‘Yes.’
‘So, tell me, are you still under Madeleine Banham’s spell?’ Mary tilted her head to one side and gave him a questioning look. He coloured, which gave her the answer before he said a word.
He had paid his call upon Lord and Lady Roxton and been greeted with open friendliness by both of them. Madeleine had been, if anything, a little more reserved, which he liked, though he might not have been as pleased if he had known why. She was not a girl prone to shyness and was quite well aware of her own powers of attraction, but upon hearing from her husband that Sir Harry Penwood would undoubtedly be calling upon them in the near future, Lady Roxton had drawn Madeleine aside and given her warning.
‘’Arry Penwood is not some green boy who will make the eyes of the sheep at you, and let you treat ’im like a lapdog. ’E has not so very many years, but ’e has been a soldier, and that makestoute la différence. You cannot play the tricks with such a man, so look, and think, before you smile just so and add ’im to your list ofconquêtes.’33
‘You make him sound quite dangerous, Mama.’ Madeleine laughed, but frowned also.
‘Notdangereux, but not a man with whom you can trifle.’ Lady Roxton paused for a moment. ‘You are very young,ma petite ingénue, but of greatbeauté,so men will adore you, men of many sorts.’
‘You do not think Sir Harry a bad sort, Mama?’
‘Not at all, but the adorings of boys are not the same as those of men grown.’
This slightly cryptic ‘warning’ left Madeleine unsure how she ought to react to Harry Penwood, and thus it was a rather more serious Miss Banham who handed him his teacup and listened to his description of dolphins swimming beside the ship that brought him home, which he considered suitable for ladies and tea. He found it the more captivating.
‘She is not a featherhead, which is good to know,’ declared Harry, ‘and so many beauties are. I suppose they think all they have to do is smile, and that learning is irrelevant. She asked sensible questions about the dolphins.’
‘The dolphins?’ Lady Damerham was distracted from her conversation with Lady Penwood, and looked very puzzled, having only a rather hazy idea that they were either very big fish or very small whales, and perhaps whales were fish, or ate fish, though she was almost certain fish did not eat whales.
‘Yes, ma’am. I was describing them swimming alongside us as we came up the Channel.’ He did not34say that Miss Banham had assumed they were fish, since this would be met with derision by Mary, but then Mary knew about fish and sea creatures. A ‘normal’ young lady would have no reason to have learnt about them.
‘So, she has an interest in natural history. I grant that is better than asking “what is a dolphin?”’ Mary sniffed, and her mama studied the contents of her teacup and did not look at her daughter.
‘And she did not flutter her eyelashes at me and look all coy,’ added Harry, ignoring the fact that she had seemed quite flirtatious at their first encounter.
‘I should hope not. Coyness is immodesty dressed up to be the opposite,’ Mary said, forthrightly, ‘and is not the same as being shy, really shy. Amelia Weston is shy, the poor girl. She looks as if she wants the ground to open up and swallow her if one does as much as exchange the time of day with her, and answers in a whisper.’
‘Her mama has made far too much of her freckles, you know,’ commented Lady Penwood, wisely. ‘The poor girl is now exceptionally self-conscious, and everyone knows that those with red hair are likely to show freckles. One cannot help the colour of one’s hair, though I believe some ladies do “help” it keep from grey.
‘Walnuts.’ Lady Damerham nodded wisely.
‘Walnuts, Mama?’ Mary blinked.
‘Yes, you can use them, crushed of course, to dye hair brown. I am not sure whether it is the nuts or the shells, but it is definitely walnuts.’35
Harry Penwood smiled, glad that Lady Damerham had successfully drawn the topic of conversation away from Miss Banham, and encouraged her to ‘butterfly’ her way even further from the original topic. Mary threw him a look which intimated that she understood what he was doing but would not stand in his way. After all, she thought afterwards, she did not want to make Harry, her dear friend, reluctant to talk to her. She must, it seemed, curb her tongue when it came to Madeleine Banham.
The following morning, Mary was seated in the small parlour, sighing heavily over irrefutable figures. It was she rather than her mother who cast her eyes over the weekly expenditure. Lady Damerham had always preferred just to hear the rough figures upon quarter days, but Mary had been used to studying the books monthly. Now, however, with economy as their watchword and a dwindling income that could not be augmented, unless Mary should take to the literary life, she was watching the pennies by the week. It did not make pleasant viewing, although she knew they were most certainly not being extravagant. There was a sufficiency at present, but each week saw the gradual diminution of capital. She heard the bell at the front door, and Atlow crossing the hall, followed by an agitated voice. Setting pencil and figures aside, she got up, and went out to see who had been admitted.
‘What is it, Wilmslow?’ Mary looked at the man36who had been steward of the estate for a quarter of a century, and whose family had served the Lounds for generations.
‘He’s dead, Miss Mary.’
‘“He”?’
‘Lord Cradley, miss. Just had a note come over from Brook House. Dead as a doornail, he is. Opened a letter that was delivered this morning, stood up from his chair in the library, blustering as was his wont, and keeled over dead.’
‘Good grief!’
‘Fair stunned everyone, it has. I thought as you should know right away, miss, and I was wondering if you could advise me.’
‘Upon what, Wilmslow?’
‘Well, his lordship – his late lordship I ought to say – was wanting me to set up an increase in all the rents that come up for the year at Michaelmas, and it has not been a good year, as you know. Should I—’
‘We are well over a month from Michaelmas, Wilmslow, and with luck the heir will not have come, or not have studied the books, before the quarter day. Say nothing, and do nothing, and that is right and fair by those who deserve fairness.’
