The Admiral's Daughter (10 page)

Lady Ramblay was not in the room, and neither was Miss Ramblay. Forsaking the idea of bidding her relatives good night, therefore, Maggie retreated upstairs, glad of the immediate prospect of sleep, and glad too, to be allowed some time to her own thoughts.

Seven

LORD RAMBLAY'S GUESTS
had been at the castle nearly a week when Maggie arrived. The following day being Saturday, and most of the party set to depart on the Monday, a greater hunting expedition than usual was arranged. The ladies, save for Miss Haversham, did not hunt, but some were persuaded to ride out for the start in any case, the day having dawned remarkably fine and clear. Miss Montcrieff consented at once, though she detested horses and considered fresh air an unfortunate necessity of life. But when Lord Ramblay inquired whether or not she desired a mount, she responded with a radiant smile that she would not be left behind for all the world, if “her dear Percy was not to desert them as he had done the day before.”

Maggie, coming into the breakfast room in time to hear this little exchange, could not help but smile and demand to know if her cousin was in the habit of leaving his guests all alone very often?

“Oh, la!” exclaimed Miss Montcrieff with a pout, “he is an abominable host! Fancy asking us all to stay, when he has no intention of entertaining us above five of our seven days!”

This proclamation evidently did not please Lord Ramblay overmuch, for he frowned in annoyance at the young lady. Miss Montcrieff only laughed at him.

“If you loved us better, Percy, I am sure you would attend to your business at another time!”

“Believe me, my dear Diana,” Lord Ramblay replied mildly, “nothing but the most urgent affairs could keep me away from my friends. Unfortunately, however, my steward regards his claims upon me as superior even to a day's hunting.”

Maggie, helping herself from an elaborate array of dishes on the sideboard, could not resist interjecting lightly:
“I suppose your business was very pressing
yesterday
, Cousin!”

“Why, no more than usual, Miss Trevor. Why do you say so?”

“Because I should have thought it made you absent-minded.” At her cousin's bewildered look, she continued, “No doubt you forgot, when you changed your horses at Dartmoor, that you had sent a team for me as well.”

“Dartmoor!” cried Mr. Whiting, whose attention was equally divided between his calves' liver and the conversation going forward around him. “By Jupiter, Ramblay, you are a sly one, ain't you?”

“What do you mean, Whiting?” inquired his host with a smile. “Is not Dartmoor an admirable posting house?”

“Aye, if your way lies to the southwest. But I had thought you was going to Town. But p'raps I shouldn't say so, old boy,” Whiting finished, with a significant smile.

Miss Montcrieff's interest, usually aroused only by those remarks addressed directly to herself, or made about her, was suddenly piqued.

“Whatever is he talking of, Percy?” she demanded, with a petulant look. “Were not you in London yesterday, as you told us? Why should you stop at Dartmoor, if it lies out of your way? And what,” now her eyes were leveled accusingly at Maggie, “what in the world does Miss Trevor mean?”

Maggie watched her cousin keenly as he recovered the composure which had momentarily deserted him, and rising from his chair, replied evenly, “I suppose my cousin can best explain her own meaning herself. As to what I was doing in Dartmoor, it is perfectly simple. Mr. Belding, my steward, has been after me for six months to view a property in Highgate. As we were already on our way from London, and within easy reach of the property, he proposed we drive over to have a look at it together. Highgate, as you may recall, Whiting, is a dozen miles southwest of Dartmoor. The property, unfortunately, proved to be worthless—full of dead timber and prevented by a rocky soil from being easily adaptable to cultivation. Now I had better inform the stables what sort of mounts we will require.”

With these words, which had been spoken, Maggie could not help but notice, with rather too artificial a levity, Lord
Ramblay quit the room. But Mr. Whiting had not done with the subject.

