The Chadwick Ring Page 9

  Ginevra set the empty basket down by her feet and sank back wearily against the cushions as the barouche pulled away from the shabby little cottage. A few yards down the road two women bobbed respectfully as the carriage passed, and they watched its progress with curious eyes. Ginevra glanced at Emma and noted ruefully, “I don’t think I shall ever become accustomed to being curtsied to.”

  “It’s your due,” her friend said unanswerably.

  The folding top of the vehicle protected Ginevra’s bent head from the harsh rays of the noonday sun, but even in the half-shade her gold eyes were pensive. She tucked a strand of hair back beneath her fashionable bonnet and picked idly at the fine blue sarsenet of her day dress, in her mind contrasting the thin silk with the coarse, worn cotton that had garbed the woman whose house they had just left. Ginevra noticed that after several days of enforced idleness her fingers were smoothing again, and she remembered the way her hostess’s hands, so red and dry that the skin cracked, had bled at the knuckles when she offered her straw-colored tea in a chipped cup. Ginevra said, “It hardly seems fair. I’ve done little or nothing, yet everyone acts so pathetically grateful.”

  Emma said, “You’re the new mistress of Queenshaven, and you’ve shown the tenants that you are interested in their welfare. You’ve visited them, you’ve inquired after their sick. That’s all they really want.”

  “Well, I’m not sure it’s all I want. I’m not used to playing Lady Bountiful, handing out food baskets and patting babies on the head. I ought to be doing something of value.”

  Emma chided, “Now that they’ve met you, I’m sure the people will feel free to come to you if they really need your help. I don’t know what else you think you could have done in the short time you’ve been at Queenshaven. Truly, for all the years your mother lived at Bryant House, I doubt that she could have been a more conscientious mistress than you have proved to be in these last four days.”

  Ginevra nodded, smiling. “Thank you, Emma. I do try to follow her example. Queenshaven is much like ho ... my father’s house, only bigger.” She stared across the undulating fields of green, separated by neat hedgerows that stretched into the distance until they abutted with the dense woods that marked the boundary between Queenshaven and Dowerwood. Sleek cattle grazed near the wood, and Ginevra wondered if Lord Chadwick planned to fell those trees now that he owned her old home, to merge the two estates into one vast expanse of rich pastureland. When she was a little girl, Ginevra’s summer world had all been on the far side of those trees, and to her immature mind the marquess’s estate had been something immeasurably large, like the ocean, too huge and awesome to be comprehended. Yet now she found herself mistress of both properties.

  Perhaps it was ironic that she had never regarded her future in those terms, the terms that had been so important to her parents. Even when she was engaged to Tom she had never considered at any length that she was destined someday to be the great lady of Queenshaven, the Marchioness of Chadwick. She had seen her future with her young fiancé as a continuation of their childhood, happy and innocent as the poems in that volume of Blake that the marquess had given her. She wrinkled her nose as she tried to remember what had become of that book; she had not seen it in months. She shrugged. It was gone forever, like the days to which it referred.

  Ginevra sighed wryly. When she had thought with trepidation of her future as the marquess’s wife, the one thing she had never imagined it would be was boring, nor had she dreamed that she might someday miss the chores, the endless decisions she had faced when she ran her father’s house. Mrs. Timmons, the Queenshaven housekeeper, appeared to be in no great hurry to delegate her long-standing authority to a mere chit of a girl, and to date Ginevra’s only household duties had been to approve the menu and to preside in solitary splendor at table, gazing down the long, lonely expanse of gleaming mahogany to the empty chair that was used only by the master of the house.

  Perhaps that was the most baffling thing of all about her new status: she missed her husband. She couldn’t imagine why—she did not even like the man!—yet during meals she found herself glancing surreptitiously at the massive carved chair opposite her, as if at any moment she might peek up through her lashes and meet his sardonic gaze. And at night ... at night she would lie awake, twisting with an ache she could not define, staring at the wall that separated their adjoining chambers, her thoughts piercing it to envision Chadwick’s hard, lean body stretched across his own bed, vibrant with nervous energy even in repose. Would he wear a nightshirt of fine lawn as her father did, or ... or would he sleep naked? Ginevra blushed at the tantalizing images conjured up by her fevered brain. Her fingers curled into her palms as she remembered the feel of his warm brown skin, the musky man-scent of him. Did he lie there in the dark thinking of her, picturing her in her wispy white gown, her slender form pinned beneath his? ...

