“Ah, that rumour.”
“So… it is not true? Is that what you are saying?”
“I have not said anything of the sort.”
“Then it is true? You are confirming it?”
“I have not said that, either. I merely said,‘That rumour’.I am confirming that I have heard the rumour, that is all.”
An ugly scowl crossed her face, and she stamped her foot. “Really, Mr Atherton! You play with words to belittle me.”
“No, only to encourage you not to listen to gossip, Miss Hutchison. There is no profit in it, I assure you.”
With a huff of annoyance, she swirled about and stamped away to find more promising ground for her attentions.
Bertram and Medhurst walked on in silence for some minutes, their feet marching in step on the gravel path. Ahead of them, Bea’s clear voice drifted back to them, along with the lower rumbles of Brockscombe and the excitable tenor of Fielding, but the height of the untrimmed shrubs hid them from view. The gardeners had made a start on cleaning up the paths for the visitors, but had not yet tackled the wilderness beyond.
“If Birtwell and the younger boys were disinherited,” Medhurst mused, “that would make your father the heir. Title, castle and vast income included. And you after him.”
Bertram said nothing.
“It does explain, of course, the sudden interest. Miss H has it in mind to trade her fortune — a hundred thousand, is it not? — for an earldom.”
“There is no guarantee it will ever come to me,” Bertram said.
“Oh, but—?” Medhurst stopped, working it out. “How old is your uncle?”
“Five and fifty.”
“Oh.” He laughed suddenly. “Perhaps you should tell Miss H that. And Miss G, as well, for she has been hovering around you, too, of late. Have you any idea how annoying that is, Atherton?” He laughed again, and shook his head. “Here I am, quite prepared to be swept off my feet by the lovely Miss Grayling — Sarah,” he added with a sigh. “But will she so much as look at me? She will not. She prefers to be a duchess, seemingly. Or failing that, since Embleton is clearly a hopeless case, a countess would do. You, with your possible great elevation, could take your pick — the beauty or the fortune. Both of them are eating out of your hand at the moment. And yet, they might as well be invisible, for all the interest you have in either of them. I truly think the only way either of them would attract your attentionwould be to speak to you in Latin. You are a hopeless case, Atherton, even worse than Embleton, and I cannot imagine why I remain on friendly terms with you.”
“Because I correct your deponent verbs, that is why.”
“Ah! Very true. And subjunctives, too. Lord, that passage from Cicero! I thought I would never get it straight. Very well, you remain the very best of good fellows, for now, but if you marry Miss Grayling, then all amity between us is at an end, and you become my mortal enemy unto death.”
“Not Miss Hutchison?”
He pulled a face, and whispered in Bertram’s ear, “You may have her and her hundred thousand pounds with my goodwill. Encroaching little baggage.”
And Bertram whispered back, “I do not want her.”
“Even if she speaks to you in Latin, in Alcaic metre?”
“Not even then… although… that would be interesting, for a while. It might get a little wearing at the breakfast table, however.”
For the rest of the walk, they amused themselves by inventing verses suitable for such an occasion, and wondering what the Roman equivalent for Bath buns might be.
***
Bea could not remember so pleasurable a visit, or at least, not since Papa had married Mama. For the first time in years, she was not under the constant supervision of her stepmother, for Lady Esther had a new interest, one of far more importance than the marriage of her stepdaughter — she had a duchess to guide in her new rôle. The Duchess of Wedhampton was gratifyingly eager for Lady Esther’s advice, for as the daughter of a duke and raised in a ducal family since birth, naturally Lady Esther knew precisely how a duchess should behave at all times,and how to manage a great house. From breakfast until they retired at night, the two ladies were almost constantly together, and Bea was left free to pursue her own interests. So long as she appeared to be continuing her pursuit of Bertram, her stepmother left her in peace.
It was gloriously freeing. She could wander at will around the house or gardens, with no need to sit decorously with a hated piece of embroidery in her lap. The formal gardens were like a wild kind of maze, with long-neglected shrubs towering over the paths. Within five minutes of leaving the house, one could be entirely out of sight, and Bea delighted in finding stone benches tucked away in odd corners where she could sit and contemplate her progress.
Or lack of progress, it might be said. Bertram very kindly took pains to ensure that she spent a great deal of time with his friends, but no matter how many games of whist she played with them, she could not feel she knew them well. Not well enough, at any event, to make a decision about marrying one of them. How difficult it was!
When she watched the Latin speeches, occasionally the decorous atmosphere dissolved into something more lively — calls from the audience, cheers and jeers, bursts of laughter, and a kind of verbal sparring between the speaker and another, rather like the cut and thrust of a fencing match. Even though she could not understand the Latin nor recognise most of the speakers from her high perch, she could detect the real emotion behind the words. Seeing the raw and open way the gentlemen behaved in such situations, and comparing it to the painfully restrained and polite way they behaved when amongst ladies was both a revelation and a frustration.
How could she ever come to understand the characters of the three names on her list when they showed her only bland civility? She wanted to see the real men behind the guardedappearance they presented in her company. They could be themselves with other men, so why not with her?
