He laughed. “Very well, then. How about a game of backgammon instead?”
“If you wish.”
They played for a little while, but when Bea had lost three games in succession, her father put the set away. “We are all too tired and hungry to concentrate. Perhaps Mr Atherton would be so good as to read to us.”
Bertram picked up his book with a rueful smile. “It is in Latin, sir.The Aeneid.”
“I feel confident that a little Virgil will not corrupt my daughter beyond hope of redemption.”
Bertram smiled, opened the book and began reading. It was a strange thing, Bea pondered, as the majestic words wove their magic around her, that Bertram was such a quietly-spoken man as a rule, not timid but never putting himself forward. Yet when he read aloud, his voice became that of an orator. It was as if the power of the man who wrote those words, so great that they survived to be reverenced in the modern age, transmitted itself to the man who merely read those same words. For a few minutes Bertram in a sense became Virgil, or Horace, or whoever he happened to be reading.
For a little while, all Bea’s troubles drifted away in a cloud of Latin poetry. Her pleasure lasted precisely until her stepmother reappeared.
“Latin, Mr Atherton?” she said in her well-modulated voice. Did Mama ever raise her voice? Bea could not remember such an occasion.
“At Mr Franklyn’s request, ma’am,” Bertram said stiffly. “Poetry is very soothing at the end of a tiring day, do you not agree?”
She looked at him with slightly elevated eyebrows, as if astonished at such an outrageous suggestion, but turned smoothly to her husband. “At what hour have you ordered dinner to be served, Mr Franklyn?”
“In about an hour’s time. No…” He checked his pocket watch. “A little under an hour, now. Should you like something at once? Some ham, perhaps, or—”
“No, thank you. My insides have been so jounced about I am not sure I could eat just yet.”
“A glass of wine, then? That would settle your insides a little, I am sure.”
“Well… perhaps.”
Bertram closed his book with a snap. “I shall go and see if Whyte has arrived yet.”
“Whyte?” Bea’s stepmother said after Bertram had left, as she accepted the wine from her husband.
“His groom. He should have been here by now.”
“Mr Atherton is concerned for his horse, I dare say.”
“And for his groom,” Mr Franklyn said sharply. “A boy of only sixteen years, who is not well versed in the ways of the world.”
For a while, as Lady Esther sipped her wine, there was silence in the room, but it was not a comfortable silence, as between relaxed travelling companions. For Bea, her nerves already stretched to breaking point, it felt more like the charged atmosphere before a storm. She was not sure how much of it she could take and remain calm. So long as Mama said nothing more about Bath!
She could not be still, but her restless pacing drew immediate censure.
“Do sit down, Beatrice,” her stepmother said. “You are making me dizzy with all this prowling about.”
“She has been confined to the carriage for hours and it has been too wet to go out,” her father said, in his mild way. “Let her walk about for a while if she wishes.”
Lady Esther did not deign to acknowledge this comment. Instead she said, “Beatrice, I hope you will take advantage of this opportunity to enhance your friendship with Bertram Atherton. I have not yet given up hope of a match there, despite the lack of progress while we were under the duke’s roof. He is attentive to you, certainly, but one would hope for something more by now.”
Bea had nothing to say on the subject of Bertram. Let Mama harbour hopes in that direction if she chose, but Bea knew that they would come to nothing.
“Nor does it seem as if any of the other gentlemen present were swept off their feet by your attractions, either. Well, apart from Mr Fielding, and I trust we can do a little better thanthat.”
Her father had found a local newspaper to hide behind, but Bea had no such shield and felt horridly exposed. Had Mama always been so… socold?Poor, gentle Mr Fielding, to be so disdainfully dismissed! And Bea herself had been just the same until Bertram had kissed her and awoken her to the possibilities of a different approach to matrimony, one involving the heart as well as the head. And now that she was thoroughly awake, she was shocked by her old self. How avaricious she had been… how heartless!
Her stepmother ploughed on relentlessly. “When we are at home again, you will have a better opportunity to secure Bertram once and for all, but we cannot delay too long, nor can we depend upon Marshfields or Charity Ramsey. So I shall begin planning for Bath—”
“For pity’s sake, no more about Bath!” Bea cried.
“But we have to begin making arrangements,” her stepmother said.