“I don't believe a word of it, Diana!” he cried teasingly. “If you ask me, your dear Percy is covering his own footfalls. Mark my words, he has got a pretty piece of muslin hid out in Highgate, and don't wish to offend your vanity! Fellow's been dashed mysterious lately, lurking about in posting houses and pretending to have affairs in Town, when everyone knows there is not a self-respecting lawyer left in London at the hunting season!”

Miss Montcrieff looked sternly at the young man. “How dare you say so, Freddy? I am sure Percy is the most honorable gentleman in England.
You
may have your fun if you like, but pray don't expect me to discredit
him.
”

Young Montcrieff, who had hitherto found it impossible to tear his eyes away from the beautiful Miss Haversham, now felt it incumbent upon himself to defend his sister.

“Silly goose—he's only teasing you. Do shut up, Whiting, or I shall be forced to knock your block off. You know quite well old Ramblay's too much of a stuffed shirt to cut such a caper, even if he were
not
so much in awe of his mama. In any case, if you put such ideas in Di's head, she shan't stop whimpering about it for a fortnight.”

Miss Montcrieff did not know whether to be angered or flattered by this defense, but having twice opened her mouth to protest, she settled into a petulant silence.

“
I
do not believe Lord Ramblay gives a fig for his mama's opinion,” pronounced Miss Haversham suddenly. The lovely young woman's regal silence was maintained so perpetually, and with such an air of not caring what was going on about her, that every head in the room turned at the sound of her voice.

“Oh, come along, Blanche!” exclaimed Mr. Montcrieff, but with none of the certainty with which he had addressed his sister. “You cannot really mean that! I never in all my life witnessed such a mama's boy. ‘Percy do this, Percy do that!'—” giving a comical rendition of Lady Ramblay's dictatorial manner—“and the fellow leaps as if he had got a hot iron under him!”

Miss Haversham, staring imperturbably at her left hand, continued as if her lover had not spoken. “No, he don't care for her opinion, I am positive. He strikes me as a
man with a great secret. He knows his own mind, at any rate—better than you two.”

Evidently unaware of the astonishment she had caused her audience, Miss Haversham now rose briskly from her chair and, throwing down her napkin upon the table, turned to Maggie.

“Are you to ride out with us, Miss Trevor? If you like, I shall have my filly saddled for you. She's a lovely mount, if you have got a tender hand.”

Maggie protested that though she loved a ride she had never been on a hunt, and did not wish to hold up the party with her ineptitude.

“Never mind. If you have got a drop of courage—and I dare say you do from the look of you—there's nothing simpler. If you can be ready in half an hour, I shall meet you by the stables.”

Without waiting for a reply, Miss Haversham turned and quit the room, leaving in her wake a gaping Mr. Montcrieff and a Maggie flushed with pleasure. Miss Haversham's surprising show of kindness was the first really friendly gesture she had had from these people since her arrival. Coming, as it did, from so unexpected a quarter (for of all the ladies in the party, Maggie had first judged the silent, proud-looking beauty to be the least approachable), it was doubly pleasant. But the prospect of acquiring a friend among this party, and of a ride upon an excellent mount, was not the least of the attractions promised. Miss Haversham's remark about her cousin had aroused Maggie's curiosity. What could she have meant by saying Lord Ramblay struck her as a man with a great secret? Surely that secret could not really be what Mr. Whiting had jokingly called “a piece of muslin.” And yet she had seen her cousin color deeply when the fact of his stopping in Dartmoor had been mentioned, and for all his quickly regained composure, Maggie could not help wondering if indeed he had not something to conceal.

Breakfasting as quickly as she could, Maggie ran up to her apartment and changed her muslin frock for the riding habit which had done her service for five years. A glance in the mirror made her grimace; in the elegant surroundings of this room, the skirt looked suddenly worn, while a fringe about the bodice, which had once seemed like ample decoration, struck her now as impossibly plain.
There was nothing to be done about it, however, and fastening her hat under her chin, she took a last critical look at herself in the glass before turning away. She was relieved, on her way through the house, to see still no sign of the Viscountess. Upon her inquiry, the butler told her that his mistress stayed in her apartments until noon, while Miss Ramblay, whom she had really hoped to have seen at breakfast, was at her lessons.

