“Sometimes, Gussie,” she said crossly, “you are no help at all. 1 have poured out my heart to you—my battered andvery confused heart—and all you can do is utter imbecilicexclamations and give ridiculous advice. I tell you I wouldrather be dead than married to Daniel. I tell you I hate him.Can anything be plainer than that?”
“Not even the nose on your face, Jule,” he said, grinning. “Or more to the point, the nose on Dan’s face. Well, well.”
Julia withdrew her arm from his, on her dignity. “Well, here we are in the village,” she said, “and I am going to seeif Miss Markham has any new bonnets in. Thank you fornothing, Gussie.”
“Jule,” he said fondly.
“Well really,” she said, looking back at him, troubled, “I wanted you to tell me something sensible and comforting,Gussie. I am so confused that I have to look down occasionally to make sure that my head is still facing the sameway as my feet.”
He chuckled and rubbed two knuckles across her nose.
The Earl of Beaconswood had never understood quite what the fascination was with old churchyards, but it wassomething he and his cousins had always shared. It shouldhave been morbid but was not. Perhaps it had something todo with history, he thought, with the realization that the village and the area around it had not sprung to life last weekbut had existed for hundreds of years. People had livedthere and toiled and loved and died and left their descendants and names to live after them. Quite a number of thenames on the tombstones still belonged to the villagers orthe tenant farmers.
And of course there was his uncle and aunt’s grave to be paused over and to quell any high spirits for a few minutes.Sometimes it was hard to remember that his uncle had beendead for such a short while. Nothing in their dress or theirbehavior at the house was designed to remind them of that.
Julia lingered after the others, unusually subdued. She knelt down and touched the newly turned earth. The tombstone was not yet in place. It had been taken away so thatthe new details might be carved onto it. She was weepingsilently, the earl realized, lingering too a little way behindher while everyone else made off in the direction of thechurch and its cool interior. He did not intrude on her for afew minutes and handed her a large handkerchief when shefinally rose to her feet.
She looked up at him, startled and cross before taking the handkerchief and scrubbing at her eyes with it. “Well, whyshould I not shed a few tears for him?” she asked. “He wasalways good to me, Daniel. Too good perhaps. You alwaysused to say he spoiled me. Perhaps he did. He gave me agreat deal of love. I shudder to think of what being an orphan might have been like. I wish you would not creep upon me like that.”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I should have allowed you some privacy.”
“Another apology?” she said, making as if to hand back his handkerchief but changing her mind and stuffing it intoher reticule instead. “I am going to call on Mrs. Dermotty.She will be hurt if I do not.”
“The vicar’s wife?” he said. “I intended to pay my respects too, Julia. I will come with you.”
Both the vicar and his wife were at home, and the youngest of their children, a little girl with apple cheeksand blond curls who hid behind her mother’s skirts on thedoorstep of the vicarage. She was shy with the earl butpeeped and smiled at Julia until Julia made a dive for herand scooped her up and twirled her around several times,sunny and laughing again while the child shrieked with laughter.
The earl had not intended to go inside, but both the vicar and his wife were so very pleased to have callers from thehouse that he consented to take a cup of tea with them. AndJulia was being dragged inside by the child to look at a newbook her papa had brought her from Gloucester. Julia saton the floor to look at it all through tea, one arm about thechild, joining in the adult conversation too.
Normally the earl would have been scandalized. A young lady sitting on the floor while taking tea in the vicar'shouse? But she looked so happy as did the child, and thevicar and his wife looked so fondly at her and talked to herabout so many people and events that the earl knew littleabout that he began to see that there was nothing scandalous about her behavior. For the brief span of their visitshe was bringing a little ray of sunshine into the vicarage.
The same thing happened later when she announced her intention of calling upon Mrs. Girten and the MissesGirten, two sisters and a widowed sister-in-law, rather elderly and almost housebound, who would be hurt if theyknew she had been in the village and not poked her headabout their door—Julia’s words.
He did not have to go with her. Indeed, she would doubtless be happier to be left alone. And he would be happier alone. But the others were sitting on the church wall or onthe grass in front of it when they emerged from the vicarage and announced their intention of beginning the walkhome. If he left her, the earl thought, she would have towalk home alone, and that would be most improper.Though he wondered how many dozens of times a yearJulia walked alone to and from the village. He could notquite imagine Aunt Millie accompanying her unless thecarriage was called out.
The Girten ladies were delighted to see him and preened and smirked and tittered and drew out all their best partyconversation for his benefit. They sent for tea despite hisprotests that he had just finished a cup at the vicarage. ButJulia they treated quite differently. Their smiles softenedand became genuine when they looked at or spoke to her.They made no objection when she jumped to her feet totake the tea tray from their maid’s hands and proceeded topour the tea herself and hand around the cups and saucers.She should, of course, have left those honors to Mrs.Girten, but no one appeared offended. Indeed she wastreated much like a favored daughter.
She would be missed, the earl could see, if she was forced to move away from Primrose Park. Mrs. Dermottyhad talked to her about the summer fair in August and hadseemed genuinely dismayed when Julia had talked vaguelyabout perhaps not being there this year. And the Girtenladies talked about the school closing for the summer andthe usual presentations to be made on the last day. AgainJulia had hinted that perhaps she would not be there. Apparently she usually played a prominent and a popular rolein both events.
The earl bowed to the ladies on leaving. Julia hugged each of them and was hugged and kissed on the cheek in return.
“Come again, dear,” the elder Miss Girten said to her. “You know it can never be too soon for us.”
“And bring his lordship with you,” Mrs. Girten said and tittered when she realized he had heard.
“Such a very handsome gentleman, my dear Miss Maynard,” the younger Miss Girten whispered. “He has great presence.”
Julia, the earl was interested to note, blushed.
And so, he thought as he offered his arm and she took it, they were doomed to spend the next half hour or so alonetogether on the walk home. Already the sunniness had gonefrom her manner again and she looked mulish, as if she waspreparing to spar with him. Which was what they would undoubtedly do. They always did.
And yet he had just seen something he had never expected to see—a Julia he liked.
“I suppose,” she said, “you stayed because you thought I was going to do something unspeakably vulgar if you werenot there to stop me. Or because you thought it grossly improper for me to walk home alone.”
“It would have been improper, Julia,” he said. “Are you in the habit of doing it? Did Uncle and Aunt Millie allowit? It was very remiss of them.”
Yes, they were back to their normal relationship. It felt quite comfortable, almost a relief. His emotions had been inturmoil for the past two days.
