“And buns. One cannot properly welcome a guest without buns.”
“Mother has been planning this reception for a fortnight,” said Mrs. Gardiner, slipping her arm through hers.
“A month,” corrected Mrs. Pembroke. “I simply refrained from admitting it.”
Elizabeth followed as they crossed the front hall and entered a broad, sun-warmed room where the scent of lemon peel and sweet buns mingled with beeswax and polished wood. The children hurried toward the low settee, and Nora followed to remove Freddie’s shoes. Mrs. Pembroke exchanged a word with the housekeeper, who stood waiting with a tray, and Mrs. Gardiner paused beside Sally at the door.
Left to herself for a moment, Elizabeth crossed toward the hearth. A portrait hung above it. Its colours were softened by time, but the impression remained undiminished. The subject was a lady seated with composed formality, her gown a pale blue, her powdered hair arranged in smooth coils and crowned with pearls. She did not smile. Yet there was clarity in her eyes, and quiet strength in the set of her mouth.
“She was Lady Eleanor.”
Elizabeth turned to find Mrs. Gardiner beside her.
“My great-grandmother. She grew up in this house and returned to it in her widowhood.”
Elizabeth studied the painting a moment longer.
“There is something so resolved in her manner. As though she had no need to be admired, only understood.”
“She was a clergyman's daughter who married a Fitzwilliam and kept her household with more grace than grandeur. She always intended this house for her daughter, my grandmother Amelia. But after my grandmother's death, and the changes that followed soon after, she left it to my father instead. She had a particular affection for him. He reminded her of her own father, and she believed he would do some good in the world.”
Mrs. Gardiner glanced toward the portrait.
“I think she would be pleased that it remains in the family.”
“It suits the memory,” Elizabeth said. “There is nothing in this room that contradicts her.”
A burst of giggles from the far side of the room drew their attention. Bethany had attempted to pour tea and made a great mess of the sugar, while Grace was busy instructing her on the proper way to serve.
“Come,” said Mrs. Gardiner. “My mother has promised us tea, and the children appear to have begun without us.”
They returned to the circle of chairs, where the scent of cinnamon and warm bread greeted them. Mrs. Pembroke presided from her seat with quiet ease, her lap already occupied by Freddie, who was babbling cheerfully between bites of bun. Bethany had recovered her dignity and was now passing the cups as though born to it.
Elizabeth accepted hers and sat back. She watched the little scene unfold with quiet wonder. Mrs. Pembroke gave direction without raising her voice, listened with care, and seemed to possess a way of managing everything without managing at all. She laughed more easily than Elizabeth had expected. There was nothing weak in her kindness; it was the strength of a woman who had been both mother and rector’s wife, who had held her family together through grief and grown children and the endless details of ordinary life.
It was not a life that claimed much notice. There were no grand accomplishments, no crowds gathered in admiration. Yet as Elizabeth sat in that sun-warmed parlour, watching the ease with which affection and order coexisted, she felt something stir. She had not been taught to wish for such a place in the world. And yet, she wished it all the same.
~BTML~
They had left London at dawn the previous day, the mist still clinging to the eaves of Gracechurch Street. The bustle of departure left little time for reflection, but once the city faded and the carriage settled into its rhythm, Elizabeth had turned eagerly to the window. It was the furthest she had ever travelled. Even the unfamiliar names on mileposts and the curve of distant hills lent the journey a quiet thrill.
Their inn had been plain but clean, and Elizabeth found the novelty of dining in a shared parlour and listening to carts rattle through the courtyard oddly diverting.
The next morning dawned mild. As the road stretched ahead, the air grew lighter and the countryside opened into long fields and stone-banked lanes. Mr. Gardiner, though his papers were beside him, made no attempt to read. Elizabeth, too, was content to watch the changing land and let her thoughts drift between the city behind and the sea ahead.
By midmorning, they passed a grey-roofed village nestled in a shallow valley, its hearth smoke rising faintly into the summer air.
“We are coming into Wallcombe,” said Mrs. Gardiner, peering through the glass. “There it is, just beyond the hedgerow. That hill and those cottages, there, are where Pembroke House once stood.”
Mr. Gardiner had set his papers aside somewhere before Wallcombe and did not take them up again. He sat watching the countryside with the particular stillness of a man who has heard a story before and finds it no less worth attending to.
Elizabeth looked to where her aunt gestured. Two whitewashed dwellings stood neatly side by side, their gardens well kept but simple. Between them she glimpsed the remainsof a low stone wall, part of which curved away into a cluster of tangled brambles. The land rose gently to a crest just beyond.
“Your father was born there?” she asked.
“He was. But he never called it home. The house was lost while he was still in the cradle.”
Elizabeth kept her gaze upon the hill as the carriage began to move again. “What happened to it?”