  Each night Ginevra would have to bite her lip to keep from crying out in pain when she remembered that her husband did not lie in that bed at all, that he slept somewhere in London, in another bed, perhaps in other arms, and she had sent him there.

  She clenched her fists as she gazed deliberately at the bright countryside, blotting out unwelcome thoughts. She did not want to return to Queenshaven, not right away. For a few hours she wished to forget her bewildering new life and pretend she was a child again, before she took on so many responsibilities, before her body began to assert itself in ways that puzzled and upset her. She leaned forward and caught the coachman’s attention. He pulled the barouche to a halt and swivelled around on his perch to listen respectfully to her instructions. She said, “I want you to go back to the last fork and take the other turning, Drive us to Dowerwood.”

  The driver frowned and touched the tall hat that covered his grizzled hair. “Begging your pardon, milady, but there’s precious little to see at Dowerwood these days. The house is boarded shut, and there’s just the Harrisons living in the old caretaker’s cottage.”

  Ginevra brightened at the familiar name. “Harrison! That must be the butler and his wife. They were there when I was a girl.”

  The man shook his head. “No, ma’am, the only people at Dowerwood are old Mrs. Harrison and her grandson. Himself died at Lammastide four years ago. They say he never got over the loss of his boy, the young lad’s father, who was killed on the Peninsula fighting Boney.”

  “Damned French,” Emma murmured.

  Ginevra cast a startled glance at her friend before sinking back against the squabs. She thought for a moment about the butler with his ramrod-straight posture and booming voice. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.” She looked questioningly at Emma, who shook her head. After a moment Ginevra continued briskly, “Well, no matter. We will still go to Dowerwood and pay our respects to Mrs. Harrison.” She relaxed as the driver skillfully brought the carriage about and began to retrace their route to the fork half a mile back. As they drove toward that dense barrier of oak and walnut trees, Ginevra mused to Emma, “It’s funny, the things we remember from childhood. I think even now I could pick out Harrison’s voice in a crowd of people. As for his wife, she was our cook. I could not tell you what color eyes she had, or whether she was fat or thin, but I can still taste the gingerbread she used to make whenever Tom and Bysshe rode over for tea.” She was silent for a moment; then suddenly she burst out, “Oh, Emma, why do things have to change?”

  Emma patted her hand reassuringly.

  Ginevra tensed again as the barouche slipped beneath the overhanging trees of the shady forest. What would she see at Dowerwood? The marquess, the coachman, everyone had tried to prepare her for the worst, and she wasn’t sure she could face it. She had always loved the old cottage ornee with its pastiche-Gothic spikes and spires and the heavily draped ivy that made the rooms dark and cool even in high summer. Now would she find the plaster fretwork crumbling, the iron filigree rusted and hanging loose from the eaves?

  Slowly the carriage bounced and scraped along the deeply rutted drive now clogged wit
h grass and thistle. Several times the driver had to crack his whip over the heads of the horses to make them pick their way through the mud puddles left by the previous night’s rain. When the carriage finally pulled to a halt in front of the boarded-over front door, Ginevra stared at the house in dismay, all her worst fears confirmed.

  Dowerwood, her precious Dowerwood, stood shuttered and closed, abandoned, the mouldering remains of a once thriving residence, as derelict as her dreams.

  She pressed her hand to her lips to stifle a sob, and the coachman asked diffidently, “Are you going to be all right, milady? I’m sorry, but I told you how it would be.”

  “Yes, you did,” Ginevra said hollowly, staring at the barred entrance marked with the outline of the knocker that had once hung there, “and I’m grateful for your concern. Now, why don’t you get down and take a walk or something, relax. I’m sure you must be very weary of driving.”