Maggie found the stables without trouble. They lay on the western side of the castle, hidden from view by a grove of elm and willow so ancient that the limbs of the trees had grown down to the earth and sprung up again in smaller growths. Their trunks were as massive as houses themselves, and the sunlight filtering down through their branches touched the ground in a fairy-tale effect.

Walking along the gravel path between the copse and a great marble balustrade running along the side of the castle, Maggie was struck by the peace and beauty of the grounds, where a dozen gardeners were to be seen scattered about the innumerable flower gardens and lawns. In the light of day the castle itself looked even more vast than it had the night before. The modern structures on either side the central building, which, from its deeper coloration and crumbling stone facade, was obviously the original construction, stretched out in the sunlight like the arms of a noble old beast. Here indeed was serenity and grandeur, elegance and taste of design. That so much beauty and quiet should harbor within it a party of such vain, foolish, and snobbish creatures was indeed a pity. And yet the idea made Maggie smile: Had not she often observed that a penniless boatswain, without any advantage of education or family, had sometimes more real delicacy of feeling than his betters? Human nature was full of oddities, a fact that pleased her as often as it amazed her. And if truth be told, she had been not a little cheered to discover that her noble relations were not much different from the rest of humankind. She had been afraid of finding them all cold and haughty, so elegant as to have hardly any trace of humanity at all. Instead, she had found Lady Ramblay as ill-mannered as a fish-wife, and very little handsomer. Miss Ramblay was a little mouse, too afraid of everyone to look you in the eye without a blush, although her passionate little nature had instantly won Maggie's
heart. As for Lord Ramblay's guests, they were equally divided between foppery and vanity. Only Miss Haversham was a mystery. Her silences, which seemed at first to have sprung from haughtiness, now inclined Maggie to think she was deeper than her friends. But why such a beauty should submit to the attentions of the young dandy Montcrieff, was beyond Maggie's comprehension. Lord Ramblay, too, was impenetrable, and it was Maggie's hope that a friendship with the former might elucidate a little her understanding of the latter.

Miss Haversham, in a wonderful scarlet coat and pearl-gray skirt, with a French plumed riding hat atop her black waves, was pacing back and forth before the stable door.

“Oh!” she cried, but without smiling, when she caught a glimpse of Maggie, “I had almost determined you would not come after all.”

“But of course I have come! Did not I say I would?”

Miss Haversham stared, and at last seemed satisfied.

“Yes,” she said. “I suppose I may take
your
word.” At Maggie's look of surprise, she laughed. “I never expect anything, you know, until I have seen it with my own eyes. If Diana Montcrieff told me she would ride out, I should laugh, and the more I laughed the more she would insist that she
would
come. But she would not, you know, and I would be an idiot to wait for
her.
But I see you are different.”

Maggie did not know whether her new friend meant to be flattering or not, but she was inexplicably pleased to be set in a different category from the mincing, flirtatious Miss Montcrieff by this beautiful, blunt creature.

Miss Haversham had turned away to speak to a groom, and in a moment two glorious horses were led out of their stalls. One was an exceedingly fine-looking, rather wild black stallion, which immediately upon seeing his mistress snorted and pawed the ground. Miss Haversham's filly was dapple-gray, very fine about the mouth, and with what looked like a most playful disposition. Maggie made one last protest at being lent such a glorious animal, to which her friend responded with a laugh.

“If you are afraid of her, my dear, by all means stay behind. But I suggest you come along, for there is nothing so grand in all the world as a good ride to hounds.”

Maggie instantly remonstrated against being left behind.
If Miss Haversham would hunt, then so would she, and she did dearly love a fast ride over easy country. Her companion smiled at this, and looked over her horse's girth. Suddenly she glanced up, with a curious expression.

“You do not seem to like your cousin very well,” she remarked abruptly.

“I hardly know him—I first laid eyes upon him yesterday.”