Page 122 of The Summer Country

Jenny didn’t believe in miracles, only in survival.

Mary Anne adjusted her high-crowned bonnet with the white ostrich plumes. “Is Edward ready? Call Dutchess. That girl, I swear, she spends half her time making eyes at Johnny Cooper.”

“There’s no need to bring Dutchess. I can manage Master Edward.” If she was playing with Neddy, it would give her an excuse to approach Carlota. No one ever minded the nursemaid. Not that she would say anything to Carlota. She wasn’t that foolish. She just wanted to see her, to compare the living child to that tiny creature in her memory, whom she’d so briefly held in her arms.

“No,” said Mary Anne flatly, and Jenny knew she’d gone too far. “You’ll attend me.”

“Yes, mistress,” said Jenny, and knelt to help her mistress into her gloves.

When they arrived at Peverills, Neddy ran ahead, calling, “Unker Charles! Unker Charles!”

Uncle Charles was a great favorite, largely because he allowed himself to be climbed upon and his hair to be pulled.

“Welcome.” Charles didn’t look at her. One wouldn’t, at a slave. He extended an arm to Mary Anne as Neddy raced ahead, very much at home in his uncle’s house. “Come and meet my ward. She’s in the garden.”

He took them through the house and out the back, where the ground sloped away in the gardens planned by Charles’s mother. By a trick of topography, one could see the sea in the distance, but not the cane closer by. A clever arrangement of walls and terraces created a world apart.

Beneath the shade of a tamarind tree, a little girl in a white gown was playing. Her shoes were of red morocco, her hair a cluster of soft, dark curls around her face that she shook back as she tried to spin two cups on a string, tossing them up into the air, and then tossing them again. Scattered around her were two brightly painted tops, a cup and a ball, and a quaintly carved doll in a miniature gig.

“Go on, then,” said Charles to Neddy. “I’ve got her a diabolo but neither of us can quite figure out how to work it. Would you like a go? I’m sure Carlota would be happy to share.”

Nothing loath, Neddy raced out to join her. Carlota yanked the diabolo behind her back and, her little tongue between her lips, selected a top for him instead, which Neddy took gladly.

She was so much smaller than Neddy, but she didn’t look little, somehow. With a pang, Jenny realized who the child reminded her of. Not herself, but Mary Anne. There was something in her self-possessed determination, in the set of her chin.

But Charles was there too, in the flash of those blue eyes, the ready humor as she laughed at Neddy as he jumped for the flying bobbins.

Here, Jenny willed her daughter. I’m here.

But it was to Charles their child looked for approval as she cast the diabolo into the air, with such a look of satisfaction that Jenny had to stop herself from reaching out. She was, she realized, holding Mary Anne’s Kashmir shawl so tightly that she’d practically caused a rent in the fabric.

“Where’s your shadow?” Mary Anne asked Charles, wearying of nursery matters.

“Jonathan? He’s discussing some matter of business with Mrs. Boland. She’s made rather a good thing of her husband’s business, I understand.”

“She’s not the only one to take up the reins,” pointed out Mary Anne, with some asperity. “Has she seen the child?”

“Not yet,” said Charles mildly. “I’d thought you might like to be the first to officially greet her. As an honorary aunt of sorts.”

Jenny felt as though she’d swallowed a mouthful of pebbles. What was he playing at? Or was she merely distressed because everyone but she was entitled to stake a claim to her child?

Losing interest, Carlota abandoned the diabolo to Neddy, skipping away with one of the tops. She moved with the uncoordinated energy that came with being not quite a baby anymore, but not yet a child, limbs and face still rounded with baby fat, ready to conquer the world and occasionally fall on one’s bottom.

“Jenny, Jenny, Jenny!” Neddy rattled the diabolo at her. “Jenny, Jenny, look, look, look!”

Bless him, she’d been staring and she shouldn’t. At least Mary Anne would assume all the wrong things, as she always did. Jenny smiled at Neddy, trying to hide her pain. All those nights she’d held him and pretended he was her daughter, and now her daughter was here and didn’t know her.

What had she expected? A magical pull of like to like?

Not to be outdone, Carlota waved, her gold bracelet glinting in the sunshine, shouting out, “Unker, Unker, Unker!”

Charles waved back. “I told her to call me ‘Uncle,’” he explained. “It seemed simplest, under the circumstances. ‘Mr. Davenant’ is such a mouthful. And ‘Papa’ . . .”

“You don’t want to raise expectations,” said Mary Anne, regarding Carlota with a critical eye. “You’ll need to find her a good nursery governess. Goodness only knows what she was accustomed to in Portugal.”

“I had wondered . . .” Charles’s eyes were on the children, but Jenny noticed how he shifted from foot to foot, the movement of the fingers of his right hand, as though he were mimicking holding a pen. He did that when he was nervous, as though the act of writing brought him ease. “Mine is a bachelor establishment. You have a nursery, with nursery maids who know what they’re about. Carlota and Edward are of an age. Might you consider having Carlota at Beckles for a time? If it wouldn’t be too much trouble.”

Jenny was grateful she was standing behind them, as a good servant should. All she could see was the back of Charles’s head, but she knew him, knew exactly what he was doing, foolish, honorable Charles. He was trying, the only way he knew how, to give her her daughter back.