  The coachman smiled his gratitude. “Thank you, milady. I’d be that glad to stretch my legs a bit.” He climbed down from his seat and tugged the brim of his hat in a deferential salute before he loped off into the woods.

  Ginevra turned to Emma and said, “I’d like you to go around to the caretaker’s house—take that path and it will lead you directly to it—and see if you can locate Mrs. Harrison.”

  Emma regarded her mistress uncertainly. “Are you sure? I hate to...”

  Ginevra shook her head. “I’m quite all right, believe me. I ... I would simply like to tarry here awhile, look things over. You go on ahead. Perhaps you can inquire whether Mrs. Harrison can find some kind of refreshment for the driver. He must be hot and thirsty.”

  Reluctantly Emma left the carriage and followed the overgrown walkway Ginevra had indicated. Watching her companion absently, Ginevra admired the graceful way she lifted her long green skirt so that the hem would not be stained by the wet, wild grass. She let out her breath in a windy sigh. Emma was a lovely and loving woman, and it seemed a pity that she appeared destined to spend her entire life attending one lone girl, when she ought to have a husband and children of her own. Ginevra acknowledged that Emma might remain single by choice. If the rumor were true, as she had heard, that Emma had loved a young sailor who died fighting the French, then perhaps her friend had decided that it was better to cherish a memory than to risk having new dreams blasted.

  Ginevra hopped down from the barouche, wincing as a sharp stone bruised her foot through her thin-soled slipper. She pulled her skirt back far enough to peer down at her small feet in their ridiculously unserviceable shoes. The white kidskin slippers with the long ribbons that tied around her ankles were part of her trousseau, the sort of footgear that a radiant young bride should wear in elegant salons when she received her first visitors into her new home. Certainly the shoes had never been intended to be worn while slogging through mud to a farmworker’s cottage. She ought to have borrowed some sabots from one of the dairy maids.

  Ginevra tugged off her blue straw bonnet and stared at it. It was also beautiful and utterly impractical, as were all the new clothes her father had ordered for her. Madame Annette, the couturiere, obviously was accustomed only to deal with ladies of leisure. Ginevra’s dressing room was crammed with delicate frivolities of silk and satin, gowns to grace a ballroom, lingerie so sheer that she felt the veriest Cyprian when she glimpsed herself in the mirror as she dressed. She found it hard to believe that only weeks before she had had no clothes beyond the sturdy garments she fashioned herself.

  She tossed the bonnet onto the carriage seat and shook her head so hard that her dark gold curls pulled loose from their confining hairpins and tumbled wild and free over her shoulders. She knew she looked the complete hoyden with her hair in her face, she knew she would have to restrain her tresses in some semblance of order beneath her hat before the driver returned, but just for a minute she wanted to be free of restriction. She wanted to close her eyes and remember again for one perfect moment what it had felt like to scramble about in short skirts, with her hair streaming down her back.

  She shut her lids tightly and let the faint breeze stir the wispy tendrils that brushed across her face. When she was a child, on a warm summer day like today she would gobble her breakfast in the nursery, go to her mother’s room to say good morning, and then she would rush downstairs and burst through the green baize door into the kitchen. Already the spicy aroma of Mrs. Harrison’s special gingerbread would be wafting with heady richness from the stone oven in the wall beside the open fire. If she was very lucky, the cook would have saved her one last spoonful of the batter to lick while she sat on the back steps and waited for the boys to ride over from Queenshaven.

  Ginevra sniffed. Her eyes blinked open in surprise as she caught the smell of ... something ... drifting toward her from the boarded-up manor house. She inhaled again, puzzling, wondering if her vivid imagination had conjured up the scent: not gingerbread, that would have been too much, but definitely the smell of cooking food. Slowly she made her way to the back of the house, passing through the overgrown kitchen garden, pushing aside the feathery fernlike bushes that had once been her mother’s treasured asparagus bed. As she approached the back entrance, she noticed for the first time the thin trail of smoke that issued from the kitchen chimney. Now she could identify the smell as some sort of meat-and-vegetable mixture, a soup perhaps, but one that lacked the full-bodied essence she remembered from her childhood days in Mrs. Harrison’s kitchen.

