Jane and the Unpleasantness at Scargrave - Stephanie Barron [34]
“My dear Miss Austen!” she exclaimed, studying my pale countenance. “I am sure you slept very unwell.”
“I suffered from nightmares, I am afraid,” I said.
“It is written on your face, ma pauvre. You might almost have seen a ghost.”
I peered at her narrowly, fearing myself to be a laughing-stock, but Madame's comfortable features and glittering dark eyes were innocent of intrigue.
“I had understood there to be a ghost at Scargrave,” I said, as a footman pulled out my chair, “but I am a clergyman's daughter, Madame, and the perils of the grave must be as nothing to me.”
“I rejoice to hear it,” my breakfast companion said equably, replenishing her tea, “since your room lies along the First Earl's accustomed walk. Do you endeavour to fall asleep before midnight, my dear, for once you slumber; a wraith cannot hope to disturb you.”
My reply was forestalled by the entrance of one of the housemaids, Daisy by name. She is Mrs. Hodges's granddaughter, and only sixteen, a youthfulness she appears to feel painfully in her current elevation—for in Marguerite's absence, Daisy has been placed at Isobel's disposal, and struggles daily to be worthy of her office. I surmised that her mistress had sent her in search of me, and threw down my serviette in haste.
Daisy bobbed in Madame's direction, and then in mine, the ribbons on her cap fluttering prettily. “Please, miss,” she told me in a breathless accent, “milady says as she has had a note from Sir William, begging to call at eleven o'clock. Will you join milady then, miss, in the little sitting-room?”
“Of course, Daisy. You may inform your mistress I shall be delighted.” I endeavoured to look undismayed, though I confess my thoughts were racing. It must be that Sir William had received a letter from the maid Marguerite—nothing short of urgency would bring him to the Manor so soon upon the heels of his first visit.
“I suppose the magistrate wishes to see as much of you as he may, while you remain at Scargrave, Miss Austen,” Madame Delahoussaye said. I turned to survey her face, but it was suffused with only the mildest curiosity. “The discovery of old acquaintance here has assuredly heightened his gallantry. He can have no other reason, I suppose, for forcing himself upon a house of mourning?”
“Sir William is so respectable, and his intentions so amiable, Madame,” I replied, with something of coldness in my accent, “that his presence can afford Scargrave nothing but relief. That the Countess does not hesitate to meet him must be enough to recommend him.”
At her inclining her head, and the footman serving me with fresh chocolate, I endeavoured to converse of other things, the better to speed the meal to its close. Nearly two hours must be endured before I should hear Sir William's intelligence—time enough to lament Daisy's unfettered tongue, and wish that girls of sixteen might have less of the ingenuous and more of discretion.
BY THE TIME COBBLESTONE, THE BUTLER, THREW OPEN THE sitting-room door to announce Sir William, I was moved to greet the magistrate's white-haired head with almost violent relief. For my morning was a trial in forbearance—one I have resolved to offer up to my Maker as expiation for a twelvemonth of sins.
Fitzroy Payne was closeted in his library over some letters of business, the Hearst brothers remained in their companionable bachelor cottage down the lane, while Fanny Delahoussaye kept to the upstairs sitting room with her mother and her sketching book—in horrified anticipation, one may assume, of the visits of retired barristers. Isobel I did not expect to see until eleven o'clock should strike. And so, sitting composedly by the hearth, my hands occupied with needlework and my eyes upon the clock, I was suffered to endure an hour's tête-à-tête with Lord Harold Trowbridge. From closer observation, I may declare that I have learned to despise the man's cunning manner.
Most in the Scargrave household suffer his presence with distant politeness that signals a profound dislike, and a wish that