to be admired all the way home. It would be collected on the morrow by the committee in order to have it properly engraved, but for now the Dowager was determined to have it within her sight.

Shortly after the carriage had moved through the gates of the estate, it came to a halt and swayed as Baldwin jumped to the ground. He touched his hat and nodded to the ladies and turned to attend to whatever needed doing, or so the Dowager surmised. So suddenly that even she knew not what she was about, she rapped on the quarter light to call him back. He paused and turned, then came forth to open the carriage door.

“Your Grace?” he asked.

The Dowager, still unsure of what it was she intended to say, and afraid whatever it was should prove fatal to her consequence, impulsively took up the trophy and handed it to the gardener. “Here, take this to your Holly and see what she thinks of it. You may bring it back up to the house tomorrow first thing in the morning.”

Baldwin stood frozen as if he hadn’t comprehended her meaning.

“You must have it,” she urged, forcing the bowl into his hands. “It was well-earned.”

As if in a daze, Baldwin took the bowl and turned it this way and that so that it sparkled in the last rays of the setting sun. “Ma’am you can’t know what this will mean to Holly. I haven’t the words.”

“No need to thank me, Baldwin. In fact, you may send the girl with the bowl, and we shall
discuss the propagating of a new rose for the next time,” she said in magnanimous tones.

“Yes’m,” he said with the usual meek nod of his head as he shut the door and turned to face his cottage where waited his daughter.

With a sigh, the Dowager folded her hands in her lap and bided her time as she watched the gardener move slowly towards home. The driver rapped on the roof of the carriage in want of a rap in reply that would signal him to drive on, but she took no notice. There was something about the way the gardener squared his shoulders or, more truly, in the way he carried himself that arrested her attention. He had been so happy and should have been most eager to give his daughter the news, yet he seemed to drag his feet.

To her surprise, when he had almost obtained his goal, he sheered off and picked up his pace as he walked in the direction of the stone chapel, the silver bowl winking in his hands as he went. She knew now that the rumors of his devotion were true, and it brought to mind her own need for gratitude to her Maker. She had won, or as near to it as made no difference, the competition she had so yearned to win, she had a skilled and loyal gardener who would protect her roses and her reputation at any cost, and she had a beloved grandson who held her in affection.

As she rapped on the roof to signal that the driver should carry her to the portals of Dunsmere house, she turned to consider Ginny who sat by her side. She was smiling, but tears tracked her cheeks as she met her grandaunt’s gaze with her heart in her eyes.