  When she timidly pushed open the creaking door at the top of the steps, she noticed at once how dark and dismal the kitchen seemed, a far cry from the immaculate room she had known in years past. The windows were encrusted with dirt and cobwebs, and the only illumination came from a small fire in the grate, where a tall rawboned woman with grey hair tucked beneath a voluminous mob-cap bent over a kettle. Ginevra cleared her throat. “Mrs. Harrison?” she asked tentatively.

  The woman turned, startled, blinking against the bright light pouring through the open door. She clutched her long wooden spoon against her sunken chest as if it were a shield. “Who are you?” she demanded. “What do you want?”

  Ginevra stepped closer. “Mrs. Harrison, it’s me, Ginevra Bry ... Glover. Don’t you remember me?”

  The woman squinted. “Miss Ginnie?” she echoed uncertainly. When the girl nodded, the woman let out her breath with a sob. “Miss Ginnie! God be praised!” She pulled the girl against her, and Ginevra noticed that her faded blue eyes were awash with tears. Mrs. Harrison hugged her convulsively; then she stepped back to study her. “You’ve grown to be a beautiful woman, just like your mother,” she marvelled, “and you didn’t forget an old woman, even though you’re married to a great lord.” She hesitated and looked stricken. “Forgive me, miss ... my lady. I ... I didn’t mean to be so familiar.” She bent in an awkward curtsy.

  “Mrs. Harrison,” Ginevra chided, pulling her upright, “don’t be like that! How can I play the great lady to you, when you’ve wiped my dirty nose more times than I can count?”

  The woman relaxed, and her mouth widened into a gap-toothed grin. She cackled, “Not only your dirty nose, missy!” She stared at Ginevra again and nodded as if answering an unspoken question. “I knew you’d come,” she declared. “My Jamie wanted to set out for Queenshaven on his own, but I said there was no need. When I heard you were staying there, I knew you’d come to Dowerwood as quick as you could. I told him I needed him right here.”

  “Jamie—he’s your grandson?”

  “Oh, yes, Miss Ginnie. Jamie’s a fine lad, strong and quick, a joy for an old woman’s heart. He’s only six years old, but if I’d sent him to Queenshaven for help, he’d have made it right enough, for all that it’s such a long way by foot. But I didn’t have to send him out, because I knew you’d come.”

  Ginevra grasped the woman’s bony shoulders. “Of course I’ve come, Mrs. Harrison, and I’ll help you any way I can. Now, tell me what’s wrong. Are you ill?”

  She shook her grey head and frowned. “
Oh, no, it’s not me, miss. Jamie and I, we’re both in good health, thanks be to God.”

  “Then what’s the problem?”

  Mrs. Harrison said, “It’s the young lord, Master Bysshe.”

  Ginevra stared. “Bysshe is here?” she asked hollowly.

  “Yes, miss. He showed up two nights ago, drenched with rain, riding some half-dead nag. He said he’d run away from school but didn’t want to tell his father yet, him being on his honeymoon and all. I told him he could stay for just a little while but that I thought as how he ought to go up to Queenshaven as soon as possible. But before I could get him to go on home to face up to his lordship, he fell sick. Terrible sick.” Mrs. Harrison gazed at Ginevra with wide, hopeless eyes. “Oh, Miss Ginnie,” she wailed, “I think it’s scarlet fever!”

  5

  Ginevra demanded, “Where is he?”

  The woman stammered, “He’s ... he’s in the master bedroom upstairs. I swept and aired it for him. I ... I couldn’t expect him to stay with Jamie and me, our cottage isn’t grand enough for—”

  Ginevra rushed past her and flew up the stairs, her long hair streaming behind her. She had no eye for the devastation wrought on the house by six years of disuse, the mildewed wallpaper, the obvious signs of mice. She ran down the hallway, past rooms filled with furniture shrouded under holland covers, past a grandfather clock where a fat brown spider crawled along the immobile pendulum. At the end of the corridor she burst through the open door into the chamber where, as a child, she used to visit her mother each morning and again just before tea.